A Tragedy Inspired Poem
Recently, one of my poems was published in The Edmonds Beacon newspaper. The poem was inspired by a tragic car accident I witnessed several years ago. A scene that etched into my memory.
That’s how it often happens for us writers, something––a face, a scarf, a doorway, or an incident––imprints on our psyche and ultimately, we use it in a piece of work. Here is the poem that resulted from that tragic afternoon, followed by a brief epilogue.
SEPTEMBER MOON
Beneath the September moon
A flicker of weak light
The faint memory of her mothering years––lost
Unraveled
Tiny strings frayed
Scattered
Across the fallow fields of her life.
Alone in the darkness she feels
Loosely tethered to both worlds
One where she still sees her children
Hears them sing
The other where she floats endlessly in the hollow silence of night
Linked to them by one last ethereal string.
She closes her eyes
Afraid to see, to hear, to know,
What happened
––in her wine-colored afterglow.
Beneath a September moon
Reminders––
Buried deep
Lost in her spirit
The solitary tills of time
Of heart
And soul
Barren of love, barren of life
––and she knows
The piercing betrayal of one more glass of wine.
She now imagines her children as dormant butterflies
Who will not awaken any time soon
Their innocent lives arrested by
Mommy’s cocktails at noon.
Beneath fading lunations
She hears their cries
Her sweet butterflies
And she knows
Therein is her penance
Her dark destiny
––a life sentence
To carry aural witness of their final cries
To her spiritual wasteland
Filled with echoes of a mother’s bittersweet lies.
Tiny fingertips, like frayed strings
Once adored
Now, grasping
Reaching
Weakening
Tearing away from the cord.
Epilogue
This was a tragedy about a mother who attended a wine tasting luncheon, tasted too much wine, and then decided to pick up her two toddlers from daycare.
I was three cars behind her on the road when suddenly her car veered over the side of the road and crashed into a tree. We all slammed on our brakes. There was an officer parked in the parking lot not ten feet away. We all ran toward the car, but he arrived first and motioned for us all to stand back.
He pulled the mother from the front seat. Her head was gashed, blood dripping into her eyes, all over her hands, and was sprayed against her white silk blouse like blood on snow.
Her piercing screams horrified us all. She kept screaming and crying hysterically. “I’ve killed my babies!”
The five or six of us who’d leapt from our cars to help stood frozen. Collective dread filled all our faces. Approaching sirens echoed in the background.
The officer got her seated at the curb while the rest of us, me included, finally inched up to the car, fearful of what we might see in the back seat.
Her screams grew more hysterical. “I’ve killed my babies! … Oh God, I‘ve killed them.”
But as we all leaned down and trepidatiously peered into the windows, we were surprised by what we saw.
There in the back seat, staring at us, were two small children, safely buckled into car seats, looking at us like we were aliens.
They were fine. Afraid, but otherwise fine.
The mother was arrested for drunk driving and endangering her children, who again, I stress, were unharmed.
I learned later in the newspaper that her husband divorced her, and she lost custody and all visitation of her children. It was her third drunk driving incident, so she also went to prison for a time.
Perhaps her drunken terror that awful day was a mournful premonition. She did, after all, lose her children.
What’s Mold Got To Do With Politics?
Right now, I am staying in a hotel, a nice hotel, but still, away from my home, my husband, and dog. Mold was discovered in our attic and the removal, repair, and roof replacement has become a major ordeal. With my compromised immune system, I can’t be around the mold or the abatement spraying. So, here I am in a rainy coastal town 25 minutes from my house, with a fireplace and a view of the water––I know, poor me.
You’d think I’d be delving into writing more than I am, but I feel anxious and unfocussed like someone’s tearing my home apart in the middle of winter, and I’m not there to protect it. I know my precious doggo is scared and missing my cuddles, my husband is managing things as best he can from his home office––and maybe he’s missing my cuddles too. Anyway, it’d be better if I were there in person dealing with the contractors, instead of by phone.
Distractions like this tend to silence my muse. Stress is always a writing disruption, but this feels more like a psychic disturbance. Does tearing the shielding roof off my home and ripping the protective insulation out of my attic have spiritual significance to me?
In these troubling times of chaos and tearing our political agencies apart, leaving us exposed and vulnerable to the elements, I can’t help but wonder if that’s the true source of my soul-deep sense of unnerving disorder.
Even with mold in our attic we wouldn’t burn the house down. No, we eradicate and repair, because it is otherwise a great house. That’s what I feel should be done with our democracy, it’s a great house with some rot that should be eliminated. Instead, the house is being burnt down, and we are left exposed and in danger of all looming storms. And they are looming.
To ease my unease I’m taking walks, writing this in a coffee shop, and meditating on my life’s blessings that were once only impossible dreams.
So now, on the eve of our country’s nightmare, I count the blessings of dreams come true and feel empowered to do things once thought impossible: like being 70 years old and trying to muster my inner 17-year-old revolutionary, again––and sadly, to fight for the same things as before.
For me, participating in politics other than voting, attending city meetings, and door-knocking for a few politicians––and once, in the 1970s being quasi-arrested for protesting the Vietnam War, and demanding women’s rights, including abortion rights––has been random participation.
My husband says I’m too political. My grandson says I’m not right enough, and my granddaughter says I’m not left enough. So here I am, standing firm in the middle of a burning house, realizing that random participation is no longer good enough.
I have learned that I can’t fix everything––a tough life lesson––and it’s not my job to mend the world all at once. But I can heal some small part within my reach.
“Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.” François-Marie Arouet, a.k.a. Voltaire
Times like these, as with a writing deadline, force me to focus on what can be done instead of catastrophizing about what can’t and what’s gone wrong––instead, focusing my energies on what could go right. So, I started thinking about a few of those things that could go right, for example:
- Troubling times are opportunities to rise and get in-spirit. I turn to the elders for inspiration; Martin Luther King Jr., Voltaire, Margaret Mead, The Bible, Edmund Burke, J.R.R Tolkien, and so many others. I’ve included their words below.
- Activists who in the past faced a drought of public interest are now facing a tsunami of awareness and volunteers, turning helplessness into hope. From immigrants escaping violence, food-deprived senior citizens, and underprivileged kids in need of schooling, food, and shelter, to the unhoused we see in every city, there is no shortage of ways we can make a difference.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead.
3. The rules of routine politics have been tossed into a bonfire––no more business as usual––it’s time to engage anew, rise from those ashes a bright and radiant phoenix of this modern revolution. After all, WE ARE THE PEOPLE damn it!
4. This is a unique opportunity to turn the tables and capitalize on intentional chaos (being created as a strategic plan to distract) and alter the political landscape of our country. It’s time to challenge elected officials and compel them to resist this inhumane administration.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
5. As writers, activists, and concerned citizens we must reevaluate and revise the conditions of debate around issues concerning our society at large. It is time to eradicate the mold under our roof, to reign in our spending without harming those most in need. Time to tax those inclined toward greed. It is time to get big money out of politics, time to do away with the corruption of organizations like citizens united, deliver a gut punch to the donor class (a plutocracy), and to alleviate greed and corruption to the best of our ability. It’s time to build that sheltering roof for our communities. It’s not time to move backward via Project 2025, but forward to a new humanity. And that takes active participation.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed.” – Proverbs 31:8-9
6. Go sign up for something, lend your voice, carry a sign, contact your representatives (repeatedly) about climate change, women’s rights, voter rights, gun control, civil rights, immigrant rights, and so much more. Use your voice to speak up against evil.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
7. Visit sites and resources like the MASA––Let’s Make America Smart Again website for free resources, even print your own posters and so much more.
8. Right now, our house is burning, but it’s an opportunity to remodel and build a new house with a mold-resistant roof.
“From the ashes, a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring…” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Come on fellow citizens, let’s be that light!
Dementia–The Cradle of Twilight
My mom, Connie Meyers was a beauty queen who was never comfortable in her own skin.
She constantly changed hair color, her waistline (yoyo dieting), fashion, lipstick, and persistently adored or hated herself in the mirror. She never fully wanted to be in this world. The story goes that she died once or twice when she was a child. She saw heaven and did not want to return to this earthly realm. She said so all my life. And once her beloved mother, my grandma Ollie May, died, she only wanted to be with her in that celestial kingdom she saw as a child. Then a couple of her sisters died, then a couple good friends, and all she wanted was to peel off her skin and go with them. Mom was my real-life Selkie.
This poem, Cradle of Twilight was published today Sundays Poet’s Corner of My Edmond’s News. I wrote it during the months of my mom’s descent into dementia. She finally slipped into the deep blue three years ago.
Applying the Celtic myths of our Scottish Irish ancestry was this daughter’s way of making sense of, and peace with her mother’s journey in a life she hated, and her longing to return ….
Cradle of Twilight
Mindy Meyers-Halleck
At the edge of midnight
she rises from bed,
steps outside her coastal cottage
wearing her nightdress
barefooted––
shaved head.
As her soul lays ruined against the rocks,
she breathes in the briny algae drifting on the breeze,
and hears the eternal song of the seas––
the crash of cresting waves, clicking of dolphins, flurry of bubbles,
as seaweed sways, shuffling side-to-side in the ever-shifting tide.
As the webbing between her fingertips
twitches
itches
grows,
she knows––
her seal skin is forming …
eternity knocks.
Soon she’ll return to the briny deep,
swim, frolic with the Selkies,
––drift upon the waves in deep, deep sleep,
with her sisters of the sea.
As her aching body prepares for transition––
exchange of human skin for glossy black Selkie seal––
beneath the silver light of the moon,
she cries seven tears
into the sea,
the price of re-admission to her natural milieu––
She’s been gone too many years,
she misses the sweet taste of salt
and the sky reflected on water,
the soothing blue, blue, blue.
From the shore she sings a melodic tune that echoes across the waves.
Those enchanted echoes
whispers on the wind
a bridge that
crosses one mystical realm to the other––
calling to them
calling her home.
This earthbound world has been painful at times––
abandonment, loneliness, loss, grief––
things the human body can’t release …
instead,
it aches, opines and enshrines
pronounces itself dead.
But love has been a treasure healing earthly wounds.
Love, divine as the silken skin of her sisters of the sea,
has made her short journey a spree
of wonder.
Worth leaving the embrace of blue waters
… Temporarily.
But now she cries seven tears,
and calls to her family of the deep––
Will you come for me soon?
She is ready for the waves,
the gently rocking,
a cradle of twilight sleep.
Come for me soon …
She awaits divine transcendence beneath the silvery moon.
*************
Below are photos of Mom in her heyday and then in the early 2000s in Edmonds, WA.
Transcending—Art into Poetry
During a recent workshop with the poet Susan Rich, on Ekphrastic poetry––which is poetry that explores art––at La Conner’s gallery/museum, MoNA, I became entranced with a painting, which I’ll share in a minute. Susan inspired us to find a painting or piece of art in the gallery, and using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, engage with the painting, drawing, sculpture, or other mode of visual art.
The term ekphrastic (also spelled ecphrastic) originates from a Greek expression for description. The earliest ekphrastic poems were vivid accounts of real or imagined scenes when writers in ancient Greece aspired to transform the visual into the verbal. Later poets pushed beyond depiction to reflect on deeper meanings. Today, the word ekphrastic can refer to any literary response to a non-literary work.
The painting that grabbed my attention and heart was The Longhouse by Helmi Juvonen, a gift from Wesley Wehr.
Helmi Dagmar Juvonen (January 17, 1903 – October 17, 1985) was born to Finnish immigrants (Helmi is Finnish for Pearl) and became an American artist associated with the artists of the Northwest School, and was active in the Seattle, Washington area.
She attended Queen Anne High School, and after graduating, worked various art and design-related jobs while studying illustration, portraiture, and life drawing with private teachers. In 1929 she received a scholarship to Cornish College of the Arts, where she studied illustration with Walter Reese, puppetry with Richard Odlin, and lithography with Emilio Amero. You can read more about her illustrious career here.
Sadly, Helmi was diagnosed with schizophrenia (manic-depression), and was committed to a mental institution in Elma, Washington, where she spent the final 26 years of her life. There, she was visited by artists and supporters, who facilitated wide recognition for her work, during her lifetime through many art museum exhibitions.
Helmi transcended boundaries
Native American culture cultivated Helmi’s creative spirit and empowered her to transcend the boundaries of ordinary life, poverty, and decades in a mental asylum. Her interest in identifying the origins of human culture, especially as it addressed the dichotomies of good and evil, led her to investigate these themes in diverse spiritual traditions – Judeo-Christian, Tibetan Buddhism, and the Baha’i faith.
And in the painting that captured me so completely, I sensed something beyond the brokenness of the exterior. Combined with my (limited) knowledge of native folklore from the Oregon Coast––gleaned while researching my novel Return To Sender––and reading a bit about the Lummi Nation (Pacific Northwest myths, I wrote the essence of what I felt and saw in this piece of art.
My poem from that day, which is also published on the MoNA website, is titled, Dancing with the Dead. Please visit MoNA’s site and explore all the poems produced that day. I have a 2nd poem on their site titled, Shadow Dance.
Dancing with the Dead
By Mindy Meyers-Halleck
Her house is ill,
they said.
Unhinged shutters,
band aids on the roof,
boards as exposed as skeleton bones,
a crooked door that’s lost its will,
and a roofline of sagging skin.
Her house is ill,
and it allows no one out,
and no one in.
The native peoples
said of their treasured mad woman
with skin white as pearl
that she is
broken in the head.
––but, that sacred wound,
They said,
allows darkness to seep in.
And in those spirit-filled shadows
she dances with the dead.
It took her a lifetime,
to embrace the brokenness in her head––
––her dark shadow sister who never saw the sun––
A sister coiled in nocturnal corners, dreaming of
wolves, trees, and danger
she was never able to outrun.
The trees that surround her house are
not quite alive
not quite dead,
they haunt the yard
––redolent with tears and blood of the fallen
sister who never saw the sun.
She is broken in the head,
they said.
In those mist shrouded trees
she sees
The Keeper of Drowned Souls.
His green long-fingered hand,
spindly as spider legs,
beckons her to follow
deep, deeper into the hollow.
The Keeper of Drowned Souls exists
transitory between the human world and the phantom world
he tells her,
her dark sister who coils like the snake
inside her house,
is condemned to endless hunger, agony, wandering and sin.
Because her house is ill,
it allows no one out,
yet he wants in.
She is broken in the head,
they said.
She observes ethereal phantoms,
and dances with the dead.
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