On Your Left! is a book of poetic memoirs written by Peggy Ann Barnett for her daughter Emma.
There is a Latin name for it: horror vacui, or “fear of empty space”. Imagine living in New York City apartments (or lofts) your whole life, with neighbors never more than twenty-feet away from you both above, below and sideways. Then, suddenly, at the age of sixty, finding yourself in the Pacific Northwest, living in a house set on an acre of huge ferns and one-hundred foot high trees, with your neighbors’ lights twinkling like stars far away in the utter darkness.
My first night in that house was a sleepless horror vacui. Soon after dawn I heard a “woosh-pop! woosh-pop!” over the house. In my nightgown I ran out onto the deck and looked up to see a hot air balloon directly overhead. The dawn sun was shining through the its silk walls, glowing red and yellow. The people in the basket looked down and waved; I waved back. I knew I was in for a very different life.
Still, the furies of the past haunted me. Memories of the trauma done to my family by the Holocaust, growing up Jewish in an Irish/Italian Catholic neighborhood, surviving public school in the nineteen-fifties, my mother-in-law’s suicide, the trauma of seeing people jump off the World Trade Center as it collapsed, and the shock of a woman nearly killing me by jumping off a twelve-story building, kept resurfacing.
I wanted to tell my daughter the story of my life. Poetry has always been part of my life, so I chose this form to tell my history. I will post my favorite poems here. Some are in the book, some are not. I hope you are touched by them.
The Longest Word
It was in the school yard of PS 89, Queens, in 1955, that I first heard the longest word of my life: “antidisestablishmentarianism.” Ralph Hammelbacher said it fastest: “antidisestablishmentarianism”….. and we each repeated it ourselves amazed at our brilliance; at our ability to so conquer the English language.
“Antidisestablishmentarianism” we whipped out the word while sitting at the soda parlor counter the jukebox playing Bing Crosby singing “Would you like to swing on a star?” as we ate the scrumptious banana splits. Mr. Wolke concocted out of his homemade ice cream the secret recipe for which he bought with him from Vienna after the War. He never put his bananas in the refrigerator “No, no, no no, no, no, no”. They melted, sweet and ripe under the vanilla scented whipped cream.
I rolled it out again quickly trippingly on my tongue “antidisestablishmentarianism”. But it wasn’t bigger than the word we had learned yesterday in science: “Hydrogen”. That word was really scary, because it was followed by the small word: “bomb”.
“On Your Left!”
My legs pump gently in the late afternoon blue reflections of trees in water.
“On your left!” A black butt streaking past me calves bare bulging biceps. Fifty-one years since I last rode a bicycle. Memories of streets lost to malls. Fairyland. Kissena Park. Down Corona Avenue buried trolley rails shining through the asphalt on their curving way over the orange pebbled concrete of Newtown Bridge. Howard Johnson’s peaked orange roof. Intense thoughts of a fifteen year old on a Rudge.
“On your left!” I saw it in a thrift shop all French and silver. It was 35 years old. I guess I bought it to prove that it could still work. Just like me. I sit upright and carefully a woman past a certain age a red Pierre Deux handbag tied to the handlebars (with my Blue Cross card inside, just in case). Wearing a light blue roller blade helmet in anticipation of World War One.
“On your left!” My wobble is dangerous to your health. You fear me. Where are you going passing me so fast, so intense? Life is to be savored, like a really good cappuccino. He flashes by. When you get there you’re there you turn around and you’re here. I ride on alone the wheels turn alone. A good way to get away.
“On your left!” I pass fifty gray waterfront “homes to lease” tick-tacky little boxes all in a row. A lady with a cat on her lap smiles at me. A Blackberry in the sun. Cow smell, horse smell great hit, cheering crowd. Empty green benches. I remember the windmills of Holland thirty years ago tall tree shadows in the slanting sun. My crotch starts to burn. I didn’t know it could still burn. It’s been a long time. Joggers panting in Hindi. Under the overpass. Up is hard very hard. I struggle to stay in motion every day.
I shout: “On your left!” I peddle faster! I am running with the wolves. I am going for the old gold with silver threads amongst.