Three Poems by
Madlynn Haber
CRYING
Someone is always crying, often it is me.
So easily my tears rise, awakened
by my own circumstances, quirks of fortune,
that which befalls me, what I fall into,
stumble upon, get stuck with.
I weep with you too. All of you, including
the woman who painted on small canvas
a stark doorless room with deep blue walls
and empty chair. Below the painting a card
with her name, her illness, it’s start date
and the day of her death. Known only to me
by the colors she chose and the specificity
of her disease, in a two-sentence bio.
I’ll sob with you when you hear the news
of the endings fast approaching,
your small shoulders heaving up and down
in my arms as you bury your face in my neck.
In the wailing that rocks through the night
across continents, vast distances, we recognize
the way suffering surrounds, connects with all
that breaks us open and causes our tears to pour.
Somewhere, someone is always crying.
OUR STORIES
I wrote my father’s story over and over
in bits and pieces, in poems, scenes, episodes.
I wrote while crying.
I wrote with rage, with longing.
The girl he left behind had her say.
The woman who buried his body added the details,
sifted out of his remains, pieced together
with all he left in her memory, the imaginings
he stimulated, all that happened and didn’t happen.
And now I am done. There is nothing left to say.
I am free from all the images, his eyes, his smokey aura,
his sweaters in the bottom drawer, the orange juice
and Hershey bar he left on the window sill before
an ambulance took him away.
My mother’s presence looms large
in the background of my story.
Her sad face, her fragility, the overwhelming
anxiety radiating like a foggy mist accompanying
me everywhere my childhood took me.
When I grew into myself, she found a new
husband to take her away. My teenage poems
exploded in anger, breaking me free of her
judgements and fears.
Buried now, those two, laid to rest,
my poetic muses. Always familiar to my senses.
The ones whose imprint I couldn’t escape.
Those two who taught me how to measure
up and how to fall short. They taught me about life
and the suffering life brings, revealing scarcity,
loss, until the rare, very occasional, moments
of sweetness, fun, goodness.
Their poems are all written, releasing me now
to write from a place of my own choosing.
Now, from somewhere wide, free,
like a field of wild flowers, a hillside
under open sky. A place of gratitude, hope,
where fear is melted by birth and rebirth,
by the surprise of arrivals and departures,
the possibility of good supplanting evil,
peace overcoming violence, where
sickness turns to health.
Madlynn Haber lives with her dog, Ozzie, in a cohousing community in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her work has been published in the anthology Adult Children (Wishing Up Press, 2021), The New Verse News, Muddy River Poetry Review, Poetica Magazine, Buddhist Poetry Review, Eunoia Review, Months To Years, and other journals.
UNANSWERED
It was one email I didn’t answer.
Now, I am sorry.
She said she was reaching out.
I was too tired, a little bit sick,
too full of my own self-ness,
to write a kind word, a thank you,
a good well wish in return.
I didn’t bother and then she died.
Now, I hold a regret that can’t be erased,
deleted, or removed from my slate.
No one left to apologize to, just like
the sliver of a woman I drove past,
not offering a dollar or two in response
to her cardboard plea because the light
was going to change and I would be late.
How many lessons does one need,
to learn how to be human.?
