Limbo
My best friend taught me about limbo and saints,
Showed me their stacks of National Geographic.
You had to be invited into membership, she said,
not everyone could join. I rated them against
my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journals
and felt deficient, somehow.
No wine in our Methodist kitchen cupboards.
No tuna and salmon tins
stacked up awaiting Friday.
All those cans on my friend’s mother’s shelves in limbo
all Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
that long summer when we were still twelve.
Wanting something we didn’t yet know the name of.
Restless stirrings the little boys our age
did not know how to respond to.
All of them inches shorter than us
except for one—a tall country boy
new to town school,
the most innocent of all.
How we waited to be chosen—
the fact that we’d already chosen in our minds
having little consequence.
How we watched. How we kept secrets,
even from each other.
I knew what to call it, at least,
if not much else,
that summer I turned thirteen,
expectantly,
and
absolutely
nothing changed.
Limbo.
The dVerse poets prompt is “Limbo.”
But Jimmy Cliff says it best!!!!
And “Limbo” of a different sort was two years in our future:
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Ah, yes — that is an interesting phase we all go through, isn’t it?!
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Love Jimmy Cliff! I like the observation that the girls have to be chosen. That they might have an opinion doesn’t matter.
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Do you think this has changed or is still to some extent true?
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It’s still true to a greater or lesser degree. In some places the old deference clings and it’s a harder job to dislodge it. Generally though, things are changing for the better, seems to me.
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Although not a country boy, I was tall and the most innocent of all – until my first school dance
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Now that sounds like a story, Derrick. Are you going to tell it to us?
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You’ll find it in here, Judy: https://derrickjknight.com/2012/07/04/no-one-forgets-a-good-teacher/
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Sometimes we expect a new world to open, but in the morning nothing has changed… moving out of limbo can be a very slow process.
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loved this poem and the pictures – oh how well you have conjured that pubescent thingy – the edge of maturity and the hormones pushing us over the edge
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Thanks, Laura..glad you both recognize and remember it!
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Coming of age was such and interesting time of being in limbo for sure! I remember it like yesterday! Great poem and great photos!
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Nice lines describing limbo: “How we waited to be chosen—
the fact that we’d already chosen in our minds
having little consequence.”
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Thanks, Frank. Did you know all that was going on?
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You captured that typical about-to-be-teen limbo perfectly..and alas, it continues into the teens. Great write.
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Thanks, Beverly.
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Such a wonderful telling of memorable times at tender ages. Nice videos also. The limbo champ is limber, the two words must be connected.
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Ha..strange that one word could mean such different things.. Probably in two different languages.
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I hate that waiting to be chosen for a dance. I don’t know if things have changed for the women now. Really enjoyed your story.
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Thanks, Grace. i always hated that, also. Now I just get up and dance with another woman friend. Only once in my life did I ever ask a man to dance and he turned me down. That did it!!
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My apologies for replying so late – life and work intruded.
Super cool Jimmy Cliff tune – thanks!
That cusp of teenage-hood – whew …
Thanks for adding to the Limbo prompt
~ M
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