Batman, Recalculating

 

 

Batman, Recalculating

 

 

As children,

they did not know their mothers were grooming them to be Batman,

giving them capes of compassion and utility belts of courage.

Teaching them to always rise above their problems,

to raise their grades, to raise their children, to look up, 

to reach for the stars, to reach for the pie in the sky. 

 

Today, the power of that high high-rise,

once more luring them upward,

turns deadly when the planes hit.

 

Today, all they can do is descend,

ninety minutes and sixty-eight levels of stairs

carrying a wheel-chaired woman.

 

They make it outside right before the towers fall.

 

All the time going down,

hearing their mothers voices, 

reminding them:

do what is right although your knees shake,

do what is right although your arms tremble,

do all you can,

even if it could take you into the ground.

 

 Linda Imbler

 

 

Examples of Linda’s poetry and a listing of publications can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.  When not writing, Linda is an avid reader, classical guitar player, and a practitioner of both Yoga and Tai Chi. In, addition, she helps her husband, a Luthier, build acoustic guitars.  She lives in Wichita, Kansas, U.S.A.  She enjoys her 200-gallon saltwater reef tank wherein resides her 21 year old yellow tang.  Linda’s published paperback poetry collections include Big Questions, Little Sleep,  Big Questions, Little Sleep: Second Edition, Lost and Found, Red Is The Sunrise, and Bus Lights, Travel Sights: Nashville and Back. She has four e-books published by Soma Publishing;  The Sea’s Secret Song, Pairings, which is a hybrid ebook of short fiction and poetry, That Fifth Element, and Per Quindecim. Linda has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and five Best Of The Nets.