The Hypnotist, by Marty Waters

Marty Blue Waters read this piece on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.

 
I was sitting at my desk in my 5th grade classroom, minding my own business, staring at the world outside my window, when an announcement came over the loudspeaker from the principal. “Everyone please convene in the auditorium now for a surprise event.”

We all walked silently to our assigned seats.

Our principal introduced a man who was going to present a special show for us and he said “we should all pay careful attention because things might not be quite what we think they are!” A big man strode up onto the stage. He was dressed like a magician, with a phony mustache, a cape, and a lopsided top hat.

He called out for four volunteers. My hand was the first one up. We marched up to the stage and sat on the chair we were motioned toward. I was on the far end so I could study what happend to the first three victims with an eagle eye. Mustache Man stared at each volunteer for quite a while, mumbling words I couldn’t hear. In turn, each slumped forward in their chair and seemed to be in a trance. When Mustache Man snapped his fingers, each jumped up and went back to the audience.

I was pondering what the trick was supposed to be when Mustache Man zoomed in on me. I didn’t like his eyes and one side of his fake mustache was starting to fall off. I kind of snorted a laugh and stared right back at him, narrowing my gaze. Then I realized I was supposed to be a part of some joke, so I pretended to fall into a coma, like the others had, and dramatically draped myself across my seat. Mustache Man snapped his fingers sharply and curtly motioned for me to return to the audience.

He went on to a new act making things disappear, or something like that. I was bored to tears.

Then Mustache Man started telling a story about a cat and a dog who met a donkey and a rooster on the road to Wichita. Whenever he said the word cat, Vonda jumped up and purred “meow, meow, meow.” Whenever he said the word dog, Tommy stood up and shouted “arf arf arf arf arf.” And whenever he said the word donkey, Dennis rose up and bellowed “hee-haw, hee-haw.” They were all visibly confused and embarrassed by their sudden impulses, but each time they heard Mustache Man mention their animal in the telling of his story, they shouted out again.

It was rather obvious whenever he said the word rooster nothing happened. Even so, the story was a huge hit and all the animals got wild applause and cheers.

Oh Good Grief! I was supposed to have been the rooster, if I had been able to understand what Mustache Man tried to plant inside my head. Oh well.

At the end, as Mustache Man was about to take his bows, I fiercely felt it was my moral duty to make sure the rooster didn’t get completely left out of the show. I jumped up and crowed at the top of my lungs, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

There was a stunned silence in the auditorium and I realized, once again, I had made my very important point at exactly the wrong moment. Something I had a tendency to do, unfortunately.

I slunk back down into my chair, hoping nobody would ever mention this day to me ever again. Fat chance of that.

Maybe I Should / Second Sight, by Peaches Gillette

Peaches Gillette read these two poems on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.


Maybe I Should

Maybe I should move away to some remote place
where the trees stand ceremoniously tall
and the sun is forever setting.
 
There
I will embrace the quiet of my inner world —
speak no words — have no voice —
I will just listen,
Tenderly listen
to the whispers of all those who have suffered —
Those who still want to tell and retell their stories through the movement of the wind,
through the falling of the rain,
through the understanding
that we whose souls ache through time
will be forever one.

Maybe I should take all the metal I've collected over all these years
and get back to building the rocket ship I dreamed of building long ago.

I would take off,
fade into the pitch-blue of the night sky
throw kisses to my old friend the moon
and sketch along the contour of the universe
fueled by an urge to find home.

Maybe I should count backwards each time I have a birthday
and get younger and younger
with each breath I take.
This undoing of my aging self
will not be about any regret of growing older -
it will be about meeting my child-self again -
revisit the time I left behind
and linger, playfully,
in the details of days gone by.

Maybe I should go back into the dream I had last night and try to find my mother;
she sounded sad.
She wanted me to come and be with her,
but her voice trailed off into silence
before she could tell me where she was.



Second Sight

Sometimes I see more clearly with my second sight.

It is the sight that originates in the soul,
finds its way into the heart,
and spiritually crystallizes what I see in the world, and in others.

My eyes explore the composition and the delicateness of their perfect form.
My darling granddaughters -
their bodies young and free in this old world.

I gaze at their sweet lips forming words in whispered tones.
I listen to the secrets that only exist in the world of girls.
They dance for me -
another secret.

Their young bodies are hopeful and strong
like the beginning of a new day.

They watch me
making sure I don't look away.

You see Grandma Peach? We know how to do a split.

Their observant and socially curious eyes take- in and repeat all the latest dance moves.
They are exquisite visions of life in one of its greatest states -
moving,
energized,
growing-
pulsating spectacles of loveliness.

They are visions of grace
becoming a part of who I need to be.

I watch,
I cannot take my eyes off them.

I feel tears
rising from the deepest place of my love for them -
rising like a swelling body of water,
baptizing them
and carrying them to Holy lands within my very being.

They ask, Why are you crying Grandma Peach?

I say because you are so beautiful,
like the beauty of the sun
and sometimes so much beauty makes me cry.

They look deep into my eyes.
We share one of those special moments
in which we see one another
as clearly as one see the heavens.

Their dancing goes on.
I continue to watch
with both my first
and my second sight

Short Poems in Response to Phrases from the Work of Mary Oliver, by Rob Sullivan

Rob Sullivan read this piece on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.


once the eyes are opened
the world never appears
without its juice and spark
the everyday becomes singular
==

set in stone?
all will crumble to dust
all will change form
over and over
maybe we know what we know,
all the rest
hearsay, conjecture, guess
eternity is one
of endless possibilities
who am i to say?
who am i?
who?
==

don't we all love
a good mystery?
myriad opinions
live together nicely
coexistence is plausible.
oh, dogma
you'll find that under philosophy.
no, i don't think
it's filed under non-fiction.
==

if one sees litter
strewn about the thoroughfare
it would behoove one
to pick it up
leaving the path
a bit more tidy.
if one experiences
wails of distress
from a dying mother (earth)
one should be prepared
to work for her salvation
and leave this planet
a bit more
alive and well
==

sacred vow
lifelong commitment
sacrament, most holy
yet divorce comes
nearly every time
for all,
save poets
willing to give all
in return for the great
big, beautiful world

Hands of a Gardener, Susan Lesser

Susan Lesser read this piece on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.


I hold my hands in front of me and sigh. I have the hands of a gardener. The reason I do is because is I have an alarmingly large garden, a series of gardens really. There is the peony row, the perennial garden, the vegetable garden, the herb garden, the raspberry patch, and  the red and white garden down at the end of the lawn which isn’t really only red and white. Closer to the house you will find a couple of sincere hydrangeas and irises under the dining room window, azaleas and Lenten roses stand in front of the kitchen windows. Behind the garden shed is a secret garden that is so secret nothing is planted there, but we need to pull the weeds between the paving stones anyway. I could go on.

As soon as the ground thaws in the early spring, I am down on my hands and knees, digging in the muck, moving the Hidcote Lavender to the back of the herb garden and the common thyme to the front, pushing the shrunken pea pellets into the ground that is still splashed with lingering spots of snow, and removing last year’s canes from the raspberry patch.

I start out with gloves, gardeners’ gloves with thick bits where the designers think I might need some protection. I put the gloves on, honest I do, but very soon something happens and the gloves come off. I will find them later, soaked with rain, under a rhubarb plant. I want to pull out the early weeds, the dandelions and the invasive Michaelmas daisies with my bare hands. I want to wiggle my fingers into the mud to find the roots, to follow them and tug them out. My tiny lettuce seeds, like pepper from a shaker, need a warm hand to pull the earth over them and tuck them in. No gloves. Throughout the gardening season, it is easy to see my hands are the hands of a gardener, testimony to my hours in company with living growing things.

My fingernails are ragged and require repeated vigorous scrubbing, and much clipping. There are scratches where I tangled with a climbing rose in an attempt to prune it back. Roses are at once one of the loveliest and most vicious of garden denizens. There is a pinkish rash on my right palm from a misguided attempt to pull a rogue stinging nettle that was camping next to a Plantain Lily. Some days my knuckles are swollen from gripping the orange-handled trowel so tightly for so long. And totally yucky are the occasional gluey remains of a squashed slug, accidentally sacrificed as I weeded out the lettuce row. Slug residue does not wash off as easily as I might think; it will require scrubbing with the sturdy brush I keep under the sink. I am no fan of the garden slug, neither its name nor habit. However, when in my probing of the welcoming earth, I come upon a common garden earthworm, I am careful to treat him gently and move him to a soft spot of turned soil, out of reach of my trowel.

There is a story in my hands, not the sort a palm reader might tell, but a story just the same. It is a story of seasons and growing things and touching the earth we live on, live in.

==

NOTE: This piece appeared, in a slightly different version, in the journal GreenPrints, No. 117, Spring 2019

Watch Pocket, by Tina Wright

Tina Wright read this memory-piece on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.


Some blue jeans have a little pocket on the top of the right front pocket and when I told someone in the family, younger generation, that it was a watch pocket for a pocket watch they said, I wondered what those were for (…good for loose change too.) I got thinking about pocket watches when a kid at work the other night talking about batteries in his wristwatch laughed when I told him I used to have wind-up watches and he gave me that you are a dinosaur look.

My first pocket watch said Little Ben on its face beneath a cracked plastic cover (smashed when picking stones). The Big Ben version was the alarm clock in my parent’s bedroom—with the big butterfly wind-up key—and when my sister and I heard it ringing in the morning from our bedroom down the hall, we pretended we were sleeping and waited for dad to pound on our door and say wake up, time to milk the cows.

I loved my Little Ben in its watch pocket, the brass back reflected the sun and felt cool and sweet in my hand. I set its time by the daily fire whistle five minutes to one that blew in the village of Moravia. Sometimes when we heard the siren in our hayfields miles away, we knew we were late for lunch.

One day we heard the daily whistle around the usual time and it kept blowing for many minutes letting the volunteer firefighters know that a fire had rudely started at a very inconvenient time, just when the daily whistle sounded. So it blew and blew to say hey Moravia this is a real fire!

The Formula for a Forever Life, by Barbara Anger

Barbara Anger read this poem on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.


First thing in the morning
Awake to gratitude.

Squint if it’s a gray day.
You may feel the sun
   Inside
   You.

Feel the vibrations of
   A prayer
   On your lips.

Feel the air on your naked body,
Put on something comfortable to wear.
Don’t mind
    The old stains
    Down the front of your shirt.
    The frayed cuffs of your pants
    Or the tear along the seam.
Please just let your elbow scrape through that hole.

Put on your old shoes
    That hold the shape of your arch
    Inside the definition of each toe.

Go out into the air
    With a twirl
    Find a spot
To stick your fingers
    In the rich darkness
    Of the soil.
Let the grains of dirt and sand
    Run
    Through your fingers.
Feel its moisture.

Then remember
You collected milkweed seeds.
Find them on the top shelf
    Of your cupboard.
For a moment
    Feel the silky
    White feathers
Still attached to the seeds

Grab a trowel
Dig deep and wide
Enough for each seed
To sprout
Upward and out
Reaching the sun
Till at the waning of summer
It calls to the monarchs,
“Here I am.
Come find me.
I will help you live forever.”

Typewriters, Sue Norvell

Sue Norvell read this piece on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.


Ah, the typewriter. Really, a brute of a machine. They were heavy to carry.

They required strong hands and fingers to depress the keys smartly enough to make that oh-so-satisfying [snap]  as the metal arm swung up and out to print the letter 't', [clack]  as the ‘h’ hits the paper,
then [...tap, WHING!] as the letter ‘e’ ends the line.
The bell dings, saying, “whiz the carriage back, begin anew."
[Whizzzz, clunk.     Clack snapa tap tap  snapa tap tap…]

Your fingertips are cupped by the metal ridges running ‘round the keys.
They fit each other: the letter B and the left index finger, [snap]
the S and the right ring finger, [snap]
reach up for an I,
down for an X, [tap,tap]
then stretch with the thumb for the space bar —

(double space at the end of a sentence, please!)
[whunk   whunk]

Remember how the the shift keys worked? No auto capitalization here!

Depress the key, the carriage rises, [bump]
capital B hurries to begin a new complete thought [snap]
The carriage drops again for the lower case ‘e’ [thud, snap] and you’re off:

[Bump snap thud  snap snap tap-a tap,  clack tap-a-tap snap ….  whunk whunk]

You say your prose is fading? The poem’s vanishing? Or worse, never making it to the page at all?
The ribbon needs replacing!
Now, of course, the stains and odors on your fingers need vigorous cleaning,
or your work will be smudged.

“How many carbon copies did you say?”
One mistake, many layers.
[Crinkle, rub, rub,  crinkle, rub, crinkle, rub…. mutter, mutter... cuss, cuss, cuss]

Whew.
Finished.
Roll the paten, free the paper
sign it:   “Henry…”
address the envelope,
fold the letter........ lick lick lick.  [STAMP]

DONE!

But now remember, typewriters did not lend themselves to impulsiveness
nor did they limit characters available
for either reasoned, rational thoughts
or nasty, rauchy rants

The effort required insisted on intention, allowed for more reflection.
Perhaps this machine’s finest hours were in the rash letters left unshared,
the insults never sent

Lets us consider this blessing: there was no “send” button.