CLS Sandoval

interpreting Miro

after The Tilled Field by Joan Miró

I took a stroll in my mind through the woods on the beach near the quarry.  The trees were listening and a newborn horse with a pattern like a violin on its back drank milk from its mother.  My sister chose the violin for fifth grade band—so much more a challenge than that of my trombone.  She was a champion rider—accumulating too many blue ribbons too quickly in the children’s division to stay there, so she and her pony lined up to take their turn after the seasoned 40 year olds on their full grown European Warmbloods in the open division.  My parents’ divorce put an end to my sister’s riding career, with the push of my mom wanting just one competition where she wouldn’t have to sit next to her ex-husband and the pull of my dad trying to buy his youngest daughter’s love with a newer, bigger horse he couldn’t afford to keep.  Day lasted longer than night as I walked on ploughing fields of thought where the wild things are, imagining being tucked in bed behind my third floor bedroom at 12721 Stone Canyon Road, back before my dad and his wife imposed their beige improvements, erasing the blue mandala tiles from the entry, the pink from the walls of the loft playroom, and the wall paper with the teeny yellow flowers from the bedroom I once shared with my sister.  I felt my grip tighten as if grasping the giant knife shaped flagpole to my left, then released with an exhale toward the stars.

Ox-Eye Daisy

 

The fountain outside matched the opulence

of the building itself

housing hundreds of years of art

of its native Austria and the globe

Tufts of green shrubbery poked about

on the outskirts of the Kunsthistorisches Museum

topping the stems were understated white daisies

with yellow centers just like at home

The grand staircase led the way

to a giant marble piece

There were so many people milling about

that two-year-old Tiffany merged with the crowd

Mom and Dad were busy

trying to figure out how to buy tickets

and Nana was preoccupied

with the lavishness of the rotunda

It took me a moment

to realize that my sister

wasn’t standing next to me anymore

I alerted the adults

and we frantically looked about

only to find little two-year-old Tiffany

standing next to a woman

who looked like she might have been about 100 years old

who was collecting money for tickets

Tiffany took the coins

looked at them and spoke in her American English

to the Austrian woman who likely only spoke German

but their smiles communicated as simply

and brightly

as the daisies outside

That Moment

 

It had been months of planning. My sister and I had agreed on most everything. She just thought the catering and flowers were too expensive, but it took very little to get her to acquiesced. The church set everything up beautifully, and there were maybe 150 people there. I signed someone like you to my recorded voice, since I knew I would be too choked up to live. I did make it through my poetry reading, as Barbara, my husband, and uncle Gary make it through their speeches. Tiffany sobbed through her words. My mom’s husband contributed nothing but a written paragraph that Barbara read. The hardest thing about my mom dying was of course just that my mom dying. A close second was everyone singing her husband’s praises the man who tried to take her life savings and her pink Cadillac. This was the moment for me. The moment I became the family matriarch.