“Grounding” by Sandra Meek 5th and 6th Stanza […]That summer, retracing my parents’ younger lives, I drove past the red-stone mental hospital where they’d worked, through what use to be countryside, good rock hunting, now a clutter of suburban yards, bricked fences. What I learned from my father: it’s stasis that kills, and face cards are always the ones to keep. From my mother: self is just what doesn’t leave you. What I taught myself between flights, to orbit any celestial stone is to lose everything but direction. On the margin of a neighborhood going up, the only roses I unearthed were failed partial blooms: one side ridged, the other smooth as an Amish doll’s face the maker leaves unfeatured to avoid sin, the graven image. As if God didn’t know to go any deeper. --------------------- One vacation, transcribing my earlier trips to beaches, I crept over black sand, sea weed, and shells into the ocean where Uncle Scott tossed me like an inflatable boy. A cold Great Lake: just jump in...
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