I have a recurring memory-image from childhood: white concrete, the moon, the deep deep blue of night sky, Mt. Hood, feeling the cold of the rear window glass in my grandmother's car at night. They're all related, all connected, but I don't know in what way. Within all that are the memories of my "friends," the small beings that came in the night to float me through doors and walls and out the front of the house and up into the large fir tree in our neighbor's front yard. There, in that tree, I'd wait for "them" to come.
I did go to Mt. Hood when I was very little; younger than the age I was in this memory. And at that young age, we did not live in the house where these memories take place; that came about three years later. Furthermore, the concrete (front yard torn up and replaced with white concrete) -- that too came later, after we'd lived in the second house for some years. So the memories are all true, but mixed up...
I said I'd been to Mt. Hood when I was very young, that I know because I was told so, but only remember seeing it as were drove away. And it was late at night. Why my grandmother would be driving just the two of us (for it was only herself and I that went up to Oregon at that time) in the Mt. Hood area late at night doesn't make sense... but I have a clear memory of the glass all around, the night sky, the moon, and the looming silent white of Mt. Hood's giant peak.
These memories have been nagging at me, as well as the images, and I was impelled to write this poem, without thinking of anything, just letting it come. The ending surprised me a bit.
Moon and Concrete
a stream of consciousness regression. . .
hard white
harsh, bone
rough
glittering, shimmers
stark light
chalk like
silence
pool of stone, reflecting a heavy Prussian-blue sky -- invisible
round white soft with gray
following
through windows
bouncing off cold cold snow mountains
at night
pretending sleep in my wool coat
gliding silently through cold snow white blue night light
moon and concrete,waiting, breathing
watching...
