Barbies

 

We tried each other on

New best friends

Playing “Barbie” in our sixties.

A task not for the faint hearted.

She had gone on vacation summer 1965

Never returning to this life

That I know and love.

She was frozen in another time of 

Long teased hair below her shoulders

That made her look years older.

An alien from another galaxy, she cried

“But men like long hair.”

While I cringed,

Sharing my enlightenment

And love of books

With no one in particular…

Except “Barbie” chattering continuously

About internet websites of men

Loving women with long hair.

Me, not one to understand

Or care that plastic is a fabric…

A fabric that has increasingly become

Unfamiliar to my soul.

All rights reserved.  ©2010 by Sara Fryd

Beautiful Ladies

Some ladies

            in black hats, and

                        red flowered

Green jackets,

            have a way of entering a place,

                        making heads turn,

                                    no matter their age.

Society teaches

            to be envious of

                        beautiful young women,

                                    with tight bodies,

                                                forced smiles, and

            unfulfilled vacant eyes…

Having been twenty,

                                    thirty,

                                    even forty and fifty…

Sometimes looking at

            life through a

                        rearview mirror…

I’m sure,

                        given the chance,

I’m looking forward

            to becoming

                        a beautiful lady…

                                    …in a black hat and

                        red flowered green jacket.

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

 

*Edith Kroschel & Nancy Friday (two hot babes in their 70s) and I flew  from San Antonio to Los Angeles May 10, 1991.   We kept in touch for about ten years by mail.  When Edith went to live in a retirement home, she used to read my poems to the “girls” in the swim class while they were exercising in the water.  Edith was a famous watercolor artist who was commissioned by the City of San Antonio to paint a picture of the Alamo.  This poem is about them.

Blue Agave

Sandra Elizabeth Larson's Photos

 

I sleep in sheets the color of the Caribbean Sea at sunrise

Remember a midnight green sky full of stars falling

As I travel fast, West on I-40 towards Arizona

Since I can’t sleep in New Mexico

At least not well.

Pale autumn colors cover me as

My olive skin glows

In shades of ivory, peach, apricot, blush

That lights my face from within…

Though when I dream, I dream in blue.

Agave blue aloe vera arms heading towards the sky

Waiting for the monsoon’s moment

Waiting for God

Wedgwood plates with touches of cream

Robin’s egg blue stripes over dark shades of teal.

Turquoise mined in Kingman

Shared with a universe of admirers

Absorbed through the pores of my skin

Held dear in my heart and soul

Worn around my neck, on my wrists, dangling from my ears.

I love in ivory, in peach, in blush, in apricot

Though when I dream, I dream in blue.

All rights reserved.  ©2010 by Sara Fryd 

*Two months ago I am perusing Facebook and some of the fabulous photographers that post and viola I see this photograph that will not leave my heart.   This poem is for Sandra Elizabeth Larson and her Blue Agave.

Crusty Lady

They say you pick your friends to be a mirror

   Then I must have a side that’s warm and free

Look at me in navy skirts with parochial blouses

Long flowing skirts in flowers of spring is what she sees

For all my shyness she’s outgoing, an explorer

Where my weaknesses lie, she becomes strong

She listens to all of my words unspoken

Never judging my feelings as wrong 

Underneath she’s a bowl of green jello

The smallest injustice, brings her to her knees

Though she’ll tell you she’s a crusty old lady

Inside she’s a red gingham cowgirl like me

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

Dear Heart

This beautiful photograph is from Vox Poetica - an amazing website for poets and writers.  Click on Vox Poetica and you will be transported directly there.

Little sister dear, little sister

Listen to my stories of Alice and Dorothy

Of Ruth and Naomi

Countless heroines

Women of honor, of grace

Of beautiful eyes and wondrous hearts

Who ride in carriages drawn by golden horses with manes

The color of the light in your hair

I’ll remember for years to come

When I grow older and wish for gentler days

Like those we share today

An instant in time

Seconds that remain in our hearts

Staying hidden, next to the left ventricle

Where I shall carry you always

I promise

Little sister

Listen to my whispers

Discovering letters and words

To share with you

That I am only learning myself

Knowing that I will always be your heroine

For one

Little sister, little sister

All rights reserved.  ©2010 by Sara Fryd

God is Not a Woman

It was my second year of law school and life was exciting.  The woman that was too afraid to speak till I was sixteen (as my Mother once shared with my upstairs neighbor Rick) now got on her soap box about everything female and everything unjust.  Which was just about everything that existed, particularly men.  The year was 1975, and God was woman!  Hear me roar.  So said Helen Reddy in the 1972 classic  “I Am Woman,” which became a feminist anthem.  Just ask Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan.

My mouth was bigger than I was.  Outside I was tiny, thin, feisty, smart, confident, and boisterous.  Inside I was huge, lonely, and had a hole the size of the Grand Canyon growing next to my heart.  Growing exponentially larger daily.  Denial can be as dangerous to one’s soul as an undetected tumor is to one’s body.  Though that’s for another day and another lifetime.  Books were my refuge and Black’s Law Dictionary the biggest one I could find.  If it was in print, in black and white, it must be accurate, it must be true, it must be authentic.  Have you never read The Old Testament?

We had so many women’s lib discussions my friends and I.  It was as if the Women’s Liberation Movement gave women a chance to exhale for the first time in five thousand years.  There are always a few non believers; though for most of us who do believe, we were sure she was female.  Finally, after millenniums our time had come.  Our voices would be heard, even listened to by the disbelievers.  We would surely be acknowledged and conclusively understood.

All my friends, except one – Robin Miller.  Robin used to say, not only was she positive that God was not female, she was certain to her core that God was a man.  When I asked her once why she was so sure that God was a man, the neo-natal nurse who worked the night shift in the emergency room of Long Beach Memorial for twenty years laughed out loud and said,  “If God were a woman we’d have been born with zippers.”

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

Kyle Christopher

Thirty thousand feet

Above the ground

The world is whizzing by below

Yet, I’m standing still

At six hundred miles an hour

Above the clouds

Below the sun

Remembering

A few short hours ago

I held you curled

Your tiny face inside my neck

Sheltering you

While you slept

Feeling you

Dream your dreams

Of the person

You would become

Curious look in your eyes

When you sucked my finger

Nothing coming out

Flashing me a smile that lit

My heart with a thousand candles

Had to return you to your Mom

Hugging you goodbye, knowing

Four days in April

I held in my arms

The miracle called “you.”

Little Girls & Purple Cats

She said she had a cat named Purple…

I mentioned cats didn’t come in purple.

She replied, “You’ve never seen him

sleeping on the roof at sunset!”

How does one argue with five year old logic,

Eyes that see magic at every turn?

“Little Judy,” a creative, forty year old mind

inhabiting a little girl’s body,

with hair and eyes the color of ravens

and midnight.

I remember her sliding down the stairs

one by one on her behind.

She called it “sledding on carpet,

warm snow with bumps.”

Watching her giggling all the way down;

a flashlight in one hand, Purple in the other.

You never knew when you needed a light

for making rainbows or turning cats purple.

To where do they disappear, I wondered…

The magic wands, purple cats,

staircase rainbows

made of flashlights and magic?

When do little girls grow up,

and stop sliding down stairs?

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

Little Yellow Truck

White blond hair parted on the side

Belied the six year old mind

Living in a fifty-nine year old body.

Ocean eyes

glared with anger

through the rear window of a Dodge

as his house faded into memory.

 

I won’t cry. 

“Big boys don’t cry,” his Momma said.

“We’ll buy you another truck,

a bigger truck, a better truck.”

But it won’t be my truck

his silent heart responded. 

The one that’s yellow

with numbers on the side.

The one with special wheels

dirt in all the right places

and a scoop for digging

and picking up rocks.

 

Please don’t make me move again

            his insides shouted!

I have to leave behind

all the things I treasure

along with Jimmy

my best friend next door.

Who shares my birthday

at night in the tent in our backyard

with the flashlight

and my little yellow truck.

                                               

Starring out another window…

            another plane…

another city, another place…

            memories of another time…

blond hair now white as mackerel clouds,

sounds of a whimpering child crying,

“I don’t want to go,” in the next airline seat

an isle over

brought forth unresolved pain

with a blow unexpected.

They lied when they said,

“Big boys don’t cry!”

They cry all right.

They cry inside.

So only they can hear the tears. 

 

So it won’t disturb Dad or Mom,

Too busy with their own lives

            to know…

That little boys

who aren’t allowed  to have feelings

become scared, scattered,

lonely men…

always getting on airplanes

going to parties, pretending

pretending they’re having

              a really good time.

 

Mother of the Bride

It takes courage to stand tall

          when we feel our wounds so visible

          worried that all will witness our pain…

Courage and bravery…

          strength beyond words.

You present yourself with such grace

          with such dignity, head held high

          turning your face to the light

          letting the sun warm your soul

          knowing that you have…

God’s blessings at your finger tips.

For God lives next to a rose bush. 

Every prayer a new rose.

Every hurtful thought a thorn.

If we are willing…

          we replace our hurtful thoughts

          with thoughts of joy.

We can carry with us

          the strength of the thorn

          the beauty of the rose

And we are never, ever alone.

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

*Note:  Years ago I was invited to a friends wedding and advised in advance that the Mother of the Bride had recently been left for a younger women.  The Father was coming to his daughter’s wedding with his new bride.  I included this poem with a thank you note for inviting me.