The Pickle Factory by Pragya Bajpai (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

The Pickle Factory
by Pragya Bajpai

My grandfather owned a pickle factory
During my vacation, he took me along
That was his way of explaining the tough world

When I was six, he drove me through a trail of orchards
on the first morning of that winter to a village known for
great mango farming not far from the city
I played there by the riverside with the farmer aunty
She gifted me a pair of earrings and a bag of mangoes for my siblings
In the meantime, my grandfather made a deal
after an hour-long negotiation
then the truck was loaded with caution

He took me around the factory
Where the hall was full of huge oil drums lined up neatly
The spices were properly stacked in shelves
where the village men and women
were intently chopping raw mangoes for pickle
with the handmade iron cutter with wooden base
It wasn’t easy but he made me cut the smallest one carefully
to feel the labour involved in it
I was tired but my thrill remained intact
It was more exciting than going back
to doing mathematical calculations

PAINTING: Mango (watercolor) by Yevhen Verlen.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My grandfather, an Ayurvedic expert, established a pickle factory sometime during 1970s. The factory was located in the outskirts of the city around sprawling agricultural land. My grandfather’s pickle recipe was a revolution in taste. Mango pickle is an important condiment in Indian cuisine with plenty of health benefits, and my grandfather’s product became popular and in high demand. Produced with a high level of hygiene, the product earned government certification. Pickles were made with mustard oil and spices before they were put aside for fermentation. The pickling involved various steps in the production process that required huge manpower; but, as the company progressed, high technology machines were procured to speed production. The aroma of raw mangoes and spices filled the factory so much that one could detect it from a distance. Visiting a factory, knowing the process, and understanding the whole business from the grassroots level have been a great learning experience since childhood, the memory of which keeps me grounded.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pragya Bajpai, Ph.D., is a mother and a Central Government Officer serving on the faculty of English at the National Defence Academy. She is a post graduate from Lucknow University and holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Banaras Hindu University, India. Pragya published her debut book in 2021 titled A Potpourri of Proverbs, poems based on 51 English proverbs. She has co-edited four anthologies celebrating the armed forces. Her poetry has appeared in many anthologies and magazines.

I was in mid-air by Leslie Neustadt (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

I was in mid-air
by Leslie Neustadt

            when my granddaughter arrived
on the anniversary of my mother’s death,
as if she’d willed me a girl child.

Every week, the doctor peered into her heart,
searching for flaws while Maia nestled
in her mother’s troubled womb.

At term, Maia refused to descend.
After 30 hours, Sylvia was sliced open
and Maia scooped up.

She was feisty as a ferret. Her electrical
signals marched in perfect rhythm.
No pacemaker needed, as feared.

My own baby girl had failed to survive.
After forty years, my lungs opened
like a fan from Maia’s sweet breath.

A sigh slid from my lips. No longer
a woman with a litany, her birth
limned my cracks with gold.

Photo by Frenta.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I was heartbroken when, many years ago, my only daughter was born prematurely and died shortly after birth. When my granddaughter, Maia, entered the world healthy despite her mother’s high-risk pregnancy, it was cause for celebration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Poet, writer, and visual artist Leslie Neustadt is a retired New York Assistant Attorney General and the author of Bearing Fruit: A Poetic Journey. She is a former board member of the International Women’s Writing Guild and a member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, where she created an award-winning Community of Jewish Writers reading series in the Capital Region. Leslie’s writing and art are illuminated by her Jewish background, commitment to social justice and gender equality, and her experiences as a woman, daughter, wife, mother, and cancer patient. Visit her at LeslieNeustadt.com.

Grandpa’s Tackle Box by Gary Grossman (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Grandpa’s Tackle Box
by Gary Grossman

The thickened air was cold as
permafrost as we picked through
87 years of accumulation,
sentimental trilobites wrapped in
the papery shale of lived years.

In a far corner, under an eave,
sat a tackle box, metallic green
mottled with rust, the colors of
duckweed trapped in the corner of
a pond full of brim.

Opened, the layered trays creaked—joints
almost as frozen as Grandpa’s
aged knees. The box was a small
galaxy of rusted hooks, bobbers,
plugs and needle nose pliers.

The tangle brought back his hours of
help with my middle school science
project, a model cell—Golgi bodies,
mitochondria, and the sticky
sounding endoplasmic reticulum.

An embalmed night crawler lays across
both a red-headed bass plug and a
leopard frog endowed with two trebles,
somehow having escaped our old tin
worm can. It crumbled at my touch.

My earliest memory, us walking back
from Uncle Jake’s pond. I didn’t
even reach four feet and he remarked
“The stringer’s heavy, let me carry it.
We had a good day, didn’t we?”

Originally published in Verse-Virtual, June 2022

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My Grandfather was born in Ukraine during the 1890s and immigrated to the U.S. in 1913. I doubt he had as many experiences as a child that I did growing up in the 1950s-60s, but he always encouraged my many interests, especially fishing and baseball. He passed in 1972.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gary Grossman is retired Professor of Fisheries at University of Georgia. His poetry is published or forthcoming in 29 reviews, including: Verse-Virtual, Poetry Life and Times, Your Daily Poem, Poetica, Trouvaille Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Poetry Superhighway, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Knot, and Delta Poetry Review. His essays have appeared in Alaska Magazine and American Angler, and his short fiction has been featured in MacQueen’s Quinterly. For 10 years, he wrote the “Ask Dr. Trout” column for American Angler. Gary’s first book of poems, Lyrical Years, is forthcoming in 2023 from Kelsay Press. His hobbies include running, music, fishing, and gardening. Visit his website, garygrossman.net, and his blog, garydavidgrossman.medium.com.

PHOTO: Gary Grossman with an Arctic Grayling (Chena River, Alaska). Photo by Jason Neuswanger.

More Rare Than Rubies by Gail Tirone (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

More Rare Than Rubies
by Gail Tirone

Age 16, it was my first time
in a vault — cold and dark
with a splash of James Bond

My grandmother, a proud New Yorker
shoulders thrown back, head held high
in her black-and-white tweed suit
and confident stride
showed me the ropes

She’d decided my 16th birthday gift
would be a ring
a beautiful ring for a beautiful girl
she recited it like a nursery rhyme
trying hard to convince me
that I was

In the small locked room
we sat on miniature stools
and from the long metal box
she carefully extracted jewels
unveiling a parade of rings
on the black velvet shelf
— a lustrous white bud of pearl
— a gold circle flecked with diamond chips
— a small amethyst set in silver

I considered my options
— all nice, but none that I wanted
I hesitated

Choose, she encouraged
she smiled
They’re all lovely —
which do you like best?

This woman who grew up poor
a Lower East Side Cinderella
locked alone in a tenement
where she sat on the floor
and played with mice
instead of toys

Well, the one I really like…
is this one, I said
pointing to the emerald
on her hand
a frozen pool of Titian greens
poised in an elegant filigree setting
as if spun on a loom of platinum lace

Her emerald had power
granting its bearer
the worldliness and sophistication
I yearned for

She gave me a long look and
without hesitation
pulled the emerald ring
off her finger
and placed it on mine

A fairy godmother
in herringbone tweed
she dispensed joy
and bestowed confidence
gifting emeralds with glee.

IMAGE: Watercolor rainbow gemstone paintings by Elle Aiche. Prints available at etsy.com.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I hope anyone who had a grandparent (or friend or family member) who offered them nurture and encouragement will connect with the experience in this poem.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gail Tirone is originally from New York and now lives in Houston, Texas. She’s a Best of the Net nominee and a finalist for the Red Mountain Poetry Prize, 2020. She has a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.A. in English from the University of Houston. Her poetry has appeared in Hawaii Pacific Review, The Hong Kong Review, Mediterranean Poetry, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Weight of Addition Anthology, and elsewhere. Read her interview on Writing about Place in The Hong Kong Review. 

As I call my poet friend Sharon in Arizona by Abha Das Sarma (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

As I call my poet friend Sharon in Arizona
by Abha Das Sarma

Springing army of hands
grip from sides of the lazy-boy couch,
contrasting in color to my hair
now a pure white.

Get the hair brush, quick—
commands the elder by three years
as the little one shoots back and forth
with combs, headbands and a box full of hair coils.

No, not black! Get the others—
Which color do you like, Dida? the sisters chatter.

Is it Sharon? Sharon in Arizona? I try to hear
still in captivity of tiny fingers,
Yes, I’m calling from San Francisco.

My granddaughters continue to part my hair
into as many strands as the colors of ties—
Alcot and Merry still at my feet
purring, their tails up, joining in celebration,
sensing ultimate victory as I surrender
to pulling, plaiting, and simply knotting.

Why don’t you comb mine?
I hear my husband say in distance—
After you color them white
the answer is clear, a blessing
that I have carried for the last thirty years.

Oh Sharon, are you still there—
Can you hear my granddaughters?

Two faces and four eyes swoop over my mobile
swift as an eagle on its prey contemplating flight
with growing dusk and fading light.

I’m going back to India in two days
I struggle to complete—
Is Sharon your friend? the eldest asks,
Yes. Would you like to talk to her?

There is silence—
It is ok to be shy, I tell them
as I say goodbye to Sharon.
My granddaughters continue to install a bun
out of my scant hair
with the dedication of a monk.

IMAGE: Telephone lines by Ray Wong.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I miss my granddaughters, the way they would surround me, push me and take charge of my hair, their tiny fingers working swiftly, parting and pulling it. I never imagined that graying can be such a blessing, giving me some of the best moments of my life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma gets most enjoyment from writing. She has a blog of over 200 poems and her poetry has appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, The Ekphrastic Review, and Trouvaille Review, among others. She spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, and currently lives in Bengaluru.

Balloon Moon by Mary Ellen Talley (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Balloon Moon
by Mary Ellen Talley

We have just walked out of Safeway
where the bakery worker
gave some leftover balloons
to my granddaughter, Taylor –
that is, of course, besides
the usual free cookie.

Oh, the shock as my granddaughter
enters her car seat
and ribbons of the balloon bouquet
slip off her small wrist.
Five balloons leap from the car
and quickly rise skyward
past houses and trees.
I know Taylor’s joy
will become sobs of grief
if I don’t turn this moment around.
I ask what little girl
might live on the moon tonight,
and perhaps she has been hoping for balloons.
Taylor says the girl’s name is Angie
and she will have her birthday party tomorrow.
I think I see Taylor’s imagination
ascend toward the waning gibbous glow
as the pastel balloons grow distant
far from this Seattle parking lot
into the moonlit sky.

IMAGE: Girl with Balloon by Banksy (2002). The image first appeared under the Waterloo Bridge in London during 2002 with the caption, “There is Always Hope.”

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote the first draft of this poem in 2012. Today as I revise the poem, my granddaughter is turning 14 years old. Back then, I was relieved and elated that we found a way to continue a pleasant overnight visit. I will give this poem to my granddaughter as a birthday gift. The memory remains close to my heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Ellen Talley’s recent poems have been published in Raven Chronicles, Banshee, What Rough Beast, Flatbush Review, and Ekphrastic Review as well as in the anthologies, Chrysanthemum and Ice Cream Poems. Her poems have received three Pushcart nominations and her chapbook, Postcards from the Lilac City, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

I want to teach Emma who is two by Patrick T. Reardon (THOUGHTS ABOUT THE EARTH Series)

I want to teach Emma who is two
by Patrick T. Reardon

I want to teach Emma who is two
to look out this window
at the chaos of yellow and green
on the mid-autumn tree
— not so chaotic when,
from the ground,
she can see the tree trunk,
solid thick, rising up and branching
and branching with myriad leaves,
each one a tiny branch
but bursting with surface
to feed on light and color
to signal the arc of its journey —
and to notice
how it looks now on this cloudy day
and yesterday in the joyful sun
and tomorrow with the rumble rain,
and to feel with her eyes
the touch of the grit
of the mortar and bricks
of the brown wall behind these leaves,
and to see with her spirit
the spirits moving around
behind that wall,
living the arcs of their journeys,
and to rise up
in her connection to mystery
to the heavens to look down
on this city, this world,
to look down
and see the billions of spirits
on sidewalks and forest paths,
on fields and in towers,
each yearning, each breathing,
each hoping amid the chaos of pain
in the arcs of their journeys,
to look down
and be one with those multitudes
— You, Emma, are multitudes —
and one with the world where they live,
the breathing, yearning earth,
as beautiful
as this mid-autumn tree
outside this window,
which is as beautiful
as every thing
in the Cosmos
and as she is.

PAINTING: Chestnut Trees in Autumn by Hubertine Heijermans (1977).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Emmaline Patrick Reardon is my granddaughter and is soaking up everything she can about life. And she finds it all delightful. So I am always looking for stuff to teach her, including the really big stuff.

PHOTO: The author’s granddaughter, Emmaline Patrick Reardon, with the tree featured in the poem, upper right.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick T. Reardon, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, is the author of ten books, including the poetry collections Requiem for David (Silver Birch Press) and Darkness on the Face of the Deep (Kelsay).His memoir in prose poems Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby is forthcoming from Third World Press, and his chapbook The Lost Tribes will be published in January 2022 by Gray Book Press. His poetry has appeared in America, Burningwood Literary Journal, Rhino, Meat for Tea, Under a Warm Green Linden, and many other journals. His Pump Don’t Work blog can be found at patricktreardon.com.

How to find your voice by JC Sulzenko (HOW TO Series)

How to find your voice
By JC. Sulzenko

It’s not every day your voice forsakes you.

From childhood on, I learned songs by ear—nursery rhymes, carols, Broadway tunes, gospel, folk, and rock.

I sang around campfires, on long car rides, in a mass choir, and later in an a capella group.

Just after my mother died, I dropped out. I got used to humming anthems and pop songs to myself, to whispering lullabies to my grandchildren.

Until the other day, when I had my granddaughter’s attention and remembered that song about wheels on the bus.

I heard the melody in my head and started to sing, but the notes, the words came out with a rasp and off-key.

I drank cold water and tried again. I switched to a simpler rhyme, with the same results. That’s when I had to admit my singing voice was missing. I needed to find it.

I began in the top left hand drawer of my dresser where I keep practical things—nail files, combs, unopened lipsticks and compacts, single buttons, along with an array

of discouraging cloth facemasks. What had I hoped to find there? If not my voice, then a clue as to where it had gone and why.

I rummaged in the back of my closet, behind the silk sheaths that won’t fit until I emerge from this claustrophobic cocoon, my wonky hip is replaced, and I can exercise without

pain. I pulled out my jewelry box—I’d forgotten the crystals I wore to the last party we attended when we could go wherever we wanted. I put them back.

I speculated. Perhaps my singing voice had gone dormant under the fine snow, which fell for a day, a night and sculpted the landscape to its design.

Or perhaps, constricted by lockdowns, my voice escaped and fled into heaven’s blues, icy Blues. Or perhaps it simply lost itself, whatever the reasons.

It needn’t worry that it’s not good enough. The child will recognize her grandmother’s music, even on a small screen.

ART: The Banjo Lesson by Mary Cassatt (1893).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: As most of my interaction with everyone outside the home, including our family, has become virtual, I noticed how my own inner and outer dynamics have shifted. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not. Prolonged isolation has affected my self-discipline, my sense of purpose, and my readiness to write. It also has made me realize how much I miss singing with other people. Instead of shelving poetry ideas as I am wont to do at this point in my life, I felt some urgency to compose “How to find your voice” once I saw Silver Birch Press’s call for “how to’” poems. As an aside, I recently joined an online choir and enjoy the sessions more and more each week.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: JC Sulzenko’s poems appeared on Arc’s Poem of the Year shortlist, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, and Oratorealis, in anthologies and online, either under her name or as A. Garnett Weiss. Silver Birch Press and The Light Ekphrastic publish her. In 2020, her work appeared in Vallum, the Naugatuck River Review, and the Poetry Leaves project. She won the Wind and Water Writing Contest and the WrEN award (Children’s Poetry) and judged poetry for the National Capital Writing Contest in 2019.  Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology (Mansfield Press) the Poet’s Pathway, and County CollAboRaTive projects featured her in 2018. Point Petre Publishing released JC’s South Shore Suite…Poems (2017). Her centos took top honours in The Bannister Anthology (2016, 2013). She presented workshops for the Ottawa International Writers Festival, the Canadian Authors Association, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the Ottawa Public Library, and a number of Alzheimer societies, among others. She has published six books for children and co-authored poetry chapbooks Slant of Light and Breathing Mutable Air  with Carol A. Stephen. Based in Ottawa, Canada, JC curates the Glebe Report’s “Poetry Quarter” and serves as a selector for bywords.ca. Visit her at jcsulzenko.com.

Refugio’s Hair, poem by Alberto Rios

REFUGIO’S HAIR
by Alberto Rios

In the old days of our family,
My grandmother was a young woman
Whose hair was as long as the river.
She lived with her sisters on the ranch
La Calera–The Land of the Lime–
And her days were happy.
But her uncle Carlos lived there too,
Carlos whose soul had the edge of a knife.
One day, to teach her to ride a horse,
He made her climb on the fastest one,
Bareback, and sit there
As he held its long face in his arms.
And then he did the unspeakable deed
For which he would always be remembered:
He called for the handsome baby Pirrín
And he placed the child in her arms.
With that picture of a Madonna on horseback
He slapped the shank of the horse’s rear leg.
The horse did what a horse must,
Racing full toward the bright horizon.
But first he ran under the álamo trees
To rid his back of this unfair weight:
This woman full of tears
And this baby full of love.
When they reached the trees and went under,
Her hair, which had trailed her,
Equal in its magnificence to the tail of the horse,
That hair rose up and flew into the branches
As if it were a thousand arms,
All of them trying to save her.
The horse ran off and left her,
The baby still in her arms,
The two of them hanging from her hair.
The baby looked only at her
And did not cry, so steady was her cradle.
Her sisters came running to save them.
But the hair would not let go.
From its fear it held on and had to be cut,
All of it, from her head.
From that day on, my grandmother
Wore her hair short like a scream,
But it was long like a river in her sleep.

PAINTING: “Woman Combing Her Hair” by Edgar Degas (1894).

SOURCE: “Refugio’s Hair” appears in Alberto Rios‘s collection The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2002), available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alberto Alvaro Ríos was born in Nogales, Arizona, in 1952. He received a BA from the University of Arizona in 1974 and an MFA in Creative Writing from the same institution in 1979. His poetry collections include Dangerous Shirt (Copper Canyon Press, 2009); The Theater of Night (2007); The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body (2002), nominated for the National Book Award; Teodora Luna’s Two Kisses (1990); The Lime Orchard Woman (1988); Five Indiscretions (1985); and Whispering to Fool the Wind (1982), winner of the 1981 Walt Whitman Award. He has been honored with numerous awards, including six Pushcart Prizes, the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Since 1994, he has served as Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, where he has taught since 1982. In 2013, Ríos was named the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona.

Refugio’s Hair, poem by Alberto Rios

REFUGIO’S HAIR
by Alberto Rios

In the old days of our family,
My grandmother was a young woman
Whose hair was as long as the river.
She lived with her sisters on the ranch
La Calera–The Land of the Lime–
And her days were happy.
But her uncle Carlos lived there too,
Carlos whose soul had the edge of a knife.
One day, to teach her to ride a horse,
He made her climb on the fastest one,
Bareback, and sit there
As he held its long face in his arms.
And then he did the unspeakable deed
For which he would always be remembered:
He called for the handsome baby Pirrín
And he placed the child in her arms.
With that picture of a Madonna on horseback
He slapped the shank of the horse’s rear leg.
The horse did what a horse must,
Racing full toward the bright horizon.
But first he ran under the álamo trees
To rid his back of this unfair weight:
This woman full of tears
And this baby full of love.
When they reached the trees and went under,
Her hair, which had trailed her,
Equal in its magnificence to the tail of the horse,
That hair rose up and flew into the branches
As if it were a thousand arms,
All of them trying to save her.
The horse ran off and left her,
The baby still in her arms,
The two of them hanging from her hair.
The baby looked only at her
And did not cry, so steady was her cradle.
Her sisters came running to save them.
But the hair would not let go.
From its fear it held on and had to be cut,
All of it, from her head.
From that day on, my grandmother
Wore her hair short like a scream,
But it was long like a river in her sleep. 

PAINTING: “Woman Combing Her Hair” by Edgar Degas (1894)