Heron in the Mud

The great blue heron

Stands like a statue – 

Silent, staring, elegant in the mud. 

The white hair on her neck is long and wispy,

Orange beak is pointed west;

One foot in the mud, one foot lifted in tree pose. 

The great blue heron senses me and slowly rises,

And wide wings of white, gray, and black feathers sweep her

Up into the air, up into the sky, 

Until she is seen 

No more 

By me.

Dream House 

A boy and two girls,  

11, 9, and 7,

Flop around a motel room in Hyde Park, New York. 

 My father leaves early to drive to work,  

College professor after layoffs at TRW. 

My mother is still in California

Recovering from pneumonia,  My baby sister is with her. 

We don’t go to school 

Because we live in a motel and our father didn’t sign us up.  

We jump back and forth between two double beds. 

We bombard the maid with nosy questions, 

And she answers loudly in a strange accent as she briskly changes the sheets. 

We climb snow mountains in the parking lot,  

Our feet freezing in cheap dark rubber boots  lined with wet blue fuzz. 

When we get bored,  

We ring the doorbell of the little boy who lives at the motel, 

Who always answers in pajamas. 

He looks at us silently through a screen door  before we run away, 

Back to the safety of our room.  

We watch games shows and soap operas 

On a small television, 

And when it’s time for lunch,  

We look both ways before dashing across Route 9  

To buy cold cuts and boxed soup at the deli.  

My brother heats and stirs the packaged soup on a hot plate  (because he’s the oldest),  

And we slurp salty Lipton’s Chicken Noodle   

And eat bologna sandwiches  

While sitting on the floor,

The television loud and incessant. 

My father comes back to the hotel every night  

And makes angry phone calls.   

He talks to my grandparents,  

And when they ask how things are going,  

He says, “Shitty.” 

There has been a mistake on the check 

For the amount of the sale of the California home. 

We can’t afford to buy a house until the corrected check arrives 

Which for some reason is taking forever. 

In the back of my mind, I wonder 

If it is OK  

That three kids under the age of 12

Do not go to school.  

One day my mother and baby sister arrive. 

Their plane landed in Rochester in a snowstorm. 

They took the Amtrak to Poughkeepsie, eight hours long.  

My mom tells us the train made every stop, she ran out of diapers, and that my little sister  Screamed the whole way. 

Our family of six is cramped in the motel room  

With cots fitting around the two double beds.  

My mother is adamant: The kids must go to school! 

I show up in a classroom one day,  

Midway through 4th grade, an extraterrestrial. 

A month later, the check arrives. 

On a snowy Saturday afternoon,  

We pile into our white Chrysler station wagon

To find our dream house. 

Our father drives slowly on top of snow-packed roads 

To 11 Hudson Drive. 

He parks the car on the street  because the driveway is not shoveled. 

We wade through knee-high drifts  

And see a dark-brown-stained wood, split-level home,  set way back in the woods.  

We turn the knob.  

It is newly constructed, spacious, and luxurious  

With gleaming hardwood floors   (Which will be covered by light brown shag carpeting),  

Five bedrooms (the kids put in their bids), 

And an amazing intercom system that connects the kitchen to every room in the house, 

Which we test, repeatedly.  

I write a letter decorated with swans and hearts  

And give it to my father on New Year’s Eve.   

It says, “1970 will be our best year ever – in our Dream House.”  

(I still have this letter. My father never threw anything out.) 

My father loves this house. 

It has a floor to ceiling picture window in the living room 

And he regularly looks out at the trees swaying, the birds flying, 

And the long driveway through the woods. 

He repeats one word only  when looking out the window, with tears in his eyes:  

“Beautiful.” 

Growing up in the dream house: 

We miss the bus and wake our sleeping father, 

Who swears as he drives us the long five miles to school,  pajamas under his overcoat.  

My brother and I get grounded  

For throwing a party that wrecks the house, and for lying to our parents about it.  

The girls prepare for proms  

With burning hot curling irons and cheap make-up.  

My brother practices for hours on the Steinway  

In the mildew-smelling basement, 

And during rock band rehearsals,  

I sit nearby and bop my head, a groovy sister.

 (He will become a professional pianist). 

I put records on the electric player 

And dance for hours 

To my father’s eclectic collection of musical LPs: Hair, My Fair Lady, Carousel, Jesus Christ Superstar  (I will become a dancer and choreographer). 

All four kids act in plays, get good grades and bad,  

And when life feels mean, 

We cry in the solitude of our bedrooms. 

We graduate from high school, 

And one by one, we leave the dream house. 

Eventually, my mother leaves, too. 

The dream house of 1970 

Is moldy, in need of repair, has mice droppings, 

The results of letting things slide and decades of hoarding. 

My father smiles, a tired, retired professor,  

And tells us he will never leave this house. 

Dementia arrives, but he remains blissful. 

He forgets our names,  

And one day I take his car keys away. 

Alzheimer’s takes everything else away,  

Slowly, cruelly. 

He cannot speak, only babble in frustration. 

My brother and sister find a program he can be cared for  

By aides who work in eight-hour shifts around the clock 

In his dream house. 

My father is gently propped up on a hospital bed  In the living room,  

My brother is sitting next to him. 

They are near the big glass picture window 

That looks out on swaying trees, birds flying by, 

And the long driveway through the woods 

When he dies. 

A young family lives there now. 

They write a letter to tell us  

How much they love their dream house. 

Poetry