The brokenness of things: 1

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

When I was nine
on the playground
at school
I tried to jump from
the cemented tire
of an overturned
volleyball net pole
to grasp
the tallest of the
uneven bars

I missed

landing hard
in the packed sand

an audible snap

white-hot pain

my classmates gasping

look at your arm
look at your arm

a curious indention
there in the middle

the teacher’s face
turning the color
of Silly Putty

cradling my arm
in both of her hands
ushering me to the office
getting me a chair

calling my father

the school nurse
affixing a splint
and sling

cold waves of nausea
I’m going to throw up

a trashcan dragged over
it’s ok, you’re in shock
just use this

um, no

and how mad
is Daddy going to be?

He enters the office
with that furrowed brow
speaking first to my teacher
and then to the nurse

and then to me,
gently

Hi, Honey…

and that’s when
I cry

(to be continued)

Sling. Nikita Kashner. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Ceremony

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments


We gathered together
moms, dads, grandparents
lots of baby siblings
to honor
our kindergarteners
with pomp and circumstance

a milestone
of accomplishment

here we are,
a normal crowd
cheering, applauding
babies adding their
newfound voices

then giving an ovation
for the second graders
who were present
and assisting
because their ceremony
didn’t happen
in the spring
of 2020

little morning faces
shining with pride
as their families stand
honoring, rejoicing
celebrating
all of our
living through

Jetsam

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

It’s a fascinating word.

Jetsam.

Objets jetés à la mer. Objects thrown into the sea, deliberately, to “lighten a ship in peril.”

Not like flotsam, the stuff that floats up from a shipwreck.

The dictionary entry beneath jetsam is jettison, the actual throwing.

Proactive words for survival…

Journey on, striving to jettison
Encumbrances
The fears, the weight, the despair, and wait
Somewhere just ahead—and within—it’s there
A stillness
Made manifest in letting go

Photo: Stuart Childs. CC BY

The funnies

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

I bought Sunday’s paper, first time in years. As in an actual paper paper. Saw it on the rack while checking out groceries, a giant headline about the state’s plans for moving forward with education in light of pandemic setbacks. As educators themselves (particularly those in the trenches in actual schools) are often the last to know, I thought perhaps I should read it…

Opened it up in the car only to have my attention captured by the comics.

How could I have forgotten?

All those childhood Sundays of sifting through the heftiness of sections and fliers to pull them out, that colorful layer beckoning amid the grayness of the world’s ponderous deeds and opinions.

The poring over every one, the laughter, the ink-smell… a preschool recollection of my grandmother showing me how to flatten Silly Putty over a panel to peel it up and find the image lifted, then stretching poor Charlie Brown’s round head every which way…understanding later, in school, what “newsprint” paper really was when blank sheets were distributed for drawing… often sketching pretty good replications of Snoopy and especially Woodstock in margins of random notebook pages… a fleeting recollection of two strips I cut out and taped to my bedroom door (one, I think, was Shoe and the other eludes me now; I can only remember loving it for its hilarious rhyme).

All this in one nostalgic flash, just finding the funnies in my hands again after so long.

For just that moment, I am child again, and everything is all right.

*Update: Finally remembered the other strip taped to my bedroom door: The Briny Deep.

And then there were more

/ Fran Haley / 13 Comments

Dear House Finches With The Nest Atop The Magnolia Wreath On My Front Door:

I wondered why you’ve been lingering so long.

The four babies you hatched at Easter surely took to the wild blue yonder weeks ago.

I haven’t checked the nest because I feared your fledglings might be reluctant to go; after all, there’s no place like home… not to mention that in a previous season I think I may have accidentally force-fledged babies who could fly but were still cramming themselves into the nest. They gave me quite a turn, flying out that day when I came to investigate. So little. I worried if they were really ready to make it on their own. It would be my fault if they were not…

So, Finches, I have left you to come and go as you please, without interference, and I confess that the whole reason is purely selfish: your music. I savor your beautiful song. So bright and pure…sunlight is woven through it even on the dreariest day. Your song gets under a corner of my sometimes-heavy spirit and lifts it, floods it with peace and a longing I cannot quite explain. I know the day is coming when you won’t be gracing my porch any more and then I will be bereft of these joyful little interludes… so I haven’t questioned your lingering. I’ve only treasured my extended finch fantasia with a grateful heart.

Yesterday my husband asked: “Can’t we use the front door now? Those babies are gone, right?”

Bless him for his great patience with my bird sanctuary. He is a minister, after all…

I said, “Probably. Let me go check the nest to be sure.”

And then.

Then then then.

Oh, it’s going be a while yet before we can open the door.

Now I know what you’ve been up to, my beloved Finches.

Encore.