Hill Holler

A little on the dark side with a twist in the tail is the way I’d describe Changed Days Indeed . It’s hard to find a single answer when I’m asked what this poem’s about.

It’s about how ancient relationships can still cast a shadow over us despite the passage of time. How easily unresolved emotions can be rekindled with something as simple as a glance. How no matter how much a person changes or improves themselves in life, there’s always someone unwilling to acknowledge that. I guess too that it demonstrates the saying ” the best revenge is a life well lived.”

I said there wasn’t a single answer, I never promised you a short one, ha! Hope you like it - it was a very different direction for me in my writing.

Changed Days Indeed

The china teacup chatters unevenly against the saucer
As if seeking rescue from her tremulous fingers.
Aristocratic as ever, though gossamer thin now,
Her startling blue eyes still serve to divert the unwary
From discerning the spitefulness harbored beyond.

One caustic glance and I hurtle back three decades
To a time of white knuckles clutching a scarred desk,
My small frame attempting to concertina itself into invisibility
While offering skyward fervent soundless prayers…
Lord, oh Lord, please don’t let me be called upon today.

It’s doubtful that many remember when she was judge
And jury to all who passed through her domain.
White chalk gave voice in exquisitely crafted longhand
To an unfaltering belief in her superior command
Of both language and frightened children.

I wince inwardly at the memory of my parent’s crushed faces,
As my cheeks maddeningly flush scarlet with shame.
She had pronounced sentence upon me, and
It was all the more scathing in its casual delivery.
I was the ‘girl that would never amount to much’.

I relieve her gradually of the dancing teacup.
Placing the cold steel against her wheezing chest,
To my ears the gasps of shock are more like a final breath.
White knuckled with resistance, she contorts her wizened body defiantly.

Thrashing in a cloud of linen and lavender scent,
She prays wide-eyed to God that she will not be called upon today.
Changed days indeed, I murmur to myself…

And yet despite my white coat and stethoscope,
In her rheumy eyes I still am,
And always will be
The girl that would never amount to much.