(for lack of anything else to say, I’m posting here a poem a day)
I wake
tight
wound in the sheet
–night winding sheet —
wounded
in the tight lined
yellow-sheet logic
of your wound mind
winding
sheet-tight
around my night.
c elf 1970s
I missed posting a poem today because I was setting up my new computer. So, instead, here’s a link to one of my favorites that I wrote in 1991 and posted in 2005.
((For lack of anything else to say, I’m posting here a poem a day….)
Her Daughter’s Destiny
If she mirrored me
she refused to know it,
choosing, instead,
the finer lines
of her father’s reflection.
There were times
I wished her gone,
her and her herd
of fragile unicorns –
or cornered where
I couldn’t watch
their golden dances
filling the space in my mirror.
When she left that spring,
the corners grew shadows.
She set free the unicorns
and took all of my mirrors
with her.
……….
Her Son Leaving Home
Young Dionysus,
a faded blue bandana
circling his head like a halo,
layers himself with choices
forgotten by the gods.
He smells of earth, of dreams,
of rain that flows with ease
along acres of hilly woodland,
filing some final need
in the deep hollows of stones.
He releases himself to the magic of motley,
to the wind, alive in his unbound hair,
to sweet pickings, scattered
like ripening berries
along miles of roadside vines.
As he leaves, the hearthfire
crackles softly.
Blackbirds loose feathers
from the heights of sky-borne oaks,
and honey bees sing to the sun.
c elf (1970s and 1980s)
Spring. And rain. And in my deepest being a reflection of what’s happening in the deeper earth. I’m struggling.
And so I go back into my stacks of poetry, looking to remember who I’ve been as a way of beginning to find who I am becoming. Age 71. Still becoming. Spring, again.
For lack of anything else to say
I’m posting here a poem a day,
Most are old and conjure years
rife with hopes and dreams and fears.
Rippling through my flow of time,
they maybe sing, but never rhyme.
Perhaps someday they’ll fill a book.
If not, it’s just some chance I took.
A poem from my 30th year:
Riding the Heartland Current
When the sun finally slips
through the clouds
spilling into that lake
in high Wyoming,
it is only a matter of time before
the muddy waters reach Montana,
where the Missouri gorges itself
on the Jefferson, Calatin, and Madison,
binding its fate to the press
of a season’s passion.
Along the banks at Bismarck,
Spring becomes a time for waiting.
And even at bold St Louis,
bright fishing boats
hold to their moorings,
sheltered from the sudden currents
that rush Spring’s murky dreams
toward the hungry Mississippi.
It is never wise
to swim the dark Missouri;
As everyone in Nebraska knows
the mud must run its course
through each Missouri Spring.
1970 elf
The following is my response to the visual prompt of Magpie Tales #57. The responses of other writers are linked from the site.
would that the luck of the Irish
turn heated rain to shamrocks
that burst to pots of gold
where they fell —
pots of gold and violets
to pay for hope
and promise a fertile
future
It’s March 11, 2011.
There was a terrible earthquake in Pacific Ocean today, and Japan is being hit with 30 foot waves. Tsunamis of various sizes are headed toward both North and South America. Untold lives are being destroyed even as I write this.
Rebellion and unrest in the Middle East and Africa continues to escalate, as untold lives are being destroyed even as I write this.
The state of Wisconsin is leading the way toward an America I’m not going to want to live in, and untold lives are being destroyed even as I write this.
It is my 71st birthday today, and, as I watch and listen to the devastating events going on all around me, I am grateful for the life I have right now, uneventful ‘tho it often is.
And that’s why today, on my 71st birthday, I am filling out forms to be a hospice volunteer — because I am used to doing useful things and need to do something useful with the time I have left.
When I moved here to be with my daughter and family two years ago — after almost a decade of care-giving and 40 years of various other “useful” jobs — I thought that I would be happy hanging-out, relaxing, reading, doing my crafts, gabbing with my daughter, playing with my grandson.
Well, I’ve been doing that for two years, and now I’m ready to get on with some kind of more useful life.
There are about five nursing homes in my immediate area, all of which have hospice units. I’ve been on the receiving end of hospice services as a family member through both my dad’s and mom’s illnesses. I know, from experience, what kind of support people in that situation need. And, since I was an undertaker’s daughter, death has been a part of my life since I was born. It is as though I am coming full circle.
I’m not doing this for altruistic reasons. My reasons are rather selfish. I need to interact with and meet other people (and I discovered that the gym and senior citizen center are just not my style); I need to do something useful.
And that “usefulness” might even spill over to my creative crafting, since I would be interested in making the kind of “memory pillow” that I made for my mother for others who might find them comforting.
So, at 71 I’m shifting gears yet another time so that my time here has meaning for me. My mother lived until she was 94. I don’t know if I’ll last that long, but, while I’m here, I want to be engaged with the world in a more meaningful way.
For my birthday dinner, my daughter is making my favorites: shrimp scampi and key lime cheesecake.
It’s my 71st birthday, and, even as I write this, my life is good. But as I watch the news on CNN, I wonder — for how long?
Your eight-year old can’t go to sleep because he’s crying so hard. He’s crying so hard because, he says, he doesn’t want to ever die and he doesn’t want anyone he knows to ever die because he doesn’t want to be alone.
You don’t really believe in “God,” and don’t believe in heaven. You’re not religious, and the Golden Rule is about the closest you come to embracing any doctrine, although you try to pass along a moral and ethical code that you hope he understands and continues to live by.
But what about “after?” What about after this life? What do you tell your eight-year old that will calm his fears without outright lying?
What you do is write a book that explains who and what we are in a way that will address his fears yet still be in the realm of what might actually and scientifically happen. ( After all, Carl Sagan thought so.)
And you call this book Spark.
Go over online and read through Spark — and see if it’s the answer you’re looking for.
This is the kind of day for skiing or snowshoeing or snow-fort building. But I don’t do any of them. I can’t seem to even walk very far these days.
But today, with the sky a clear blue and a sun that has finally left the falling snow behind, I bundle up and get myself outside for the first time in weeks. I take a short walk around a few blocks — just about as much as my joints can take today.
When I come back to the house, I haul out a stool and sit on the small porch. I close my eyes. For a moment I am back in my babyhood carriage — the old kind from the 40s, with an oil cloth cover that rolls up to my chin, so that I am warm and snuggly inside, even though my nose is cold. The sun is warm and bright on my closed eyelids. I want to be a child again.
I think of my mother — how young and happy she was when she pushed me in that carriage — how disappointment and dementia drained from her spirit what was the best of her. I think of her because her 95th birthday would have been this month; she would have made it had she lived for three more months. But it’s just as well that she didn’t; those months would have only extended her hell on earth.
I could sit here all day, pretending. But I have a math challenge to confront — figuring out how to use a sweater pattern I like but using a different weight yarn and different size needles. It’s all algebra, but math-challenged that I am, I have to work myself up to grappling with setting up the equations. I can’t seem to keep my body in shape, but I try to do so with my brain.
I do have to deal with my body, though, despite the back problems. I’m hoping I can try the “chair yoga” this week at the senior center in town — that is if it’s not canceled again because of a another snow storm. And I’ve begun firing up my wii around 4 p.m. every day just to do some balance and aerobic exercises, which I seem to sorely need.
We are all waiting for spring. But for today, I’ll take the sun on snow.
What would you think of a brother who, one week before his mother passed away, used his ability, as her Power of Attorney, to quietly change the beneficiary of his mother’s small life insurance policy from his sister to himself. Yes.
This is the year for me to really start paying attention.
Creativity emerges from paying attention. Problem solving requires paying attention. Connections thrive on paying attention.
Until the middle of November, my mother’s fatal dementia, by necessity, was the focus of my attention for the past decade. It feels strange, in a way, not to feel that pull any more — to have no excuse for not paying attention.
Writing well depends upon paying attention.
And so I begin here, tomorrow, participating in a month long project, A River of Stones.
A small stone is a polished moment of paying proper attention, and the challenge of the project is to write a small stone every day.
I will start tomorrow. One small stone. And, stone upon stone, I will try to set a solid path out of the stress and sorrow of the last decade and into a more focused future.
________________________
I was starting to feel guilty about not posting frequently enough on this blog. Then I read what my son wrote on Twitter about his blog:
I write for me, and then stop writing for me. Anyone who reads in the meantime? Cool.