Ode to Memory: February 13, 2023
Ode to Memory: February 13, 2023
Olga Dugan
(for Mom and Kathleen Jensema)
what was it? hollowed out his heart
making the fury that swept our campus
gunning down three precious lives
leaving behind the bare foundations
of five others, an EF-5 flattening the rest
of us into one huge wind-rowing of debris
then succumbing to his own tailwind
blowing himself away when met by police
police who ordered shelter in place!
that nightmare of nights—when I heard
I turned out my dorm light
barricaded the door, hunkered between
bed and window, prayed disaster not
come my way—and it didn’t / but you did
first, scenes from one cacophonous winter
that made all the euphonous ones a blur—
my ex-fiancé walking out on me, mouthing
cliché it’s not you, it’s... freezing my heart
like a fallen and hardened snow
a frozen heart / a hollowed-out heart?
the difference is I prayed not to hate
though I feared it might never thaw
‘til Mom, poster-girl for the work ethic
surprised me, take off the fall semester
let your heart beat its Tabata free from
deference to being cold a long time
...in Oahu, no signs of winter, palms
whisper ocean’s rush, swashing waves
each noon-sky an event of mist and
rainbow, purple green sandpipers
walking in sunlight on water
each scene you conjure after this makes
love familiar again, and in the morning
still anchor-bolted to the floor, peeking
out the window at the wonder of creation
staring in, I find everything sacred—
writing it all down to remember wind
drifts on the turf grass field, bushes
pushing still-lush leaves through a gate
the lives schoolmates lost, some struggle
to keep, and yes, the night’s sower who
reaped his return as dark gave way to light
Olga Dugan
Poet
Olga is a Cave Canem poet. Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, her poems are forthcoming or appear in Saint Katherine Review, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, The Windhover, Ekstasis, Agape Review, Channel, Sky Island Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Write Launch, Grand Little Things, E-Verse Radio, The Sunlight Press, and Ariel Chart.
Photography by Pablo Zavala