Category Archives: Over a Threshold of Roots

My 2nd chapbook, a tribute to family published by Pudding House Press 2007

The Distance of Trouble

14 Monday Nov 2011

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You could hear them screaming or moaning in flight, and…

Jim McKee, Sergeant, Rifle Co. K., 3rd Battalion, 12th Regiment,
4th Division, June 5, 1944 (D-Day)

She was uncomfortable in Charlie’s Butcher Shop, and with Charlie
in his blood-mottled apron. She wondered if the Japs
wore the same kind of aprons when they slaughtered
innocent babies; but now that she’d seen the strung-up bodies
of Mussolini and his mistress in the newsreels, the carcasses
of beef hanging behind the counter disturbed her even more.

At home she’d help her mother twist the orange pill,
squeeze its juices through the pliable body of white oleo,
yellowing the stick to the color of bees. Longing
for butter, she would never eat anything on her bread.

Once a week she and her other classmates
carried blankets, pillows and books into the basement
to wait, hoping to be lucky and have lunch
after the air raid drills were over. Sometimes she worried
she might have to live there with only kindergartners
for sisters and brothers, her teacher for a mother.

In the middle of the night, more sirens, but no Screaming Meanies.*
From her bedroom window she looked into the lamp-less night,
prayed the Nazis were as far away as the end of
the alphabet with their V-1 rockets and U-2 boats, and
that her father, dressed in his khaki Civilian Defense uniform
carrying a Billy club and flashlight, could stop them.

She listened both night and day for the sounds of boots
tromping like rows of heavy geese, leathered feet to the ground,
until she heard the news—Hitler had killed himself
in an underground fort dug for him by his evil friends.

Her parents took her off to camp, said she should stop
worrying about the war; yet along the road there were
billboards picturing fanged men with visor caps
set atop slit-like eyes, arms raised with knives
poised to open the stomachs of tiny babies.

In her cabin, she swatted mosquito after mosquito
and itched the red swellings on her limbs, she
wondered about the Japanese—how they ate
with those large buck teeth and where they were hiding
until she heard a mushroom cloud carried them away
and she saw the giant heads of monster clouds
on the front page of the newspaper.

She wasn’t sure if these events had anything to do
with bodies that looked like pick-up sticks
which had turned up at strange places called
Auschwitz and Buchanwald.

She wondered if the war would ever end, or
just continue running right along side her
and all the other campers. But one bright
Sunday morning, a counselor from Cabin One,
breathless, ran up the path gasping, shrieking;

The war is over!
The emperor has surrendered!
The war is over!

In that royal moment of relief
as they danced and jumped and hugged,
she didn’t realize the world’s grief,
sooner or later, would catch up with them;
nor did she realize then that war was never
going to run out of breath.

*” Screaming Meenies” were German rocket guns, “Nebelwerfers” mounted on a halftrack that fired in clusters of six or twelve, a second and a half apart.

The Japanese surrender on August 1, 1945 thus bringing World War II to a close.

Published Over A Threshold of Roots, Sndra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2007

An Alter Built By Way of Reparation

14 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Childhood, Over a Threshold of Roots

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Come here, girl, please forgive me for disregarding
your belongings over all these years.
Let me try to make amends.

I offer first this Crayola crayon that took the earth and spun
it into all the colors my fingers now know.
At first, purple dogs, pink cows and flaming yellow horses,
but then the tulips turned red, the leaves light green, and Mrs. Snyder
took your pictures up to show the first graders.

I offer next a steel-tipped pen which you used to spear
shapes from a black inkwell and string them out,
first as waves of letters on the page,
and then dumped them into a sea of words.

Here is your two-wheeler (with kick stand
and wicker basket) which allowed you to circle away,
peddle on past Carteret Street, beyond instructions to go
no further. More importantly, I offer you

this short wood stick to stir up deadly potions,
and, as a magic wand, full of electricity,
to command storms, conduct lightening and orchestrate
thunder.  Oh, Manager of the Wind, I remember you.

I offer you this dollhouse, the white colonial
one with the opening and closing green shutters,
and Beloved Belinda, your Aunt Jemima doll, who sang
gospel songs with you late on Sunday nights when you listened
to the forbidden Harlem radio stations. You were a benevolent
and unbiased mother.  You may be embarrassed,

but I’ve resurrected these chocolate cigarettes
with the realistic red tips and the doctor’s kit, (stethoscope,
bandages and all). Sucking on the cigarettes, I remember you as sooo
sophisticated, and you took the license (you will remember)
to explore the openings of friends and pets.

Nearby, I place the flexible flyer, the one
with the red metal steering bars.  I see you flying
down the hills when you did not know
what was being carried off.

You, Penny and Anne all thought you were fair
Norwegian children like those you read
about in Heroes Aplenty who carried on their sleds
their country’s gold out of Nazi reach.

Finally, I offer this snow shovel, a replica of Dad’s.
After snow fell for days, you shoveled
ground clouds into mounds,
formed them into igloo rooms.

Sitting inside snow kept you warm
a long time, if not forever.

Published in ReImagining, Edited by Nancy
J. Berneking, Issue 13, Novemer 1997, Minneapolis,
MN

Dear Barbara

14 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Childhood, Grief, Over a Threshold of Roots

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In memory of Barbara Jones, 1937-1943

On the sidewalks of Carteret Street we gathered chestnuts, broke
open their shells, cradled the shiny, firm nuts
in our T-shirts. Tomorrow we’d thread needles, carefully
work their points through outer skins,
through soft creamy pulp we couldn’t see,
pushing needles out the other side, stringing
each nut together. Chestnut by chestnut
our necklaces would form.

The news came the next evening, strung out
on the phone, first to my mother and then to me.
Barbara has died of an appendicitis.
I screamed so loud mother finally slapped me.

Mother and I waited at the door after ringing the bell.
She had no cause to tell me to be quiet now.
I stood silently at the edge of your satin-sinewy casket
shell.  In your first communion dress, Barbara,
you were so beautiful, but very still.

No trace of the fiery night you’d spent roasting
of burst appendix.  Your black hair shone—
someone must have washed it and brushed
a touch of pink on your china-white skin.
Your black eyelashes on your cheeks reminded me
of our dolls when we tipped them back to sleep.
Your smile like theirs now, too.

Remember how we used to take lit candles, drip
hot wax over our hands to make fine, thin gloves?
Your hand, so white,
is that what someone did to make them
like that now? They held
our rose bouquet ticketed for the earth.
The tag read;   Good-bye from Penny, Sandy, Anne.

Today I thought I’d write to tell you, my mother died,
and packing up in her attic I found the loose chestnuts,
dull brown, no longer shiny, yet firm in my hand.
My sons might have found a use for them,
if they’d been unearthed when they were young.  I’m not sure
I’ve ever told you about my sons.… have I, Barbara?

Over a Threshold of Roots, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series