A line from Zora Neale Hurston

This fabulous, feisty woman is no longer in the world, but she made her mark and left a legacy of words for us to enjoy again and again.  I ran across this quote the other day and want to share it:

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."

Yes, indeed.

No Expiration Date On Poetry

National Poetry month is over, but there's no expiration date on a good poem.  So the gifts of May can include poetry, as well, if you'll take time to give them to yourself.

I just re-read Galway Kinnell's St Francis and the Sow and fell in love with it all over again.  Other favorites I recommend for starters/appetizers this first morning in May are:  Elizabeth Bishop's The Fish,  Mary Oliver's  The Journey, The Sun, and Wild Geese (all of hers, really), and Pablo Neruda's Ode to My Socks.  Let me know how you like those! 

Because May brings promises of good things to come, along with warmth accelerating to heat, I will post a new poem of my own, entitled Stumbling Around Eden.

Huffington Post article by Cynthia R. Green, PhD

Cynthia R. Green, Ph.D.
Clinical psychologist and brain health/memory fitness expert; founder, Memory Arts; author, 'Total Memory Workout'


'A Mad Obsession': Poetry on the Brain
Posted: 04/13/2012 11:15 am
Huffington Post

What is it about a poem? We seem to have fallen out of the habit of reading, studying, let alone writing poetry. Yet there can be nothing quite like a stanza of fine poetic prose to bring us back to a moment, move us to tears, or force us to think about something twice.
April is National Poetry Month, and a good time for us to reflect on why poetry is good for our minds (and for our souls, but that we'll have to leave for later). Poetry is just one of the many different, often unexpected ways we can keep our brains challenged and vibrant. Numerous studies have shown that intellectually engaging activities such as reading or writing poetry can be critical to maintaining our mental acuity and potentially reducing our risk for dementia over our lifetimes. While many activities can provide us with the "stretch" we need to stay sharp and ward off memory loss, engaging with poetic verse is one of my personal favorites.
Why is poetry good for our brains? First, poetry engages our minds. Often we read passively or simply to learn what we need to know. We cannot do this with a poem. By its very nature, a good poem asks us to delve a bit deeper to best discern its intention. Second, poetry gets our creative juices flowing. Whether we read or even choose to write verse, poetry forces us to think out of our own box or experience. Finally, since poems come in all sizes, we can all find a poem to engage with no matter how short we are on time, making it an intellectual exercise that fits all time budgets.
Dr. Milton Ehrlich is a clinical psychologist who has in recent years become a prolific poet. Now 80 year old, Dr. Ehrlich first began writing poems when he began to work part-time at age 70, leaving him with more time to pursue what had always been an interest he had limited opportunity to explore earlier. "I'm now passionate about trying to master the craft of writing poems" writes Dr. Ehrlich. "I am always working on a poem and seem to crank out a new poem almost every week. I think about it all the time. Some would call it a mad obsession." Ehrlich's body of work is quite varied, but reflects a comfort in exploring our inner psychic world, with all its contradictions and conflicts, yet bound by a wisdom and integrity reached through experience. "Writing a poem that works always stems from the unconscious. When the reader is moved, the poem succeeds." Dr. Ehrlich has published over 50 poems and three books of his poetry, including his latest collection, "Trying in Vain to Remember Who I Am."  (Visit Huffington Post to see the poem included at the end of Dr. Green's piece).

From Charleston Currents - April 9, 2012

THE LISTS - Andy Brack

Five South Carolina poets
One of the things that good writers do is to read other good writers to learn from them. Award-winning Georgetown writer, poet and writing coach Lucinda Shirley recently sent along a list of her five favorite South Carolina poets:

• Libby Bernadin of Georgetown;
  
  
• National Book Award winner Nikky Finney, a native of Conway who is a distinguished professor at the University of Kentucky;
  
  
• Deborah Lawson Scott of Charleston, current president of the Poetry Society of South Carolina;
  
  
• Cassie Premo Steele of Columbia; and
  
  
• South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth of Mount Pleasant.

Lucinda Shirley reading You Are from Dancing On Mars

Poet Adrienne Rich Dies at 82

latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/03/adrienne-rich.html

Ohhhh Adrienne, we need you now, maybe more than ever.  I like to think you'll be looking out for us from the other side.  Thank you for all you have done for poetry and feminism.  You've earned a rest.

March 18 Poetry Reading

I'm happy to report that Ann Carlson of Harborwalk Books in Georgetown, SC, is coordinating a series of Sunday afternoon poetry readings.   On March 18 from 3 - 4 pm, Deborah Lawson Scott and I will be reading at the Coffee Break Cafe on Front Street.  For further information, you may call Ann at 843.546.8212.

It will be fun spending this time with other poetry lovers — and what a wonderful prelude to Spring!   Thank you, Ann.

Libby Bernadin's LAYERS OF SONG

I'm excited as a kid who got exactly what she wanted Christmas morning!  I found Libby Bernadin's beautiful poetry book at Harborwalk Books here in Georgetown.   The Book of Myth (Stepping Stones Press 2009) must have been a hard act to follow, but Ms. Bernadin offers a powerful collection of poems in Layers of Song.

Finding myself deeply inside a poem,  for moments I would forget to breathe.  There were times  I laughed and smiled, as well — one example, "the women all say."  Her words are perfection, clear as Waterford, complex and yet never "fussy" or overdone.  She knows how much to say and how to say it.

I felt the tension, as I read,  between awe and thinking I should just stop trying to write in the face of poems this fine — and then I felt inspired to try a whole lot harder.

Thank you, Libby Bernadin.

Sharing a Site

My friend and poetry lover, Debbie, introduced me to High on Words Radio.  I look forward to listening again soon; the readings I heard were a delightful change of pace.

 High On Words Radio is a poetry show that features conscious poetry, oddball poetry, slam-competative poetry, music-poetry fusion, classical poetry...

http://soundcloud.com/

Coleman Barks Reading Rumi and ...

other poets reading.  The Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival sent this link to videos from that festival and also from Bill Moyers' new PBS show, including a sit-down with Rita Dove.  I watched Coleman Barks read/recite Rumi's "I See My Beauty in You" and forgot to breathe.  Wow.

I'm headed back to this site to enjoy more.  

http://billmoyers.com/content/pure-poetry/

DANCING ON MARS

I haven't mentioned my book on the poetry blog, and I really should.  Some of my poems are in it.

None of the poems were written specifically for the book; in fact, I hadn't planned to include my own poems at all.  It just—happened.  I won't go into the long and winding story about seeking permission to use other people's poems and finally giving up.  Now it seems my own poems were meant to be in there; they're a good "fit."

 Selected poems, written over the past thirty years, have been placed in related text in this memoir/exploration.  They amplify what's said with the prose, sharpen and distill it. At least I hope that's what they do.

 Dancing on Mars opens and closes with a poem.  The first, "The Reluctant Thespian" was written very early in my poem-making life, in the mid-1970's.  The last poem in the book, "Dream Yourself," was written while I was writing the book, but with no thought of including it.  It just— happened.

With "Dream Yourself" I had challenged myself to get more comfortable with fantasy and allow my imagination to have its way.   Far too reality-based, I wanted to broaden my scope of themes and images.  I like to believe that particular poem points to "growth," but mostly it was just fun to write.

It's my hope that the accessibility of the poems will convert any poetryphobes out there.  Maybe it will show readers that poetry isn't about dissecting a poem or "getting" what the poet intended to say.  Very often this poet isn't at all sure what she intends to say herself!  What matters is what the reader gets from experiencing a poem.

I invite you to check out the book trailer my generous, talented, and very busy son created for Dancing on Mars.  Here's the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV4YjoQ9ksw&feature=youtu.be   If you like it, there's a place to indicate that next to the video; you can also leave a comment.

The book, published by All Things That Matter Press,  will launch this spring —I'm thinking fairly early this spring, sometime after the sap begins to rise and before butter melts on the table in the South Carolina Lowcountry.  Stay tuned, y'all!

Welcome back to PBS, Bill Moyers

One of my favorites, Moyers has a new show on Sunday mornings—at ten EST in my neck of the woods.  I believe Sunday, February 19 was the show's debut, and I was lucky to see it.   Why am I posting this on the poetry blog?  Because Bill Moyers is a lover of, and advocate for, poetry.

This past Sunday Rita Dove (two-term Poet Laureate of the United States) was one of his guests, and what a delightful visit they had.  The joy they were experiencing (as they read from the anthology of 20th Century American Poetry Dove recently edited) beamed its way to me.  I was positively "floating" when the show ended.

He will have non-poets as guests, too.  I'm sure all will be interesting; Moyers himself is interesting. He's someone I can count on to be fair, honest, intelligent and accurate in his presentations.

Next week the editor of Poetry Magazine will be a guest.  I will abandon my usual political talk shows for that hour.  No doubt I will feel far better after this PBS offering than after the Sunday morning network shows.

Thank you for coming back, Bill.

MARJORY WENTWORTH'S NEW BOOK!

South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth has co-written another nonfiction book, released at the end of September.

Taking a Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights by
Juan Méndez and Marjory Wentworth "is an incisive look across the most pressing human rights issues of our time, how they have evolved, and how effective action can be taken to address them."

Having read her poetry and her children's book, Shackles, I know this must be an exceptional offering.

Seasons

Here's one of two poems I wrote for a competition that involved interpreting an interesting black and white photograph:  An autumn scene, trees nearly bare;  the centerpiece was a swimming pool with leaves floating on water's surface; the pool is encircled by empty white chaise lounges.  


We were sun-happy at Solstice
as the parade of Summer days
began, days hotter than dog’s
breath begging
deliverance of night. 
We soothed our passion
in the cooling water here.

Like Dervishes we spun
ourselves into Summer,
spinning out into the world,
spinning until mirages
of foreverness appeared
before our thirsty eyes.

But the Equinox brought reason,
sobering us for the season
of reflection, has us looking
at reality
through a sharper lens.

The trees have shrugged off
their leaves, stripping us
of our own green foolishness,
leading us to solid ground,
planting our feet firmly in it.

Autumn rules now,
leading us toward
the dark caves
of Winter
where we will fold
into the warm blanket
of our softer selves
and delve into mysteries
beyond summer’s reach.

And one day we will answer
the robin’s songful appeal
for our return to a world
where sap is rising
and green shoots
beckon.
We will inhale
the fragrance
of possibility,
anticipating
the gifts
of a new season.

Poetry In-Service for Tidelands Volunteers

What a delight to spend a Tuesday morning with volunteers at Tidelands Hospice, reading poems and encouraging the use of poetry.   It was a joy and an honor to be in the company of these impressive women and their amazing leader, Ellna Silver.  They each have the Poetry Peddler's respect and admiration for who they are and what they do.

                                           
Volunteers and The Poetry Peddler with  Ellna Silver behind the camera.
 October 18, 2011 -  Bravo and shine on, y'all!

Sharing the Power of Poetry

The Poetry Peddler soon will be taking poetry to some Hospice volunteers, hoping they will choose to share poems with clients, families, staff, and other volunteers.  Maybe with their own families.

I will tell them the story of my friend Cathy.  She had cancer and was weary from fighting it.  I sensed she was ready to leave the physical world.

Her husband called to ask another mutual friend and me to visit Cathy at their home.  Not long before our visit, I thought of taking a few poems along, and I followed the impulse.  I took Mary Oliver's Wild Geese, another poem or two I'm not remembering at the moment, and my poem, Snow Lesson.   I had written the poem with Cathy in mind on a rare snowy day in the South Carolina Lowcountry.  It's a poem about letting go.

When we arrived, it was obvious that Cathy was extremely weak.  I felt she was glad we were sitting at her bedside, but she was not up to conversation.  We said a few things that required minimal to no response, and I covered her hand with mine for a little while.  Then I told her I'd brought a few poems  if she'd like me to read them.  She affirmed the idea with a nod, and I began to read.  As I read,  her face began to relax; there was the hint of a smile, and her breathing seemed easier.    

When it felt like the right time to go.  I said I would come back, but that next time maybe I would leave the poems at home.  She made a great effort to speak, managing a barely-audible whisper:
Bring. poems. 

Two days later Cathy left this world.  The visit that day was something I treasured.  I was glad to have seen her and glad to have taken the poems.  It had felt like the right thing to do, sharing on a deep level that demanded no back and forth.  The poems created a peaceful intimacy; they "said it all" for us,  reader and listeners.  I hope the Hospice volunteers and staff will want share poems with clients who want to listen.  And I hope these generous volunteers who give so much to others will be able to give themselves the gift of poetry.
                                                                   

                                        Snow Lesson

                           Notice how the snow lets go
                            of the cypress tree
                            after a rare and timeless night
                            clinging to her limbs,
                            her Spanish hair.

                             Notice the ease in parting,
                              shedding
                              identity in the let-go
                              accepting
                              the gift of air,
                                       free-falling
                                       through sunshine
                                       into the dark arms
                                       of the lake,
                                       into a new world
                                        of mystery
                                        and promise.
                                                  ~ Lucinda Shirley

POEMS FROM LAKE LUNA

                                                                From Lucinda's Window

Taking It Back

too long ago
to remember
too hard to forget

people spoke
in complete sentences,

really listened
even to long ones.



the neighbors knew

where to find skeletons.

engraved invitations
announcing new beginnings,

notes of thanks
written in ink.



cups and saucers
at the table
napkins in laps

talking about the day.



sitting on summer grass
under the night sky
in easy conversations.

yawning eternities
on church pews
mothers doling out mints
to reward endurance.

dogs living outside
loving us all the same,

rabies shots no protection
against speeding cars--

every new pet
 was Rascal.



gas station attendant

pumping with a smile
pleased, he says, to scrape
dead bugs from your windshield,
'preciates the business.


they still bring funeral food

Food Lion trays now or
KFC in a cardboard bucket.

no more wrangling
for a 
family recipe.



trivia or trauma,
no
 appointment needed

between friends.

now we wait
for white space
on 
the e-calendar,
long waits.
we keep 
notes for
the 
Goddamn summit
so we don't  forget
why 
we planned
to sit
 down together
in the
 first place.

  I'd like to take back
     the little things
     that are so big

     there’s a hole
     in life where
     they used to be.



      could somebody
          on Angie’s List

             please fix that?


A Sunday Morning Exercise

I’m back in my old bones
now, done with romancing
melancholy,
done with suffering
emotional kidney stones
without morphine.

There is nothing --
no thing -- to fear
about love itself.
Only the thought
of losing love
brings on
night terrors.

What I know
about love
would fill
a golden thimble
to overflowing;
What I don’t know
would climb
the Eiffel Tower
and jump.

Dream Yourself

     

Dream yourself a big dream,
Then wake up and follow it
Down the soft lichen lane
And over the cockle shells
Where dolphins call.

Go where the blue flamingo drinks
Gin and saints are partial to jazz.
Jump over the stumbling blocks
Or fly over, wishing a good day
To the snails taking their time
On the way to Wherever.

Push the boulder aside
With one finger
And blink yourself
Into the cave.
Trust the light to appear
Once you commit.  Begin
To feel your way along
The centuries-pocked wall.

Sure enough, bats wearing
Miners' hats light your way
To the gemstones.  You take
The big one, a diamond
Encrusted in purple clay.

Now you hitch a ride
With a dragonfly to the next
Part of the dream, waving
And blowing kisses
Like a beauty queen to
The crowd at a parade.

You will throw your head back
Laughing when the spotted horse
Invites you to climb on
And go the distance.

Dream yourself a big dream,
Then wake up and follow it.
                                 

   For My Mother in  Search of Her Self 

You boarded the train  -- how many years ago?
Wearing big beads to cover up the War
And a high pompadour for courage.
A child then, you carried within you
Another child down the miles of track,
Unquestioning love leading you
Through the howling nighttime
Taking hope along like a box lunch
To ward off hunger,
Shorten the hours
Until the train made a last lurching stop.

Through dirt-streaked windows
The rest of your life
Waited at the gate,
A promise in uniform
Strong and smiling,
Offering part of himself,
wanting all of you.

Today you travel in daylight,
Your eyes wide with remembering.
You play Robin Hood without a fuss,
Taking back things
That were always yours.
You cradle hope in a photo album
To ward off lonely hours,
Make the moments count.

[Note: This poem appeared in the August 2011 edition of Purple Pros, a publication of the Southeastern Writers Association.]

           Finch  

A finch at the feeder
takes a seed quickly, turns
his tiny head side to side,
He takes a seed and looks around,
takes a seed, looks around,
poised to escape
any feline hunter
hoping for a kill.

No one needs to remind him
his life is only certain
as his vigilance,
no resting between
seeds and songs.

He knows no other way
of being in his feathers,
knows nothing of
surrendering
to the moment,
trusting
fate to bring what it will.

The life of the hyper-vigilant
is a hard life
whatever else is in it,
and there no holidays
Ever.

Love Letter to a Poetryphobe

I know.  I know.  You can think of a thousand things you'd rather do than read or listen to poems.  Your eyes glaze over and you realize you could use a nap.  Now.

Or you find yourself heading into an anxiety flashback, to the day your Seventh Grade teacher called on you to recite a long poem that made no sense.  Probably still doesn't.  You had a week to memorize it.  Hands clammy, face flushed with shame, you made your way to the front of the classroom.  Never again.

Easy...deep breaths.  Nobody's asking you to memorize or perform today.  You don't need to interpret or analyze a poem for a passing grade.   You don't have to do anything here.   As one of my all-time favorite poets, Mary Oliver, says in Wild Geese (in New and Selected Poems):
                           
                               You do not have to be good.
                               You do not have to walk on your knees
                                for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
                           
There's great comfort for me in that.  Mary Oliver's poems are so earthy and so real,  accessible to even the least academic among us.  That's one of many things that endear her to me.  She meets me where I live every time.  I always feel things when I read a Mary Oliver poem.  And I don't ruin those feelings by grilling myself on what she must have meant by this or that.  I do pause to marvel at some of her perfectly simple, perfectly perfect words.  I believe you would, too.  It's really hard to write with her precision and make it look easy.  

You would have a hard time not liking the rest of Wild Geese.   If you like it, I'll bet you'd also enjoy Ms. Oliver's The Ponds, The Sun, Alligator Poem, and The Journey.  You're bound to like something about all of them.  And you needn't know what the "something" is.  You only have to read it.  Prowl around freely in Mary Oliver's work and see what your own "soft animal" loves.

I was delighted by something A. E. Houseman said about poetry and meaning:  "Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out....Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure."    And pleasure is what most poetry offers.   Why would we want to spoil that pleasure by struggling to find a message?  It's a poem, not a fortune cookie.  If it speaks to you, you will get your "message" and you don't need to worry about whether it's "the" message!

In addition to pleasure, poems offer us opportunities to feel empathy and hope and pain and connection.  And so many other things you will discover for yourself.  But we don't have to identify those things or analyze them.  Unless we want to do that.  For me, experiencing a poem is enough. Experiencing a poem is giving myself to it by opening my heart and mind and suspending judgment.  I surrender to the poem and allow it to take me wherever it's going.

I like some poems better than others; some don't appeal to me at all.  Just as certain foods, films, and works of art are especially captivating, some poems reach out and grab me by the heart or the throat.  And they become favorites.  This can happen only when we don't freeze like a rabbit in fear of "getting it wrong."  There is no way to get it wrong if it moves you in any way at all.  If it makes you smile.  Or nod in agreement or feel a pang of sorrow or a flash of anger.    Or if you like the sounds it makes when you read it aloud or you like the way the poem moves, its rhythm.  Whatever you take from any poetry experience is enough.  Enough!

Bet you'd enjoy Pablo Neruda's "Ode to my Socks" and Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish," too.
If you decide to give them a read, come back and let me know how you liked them, would you?

Meanwhile, I will post a few poems of my own. 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

                     

Posting for Mother's Day 2011

        Mama

Standing somewhere
Between respect and envy
I watch as brown wings
Lift the small body, moving her
Through seamless spring air.

Disappearing, returning
Again and again to the nest,
To duties dictated by instinct.
She knows what’s expected.
She knows and knows and knows.

Steadfast Mama Wren
Gives her helpless young
What she knows how to give,
And that is good enough.

                                    You

          If from a mist over some foreign sea
            you spiral your Self into being,
            or in a field of daisies dance into life
            on the four leaves of a green clover
            or come from the bones of a great silver fish
            or as a raindrop falling
            on a place long rainless,
            whether you appear as liquid light
            in the eyes of an old man
            or emerge from a deep river bed,
            red clay kissing your fingers,
            whether from a mother’s soft belly
            or the belly of a huge round ship,
            I would know you
                though I might not read the text of your face
            I would surely know you.
   
            If in centuries beyond this time
            you take birth
                whatever body, whatever circumstance,
                whether in this place or far away,
                through a door hidden altogether from me,
            I will know you are here         or there,
            back
                beyond names, beyond language,
                beyond the shadows of reason.
   
            I will know
                and once again my heart will be glad
                you are.     

                            Fantasy

            Sometimes I’m consumed 
            with excitement
            sometimes with fear
            at the thought
            you might appear
            on my doorstep
                        whisk me away

                        to Paris
                        or Bali
                        or
                        the Days Inn across town

           on your lunch break
           with soggy sandwiches
           in a brown bag.




"Fantasy" was first published in Petigru Review.

Paving Paradise
 
 Gunmetal gray,
rain pounding
sideways
against a day
made for the quilt,
an easy book,
and cinnamon tea.

Thoughts of garlic cheese,
the very last
summer tomatoes,
maybe some white corn ...
and I sit up straight.

Soon I’m out the door,
raised red umbrella,
with duck-head handle,
off to the farmers’ market,
open seasonally
Saturday mornings only.

Wind gusts turn my umbrella
inside out, hunter-gatherer
rummaging for canvas bags
in the trunk,
then squish-squashing
across the boggy grounds
noticing a tree -- no, many trees--
cut down to stumps.

The taste of sadness
moves into my mouth.
So little respect for pines here,
hard to understand;
they are trees
same as cypress
and magnolia,
ancient oaks
with their Spanish hair,
so treasured
and admired.

There’s bias even toward trees.
I smile, ruthless in my efforts
to move out of sadness,
inviting others
to come with me.
I smile and nod
to everyone I pass, even
the wife of the skinny racist
at the first stand where
I no longer shop.

The dairy couple
delights in telling me
I’ve managed to arrive
before the garlic cheese
is gone.

 
I buy tomatoes
from the radiant
woman with obsidian skin,
her delicious Gullah accent
charming me into more squash
and two ears of corn.
I’d pay to hear the music
in her voice.
She's grandmother to grown children
with the spirit of a girl,
beaming my smile right back.
We are friends without the bother
of remembering names
or needing histories.
We
both want Barack Obama
to be our next president.
She's glad I'm helping his campaign.

Next Saturday will be the last
market this year, she says,
a month early.  Somebody’s
building a bank here
where the green-striped tents
have stood for years of Saturdays.
It was in the paper.

I shake my head; that
explains the trees.

I wish her well
and head back
to the car, not bothering
with the umbrella.
Hearing Joni Mitchell singing
in my head,
“They paved paradise and
put up a parking lot ...."

They’re paving paradise again,
I’m thinking,
as I drive away,
but they’ll
never pave it all.
Never.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Robert Bly has said he likes to write one bad poem before breakfast each morning.

   
One Bad Poem


Bare feet beg to levitate
above the cold floor
this bone-chiller
of a morning.
Heating unit quit
in the night, no warning.
Indoor breezes,
marsh ghosts gathering
for a reunion.


The heating people
will call back
soon.
Speed-dressing in bulky layers
I smile
at feeling like a sausage.


I have a special talent
for cheering myself up,
a true gift
when life delivers
unwelcome surprises,
little ones
like a cold morning
with no heat.


Some big ones are harder
but I find a way,
after tears and some time,
to rebound to the sound
of my own
laughter.

On Eunice Shriver's Passing

The fine wood grain is clear
in the digitized perfection
of cable TV,
a flowerless casket
borne by adult children
of Eunice Kennedy Shriver,
esteemed humanitarian,
passionate woman,
and “Mummy” to the
five pall bearers.


The strength of their love
might have been magic enough
to breathe her back into this world,
yet they were letting her go
as no doubt she taught them to do,
the handsome quintet speaking in praise
of intimate connection to her,
of Eunice as mother,
nineteen grandchildren
offering sweet goodbyes.
She had needed no frills,
no adornment, was
as she was, statement and blessing.
What more can a mother want
than to be wholly who she is
and still loved, indeed cherished,
by her children? Held blameless
in death.


Eunice Shriver talked
with her grownup children
every day
sometimes more than once.
They exchanged the gift
of giving a mighty damn
about one another.


They did not refer one another
to Facebook or a web site; they
spoke, voice to voice, heart to heart.


When my lively presence
is no more, when even
my essence no longer lingers,
what will you see?


Perhaps a frightened young woman
whistling through the graveyard
of lost innocence,
determined to do her best by you.


Will you ever see courage
in the woman’s risk--
believing hope over history--
trying even harder
to bring enough love
to make the marriage work
a second time?
To give you both mother and father
at a dinner table
and ...


Will you realize my mistake
was not leaving the marriage
but re-entering it
in the first place,
wanting it so much for you?
I know it was hard for you.
I know.


I believe Eunice understood
that a woman must nourish
her own spirit
first, keep it alive--
only that brings wholeness.


May you know wholeness.
May you know joy in marriage.
May your paternal love
flourish, far from the mine fields
of resentment.

                    ~  August 15, 2009

          Calendar Girl  

Coming out of sleep’s silky peace
as first light floods the sky,
her heart races into wakefulness.
She moves quickly
through morning rituals,
making a check-mark
on the calendar
for today, April 7.  She
is grateful for spring.


Someone is coming today
to hear her story.
She will tell them
it wasn’t something she had
thought of, not for a minute,
giving up the scholarship
to care for her mother;
she never meant to give up
everything,
only school for a while.


This is the best place
she has slept lately,
this concrete loading dock
where so far she has been
undisturbed by the police.
We criminalize poverty
in America.
Where had she heard that?


Like most days she walks
to the library downtown,
searches for work on the internet,
hopes whatever she is reading
hasn’t been checked out.
She squirreled Jane Austen
once, in the wrong section.
Book-hiding is her only crime.


She sees elegant women
stepping out of Main Street condos,
women who need long mirrors
to convince them
they’re worthy of being seen.
They look fine.


Later, down by the river, she is
interviewed under the bridge.
“What do you want?  What do you hope for?”
To get a job....go back to school...
To understand.
Most of all, to understand.


Posted on a girder,
the calendar is on her side,
turning time
into neat squares
she can manage.

from Lake Luna

Tank

What’s the old fellow
up to this morning
resting himself so near
the big cypress?
Would a gator
need his back scratched
I wonder...

He stares me down
then glides away
leaving his wake
of superiority.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

The Weight of Blood

Red clouds
in the lake
this June morning,
a mystery,
with sky reflecting
only blue and white.
It's not sunset after all.

I stare from upstairs window
as turtle heads poke
through water surface.
Do they understand
the red cloud?
Are they turtle-talking
about it?
A young gator, motionless
and mostly eyes,
studies
thick grasses
along the bank.

It could be blood, I think,
these red clouds beyond my binoculars;
I push the thought away,
not wanting it to be blood.

But what else?
And why not?
Can I possibly believe
that all life is secure in this lake,
because I wish it so,
that it’s all here
in its silky serenity
for the sole purpose
of filling
the holes in my heart?

I wish I'd inherited
the denial gene
all the others got.

Is blood heavier than water?
I learned from porch tales
and small-town gossip
that it’s thicker.

Never interested
in cold facts or science,
the exactitude of things,
I don’t know the weight
of blood, factually speaking.
I can tell you from experience
that it’s heavier than it should be.

Much heavier.

[The Weight of Blood was published in Pluff Mud Mag, a literary journal for Lowcountry poets and writers,  February 2011.]

Dreaming Change 2008
 
paper fragments swirl
on the Denver pavement,
unearned prizes
laid at my feet
by an August breeze.

lover of words
and clean sidewalks,
i bend to the
smudged inkjet words,
gathering
paper shards,
chasing one scrap
down
until I have them
all,
shaking my head
at my fool self
all the while.

at a coffee shop
i read what I can,
placing each scrap on the
cool tabletop, knowing
this puzzle
has too many
pieces missing.

promise we need to keep...
now... history teaches us...
God bless... as one... the world
coming to our shores...
change .... need now ... destiny,,,
not...the time for...small plans...

why do I squander time,
study these words as if
they are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
there’s a list to make,
and calls,
all because i have to do
something to help.
something.

nearly eight years now
this madness,
this country I have loved,
faded almost
beyond memory.

why do i keep forgetting
to breathe?

my former self
stirred itself awake once
in this dark time
to make a sorry sign
with bright markers,
to march to the state capitol.


that windy day i could breathe,
could feel the fire of life
blazing through my blood
as i folded myself
into a sea
of righteous energy,

very much alive
when the reporter
asked why i was there and
later on the front page
just beneath the fold
i said
“If we invade Iraq,
we become the terrorists.”

and you know they
did anyway, said it
wouldn’t take long,
we would be liberators
greeted with flowers,
it was not about oil at all.
there would be
few casualties. maybe none.

there is nothing casual about
death.

you know how it went.

so long in this tunnel
seeing no light
no light
until now
maybe,
maybe.

afraid to look straight into it
or the light could disappear
and then what to do
with all the hurt
what to do
with more pain?

enough pain will smother
courage and all the other
noble things.

once i was asked this:
beyond the food-shelter-water-air
of survival
what could you not live without?

hope.

so i call on St. Anthony,
retriever of things lost:
Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony
take a look around,
something’s lost
that must be found.

fingering the scraps now
in my left pocket, I square
shoulders and sit up straight,
wondering if
St. Anthony has heard.

under my handbag,
a scrap of white,
clinging
to its leather life raft,
all the words
clear:

...the love of my life, Michelle.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

         Remembrance

Driving south in steady rain
one day past Thanksgiving,
I'm splashed by passing
trucks on the old highway,
grateful to be far
from interstate madness.


A crusty red pickup
pulls off pavement
into tall, drenched
grass;
hitched to the truck is
a flat, open trailer,
optimism in metal.


He’s a hunter
hoping for a deer.


Weary from a lifetime
of judging, I’ve sworn off.
It’s not my job
to judge.

Instead, I remember a doe
I met one day in the foothills
who didn’t run away
at the sight of me.
There was more majesty in her
neck than in an entire human--
elegant, trusting, strong.


She is with me now, her
eyes knowing things mine
will never see.
I still feel her tenderness.


She was not afraid.


No Pulitzer or Nobel
could have meant
more than the honor
of her trust
that day,
blessing
and benediction
in a cathedral
where one need not bow
to the Creator
nor offer sacrifice
to know Divine
gifts in the ragged
reality of humanness.

           French Impressions        
    
 The Seine shrouded in gray
            and rain, rain
            coming at me sideways,
            wind turning my red umbrella
            inside out.
  
Sacre Coeur, Musee D’Orsay,
            Luxembourg Park, St. Germain-des-Prez,                 
            & Mona Lisa at the Louvre over heads
           of a hundred tourists more eager
           than I for a closer look;


Le Pere Lachaise, best address in Paris,
            cimetierie home of Alice B. Toklas &
            Gertrude Stein, Chopin, Moliere, Bizet.
            Isadora Duncan...Yanks and Brits
            asking directions to Jim Morrison.

   

            I could have stayed for days
            above ground, walking around
            in the rain-mist, peaceful heart
            beating in sync with this time and place.
  
Chambord, magnificent hunting lodge
            of a King Louis, whose number I forget,
            the chapel there reminding me
            of another lifetime,
            stone arches and a cross,
            always a cross;
            A pack of hunting hounds breathing
            life into the grand Chateau d’ Cheverny.
          
The village Beaugency charming me
            absolutely, its stone bridge stretched
            across the Loire...streetside cottages,
            flowers blooming through cracks
            in ancient walls, color-bursts
            everywhere
            in pots and early spring beds.



            Vin rouge,  delicious,
            noon and night, bringing
            the sleep of childhood.
      
And my favorite of all the sights?
            The rainbows.  Ah, oui,  three rainbows,
            promises of good things to come,
            wherever in this world we might be.