Oh My

What must I be thinking?

Way past my bedtime,

This wordsmith tinkering.

When the words come, something

Must be done to keep me from

Stumbling off of the path, the tip tap

Of the keyboard sound, the hum

Of the alphabet lovely, profound.  Out

My window I spy, the radio tower, red

Flashing light like a Christmas tree bower.

It’s quiet, it’s cool, the desert night

Flowering, a buzz in the air, cicadas perhaps?

Stars twinkling bright, planes overhead,

In the morning, I fear a sluggish rise out of bed.

But, what does one do, when the muse is afoot?

A cuppa coffee sounds grand, restless sleep

Not what I planned.  It’s lovely all the chirping

I’m crazy with song, perhaps one more stanza,

Can I really go wrong?  Satisfied as I am

With this great Spring night, when I wake in

The morning, I’ll look quite a fright.  Hmmmm.

Yes, it’s worth it my friends, when the muse

Whispers and beckons my need to extend

Just one more sentence, one more rhyme,

Lots of coffee to drink once I rise quite a fright,

Yes, yes, yes, sounds like a party of peace,

Contented and right.

4/5/2026…pjpeery@me.com

Walking on a Sweltering Day. April 1, 2026

I took a walk by myself,

In Springs glorious wind,

I spied a man, he looked an elf,

Reminded me of my old

Friend, the Great George Morph.

He held a staff twice his height

And certain as he was, each

Step was left and right, the staff

Was carved with native beings,

At once he made we want to sing,

Not a Val-de-re or a Val-de rah –

But a cheer that showed younger

Ones that we won’t disappear.  The

Sweat rolled down across my eyes,

My companion with suspenders

Holding up well-washed Levis.

What can be said of spontaneous wealth

No equal to silver and gold, look

What the spirits give when we revive

Ourselves, confident and bold.  No pretense,

No need to go fast, a gander at

Wildflowers before their time is passed.

We’ve got it all, just stop and think, it’s

Likely all the toys and things aren’t

Really what we crave, the gold comes

When our hearts beat well, and we’ve

Nothing to really save.  Just take a step,

Take a ride, we have no idea all the treasures

The gods devise, so we may have joy and perhaps

Some sorrow, but never surrender or think to

Borrow what is good for one or another, look

Into the heart, a good place to start, hold your

Own sway, be kind on your way, and let your

Cup runneth over, share with a stranger,

Sing a new song, aching for more is it’s

Own kind of prison, and our hearts and

Souls can be quietly soothed, no harm

Only charm, so simply comply.  Don’t

Stand on the shore waving good by,

Look up to the sky, breath deep as you sigh.

Pjpeery@me.com

Stars are born inside collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Gravity pulls atoms together until hydrogen fuses into helium and light ignites. Pressure creates fire. A newborn star pushes outward even as gravity pulls inward. The balance between collapse and radiance defines its life.

Children arrive this way. Not as blank slates. Not as empty vessels.

But as singularities of compressed potential.

Before a child speaks, before a child is named, and before the mother holds her close to decide whether she is wanted, feared, or misunderstood, that child is already a universe in form.

Cells divide with astonishing precision. Neural networks begin wiring before the first cry. A heart begins beating before the mother feels the quickening. Limbs form. Eyelids fuse and reopen. Fingernails emerge. The body assembles itself in darkness.

Inside the womb is a kind of event horizon. Information flows in, hormones, sound, stress, tenderness, but the interior world remains largely unseen. 

We do not remember our gestation, yet it shapes us.

Black holes are surrounded by the event horizon, a boundary beyond which nothing can return unchanged. Cross it, and you are changed forever.

Birth is an event horizon.

The child passes from fluid darkness into air. The lungs, which have never breathed, expand. Oxygen floods the blood. The cry is less a sound than an ignition.

Expansion.

The room witnesses it, but the room does not comprehend it. Because every child arrives carrying galaxies of possibility, and the adults around them can only see a small, fragile body. Some children are recognized immediately. Applause. Tears. A carefully chosen name. A nursery is prepared. Some children arrive in silence. Into tension. Into economic strain. Into gender disappointment. Into fear. Into prejudice. Into history.

But recognition does not define the child’s potential.

The universe does not become smaller because no one names it.

Within each infant lies a gravitational center, a core organizing experience. Personality forms before language. Temperament, sensitivity, receptivity. Some children are porous to sounds and emotions. Some emerge fiery and loud. Some watch intently. Some absorb readily. Some resist gravity from the very beginning.

A galaxy rotates because something invisible holds it.

A family rotates because something invisible holds it.

And in one hospital room in New York City, gravity took a particular shape.

Father had gallstones and was being wheeled into surgery as Mom was in labor. He missed the birth entirely. Mom’s brother, all 6 feet 4 of him, was arched like a tree under the weight of the wind, standing by the door, ready to blow away. The first-time grandmother was so excited she ran into the door and broke her glasses.

Mother screamed, pushed, and screamed again. The family took the grandmother out into the hall to calm her down. The doctor stood by the mother, and together, one breath at a time, they brought Matilda in. The room was on pause, and Matilda, who would be known as Maddie, came out swinging, hands and feet flying like a tiny helicopter. She was six weeks early. She could barely breathe, and they took her from her mom’s arms to place her in an incubator. The room was silent again.

It was August 26, 1949.

Three days later, the Soviet Union would detonate its first atomic bomb.

The world did not know yet, but something had already shifted in the air.

A woman’s voice snaps her back.

The clerk behind the counter has short bobbed hair and black-rimmed glasses that slide down her nose as she examines the prints.

“How do you see them framed?”

“Museum matting,” Matilda says.

“And simple black frames.”

As Matilda leaves the frame shop, she heads into the park. Pulling out her phone, she begins taking photographs.

The trees are bare, their black branches reaching into a pale winter sky. Remnants of last week’s snow, darkened and trampled by joggers, dog walkers, and tourists, cling to the edges of the paths.

The 72nd Street entrance leads almost directly to Bethesda Terrace. Matilda photographs the stone balustrades and steps, crouching to capture a particular angle. She studies the texture of the stone, the shape of the steps, and the contrast of dark branches against the sky before pressing the shutter.

She is deliberate and deeply focused. In those moments, nothing else matters.

When she stands, she nearly collides with a pedestrian arguing on his phone about the election.

Nearby, the American elms lining the Mall form an extraordinary cathedral-like canopy. Hundreds of arching limbs create a ribbed ceiling over the path. Matilda takes close-up shots, then wider ones. At one point she twirls beneath the branches.

This is New York, and no one seems to notice.

She follows the steps down to Bethesda Fountain. The Angel of the Waters rises above the partially frozen basin, wings spread wide as she gazes toward the lake. Pigeons gather along the rim. People pause briefly, then move on.

Matilda stops and takes in the scene.

She remembers coming here with her grandfather. The memory arrives with such force that it feels less like recollection than presence.

Beneath the terrace, a violinist plays into the vaulted passageway, using the echo to amplify the music. The notes surround her.

She takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

Dogs, runners, and tourists pass by. She feels her grandfather’s hand and, after a brief hesitation, grips it firmly. She looks at Peter, and he smiles.

The scene fades.

I never knew him, she thinks. I wish I had asked him about his life. I wish I had seen him at the end of his life.

Above the branches, she catches glimpses of the Upper West Side—limestone apartment buildings, rooftop water towers, and the distant outlines of the Majestic and the Dakota along Central Park West.

She pulls her coat tighter, lifts her collar against the cold, and leaves the park.

New York after the election carries a strange, quiet tension. Especially on the Upper West

Chapter 3

A woman’s voice snaps her back.

The clerk behind the counter has short bobbed hair and black-rimmed glasses that slide down her nose as she examines the prints.

“How do you see them framed?”

“Museum matting,” Matilda says.

“And simple black frames.”

As Matilda leaves the frame shop, she heads into the park. Pulling out her phone, she begins taking photographs.

The trees are bare, their black branches reaching into a pale winter sky. 

Remnants of last week’s snow, darkened and trampled by joggers, dog walkers, and tourists, cling to the edges of the paths.

The 72nd Street entrance leads almost directly to Bethesda Terrace. Matilda photographs the stone balustrades and steps, crouching to capture a particular angle. She studies the texture of the stone, the shape of the steps, and the contrast of dark branches against the sky before pressing the shutter.

She is deliberate and deeply focused. In those moments, nothing else matters.

When she stands, she nearly collides with a pedestrian arguing on his phone about the election.

Nearby, the American elms lining the Mall form an extraordinary cathedral-like canopy. Hundreds of arching limbs create a ribbed ceiling over the path. Matilda takes close-up shots, then wider ones. At one point, she twirls beneath the branches. This is New York, and no one seems to notice. 

She follows the steps down to Bethesda Fountain. The Angel of the Waters rises above the partially frozen basin, wings spread wide as she gazes toward the lake. Pigeons gather along the rim. People pause briefly, then move on.

Matilda stops and takes in the scene.

She remembers coming here with her grandfather. The memory arrives with such force that it feels less like recollection than presence. Beneath the terrace, a violinist plays into the vaulted passageway, using the echo to amplify the music. The notes surround her.

She takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Dogs, runners, and tourists pass by. She feels her grandfather’s hand and, after a brief hesitation, grips it firmly. She looks at Peter, and he smiles.

The scene fades.

I never knew him, she thinks. I wish I had asked him about his life. I wish I had seen him at the end of his life.

Above the branches, she catches glimpses of the Upper West Side, limestone apartment buildings, rooftop water towers, and the distant outlines of the Majestic and the Dakota along Central Park West.

The curls she had ignored after washing her hair that morning fell into her face. She was caught between fear, rage, and confusion, and something just beneath the surface, trying to break through. 

She wondered about her grandfather. Why did she think of him today? Just because she was near the Majestic, she thought, but the image was too vivid to be just a memory. Maybe it was leading her back here, back to the park, to her childhood. She held her phone up to take a photo, but there was nothing worth shooting. She lowered her hand.

She pointed down at the broken sidewalk and debris, then lifted her gaze to the people passing by. Quick shots of whoever passes by. Some people stare straight ahead, some smile, some talk with their mouths open, and some grimace. 

She pulls her coat tighter, lifts her collar against the cold, and leaves the park.

New York after the election carries a strange, quiet tension. Especially on the Upper West.

I’m documenting this time, she thinks. I don’t know why or what it will reveal, but I want to keep a record of this time.

Maddie is lying on the floor in her grandparents’ bedroom. The gilded angels are her friends. They emerge from the headboard, the bronze lamps, and the quilted bedspread. She waves to them and sings a song she makes up, inspired by the sounds of traffic muffled by the carpet.

She thinks about her own room, her stuffed animals, her drawing supplies, and her special places. She is looking forward to going home, not because it is better, but because it is familiar.

Peter has frightened her with his cursing, though the storm of it has quieted now. Her father curses, too. She repeats some of the words silently in her head: shit, fuck, damn, son of a bitch. She wants to feel how they sound in her mouth. She wants to understand sound itself. Soon the bad words become made-up words, and that becomes its own private game until Peter startles her again with another curse.

The cursing and loneliness overwhelm her. She misses her mother, her dog, and her own bed.

Earlier that day, she decided to run away.

The only thing her grandmother didn’t sew for her was her Brownie uniform. She puts it on and leaves everything else behind. She won’t take anything from them. She wants to be independent. Once she’s dressed, she goes into the front room and tells her grandmother she’s leaving.

Bea stands near the doorway, perfectly dressed as if she has just stepped out of her own showroom. She looks kindly at her granddaughter and smiles. Maddie looks down at her feet, at the new patent-leather Mary Janes she loves.

“Why are you wearing your Brownie uniform?” Bea asks.

“I’m leaving.”

“Why is that?”

There is something in her voice that Maddie recognizes as meant to soothe her. She doesn’t like it, but she responds anyway.

“I don’t want to be here. Grandpa is always cursing at me. That isn’t right.”

“No, it isn’t right, but I have to tell you something,” Bea, whom she calls Nana, says quietly. She nods toward Peter. “He curses at everything. And your dad will be here soon.”

The moment eases, and Maddie retreats to the bedroom and her private world. She still wants to go home.

She hears the doorbell but continues singing. The angels want to listen. The world inside her world is filled with lyrics, like poems dancing through her mind.

Then she hears her father’s voice. She imagines him giving his mother a gentle kiss on the cheek and shaking Peter’s hand, but she does not move until he looks into the bedroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she says without looking up.

“She has been keeping herself busy for hours,” Bea says.

Maddie can’t tell if it’s criticism or just a statement.

Her father doesn’t seem very worried about her. He turns away and walks back into the front room.

Maddie knows this is Bea’s house. Everything inside belongs to Bea: the bed, the lamps, even the way people speak here.

Her father returns to the bedroom and signals that it is time to leave. He looks uncomfortable. He awkwardly kisses his mother on the cheek and glances at his hands rather than hugging Peter. Then father and daughter walk to the elevator.

Inside the car and back on the road, she has stretched out in the back seat, watching the shadows glide past the window until nothing is left to see. She sings softly, then drifts off to sleep.

At home, Ben lays Maddie gently in her bed while April removes her outer clothes, leaving her in her slip. The dog, Pogo, named after the cartoon in the daily paper, circles once, then settles nearby, satisfied that everything is in place.

The next morning, April is in the kitchen making breakfast: coffee, eggs, rolls, and cheese. Their favorite.

Maddie dances into the room, then stops in front of her mother.

“What’s up with you?” April asks.

“I had a dream.”

“Was it a good dream?”

“I don’t know,” Maddie says, rubbing her eyes. “We died,” she says.

April pauses, still holding the spatula, grease dripping from its edge. She looks at her daughter, unsure how to respond.

“Well, that didn’t happen,” she says finally.

“No,” Maddie says. Then, after a moment, “but you know what?”

“I don’t know until you tell me.”

“I’m not sure what the word means,” Maddie says, “but I believe in reincarnation.”

April stands still, watching her daughter jump once, twice, then run out of the room.

The family had recently moved into the new house in Plainview. The neighborhood still felt unfinished, with empty lots and construction scattered between the houses.

Ben had borrowed money from his mother to buy the house and start his furniture business. She rarely let him forget it. The reminders hung over him like a shadow. He wanted independence but often felt watched and judged. Most days, he worked in the basement workshop from morning until late at night. His furniture was elegant and modern, and customers admired the craftsmanship. But beautiful work took time, and the orders kept piling up.

One afternoon, a customer came to the house. He was tall and confident. His name was Lou, the kind of man who seemed comfortable everywhere he went. While Ben gathered sketches and measurements, Lou lingered in conversation with April. Lou wasn’t flirting so much as including her in the conversation. There was a lightness in his voice, a playful charm that made her both uncomfortable and aware of something she had not felt in a long time. For a moment, she understood the loneliness she had been carrying, and she brushed it away with the tips of her fingers.

Lou admired Ben's work but pressed him about delivery dates.

"The designs are wonderful," he said. "But the stores can't sell furniture they don't have."

Ben nodded. He pursed his lips in a way he had for years. He had heard it before. The pressure settled onto his shoulders like another weight he was expected to carry.

Outside, the school bus hissed to a stop.

Maddie climbed down the steps and walked toward the house. The old one-room schoolhouse sat just beyond the trees near Manetto Hill Road. Someday she would be old enough to walk home through the woods by herself.

She entered quietly and slipped past the voices in the living room.

In her room, she dropped her book bag and picked up a pencil.

April appeared in the doorway.

"How was school?"

Maddie started drawing.

"I got in trouble."

"What for?"

"I showed them my Statue of Liberty."

She reached for the small metal statue in her book bag. Her grandmother had taken her to see the real one, and she loved it.

"Why did you show it to them?"

"The teacher was talking about the Pilgrims."

April waited.

"They came to America for freedom," Maddie said. "The Statue of Liberty means freedom."

To Maddie, the connection seemed obvious.

The teacher had made her stand in the coat closet.

April called the school and argued with the teacher, but nothing came of it. The teacher never understood what Maddie had been trying to say.

Maddie didn't understand the teacher. She only knew that once again, something that made perfect sense in her head had somehow become wrong. Little by little, she retreated further into her imagination, the one place where no one asked her to explain herself.