I began this poem in the Hiawatha Forest (Trout Lake, MI) and finished it during the Women-of-Color Self-Directed Writers Retreat at the Leaven Center (Lyons, MI). Thanks to Deena, Damita, Jenn, and Resa for feedback on its final form!
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Post updated: 28 January 2009.
Fear by Melissa Dey Hasbrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
29 June 2008 – Lansing, Michigan
The rain washes the street and sidewalk, refreshes roots, tickles rivers and lakes. The rain cools the summer fire, a moist relief after humid days, cotton-like air that hung from skin. I will miss the extremes of my homeland, place of birth and childhood and adulthood. The new home awaiting me is further north on another continent, also swept by water-kissed fronts but of the salty sea not fresh water lakes whose bodies curve the horizon viewed by human eyes.
I am aware that I am becoming the foreigner. True for the new land to which I travel and for the homeland which I leave. When I return here, I will feel foreign to others; the people will feel strange to me. Inevitabilities. Opportunities of what I’m unsure. I am at peace with this change, the precipice of becoming that undoes a combination lock on expectations and tendencies.
I know I’ve been waiting on this “graduation” for some time, a long time. Stretches back to my teenage years when I knew I was called into the world, to be among people from many places, to learn their words and ways, to share my own, to expand, to be content in my minuteness and hugeness of being. Simultaneities. Blessings.
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Post updated: 28 January 2009.
Graduation by Melissa Dey Hasbrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Today I enjoyed a circle of women writers, which has gathered for several months. I thank each person for sharing creativity, honesty, and good old fashioned word craft. We begin meetings with a writing prompt, and this week’s starter was based on our birth date. Mine read “These are the things women know” about love, which inspired the title of this poem.
What Women Know
Women know love is a sensation and intention,
a wave of truth with splashing doubts.
We know love is not enough
but bittersweet and aftertaste-hot.
Love is not the clay nor the hands but the potter’s wheel
molding our days and nights into lifetimes.
Love is water,
basic to every organic thing
and shape-shifting between extremes.
Women know love beyond rationality,
an intuition of spirit, mind, and flesh.
We know love is not a thing but being.
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Post updated: 28 January 2009.
What Women Know by Melissa Dey Hasbrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
I composed this poem in 2006 in memory of my friend Samantha, who died in 2002. (To learn more about Sam’s story read “Lessons for the Wider World”.) The poem has four sections: Fall, Spring, Summer, Winter. Due to its length, I am publishing the poem in PDF format.
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Post updated: 28 January 2009.
The Last Seasons of Our Friendship by Melissa Dey Hasbrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Journal Excerpt – May 11, 2008. Through the bedroom window I see northeast wind 
blow fuchsia petals from a tree. Spring is closing; summer is nearing. It was April 2002 when Sam and I came into contact again; she recently had moved into her mom’ house. We met at her crossroads, apparently to grant me access again to her life. I believe now it is for the purpose of sharing her story, though I’m not sure exactly how.
Where do you start sharing a story about someone who died? Do you start with their life or their death?
Samantha Kirsten Straight, born 9 May 1974, grew up to be a high-school teacher but was born a poet. Sam graced my life in two parts: the one when we knew each other for several years, and the second six months before she died. Despite being one year older than me, Sam always felt like a younger sister. The world lost Sam to suicide, and this “Breaking the Silence” essay is about striving for wholeness/ balance/ wellbeing by learning from anyone “deemed” ill.
Photo: Samantha. Credit: family.
Note: This poem emerged late last summer while I was in Belgium. The poem served as a mantra through a challenging time. Being apart from loved ones, an ocean between us, clearly teaches the finiteness of our control. The poem continues teaching me how to focus on my own choices and attitudes.
Phil McGraw, you must apologize! The travesty aired on 29 April titled “Daddy Drama” sanctioned homophobia/heterosexism, misogyny/sexism, and ignorance about the lives of transgender persons. Doc, you must attempt to repair this irresponsibly wrought damage.
“Daddy Drama” appalled me as someone who respects the health and wealth of human sexuality and gender. It is a respect that overcomes “training” by evangelical, White-middle-class, Midwest churches, which tied “k/nots” around my body, mind, and soul. Continue reading
I knew which topic to debut on “Breaking the Silence” after attending the Wordcraft Circle conference Returning the Gift (RtG) 2008. My clarity follows five years of grappling what being mixed race means in a light-skinned body raised in a White world. In this piece, I am “outing” the shame I have heaped upon myself for identifying as Cherokee.
Hope you can join either or both of these events I’m hosting on Lansing’s Eastside!
W 4/30/08
East Side Poetry on Open Stage Night @ Magdalena’s Tea House, 8pm. $5 cover with tea or coffee.
SU 5/4/08
The Art & Craft of Storytelling. Gallery Walk series @ Everybody Reading, 2pm. Free! Guests: quilter Rina Risper (President and Publisher of The New Citizen Press) and painter Gail Bohner (2006 Michigan Art Education Teacher of the Year).
Post updated: 28 January 2009
In anticipation of Breaking the Silence’s debut – the first Monday of May 2008 – which topics do you hope to find in Breaking the Silence? Take a moment from your busy day to let me, along with the wider intimate world, know!
Continue reading
