Miriam Bassuk

Sorrow, My Middle Name
 
In high school, I became invisible, courted rebellion by dating a boy my father forbade me to see. My dad believed in perfection, austerity, turning out lights whenever you left the room. He would exit the room whenever I appeared. But, for all his harshness, he taught me to name trees, to marvel how some maples flaunt giant leaves. He could spot buttonballs on sycamore trees just as they released their seeds.
 
Now older, I am here in the dark, turning over the long list of friends and family, who’ve disappeared. Name them: Ann, Gary, Evelyn, Sonya and her grandson, 24-year-old. Elan, and others still alive with dementia, stooped, curled downward as their minds turn to vegetable soup. They know what they mean to say, but there’s a traffic jam. Frustration rules, anger, followed by surrender. Maybe, it’s then they heed the flute only they can hear.
 
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Life in the Hood 
 
The moon this morning lost her full-bodied shape, as if someone had taken a bite from her neck. Shrouded in clouds, fog down below, caused the ferry to constantly blow her horn. The man down the street installed eight huge skeletons on his front lawn for Halloween, then dressed them for Christmas in red caps and mittens, left them out in the dead of winter. It’s now February and they are still there. His neighbor has a flamboyance of pink plastic flamingos, sporting Mardi Gras beads. He dresses them for every holiday, St. Patrick’s in green, Valentine’s Day in red hearts. Neighbours line up books in their Free Library. Lost soccer balls and basketball nets stand idly by as cars speed down the narrow street, ignoring signs to Slow the Flock Down. And we, become the gawkers, who walk by, commenting on this colourful, eccentric assemblage. 
 
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Beach Walk at Lincoln Park
 
Driftwood captures me every time. There’s camouflage wood, spotted with amber patches, madrona branches flashing burgundy, and brilliant yellow logs with their skin scraped smooth. Farther down the path, holes, like eyes from severed branches, grasp me in their unflinching gaze. Others make me smile, like the large log whose tangled roots are having a bad hair day. I can’t help myself for inventing love duos from sculptured forms as two thin branches lean together, reach for the sky. Ancient bark rests next to young upstarts. Older logs prefer to slumber undisturbed, cradled by rocking waves.

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Tracking Almost Full Moon
 
So much is invisible in northwest night skies, cloud-studded and overcast most of the time. We miss whole constellations; we miss the moon, and yet, when the sky clears, like this morning, there she is, tracking across the sky, almost winking to acknowledge Artemis, man’s space mission. I keep looking out the windows to see if she’s still there with her magic curtain of light thrown across the water. Even in darkness, her beam is solid, straightforward, full-bodied.
 
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Last Orange Glow
 
I woke later than usual. Odds are, I missed that last maneuver. Moon low on the horizon. Clear sky. Blue and orange, complementary colours. Ten minutes later, the moon transformed into a transparent veil. Tissue-paper moon. In this light, hard to see her as three-dimensional. A disc, nothing more or less, but still so compelling.
 
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Bolder Still
 
There you are, an imprint in the sky, hanging low, a painting in deep blue and cerulean. A certain stillness, you, as punctuation. Nothing in motion beyond one blackbird. I prize these mornings. So often, you are lost to me behind a clotted sky filled with dense clouds.
 
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​Though originally from the east coast, Miriam Bassuk treasures her life in the Northwest.  Her daily walks inspire her with the teeming life of eagles, herons, and the occasional sighting of Orcas. She has been published in The Journal of Sacred Feminine Wisdom, Raven Chronicles, Borderless, and 3 Elements Review. She was one of the featured poets in the digital portion of the WA 129 project sponsored by Tod Marshall, the Washington State poet laureate.