1) Barbara's Song - America (From Songs From The Women Of The L.O.M.) Poem by Otradom Pelogo

Thus, maybe it brought me back fifteen or twenty years, as I look back in retrospection, seeing Barbara being the oldest, and taking the responsibility, especially with mom and dad at work most of the times, and seeing that everything went well, from seeing that we woke up on time, having breakfast ready in the morning and supper in the evening, since by the time I would get home from school after practice, either Mom or Dad would have come and gone to the second job, even having us put out the garbage before making sure we got to school on time. And the enlightening conversations that we would have; I later make reference to her being more of a philosophical person, more enlightened than myself about religious matters, even as a child, and thus, I can hear her voice more than anyone else's as I try and keep things perpetually moving properly, especially after my, as they would say, 'awakening', or as I would say, my spiritual quest, over the last decade and a half, which has been the cornerstone of my foundation, of this quest, many of those enlightening conversations of spirituality and morals, keeping as much in perspective and ordinate as possible, or as she would once quote the famous admonishment, 'Where order ends, tyranny begins', and all of the biblical morals that she could present as we would sit down and talk; although things make more since to me these days than they did twenty years ago, but then I need them more these days than I did then. Barbara is older than myself, and thus a few years older than Noora, but her daughter is the same age as Barbara‘s oldest son, Joshua, and as he gets older, I can see many of those virtuous characteristics manifesting itself in him, also in her daughter, Desiree, the youngest of her two, who is doing better than any of the family member that I can think of at such a young age. And thus when I think of her, a lot of the times, I think of them, and have called home more frequently than ever before after having met Noora and Nanya, making me appreciate the family that I have even more than ever before.
Noora and Nanya could easily be Barbara and Brenda, my two sisters back in Texas. Barbara is the oldest, and thus she reminds me a lot of Noora, even to the fact that like Barbara is to Brenda, Noora is the quieter of the two between her and Nanya. While we were sitting down and talking, after Nanya had invited me up to her apartment for a short visit that consisted of a cup of coffee, a nice conversation between the three of us and the going through of a photo album, which I took as a true and authentic gesture of friendship, she put on a envelope, her address, and where I have at this very moment, a postcard ready to be stamped and sent. Though it was Nanya's and my idea to look at pictures, Noora was the one that sat there with the album on her lap, patiently flipping through the pages and explaining who was who, and basically choosing the pictures to put in the envelope, which I have on the wall at this very moment, along with a few that I took of Nanya myself.