lakepoem #10
two flies swimming in my
orange juice after I’d left it
a few minutes unattended
made me haul the ol’ flyswatter
off its hook to smish a score
more who’ve suddenly claimed
the screens got most too some
even backhand I am reminded
of my usually mild mother once
chasing my oldest sister with a
brandished swatter the awe I felt
at her grim expression my sister’s
yelps and springing over cots
on the porch jo had a temper
and was inclined to be lippy
she probably deserved the swat
if mom ever caught up to her I
don’t recall the end of the race
I suppose that’d be counted as
child abuse now
© Jacqueline Jackson 2006
My grandmother fed the birds and squirrels outside her window. Their personalities could have inspired a soap opera — or a Shakespearean tragedy. The little squirrel with a scar down his back was her favorite anti-hero, object of sympathy and suspicion. The blue jay was a young Machiavelli, ruthless in his machinations, rivaled by the equally arrogant cardinal. Marty McGill saw that same microcosm in flock of geese. The following poem is one of many she wrote about cast of characters she found at Washington Park.
— Carol Manley, guest editor
Untitled
This spring we did not meet
I missed your babies in the water
looking like teenage humans still growing
fast in the water with a youthful
lightness on the land
not yet developed to a waddling gait
Strangers in your midst full black
full white not banded sectioned off
in colors brilliant here and muted there
Are they a group in transit or wanderers
seeking mates to increase the flock
I hear conversations cross the banks almost
like bullfrogs croaking
yet plainly musings of an older bird
whose penchant for one leg posing
seems acrobatic till he hops
from place to place I wonder how
he lost the missing one
if he goes in circles while in water
if the flock provides a helper
for one without a rudder.
Martha Whitaker-McGill, as an elementary-school student, did her homework at the kitchen table in the Lincoln Home. As a teenager, she was a student of the indomitable Elizabeth Graham. In her later years she worked at the information desk at the University of Illinois at Springfield and watched the geese in Washington Park. Her chapbook Goose Ganders was released shortly after her death in 2005.
Send submissions to Jacqueline Jackson Presents People’s Poetry to poetry@illinoistimes.com or to Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2006.
