Why I Can't Sleep, and Happy BirthDay, 100 Years

Why I Can't Sleep, and Happy BirthDay, 100 Years

my pillowed head
surrounded by men's purrs, Feline, Humans, amorphous kind angelic Spirits...

I need to sleep,
but each time I close my eyes:

I see a Mind-photo:
tears drop in watercolors, like children's bubbles, blown

through August - sweltered haze,
falling, falling, falling free - purposefully...
into my nearDream Heart, here another unquiet Night -
I am Honoured
~~~~~
                                         Tears fall from widest eyes - I see Her!

Eyes star-strewn, ebonied

She weeps pearls 'cross screens for a saddened world;

she entertains the Immigrants; my Nina is a child;

New York welcomes

 Eastern-European Jews;

my Nina sits in the darkened theatre,

skinny legs dangle above the cinema floor;

she wonders at the huge-screened news,

my Nina, little auburn girl,

watches Theda, Aunty Chicky,

the First Great War;

"Good-bye, brother, Al."

chicken soup brews;

Snow decorates Canarsie's Dream;

tiny Nina wonders, draws circles in her frosty bedroom window,

asks Bubby, my namesake:
"Where are they taking them?"

hollow, wasted bones and flesh

move to rest in old graves, sprinkled now with pebbles;

"Garlic keeps you healthy, Edie.

Rub it into the heel of the rye bread."
and so the bread is yesterday's -

"We have all we need, maidele...Eat."

"They are taking the bodies of the victims of another Great War" -

~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cleopatra's sultry eyes, her scandalously clad, barely draped voluptuousness

Gifts laughter and awe,  after newsreel horror.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I meet them then, again in now,

in Time's swirling spirals;

my genes hold their love,

share their schemes,

dream their own mothers' hopes -

one hundred years swim as teardrops in Time's tumultuous Seas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Sleep eludes me, for quiet Time’s arrived.

I do not mind tomorrow's "tired;"

as I feel so very honoured to see

~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She kisses a tiny one's luscious lashes,
senses my gaze upon them,
these tiny crystal children;
their Souls ahold in teardrops;
forming puddles before my eyes;
whisper'ng Rain runs 'round the table-top,
a separate leak in Time
My child peeks through the Rain-Painted window 

I dream my hands are moist with sticky old Souls;
I know these arrive from other Lives;
my Gifts are beyond my belief, my worth!
I weep, so privileged to see Life
to hold and love you in my genes
I am so blessed to see

*~*Happy 100th BirthDay to my BeLoved Grandmother, whom I called "Nina," 

                as I could not pronounce "Nana."

Your first granddaughter misses you so very much.

 I love you so much, my Nina."

August 10, 1912 -  June 1, 2009 

*****With ForEver LOve and Gratitude to my BeLoved Mother, who has expounded upon Nina's Story long before I wrote this Poem, in her own Short Story,

Part of the memory-quilt I have tried to reconstruct is based upon my Mother's account, as told to her by her Mother, Edith ("Nina") , while much of my Writing here, as always, is more metaphorical, in an endless desire to show the interconnecting spirals I feel & see all around my blessed Life. 

Please click below to Read My Mother's Story :)  http://www.windsweptpress.com/epidemic.htm

"We'll meet again, we'll meet again."  (JDM)

* The Great Influenza Pandemic 1918
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic