To Change Direction
By Jean Feldeisen
Our Beech trees are diseased, their leaves cracked with black, they drop while still green.
It is easy to imagine danger in places I can't see.
Fall limps toward us, late and bedraggled. When I retire I will use my old sewing
machine again, feed a sourdough starter, pick up abandoned knitting.
Picnics with my mother, lying on a blanket we made stories from the clouds. It is hard to
wait for the next thing.
In the breeze, trees squeak and creak like rusted scissors, cut the sky into blue squares. I
linger over what is left behind.
The bones of the trees are sturdy though their bark is flocked with scale. When these trees
die, our forest will transform. I remember the way my mother smoothed my forehead, it
will be alright.
Milkweed spills out of its pods. White feathery piles litter the ground. I wonder when the
wind will set summer free.
Three brown cows calmly graze the field. I hesitate to become a stranger.
Amid the trees thousands of winged maple keys are picked up by the wind. Will there be
enough? I am hopeful.
My husband's bones are sturdy and his hands warm. I pay attention.
Finally a breeze comes up and the milkweed flies, like soap bubbles flung across the field
with a plastic wand. Spinning.
Months before her death, my mother and I clasp hands. I recall her hands' coolness, the
length of her fingers.
Pileated woodpeckers have made three huge holes in a dead tree. Our urgent grip on the
familiar.
The fields are full of final things ─ seed pods, weeds, skeletons of Queen Anne's Lace.
I wonder who will sing my name?
Road Trip
When you drive, the road goes under the car and comes
out the back my Grandson once said ─ so observant of
the mechanics of things and how we appear to sit still
in the seats but nevertheless move forward. I huddle
under a blanket and shift in the front seat clutch
my coffee. That's my goal, moving forward.
My husband drives, glides us onto the highway
jostling into a queue of cars and trucks, the road sliding
under all of us and already I question my plan
to go back, the five hundred miles from Maine
to South Jersey. Hard to move on after the endings ─
the funerals, cleaning, memories in the dumpster,
the jolt of the slammed door. Going forward
or backward, the sharp thorns of memory snag you,
create an uncomfortable prickle of flesh.
***
Countless times we've taken this trip back, watched
the same reel of trees, rivers, mountains, sighed
over the impossible number of trucks and cars.
I know the kind of moving forward we'll find when
we arrive. My husband and I grew up in the country, around
a corner from each other, rode bicycles over back roads.
When we last saw our old home it was a glut of Dunkin' Donuts,
McDonalds, and strip malls. Some familiar houses still stand,
flanked by new McMansions. New houses were built
where we once played in the woods. Barrier beaches meant
to protect the mainland are a clutter of hotels and casinos.
All slammed against the water. Tourists who flock
to the shore make havoc of habitat of birds, deer,
sea creatures ─ and human residents, as well. Now
it's hard to see the ocean, to find any wild places.
***
Hours later we enter New Jersey while I tick
off memories, some funny, some prickly. Merging onto
the Garden State Parkway, I remember its opening:
how proud we were of our fancy new roadway.
Awed by the men in the little toll booths
we kids fought to reach out dad's window,
hand him our quarter. You look good
in your uniform my little brother yelled.
Past northern exits crowded with cars, then
over the Raritan River south, through the Pine Barrens ─
mile after mile of dusty stunted trees. Heading
for exit 48 at the marshes near Chestnut Neck,
we wind a tight curve off the ramp to waving stalks
of Phragmites. At last. A deep sniff ─ rotten eggs,
the smell that so delighted my river-birthed mother.
***
Who knows what led my orphaned grandmother
from Philadelphia, my grandfather just home from the Yukon
to migrate and meet in a hotel in Atlantic City?
He was a cook, she a waitress twenty years younger.
My father's family began there. Mom's family'd been
here forever, Baymen tonging oysters and clams.
How fortunate I found a man who loved the water.
He fit in with the silent, tough, and hard working
watermen, my mother's kin. I admired that he returned
to the bay after college in Philadelphia, passing up
career opportunities, though he drew criticism
from family about finding a real job. His grandfather said
You've gotta work with your head, boy, not your hands.
But, going back was right. He hated the city, begrudged
every minute away from the water, his boat and freedom.
***
Almost home now, we stop at the graveyard
where my mother's family has been buried
for generations. All the moving forward and backward
of their complex lives, along with what meaning
we squeeze from this, ends in stillness, under
cold slabs of stone, planted here and pained with names.
Mom and Dad close together. When my brother died at 20 ─
too young to plan a grave ─ someone donated a small plot
so he'd be near family. What use are these markers? Yet,
last year we spent $1200 to buy a stone for my aunt who
didn't get one. After 74 years together, Aunt Jean and Uncle Murray
died in separate institutions, mislaid by each other.
Now Aunt Jean's stone sits where she belongs,
next to Uncle Murray. Next to all the rest of them.
My family ─ in dirt, remarked by stones.
***
The dirt here is called Downer Soil, a mixture
particular to South Jersey. After the last Ice Age
receding waters left behind a land of beach
with soil a large part sand, its water close to the surface.
Good for farming and forests, as long as you add plenty
of fertilizer and water to replace what leaches out easily.
We lived a mile from the back-bay, adjacent to a creek.
After a hard rain, as if an underground faucet was left open,
water rose up to cover the crabgrass in our lawn.
In summer we chased each other through these bogs.
Water covered our badminton field, left ankle-deep mud
under mom's clothesline. But we were Downer kids,
my brother and sister and I. We thrived here,
our playground a boggy mire of holes hidden by wet leaves
bordered by bayberry and thick patches of briars.
***
The soil in our backyard was useless for growing things.
Mostly sand, it fell apart in our hands. We'd try to plant
a garden, turn up earth to drop our tiny seeds, then keep watch
for roots beneath the cotyledons of radishes or zinnias.
Nothing. The seeds we planted never flourished. Only stunted
violets and dandelions pushed through the weeds in the lawn,
choked out by tougher things, things that belonged there,
like us. We picked flowers from neighbors' yards, sometimes
with permission, learned to stay quiet about arguments
at home. Didn't notice there was barely enough money
even when dad had a job. We ate Spam and Campbell's soup,
bread and butter, made ten-cent pitchers of Kool Aid.
Walked barefoot from the first day of school vacation
to the last. Tough as the soles of our feet, the briars we tamed,
the mud we stomped, the rude soil we tried to cultivate.
***
Stiff after the five-hundred mile drive, I'm ready
to make the turn onto Brook Lane. My husband drives slowly
past the familiar house without turning in. I notice
the new owners have painted it red. Unfamiliar cars
park where I used to play. Everything seems wrong,
though I couldn't say what is missing. The house
itself looks cheerful, neat, and the yard landscaped.
Anyone would call it progress. We stop at the Little Brook.
I emerge from the car and try to pick out the entrance.
Only a small patch of moss next to a feeble stream.
I peer between bamboo stalks, which have invaded
the area, to create what look like prison bars.
It still smells of decaying vegetation
and festers memories ─ of fighting briars, playing
in the water, or hiding from craziness at home.
***
I could pretend it was someone else who used to live
here, with that family and that tree-swing and this sour
bit of brook, briar patch with no bamboo.
But I've come back to face the prickly memories. Up close,
I can see something is different. Even the smell of the marshes
seems more poignant now, though it's probably not changed.
This trip, no mother with open arms and kisses.
No familiar room or bed to lay our cases.
No welcome at all. Only a Holiday Inn.
I remember a final visit ─ Mom pushed her walker,
a blue-flowered scarf on her head. How she sparkled,
I remember, and the sun that day was warm. She giggled
when we discovered a hidden patch of violets. I picked some
for her to put in a vase. We sat there, me on a low fence,
her in the walker, talked about I don't know what.
***
Mom is gone, but she would be happy
that we're here today. I consider my vast reservoir
of memories and pick a few special ones for a little vase.
Aren't our bodies always renewing? Scoured daily
cell by cell? The scab of the past soon separates
from virgin skin. I see through eyes that belong to another,
older, a woman who lives somewhere else. I think
my grandson was only partly right ─ when the road slides
under the car, what comes out the back is brand new.
I smile at my husband, remembering all we've passed,
get back in my seat. We take another turn round the house
then drive off. I let myself be carried forward.
Jab Jab Cross
She watched her father closely while he swung
his big hammer to hit the nail head on.
Sat on the workbench, kicked her legs,
followed strong arms as he let fly combinations,
practiced counter punches, called them out
Jab, jab, cross, Jab, cross, left as he pummeled
the punching bag hung from the ceiling.
Friday nights they saw the boxing matches
on TV together. She sang all the commercials
but eyed him like you would a snake,
prepared to leap clear. Learned
to smile and take his arm at the right
moment, carry his lunchbox and skip (gaily).
She hustled arguing brother and sister
to another room, picked up stray toys in his way.
Knew his anger came fast and left fast.
Knew they'd be safe if they could get out of range. Knew
because, sometimes, it happened to her, too.
A hot blur of rage ─ I hate you ─ followed by shame.
Like her he was sorry afterwards.
***
New mother, she stared her father in the eye
Never dare hit my daughter,
even if
she deserves it.
***
The day the child came home early from play
with the neighbor, confessed to riding on his older
brother's motorbike,
something about Playboy magazines
maybe worse details that
the mother didn't ─ really ─ hear
because rage struck
shook loose guilt (How could you let this happen?)
and fear.
She screamed at her daughter
without thought
grabbed a coffee can and
slammed
the blame onto the child.
***
Imagine you were ten. Singled out
by this older boy. You really just wanted to play
with Legos or feed the swayback horse in the field.
Awed to be taken for a ride on his bike but
confused by his touch.
You think it is safe to tell your mother.
But she just goes crazy.
No, you are alone.
You suspect
silence is safer.
How do you feel?
Did you have fun at the party?
What did you learn in school?
Fine. No. Nothing. With each No
slam the door between you.
***
The hurled can laid
a path ─ to let fly
coffee cups, wine glasses, a fork
across a party, a slip
off the dock into dark water,
open the door of the car
moving. Open
to whatever tumbled out.
***
For years you've worn
the family shame
to rags.
You ache to return
the can to the shelf
the fork to your hand.
Now you dodge a punch thrown
into the next generation. Counter
in the shape of a pause.
Jean Anne Feldeisen is a 75-year-old grandmother from New Jersey living on a farm in Maine. A retired psychotherapist, Jean Anne had her first poem published at age 72 in Spank the Carp and more published in The Hopper, The Raven’s Perch, Neologism, Thimble Literary Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, Eunoia, Mockingheart Review, and Fairy Tale Magazine, among other publications and anthologies. Main Street Rag published her first chapbook, Not All Are Weeping, in May 2023. In fall of 2023, she and her friend, Argy Nestor, self-published their collection of poetry and art, Catching Fireflies.
Artwork Source: “Cherry Thinking,” Mirjana M
Artist Statement: The artwork was inspired by the current state of the world and reflects the difficult balance of thinking positively in gruesome situations and how it feels to both hold and nurture hope behind barbed wire – mentally, spiritually and physically.
Mirjana M. (they / them ) are a digital artist and writer from Belgrade, Serbia. Their work focuses on exploring the juxtaposition of various elements through mixed media of photography, double exposure, textures and light. Their work most often explores concepts of duality and has appeared in Vocivia, Broken Antler, Spellbinder, New Limestone Review, The Fantastic Other, Soft Star, Elixir Verse Press magazines and other places. They authored 3 poetry collections and are the creator of Suburban Witchcraft Magazine. Find more of their work on their website.
The Turning Leaf Journal 