After driving through my childhood hometown, staring down the ledge of my son's suicide plan, and then driving through Death Valley I was inspired to throw some words down.
Death Valley Lullaby
In the Valley of Death
There's life abound
In the scrappy scrub brushes
Clinging tight to the ground
Until they lift up and grow legs
to tumble around
The tumble weeds I watched
Walking to and from school
A child of the desert
where the tumble weeds rolled.
Mesmerized I cheered on their free-er expanse
While nature and experience knowingly forbode
Claws dug in to the holes of a chain link fence
Bounding a desolate road
That land is houses now, stucco and bland
and I didn't see any tumble weeds
When I rolled briefly through town
To see where I lived
before I lifted my shallow (so very shallow) roots
and learned to tuck my head shamefully down
I rolled, back then, with my family
My mom stepdad my sis and me
We climbed through the desert
peaked and descended
Descended. Descendant. Dis-ended.
For a decade more I clung dead to life
dormant like a seed waiting. Waiting.
Waiting for things to be right.
I startle awake, choking and drinking
In life dismantling this rusted chain link fence
of my own
damned
making
Tentative strands of green
Cracked through the burnt ground
Grasping, intuitive, busting the seam
Reached out went to college
Unfurled found a career
Vines latching onto a husband steady stable dear
Two flowers bear two children and I awaken to find
Through the slit dirty grit of half-closed eyes
Children half-grown and a mother dies
Here I open my eyes to finally see
This deadening fear of death until one death sets me free
I tumbled away then slowly set root
Reached up and out, fighting to sprout
So roll on, tumbleweed, I'm watching you go
as I look out my window down at the woods below
I look down to MY children's garden wild and oak-y and slowly, cautiously I let myself know
I see two tall redwoods, their babies gathered round
All stand steady kind and firm in the ground
Their roots stretch far, nourished and bound
For them, there will be no tumbling
No rolling around
They know they belong and they know who they are
These are my babies and I hold them in prayer
Praying to know
Tentatively knowing the cycle ends here
:hug:
just beautiful Armee.. i love the image of the tumbleweed and especially of the 2 redwoods.
thank you for sharing this!!!
Hi Armee,
I'm glad I found your poem here, that is a powerful lullaby, and I really like the imagery. Thank you for sharing this.
Hope :)
Armee, this is beautiful, thank you for sharing. I love the end... knowing the cycle ends here. That is one of my greatest desires in life, that if I should marry or be a parent one day, the generational brokenness among wives and husbands, and parents and children, will end with me. Thank you for sharing this, you are very talented and I hear your heart in every word.