California dreaming this past week, as hubby and I shopped for a new home in the Golden State. One met the check list — less about the dwelling and more about its proximity to water and trails. We bought it. Back in Austin, we are excited and stressed at the same time, a big move now taking form in the days ahead.
Plowing through a list of unread emails, and handwritten lists, I found a small treasure, a gift reminding me of how weaving words can touch everything in life. An email from Central Avenue Poetry Prize told me how much they enjoyed my poetry submission and that they’d like to publish it in their March 2027 anthology. A small honorarium came with the invitation.
This is the first poetry competition I’ve ever entered, and I’m humbled by the validation – keep writing, keep learning, keep imagining and weaving, it says. The poem is called Shattering, a recollection of an initial childhood wounding which continues to inform. . .
Shattering
We were like little dolls
fashioned of clay
living inside a ceramic pot
painted desert sunset colors.
When it was known we can’t be sure
how we teetered on the too close edge
of the bookcase filled with classics
and one bird book
by Audubon.
Beginning with small quakes, the house shook
a faultline of grumbling
rumblings throughout the night rocked us
and our dwelling,
moved our beds
across the tile floor
and one day we all slid
off the foundation.
The pot tipped, fell from the shelf
an explosive shattering
broke into a million
stars that had lost their light.
One shard a bus ticket for my mother and I,
one a revolver for my father’s hands
held in his lap each night
loaded and unloaded
loaded again.
Four-years-old can’t understand
what a teen-aged sister can.
a decade later she told me about the gun
how he pointed it at his head
every night for a month.
Guilty I was the only one
our mother took,
leaving everyone else behind
to sweep up broken pieces
many of which were never found.
A silenced heart of an unknowing
the too young self, breaks too
and even now thin shards from the shattering
cut the bottoms of my feet.
The human story is made up of shatterings and celebrations. Writing them down helps to make sense of the world I live in and the world that lives in me. What shatterings and/or celebrations color your life and grow you? Let’s have a conversation.
Special thanks to some poets who inspire and model for me the poetic journey: Gratitude to and for and .
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