bountiful autumn
pomegranates
scarlet lusciousness
Autumn Harvest
poetry
Langston Hughes in Uzbekistan
It’s 1932.
Movie roles promised to 22 Black Americans.
“Black and White” in the
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.
Treated like royalty, wined, dined, at
their own expense.
Hughes–ridiculous script. All went
home except Hughes. He stayed,
traveled, saw cotton grown from Aral
Sea water–now no water, desolate
desert.
In Tashkent, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Tartars
honored him, flowers, fruit.
No English.
He met a Red Army Captain from
high Pamir Mountains. Hughes
described him, Black with Oriental eyes.
Hughes called him Yeah Man.
He called Hughes Yang Zoon.
Weeks together never understanding
each other’s words.
Hughes’ poetry book
“The Weary Blues” first
American book translated to
Uzbek. Original English version
lost. He describes this new place:
“Look: here
Is a country
Where everyone shines.”
Note: You can find a version of this book translated into English from Uzbek by Muhabbat Bakeava and Kevin Young.
Autumn
As a summer person, I’m less excited than others I know to see it end. This abecedarian poem allowed me to experiment with words without searching for profound meanings, allowed me to play.
Autumn
brings
chills
dreary
evenings
fog.
Gone
heat
intense
joy.
Kindness
lingers while I
meander
near
oceans
playing
quickly,
running in
sunshine.
Tomorrow
under a
vanishing
wind in a
xeroscape
yard, I will
Zoom my next meeting.
Book 33 for 2024: “Three Daughters of Eve”, Elif Shafak
Shafak is a popular Turkish writer. One of my all time favorite books is her novel about the life of Rumi.
“Three Daughters of Eve” takes place one evening in Istanbul in 2016. Peri, one of the daughters from the title, is on her way to a fancy party when a thief snatches her purse out of the back seat of her car which is stalled in traffic. She parks the car and chases him through back alleys. As she fights him for her purse, an old photo falls to the ground. It portrays three young women and their university professor. This photo jars her mind, takes her back to her time at Oxford University when she was a student there in 2000-2002, her childhood in Istanbul in the 1980s and 90s, and her life. She thinks back to her life with her two friends, Shirin, an adventurous Iranian young woman, and Mona, a devout Egyptian Muslim who word a headscarf out of choice. And then there is the famous professor Azur, whose class on God either makes students hate or love him and the scandal that caused Peri to return to Istanbul.
Until her daughter, who was in the car and eventually chases her mother down in the alley, sees the photo, no one, except her husband, seems to have known Peri even went to Oxford. Her daughter mentions it at the party while everyone is arguing about East and West and politics and who has the most money and how they acquired it. Peri tries to deflect questions, changes the subject, and keeps remembering her past: her parents, a father quite irreligious, her mother a devout Muslim, their endless arguments and hostility, her brothers, her childhood and her stint at Oxford.
Through the story of Peri’s life, this novel explores personal identity, East-West history and politics, the meaning of marriage and friendship.
An Abecedarian Poem for the Fourth of July
As many celebrate this day
because they see it as a joyous
cry in praise of the
day the United States declared
emancipation from English tyranny,
free to be its own country, self
governed, no longer ruled by kings,
humans, Black, enslaved,
indigenous, find celebration difficult.
Jefferson, in The Declaration of Independence,
knowingly called Native People
lacking in worth,
“merciless Indian Savages,”
never considering the contradictions, the
overt irony when compared to his view that
people are created equal.
Qualified, white male landowners, the
rich, voted, prospered.
Slaves, counted as only 2/3 a person, were
told to obey, work til death, be Christian.
Until all, regardless of race, gender, religion, are
valued as worthy humans, are free to prosper, can
walk proud throughout the United States,
xenophobia will destroy our founding ideals.
Yearn for, work toward, equity, kindness, be
zealous in our quest for a better country.
An Abecedarian Poem for Juneteenth
All slaves did not know freedom
because the powers in Texas
could not, or more likely,
did not want them to know.
Eventually, three years after Emancipation,
freedom came to Texas, June 19,1865, in
Galveston when General Grange proclaimed
henceforth enslaved people could not be
illegally held as property so Texas
joined the nation acknowledging that
keeping slaves was illegal.
Long held in bondage in Texas
many formerly enslaved rejoiced,
now looking forward to a better future.
Opposition arose almost immediately.
People did not want non-whites to hold power,
quickly responded by making new laws
requiring the formerly enslaved to
stay quietly in their homes.
They were informed no public gatherings allowed
under threat of arrest.
Void of the choices, they were forced to
work for low wages.
Xenophobia continues to reign,
youth taught Emancipation but not this.
Zany as it seems, 159 years later, prejudice continues.
A Tribute to My Mother
Barbie Doll
Barbara Lewis Duke, pretty, petite, blue eyed and blond, my
mother, one fearless, controlling woman. Long after Mom’s
death, Dad said, “Barbara was afraid of absolutely no one
and nothing.” They married late, 34 and 38. He adored her
unconditionally. She filled my life with horses, music, love,
cornfields, hay rides, books, ambition. Whatever she felt she
had missed, my sister and I were going to possess: books,
piano lessons, a college education. Her father, who died long
before I was born, loved fancy, fast horses. So did she. During
my preschool, croupy years, she quieted my hysterical night
coughing with stories of run away horses pulling her in a wagon.
With less than one hundred pounds and lots of determination,
she stopped them, a tiny Barbie Doll flying across the Missouri
River Bottom, strong, willful, free.
Note: This poem about my mother has been published in at least one anthology and my book of poetry. My mother loved roses, had a rose garden. I now grow roses too.
A Poem for National Poetry Month
roses
rainbow colors
joy
Two New Poems for National Poetry Month
Rainy Day
sheets of rain against the kitchen window
heavy fog hides mountain peaks
scarlet hibiscus and bougainvillea brighten
a gloomy day
Dusk
The wind died; stillness pervades.
A distant train whistle interrupts.
Tiny brown bird chirps its chitty song.
Mountains display navy blue and purple.
The western sky becomes cantaloupe color.
Walking in Pasadena Near Rose Bowl
Fearless little bird with chocolate brown head runs beside me
on the road. At the intersection I circle to the left, following
a familiar route. The heavy tree canopy here always astonishes.
It’s almost like walking in a forest.
The architectural variety amazes: mid-century modern, Spanish,
colonial, ranch, the smallest I am guessing contains 3500 sq. ft. One
house encompasses an entire city block, fronted with heavy, high
fences and metal gates. Privacy obsessed.
I’m watching my time. I don’t want to be late for singing
practice. I take a new route, perhaps a shortcut. It’s
120 degrees of a circle. Not quite a regular street,
not quite an alley, a combination–fronts of a few houses
and the backside of others. At one place it angles more;
I come to a three story stone fortress with intricate
geometrical designs vertically running up and down
the walls. No windows. A sign says, “No trespassing.”
Realization hits me. This is the other side of a house
I saw last year through a gap in a wall on another street.
Three ladies, strangers, asked me about it, told me they’d
heard it was the creation of a famous architect. I researched,
asked others, no one knew. Back then, I tried to find the front,
failed. Now I’m looking at it, wonderstruck. It appears abandoned,
an architectural wonder belonging to another time and place.
Time to rush, a bit lost, I look at my phone map, finish the loop,
find a familiar street, walk faster. Then I see a large, white, colonial house,
weeds knee high, black shutters hanging askew. Here it is abandoned
in the midst of multi-million dollar houses. I wonder what the neighbors
think. Walking on I hear water rushing, peer through the hedges–a stream
runs downhill from the side of this huge brown house at least 100 feet
and gurgles in a pool behind the bushes. Hurrying, I stop in front of one
of my favorite houses, a one-story, tan, Spanish style, small compared
to the others nearby. I take a photo of the tree in front by the sidewalk,
its impressive girth impossible to ignore.
Finally, I’m near my destination, walking in front of The Gamble House,
a tourist destination made famous by the movie, “Back to the Future”,
a structure I see at least twice a week.
writingontherim 