Each day begins with faith
that word will follow word.
This is my ars poetica,
my house I build
stick by stick
and stone by stone,
my soul space between my hands,
my dreams
as harmonious as a white moon
rising imperturbly
through the night.
Crack me open.
Seeds spill out
from heart and bone.
They float and dance,
a mystery, a joy.
As I write, the very pulse
of the mountain shimmers through me.
I can see into the eye of a spawning salmon.
For a moment, the shape of an aurancara tree
is fixed, its bristling branches spread out
in two directions, to the earth, sloping down,
and to the stars, curling up,
a poem.
This poem is posted in response to Poefusion 36, to explain what a poem should be, inspired by the magnificent Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish. Sunday Scribblings' prompt this week is simply ¨"follow." Some of you readers know that I'm traveling in South America. This last week has been a challenge for my laptop computer was stolen in a very small town in southern Peru, after a 17 hour busride. While I did have backups, I was shakey over the loss and very uncertain how I could write without a computer. I posted a query on Internet Writers Workshop, their Writing listserv, and cannot tell you how wonderful it was to hear from other writers and to have a solution that brought me back to the keyboard and writing in only 2 days. So part of this poem is a celebration simply of the ability to write.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
#159 Quipu . . .
I stand in front of this quipu,
the second one I’ve been close enough
to touch with my own hands,
this strange belt of long, knotted strings.
When the conquistadors came
to the land of the Inkas, the Mapuche, the Wari,
these quipus were burned, idolatrous.
Only later scholars discovered these belts,
made of woven llama or alpaca wool,
knotted in units of ten,
these “talking knots” carried information
from kingdom to kingdom,
high along the Andes trail,
the knots their own language,
a chronicle, a census,
accountable, transparent
in their fragile white, red and black twists of wool,
some knots figure-eights,
more than numbers, sacred colors, stored infinity
that, it is said,
a few could read with their eyes closed,
their fingers “telling” the knots.
In the whole world, only 600 quipus remain.
This is one.
Not all that was burned is lost.
Some things are known and not told.
The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, here in Santiago, Chile, has an amazing collection of Pre-Columbian artifacts, including textiles and this one quipu. I read scholars are now finding possible clues about the “language” of these quipus in paintings of textiles and pottery. I was still very moved to see this beautiful quipu and so wrote this second response to Sunday Scribblings' prompt on Language. The image comes from Wikipedia.
the second one I’ve been close enough
to touch with my own hands,
this strange belt of long, knotted strings.
When the conquistadors came
to the land of the Inkas, the Mapuche, the Wari,
these quipus were burned, idolatrous.
Only later scholars discovered these belts,
made of woven llama or alpaca wool,
knotted in units of ten,
these “talking knots” carried information
from kingdom to kingdom,
high along the Andes trail,
the knots their own language,
a chronicle, a census,
accountable, transparent
in their fragile white, red and black twists of wool,
some knots figure-eights,
more than numbers, sacred colors, stored infinity
that, it is said,
a few could read with their eyes closed,
their fingers “telling” the knots.
In the whole world, only 600 quipus remain.
This is one.
Not all that was burned is lost.
Some things are known and not told.
The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, here in Santiago, Chile, has an amazing collection of Pre-Columbian artifacts, including textiles and this one quipu. I read scholars are now finding possible clues about the “language” of these quipus in paintings of textiles and pottery. I was still very moved to see this beautiful quipu and so wrote this second response to Sunday Scribblings' prompt on Language. The image comes from Wikipedia.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
#30 Neruda Retold: Fable of the Mermaid
Sometimes mermaid stories are about an ugly side of the relationships between men and women. Here, I followed Poefusion’s prompt to make a new poem by adding lines of my own between the lines of this mermaid poem by Pablo Neruda, still one of my favorite poets.
What was learned? That poets work in tight levels of meaning. I went online to post my version and discovered another Poetfusion poet, Gautami Tripathi, also working with a Neruda poem. Ha! And then I traveled up to La Sebastiana to walk through Pablo Neruda’s home here in Valparaiso, Chile. No photographs were allowed, but my eyes are full of this wonderfully creative space.
You can read Pablo Neruda's original version here: Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks
"Neruda Retold: Fable of the Mermaid"
All those men were there inside,
as if they were waiting
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit
and laugh as if they had been given a toy.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was as perfect as the moon.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way, and
the smell of the sea filled the room.
Their insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor
until one by one, they became quiet.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love
shaming the men before her.
Her twin arms were made of white topaz
that burned those who touched her.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light
scream and the room was empty of life.
Suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river, she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back, she swam again
swam towards the deep sea, swam towards life.
What was learned? That poets work in tight levels of meaning. I went online to post my version and discovered another Poetfusion poet, Gautami Tripathi, also working with a Neruda poem. Ha! And then I traveled up to La Sebastiana to walk through Pablo Neruda’s home here in Valparaiso, Chile. No photographs were allowed, but my eyes are full of this wonderfully creative space.
You can read Pablo Neruda's original version here: Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks
"Neruda Retold: Fable of the Mermaid"
All those men were there inside,
as if they were waiting
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit
and laugh as if they had been given a toy.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was as perfect as the moon.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way, and
the smell of the sea filled the room.
Their insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor
until one by one, they became quiet.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love
shaming the men before her.
Her twin arms were made of white topaz
that burned those who touched her.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light
scream and the room was empty of life.
Suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river, she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back, she swam again
swam towards the deep sea, swam towards life.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
#159 Sappho's Language
The two poems lie side by side.
Their words float off the page,
their meaning some place
between two mirrors.
The serpent uncurls and in an instant
all is known and then lost.
I look each word up
in the dictionary of my imagination,
but the nuances shimmer, love,
the letters flicker and twist,
transforming what is known
into something strange and new,
perhaps close to what the poet cried
in her dreams.
This week's Sunday Scribblings asks us to write about language. I remembered reading Pablo Neruda to prepare for a competency exam in Spanish. No matter how long I studied the vocabulary, the meaning in translation kept shifting. I found a book once that had Sappho's fragments in the original Greek and wondered how we could construct meaning out of a partial poem over such a distance of time and culture. Sometimes I think poets write in a very personal code, adding another barrier. Even our popular vocabulary changes over time, so that what once was a "good" translation of a classic sounds somehow off and not true to the writer's intention.
Their words float off the page,
their meaning some place
between two mirrors.
The serpent uncurls and in an instant
all is known and then lost.
I look each word up
in the dictionary of my imagination,
but the nuances shimmer, love,
the letters flicker and twist,
transforming what is known
into something strange and new,
perhaps close to what the poet cried
in her dreams.
This week's Sunday Scribblings asks us to write about language. I remembered reading Pablo Neruda to prepare for a competency exam in Spanish. No matter how long I studied the vocabulary, the meaning in translation kept shifting. I found a book once that had Sappho's fragments in the original Greek and wondered how we could construct meaning out of a partial poem over such a distance of time and culture. Sometimes I think poets write in a very personal code, adding another barrier. Even our popular vocabulary changes over time, so that what once was a "good" translation of a classic sounds somehow off and not true to the writer's intention.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
April 15: Earth's Hair . . .
If I could count the hairs on your head,
I would count each one
with pine needles frosted white, or
as elm leaves drifting yellow in the wind, blowing free,
or in the tiny filaments of jellyfish swimming,
swimming in the sea. I see cities ratcheted up
your hills and at night, stars scattered on the ground.
And if I were lonely, I’d wrap myself
in dreams of you and never sleep.
Tuesday's Title from Poefusion is "Earth's Hair."
I would count each one
with pine needles frosted white, or
as elm leaves drifting yellow in the wind, blowing free,
or in the tiny filaments of jellyfish swimming,
swimming in the sea. I see cities ratcheted up
your hills and at night, stars scattered on the ground.
And if I were lonely, I’d wrap myself
in dreams of you and never sleep.
Tuesday's Title from Poefusion is "Earth's Hair."
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Offline for awhile . . .
Just a note to say I'll be offline until April 15. No computer access, and I'm not paying 40 cents a minute. But, I'll be busy trying to write a poem a day for April, National Poetry Month, and the challenge from NaPoWriMo. So, go ahead. Join in. Write a poem.
#156 On Aging . . .
This week's Sunday Scribblings asks us to reflect on aging.
I thought once I would die young for I never saw a tall person, and very quickly, at the age of 12, I grew to be 5’8”, tall for a girl-child and still tall for a woman.
I loved the lines of Rabbi ben Ezra, “Grow old along with me, the best in life is yet to be . . .” Isaac Asimov included those lines in the opening of his Foundation series, which I discovered in my teens when I read science fiction by the box. Later I learned Robert Browning wrote this poem, and other lines jumped out: “What I aspired to be, / and was not, comforts me.”
Melina Mercouri, flush with fame for her portrayal of a prostitute in Never on Sunday and appearing on an Ed Sullivan show, said something like, “Get that camera in here close. I want it to show every line. I have lived and I have earned these lines.” There was a woman I admired. She was not afraid of her age.
Other lines, from Omar Khayyám's Rubaiyat, have stayed with me: “I come like water, like wind I go.” And in a cosmic sense, Robert Frost, that great American poet, wrote “Fire and Ice,” which neatly puts the fate of the world and all of us accountable.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
I was a quiet little kid. I wore glasses, read books, was last chosen for games, and the first to move to a new town or a new family. My childhood I now remember as a steady stream of argument, fueled by cases of beer and nights of brutality. I somehow reached 17 and wrote a desperate (and most likely horrible) poem that ended: “There’s no such thing as a future, whether good or bad,/ there’s only the past, taunting you with things you’ve never had.”
My aunt took me away, and my life changed. I went to college and worked to pay for it. It took me 11 years to graduate, working full-time after those first two years at a community college. Now and again, a teacher would encourage me, and this made all the difference. Of course, I became a teacher myself and at a community college. I could help others as I was helped. My dreams of somehow creating a harmonious family, loving my husband and a child – all came true because of the generosity of one person.
So I would say aging, if we are so lucky, is about understanding our lives, the choices we’ve made, and how each decision, each act shapes us and those around us. So many times, we seem afraid of death, and yet, death is the natural end to all of life. What is aging but a preparation for death?
If we are so fortunate to have a long life, then these last decades allow us to come to terms with who we have become. Each day thus can be a gift to appreciate and celebrate. I remember my 20s and 30s, and even into my 40s, as a struggle to become something I could barely imagine. But now, in my mid-60s, I can simply be.
It’s early morning, and the yellow-breasted kiskadee begins its song to wake the sun. Today, we leave on a grand adventure, to do something I once read about in Richard Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast – we will sail around the horn at the tip of South America. My suitcase is packed. My computer is nearly ready to go. And I am thrilled to be able to say to my husband, “Grow old along with me. The best in life is yet to be.”
I thought once I would die young for I never saw a tall person, and very quickly, at the age of 12, I grew to be 5’8”, tall for a girl-child and still tall for a woman.
I loved the lines of Rabbi ben Ezra, “Grow old along with me, the best in life is yet to be . . .” Isaac Asimov included those lines in the opening of his Foundation series, which I discovered in my teens when I read science fiction by the box. Later I learned Robert Browning wrote this poem, and other lines jumped out: “What I aspired to be, / and was not, comforts me.”
Melina Mercouri, flush with fame for her portrayal of a prostitute in Never on Sunday and appearing on an Ed Sullivan show, said something like, “Get that camera in here close. I want it to show every line. I have lived and I have earned these lines.” There was a woman I admired. She was not afraid of her age.
Other lines, from Omar Khayyám's Rubaiyat, have stayed with me: “I come like water, like wind I go.” And in a cosmic sense, Robert Frost, that great American poet, wrote “Fire and Ice,” which neatly puts the fate of the world and all of us accountable.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
I was a quiet little kid. I wore glasses, read books, was last chosen for games, and the first to move to a new town or a new family. My childhood I now remember as a steady stream of argument, fueled by cases of beer and nights of brutality. I somehow reached 17 and wrote a desperate (and most likely horrible) poem that ended: “There’s no such thing as a future, whether good or bad,/ there’s only the past, taunting you with things you’ve never had.”
My aunt took me away, and my life changed. I went to college and worked to pay for it. It took me 11 years to graduate, working full-time after those first two years at a community college. Now and again, a teacher would encourage me, and this made all the difference. Of course, I became a teacher myself and at a community college. I could help others as I was helped. My dreams of somehow creating a harmonious family, loving my husband and a child – all came true because of the generosity of one person.
So I would say aging, if we are so lucky, is about understanding our lives, the choices we’ve made, and how each decision, each act shapes us and those around us. So many times, we seem afraid of death, and yet, death is the natural end to all of life. What is aging but a preparation for death?
If we are so fortunate to have a long life, then these last decades allow us to come to terms with who we have become. Each day thus can be a gift to appreciate and celebrate. I remember my 20s and 30s, and even into my 40s, as a struggle to become something I could barely imagine. But now, in my mid-60s, I can simply be.
It’s early morning, and the yellow-breasted kiskadee begins its song to wake the sun. Today, we leave on a grand adventure, to do something I once read about in Richard Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast – we will sail around the horn at the tip of South America. My suitcase is packed. My computer is nearly ready to go. And I am thrilled to be able to say to my husband, “Grow old along with me. The best in life is yet to be.”
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
#155 I come from . . .
I come from the country, an
estancia so far from the city that
only the men go on horseback,
driving the cattle to market. When they return,
we’ll set up the barbeque on the patio.
The old men will play their guitars,
and the women will dance. Ah, I remember last time.
I could feel Renaldo’s eyes on me
as I placed a vase of yellow flowers on my head,
fanned my skirts back and forth, and
placed my feet just so.
Singing, I danced faster and faster,
my hips moving,
the flowers steady and true.
I come from San Telmo, a barrio in Buenos Aires.
I sit on my third floor verandah each morning,
hidden from the crowds below. I sip hot coffee.
The sugar from my sweet rolls sticks to my fingers.
Parrots nest high in the nearby palm trees, and
red flowers bloom in a Ceibo; later,
I’ll twine them in my hair when I dance the tango.
Ah, Renaldo, I long for when you come to the city.
I will put my black dress on and dance with you
cheek to cheek.
The startling scarlet flowers of the Ceibo, also called seíbo or bucaré, are Argentina’s national flower, as the tango is Argentina’s national dance. We’re only in Buenos Aires one more week and then back on the road (without internet for 10 days). Already, I’m thinking of April and napowrimo, the challenge of writing a poem every day for a month. Will you do it?
estancia so far from the city that
only the men go on horseback,
driving the cattle to market. When they return,
we’ll set up the barbeque on the patio.
The old men will play their guitars,
and the women will dance. Ah, I remember last time.
I could feel Renaldo’s eyes on me
as I placed a vase of yellow flowers on my head,
fanned my skirts back and forth, and
placed my feet just so.
Singing, I danced faster and faster,
my hips moving,
the flowers steady and true.
I come from San Telmo, a barrio in Buenos Aires.
I sit on my third floor verandah each morning,
hidden from the crowds below. I sip hot coffee.
The sugar from my sweet rolls sticks to my fingers.
Parrots nest high in the nearby palm trees, and
red flowers bloom in a Ceibo; later,
I’ll twine them in my hair when I dance the tango.
Ah, Renaldo, I long for when you come to the city.
I will put my black dress on and dance with you
cheek to cheek.
The startling scarlet flowers of the Ceibo, also called seíbo or bucaré, are Argentina’s national flower, as the tango is Argentina’s national dance. We’re only in Buenos Aires one more week and then back on the road (without internet for 10 days). Already, I’m thinking of April and napowrimo, the challenge of writing a poem every day for a month. Will you do it?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
#154 Buenos Aires, March 2009
Her head was found. They say
the rest was scattered.
Desaparecidos, they call these lost ones.
30,000 disappeared
sometime between 1976 and 1983.
I stand in the Plaza de Mayo,
wondering again about violence,
remembering when I was young.
Would my mother have worn a white scarf?
Would she have walked slowly
in a circle past the soldiers,
so slowly as to be eternal?
Our guide tells us the women still come here to the Plaza de Mayo, each Thursday at 4:30 pm, circling the plaza silently, holding photographs of those who were lost. A passing man interrupts our guide’s explanations. “Do not step on these symbols. They represent 30,000 lost.”
He tells us more; our guide interprets. Finally the man leaves and our guide continues. “We do not support these women today,” our guide says. Other Argentinians in the group nod. “We support them, that is, their main idea and honor what they have done, but today, there are two groups, one is made up of mothers who pressuring the government to admit its culpability; they take money from the government. The other group is made up of the grandmothers seeking to reunite those children who were adopted with their real past, which is very difficult.”
The sun flickers on his face. I do not really understand his distinctions, though I learn later that the more radical group also blames the United States for training Argentina's military in the controversial School of the Americas. The history of Argentina’s “Dirty War” and the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo is summarized more fully in two Wikipedia articles I found useful.
I look at the round plaza and remember learning of these women from newspaper accounts when I was in San Francisco in the 1970s. I marvel I am standing in this place, in the shadow of the Casa Rosada, the Argentinian equivalent of the White House.
the rest was scattered.
Desaparecidos, they call these lost ones.
30,000 disappeared
sometime between 1976 and 1983.
I stand in the Plaza de Mayo,
wondering again about violence,
remembering when I was young.
Would my mother have worn a white scarf?
Would she have walked slowly
in a circle past the soldiers,
so slowly as to be eternal?
Our guide tells us the women still come here to the Plaza de Mayo, each Thursday at 4:30 pm, circling the plaza silently, holding photographs of those who were lost. A passing man interrupts our guide’s explanations. “Do not step on these symbols. They represent 30,000 lost.”
He tells us more; our guide interprets. Finally the man leaves and our guide continues. “We do not support these women today,” our guide says. Other Argentinians in the group nod. “We support them, that is, their main idea and honor what they have done, but today, there are two groups, one is made up of mothers who pressuring the government to admit its culpability; they take money from the government. The other group is made up of the grandmothers seeking to reunite those children who were adopted with their real past, which is very difficult.”
The sun flickers on his face. I do not really understand his distinctions, though I learn later that the more radical group also blames the United States for training Argentina's military in the controversial School of the Americas. The history of Argentina’s “Dirty War” and the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo is summarized more fully in two Wikipedia articles I found useful.
I look at the round plaza and remember learning of these women from newspaper accounts when I was in San Francisco in the 1970s. I marvel I am standing in this place, in the shadow of the Casa Rosada, the Argentinian equivalent of the White House.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
#153 Did you . . .
Did you pinch your daughter’s hand
because she didn’t mind you quickly enough?
Leave your three-year old alone in a motel?
Feed him beer because he was crying?
Hit her because she laughed too loudly?
Lock your child in the basement?
Or worse?
Your child will never forget.
You can’t take it back.
You can’t say “I’m sorry”.
Those memories won't go away.
Remember this. This is important.
This week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings asks us to write about something that is truly important, something you notice or would like to say. This was my first reaction. Child abuse takes so many forms, not the least at the macro level being poverty. Many adults struggle the rest of their lives to heal themselves from what happened when they were vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. So, what you do forever shapes a child (and their children), whether you are parent, teacher, or even a babysitter. Be mindful. Be gentle.
because she didn’t mind you quickly enough?
Leave your three-year old alone in a motel?
Feed him beer because he was crying?
Hit her because she laughed too loudly?
Lock your child in the basement?
Or worse?
Your child will never forget.
You can’t take it back.
You can’t say “I’m sorry”.
Those memories won't go away.
Remember this. This is important.
This week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings asks us to write about something that is truly important, something you notice or would like to say. This was my first reaction. Child abuse takes so many forms, not the least at the macro level being poverty. Many adults struggle the rest of their lives to heal themselves from what happened when they were vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. So, what you do forever shapes a child (and their children), whether you are parent, teacher, or even a babysitter. Be mindful. Be gentle.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Last Night . . .
Last night, I dreamed
I was floating,
past your embraces,
past your eyes
frozen in dreams.
We have slept in how many cities,
walked through plazas together,
heard the night birds sing,
and watched the stars fall out of the sky,
always together. Yet the day comes
when, like a star
that follows its own path,
revolving slowly,
I will tumble into the future, alone.
Anoche
Anoche, soñé
yo flotaba,
por delante de sus abrazos,
por delante de sus ojos
congelado en sueños.
Hemos dormido en cuantos ciudades,
andado por plazas juntos,
oído las aves de la noche cantan,
y mirado las estrellas se caen del cielo,
siempre juntos.
Aún el día viene cuando,
como una estrella
esto sigue su propio camino,
giramiento lentemente,
caeré en el futuro, solo.
Note: I'm still working on this poem that came to me partly because I was studying Spanish before sleeping. If you see changes needed in the translation, please tell me. Otherwise, be assured all is well.
I was floating,
past your embraces,
past your eyes
frozen in dreams.
We have slept in how many cities,
walked through plazas together,
heard the night birds sing,
and watched the stars fall out of the sky,
always together. Yet the day comes
when, like a star
that follows its own path,
revolving slowly,
I will tumble into the future, alone.
Anoche
Anoche, soñé
yo flotaba,
por delante de sus abrazos,
por delante de sus ojos
congelado en sueños.
Hemos dormido en cuantos ciudades,
andado por plazas juntos,
oído las aves de la noche cantan,
y mirado las estrellas se caen del cielo,
siempre juntos.
Aún el día viene cuando,
como una estrella
esto sigue su propio camino,
giramiento lentemente,
caeré en el futuro, solo.
Note: I'm still working on this poem that came to me partly because I was studying Spanish before sleeping. If you see changes needed in the translation, please tell me. Otherwise, be assured all is well.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
#11 Read Write Image . . . Reflections
No winter bites as cold as this.
You’ve hidden your face
behind a mirror. I remember each line,
the mole, the crease on your forehead,
Behind you I see leafless trees
like lacey fingerprints atop the snow,
and snow falls everywhere.
All I want is to see your face, still hidden,
your hands curled like two lost dark geese,
the mirror a perfect oval, mysterious, unknowable.
The hills stretch out endlessly behind you.
Someone who loves you knit those gloves
and tied the belt on your coat, long ago.
Yet you stand before me, fixed, invisible.
Maybe I see myself in your mirror,
a nameless tree against a cold and foggy sky.
I’m wondering just when winter will end.
This week's prompt from Read Write Image #11 uses this evocative photograph, "Reflections" taken by Camile Tulcan, shared thru Creative Commons. Although I do try to write in response to ReadWritePoem, this time the poem "Reflecta" by Gordon Mason led me to this prompt.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
#151 Would you trust . . .
Would you trust a jubilado
dancing in the street?
See omens in a cloud of green butterflies
settling just ahead of your path?
Stare into the red heart
of a Rose of Sharon.
Touch the points on a nettle?
Bathe your face
in the mist of a waterfall?
Look into the eyes of a stray dog
that follows you?
Count the fingers and toes
of a newborn babe?
Hear the telephone before it rings?
Dance without music?
Dream without sleeping?
Say yes before the question is asked?
This week’s Sunday Scribbling’s prompt is trust, a very difficult prompt. I wonder if we trust our ability to understand the reality that exists around us, that we perceive or define by our senses. Though I do not, or do not trust that I do, some of my relatives seem to have an extra sense. Also, jubilado is Spanish for retired person. As a relatively newly retired person, this word fascinates me for its very different connotations.
Some people have asked when Standing Stones will be finished. I do work every day except travel days, and now am revising Section 3 (out of five sections), focusing mostly on plot holes, logical connectors, and character development. I’d like these characters and their predicaments to be as real to a reader as they are to me. I hope to have one more go through for style and estimate I’ll be ready for my 3 readers by June or July, if all goes well. Six weeks in September/October brings the last bit of research and editing, so I hope to finish completely by December 2010, making it about three years overall for this novel. After that, the story’s no longer mine. Wish me well.
dancing in the street?
See omens in a cloud of green butterflies
settling just ahead of your path?
Stare into the red heart
of a Rose of Sharon.
Touch the points on a nettle?
Bathe your face
in the mist of a waterfall?
Look into the eyes of a stray dog
that follows you?
Count the fingers and toes
of a newborn babe?
Hear the telephone before it rings?
Dance without music?
Dream without sleeping?
Say yes before the question is asked?
This week’s Sunday Scribbling’s prompt is trust, a very difficult prompt. I wonder if we trust our ability to understand the reality that exists around us, that we perceive or define by our senses. Though I do not, or do not trust that I do, some of my relatives seem to have an extra sense. Also, jubilado is Spanish for retired person. As a relatively newly retired person, this word fascinates me for its very different connotations.
Some people have asked when Standing Stones will be finished. I do work every day except travel days, and now am revising Section 3 (out of five sections), focusing mostly on plot holes, logical connectors, and character development. I’d like these characters and their predicaments to be as real to a reader as they are to me. I hope to have one more go through for style and estimate I’ll be ready for my 3 readers by June or July, if all goes well. Six weeks in September/October brings the last bit of research and editing, so I hope to finish completely by December 2010, making it about three years overall for this novel. After that, the story’s no longer mine. Wish me well.
Friday, February 20, 2009
#150 Soccer . . .
There’s nae sport in it
if ye canna’ play the game, twist
yer head down, scrub the dirt
off yer leg, and curse
and hope and flail after the ball,
down the grassy field and back,
and hate the other side
‘till the whistle calls done.
There’s just that moment,
an ye don’t know it then,
when the ball sails past,
an yer boot taps it so
it flies good and true.
They look at you different then;
all the rest is remembering.
Tall, skinny, clumsy, and wearing glasses that were too expensive to break, I was last called and played little in the streets when I was a kid. I never understood the thrill of sport until I met up with a group of women over 50 and played my heart out on the soccer field.
if ye canna’ play the game, twist
yer head down, scrub the dirt
off yer leg, and curse
and hope and flail after the ball,
down the grassy field and back,
and hate the other side
‘till the whistle calls done.
There’s just that moment,
an ye don’t know it then,
when the ball sails past,
an yer boot taps it so
it flies good and true.
They look at you different then;
all the rest is remembering.
Tall, skinny, clumsy, and wearing glasses that were too expensive to break, I was last called and played little in the streets when I was a kid. I never understood the thrill of sport until I met up with a group of women over 50 and played my heart out on the soccer field.
Friday, February 06, 2009
#149 Morning poem . . .
Chip-chip-chip the beja flor
calls: Awake. Awake.
It is the last day in Ouro Preto, this valley
of nameless trees and red tiled roofs
brightening in the morning sun.
Trucks lumber up cobblestoned streets where
last night orixas and students danced
in samba, lace, bead, and drum, joyous.
So many have slept
anonymously, abandoned,
to waken here, in your room, Pablo Neruda,
whose lines make me want to sing.
The morning does begin here in Ouro Preto with hummingbirds, and last night students did dance in the streets, practicing for Brazil’s famous Carnival. This week’s prompt from Sunday Scribblings is simply art. For every person who takes pen or brush, and dedicates time, talent and effort to express some interpretation, past the senses and rhythm of pure line and color, to heighten our awareness of the meaning of life, I wish another someone who looks deep and says: Ah. Yes.
calls: Awake. Awake.
It is the last day in Ouro Preto, this valley
of nameless trees and red tiled roofs
brightening in the morning sun.
Trucks lumber up cobblestoned streets where
last night orixas and students danced
in samba, lace, bead, and drum, joyous.
So many have slept
anonymously, abandoned,
to waken here, in your room, Pablo Neruda,
whose lines make me want to sing.
The morning does begin here in Ouro Preto with hummingbirds, and last night students did dance in the streets, practicing for Brazil’s famous Carnival. This week’s prompt from Sunday Scribblings is simply art. For every person who takes pen or brush, and dedicates time, talent and effort to express some interpretation, past the senses and rhythm of pure line and color, to heighten our awareness of the meaning of life, I wish another someone who looks deep and says: Ah. Yes.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
148 Regrets . . .
For how many years have I known
your heart is larger than life;
its beats numbered like mine,
but with fewer days. So we embrace
the future without looking back,
here in this land of baroque hotels,
bus drivers who slide by trucks
and pedestrians by inches.
We stroll past palm trees and jacaranda,
orchids at eye level. Tonight I sleep
where Pablo Neruda once slept. I look with his eyes
on this colonial town with amazement:
How is it possible I have lived to see this day,
another day with you? We have memories,
enough for a lifetime or two, maybe three.
Should the day come when I sleep alone,
I will remember here, this moment, and you.
This week's Sunday Scribblings was hard to write. We're on the road today from Belo Horizonte, in Brazil, to Ouro Preto, finally a smaller colonial town of about 40,000. Pablo Neruda did stay once at the Pouso do Chico Rei, a hotel with its own interesting history, and, I think, internet in the lobby.
your heart is larger than life;
its beats numbered like mine,
but with fewer days. So we embrace
the future without looking back,
here in this land of baroque hotels,
bus drivers who slide by trucks
and pedestrians by inches.
We stroll past palm trees and jacaranda,
orchids at eye level. Tonight I sleep
where Pablo Neruda once slept. I look with his eyes
on this colonial town with amazement:
How is it possible I have lived to see this day,
another day with you? We have memories,
enough for a lifetime or two, maybe three.
Should the day come when I sleep alone,
I will remember here, this moment, and you.
This week's Sunday Scribblings was hard to write. We're on the road today from Belo Horizonte, in Brazil, to Ouro Preto, finally a smaller colonial town of about 40,000. Pablo Neruda did stay once at the Pouso do Chico Rei, a hotel with its own interesting history, and, I think, internet in the lobby.
Monday, January 26, 2009
147 To Yemanja
Imagine a town each February 2 that closes its shops.
All the people come down to the water
wearing transparent beaded necklaces and
bringing gifts, little boats
filed with flowers and perfumes
to launch into the sea.
They come, singing songs and dancing,
the people of the town down to the water,
near the Rio Vermelho, the beautiful brown women
wearing gowns the color of the sea,
bearing gifts they come singing to you, Yemanja,
orixa, Princess, oh, Janaina, Queen of the Sea,
mother of the waters, of the storms, of the fish,
in your honor, the sweet perfumes, the rejoicing.
Even the cat prowling under the tables of Mama Bahia
for scraps of fish
has eyes the color of the milky green sea.
How I long to dance with the people
along the beaches here in your town, Yemanja,
in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil,
a town once of fishermen
who went to the sea in small boats,
while women waited and prayed by the shore.
Now all shadows and phantoms
they come from the past,
their boats filled with flowers and perfumes.
Here in Salvador, Saturdays are consecrated to Yemanja, the queen of the waters, ruler of the upper sea, a goddess (orixa) in the condomble religion. Most commonly shown as a mermaid, Yemanja appears in many forms in this city where people still gather on the beaches each February 2 to offer her gifts. We are in Salvador just two more days, so this week’s Sunday Scribbling’s prompt of “shadows and phantoms” came clothed in her story. The photograph is part of a monumental painting hanging in the lobby of the Pousada do Boqueirao, by an anonymous folk artist.
All the people come down to the water
wearing transparent beaded necklaces and
bringing gifts, little boats
filed with flowers and perfumes
to launch into the sea.
They come, singing songs and dancing,
the people of the town down to the water,
near the Rio Vermelho, the beautiful brown women
wearing gowns the color of the sea,
bearing gifts they come singing to you, Yemanja,
orixa, Princess, oh, Janaina, Queen of the Sea,
mother of the waters, of the storms, of the fish,
in your honor, the sweet perfumes, the rejoicing.
Even the cat prowling under the tables of Mama Bahia
for scraps of fish
has eyes the color of the milky green sea.
How I long to dance with the people
along the beaches here in your town, Yemanja,
in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil,
a town once of fishermen
who went to the sea in small boats,
while women waited and prayed by the shore.
Now all shadows and phantoms
they come from the past,
their boats filled with flowers and perfumes.
Here in Salvador, Saturdays are consecrated to Yemanja, the queen of the waters, ruler of the upper sea, a goddess (orixa) in the condomble religion. Most commonly shown as a mermaid, Yemanja appears in many forms in this city where people still gather on the beaches each February 2 to offer her gifts. We are in Salvador just two more days, so this week’s Sunday Scribbling’s prompt of “shadows and phantoms” came clothed in her story. The photograph is part of a monumental painting hanging in the lobby of the Pousada do Boqueirao, by an anonymous folk artist.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
146 A Pilgrimage
I have climbed the lower hills of the Andes
and walked in the alleys of Cairo.
I have waited in the rain
to see the works of Vincent Van Gogh in San Francisco.
I traveled to Turkey to stand in the Blue Mosque.
I’ve cranned my neck at the Sistine Chapel.
I touched the granite rocks of the pyramids at Giza.
I have heard the monkeys call, one to another, in the Yucatan peninsula, and I have climbed Mayan temples to the very top.
I have dreamed my way through books and paintings,
I have fallen in love
and have mourned the loss of those I loved.
I have held my daughter in my heart from the beginning,
I have followed stories of mermaids
and found my own place.
What a jostling pilgrimage of sorts my life has been –
an immersion into nearly five decades of work.
Even so, my memories flash all colors;
I would give up all my travels,
all my writing and remembering,
to walk with you in our own garden.
Though I found myself looking back rather than forward, what an evocative prompt from this week's Sunday Scribblings. Check out what others have thought.
and walked in the alleys of Cairo.
I have waited in the rain
to see the works of Vincent Van Gogh in San Francisco.
I traveled to Turkey to stand in the Blue Mosque.
I’ve cranned my neck at the Sistine Chapel.
I touched the granite rocks of the pyramids at Giza.
I have heard the monkeys call, one to another, in the Yucatan peninsula, and I have climbed Mayan temples to the very top.
I have dreamed my way through books and paintings,
I have fallen in love
and have mourned the loss of those I loved.
I have held my daughter in my heart from the beginning,
I have followed stories of mermaids
and found my own place.
What a jostling pilgrimage of sorts my life has been –
an immersion into nearly five decades of work.
Even so, my memories flash all colors;
I would give up all my travels,
all my writing and remembering,
to walk with you in our own garden.
Though I found myself looking back rather than forward, what an evocative prompt from this week's Sunday Scribblings. Check out what others have thought.
Friday, January 09, 2009
#145 Organic . . .
Sunday Scribblings this week asks us to define O-R-G-A-N-I-C, so:
Whole Food organic baked beans
Organic food baked
Beans whole
Food
Whole earth organic cocoa crunch
Organic earth cocoa
Crunch whole
Earth
I remember the first time I ate granola, visiting a hippie commune in the wilds of northern California. We women helped to build a yurt, made yogurt from what I thought was spoiled milk, and baked bread with joy. By day I worked for a bank, surrounded by suits. On the weekends, I lived in a counter culture. One day I realized my friends wanted to throw bricks through the front window at my bank. And then I read the politics of protest, “Chicks up front,” and disengaged.
Today, organic is a line of products; national debate rages over what constitutes a legal definition of organic, so necessary for labels. I see now “organic” can be defined as essentially commercial, at least in our capitalistic society, having little to do with individual freedom. I would rather define “organic” as in harmony, as in “at one” with the Earth, but we seem a long way from that definition. Individual actions can shape an “organic” whole, but not necessarily in the way the individual intends. I still do like granola.
Whole Food organic baked beans
Organic food baked
Beans whole
Food
Whole earth organic cocoa crunch
Organic earth cocoa
Crunch whole
Earth
I remember the first time I ate granola, visiting a hippie commune in the wilds of northern California. We women helped to build a yurt, made yogurt from what I thought was spoiled milk, and baked bread with joy. By day I worked for a bank, surrounded by suits. On the weekends, I lived in a counter culture. One day I realized my friends wanted to throw bricks through the front window at my bank. And then I read the politics of protest, “Chicks up front,” and disengaged.
Today, organic is a line of products; national debate rages over what constitutes a legal definition of organic, so necessary for labels. I see now “organic” can be defined as essentially commercial, at least in our capitalistic society, having little to do with individual freedom. I would rather define “organic” as in harmony, as in “at one” with the Earth, but we seem a long way from that definition. Individual actions can shape an “organic” whole, but not necessarily in the way the individual intends. I still do like granola.
Monday, January 05, 2009
#144 For richer . . .
As I walk along Sao Paulo streets,
the people stroll, no rush
here, arm-in-arm they wander as slowly
as if they were in a museum,
talking softly as they go
from one block to the next.
Later, I stroll as they,
past orchids growing wild in trees,
bouganville, impatience pink and white,
and margharitas,
yellow hibiscus, nameless others;
the smallest yards tell me stories
of fallen palm trees,
clipped shrubs and forget-me-nots.
I climb the yellow brick stairs to the Pinacoteca,
walk past portraits of another era, painters
as unknown as flowers, who saw with brushes
grasslands, mountains and the people there,
fishing, reading, sitting in transplanted
Victorian living rooms, still sighing sadness.
still singing with joy.
This week’s Sunday Scribblings asks what we are richer for . . . for me it is the gift of experience and interpretation that we create through writing or other arts. For me, travel gives me the ability to explore other cultures through meeting and talking with people, visiting museums (like the Pinacoteca do Estado), walking through parks, and, not least, eating delicious food with Allen. Yesterday we discovered the painter Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior (1850-1899). He lived to be only 49, yet his paintings of Brazilian rural life continue. And I am richer for every painting I see, every book I read, each friend I share my life with.
the people stroll, no rush
here, arm-in-arm they wander as slowly
as if they were in a museum,
talking softly as they go
from one block to the next.
Later, I stroll as they,
past orchids growing wild in trees,
bouganville, impatience pink and white,
and margharitas,
yellow hibiscus, nameless others;
the smallest yards tell me stories
of fallen palm trees,
clipped shrubs and forget-me-nots.
I climb the yellow brick stairs to the Pinacoteca,
walk past portraits of another era, painters
as unknown as flowers, who saw with brushes
grasslands, mountains and the people there,
fishing, reading, sitting in transplanted
Victorian living rooms, still sighing sadness.
still singing with joy.
This week’s Sunday Scribblings asks what we are richer for . . . for me it is the gift of experience and interpretation that we create through writing or other arts. For me, travel gives me the ability to explore other cultures through meeting and talking with people, visiting museums (like the Pinacoteca do Estado), walking through parks, and, not least, eating delicious food with Allen. Yesterday we discovered the painter Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior (1850-1899). He lived to be only 49, yet his paintings of Brazilian rural life continue. And I am richer for every painting I see, every book I read, each friend I share my life with.
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