July Poet Cynthia Connell Davis
My Friend Pat, An Artist
Three Small Rooms
There is a thin wall
A door barricaded at night
Between her and the people of the street.
She has rented a small office room in an old building
And lives there against the law and rules.
As she walks with the help of her walker
The mile to the supermarket, Fred Meyer’s,
Slowly with her little dog in the cage
On the seat of the walker
She mingles with the people of the street
In a world of cold, hunger, and fear.
Two small office rooms ago, in an old house made into offices
She called the landlord when someone from the street
Broke in, in the night. A vicious energy roamed the halls.
She had to leave quickly, within days, her few possessions --
Computer, dog bed, books, harp --
Hauled trip by trip
To another small office room in an old building
With thin walls, with an ill-fitting door.
A friend with a nearly broken down pick-up truck
Who had to give up his dog because he could not afford his food
Who lives in a trailer with nearly no heat helped her.
The second house was haunted by an unquiet spirit.
Some folks don’t notice such things.
Yet a previous renter, a stranger, advised her to get out fast.
She befriended the spirit as best she could.
But her little dog could not settle down.
She moved into another old building
where the plumbing fails sometimes,
Into a small office room with thin walls
With a door barricaded against
a world of cold, hunger, and fear,
There are trees outside her window
She calls it “the forest preserve.”
Living in a small office room illegally
The very flooring like the flat untruths she tells the manager:
“Yes, this is my office. No, I don’t live here. I am a writer
And I work at all hours of the day and night. The landlady approved it.”
She does not have an address
Because the mail is always stolen.
The Blue Cab Drivers
In the world of cold, hunger and fear,
Close to the people of the street
Talking to them, listening to them,
She walks with her walker, gradually
Making her way to Fred Meyer’s,
To look at the balloon animals
In front of the flowers – those balloons worth the hours
Needed to get there and back.
The Blue Cab drivers sometimes
Give her the special rate for a ride
And know her dog by name
And carry him in the cage for her
And load her walker and then unload it.
She will email the new USA president to ask
That a special medal of honor be designated
for the Blue Cab drivers who have driven
through the nights, through the pandemic,
The Blue Cab drivers who know the street people,
as well as she does
since they transport them if the street person
has a coin for the cab fare.
“Most of them,” Steve says, “are good people
Who just got down on their luck. Anybody could wind up there.”
A world of cold, hunger, and fear
Huddling in old blankets and rags, one in a wheelchair
At the Supermarket
The balloon animals in front of the bouquets
Of flowers capture her imagination –
She makes up a scene in a story –
There’s danger, desperation, and rescue
Carried out magically by a lavender
And rainbow-colored, shimmering unicorn.
The Artist
She plays the harp and gives lessons online.
She wrote and published a novel, is writing another.
She reads Tarot cards to make money.
She walks in beauty like the night
Of starry skies and misty climes
Even in the high winds and beating rain of winter
In Bellingham, Washington, with the ocean at the doorstep
Warm summer night sounds – crickets, night birds
Seem to sing around her all year long.
Pressing on, with the journey she finds within her
And around her
Slipping by in the shadows of freedom
A starving artist living in compassion, love, art
Living against the law.