Splitting Open the World

Today, I invite you to a reading of poems I selected from Splitting Open the World, By Carolyn Martin. I do this, of course, with her permission.

It was published in March 2025 by The Poetry Box a publisher working " To bring the joy of poetry to everyone," as they say in their mission statement.

If you listen to my reading until the end, I will tell you how you can purchase a copy of this book as a discount.

Here are the poems:

The Book To Ask Questions Of

(from an ad for the encyclopedia Britannica)

The salesman spread them on the Formica tabletop.

Volumes in reddish brown. Opaque paper. One-inch thick.

Here, he said--conjuring dreams of universities--

the sum of human knowledge at your fingertips.

Every fact you need to know about everything.

The fact is we couldn't afford one book, thick or thin.

My mother cooked and cleaned between assembly-line shifts.

My father blew out his back. Paint barrels did him in.

A favorite aunt strung Venetian blinds on a factory floor.

Another scrubbed rich people's toilets and sinks.

One uncle painted houses by day, spent nights in oblivion.

Another drove a truck collecting junk for charity.

Too young in the ways of their world, I never asked

about the brutal drunks who fathered them

or how they skimped to take us to the Jersey Shore

or why they cussed and clashed over everything

except what kept them family.

That night, after the table cleared of dreams,

I summed up answers I had no questions for:

the catechism's creed, the straightest of narrow rules,

the narratives sanctified in bibles and history books.

I'd been schooled there is no wiggle room between

right and wrong, no versions beyond the literal.

That's how it was: Sunday church, chores at home,

answers spouted up and down rigid rows

where nuns kept us in line and taught us well.

Decades dissolved before I learned beliefs

should not terrorize and family is more

than arguments; before I understood

what no salesman would admit:

in this wobbly universe, truths strain, turn, twist,

to revise themselves before ink soaks in.

My Mother's Scars

The photograph: a two-year-old,

vacant eyes, wispy hair, white dress,

leaning toward the camera from a kitchen chair.

Blackened fingers--fragile and forlorn--

resting on a homemade doll.

The lie: a pot of boiling candy

cooling on the front porch step.

The truth: a broiling backyard still

and a toddler's curiosity.

The aftermath: Twelve surgeries.

One pinkie stub. One finger bent.

One father's drunken rage. One mother's regret.

The woman I knew never let those scars

stop her from doing what needed to be done:

scrubbing clothes in a basement sink,

knitting scarves my brothers wore,

storming into rage when I missed dust

beneath beds or spots on the kitchen floor.

Singed and afraid, I'd cringe at her voice

and the scowls that wiped the beauty from her face.

I'd hide in the neighbor's chicken coop

or climb their cherry tree or grab my bike

to ride and ride and ride anywhere.

Nine decades gone and still

I can't comprehend how scars served

her well. She fiercely soothed them

while I---I couldn't bear to look.

Over The Telephone

What do you want from me? she asks each week.

At 94 she's ready and can't conceive

why heaven doesn't want her yet. I throw

her insistent question back: Do you know

what you want from yourself? My words stop her

in her wobbly tracks. The question infers

there's something deeper to want than a pair

of Easy Spirit shoes or a tooth repair.

And that bladder surgery? Why bother?

her stance, when time's on the run. My mother

asks again, What do you want from me?

I almost dare, An apology

for childhood taunts you didn't save me from.

But her recall is lost. I hold my tongue.

Theology

-for Charlie

My uncle never mentioned God

unless something needed to be damned

like cops raiding Mayer's bar,

chickens raining poop on the roof,

or old man Monik spitting on his porch.

Then he'd call on godly wrath

to raise the ante on his own

and spout off expletives worthy

of a handyman smashing thumbs

on two-by-four red oak.

Friday nights he'd trek a baseball bat

to the darker side of town,

puffing out his chest to hide

his homegrown ignorance.

Blood never rattled him.

Saturdays drank him into oblivion;

Sundays lugged him out of bed.

He threw his church clothes on

and blessed the priest who missed

the coins nicked from the offering.

A bona fide perfectionist,

he created his own trinity--

painter/builder/paper hanger--

adored by blue collar folks

who couldn't pay for the costly expertise.

No children of his own,

he crowned me princess of his heart,

my brothers princes of his home.

He loaned and fixed and ran to help.

He never let us down.

He cheated war out of his life,

then lost it piece by piece.

When his liver failed in the end,

God didn't have the heart

to give him a damn.

My Mother Is Dead

1924-2022

Afterwards when relief was still

relief and regret for words

I never said pushed grief aside,

I forgot to forget her red-raw hands

unpinning frozen shirts

clotheslined across the yard.

Her drudgery on factory floors to pay

bills beyond my father's salary.

The homemade dress she made me wear

when I was born for jeans.

Her rage at dust on bottom shelves,

baseboards, and crevices

that even God couldn't see.

Later, her Saturday calls

from New Jersy to Oregon:

twelve minutes, rarely more.

Her scrambling for post-stroke words

for worlds outside her nursing home:

for clouds slipping through maple trees,

for critters strolling across the lawn,

for strangers prattling on the patio.

Her question every week--urgent,

confused--Why am I still here?

Why don't they want me yet?

That is, until still became want

and seconds between breaths dissolved.

Now hidden beneath the silence

of her death, grief--evasive,

unpredictable--calls for love and waits.

Sermon

Sunday mass and the priest explains,

The Good Lord liked simplicity.

Why struggle with ten, he said,

when you need to practice only two:

love God and your neighbor as yourself.

The others? A four-letter word will do.

I slink down in my seat, guilty and ashamed.

I could buy his take if it weren't for

the hard-to-love neighbor next door.

She hates my guts--but won't say why--

ignores my pleas to chat, and squawks

my faults around our cul-de-sac.

She must have heard me swear

when skunks dumped my plastic pots

and raccoons dug up my lawn.

Or she takes offense at the peanut shells

I throw into her flower beds. They're hers,

I rationalize. Compliments of the feeder

squirrels adore hanging on her fence.

Vernal sins, I bet, she adds up.

Anyway, I'll ponder the words, maybe

find forgiveness is another word for love

and take guilt and shame for a stroll.

Whatever shows up, I want to reclaim one

ancient rule: keep holy the Sabbath Day.

Loving others, much less myself, fatigues.

I need to rest at least once a week.

Conversation With My 6-Year-Old Ethiopian Neighbor

What are you doing? her voice flashes across the front yard.

Cutting back my daffodils.

Why? her favorite word.

I'm tempted to quip, Because they're dead,

but hold my tongue and fashion a poetic reply.

Because their season of beauty is over and they need their rest.

Why? I could count on it.

Four-feet of jiggly energy, beaded braids swinging

with each word, pink gums announcing

an absence that a future's bound to fill.

Because Mother Nature likes to spread her colors around.

Why? I am ready this time.

Because if flowers came all at once, we'd be overwhelmed.

I expect she wants to know

what overwhelmed means, but she picks up

my deadheaded pile and holds it to her face

like a botanist awed by first time discovery.

Overwhelmed, she echoes with a toothless grin,

fanning yellows and green on the ground.

Her wave good-bye leaves the awe to me.

Promises

-to Nancy

While you were in bed losing your cancer war,

I was losing my voice to the mold in your garage.

My promise: clear out the throw rugs, table lamps.

knock-off bags, garden tools, boxes of supplies

from every Costco sale, and more stuff

in your hoarder’s stash then imagination could hold.

All this cleaning out--focused, frantic, silent--

before my raspy cords would find themselves

and Hospice would drive you to your final home.

Today your ashes rest in a wooden box

in my living room. Every season or so,

I sit in my mauve armchair and remind you

of what you promised me: a condo

on a Maui beach where turtle, tangs,

and butterflies scavenge graying coral reefs.

You promised we’d sit beneath pink plumeria

drinking in the sun singing on the horizon’s edge,

bemoaning the hapless Pac Man troop

who failed to trap your unruly cells.

You promised we'd reminisce about how

you lived to find the best of deals and how

I found sufficiency in the midst of the silences.

Burying Our Mother's Ashes

-Mt. Calvary Cemetery, New Jersey, 2022

A near-perfect October day

and splashes of autumned leaves

soften rows of crosses/angels/headstones

carved with names someone loved.

Paperwork works its way

through the groundskeeper's hands

while we take turns holding her remains.

Heavier than I thought,

I smile at two brothers--frowns holding

their feelings in--and pass the box around.

It's the closest my mother and I

have ever been. We never hugged

or kissed or shared I love you's

until my adult green eyes

challenged her aging blue.

But what does it matter now--

this mother-daughter thing--

on the day we choke out our good-byes

and lower her ashes to rest with parents,

sister, and husband/her best friend.

We find our cars on the cemetery's drive

and plan to share history at a cafe.

It doesn't matter that the family plot

is full and it may take months to turn

relief into regret into grief.

How I Want To Be Comforted After My Mother's Death

Don't say, I'm sorry for your loss

At 98, she was ready and did it her way.

Don't attempt to advise, save, or fix.

I'll deal with these my way.

The fact is I'm relieved I wasn't there

when morphine floated her around the room.

Or when she said my father/her best friend

arrived bedside to take her home.

Or when my brother, counting seconds

between breathes, played witness to the end.

Meanwhile, I was pacing around the house,

waiting for the voice--tearful, free--She's gone.

What should you say? For now, two words

suffice: I'm here--and leave it at that.

Lingering

-Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, Portland, Oregon

I don't remember why I paused.

Might have been to catch my breath

on the uphill path or to grab

a last panoramic shot of rhodies

and azaleas astonishing in whites/

pinks/purples/yellows/blues.

I had five goslings on my mind--

golden innocence paddling

across the spring-fed lake--

not to mention waterfalls

tucked with curated randomness

around the garden's edge.

Might be why I didn't see

the child skipping up the slope

or the mother unscrewing the mason jar.

Only this: a stunned monarch--

shocked by how freedom felt--

spreading wings--royally--

on an azalea's violent blooms.

As if grateful for the sun

and my awe-filled stare,

it posed for two dozen clicks,

waiting for the future to appear.

It approved, as it folded up

its wings, the art of standing still.

To My Mother On Her First Anniversary

Every week since you died, I've caught

myself gathering news for our Saturday ritual.

You, in your New Jersey nursing home

trying to remember how to answer the phone;

me, roaming our Oregon yard, inviting

you piece by piece into my private life.

How predictable each call.

I'd only dramatize an opening line before

you'd interrupt with a performance of your own:

how you woke to find a man sleeping on your couch,

how convulsion hurled you out of your bed,

how you guided your way through Italy/

Egypt/Greece but lost the words

for stamp/birthday card/address.

In retrospect, my reports were minor affairs:

a trip to the coast, a new book of poems,

the harsh September rains that snapped

our crape myrtle tree. Yours--like tracking

rowdy clouds through flowering chestnuts

kissing golden oak--sometimes surprised with poetry.

But hear me out this time and don't interrupt.

Words and time are what I need.

Someday--when I've grown closer to myself

and cycles of shame and rage dissipate--

someday, I suspect, I'll rewrite the story

of your life with unscarred love and awe.

And if truth splits open wide enough,

I'll use your name with reverence

in odes not elegies.

Addendum: Progress

At eighteen, committed to veil and vows

and striving to follow rules perfectly.

Poverty and obedience? A breeze.

At thirty-six chastity tore down the wall.

Falling in love: an unexpected novelty.

Forty-two and I wish I were a drunk

sitting in a basement room with flannel shirts

and business suits. I'd pull out my ace:

turn on the gas, unhinge the oven door, and wait.

Crossed arms would nod nonjudgmentally.

On days when loneliness dug so deep,

my fifty-plus grabbed car keys to find

a traffic jam. I rolled my window down,

waited to catch an eye. We'd commiserate

with sloggers easing home endlessly.

A retired sixty-two, I cleared out navy blue suits,

black pumps, and every business script

I banked my keynotes on. Now's the time

to wallow in the truth lurking in rhythms,

images and burdensome memory.

Prepped to glide through my ninth decade, I'm free to play

in the rampant bounty of gardens and poetry.

No debt. Freezer full. Questioning certitudes,

countering with a sturdy voice. Free to stand

outside myself and revel in ecstasy.

I hope you enjoyed Carolyn's poems and my reading of them.

I was affected by them for a couple of reasons. They bring out a beautiful picture of her life and her life-long emergence as a human being. And there are some ways in which her story, though very different in its particulars, resonates with how my life story feels to me.

While preparing for this episode, I thought it might be interesting to explore what the effect of this reading might be on her. After all, in a way my reading of her poems is both my attempt to bring her meaning alive and, no matter what my intentions may be, interweaves my personal reactions as well. Carolyn and I will record a conversation about her reaction to my reading of her poetry, which I will publish as a separate episode.

As I said in the beginning, If anyone would like a copy of Splitting Open the World, please email Carolyn at portlandpoet@gmail.com. Mention my name, Emily Newberry, and she will be delighted to give you a discount on the price of her book, with free Shipping and Handling.

Thank you for listening.