Susanna Drbal read this story on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.
Your days are numbered. Patty heard the man on the TV say that to another man. Both of them wore cowboy hats and neither of them had shaved for a few days. Patty rubbed her cheek, thinking of the kisses she got from her father every night when he tucked her into bed.
Patty knew days were numbered—she’d seen them on the calendar that hung in the kitchen next to the telephone. The calendar had pictures of cats wearing different, funny outfits. Right now the cat wore a cowboy hat and leather chaps. There was a number circled on the calendar, in red ink. Patty had watched her mother count on her fingers, with her lips moving, and then circle it. Patty didn’t know why.
Patty knew her numbers, or some of them anyway, and since Monica had taught them to her, Patty saw numbers everywhere. They were on tags inside her shirts and underpants, on the buttons on the telephone, around the dial on the TV, on the clock that ticked and chimed. Patty saw numbers outside too, on street signs, on a wooden board nailed to the front of the house, and on the back of the station wagon. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, Patty said to herself, over and over. Sometimes she counted on her fingers, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. She counted her fingers, but she didn’t count her thumbs. It didn’t seem right.
So Patty knew about numbers, she knew about calendars, and tonight she was allowed to watch channel 5, so when she heard the grizzly man say, ‘Your days are numbered,’ Patty knew exactly what he meant. But she didn’t know why he had to seem so angry about it.
When the commercial came on, the one where there was a little man on a little boat in a toilet bowl, the clock started chiming. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 and then another one. Patty didn’t raise her head up from her teddy bears and their tea party on the living room floor—she didn’t want her father to notice that it was bedtime. Patty wanted to see what happened after 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-and then one more.
But her father folded up his newspaper and her mother called from the other room that it was time for bed. Time for forty winks, she said, and Patty knew that was a number and that it was a big one, but she didn’t know how to get to forty and she couldn’t wink once, let alone 2-3-4-5-6-7 times plus one more.
Patty scooped up her teddy bears and her father scooped her up and said, one-two-button my shoe, and Patty wondered about shoes with buttons and then she wondered about shoes with zippers. She liked riding in her father’s arms and then he plopped her down on her bed and he helped her into her nightgown. The nightgown was blue and had darker blue flowers and squiggly lines all over it. Patty wasn’t sure if the squiggly lines were 6’s or something else entirely. Sometimes they looked like whales leaping out of the water.
Patty brushed her teeth and watched her father’s face in the mirror. He stood behind her, in the doorway, looking down the hallway at the TV. Patty could hear a pinging sound from the TV and horses neighing and people yelling. She couldn’t tell what they were saying, but her father watched and rubbed his chin where it was whiskery and grey.
Patty lay down in bed and her father pulled the covers up under her chin. She held her favorite teddy in her right arm and chewed on his left ear. The fur was starting to get thin and matted. Patty’s father sat next to her on the bed and read to her. His legs reached all the way to the bottom of the bed and his toes pointed right at the ceiling.
Patty didn’t listen to the story, not really. She knew it by heart. There was a barnyard with pigs and cows and sheep, and they were fed oats and slop and hay, and the farmer cleaned their pens and planted seeds and the animals ate a lot and ran around and played, and they tried to find a hole in the fence. They found a hole, but by then they decided they’d rather stay in the barnyard.
At the end of the story, the pigs and the cows and the sheep are lying in bed, with straw pulled up to their chins, and the stars twinkle overhead. One sheep looks at the stars and can’t sleep, and she starts to count, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, and before you know it, she is asleep.
Friday, May 10, 2019
Thursday, May 9, 2019
How We Learn, by Yvonne Fisher
Yvonne Fisher read this poem on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.
Haphazardly, we learn
By tripping over our own feet
By trial and error, mistake after mistake
By listening to a mentor, a teacher
By listening to people
By listening
By looking around
We learn by finally realizing
By having an awakening, an epiphany
An aha moment
Or else gradually
We learn gradually
Too late
After trying everything else first
By crawling on our hands and knees
Bloody and broken, searching
By questioning everything, everything
By climbing toward the stars
Looking up, looking up
Sometimes we learn by giving in
By surrendering
Or by accident
Or sometimes we don’t even know
That we’re learning
But we do
We still do
We learn
Haphazardly, we learn
By tripping over our own feet
By trial and error, mistake after mistake
By listening to a mentor, a teacher
By listening to people
By listening
By looking around
We learn by finally realizing
By having an awakening, an epiphany
An aha moment
Or else gradually
We learn gradually
Too late
After trying everything else first
By crawling on our hands and knees
Bloody and broken, searching
By questioning everything, everything
By climbing toward the stars
Looking up, looking up
Sometimes we learn by giving in
By surrendering
Or by accident
Or sometimes we don’t even know
That we’re learning
But we do
We still do
We learn
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Saying Goodbye to that Old Desk, by Jim Mazza
Jim Mazza read this piece on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.
We sent my childhood desk to the dump this week.
It was not an especially nice piece of furniture — just a small, wooden, two-drawer, rectangular desk — drawers on the right and a place for your legs and feet on the left.
It was purchased when I was ten and my father said I could paint it any color I wanted, so I chose sunshine yellow — which for unexplainable reasons — seemed better than my favorite color, fire-engine red.
I was proud of my bright-yellow desk.
Later, in my teen years, the yellow was covered with a mahogany stain, which looked a bit more mature, I suppose.
My childhood desk held what all desks hold: scissors, a stapler, pens and pencils, and pads of paper — lined and unlined.
This is the desk where I spent endless hours drawing floor plans for houses that I imagined living in someday. This is the desk that held my first electric typewriter — a powder blue and white portable, manufactured by Brother.
It was the place I sat to write my first love letter and it was the desk where I kept the first love letter written to me.
That was many years ago. More recently, the desk had been relegated to our basement — being sort of ugly and a bit too small for practical use by an adult.
It sat there, in a dark corner surrounded and covered by many other discarded bits and pieces of the past thirty years. So, when it came to our recent basement clean-out, the desk wasn’t the only item on the “to-be-tossed list.”
There was the 1950s-era cookie jar, covered with raised ceramic flowers — also yellow — but a dingy yellow pretending to be gold or mustard or, perhaps, butterscotch… a wedding gift to my parents, later handed down to me for my first apartment.
There were bottles of beer left over from an open house 15 years ago.
There were two decades of Utne Readers — the first ever printed — that Nancy had been saving. (We decided to keep the first two years and selected covers of others.)
There were old lamps with broken shades; glass vases covered in heavy, opaque dust; decaying plastic planter boxes and more.
None of these objects added to the junk heap brought back fond memories — or really any memories at all.
But under this mountain of non-treasures, these throw-aways, stood my tiny desk — forlorn but resolute. In fact, I was sure the desk was looking out at me from beneath the piles and saying, “After all we’ve been through, how could you?”
I closed my eyes and opened them again as the desk was lifted onto the truck, destined for the dump. As it reached the tailgate, I caught my breath.
For underneath the mahogany stain, in places that had chipped away, I could not only see the 50-year-old bright-yellow paint but the memories of my childhood, too.
We sent my childhood desk to the dump this week.
It was not an especially nice piece of furniture — just a small, wooden, two-drawer, rectangular desk — drawers on the right and a place for your legs and feet on the left.
It was purchased when I was ten and my father said I could paint it any color I wanted, so I chose sunshine yellow — which for unexplainable reasons — seemed better than my favorite color, fire-engine red.
I was proud of my bright-yellow desk.
Later, in my teen years, the yellow was covered with a mahogany stain, which looked a bit more mature, I suppose.
My childhood desk held what all desks hold: scissors, a stapler, pens and pencils, and pads of paper — lined and unlined.
This is the desk where I spent endless hours drawing floor plans for houses that I imagined living in someday. This is the desk that held my first electric typewriter — a powder blue and white portable, manufactured by Brother.
It was the place I sat to write my first love letter and it was the desk where I kept the first love letter written to me.
That was many years ago. More recently, the desk had been relegated to our basement — being sort of ugly and a bit too small for practical use by an adult.
It sat there, in a dark corner surrounded and covered by many other discarded bits and pieces of the past thirty years. So, when it came to our recent basement clean-out, the desk wasn’t the only item on the “to-be-tossed list.”
There was the 1950s-era cookie jar, covered with raised ceramic flowers — also yellow — but a dingy yellow pretending to be gold or mustard or, perhaps, butterscotch… a wedding gift to my parents, later handed down to me for my first apartment.
There were bottles of beer left over from an open house 15 years ago.
There were two decades of Utne Readers — the first ever printed — that Nancy had been saving. (We decided to keep the first two years and selected covers of others.)
There were old lamps with broken shades; glass vases covered in heavy, opaque dust; decaying plastic planter boxes and more.
None of these objects added to the junk heap brought back fond memories — or really any memories at all.
But under this mountain of non-treasures, these throw-aways, stood my tiny desk — forlorn but resolute. In fact, I was sure the desk was looking out at me from beneath the piles and saying, “After all we’ve been through, how could you?”
I closed my eyes and opened them again as the desk was lifted onto the truck, destined for the dump. As it reached the tailgate, I caught my breath.
For underneath the mahogany stain, in places that had chipped away, I could not only see the 50-year-old bright-yellow paint but the memories of my childhood, too.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
See This Photo, by Summer Killian
Summer Killian read this piece on Saturday, April 27, 2019, as part of the Tompkins County Public Library Readathon fundraising event.
See this photo of me in the kitchen with Teo. It is our first night home from the hospital, the third night of his life. I don’t know what I am warming up in the microwave, can’t remember what I ended up eating. In my face, see the softness, but the new edge, too. This is the face of somebody’s mama. See the pride: I grew him. I pushed him out. See the way he belongs. See the way the wrap I’m using to carry him is tied all wrong, though I practiced and practiced with a stuffed bunny while still pregnant. See how I don’t know it. See how I look like I know what I’m doing. See the way you just can’t know what’s to come. See me standing in the kitchen on Albany Street, believing I can fathom what it means to really love somebody.
See this photo of me in the kitchen with Teo. It is our first night home from the hospital, the third night of his life. I don’t know what I am warming up in the microwave, can’t remember what I ended up eating. In my face, see the softness, but the new edge, too. This is the face of somebody’s mama. See the pride: I grew him. I pushed him out. See the way he belongs. See the way the wrap I’m using to carry him is tied all wrong, though I practiced and practiced with a stuffed bunny while still pregnant. See how I don’t know it. See how I look like I know what I’m doing. See the way you just can’t know what’s to come. See me standing in the kitchen on Albany Street, believing I can fathom what it means to really love somebody.
Monday, May 6, 2019
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.
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.
Sunday, May 5, 2019
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
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
Saturday, May 4, 2019
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
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
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