Verse Novel night in YA Literature becomes a workshop, where I give students many possibilities for writing their own poetry, and drawing on pages of the texts they've read, to imagine getting writing from students inspired by the books they chose (I run the class like a library so each student reads a different book each week. We all win, because multiple books are shared and the community of readers begins).
The student who read Keisha's House, had sestina's and I told them while they write their own poems from the workshop, I'll take on the challenging sestina. They randomly gave me six words: skiing, risk, justice, reading, disposable mask, and park. I took the line and triggered a memory that still cracks me up.
How Could We Not Laugh
~b.r.crandall
I remember that weekend we went skiing
taking my mom, knowing she was always a risk,
while serving another winter Sunday some justice
(otherwise I’d be home on the couch with a book, reading
and wearing my adolescence like a disposable mask).
The poles were loaded, too, and dad put the station wagon in park.
Can’t say we grew up in a world visiting many parks,
but we had Loch Lebanon and we went skiing.
Memories have a way with childhood, the disposable masks
arriving from Monopoly, Pitch, Aggravation, Truth or Dare, Risk,
days before studying for exams with all that NYS reading
and rarely exposed to a world of equity…justice.
But we were a family of five and it was just us
at the camp after my grandparents died, hurt still parked
in our hearts, we lost them, & another tea-leaf reading
of history circled the lake, five of us cross-country skiing,
knowing my mom would likely fall, she's always a risk,
and striding out our sorrow covered in toboggans & winter masks.
Dad was happy, predisposed to grumpiness, but a friendly mask
which was unusual. Perhaps he was bringing justice
to my sisters and I, a form of prayer, knowing we were at risk
of losing emotions at any moment because death stopped, parked
it’s darkness on us, even if it was snowing while we were skiing,
Another chapter in this book…just all of us, now reading
our memories: swimming on the lake, dam cars, bathing stars, red
hearts for WWII lovers, Rosie, and the disposable mask.
In the hustle of our movement, all of us were skiing
healing, surviving, laughing, seeking justice
when the snow grew heavier. We saw our car parked
across the lake, and we knew it things would get risky,
especially with mom. It was definitely time to go. A risk
because we should have known (we should of read)
that mom would break the ice, her poles parked
on the banks, her bottom drenched...and us with hiding behind masks
that couldn’t be hidden. We knew our laughter was not be just.
especially because it was mom...soaked...cross-country skiing.
Memories creep from within, nostalgia, family, masking
& writing our lives, as if we're reading poetic justice.
Mom wasn't happy as we found the parked car that day we were skiing
