The Family Table

The old brown table,
sturdy and strong,
Watches our movements
Feels our touch
Warm on its surface like
caressing a cheek
It listens, and lives, and waits
Quietly,
it’s there through it all
Lurking in the background.
Listening. Watching.
Being.

With still wooden ears,
it takes in our lives
Listens
to the laughter of joyous tales
to the stories and childhood rhymes
to the hum of the appliances
to the soft, slippered footsteps of a midnight snack
It hears the sounds of our world
On its weathered, wooden surface,
it absorbs each moment.
Feels
pasta sauce splattering its face
vibrations of gleeful shrieks through its frame
tears that pool up on its cheeks as grief is transferred into its inanimate bark
The condensation and perspiration and inspiration and creation
of life moving on and around it.

Yet, it feels nothing inside its wooden body
Empty and hollow and old and unimportant
But, not to us
We see it as so much more than an ancient tree contorted into flat stillness
We see it as more than an animal of bark crawling on all fours
When we gaze upon it’s brown sheen
Or rest our elbows on it’s familiar surface,
We don’t feel emptiness

Instead,
We feel the warmth and comfort of an old friend who will always be there

A constant in an ever-changing world

Dark Sky

You walk out from under your awning into a dreary, humidified day. Above you, the sky is full and pregnant with millions of crystal-like infants. It rumbles and groans in discomfort. You feel sorry for the sky. Like Atlas holding up the world, the sky holds so much more. A universe full of satellites and stars and planets are held in her ever weakening hands. Lightening has withered her fingers. Balls of fury have erupted from her like tears.

Today, she will weep enough to fill a thousand rivers. She will cry for us and our terrible ways. Yet, her tears will feed our children and hydrate our bones. You will be warm in your bed when her hands beat on the clouds with her fists of fury. She will deprive us of the stars.

Mostly, the sky is a good mother. We are the terrible children. We cloud her world with acid and smoke. She gives us sun and warmth. We never look up at her vast beauty, but she always looks upon us. We forget about all she gives us. She will always remember us. She remembers the pain we inflict, and the tears she has leaked. Tonight, she will hide the jewels in the sky from our unappreciative eyes.

You walk down the street and curse at the sky, at your mother.
You hate the rain.

Going Nowhere Fast

The car engine hums like a lullaby
Like my mother’s lullaby
Her sleepy voice soft and comforting
Like the childhood blanket I slept with
Now the car hums a new melody
Rougher and more terrifying than the first
Yet, somehow it fits the mood
I am no longer a sleeping child

The wind whips my face in cold flashes of pain
Like Dad’s hands when he wiped my tears
Protecting me from the humiliation and sadness of life
With his rough, well-worn hands
Pain, the beautiful kind
The kind that makes you remember what its like to be alive

The stars above my head glisten
Like the stars that decorated my ceiling
Now, those ceiling stars are old and tired of shining
After years of guarding me
But, the ones that stare at me now,
They still glimmer and gleam
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have a future just as bright

The tattered chair I lay on
Like Grandpa’s old rocker as he read to me quietly
Of monsters and lovers of my dreams popping out of pages
They stay in my heart and and in my soul
Just like that rocking chair
And the person who occupied it
They will always haunt me

The hand that holds mine, fingers entwined
Like Dad and Mom each grasping one of my hands
As they lifted me off the ground and I spun in the air
With them holding tight
I could do whatever I wanted
I could soar the highest heights
I could make the world go upside down with a wave of my hand
I was powerful

My life
Past, Present, Future
Mapped out before me in the paved landscape
With all the dead ends and forks in my soul
Telling me to make my own memories
Reminding me to come back soon
Wishing me the journey of a lifetime

Victoria Testa
Age 16, Grade 10,
Fiorello H Laguardia High School of Music
Gold Key