No Regrets #6, Summer 2011

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No NoRegrets Regrets Journal Journal

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Summer 2011 Summer 2011 Issue 6 Issue 6

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No Regrets

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No Regrets is a journal of poetry, prosing, images about the twists and turns in being human and the search for love, meaning and community.

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Editor

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Clayton Medeiros is a poet and collage artist.

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Neil McKay (Johnny Trash) is technical consultant to the web site

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Submissions

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Submissions are by invitation of the Editor Copyright August 2011

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Marie Artemis Bernadette Carignan Outwater, 89 a vivacious and generous spirit in the world, died July 22, 2011 in New Bedford, Massachusetts where we were both born. An artist, a lover of ! life and my mother. I will miss her.

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All poems and prose in this issue are by Clayton Medeiros and dedicated to my mother.

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The Carignan Sisters I love the women from my childhood, my mother, favorite aunts. I can still hear my Aunt Charlotteʼs uproarious laugh cascade out of her kitchen, my motherʼs laugh not far behind. They would sit at the small, rectangular, oil cloth covered table having before dinner or after dinner drinks. Charlotte in one of her frumpy flowered dresses, indistinguishable from her night gowns, matching the yellow flowers of the equally well used oil cloth. My motherʼs seamstress skills celebrating her lanky elegance.

At funerals and holidays, my Aunt Franʼs raucous chortle would join the cacophony of stories punctuated by shrieks of cheery laughter from the Carignan sisters as they cracked up over some story from their childhood or mine. I can see them now sitting in those worn kitchen chairs in that kitchen so often filled with the buttery smell of baked fish and clam chowder.

Kitchens were at the heart of this family filled with great cooks. There was no such thing as a bad meal at home or visiting relatives. We lived with my Aunt Fran and her husband, Eddie Lubera. My mother worked, Aunt Fran was at home. Most days when I came home from school, there would be fresh baked cookies, often chocolate chip with lots of walnuts or brownies with lots of walnuts or some new experiment of Franʼs as she pushed out from our working class neighborhood to other cuisines.

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My transcendental nature knows that we continue in Myuniverse transcendental knows that continue this after wenature die, but I have nowe insight as toin this that universe afterNonetheless, we die, but I Ihave no my insight as to what means. believe favorite what that Nonetheless, I believe women frommeans. boyhood, the Carignan sisters,my arefavorite all women from boyhood, the Carignan sisters, once again together, chortling and keeping an are all once together, chortling and keeping an eye on again their favorite son and nephew. eye on their favorite son and nephew.

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Artist始s Hands Hands that once held the artist始s brush Cannot bring the fork to her mouth So I feed my mother her dinner Mashed potatoes ground beef Carrots catch her painter始s eye I ask her what she wants next She diligently works a hand across the table Trying mightily to reach the plate as I Place the bread between fingers and thumb So she can carefully chew the edges Useless legs so used to beaches Accompanied by neighborhood dogs Who one by one joined her walks To the bay on humid August days Or any other day for that matter In search of an Atlantic breeze One by one they went home On the return to the cottage where Aunt Charlotte was dying from Too much smoke and too much alcohol And too much time with a mean man Now Bernadette始s wistful blue eyes Search for flowers and birds In the nursing home hallways Where there is no one who wears Colorful crocheted slippers or uses hot pads That will outlive her in neighbors homes

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Box cover by Bernadette Outwater Box cover by Bernadette Outwater

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Bernie in Assisted Living Full circle at eighty eight Back to New Bedford to Whaler始s Cove assisted living For Bernadette Carignan Born in gabled elegance On County Street Considers herself an orphan After burying her siblings One after another Over the years Her trembling hands Arthritic and bent after Years of crochet hooks Knitting needles A seamstress delicacy The decorative brush of Her artist始s infallible eye Falls in love with clouds Cumulous and cirrus Camels and leviathans Outside her high windows Looking west to sunset Her favorite noisy gulls Float in blues and grays

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County Street, NewNew Bedford County Street, Bedford

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Eighty Nine My mother is eighty nine Covered by one of her many afghans Crotched with purples and pinks She looks up from the bed and says “I need to be doing, I need a job.�

She has always made and done My prize winning halloween outfits Her handiwork and art freely given To friends and cantankerous relatives And anyone else who came along Her hands no longer obey the eyes That still see possibility everywhere For the overflowing boxes and baskets Filled with multicolored yarns and fabrics Fodder for her seamstress fingers The steady click of crochet hooks Turning out colorful pot holders

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Pot holder by Bernadette Outwater Pot holder by Bernadette Outwater

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Mom and Movies On some Saturdays we would take the trolley and go to the movies. Snow White and Fantasia rise in my mind and popcorn with real butter on it and fountain cokes, vanilla if you were lucky. The Night on Bald Mountain was quite frightening and I had dreams about it.

We would walk from the little Cape Cod house where Uncle Eddie had finished the upstairs so we could have our own space.

I see my tall, slender, almost always smiling mother looking down at five year old me, listening carefully to whatever I had to say.

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Gulls for Bernie Morning wake up call Squawkers and screechers Dreamers against the night A renovated school roof perch Home to ever watchful gulls Keening in the airy sun rise Eager seekers of possibility My mother始s favorite creatures Other than anything small and furry Sailing on wind blown memories Of Cape Cod始s ocean beaches Her brother始s ever watchful eyes Alert to New Bedford始s denizens On the look out for innocence Eighty eight in a nursing home bed Dreams of childhood picnics

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Boxcover coverby byBernadette BernadetteOutwater Outwater Box

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The Last Carignan Girl

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The last of the Carignan girls Spread the ashes of her Older sisters over twenty years, Called me after her brotherʼs death, “I feel like an orphan,” she said, After burying him with his two wives.

He lived to be 96 only because She was there to cook and clean And care for his failing body.

This parsimonious New Englander, Unwilling to leave house and garden, Trying for a hospice care record.

She too did not want him to go, She knew it was more than a life.

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Box Box cover cover by

by Bernadette Bernadette Outwater Outwater

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Bird Song for Bernie Outside nursing home windows Beyond the closed doors Orioles flash and sing For my unhearing mother Slumped in sheepskin bedding Dreaming thin spring greens April始s not quite leaves Impressionist yellows Filter robin red breast tunes When the edge of sunrise Begins the day or sunset ends it

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Bernie始s Way

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Bent and almost used up After eighty eight summers When I was six I wanted to marry her The five foot ten Ex jitterbugger Who liked to laugh But never got free from Dropping out of high school Marrying the wrong man For every wrong reason But forgives him now Her face brightens When there is swing music Even now she likes jazz If its not too raucous Would dance if she could Across assisted living floors Out into the moonlight To meet her beloved Edwin

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Bernie始s Sisters Bernadette, Charlotte and Francis Chortling sisters once again From where ever one goes from this life Raucous laughter flows across the room Across clam bake picnic tables Across dinning table chowder bowls As they once again tell the story Of everyone but five year old me Sitting in the kitchen over coffee As I happily tossed down leftover drinks In the living room laughing into the kitchen And very soon asleep on the rug Mother始s only son and favored nephew Of childless aunts who took us in After she kicked my father out

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Pot holder by Bernadette Outwater !

Pot holder by Bernadette Outwater

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Aunt Charlotte We used to vacation with my Aunt Charlotte in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. We would stay for a week or so, sharing the second floor of a building that housed the small grocery store that she and her husband, Poolie Wlodyka, ran. It served the neighborhood and fishermen.

Fairhaven Center was lovely with old elm trees, brick walks, a drugstore with hot fudge sundaes, fishing boats coming and going from nearby wharves, MacArthur, a 25 year old German Shepherd, who made his rounds for snacks midmorning and once, a hurricane that took the roof off the church across the street. I watched from the second floor as it rose and fell, then blew off and flew down the street over the electric wires sparking among tangled trees and limbs.

When it was over, my mother let me go out and take pictures. They make up the greater part of my childhood photo album.

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Box top by Bernadette Outwater Box top by Bernadette Outwater

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Always Light

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Dozing waking dozing waking In the always obscure room Never familiar for eye or ear

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Dozing waking dozing waking In this unknown season With no garden certainty

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Dozing waking dozing waking With these strange voices Among unseen busy footsteps

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Dozing waking dozing waking In the always light Confusing night and day

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Waves on Horseneck Beach Remember family picnics Windblown girlish hair

County Street gables For lovers of hide and seek Kept sister始s secrets

The last Carignan Forgotten and forgetful Tide bound sandcastles

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Who called me today Remembrance escapes my mind Echoing voices

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I can see the past Clarity of purposes Lost in dark confusion

I am the aging Emerging in skin and bone But Oh! the sunset

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Hands in the garden Accompany my heart song Yellow crocuses

Spring flowered garden Getting along without me A new weed puller

The gulls come at last Float by old mill windows Preserved for my stay

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Infallible eye In clouds of descending blue Sees whales and camels

Palsied hands reach out Hopeful of form and color Touch the brushes tip ! !

Everyone has gone I stay with sky sun and moon Careful artist始s eye

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New worlds everyday Memory始s confused stories Merge with night time dreams

The dead do not dream Come to remind again Summer window rain

Mourning my mother Every day she disappears Yet she is still here

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No Regrets Journal www.noregretsjournal.com claymedeiros@aol.com 32