WRITING ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS

Red and Blue 7.  8x11".                                              © by Ruth Zachary

Writing about relationships between people is a favorite topic for me. The relationship may be between relatives, lovers, friends, or others I observe relating to each other. The title, Blood Tide,  was from subjects suggested by different members in a poetry class, drawn from a hat.

Blood Tide

At night the house breathes blood

            from all the leavetakings of blood

                        relations, a cavernous void left in a

                                     family once replete with connections.

So many dead years on that flood of bleeding

            sorrows and betrayals. Now the living children

                        of those blood relatives travel on blood

                                    into unknown countries, scattered, separate, dilute.

A grand daughter asks about her ancestry.

            A daughter tells her blood is not important;

                        it is only a butterfly birthmark

                                     pooled in the small of her back.

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Writing and Images are the © Copyright of Ruth Zachary.

AN EXODUS POEM

Visions Gather Series #26. Computer Study.                 © by Ruth Zachary

The Reluctant Immigrant

I once wanted to live among mountains;

      towers of beauty, monuments

            to exploration under blue skies.

                    But I remained in the flats.

I considered coming west with my daughter

       a later time, abandoning the web  

              of family before its venom spread.

                    But I did not leave.

I remained there, mistakenly hoping

      there would be challenges

             and resulting growth. Instead

                     there was betrayal; loss.

Trapped in that web, I failed to see

       the poison had already infected us

               even as our potential

                       shriveled from within.

There was the agony of exile endured

        for a decade, hoping to escape

               the wreckage collapsing upon me.

                     before breaking free.

Finally arrived, I thrill at the western sun

      setting over exultant mountains, and

             swell with joy blazing unmarked trails,

                    feeling gratitude at day’s end,

Now I find, the shadow of fear is gone,

       replaced by regret over waiting so long,

             darkening my eastern doorway,

                     a void cast by setting sun.  

But the pause is brief, and soon I am

        chasing the moon over nearby hills,

                 recapturing the dreams of youth,

                        catching up bits of lost time.

Artwork and Poem are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary  
To see other similar artworks, visit  ruthzachary.blogspot.com

A POEM FOR FATHER'S DAY

In Dreams Gone By, Mixed Media with Color Copy Transfers, Spray Paint & Colored Pencils. © by Ruth Zachary

My Father’s Hands

After he passed, it distressed me that I could not

remember his hands. I looked among old family photos

he had taken of others, but not of his hands.

He had developed his photos in makeshift darkrooms.

They possessed a quality of candid truth, functional

composition; beautiful, although he would not

have called them art though I could see that they were.

When I was small, his hands felt lean, hard, rough

and calloused, knuckles etched in black, nails stained,

mechanic’s hands; displayed with pride;

working hands for honest work.

Long ago, with my small hand in his, I skipped along

beside him to do some task, to fix the car, or plant trees.

Once I led him to a meadowlark’s nest.  Another time

he showed me how to make a whistle out of slippery elm.

His hands at rest always held a cigarette, while he told

make believe stories of his life, me at his feet,

absorbing his words. Sometimes he stopped the car

on the way to Grandma’s house to pick wildflowers for her,

and stopped again on the way home to pick more

for my mother, as we returned, fists full of blossoms.

We moved miles away. He worked in a factory.

There was that photo of him with my mother,

in her church dress, and  him in his one suit,

like Michigan Gothic, standing in front of the camera,

for its timed exposure, his last photo of them.

His wrists hung too far out of their sleeves, still

farmer’s hands, though farming and auto repair had failed him.

He recorded my growing daughters with his camera,

and sat with them, holding a cigarette, repeating history.

Later I  re-married, and he moved across the road.

By then, his hands were thick as roots, still planted deep

in Michigan soil. He did not notice my own hands,

which, once long and thinly boned, had become muscled

and strong, nails stained with printer’s ink, from creating

etchings, a career  he could never understand, even though

my hands had clearly sprouted from those hands of his.      

                                     Ruth Zachary 031806-011314

DO YOU EVER WONDER "WHAT IF IT HAPPENED DIFFERENTLY?"

A Motherless Child, Photo Montage.                                 © by Ruth Zachary

Fortune’s Wheel or Predestination?

How many turns of fortune affect the rest of life

that follows? Perhaps it is each and every small

twist that determines the next, and randomly

sets the course of a life, a family, a country;

mere chance, perhaps, more than fate.

            The result is the same.

How much did choice influence the attraction

and marriage of Charles and Ruth? Certainly,

Ruth’s exposure to scarlet fever occurred by

accident, for precognition would have allowed

adjusting their plans, and avoiding her death

days after childbirth. But it was that exact

sequence of events that set the course of her child,

of her husband, and of Ava’s  grandparents,

who raised her baby to adulthood.

How many other small choices made by adults

in Ava’s world pre-determined her development?

How many second guesses in hindsight failed to alter

the course of her life that became so uniquely her own?

My Grandmother Ruth died eight days after childbirth, and my Grandfather Charles was too grief stricken for three years to cope with life after her passing. After four years Charles remarried, and wanted to take his daughter Ava with him, but by then Alfred and Laura were so attached to their grand daughter Ava, that they resisted the request made by Charles. My Great Grandparents Alfred and Laura cared for my Mother Ava until she was grown, even including sending her to college so she could become a teacher.


This poem appeared in Theories of Relativity, Stories, Letters and Poems About Family,  by Ruth Zachary, a book published by Xlibris, which is available through Amazon.


The photo montage and poem above are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.