Esther’s CLL classes, Week of Feb. 6 '06
eahelfgott2@comcast.net
www.writingworks.homestead.com
Curriculum Vitae
by Lisel Mueller
1992
1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.
2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of
course I do not remember this.
3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.
4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building
with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.
5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.
6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones
and primrose marshes, a short train ride away.
7) My country was struck by history more deadly than
earthquakes or hurricanes.
8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother
told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets.
9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights
of adolescence.
10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun
and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed
behind in darkness.
11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually
I caught up with them.
12) When I met you, the new language became the language
of love.
13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry.
The daughter became a mother of daughters.
14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying
threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left
unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate
present.
15) Years and years of this.
16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an
old man's loneliness.
17) And then my father too disappeared.
18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my
childhood, but it was closed to the public.
19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger
than mine.
20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are
breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.
From Alive Together: New and Selected Poems by
Lisel Mueller, published by Louisiana State University Press.
Copyright © 1996 by Lisel Mueller All rights reserved.
___________________________________________
Cancer Lifeline Women Writers Reading Series #2
Wed. Feb 15, 2006, 6 - 8:00 pm
Participants in Esther’s writing groups at the Greenlake site
and at Northwest Hospital, will read from their work.
Ravenna's Third Place Books (in the Honey bear Bakery)
6504 20th Ave NE
206-525-2347
Wheelchair accessible. Free
Open mike as time allows
CANCER LIFELINE'S MISSION: Optimizing the quality of life
of all people affected by cancer-- patients, survivors, family,
friends, caregivers and coworkers.
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