Kelley White- Three Poems

November 1963

 

They waited ‘til the end of school.

Then the intercom voice creaked, guardian

of order, but even teachers could not master

their faces; they wept and shook, daily

life unsteadied, torn apart. Door flew open.

We went out to tell our parents. Life closed.

 

I walked with other children, the village, closed,

dark doorways,  dark houses. No school

tomorrow, would there be television, stores open?

The president dead, a catholic, hated, but guardian

of the free world, watchman over our daily

bread of breakfast, radio, school, sleep, master

 

of the button that pushed the bomb, dead, master

of airplanes, soldiers, tanks; war closed

in on the edges of countries, we pointed daily

at the globe, anywhere it landed, war. In school

we read the Weekly Reader, saw military guardian

ships and troops lined up to keep peace open,

 

no one talked about Korea but we all knew open

wounds in our soldier sailor fathers, each master

now of a house and yard but then the guardians

of life, their own young skin and hands, closed

medals in boxes now, shut drawers, in school

we did not learn this, this truth our fathers daily

 

worked to forget, to give us now so good our daily

rhythm, work to home, peacetime. Broken open

today on a city street in our own country, school

became a place of silence, our parents’ master

plan to never speak that name again, closed

story, watch the funeral on television, guardian

of world security, see the boots turned back, the guardian

black horse, the cortege, then we’re back to daily

routine, homework, bedtime prayers, something closed

down, less laughter, a wound to be covered, not open

to air and then put us soldiers in a battle we will not master

soft spirited, empty souled, untaught, some school

 

time thief, peace guardian, the casket open

children flat by daily rhythm none learn to master

tears and closed faces, shaking, the end of, the locked

down end, of school.     

 

 

Thursday Tanka

 

The mother curses:

I won’t fill out the gas forms

on her child’s asthma

until she brings her child

in for asthma care.

 

 

 

 Middle Dark

 

and a clock I can’t see is clicking

I hear snow in the safety

light on the wall

watch wind

in the flag that keeps turning

my neighbor’s burning

lights I can’t

hear him

breathing

I can’t

open

go in

 

  

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.