#6 Deadlines

No one saw the long hours.
I could never have done that, they said
and waited for more.
And more years passed,
each one a matter of balance
this with that,
an office without a window,
too many clocks,
too many meetings,
endless, then an end.
Pop.
Out.
Done.
I watch hummingbirds instead,
admire the yellow-crowned sparrow,
and make deadlines for myself.

I'm working without internet access this week and hope to keep up with April's poems. Sunday Scribblings' prompt this week is simply deadlines. My own writing comes along steadily; I'll begin sending queries out in May.

#5 Little sparrows . . .

Little sparrows rustle in the walls
of this apartment building. I can hear
them chirping, signs of spring,
the tree, poplar, redbud, I don't know,
sprigs of buds decorate its winter limbs.
Across the parking lot, another row of apartments
looks back at me, windows blank.
Only the birds that flit past this window,
and the pine trees clumped together,
the frogs croaking in the reeds,
and the sun that crosses the sky,
as the moon rises in the night,
as the earth twirls its elliptical round,
all these are finite,
temporary;
they move to some grand finale
I choose to not understand.


This morning's poem came as the birds did rustle in the wall just outside my office. We leave for Oregon sometime later today. Despite missing my internet connection (and Rachel and Nick), I will try to honor NaPoWrMo for National Poetry Month. Every day.

#5 Coming to the mountains . . .

We drove up from the belly of Spokane
into pine-tree studded lakelands,
rolling grassy hills, saw a few cows,
turned west past Ritzville,
clipping along at 70 towards Seattle,
stopped for coffee twice,
then those cloud-shrouded hills came into view,
foothills of the Cascades,
flanked by just plowed fields with signs:
wheat, radishes,
more wheat, more radishes,
apple trees and cherry trees, tidy orchards
barely in bloom, into the Wenatchee Valley,
closer, always closer to the mountains,
unexpected triangles to the sky,
snow-covered, pine-dotted, sky-glazed,
this place
a home for the soul.

#4 April Haiku . . .

Late snow falls; three deer
graze the brown and white winter grasses.
Frogs rest hidden in reeds.

#4: Partly here . . .

My lips part, another breath,
I am partly here,
partly virtual, a presence
on the keyboard, shifting, tapping,
simply breathing.
Right next to my computer,
purple African violets pulse,
little buds on tiny stalks almost open,
stretch and float.
A few flowers now fold
in on themselves, their yellow anthers,
faintly dusted with yellow pollen,
still bright, their green fuzzy leaves
cup anticipation for sun, for water.
I turn the pot. Each part should have
what it needs in this new house.
Just now, I am content
with morning blooms.


This poem was inspired by Robert Lee Brewer's Challenge for Day 3 of National Poetry Month. He asks writers to consider “Partly . . .(blank)” as the title and then write the poem. I chose “Partly here . . .” for I'm still not sure I will be able to write a poem a day through the month of April. He wrote “Partly Dangerous”.

#209 Mentor . . .

This April afternoon,
sweeping sheets of sleet swirl
and cover this grassy field;
a young deer shelters under pines,
almost invisible.
I'm remembering a hike last summer.
Deep into a nature preserve,
we stood at the edge of the path
to watch a deer come fearlessly
towards us. Nose lifted,
she hesitated for long moments.
We held our breath.
Together we stood very still by the path.
Not a sound.
Not a bird.
Around us the warmth of summer,
the cool of the woods.
Come, trusted love, guide me into spring,
Let us begin anew.

This week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings is simply "mentor".

Dialogue . . .

The moon rises in the night,
bright and sure, a temporary brightness
Somewhere
someone cannot fall asleep,
a thousand, thousand cry out,
in fear and pain, unheard.
And so my morning begins, a rising
of the most grave preparations, reflections,
dreams shaken, memories of
dusty seeds blown away
in the ordinary waking
to another day.
If even here poetry survives,
I can write again.

Spring Song to Witches

All hail to the merry, merry month of May.
We're wayward dancers celebrating spring.
The moon shall rise,
e'en the night doth smell of sweet green grass,
and the frogs call from deep in the reeds.
We'll lift our skirts, insatiable;
we'll twist and twirl,
eyes closed to forget that last dance,
gibbets placed at every cross road.
Confess: Take back each word, every curse.
Undo Death. Ah, April Fools we.
Except the red bud blooms,
and my bare feet want to dance.

April begins National Poetry Month. Last night faint sleet fell, tiny bits of ice, and yet, the red bud does bloom here; a shimmering red haze covers bare trees. Crocus blossoms and the first iris leaves poke from the ground. For some reason I thought of the persecution of witches during the late middle ages, those thousands and thousands of people, primarily women, who were killed. That might have begun after a particularly hard winter.

#205 Fluency . . .

Tell me of mermaids' tears turned to pearl,
or a grandfather's gnarled finger
pointing ways to read the sky.
Stephen Hawking, face and body frozen,
dreams a paradox of movement,
unfolding black holes, new trajectories of fluency.
Blonde dreadlocks swinging, a young singer's gritty voice
reinvents Joplin, her stubby fingers hover over strings,
the very lightness of being.
That was yesterday.

This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is simply fluency.

This morning . . .

This morning, just a few mallards
nosed their way through the pond,
past fresh green marsh grasses
hinting at spring. I walked along
a suburban sidewalk,
houses shuttered, anonymous,
the wind hardly moving.

Yet the pine trees filled with sparrows,
and the sparrows huddled in the bushes,
scattered before me, then
gathered together again,
this February morning
all gladdened by their little bird songs.

#199 Yes . . .

Yes, I know the texture of your skin
without touching it.
Your left side
has gone somewhere else,
sending back messages,
electric flashes,
phantom signals,
like dolphins calling
each to each through a foggy sea.

Yes, I am here,
though now we invent
new ways to speak to each other;
our fears tumble underneath
our daily walk with each slow step.
I unpack boxes of books and wonder
where the mermaid sleeps,
and if the sun will rise tomorrow.

NOTE: This week's Sunday Scribblings's prompt is simply "yes". I'm not sure where the writing will go just now, for since Allen's mild stroke, all has changed. We've relocated to a new home on the west coast and happily are unpacking books we haven't seen for over two years, but I feel a great uncertainty about the future. Our new local library hasn't many books on recovering from a stroke, especially a mild one (for which we are daily grateful), we haven't seen the new neurologist yet, and although I'm working very slowly on Standing Stones, this new reality is my center.

#197 Extreme . . .

Living in someone else's house,
I assume a second skin, eat
another person's food, sleep
in another person's bed,
feet off the end, covers tossed,
the heat set high.
The stairway creaks with losses mourned.
I could not name all those photos,
phone books to another time,
each cracked bowl comes
with its own story, Chinese willow,
the night all the dishes were thrown to the floor,
speakeasy times,
I methodically go through the refrigerator
check food labels and dates,
change the pages on calendars,
take out the garbage,
and fill my days
waiting for doctors,
watching snow fall.

When a crisis hits, nothing is more wonderful than family and friends. We're five days away from coming home and have stayed with family for the last four weeks as my dear husband recovers from a mild stroke. I feel my world has turned, pivoted, and changed irrevocably. Writing has always been my solace, but this is the first poem I've written since December 18. I would love to change what's happened, my confidence in the future is shaken, and even as I appreciate family support, I'm longing for our own place.

#193 Bravery . . .

Something so simple
as two boys riding a red wagon
down a hill, all the way down.
the sun shines brightly;
the air fills with their cries.
I think to myself:
This is the meaning of life,
no remembering, no forgetting, only this moment,
and they come down the hill again.

Something so simple
as two men riding a tank
down a hill, all the way down,
the sun shines brightly,
the air fills with their cries,
no remembering, no forgetting,
only this moment,
the objective, the target,
the result
plotted on a map,
and they come down the hill again.

Something so simple
as a man walking down a hospital hall,
thinking of red wagons and tanks,
The sun shines brightly,
the air fills with remembered cries,
no remembering, no forgetting,
only this moment.
He continues down the hall, out the door,
back in the world.
This is the meaning of bravery.

Read more of bravery at Sunday Scribblings, this week's prompt.

Love Story

You came into my life as stragglers
flee a bar, not wanting to hear the clink
of glasses, smoke-filled vulgar
rooms where you sat reading
well past sundown.
You had my number,
with your gifts of apricot,
warmed within, past any sense of solar
burn, the color orange wearing
thin, your lips stretched to park
all the way to California,
and after, in the back seat, sandwiches,
greasy on our mouths, your ears
so tuned to my gray
stories, you so willing to walk
out with me. No felonies,
each step a cadence,
inconceivable,
I thought it was another episode.
You thought?

Here's a challenge from Sage Cohen's December Newsletter, Writing the Life Poetic . Her newsletter is not online and is delivered via e-mail, just once a month, well worth reading.

This month, Sage describes a poetic form that began as a game, Bouts-Rime, from the French, meaning "end rhymes". Someone gives you a list of words; these words must appear at the end of each line. The writer cannot even change the spelling or tense. So here's my bouts-rime and here are the words that Sage listed. Try this and post a link in comments, if you like!
1. stragglers 2. clink 3. vulgar 4. reading 5. sundown 6. number 7. apricots 8. solar 9. wearing 10. park 11. California 12. sandwiches 13. ears 14. gray 15. walk 16. felonies 17. cadence 18. inconceivable 19. episodes 20. ?

#191 Game . . .

The first time I seriously went hunting with my Grandfather, I was twelve. He taught me to shoot a rifle, his old 22, and to carry it, muzzle down. I nearly shot my foot off as I forgot about the safety catch, but I was game, the only girl in the family to go hunting.

He had started me on easy tasks at first, using his hunting knife to gut fish or strip game birds of their feathers. After I was grown and gone, he called me once to come over and help him with a deer. We worked through that hot October afternoon, peeling the hide off that deer, the fleas still jumping. My grandfather's gone now, though he lived to be 100. I could dress out a deer today if I had to. I still know how to use a knife.

When I was a kid, I only saw my grandfather excited once. We were camped in the Siskiyous. Early mornings, we two were the only ones awake, hiking through the trees, our feet crunching on pine needles, our breath coming out in little white puffs.

“Hush,” he said, and we took off as fast as I could walk, following the ridge line. He stopped suddenly and stared at the track in the path, pointing out the soft indentations in the muddy trail, and hand signalling me to follow.

We crested the hill and looked over the lake just in time to see an elk with a tremendous rack enter the water and then swim across the lake to an island. The mist rose above him. He walked up the beach, shook his mighty head, and disappeared into the brush. My grandfather said, “You don't see that often.” I knew he regretted that elk season hadn't opened, but I was glad. The lake was as still as if the elk had never come or gone.

Then the day came when my grandfather decided I needed to shoot the gun for real. We had been car-hunting along some backwoods road that twisted through the wooded hills, getting ready for deer season. He pulled the car over to the side, as close to the dropoff as he could. We looked out on a deep gully, a brushy hill on the other side.

“Think you can hit that?”

I was game. I nodded. I levelled the shotgun as good as I could, and squinted my eye down the sight. I could barely see the rabbit he wanted me to shoot. I took my time, waiting, following the rabbit's slow movements along the hill.

“Nah,” he said. “I don't think you'll do it. You're a girl, just like the rest of them.”

At that, I shot. I felt a thrill of exultation. I had done it. What he said I couldn't do. And then the rabbit started screaming. The shot wasn't a killing shot. The distance had been too long.

We were silent all the way back to camp. I remember everything my grandfather taught me, but I never went hunting again.

This week, Sunday Scribblings asks us to write on "game". This story came immediately to mind. I was raised in a family of women, so my grandfather was pretty important in my life. I still wonder if I could stand up to a hard task if I were needed. I completed a Police Academy training for citizens a few years ago. When we got to the firing range, I held that gun as if I knew every aspect of it and hit a bulls eye. I like to think my grandfather would have been proud of me, though there are no guns in my house and I hope never to use one.

Writing at the end of 2009 . . .

I wonder sometimes why it seems easier to write when I'm on the road, as if I need some separation from "normal" life. Today we landed in Costa Rica for the next three months, found our house, and I'm already looking forward to tomorrow morning. I will start with writing. Or, I should say revising.

Writer's Digest posted a link to this lovely summary of the 43 most inspiring posts for 2009, and so I shall begin reading.

This list of articles made me want to think back to what has been most inspirational for me this year: Allen's cheering and steady support that makes it easy for writing to begin my day, technology that brought me a tiny netbook, only 2.4 pounds, just right for writing on the road, Google, for starting Google-docs that allows me to back up daily work online, my friends who have read early drafts with kindness and helpful comments, including critters from Internet Writing Workshop, and finally, the characters I spend so much time with. They have grown this year, and for that I am deeply grateful.

Maybe 2010 will mark the completion of Standing Stones, as other stories are starting to crowd in as well. I'm not so overwhelmed by revision now, as I was just a year ago, and that feels good. The threads of the story are winding tighter and tighter. And so tomorrow, the writing continues.

Whistling girls and crowing hens . . .

I never understood
why I couldn't whistle
or strut.
I stuck my nose
as deep as anyone
into books,
even as my blonde hair
and breasts
labelled me bimbo.
And then I did
finally understand:
No woman on the moon.
no Amazon won my battles.
Stone by stone and
step by step,
I learned camoflage,
how to talk football,
how to run meetings,
how to push down walls
and rise to my own ends.

This prompt comes from Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides. Choose an adage, make that adage the title of your poem. I instantly remembered hearing my mother tell me as a young girl that "Whistling girls and crowing hens come to bad ends." That wasn't quite as bad as "men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses," but I always felt I could whistle if I wanted to. This poem comes out of that rebellious time when I did have blonde hair, worked by day at a conservative bank, and at night, went to college.

Patience

He carried out
his ablutions
with the aplomb
of someone
with more
than one bathroom.
I waited
in the hall,
magazine in hand,
dreams caught
in my hair,
poetry under my fingers,
carefully folded
over to morning.

This little poem is dedicated to my brother-in-law as the clan gathers in a one-bathroom-house, and is somewhat inspired by Dorianne Laux' column, "Poetry: Writing From a Lived Life" in Writer's Digest, February 2009. Laux (it turns out, also at one time from Oregon), wrote about Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems, which he snatched at odd moments by writing every single day. I'm trying to catch up. Three Writer's Digests from the Library here in Philadelphia, and one more I just got from Borders. I make time for writing nearly every morning, novel first and hope for poetry. And then the blogging takes me to unexpected places. Check out the Frank O'Hara poem "Animals", written in 1950. Now, there's a poem.

#189 Oracle . . .

What oracle speaks
from fading family photographs?
Even the handsome man
with a small dark bow tie,
his blond moustache
combed and curled,
has enigmatic eyes.
Who stands next to whom?
Who touches the loved one,
as if she or he would fly away
in a wind so unexpected
that stories need to be invented?
Generations later, what memories
do we breathe in,
what histories do we invent?

This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is simply oracle. A lovely prompt. Visit the link to see what others have written.

On visiting Stirling Castle

What remains here at Stirling Castle:
a raven hops on a castle wall,
the sun glints on stone palaces and yellowing leaves,
a gargoyle's head,
two artisans weave a tapestry, mille-fleur,
a thousand flowers bloom red and blue and green,
the unicorn's legs picked in black and white.
Afternoons for cream tea and scones
with sultanas, plump and dark,
your hand shakes slightly as you add sugar,
pomp and subterfuge, processions,
the coming and the going,
the spring and the fall,
and winter ahead.


Stirling Castle, Scotland


Sometimes I feel flat, as if another poem will never come. And then one does. And I know why I feel sad, even as each day is beautiful, the sun shines, and the promise of another day is ahead. All is well in my world, and yet the days pass. No one lives forever, not even poets.