Open Window

A lifetime ago, on the side of Nanna and Poppa’s house
I entertained a furry caterpillar, quiet as a mouse.

Where Nanna’s peonies exploded pink and red,
I found the little guy crawling on the leaves in the flower bed.

I burst with wanting to show, wanting to share
With my little sister, its wriggling, tickling, fuzzy hair.

Usually babbling, bouncing everywhere, just then napping quiet
My baby sister, just talking, just walking – every night stirred a riot.

This curling little joy, I thought, could calm her scary fears
Help our tired momma quiet her nightly cries and tears.

Just like my silent new friend, crawling in the in-between,
I explored content, below the open window, quiet, unseen.

The moments that menaced ahead - I didn’t have a clue.
A fork in the path of life, the road to regret, a memory to rue.

In the gentle breeze flowing,
Nanna’s curtains are yet blowing
Forever in my mind
Ivory lace yet swags in the window of memory
Where I found such a cruel find.

My dear Poppa, a Uniformed Man, served brave
Pearl Harbor’s fate didn’t make him take a watery grave

In the background, Hawaii,
Poppa’s music nostalgia, Aloha Oe
The flowing, exotic, familiar sounds wafted out,
Serenading my tiny living toy.

The frozen memory a headstone for something died
To mark when I, surreal, swallowed the bitterest pill
Of love that lied.

A mortal wound inflicted so unnecessary
Wrought by the anger of Poppa’s weary grudge still wary.

Momma and Poppa argued blunt, because they didn’t know
I played below that hateful, fateful, open window.

Oh the shame, the suffocating pain - the day I overheard,
The impossible, the unthinkable, the absurd.

A young, older child I was, still trusting and frail
Unwittingly eves dropping an agonizing betrayal.

Sentiments to poison, spoil and recoil all love and trust
Such hard heartedness, such prejudice - so unjust.

Sputtering, my Poppa, my hero, my trusted confidant
Uttering brutal words never before had I heard him flaunt.

Never to forget the day I discovered a sham so dark and mean
My dear Poppa wasn’t all he had said, all he had seemed.

A shocking betrayal of the heart
With his cruel agenda, he would rip us apart.

My grandfather bullying, urging my distraught mother
Pressed her pawn me off to stranger, throw me to another.

My storyteller, a beloved, tender Poppa to me
My shelter, my caretaker, had rocked me on his knee.

Would now have his daughter abandon his own posterity,
Telling, yelling she protect my little sister, and forget about me.

Just a child with a caterpillar, playing below the window
So precarious a moment, who would know?

Of course, forgiveness might sooner been received
Had not my desperate mother eventually, reluctantly, agreed.

Many a reason over-heard, some about my father, gone for good, the no good SOB.
With such resemblance to him, apparently, there was no future in me.

He hounded momma about the things being checked, being required,
Visits and reports, reported to the court, the state and the judge,
Poppa just wouldn’t budge.

With Nanna gone, not standing up for me, not helping him, he said we wouldn’t win;
I heard my once brave Poppa tell momma to just give up on me, just give in.

He persuaded momma justifiably, emphatically
Wincing, so convincing, it was best for all, for her and for me.

But the part hardest to tell
The part Poppa hissed and didn’t yell

Though I didn’t know what it was then,
He blackmailed my childish mother, as she did her best to this villainy protest,
But poppa, a trained manipulator, would his daughter, emotionally molest;

He made the claim I would bring my little sister to trouble and shame.
That if momma didn’t listen, she would have only herself to blame.

I heard him say all the imagined ways I was bad,
I know I’ll never know a moment more confusing, or sad.

I loved my little sister, would miss her, more than I could say
I couldn’t ever, would never hurt her in any way.