Away From Home – For Danny
The little girl on Spring Street
wore over-sized boy’s clothes
With none of her own
she pretended to sleep
so her aunt who carried her
wouldn’t put her down
She learned to like red spaghetti
and ride the Red Mill at Paragon Park
She might have had ice cream
and joined the circus
but wasn’t allowed on stage
She heard about the snakes
that hid in the mouths
of merry-go-round horses
She cried but it didn’t matter
She slept under the bed
so no one could find her
On the last day of her stay
she was given a new dress
a consolation cheek pinch
to fill the hurt of being homesick
It was a big girl’s dress for all to envy
red like the hat my beloved bought me
after we lost each other on the mountain
he said red would make it easy to find me
The little girl went home
and forgot about the circus
No one asked about the snakes
She turned five in May
and got a bathing suit for her birthday
but her happiness didn’t last
She had to wait till summer to wear it
and waiting felt like a penance
that burdened her innocence
Her little brother
left his shoes in the closet
He wore a wig for a picture
and everyone laughed
He was away from home
for much longer than a summer
She didn’t know where he slept
__________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United / dVerse Poets Pub
January 5th, 2020 9:09 am
Such an absorbing narrative. Memories make for poignant and interesting stories.
January 5th, 2020 9:24 am
This one’s fantastic, CR. I’ve been following the brother(s) stuff you’ve been posting, but finding it hard to comment. It’s ALL great stuff, sister. Thanks.
January 5th, 2020 9:56 am
Thanks, Ron. The last stanza opened the flood gates when I realized I was telling Danny’s story through mine. It was covered in Chapter 3 “Shoes in the Closet” of the Jim and Dan Stories. http://looseleafnotes.com/2019/11/the-jim-and-dan-stories-revisited-chapter-3/
January 5th, 2020 10:04 am
Bless the merry-go-round horses for giving the child a place of refuge!
January 5th, 2020 11:52 am
The last three lines are heartbreaking. There is so much innocence in the tone, in the context… And the sweetness of her confession makes the whole thing the more touching.
January 5th, 2020 11:54 am
This is so deeply touching, Colleen! I held my heart at “She had to wait till summer to wear it and waiting felt like a penance that burdened her innocence.”
January 5th, 2020 12:41 pm
A tender and beautiful write!
January 5th, 2020 5:12 pm
Sad but lovely in its innocence and the manner of the storytelling. I enjoyed this so much and wonder how much is biography, how much fiction.
January 5th, 2020 6:52 pm
Fascinating, and touching.
January 5th, 2020 8:52 pm
So stirring and so much to unpack. This little girl lost and not wanting to be found, and always that colour red keeping track of her. Sad and also haunting that she doesn’t know where her little brother sleeps. This is a beautiful write, Colleen.
January 5th, 2020 8:58 pm
Memories can be so vivid. I love the narrative nature of this.
January 5th, 2020 11:16 pm
So hard to receive a bathing suit for a present then have to wait a long time to wear it. I wondered about why the little boy was away, too. Intriguing…….there are so many stories to mine in our memories. May there be enough time to write them all down. I should have started way sooner!
January 6th, 2020 12:09 pm
The innocence and quiet sadness is very moving. It makes we wonder about the separation, worry for the child who is still far away, and hope that her childhood brings more simple joys than melancholy.
January 9th, 2020 4:45 pm
What a sad story where I see it through the eyes of the little girl, only guessing the reason for her being taken away… to me this can be a story of any child being taken into care of others, and it could also be very very specific.
January 9th, 2020 4:52 pm
I felt this was sad from start to finish. I wonder why the separation? I do worry about snakes hiding in the mouth of merry-go-round horses.
Tidbits of life revealed…
January 9th, 2020 4:52 pm
Colleen, I love this story poem and the way we follow the adventures of the little girl in the over-sized boy’s clothes. I was so glad she was given a new big girl’s dress and a bathing suit, but dismayed that she had to wait all summer to wear it. How sad about her brother – she must have missed him.
January 9th, 2020 5:07 pm
the slightly jagged rhythm perfectly captures the way memories arise and follow each other and there is much left unsaid in the poem though infused with sadness and loss
January 9th, 2020 5:17 pm
I love the glimpses you give with so much room to fill in the blanks. Reminds me of my days of case management, where the blanks are filled over time.
January 9th, 2020 5:26 pm
The last two lines made me gasp aloud.
January 9th, 2020 5:36 pm
A wonderful and touching glimpse down your memory lane, and being new to reading you, it feels like we are plunked down midstream of some tremendous memory saga; something we poets work to perfect.
January 9th, 2020 7:51 pm
An intriguing piece. Like the snippets of memories you described. Thanks for sharing.
January 9th, 2020 8:15 pm
This read like the memories of the little girl herself.
January 9th, 2020 9:14 pm
From the Jim and Dan Stories: http://looseleafnotes.com/category/jim-and-dan-stories/
Shoes in the Closet
My brother John had a dream shortly after Dan died. He had arrived at Dan’s apartment with the U-haul (which he actually did do weeks later) to close it down, and Dan was there. John was astounded! “Dan, you’re dead! How can this be,” he asked?
“I know I’m dead, but I’m all right,” Dan answered, and then he said, “And now it’s like Christmas.” The dream continued with Dan giving away his belongings to John and other family members.
We all wanted John, the only sibling besides me now who was not living in Massachusetts, to have Dan’s computer. “We want you online. We want to keep track of you,” I told him. John, the black sheep, hard drinking fisherman rouge, who had also contracted Hepatitis C from drug use in the 70’s and was now determined to stay sober in every way, sometimes needed to be kept track of.
When Kathy, Jeanne, (who came after my mother left), and I were staying in Dan’s apartment, we got a phone call from John. John had lived with Danny for several years in Quincy, Massachusetts, and then in Texas, and was particularly broken up. He cried when he asked us if he could do Dan’s eulogy. We all knew it was his calling, especially since our youngest sister, Tricia, had a dream that John was singing “Let it be” in the church during Dan’s funeral. He didn’t sing, but we did play “Let it be” the morning of the burial, and John did give a moving eulogy for Dan. We all choked up when he ended it with, “…Today we put my big brother Dano to rest beside his big brother Jim. I guess that makes me the big brother now.”
I called Dan’s apartment when John, Joey, and Nancy, who were going to drive Dan’s Toyota Tundra truck back to Massachusetts, were there to close it down. “I have a strange request. Bring me a pair of Dan’s shoes. I want to keep them in my closet,” I said. The request was related to one of my most vivid childhood memories, and one that has been re-stimulated with Dan’s passing.
When Danny was almost four years old, he went to Florida with our grandparents for the summer, but they ending up keeping him for a whole year. A year might as well be a lifetime in the mind of a child, in the minds of children. I was five and was rummaging through the room that Dan and Jim shared when I found a pair of Danny’s shoes in the closet. They were a 1950’s style, brown with white in the center. Finding them was an abrupt reminder of the brother I used to have, the one I had forgotten about, the one I wanted back! I carried those shoes around with me all day while I cried inconsolably. I wanted my parents to witness my anguish, so they would get my brother back home for me.
I asked for a pair of Dan’s shoes because I don’t want to forget my brother, the child he was, the man he was. I wish he could come back, like he did from Florida.
January 9th, 2020 11:59 pm
I liked the description of those snakes in the horses’ mouths.
January 13th, 2020 9:38 am
This is an excellent story, I was hooked. Thanks for sharing.