Happy Wednesday.
I’m still… reverberating from Keith Boynton’s beautiful poem, Patria, which we are now accepting as a last-minute addition to Mary Lee’s July 4 Poetry Roundup. I wrote this poem after reading his and sitting with it in the garden for a bit.
…I’m not sure it’s finished, but here. Happy Poetry Wednesday.
Poetry Peeps! Just a reminder that our challenge for the month of July is… the Sedoka. You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on July 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope all of you will join the fun!
These last several weeks have been a bad combination of crazy busy and deeply fatigued as we’ve packed, moved, unpacked, and proceeded to do the summer hustle of enjoying visitors in between catching up on appointments. I knew with as much as I have going on that I wouldn’t have time to really make a good effort with the Summer Swap this season, so I bowed out of participating. Imagine my astonishment to receive – on the same day, no less – two poems from Poetry Friday stalwarts who nourished me with images and words of beauty and certainty. Linda Mitchell and Rose Cappelli gave me a spark of life this week, and I am deeply grateful. Muchísimas gracias, poets.
You can click on the image to enlarge it and see Linda’s handwritten invitation for me to ‘Begin Here,’ which was wrapped around a beautiful poem based on a Joy Harjo title (that woman has the best titles for her poetry collections!), and gaze greedily at the lacy water from the glorious fountains at Longwood Gardens, a place I clearly need to go and spend a whole week someday. (I think the postman read Rose’s poem as well, as he took an extra moment with her card before slipping it into our box. Poetry on postcards is a win for the world.)
I especially needed the kick in the bum Linda’s ‘junque’ journal provided (I cannot use her word, ‘junk,’ with any seriousness, even knowing this journals is made of bits and bobs from weeded library books, unused student notebook paper and prompt pages from the On Being summer project), because poetry in a time of busyness is hard, but poetry in a time of shrinking – and flinching – is nearly impossible.
When I was a child, I used to jump when the teacher raised her voice at other children. I cringed when my siblings were disciplined – or, let’s be real, punished. I don’t do well with… unkindness, and right now, there is just. so. much. I’ve been flinching like a dog recoiling from fireworks every time I read the news or hear a Morning Edition on NPR for weeks now. What did Adam Serwer tell us in 2018? The cruelty is the point… and it grinds down my soul like a cheese grater. When I read the first prompt from Krista Tippet, asking what brought me despair and what brought me hope, I could answer at least half of the question reflexively.
I was privileged to do a poetry exercise with the exceptional poet-teacher Michelle Schaub the other day, focusing on figurative language and metaphors. Using Quilts by Nikki Giovanni as a mentor poem, we discussed the effect of the metaphor in comparison, but also in contrast. Once I decided to use an extended metaphor in this week’s poem, I knew I needed to figure out ways to shed light on opposite themes. If hope is a thing with feathers, then what thing is it not? If what is filling me with despair is cruelty, what is giving me hope? I was stuck on that hope bit for an annoyingly long time.
Rereading the beginning of the Atlantic piece gave me an inkling. It’s in the rather grisly beginning, where Serwer recounts what he calls the “catalog of cruelty” found at The Museum of African-American History and Culture through photographs, not so much of the deaths of African Americans, but the unhinged, grinning glee of their murderers. He writes, “Their names have mostly been lost to time. But these grinning men were someone’s brother, son, husband, father. They were human beings, people who took immense pleasure in the utter cruelty of torturing others to death—and were so proud of doing so that they posed for photographs with their handiwork, jostling to ensure they caught the eye of the lens, so that the world would know they’d been there. Their cruelty made them feel good, it made them feel proud, it made them feel happy. And it made them feel closer to one another.” Et voila. What gives me hope, and what has always given me hope as an adult with still such an incomplete understanding of the word, is community. That gathering around and embracing of a shared ideology. That source of collaboration, assistance, understanding, camaraderie. That thing which, for much of my younger years was simply an abstract, but which, as I have stepped away from the rigid isolation I grew up in, I’m beginning to find the shape of… Community is what both the cruel and the compassionate are seeking.
The community didn’t make it very far into today’s poem except in the envoi. Cousin Mary Lee’s fourth of July poetry prompt seemed to me to be for protest and resistance, not necessarily collaboration and coming together. I’ll circle back to this another day, but for now, this is a day for history to remind us of a two-fold truth: this IS who some of us are, and who some of us want to be – and the rest of us who don’t want this? Will reach out to their neighbors, circle up the wagons, and resist.
Looking back, THE
history books will show
how, six months in, CRUELTY
has not plateaued.
My country as it IS
I do not know.
We once fought hate, we THE
shield of small and slow.
But now, axe sharpened to a POINT
The fascist thinks to deal out a death blow.
Though cruelty is some people’s way of life
Together we are strong, even through strife.
Whether or not you protest or party today, know that the tiny thread of connection in all people is our need for community. What are the ways that you can gather in strength and strengthen others? What are the ways that you in particular can use a passion or a skill particular to you to pour oil, bind wounds, or strengthen the courage of your community? I know I’ll be thinking of the answer to those questions myself this Fourth. If you’d like to continue to think in nuanced ways about this complicated and confusing country we call home, and read more poetry of protest and praise on its birthday, head over to A(nother) Year of Reading, and thanks, Mary Lee for hosting.
Be well, friends, and do good.
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of July! Here’s the scoop: We’ll going to write brief poems called Sedokas. A Sedoka is an unrhymed poem made up of two three-line katauta with a 5/7/7, 5/7/7 syllable count. Since a Sedoka has only six lines, you can totally do this! Of course, we’re continuing our theme of being ‘in conversation,’ next month as well (and since Mary Lee has invited us to join her at A(nother) Year of Reading for protest Poetry on Independence Day next Friday, this might be a great short form to use for that!). Are you in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on July 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope all of you will join the fun!
Whew – just like that, summer has come in, and wow is it trying to redefine the definition of “heat” in much of the United States. To those of you prostrated before your AC and fans, we see you. Normally it’s California sweltering with no mercy, but so far this year we’ve had a really slow beginning to the more vicious heat – which leads us to believe we’ll be in steaming puddles by August, but let’s kick that can of sweat down the road, shall we?
Can I take a moment to revisit my Poetry Peeps invitation for last month and snicker? I wrote, “We’ll going to write a couple of couplets and make a Raccontino. Never heard of the form? No worries. If you can count to two, you can play with this delightful form.” Can anyone tell I’d forgotten that I’d struggled with writing a Raccontino before? The Poetry Sisters did, in fact, attempt them before. In 2015 I bleated, “This raccontino stuff is BLOODY DIFFICULT.” …Heh. So much for the ‘delightful form,’ huh? And yet: while it’s definitely complicated, this time around, it hasn’t been that bad.
In Italian, a raccontino is a narrator or storyteller, so it stands to reason that the Raccontino form tells a story. From the title, which some poets compose as part of or an entire sentence, to the couplets, to the end words of the odd-numbered lines, each element tells a small story that braids together into a whole. I came back to this frequently.
When we gathered for our drafting session, the Poetry Sisters recalled our previous processes. Last time I tried this, I tried writing the odd-numbered end line phrase first, the even-line rhyme scheme second, and the title/rest of the poem after that. That worked for most people, except I could only think of long quotes/sentences for my end-line story, so ended up with ten thousand couplets. (I started over a lot, and whined a lot more.) We got a giggle remembering how last time Sara jiggered the end lines only after writing the poem – yet somehow made that chaos work into a beautiful, heartfelt piece. Those who can throw down with chaos do, I guess!?
This time around, I started with a handful of end-line quotations to use, but some of them were a little too close to the bone, and I abandoned the very first poem I wrote mid-word. What is it about poetry that sometimes leads it to be …well, too true? Anyway, I turned to my back-up phrases and hoped they were a bit more generic. The title of the first one I got through was based on something my little sister said, and the rest is realism based on a comment about ability/mobility and arthritis from another poet in our circle. I liked how they came together.
Because a Raccontino calls for only one rhyming application, as I wrote that second poem, I found myself struggling with the meter. I could write a …decent enough collection of words within the boundaries of the rules, but I spent a lot of time cherry-picking and fussing, trying to find a flow. I gave it up as “good enough” when somehow, a third poem just… suggested itself. I came up with it because I went back to reread my 2015 post and words in conversation with the concept of “it’s a jungle out there,” arrived from the title of my first poem. (And, hand to God, as my friend L says, I didn’t even realize that the first part of the end-line words, “Undeclared, this war rages on, grab hands, stay close” were written in reference to the 2015 undeclared war against ISIS in Iran and Syria until I was writing this right now. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, non? God save us from ourselves.) Because it’s a jungle out there, we need to live with honest hearts and true, and keep each other close… still holding hands before we jump, which I unthinkingly reechoed from the past. Just for fun, I’ll share both finished poems, but the last is definitely today’s winner for me.
We ran full-tilt, but now we take it SLOW –
(Our changing bodies outside our control.)
We hustled once, but forced, we’re slowing DOWN,
Extending Pain-Free days is now the goal.
It’s galling when the doctor croons, “Hey, YOU,”
And lays out reasons, with her words cajoles,
Assigning PT. We relearn to MOVE:
(Make no mistake, pain’s jail without parole.)
Our choices going… gone – Have yours gone TOO?
Does freewill feel like what your body stole?
We whine, but truth to tell, life changes FAST
Who knows – someday we might again feel whole.
♦
This chronic pain crap may leave you downcast.
But keep the faith: Life’s mysteries are vast.
You’ll notice I’ve included a little envoi as if this were a sonnet. I don’t know – somehow today it felt like envoi were necessary? Additionally, the image is of the Bay Bridge in SF – not the well-known and fancily painted Golden Gate, but the plain old Bay Bridge which carries much of the common daily commuter traffic – not the 59th Street Bridge, but probably as pedestrian for people just getting to work or cycling across one bit of water to get somewhere else. Maybe the drivers are not yet feeling groovy, but having the potential for it…I like that link to joy in the ordinary.
Other Raccontino wrestlers are perhaps feeling pretty groovy or reveling in the ordinary as they share their forays into this form. I got a tiny preview Sunday and know that Tricia’s efficiently composed poem is here. Sara probably chose more chaos here, Mary Lee – always prepared – is here. Laura’s short and to the point is here, and we can’t wait to see what Liz has done. Karen rose to the challenge and wrestled her Raccontino here. Michelle K’s poem has punch, and we have a newcomer – let’s welcome Diane and her Raccontino to the Peep Squad. Margaret’s poem is here, and Carol V’s lovely poetry-filled post is here. More Poetry Peeps might swing by with their Raccontinos (Raccontini?) and I’ll round ’em up here by the end of the weekend.
So, how does it start? You, what, simply hold
Your heart on your sleeve and hang it out there
To sweat in the spotlight – your fate in its hands?
Sounds awful! Exposed! Most people’s nightmare.
A big life says, “Yes.” Acceptance adds, “And?”
An honest life asks that you lay yourself bare.
Why skulk in the shadows when courage cries, Jump!’
Living your truth means that you build wings midair.
Freefall has its benefits — and by and by
You’ll forget about falling. You’ll have learned to fly.
My nephew graduated from high school nine days ago, and turned eighteen seven days ago, so the imagery of jumping into life – nervous, but holding hands – improvising, and learning to fly is definitely on my mind. The younger set remind us we all need a little help to get aloft – our neighbors, our chosen family and friends, and the community we need to keep close, now more than ever as the clouds close in. Elf’s fledgling flight might be a ragged one, with a bit of frantic flapping and barely missing crashing into windows at first, but if he falls, I’m counting on the rest of us to raise him up and run until he finds the wind again – into whatever extraordinary life is allotted to him. Whatever your age, may your circle do the same for you. May we never discount the power of community.
Look for the interconnected stories you’re telling, or have been told, and see where your narrative intersects. Remember that Yes. and And? are invitations to acceptance and connection. Know how well you are loved – and may it fuel you to love in return.
Happy weekend. Be well and do good.
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of June! Here’s the scoop: We’ll going to write a couple of couplets and make a Raccontino. Never heard of the form? No worries. If you can count to two, you can play with this delightful form. Of course, we’re turning our faces to the winds of ‘conversation,’ as always. Are you in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on June 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!
In leagues worth of understatement, it’s been a HELLUVA month. As of this post we’ve been in our new house for a week and three days, and we’re 97% unboxed. Now we’re back to the stupid phase of any packing/unpacking expedition wherein you want to shriek and fling your possessions into the street just so you can be DONE, but I’m hanging on, faithfully sorting and deciding what we no longer need – something it would have made sense to do on the other end, but that only works if all parties packing have the same idea. Sometimes… it’s just easier to do these things when one has a quiet moment. Ahem. So! Chaos abounds, which is why I realized that a.) it was the end of the month and b.) the last Friday of the month exactly twelve hours before this post. Oops! And yes, that means the entire crew missed our Sunday meet-up last week… but honestly? Summer: it happens.
Oh, it’ll be fine, I told myself. A golden shovel is a very forgiving poetic form. Well, yes… and no. I knew my topic almost immediately, since we were using Elizabeth Bishop’s “Letter to NY” for our mentor poem – I knew I wanted to write a letter to someone, be in conversation with someone or something unusual – but a letter to my erstwhile sanity seemed just slightly on the nose, and a little too narrow of a topic (though I truly could go on and on about it). And yet, moving house: all there IS is chaos, and lacking sanity. However, it also occurs that it’s been chaotic nationally for a …while now….and getting louder. But could I pull any of that from the mentor poem and use it in a meaningful way?
I decided to delve into writing a golden shovel from opposite directions. Much like the opposing voices within our national conversation, there are very loud opinions of who is doing what correctly, and why, and I wanted this chaotic letter to reflect two ways of looking at a single idea, like survival – something that is both nebulous and distinctly individualized. What does it mean to live your ‘best life’ in the midst of chaos? Is there a way to do that? What’s your best route to safety – or is living your best life not bound up in safety? With these thoughts in mind, I began to compose – keeping in mind that I truly did not have time to make a lot of rhyme, but trying to give a nod to internal rhyme anyway.
Every exchange seems somehow the same, WHERE
Ant-like, we follow and wave around words. ARE
antennas An offer? So strained are the smiles YOU
So shallowly proffer. A nose-to-tail following, GOING
Unknowing. Direction? Who questions? We walk, AND
Keep pace; a silent compliance surely keeps us safe. So WHAT
If the naysayers still shake their heads? We all ARE
Who we are, and ‘safe’ is the stock in the soup YOU
are brewing. Survival’s the goal. It’s what we’re all DOING.
***
WHAT living teaches still won’t make us wise.
(ARE expectations urging us wrong?)
YOU know in your heart the world will tell lies – that
DOING and saying don’t much harmonize…That a song
AND a singer aren’t the selfsame thing… Knew
WHERE the lies was, yet it somehow still stings.
(ARE our instincts sending common sense askew?)
YOU just survive this life as best you may –
GOING your own way seems the only way.
These are definitely in conversation, yet not as much in opposition as I had imagined when I first began, perhaps. Survival is a topic which elicits similar emotional investment, and sometimes, we end up more closely aligned in heart than we expected to… In any event, I’m happily joined in this golden shovel challenge by my fellow Poetry Sisters, who are very likely much better diggers than I. Laura’s poem is here. Tricia’s poem is here, and Sara’s poem is here. Liz’s poem is here, and early bird Michelle K’s poem is here. Other Poetry Peeps may pop in throughout the weekend to take part in this challenge, so stay tuned for the round up; I’ll post ’em as I find ’em. Additionally, Poetry Friday is ably hostessed today by the one and only Karen Edmisten, whose shockingly cleverly named blog makes me smirk every time. Thanks, K – may your coffee stay hot and your mornings be energized.
If chaos and survival are on your mind this month, don’t forget to take naps, touch grass, drink water and remember to hug a friend. Your mental health will thank you, and more than that, it will remind you that we’re all just trying to survive, and to perhaps be kinder than you want to, when you encounter someone whose world worldview runs counter to your own. Courage, friends!🌼
This isn’t a book review since I don’t do those on my personal blog, but I am reading a couple of novels in verse – at the same time, because one of them, ONE STEP FORWARD, by Poetry Friday alum Marci Flinchum Atkins is an intense read during our current historical moment and I admit to bursting into tears periodically and needing to put it down. Today I share three poems from the book that really struck a chord in me.
I admit that I haven’t thought a lot about women’s suffrage since school. Once we learned about the way that Black women were shoved to the back of the parade – literally – the whole ideological argument about the rights of women left a sour taste in my mouth. I expected women not of my time to be able to hold multiple truths, and some of them simply could not, and it is what it is. Even if they were not marching for my rights, their work was important. I can imagine the brilliant classroom discussions this book will provoke – about how long a movement takes (Montgomery Bus Boycott = 382 days), and how much it costs to bring about change (Jailed. Beaten. Raped. Hung. Force Fed. Starved.) My whole life I have heard the phrase “freedom isn’t free,” and I’ve pretty well hated it, because it’s a bit smug of a statement, usually bandied about by those who are merely trying to silence others, but… it’s true. Freedom isn’t free. And in many cases, neither are the people who believe they are. Pushing back against racism, classism, bigotry and fascism has a cost – that all of us must shoulder. Learning the historical realities of these costs has been keeping me up nights since I was a child who learned to read and got into historical accounts of the Klan that I wasn’t ready for.
I have these shudders reading Civil Rights books – because I hate being shouted at, I hate people being angry with me, and I cringe from bullies. Honestly, I do not know how we ever achieved suffrage. I do not know how we ever achieved manumission. Cruelty seems so easy for some, and courage erodes so easily and is so hard won. We will all have to be much, much braver – and keep marching.
On the eve of a turning page of American history, it feels important to keep looking back. History has a certain weight and inevitability… We lived through it. No matter what various heads of state try to delete, they can’t erase family stories, personal recollection nor every diary and attic stored record. We are here. We remain. We persist.
Spring without flowers
Still comes, days bright and warming:
Know winter passes.
“Madea! You can’t go to the store like that!”
Our small mouths hung open, aghast. Our grandmother’s smile was pure amusement, toothsomely sweet as the Louisiana cane that papa brought us from the neighbor’s field.
“No?” she asked in her slow drawl, willing to be led by our whimsies. “Well, if y’all take ’em out, y’all gonna put ’em back up again, y’hear?” We promised faithfully that we would take care of everything, and spent some part of each day on every vacations, whether visiting her home in one-stoplight-Patterson, or she visiting our more metropolitan corner of West Coast suburbia, carefully taking out our mother’s mother’s curlers, brushing her black-brown hair into soft curls, and carefully rerolling it on our return from wherever the day had taken us. No one in our experience went out in public wearing rollers, and we didn’t know what to think of her, the sheer scarf she wore no cover to the shame. What was Madea saving up her “good hair” for, if not to be seen in public? We weren’t old enough to understand her timeline, and the years where women took out their rollers and put on a pleated dress at 5pm – when the patriarch’s work day was done, and theirs was merely continuing. We just thought she had a lot of outfits, so she liked to change in the afternoon. If we’d had as many nice shoes and dresses – and those hats she wore to church, and those gloves – we would have changed clothes, too. Wouldn’t you?
Madea – [ˈmədēˈä] – ma’deah, my dear. You smiled so often at your guileless granddaughters. I wonder what else of your many faces we failed to see.
that is what this is
she, the angel of the house
curls up in limbo
rolling out the shopping cart
stalks through earthbound paradise
(The B&W curlers photograph is from the book “Growing Up Female: A Personal Photo-Journal”, published in 1974 by American photographer Abigail Heyman. Click to embiggen.)
A collection of nostalgia fills the words, My Country, ‘Tis of Thee. Despite a tune shared with the British anthem, the song resonates, and raises longing eyes to the horizon of our imagination, in memory of a collective past most did not share. Not the land where all our fathers died. Not all descended from prideful pilgrims. Still we have craved the intimation of freedom, a definition of ‘belonging’ expanding to include us as we struggle to fit our picture into the American album. This is Nye’s shared world – not one of rejection but of acceptance, of mamool shortbread, and powdered sweetness dusting open palms.
hold a moment more
the shape of home, of ‘country’
a sapling stretching
in deep-rooted certainty
of endless ripples of rings
Last week I used the phrase “sickly uncertain” to describe the feelings of this current moment, and that resonated strongly with several others. Uncertainty is something most humans avoid and yet, so much of our lives are made up of it. We’re unsure even how to react there’s days. And yet, we are surrounded by so many people just now who seem to dwell in certainty – certain that they are right, are making the right choices, and are leading us to the best possible future for the most people. Of course our children should be raised like theirs. Of course we believe like they do. Of course this is how it should be.
If only we were certain they were right.
not faith: certainty
that DIY deity
gaslighting us all
let’s call it’s ‘discord’
since ‘diversity’ is bad:
divergent voices
bring each note to the table
each in turn, we still make song
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of May! Here’s the scoop: We’ll be in conversation with Elizabeth Bishop’s “Letter to N.Y. in the form of a golden shovel, as created by poet Terrance Hayes. Of course, your choice of line from the many is entirely up to you. Once you’ve chosen, you have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on May 30th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the conversation!
This has been a poetry-rich month already, so moving to look at something old in a new way was a pleasure. The Poetry Seven deliberately chose ekphrastic for April’s challenge, intending it to be easier for the many of us writing daily poetry. The only rule was that our poem had to be in conversation with a vintage photo – and we made no rules about what “vintage” meant, as it means something different to all of us.
I felt as if I’d cheated a bit by prepping ahead for this challenge. Part of my NPM practice has been creating weekly collages of Americana – photographs, posters, and bits of ephemera representative of America to me while writing short poems as an attempt to process our current… moment. I had access to myriad pictures this month, and enjoyed taking the time to really look at them. The photograph I chose is for this poem is from May, 1943, taken in a Harlem, NY neighborhood by the brilliant photographer Gordon Parks for the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information. The Library of Congress has myriad of Mr. Park’s FSA/OWI photographs in their Flickr collection, and I find that sifting through them is an experience like looking at old family albums. You don’t know who any of those people are, and your mother can only remember it was her mother’s second or third cousin’s auntie, and not a single name, but regardless, you retain a sense of connection. Once upon a time, these people lived lives like yours, put things out to thaw in the morning for dinner later, exclaimed over the first strawberries of the season, muttered over weeds, took out the trash, tightened their shoelaces. Once upon a time, their lives were like your life, and so on and so on it will go, until one day the vintage image in the photograph will be one of you, and your people, and your time. There is a true sense of connection in all of our stories.
I especially appreciate that Parks spend a lot of time photographing the ephemera of segregation that are recorded in a lot of other images from this time. You don’t see a focus on Whites Only signs or anything like that. Most of that he obfuscated by photographing ordinary people… living their ordinary lives. His images aren’t composed and tidy, but spur of the moment snaps that showed how people really navigated the American landscape. I really do encourage you, as you have time, to page through his collection at the Library of Congress, or the myriad other images on the Library of Congress’ Flickr collection. It’s quite a piece of history, and we need to embrace it while we have it.
I have forced my focus to be on short poems this month, though I have moved between haibun, cinquain, and tanka, unable to settle on any one form for what I want to say. As that has worked fairly well, I decided to deliberately move between forms again, allowing myself to look at different aspects of this very striking yet ordinary photograph through the lens of an elfchen, cinquain, and finally a haibun. This image is composed of myriad small things. What I love about it is that those small things shows me so much. Look at the care this woman took with her appearance – her nails are painted, though we can’t see the deep red her thumbnail and perhaps her lips sported. She’s wearing hoops, her brows are plucked and shaped, and her hair has marks of a roller set. She’s got on a snugly buttoned cardigan beneath her wool coat, and on the windowsill, the newspaper is spread. I wish I knew what was in her hand – her house keys? A spoon for her tea? A handkerchief or the puppy’s leash? Her presence in that window has the flavor of ritual. Perhaps she’s going to pop back inside in a moment to grab something to munch on while she checks out who wore what to work today, and who is being seen home from the bus stop by whom. I love how her dog is just as eagerly interested in the events outside of his house – his territory is being sniffed out, and listened to, and he’s rigid with attention. I love that we have a picture of a Black woman with a pet. Not a mop or a vacuum. Not a passel of children or a man. A pet, a manicure, and a good coat, and every appearance of self-satisfaction as she looks out of the window alone. Bully for you, girl.
Windowsill leaners
Afternoon dreamers,
Nose for the news of the day on the street.
Watching the weather
Birds of a feather
Harlem-bred harbingers gossip and greet.
Sit. Stay.
Eyes sharp, ears high
Voices rise like hot air
Scent unrolling tales like newsprint
Good boy.
Eyes
A shade
Of skeptical,
Girl’s already seen it all
before.
(The colorized image is courtesy of amateur colorist PaadonMe in March of 2015 on the Shorpy.com website.)
Though I can only see her right hand, and don’t know if her left bore a ring, I admire her classy wool coat and seeing her knitted cardigan layered beneath know that May evening wasn’t quite warm enough yet for the windows to all be thrown quite so wide. Still, she’s ready for a change, eager for it in jaunty hoops and red-varnished nails, perhaps a domestic, breathing in the evening from her very own window, an office typist or a wartime riveter returned home for the evening, spreading out the paper and checking on the neighborhood between headlines. Perhaps she has a kettle at the boil, readying a last cup of coffee before she settles in, the wind in her face, and change on the horizon.
She wasn’t lonely
With such brave companionship
And the world turning
Below, everything changing
Country unstitched and made new.
There’s more in the photo album. You’ll find Tricia’s poem here. Liz’s poem is here. Laura’s skinny poem and Sara’s tribute is here. You’ll find Mary Lee’s poem here and Michelle K’s poem is here. More peeps may join in the ekphrastic exchanges before the weekend is over, so do check back for the full round-up. Meanwhile, Poetry Friday is ably hosted today by my second cousin, Heidi in her juicy little universe, where you’ll find plenty more poetry on all subjects, plus the latest stop on the Kidlit Progressive Poem, so don’t miss it. Thanks, Heidi!
The world is filled with hard things this week – maybe harder things than you’ve expected, in this moment. But in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” We are leaning next to you, in our own hero-training. We share your windowsill and we’re looking out and giving a skeptical, brows raised, dispassionate stare at whatever is currently troubling you, right next to you. Whatever this moment is bringing you, you are not alone in it – remember, you are well-loved.
Have a courageous weekend.