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| Arsh Haque |
Last year, Professor Skinner held a seminar on British Poetry. Afterwards I took his Introduction to Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Poetry. It has provided me with much creative growth and is an example of the McConnell Center extending past the sphere of the program. Rather than delineating this point with prose, it seemed more apt to do so with a recent poem.
Chocolate Tangerines
Sometimes she throws on a salt-and-pepper wig
and acts like a spinster. There’s a bronze pot
in her attic she calls a cauldron. When things
feel blue she cooks that way. You wouldn’t
believe what a handful of bananas and
beakers can do. The Greeks used to
do it that way too. She showed me once.
They talk about her at reunions -
quietly. My younger cousins say
she’s a witch. My older cousins get
real quiet and sad. My mom said
it’s because she lost something special.
One day after Academic Team she picked me
up instead of mom. Mrs. Rodgers called
to make sure it was okay. Mom just said
gan-ma had a surprise for me. Then I got in
her sparkling red mini-van with the
sliding doors that opened like magic.
Heaving up and down like a Zulu dancer
she cackled and spit and made hissing
noises – I snickered and she hushed me. She
had turned off the light and everything looked
creepy. Then she took my nose and
smushed it between two knuckles,
before sneaking away to somewhere
hard to see. Too many cobwebs and boxes
marked Amy - but there was coughing
and swirling colors and the crinkling
of a wooden basket.
Then it was still.
The colors stopped and so did she, at least
it seemed that way. She moved so slowly I
could've swore she didn’t move at all, until
she opened her hand before me and I saw
her face glowing - a cool burnt orange
from the breath of a vial. Her voice was
a deep whisper and I had to lean in to hear it.
“Long ago, God was lonely and cold,
lost in a cosmic desert, full of dust and
baby blue suns - when She came upon
a kettle, not unlike this, and began to turn
her finger, like little girls twirling their little curls.”
She threw in the vial with a frightening crash,
and a mist brewed in its air. She warmly
took my hand and helped me begin to stir.
“Before Her formed an eye of midnight
blues and sparkling violets, with a roaring
fire bellowing on the fringes.” And so it
was with the cauldron before us. “But
She could see more than you or I ever
could, and saw an eye in the kettle
blink alive with little life! Streaming
with rivers and tears. Little people with
little dreams, waiting for their hearts to be
broken. So much like Herself. She stared
and stared, for years and years, until
one day
it stared back.”
“They prayed to Her, the little people;
send us an angel, this is too hard.
And God stood bewildered, and asked
who they were. They couldn’t hear Her
and only said; Bring us an angel so
we can see. Bring us an angel for our
eyes have grown tired, and our rivers
now flood; send us Your daughter
so we may learn how to love.
Please, please, send her and soon. Then
the eye blinked back to the abyss
from where it first came.”
I looked down, the tug of the story tugging
my eyes, and saw too the cauldron
had drawn dark.
“God not only sees more, She’s smart
and pretty too.” She stopped and eyed me
in such a way as if to ask, “Now, don’t you think
I’m pretty?” I nodded vigorously – after all, she
really was beautiful, even though she was old.
“She knew exactly what to do. So She left
Her beloved cauldron, and scoured the mystic desert.
Through dust and sweat, She brushed
Her forearm to brow and talked to
the wanderers who wandered by.
Books, bottles, and who knows what else;
She collected it all, with a wink and
a smile.” Then she brought forth a basket
filled with just that: Books, bottles,
shadows, and smiles.
“And so She began to cook an angel
in Her image, unlike any other, and called
her Daughter. First with a touch
of tangerine chocolates to bed in her hair.”
She squeezed a bottle of shampoo, that
sparked a faint pink light in the kettle.
“Then a hint of cinnamon to line her rosy lips.”
She rubbed the tips of her fingers – and
the kettle foamed a pale green. “Sapphires
for eyes that’d sparkle when she’d cry,” A small
ring plopped in growing froth of the pot.
“and a fire in her heart” Slime spilled from
her palm and the pot roared a new life, a
glowing ocean crashing in its belly. “that she filled
with youth” She sprinkled my nose between her
knuckles and winked at me – I grinned. “And
of youth now lost.” She had been dancing
this entire time, back and forth, loud and soft,
reaching and pulling – but now for a moment, cringed.
In her hand she held a photo, one of those
printed Polaroid kinds. On it was a
girl with a pixie cut and a denim jacket. Flashes
of sun dug their hands through her hair
in violent streaks of orange and brown.
She was beside a motorcycle, giggling,
a hand covering her face, next to a sign
that said Route 66. On its back scrawled in
Bics blue was 'Amy - Summer ‘01.’ I’m not sure
who it was but I wanted to be like her. She
tossed it in and continued, her voice a little hoarse.
“And so was the image of the angel.”
The photo lit up like a film negative -
the girl was breath-taking. She kinda looked
like gan-ma with a bit sharper face.
Then it was silent, except for the patter of
tiny splashes. I was excited to see
what it was. But when I looked up
I only saw her crying. She had the
most peculiar frown – it almost looked
happy. When she saw that I saw,
she quickly turned away
bringing a hand to her eye.
Then she backed away, melting into
shadows. She flipped the switch;
turned on the light. You wouldn’t believe it,
but the bronze pot was gone. A strange
blue one in its place. I couldn’t see where
she was, her voice a gentle phantom
floating just above.
“God fell in love with her new
baby Daughter.The winter had
finally passed. But as soon as the
tangerines began to bloom,
her Daughter had to leave too.
Off into the darkness,
to bring it some light.”
Arsh Haque, of Elizabethtown, Ky., is sophomore McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He is studying political science, biology, and physics.