[fiction, instead of lies]

FLASHBACK MACHINE Through the wonders of technology, I am posting this in January, on a day where it is bitterly cold, and I am having trouble thinking forward to a day when poppies will be blooming again. This will run in the middle of May, when ostensibly poppies will bloom again. Thank you, Mary Oliver, for believing for me.

POPPIES

by Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

~ from New and Selected Poems, Vol. I (Beacon Press, 1993)

This has been a little more low-key of a National Poetry Month this year, because it’s been a tumultuous month, but I still feel like I’ve done what I intended – sort of clarified my thoughts through a snippet of senryūor or a tumble of images in haiku each day. The times I wonder why I don’t do this more often kick me in the butt… I know I’m not Sonya Sones, so I don’t expect to be able to whip out a novel in blank verse someday, but… every year I’m a little more prodded into trying. This month I even came up with a plot, and read two articles and took some notes. So, maybe someday I’ll at least write a character who is a poet, even if I’m not. Until then,

to the last drop

the tumble of words,
is never still, these waters
diverted, run still.

all in season

dancing in turn, each
steps, confident, into new.
bring on the showers

Thanks for hanging around. Bring on the rest of the year of poetry. Happy May.

n. something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent -

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, true, but sometimes one has to erect one and defend it anyway. Sometimes, the words, “thus far, no further,” are a thing you have to take seriously enough to set into words firmly – whether it’s your weight creeping up and you declare a moratorium on snackage, or it’s your siblings encroaching, and you have to smack down a line of masking tape down the center of your room. Sometimes, we need longer, stronger words for STOP. Boundaries, people. Use them. Respect them.

“…Before I built a wall I’d ask to know…”

Mr. Frost, your walls
which you question, do but serve
the cause, “Sanity.”

Applying Brakes

“I hear what you’ve said,
but, listen; if you would just –”
We circle again.

in the end, I still win

given time, water
works its will. All wear down,
save the broken sands.

One of the nicest things about walking four miles to the base of this waterfall was that I could feel the water on the wind well before I got there and let it soak me. Spring waterfalls in Yosemite are astounding, and make the long, oxygen-deprived death march (high, high altitude, and I was really struggling, even on a relatively easy walk) worth it.

second wind

though on my last gasp
my parched lips tastes of water.
and courage revives

“Love covers a multitude of sins.” As does Sandburg’s grass.

the ironic names of these lots

clipped conformity
smothers Vivacious, Vivid, Verve
in Serenity

she tries explaining cemeteries to Julian, aged 4

“shh, your indoor voice.
just like at the library.”
tales here remain shelved.

My friend Tea has a series of posts on her blog which she titles “Stalking Wonder.” I love the phrase, because it has within it shades of both hunter and artist – observer and wily plotter.

When we drove to Yosemite yesterday, I wasn’t particularly stalking anything – I was shoving food and siblings into the back seat, and worrying about which route we ought to take, and whether I could breathe about 5000 feet (note to self: you can, but just barely). Stalking is deliberate, and you have to remind yourself to set aside everything to purposefully find wonder.

park stalk

first, slow your movements.
the fleeting bird called “happy”
will likely lay eggs

With thanks to Adrienne for serving as model for this one.

The cousins I met only once have lost both parents. Named after both her mother and her grandmother, my heart goes out to the eldest, Mary, who, of the four siblings, today must feel so orphaned, and so responsible.

blest be the ties

it must feel to her
like losing that last unseen
umbilical cord

“In a very real sense, people who have read good literature
have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.
It is not true that we have only one life to lead; if we can read,
we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.”
― S.I. Hayakawa

Some services you just happen (up)on…

One of the things I loved about living abroad was that I wasn’t living here.

While that might seem obvious, I mean that in the least literal way – that I was outside of the stream of my existence, in a way. I wasn’t “here” having to deal with any of “here.” I didn’t have to cross paths with “here.” It was like living in a parallel universe – somewhere “here” went on without me, while I was “there.” Many the times I have wished, since being back, that it were an easy matter to straddle lives, to poke my head into the next room, and see how my other self was getting along in the other world without me.

If this seems rather indecisive (as well as delusional), that’s because… it is. Nobody can live two lives. Yet, I have ever tried. In high school, I took a class I LOATHED, carrying a drop slip in my pocket for the entire semester. I could quit any time I wanted to… I do sound like an alcoholic at a failed intervention, don’t I? I thought so, too.

graded on longitude

my passport is my
drop-slip for The Here And Now,
a class I’m flunking.

I’m corresponding with an author who moved her entire family to New Zealand. On an adventure whim. For five years.

I want my life to be like that, open to whatever wind blows. But, being an American means student loan debt and cell phone contracts and car payments. Westerners require so much – stuff – to maintain their standards. We lose so much by carrying so much. We’d lose so little by jettisoning just a little.

I remember my purses in Scotland – I practically carried luggage those first few months, trying so hard to have something on hand to ensure my every need was met. By the time we left, I could leave the house carrying only a book and a set of keys. I want to be that much thistledown, to be blown through various lanes of life without concern.

But, there are still too many things that hold us.

static

thicker than water,
blood feeds the confining moss
that traps this stone’s roll.

man hands on misery to man

a six letter word
describing two-point-five kids
and a picket fence

#10 envelopes

sallie mae, nosy
as a meddling auntie
stop with all the mail

on shedding the fifty pound purse

not
knowing
where, today,
we sit, but still
finding, just behind
us, those backsides
still attached.
One need:
met.