Rooftop Poetry Club - Carol Patitu

Carol Patitu

Bio:
Dr. Carol Logan Patitu is a Professor and Chairperson in the Department of Student Personnel Administration at Buffalo State (State University of New York). Previously, she worked as an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Director of the Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education (SAAHE) Graduate Program at Texas A&M University. All of 2000 she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Durban-Westville in South Africa with the Faculty of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Supervision with an emphasis in higher education from Bowling Green State University. She holds both an Ed.S. and a M.Ed. in Student Personnel Services in Higher Education from the University of Florida and a B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University. She's a recipient of numerous awards. Dr. Patitu's research interests include student development, issues and concerns of minority students, and minority and women faculty in higher education. She has written articles and co-authored a book titled Faculty Job Satisfaction: Women and Minorities in Peril. She just completed a poetry book titled Peace Be Unto You, which has been submitted for publication. She is a member of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars U.S. Peer Review Committee for Southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Swaziland). She is an Associate Editor for Safundi: The Journal of South African & American Comparative Studies, and she has served as an associate editor and reviewer of other journals. She is President of the Northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York Chapter of the Fulbright Association, the largest regional Fulbright association. She's also a member of the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), and she has been active in many other associations. She has conducted international and national presentations. She resides in Williamsville, New York with her husband Tony Patitu and sons Anthony and Madiba Patitu.

Poems:

Childhood Memories Playing with Mother Nature

Clover, clover come to me
Playing as a child with siblings and cousins in the backyard of grandma's pink house
Eating grapes off the vine and berries on the bushes
Sitting against the orange, brick fire grill
Standing like a fire place with its very own back

Going next door to the little brown house, also grandma's
Playing with green leaves that served as dollar bills
Next to the yard an alley full of rocks that served as our coins
Cigarette boxes filled with money - green leaves and rocks
Shopping during the summer and fall until we dropped, exchanging money

Then came winter with snow and ice
As children, making snow huts and living in them during the day
Lighting matches in our snow huts to warm our hands
Behind the house across the street was a big field
Which filled up with water and froze
A lovely outdoor skating rink
Sliding as if we were ice skating and racing against each other
Turning boxes into sleighs
Taking a break to make snow shakes out of snow, milk and sugar
Using snow as soon as it fell
Before becoming dirty with car smoke, chimney smoke, foot prints and dog urine

Then came spring with the rain
Not singing rain, rain go away, come back another day
Instead wishing it would pour and pour until big floods came
In streets covered with water, we ran outside, barefoot and all
Jumping in the pools of rain
All kids on the street jumping in a pool of rain and splashing each other

As spring ended, rain brought flowers and four-leaf clovers
Smelling and picking flowers, spending a whole afternoon looking for four-leaf clovers
Hoping for good-luck
Always looking, always wanting luck

Each season brought so much fun
Nature was our best friend
Providing all the toys we needed as children
Rocks, leaves, sticks, snow, ice and rain
Our best toys and they were free
Never thinking of real toys
We were poor and didn't even know it.

In: Patitu, C. (2005). Peace be unto you. (Book of Poetry). New Bern, NC: Trafford Publishing, Inc.

My Father's Last Prayer

My father lay in the hospital bed
Not too far from being dead.

He knew he was leaving but he never cried
Being strong as he could be without asking why.

Cancer was identified in his body only eight months before
Right in his stomach deep to the core.

It was so bad they had to immediately take his stomach;
I was so distraught I could not fully comprehend it.

All we could do was hope and pray,
But we really knew what lay ahead.

When he went back into the hospital eight months later,
We became much sadder but would not turn into haters.

But we did ask why unlike our father
Who could not eat nor drink water.

His fourth morning in the hospital he was still Joseph as nice as could be;
He still smiled at people as they passed his bed for he could see.

Not only could he see but he could slowly and shortly talk;
He was so jubilant as if he could walk.

But he could not even lift his body,
But that would not stop him from being jolly.

That afternoon only a few short hours later
He stopped talking and paying attention to bodies.

I was getting worried but I thought maybe he was just sleeping,
But unknowingly to me he was dying.

Only moments later his life came to an end,
But up above in Heaven it would begin.

My father knew he was dying, for the night before
He said a prayer to our Heavenly Father, Our Dear Lord.

For late that night before, he told me and my mother to stand by his bed
As he said with his eyes closed and his hands clasped in prayer up to his head:
"Lord, I hope you have trust in me, as I have trust in you."

My father's last prayer.

In: Patitu, C. (2005). Peace be unto you. (Book of Poetry). New Bern, NC: Trafford Publishing, Inc.