My friend Liz is in town, so I’m changing dropping work like a bad habit to swan off into the city to meet her for tea (stay tuned for pictures of the swanky locale) between book her book stops.
unexpected “we”
two, bound by story, ink, and
serendipity
For my niece, who has been job hunting for nine months, and has another interview Friday.
Knock oar. One more prayer
that this tide will free her boat.
Once more, to the beach.
(You may find the picture cruel. But, look carefully. The tide is going out.)
I think about my younger sister a great deal, because the world has limited her choices for the type of life everyone else can choose. Having other physical issues and then having your kidney finally crap out your senior year in high school is bad enough, but when the year following your transplant is more easily accounted for by months you were in hospital than when you were at home, then you know it’s kind of been a tough year. 2015 is still bright and new, and the count for two week visits so far is… four. Infections, infections, infections. I know it must get old.
Worse, the interruptions to any kind of …life are numerous. At one point, my sister to be a makeup artist, but the myriad medications she’s on have left her, at just out of high school, with a tremor so bad that she can hardly draw a straight line, much less line an eye. Manicures? Can be messy.
The thing that is hardest about it all is that she’s struggling. To stay upbeat. To dream of an actual life beyond injections and rows of anti-rejection pills and waiting rooms with molded plastic seats. To not fight pointlessly with our mother. No matter how much you love someone, their struggle is theirs alone. But on the days when there’s any hint of success – even the smallest gain – the trick is to identify it, remember it, and celebrate.
persevere. try again.
who of us can find the lines
when first we color?
I have a strange relationship with statuary. (This should surprise no one; I have a strange relationship with myriad inanimate objects.) Artwork – sculpture – somehow speaks to me of my love of rocks, the rocks that I manage to collect from spots as diverse as beaches and parking lots, the rocks which are in jars and along windowsills in my house. Sculpture is only deliberately shaped rocks, after all. I frequently visited the marble statuary at the Glasgow Botanics, which are Victorian era botanical glasshouses in the city where I lived. Each time I came through the main glasshouse where he stands, I would greet this little boy. I called him George for awhile until I realized that the statue was supposed to be of the Madonna and Child. (Yes, I know. Minus points for me.)
But, actually, when you think about it, George works. The Child was supposed to be human, right? Just like us? Ordinary, a baby clinging with sticky fingers and downcast eyes to his Mama, shy of the strangers chucking him under the chin… What’s in a name, after all?
the way we begin –
innocence: falls, wails, smiles. Growth
is always the same
When I was a child, this was the rug on our family room floor, and I loved this rug pattern to bits. It was CLEARLY from the late 60’s-70’s in a house that was a postwar bungalow with three tiny bedrooms and a flat roof. It had been the “new” and “hip” remodel of the early seventies, and by the time we bought the house, in the very late seventies, it was well past its prime – clean, but faded. This little square, unearthed beneath the floor of our townhouse pantry years ago during a remodel, was in pristine condition, in all its bright blue, retro-sixties glory. Man, I loved this carpet. I would wear a dress out of this carpet. I used to trace the loops and whorls of the design and imagine driving roads so convoluted.
And now as I go into the second or the sixth night of insomnia – sleeping, waking, worrying – my mind is just that convoluted, just that wound up and a whirl with thoughts and decisions. Lost in a labyrinth? That would be me. Except, in a labyrinth, there’s no way you can really be lost… because all roads lead us, all roads take us. Home is in the middle of the maze, protected space you reach if you turn around and persist. And so I tell myself, Friend, keep walking; stay on the path.
stillness wakens minds.
solvitur ambulando —
turn on the treadmill* The phrase “solvitur ambulando” means “solved by walking.”
rear view’s clear. ahead,
children, keep in the middle —
this road holds blind curves
Love, love, love this picture – the wee man is five now, and my Dear has been gone now for almost that long – but it’s sweet they got to meet, albeit briefly (and confusedly; she persisted in thinking that was my kid, no matter what was said…). Her story is told, his has chapters at which none of us may even begin to guess…
Sooo, yeah. Wasn’t going to do a haiku today, but I scrawled one on a yellow envelope, after Michael Twitty on NPR kind of blew my heart and mind.
sea-brine offerings
bitter, cheek by jowl with sweet
O, taste and be… free.
Joyous festival, friends.
No haiku today, chooks; the month of poetry leaps into further action with a new form (for me, anyway): the raccontino. According to Travis Lyon in Forms of Poetry it’s an English couplet form, but from what time period and which English person, he doesn’t say. We do know that the word “raccontino” means storyteller in Italian, and it’s likely also its common root we get the lovely word “raconteur” as well. A raccontino is composed of couplets (any number), with the even numbered lines sharing the same end rhyme and finally, the title and last words of the odd numbered lines telling a story.
It’s … well, am I really going to whine again about how hard a form has been? Why, yes… yes, I believe I am. This raccontino stuff is BLOODY DIFFICULT. I think I was most disgruntled by this form because on the surface, it LOOKS easy, dunnit? With a well-crafted title and some nice end rhymes, I was so sure I could just whip one out… I found myself starting over repeatedly, first trying to write the little end-line story and then trying to just write a poem and having the story write itself, but neither worked that well (though coming up with the sentence before the poem worked… better – but then I could only come up with long sentences, which meant acres of couplets. Argh). And, no matter what tone I took or what feel I tried to invoke, ALL of my poems seemed preachy, severe and didactic.
I think that’s more a function, though, of the clutter in my brain; March blew out like a lion instead of that proverbial lamb, and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, a little clawed and growled at, a bit distorted and unhappy with my work and my world. Everything seems to be landing on my head at once – smack, crash, BANG – and I’m starting to show cracks from the wear. I need to take care of the roof overhead… but in the meantime, I keep writing didactic poetry that scolds and preaches and exhorts. Get up, straighten up, pull it together! it seems to shrill. I surely need to do all of those things, and the scolding is more for the writer than the reader, yet I think all I have within me is to hunker down and hide. It’s a jungle out there.
speak softly. it’s a jungle out there
Never leave affection undeclared.
If the daylight dims when temper’s hot,all else failing, quiet, murmur this,
“Brain, take over, ’cause my heart cannot.”Lest your words like axes, made for war
Split to kindling those with whom you’ve fought,Sapling love left snapped and bent by rages –
Sawed up into splinters, left to rot…Wisdom’s in the words I here pass on,
So before you take off like a shot,Pause. A touch – a word two hearts can grab
Grafting hopes to bud when things are fraught.Only this we hold within our hands —
(Bold the thoughts these ponderings have brought)— choices. Love will go or love will stay
as we choose to keep it in our thoughts.Morn or evening, let words keep hearts close
Speak your peace – intentions don’t mean squat.
Well, the goal this year is “It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to get done,” so that’s us for April. Please read some of the other creative efforts, from the poetic sorority members Tricia Stohr-Hunt, who introduced us to this form to begin with, Liz “sweet love song” Scanlon, Laura “born to the form” Salas, Sara “throw down with chaos and still make it work” Holmes, Andromeda “glutton for punishment because she did two” Sibley, and Kelly “just keep it simple” Ramsdell. Other poetry being rounded up for Poetry Friday is at Amy’s Poem Farm, and my Jama-james is keeping a piping hotTea eye on the entire poetic kidlitosphere this month.
Whenever I feel like I’m raveled up or unraveling, I walk myself back to the first knot. This works in knitting, storytelling, and so far, in life. I’m walking myself backwards this Poetry Month, while I’m brain-bleary and wincing at all that’s falling on top of me, and starting with baby pictures – of my family and friends and people I know. Of random babies. I’m going to think about innocence and grace and wobbly starts and losses and gains. I’m hopeful that this exercise will give me a little clarity. Thank you for walking with me into a new month, and a new celebration of poetry.
once upon a time
the orchestra tuned. music
sang from stubborn strings
Probably one of my favorite things from this (obviously posed) picture is the stubborn-but-sweet baby chin, and the shaggy hair over the ears, and the smudge of dirt on the five year old face (also: plaid + stripes. Oh, the seventies…). Many were the battles to come over practicing on this thing – and many battles yet wait to be fought – but the orchestra still tunes every Tuesday and Thursday, and the music still sings. The strings are less stubborn these days, though. In theory, anyway.
It’s National Poetry Month, people. Prepare to inhale deep and breathe fire.
