Ann Wachter

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt

The Guest

 

From blood splattered cups to peace without borders,

she came and she went, leaving love in all quarters.

        ~Ann Wachter

 

Home, home swirls like a knot entwined

upon a crab tree trunk, beckoning me to climb,

climb its woody tome, its musky scent

scraping my knees as I grasp branch

after branch, lifting my body upward, unwinding,

fashioning, fashioning home, home’s brief embrace.

 

Bell’s chime above a bridge, a bridge leaving home,

home where crossing’s bent arm blockades

passages’ girth never caressing infancy’s

bay, breaking me against ocean’s waves;

crashing rocks ahead, squeezing my brows tight

like a bull dog’s whimper after facing down terrors,

hoping mental plates hold until beacon’s next light —

never knowing home, home.

 

My childhood home was homeless haven —

Father’s devotion held me steady for a time;

motherless challenges crept about each hideaway’s open door.

Good granny, good aunties welcomed my spirited vigor

but left no lies lying next to my bed.

My parents became the lessons I learned,

reflection’s bequest from all I’d yearned.

 

Each starling day bids me express myself beyond —

natal down plucked away, plucked away

tranquility’s delights.  Slippery shaft — abroad place to abroad

place abroad — I slice headlong, reserving energy

from foundation’s edge — home, home — wing’s consonant

fit, one feather with the other, ceding my flight beyond

cloud’s mist, never beyond home.  Home.  Home.

 

I stand tall, discerning shades of grey;

bleak shadows casting home, home along golden paths, spiraling

spiraling about pillars, pillars of salt wielded upon others’ homes, homes.

 

I manage well caring for downtrodden folks,

warming them with my swaddlings, my swaddlings.

My sinewy form strengthens as I climb home’s spiral stairs;

chiseled boxes — up one, step, up one, step, up one — glowing, white,

clouds absorb my expertly transformed, feathered foils —

fastened with silk threads — never weak, I open my ears and do not peep.

 

Distant cousin’s proposal gathers me — home, home.

One tidbit — one challenging, charming vice;

my new home, my home,

home holds enchantment’s price.

 

Mansion’s masterings abeam Abel Brown’s shanty-like cot;

next my home, home — Val-Kill’s  lodgings, my nest — dancing,

telling stories,  picnics under home’s pines

floating ‘long river’s twines.

 

Glistening meanderings, watery trails cycling home, home;

mingle in pond’s ripplings, trickling salamanders, dragonflies, crickets.

Grasp sextant’s skillful span, angle human right’s merits dangling above cliff’s cure;

give home, home, home to those whose tomb contains evils and horrors hidden deep —

hell revealed to the world after chimney’s sweep.  Battle fear and its alllies —

those that tend hell’s garden with a blow-filled glance;

those hoarding gold coins to purchase contempt — carry me home, home to serve and serve;

knot imbedded in the old tree trunk; my keep’s chattel, my home, my home.

 

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Ann Wachter is an ever-maturing writer of poetry who completed her Bachelor of Arts with John Carroll University, University Heights, Ohio, 1982. She developed her craft by attending Iowa Summer Writing Workshops sponsored by the University of Iowa, Iowa City and plans to embark on her MFA journey. Her publications include Catharsis and Dream from a Steel Beam, circa 2015, Highland Park Poetry Muses Gallery.