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Jean PrestonKenosha Poet Laureate 2014-2015Jean holds an MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast Writing Program. She's authored three collections of poetry, All the Queen's Horses, Sixteen Mothers, and, Like a Small Bird Singing. Her work has been published in Pleiades, Verse Wisconsin, The Solitary Plover, and The Journal of the Association of Research on Mothering. She performs as a member of the poetry and song duo, Women in an Uncertain Age, with Susan Larkin. She directs the Writing Center at Carthage College and serves as President/Treasurer of the Board of Directors to the Kenosha/Racine Poets Laureate Program. Jean lives in Kenosha with her husband, Tom, and her Scottish Terrier, Maggie.
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At the Krohn Conservatory
Cincinnati, Ohio, December 17, 2012
by Jean Preston
Three days after Sandy Hook, and it’s nearly
Christmas. Parents and grandparents bring children
to see the holiday display – a make-believe land
built from natural elements – leaves and hand-
made papers, seedpods and branches, thousands
of red poinsettias and green ferns, layered floor
to ceiling in the cavernous green house space.
No metal, but for the trains that climb uphill
through thick tangles of plants, and the tracks,
next to running streams alive with orange
and red and black koi. Models of city landmarks,
lit from within, follow the tracks, up and up
until they reach the top, where multiple trains
cross the room on wooden trestles, their motion
precisely timed so no accidents mar the happy scene.
This day, as on every other day, the children
are entranced. They laugh and point to the highest
trestle, at the red and green train nosing out of hiding
to cross the room in plain sight. A boy splashes at the fish,
splashes his sister and brother. A girl recognizes a mansion,
Music Hall, the Taft Museum she saw on a class field trip,
and squeals with delight. Others skip and run, push
ahead in line, shout with outside voices. It’s the parents
who do not behave the same, and the grandparents.
The mother who holds her child’s hand so tight
the child squirms to get away. The grandmother
who laughs at the boy splashing at the fish instead
of correcting him, who leans down and gives him
a second candy cane. The father who aims his camera,
snaps shot after shot of his daughter and son, to keep
somehow his children safe, to hold them forever enchanted.
Christmas. Parents and grandparents bring children
to see the holiday display – a make-believe land
built from natural elements – leaves and hand-
made papers, seedpods and branches, thousands
of red poinsettias and green ferns, layered floor
to ceiling in the cavernous green house space.
No metal, but for the trains that climb uphill
through thick tangles of plants, and the tracks,
next to running streams alive with orange
and red and black koi. Models of city landmarks,
lit from within, follow the tracks, up and up
until they reach the top, where multiple trains
cross the room on wooden trestles, their motion
precisely timed so no accidents mar the happy scene.
This day, as on every other day, the children
are entranced. They laugh and point to the highest
trestle, at the red and green train nosing out of hiding
to cross the room in plain sight. A boy splashes at the fish,
splashes his sister and brother. A girl recognizes a mansion,
Music Hall, the Taft Museum she saw on a class field trip,
and squeals with delight. Others skip and run, push
ahead in line, shout with outside voices. It’s the parents
who do not behave the same, and the grandparents.
The mother who holds her child’s hand so tight
the child squirms to get away. The grandmother
who laughs at the boy splashing at the fish instead
of correcting him, who leans down and gives him
a second candy cane. The father who aims his camera,
snaps shot after shot of his daughter and son, to keep
somehow his children safe, to hold them forever enchanted.
