Ever a Circle

I made a tentative decision ... and then I hesitated.

Today's poem is written, seemingly, about autumn ... and I thought it might be pushing things a bit to focus so much on that season, when we're just ... finally ... approaching its opposite number, spring.

Then I took another look.

The poem is about all the seasons, not just autumn. The seasons, as I say in the poem, form a recurring circle. From that standpoint, I think it doesn't matter at which point we mount the whirling merry-go-round of seasons.

They keep coming around ... going around ... and we sometimes find ourselves complaining about this one ... too hot or too cold ... to dry or too wet ... find some fault in the present season, while looking forward to the next one ... or maybe even its opposite number.

Meanwhile, the poem:

EVER A CIRCLE

The pursuits of summer
have finally relented,
releasing children
to the autumn slide
of gathered books,
the shuffling of feet,
pencils crawling
on paper; the glimpsed
dogwood, glorious
with snowy blossoms
last spring, shows
first crimson now
on a clump of leaves.
How the months have
fallen away, piling
like shattered petals
across our memory,
in a depth sufficient
to sustain us over
another crossing
of bare-limbed winter
to spring, where
warm light is waiting
to help us celebrate
another completion
of this circle.
© 1999
(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: completion

Delia's Morning Quiet

Delia was my grandmother. I went to live with her when I was two years old ... and stayed until I grew up and went into military service.

Little wonder that I've written about her ... even when cautioned by one instructor that he didn't want to see any "grandmother poems."

This particular poem is a combination of memories of her, of things she said, or might have said. I may have taken some liberties, but, knowing her the way I did, I don't think she would mind.

I don't think she would mind at all.

DELIA'S MORNING QUIET

Morning quiet was
always best, Delia said.

Not the soft silting
of minutes after a day
in the fields, not those
first precious seconds
after childbirth,
nor the calm after
summer storms, tearing
of an envelope, labored
reading of its words,
evening fire, supper done,
dishes stored, children
in bed.

But the kind
of quiet that came
stealing up with the sun,
sharing rooster crow
and the crackling murmur
of fire, a skillet sliding
across the kitchen stove,
sound of an eggshell
breaking with importance.
© 1999
(originally published in Poem)

Today's word: crackling

Cradled in the Hand

Here I go again, writing about writing ... and, as usual, I insert an early disclaimer: I'm no expert on the subject ... I'm still learning ... still struggling ...

The subject is one which intrigues me ... challenges me ... sometimes frustrates me ... but I keep going.

I keep going because ... when the result is a finished, polished piece of poetry ... it is so rewarding.

And when someone else reads it, likes it, identifies with it ... maybe even exclaims about it ... well, that's truly a hefty slather of icing on the cake.

I often say that poems come to me ... in the quiet of the night ... or in the midst of a noisy crowd at the mall.

I never know when an idea is going to show itself ... so I'm always prepared ... with a scrap of paper ... a stub of pencil ... or a ballpoint pen ... to try to catch the essence, at least, of that idea.

Later, the real work begins.

I'm sometimes amazed at how that first draft shapes itself on the page. Other times, the idea is there, but the poem isn't ... so I put it aside, let it rest ... and later, sometimes much later, I'll discover it when I'm looking for something else ... there's a new flash of inspiration ... the wheels start turning again ...

I speak of "the perfect poem" in today's posting ... I haven't found that yet in my own writing ... but I keep searching, trying ... and maybe some day ... some day ...

Meanwhile, this one:

CRADLED IN THE HAND

Finding an idea
is a beginning,
but only that.
There must follow
the grinding, shaping,
polishing, plain
hard work that takes
a found stone
on a long journey,
transforming it
to that gifted gem
cradled in the hand
of its creator,
the perfect poem,
alive with light,
singing to us,
dancing across
the ballroom floor
of our memory.
© 1997
(originally published in ByLine)

Today's word: cradled

Body of Work

Sometimes when I'm scribbling on a scrap of paper, I turn thoughtful ... and when that happens I try not to spoil the mood by talking too much.

Today's poem:

BODY OF WORK

No massive volumes
nor learned footnotes
preserve my tracks,
no ripples mark
my gentle passage,
yet my being here,
scribbling away,
may have made
a difference
to someone else.
If that's the case,
I am pleased,
verging on proud,
of my body of work.
© 1996
(originally published in Anterior Poetry Monthly)

Today's word: verging

Tall

I don't often do dream poems ... that is, poems about dreams ... simply because I have trouble recalling the dreams when I wake up.

This one was different, though.

I had this sense, as I say in the poem, of actually being taller than John Wayne on his horse. What a feeling that was. I wrote down what I recalled of that feeling.

Then, later ... that's right, pardner ... this one turned into a poem about writing, a subject that I find mysterious and perplexing. Even when the words come together neatly to form a poem, I'm sometimes puzzled as to how that really happened.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not completely baffled by the writing process, but it sometimes seems that poems, in particular, "write themselves," and I can't help expressing some amazement at that.

And now, the poem:

TALL

I dreamed that I
was tall, taller than
John Wayne, taller than
John Wayne on his horse,
and I just stood there
looking tall
and silent,

looking at all those
people looking up
at me, at last,
looking down at them,
but treating them
quietly as equals,

because that's the way

it is with me,
pilgrim,
no matter how tall
I get, nor how many
poems I’ve roped
and led home.
© 2000
(originally published in ByLine)

Today's word: equals

Shovel? Maybe Later

Sometimes, it seems, I have this thing about "going against the season."

A couple of times a year it happens ... in summer ... and winter. Spring and fall? Hardly ever.

What do I do? Oh, when we're sizzling in summer temperatures, I like to think about those cool ... er, cold ... days and nights of winter.

And in the winter, of course, when I'm freezing, like now ... I keep my mittens on ... and try writing something about summer.

I should have my mittens on right now. We've had snow, freezing rain, more snow ... in recent days. Today we had sunshine ... which usually means some thawing, but I didn't detect any ... no sign of the ice cap's retreating.

The Little Red Car is beginning to look like it just crawled out of a mud bath.

There's some promise of relief ... there's always that promise somewhere out there in the indistinct distance.

Meanwhile, we have snow, ice, and certainly winter temperatures

... in the single digits ... and here's a little winter poem that I may hold to my fevered brow in the peak of summer months:

SHOVEL? MAYBE LATER

From door to street
Isn't all that far,
But with a sleet-
And snow-bound car
Stuck in the drive,
I might just as well
Take another five
And snooze a spell.
© 1995
(originally published in Mature Living)

Today's word: later

Paths That Crossed

After I retired from my "regular" job, I began looking for something else to do, something structured, something which would take me outside these walls on a regular basis, something to ease this void in which I found myself.

I found all of that in becoming a "temp," a temporary worker who had a variety of assignments, doing inventory, sorting, filing, things I could do without stress or strain.

Then I found myself assigned to a project which was expected to last a couple of years, maybe more. What a great assignment that was, working with people of a wide range of ages, from a variety of backgrounds, all of us learning the routines, growing, settling in, enjoying this adventure.

Then another door opened, an offer of "early retirement," which I took. But I didn't just walk away. You don't do that with a family of friends. I maintained contact (and it wasn't just for the monthly carry-ins for sharing tons of cake in celebration of birthdays), watched the others continuing their growth, celebrated their successes, shared in their setbacks.

This poem is an effort to capture some of that, to preserve some of it for myself, perhaps for them, too.

PATHS THAT CROSSED

First the warehouse site,
then Newmark and Woodman.
How the paths of lives
came crisscrossing there
with the burgeoning work!

My own path veered away
at the end of '90, but
came back several times
as ever-widening circles
tested the boundaries
of my untethered life.

Now the grass reclaims
my old path, footprints
erased, nothing to mark
my having ever been there.

But I possess evidence.

The landscape of my mind
is alive with these paths,
tracks of those crossing
the path of my own life,
seemingly without design
or plan, yet unerringly.

These stored memories
endure on a gentle slope
teeming with paths strong
where crossings link them,
and likely to cross again.
© 1995

Today's word: paths

One to Grow On

Winter rain, under the right conditions, can be like a lullaby as it dances softly on the roof and goes running off down the street.

But if conditions are right for freezing, as they were here recently, it's an entirely different story. We're still venturing out gingerly and still picking away at the layer that's still gripping our driveway.

Through it all, however, we didn't lose power ... and we're thankful for that.

One consolation is that we're a little nearer to the beginning of spring, and we're warmed by the potential that implies.

Meanwhile, back to the subject of a kinder, gentler rain ... the kind which inspired today's little poem:

ONE TO GROW ON

Winter rain
comes sliding down
the glistening trunk
of a sleeping tree,
delivering a sip
to be savored
when it awakens
early next spring.
© 1995
(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: glistening

Memory

Sometimes, you may have noticed, I try to use an illustration that goes along with the poem.

I was stumped at first, when I tried to think of something to match today's little offering.

Then it occurred to me ... there it was, under my nose, practically ... the rearview mirror on the Little Red Car, famous among readers of my former weekly newsletter, "Squiggles & Giggles" (which has since turned into a blog), for its many escapades.

And what is memory? Why, it's a looking back at things which are sometimes indistinct, blurred, reversed, or "closer than you think."

And now the poem:

MEMORY

I know I've stashed
scads of things
in the dusty attic
of my mind . . .
but in which boxes
are they hiding,
when I really,
really need them?
© 1996
(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: hiding

Late Summons

It was, indeed, like a summons, when it finally came.

Oh, I had written a lot of things along the way ... love letters when I was in military service, business letters later, a memo here and there ... things like that.

But writing? Real, creative writing? I hadn't had time, nor the inclination for that, it seems.

Still, there was something that drove me in the direction of writing ... just sitting down and putting thoughts ... memories ... images ... on paper.

And, as I say in today's poem, it was like the whir of that most beautiful, most graceful, most fragile of insects ... the butterfly ... which brought that latent interest to life ... so that here we are today ... these few years later, sharing these moments, these thoughts.

The poem:

LATE SUMMONS

After enduring
vast, hollow
echoing years
in which words
lay silently
on my heart,
there came
a whir as soft
as the flight
of a butterfly,
summoning
them awake,
and my voice,
sounding strange
to my own ears,
rose in song.
© 1997
(originally published in Potpourri)

Today's word: whir

If It Rains

As are most of my poems, today's is fairly straightforward, dealing with harsh realities.

These are still just as harsh, and just as real, I'm sure, as when I was growing up in Southern Illinois.

How dependent, how at the mercy of the weather, were those who tried to make a living from the soil.

Life was one big gamble, and nobody knew the odds, exactly, except that they always seemed to be against the players.

Rather than a single, memorable incident, this piece represents an accumulation of impressions, and is about no particular, single farmer, but all farmers who face the odds and keep playing this most difficult game, betting against the weather year after year.

The poem:

IF IT RAINS

Paper-dry corn emits a sigh
as an arid breeze riffles
the long, dead rows
of ochre and gray, searching
for moisture. Even weeds
are limp with thirst.

Last year had been a good one,
so he paid down some debt
and, less burdened,
plowed and planted once more
on gentle, warming slopes
as spring returned.
It may rain tomorrow, he says,
knowing that it's too late
to salvage this crop.

But if it does rain tomorrow,
next week, or next month,
that may be enough
to sustain last spring's hopes
through the rages of winter,
and he will plow again.
© 2003
(originally published in Capper's, this poem is from my first collection, Chance of Rain, published in 2003 by Finishing Line Press)

Today's word: if

Hot Pursuit

OK, so I couldn't stand the suspense.

I wanted to take a picture of my funny hat. I didn't want a straight-on shot, but a profile, which would really show off the hat, since it was the primary subject.

So I set the timer, put the camera on a shelf, posed and waited ... and waited ... and waited.

I was so sure the camera had snapped the picture without my hearing anything, so I stole a look -- at just the wrong moment!

The result: a blurred photo of myself with two noses. Serves me right. It also serves to sort of document my activities in recent weeks ... fighting computer problems ... thinking I had won ... fighting some more ... and now, well, maybe ... maybe someday I'll be current again on "Chosen Words."

Bottom line: I hate to throw anything away, so I kept the photo, put it together with this little poem which seems the perfect match for it:

HOT PURSUIT

I go tramping
the echoing stairs
of this old house,
pursuing things
forgotten here,
remembered there,
getting exercise
enough for two.

© 1996

(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: tramping

Glass, Drinking

Such an ordinary subject ... and I'm sure the editor who once scrawled something to that effect on one of my poems would agree ... but I find many of my subjects in "ordinary things."

So much depends, I think, on how one looks at them.
I'm not exactly sure where ... or when ... the particular glass of this poem caught my attention.

It was a cheap green drinking glass ... I'm sure of that ... but it wasn't a recent observation, because the trains don't run past the house where I live. So it had to have been in the past ... perhaps the distant past.

But I do remember how that glass caught the light, and I can still see those few remaining droplets dancing.

The moment could have passed unnoticed. I'm sure there were other things ... far more important things ... going on. But I did notice, though I had no idea I would ever write a poem about it ... or write any poems, for that matter.

I'm glad the memory was stored somewhere in the recesses of my mind, just waiting there for the right moment to show itself to me again.

It's just a small descriptive passage ... a single sentence, if it were presented as a bit of prose ... but I treasure the memory it represents ... and the other memories which keep it company.

Oh, how I wish I had a picture of it to share with you. Instead, there's a photo I snapped during one of my walks at Cox Arboretum.

GLASS, DRINKING

It gathers the light to it, sparkling
with morning warmth, wraps itself
in rings so bright they might be taken
for some kind of pretense, but it’s
only a cheap green drinking glass,
empty except for a few remaining
droplets that tremble and dance
to the passing song of a rickety train
and then subside like an echo yielding
itself to the cold of late autumn fog.
© 2006
(originally published in St. Anthony Messenger)

Today's word: rickety

The Frozen Pond

There were a lot of ponds in the area where I grew up, but this poem is about one particular pond ... on the property where my brothers and sisters lived at that time.

When I got to visit them (but that's another story), it was our favorite gathering place. I did my first fishing there. I went sledding down the hill and out onto the ice of that pond.

It was one of the first places I wanted to see when I came home on furlough after completing basic training.

Years later, during a visit back to Illinois, I drove out in that area to show my wife that pond. But the house was gone, the land was overgrown, and we didn't even get a glimpse of the pond.

For all I know, the pond may not even exist now, but it's very much alive in my memory. The poem was originally published in Capper's ... and I know, I know ... some of you have heard it before ... but it talks to me about a special place ... and I hope you won't mind.

The poem:

THE FROZEN POND

The pond was always home
for wayward leaves,
adding, in late summer,
the yellowed offerings
of the black walnut tree,
then the reds and golds
of maple and tulip trees,
like tiny boats lazing
among the ducks, twirling
at the tiniest stirrings
of air or water, remaining
trapped below the surface
when winter came, as though
waiting for us to come
thundering down the hill
on our sleds, out onto
the ice, that marvelous,
jeweled surface spinning
us around and around,
our laughter spilling out,
still echoing back.
© 1998

Today's word: echoing

End of the Day

Today's poem is about a bit of "ancient history."

Written well after the fact, it's a recounting of a time when I traveled much more than I do now, a time before interstate highways began crisscrossing our country, when passenger trains were still in abundance.

It was sometimes faster, or "more convenient," to travel by car. Oh, how I recall trying to think of that convenience as I fell into bed somewhere along the way and tried to get a few hours' sleep before pressing on.

Ah, those were the days.

But for now, the poem:

END OF THE DAY

The ceiling grows vague
and cold, its tiles swirling
like snowflakes toward me,

and I taste them, melting,
the bed sways under me
as though bearing me away

to some strange place, my eyes
close, and I see highway,
an undulating ribbon whirring

toward me, narrow out there,
broadening here where it gains
speed, goes threading beneath

my car, as it has all day,
dull pewter funnel pulling
me in, pouring me out here

where I lie on a strange bed
in a cheap motel, thinking
of the events bringing me

here, thoughts drifting
like the slow, curling smoke
in a room suddenly empty,

being pulled toward the ache
and soreness of tomorrow,
not caring, not caring at all.
© 2000

(originally published in Waterways; now part of Wood Smoke, my third collection, published late last year by Finishing Line Press)

Today's word: fatigue

A Day for Flying

I have already been doing a bit of flying ... around the house, that is ... trying to pick my way through the early morning fog that blurs my vision and sends my mind down a dozen different detours.

I've been trying to figure out today's "flight plan" ... check for e-mails ... find my list of things I intended to do yesterday ... all of this while watching the time ticking swiftly away.

And then, of course, there has been a problem with the computer. What kind of problem? I really don't know. It just wasn't working right ... at all.

If it's not the kind of thing which has levers and wheels, cogs that are supposed to mesh ... things I can look at and tell what's broken or not working right, I'm in trouble ... big trouble.

But isn't that always the way it is when you're in a hurry?

Well, for a few minutes at least, I'm putting hurry aside. I'm sitting calmly at the keyboard, serenely typing a few words which I hope will make their way into "Chosen Words." Not a worry in the world.

Like, yeah, sure.

Meanwhile, the poem:

A DAY FOR FLYING

Crisp autumn breeze sliding off
some unseen glacier, sun busy
burnishing the copper leaves,

as though trees were incapable
of doing it themselves, and not
a cloud in sight. A day made

for flying. Indeed, overhead
dozens of silent chalk marks
of planes drag themselves along,

blade marks slowly multiplying
on a blue rink, crisscrossing,
widening, turning into fluffy

cotton batting stretched along
the cold, these diaphanous
contrails abandoned in a flight

to somewhere, as though planes
of the world were gathering
on this day to make clouds,

being impatient for the regular
kind and for the needed rain,
the prodigal, dallying rain.
© 1997
(originally published in Potpourri)

Today's word: diaphanous

Cool Hat

I know, I should throw it away ... at the very least, not wear it in public.

But I can't bear to give it up. It's my hat. We've been together so long, through so many things. It's like a part of me. And there it sits, "like a cabbage leaf on my head."

The poem began, as many poems do, while I was out walking, this time with Phyllis.

Actually, we encountered two young girls, strolling in the other direction. Strangers, but I probably smiled and spoke.

One of them smiled and said something in reply, but I didn't catch what it was.

After we had walked far enough that I thought we were out of earshot of the two, I asked Phyllis: "What did she say?"

"Cool hat," she replied.

"Cool hat?"

"That's right. Cool hat," she assured me.

That's when I had the impulse to toss my hat in the air and do a few dance steps right there. Who says I'm not in touch with the younger generation?

Today's poem, part of a manuscript in search of a publisher:

COOL HAT

It has been
wind-stripped,
limb-grabbed,
lost and found,
rumpled, crumpled,
laundered until
it cries for mercy,
and it sits like
a cabbage leaf
on my head.

But then she,
a young girl about
half my height,
flashes a smile,
says, "Cool hat!"
and for a moment,
just a heartbeat,
a quickened stride,
I feel like
tossing my hat
in the air
and dancing.
© 1999
(orignally published in Capper's)

Today's word: heartbeat

Beyond the Reach

Here it is, not even spring yet (will winter never end?) ... and I'm already thinking of autumn ... one of my favorite seasons ... actually, there are things I like about the other three, too.

I do like autumn, though. I like the cooler weather after summer's scorching days and stifling nights. I like the changing colors of the leaves. I look at them as only a struggling watercolorist might, wondering just how I might put them into a painting.

Sometimes I settle for a photograph, resolving to study it later, perhaps transform it into a painted interpretation of the scene.

Each season, of course, marks the passage of time ... each with its own characteristics registering that onward march.

Today's poem is about that onward march, with a focus on the seeming suddenness with which is sometimes occurs ... and that squirrel's nest "being parceled now by an autumn wind":

BEYOND THE REACH

I had walked there last summer,
pausing almost daily to enjoy
the shade, little suspecting
a drama unfolding overhead.

Then, overnight, it seemed,
the maples shed their burnished
leaves, stood starkly splaying
nerve endings against the sky.

High in the branches of one,
a nest beyond the reach
of muttering traffic noises,
made with no special plan,

yet an ageless pattern marking
nursery, rec room, school, point
of departure for a another
curiosity-stoked generation

of squirrels, all of this being
parceled now by an autumn wind.

What a shame, I thought, a shame
to let the wind steal such work.
© 1997
(originally published in Block's Magazine)

Today's word: parceled

Air Like Fog

I'll always remember those bluffs, those canyons they embraced, the cool air on the trails, the kind of quiet that is only found in the woods.

Giant City State Park, located in the hills of Southern Illinois, seemed an almost magical place to go when I was a child. What a treat it was to trudge those trails, imagining all the others who had walked there before, when it was all wilderness.

As a child I relished family outings there, especially those which extended into the evening, when we'd sit around, watching the crackling flames dancing in a fireplace in one of the shelters, listening to the adults trading stories, hoping to catch some of the night sounds of the woods, too.

Later, I took my own young family there to camp, to go tramping down the same trails I had explored, to let them feast on the same sights and sounds I had enjoyed.

In more recent years, when there were just the two of us on trips back to the place where I grew up, we always managed at least a drive through the park. Those drives rekindled so many memories ... so many ...

This poem, which embodies some of those memories, is part of my first collection, Chance of Rain, published by Finishing Line Press:

AIR LIKE FOG

Morning air clings to me like fog
as I enter the deep, cool canyons
that thread the water-rounded bluffs,

where I pause for a moment to look
about, to drink an ancient silence
that flows and deepens while lichens

struggle up the pocked, towering walls,
up, up toward a swallow's nest, high
where clinging ferns await the random

blessings of summer shade and transient
yellow light; then I notice soft-edged
flecks of light dancing on the trail

where others must have stood watching,
where they may have heard, as I do now,
a crow, distant, calling them by name.
© 2005

Today's word: crackling

When, at Last, It Rains

I learned about rain, or its absence, at an early age. That happens when you grow up in a rural area. So much ... in fact, everything ... depends on rain, whether you have it or you don't, whether too little or too much.

That early experience shaped me, no doubt about it. It shaped my writing, too, when I finally took that up. It created the shape of my first collection of poems, published in 2003.

This particular poem requires little explanation, I believe. Except ... except that, while it is written as something which happened one evening, it is the sum of many evenings ... spent on the front porch, "watching the stars, counting the days since last rain."

It embodies my reaction to the ending of a long drought.

It could be taken further than that, if you wish, to a celebration, not just of the return of rain to the parched soil, but to the ending of one of the many kinds of droughts we endure in our lives.

WHEN, AT LAST, IT RAINS

I sense its talking to me in the depths
of my sleep, hear its melody settling

softly on my ear like a lover's whisper,
see it, with my mind's eye, falling

into a steady rhythm, slipping slowly
down the slope of the tattered roof

on the porch where I sat last week
watching the stars, counting the days

since last rain; then with a shout,
a slam of the screened back door, I'm

standing in the crusted yard, greeting
the rain with my arms outstretched,

dancing wildly with it, receiving its
healing kisses on my upturned face.
© 2006

(published in my first collection, Chance of Rain, issued by Finishing Line Press, 2003; included in Common Threads, issued by Ohio Poetry Association, Spring-Summer issue, 2006)

Today's word: healing

Then One Day, Spring

(As some of you know, I've had computer problems recently. Now I'm busy picking up the pieces, trying to put them back together. Patience, please, whiie I also try to catch up ... to become current ... on "Chosen Words." Thank you)

As are many of my poems, this one is rooted in my childhood.

There are so many memories from that time, still warm and shiny from much handling. Of course, they were not all happy memories ... there were hard times abroad in the land ... but the good memories have prevailed.

This collection of memories goes back before the days of central heating. No fear of the pipes freezing then ... there weren't any. Flush toilets were a part of those distant cities we had heard about.

Oh, but when the world began showing signs of thawing ... then we felt like celebrating. We had survived another winter. Spring meant the trees would soon be budding out, Easter flowers would start reaching their slender fingers toward the sun, birds would be singing.

What a great world we lived in!

The poem:

THEN ONE DAY, SPRING

After the long, gray parade
of frozen winter months,
there eventually came a day

unlike others in our valley,
when the sun seemed brighter,
warmer, the breeze softer,

clearer, carrying birdsong
in floating crystal notes,
snow beginning to inch back

from the steaming roof edge
of a nearly-empty coal shed,
sending tear-like trickles

of water drip-drip-dripping
onto earth where daffodils
soon would be punching

slender fingers through,
reaching for the warmth.
Then high along the ridge,

at the bluffs where a stream
would struggle with thirst
in July, there issued

the robust song of water
newly freed from the cold,
tumbling head-over-heels

to reach the rocks below
and come racing toward us
with the great good news.
© 1999

(received an honorable mention in Poets' Study Club competition, subsequently published in Capper's, and now part of a collection called Wood Smoke, which was published last this year by Finishing Line Press)

Today's word: jubilation

Sleepless Night

Today's poem addresses something I've experienced recently (computer problems, you kinow) ... and is for all those nights before air-conditioning ... or without it ... when I was growing up, when I was in military service, later, in a rented room here and there ... and even later.

There were a lot of those.

It's for those lonely nights when a siren would signal the approach of flashing lights which would go dancing across the ceiling and splashing on down the street.

Once or twice that siren and those lights were for me. But "not this time ... old pals."

It's for the times I listened to the crickets picking up the threads of conversation in the darkness ... and I lay listening to the night ebbing away.

I don't dwell too much on the past, but it does provide the foundation for today ... and tomorrow. It does bear some thought. I try to give it that, and I'm glad when a poem is the end result, especially when that poem eventually finds a good home. This one was originally published in Riverrun.

SLEEPLESS NIGHT

A sharp-edged siren
comes careening through
my open window, scant
warning of lights
that will go slashing
across my ceiling,
tumbling pell-mell
in the littered street,
spattering buildings
with fiery colors
that ooze and fade.

Not this time
for me, old pals.
Not this time.

Slowly, like strangers
waiting for a bus,
crickets pick up loose
threads of conversation,
and I lie listening
to another night
burning itself out,
the welter of chirrups
reeling in another
sweltering day.
© 2000

Today's word: threads

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, Anonymous, for dropping by again ... and noticing. Yes, I've had problems, but I think they're ending ... or easing, at least, and, in coming days, I'll be trying to catch up again. Meanwhile, take care ... stay snug ... see ya.

Reaching Out

I'm not sure where or when this poem actually began.

Poems sometimes have a way of hanging around ... lurking ... waiting for the right moment ... and then presenting themselves to me.

I think this one had its roots in the time and place where I grew up. We lived on a small piece of land just outside a small farming community, so it was not truly a lonely existence, in the sense of being a stranger among strangers.

We knew everybody ... and I presume everybody knew us. We were among friends.

Still, there were times of loneliness, times when there were no playmates, times when there was nobody to talk to, except my grandparents ... and they were sometimes occupied with their own concerns.

So I think this poem may have been speaking to that time and place, particularly with its reference to the hills ... "my voice flying" ... "someone hearing, answering" ... but I really think it speaks of a hopeful outcome.

We could all use a bit of that.

And now the poem:

REACHING OUT

Let me stand
in the clear blue
of morning,
sun rising, warming
the waiting hills,
and my voice flying
through the silence,
someone hearing,
answering, more
than an echo,
a kindred spirit.
© 1998
(originally published in The Christian Science Monitor)

Today's word: kindred

Once, Perhaps

I've found it true that writing involves a lot of "stone gathering," a lot of writing that is ... well, just writing.

While that can be satisfying ... and I find that it's good activity ... it keeps my mind occupied ... keeps me from dwelling on things I needn't ... or shouldn't ... what is really rewarding is that piece of writing that has a certain quality about it ... has a gemlike quality.

Finding one of those ... or maybe two, if I'm really lucky ... is what keeps me going.

And just keeping on keeping on can be important, too.

I keep looking for that subject ... that turn of phrase ... that word which will send images dancing across the ballroom of my mind.

I hope that your quest will bring a large share of those "gems" to you.

Meanwhile, the poem:

ONCE, PERHAPS

Of all the stones
we gather,
all the poems
we write,
once in a lifetime
there is one, perhaps,
that gathers light
as no other, juggles
it back aloft,
sends bright beams
dancing into the dark
that stretches
across the ballroom
of the mind.
© 1996
(originally published in ByLine Magazine)

Today's word: dancing

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, Helen, for that kind remark ... and your patience during my recent absence, and now as I try to catch up.

New Growth

Today's poem contains some thoughts about what has happened to so much of our land ... thoughts driven largely, I suppose, by my having grown up in a rural area, where the poor, worn-out soil was gentled into producing food and flowers.

I have no special agenda, no axe to grind ... just some observations that simply came to me on a rainy day in a shopping center parking lot.

I may be wrong about grasses someday retaking "these smothered acres."

I take no comfort in the possibility that I might be right. Right or wrong, I shall never know, but it seems logical, reasonable to expect that the sprawl of what we've come to treasure as our way of life cannot be sustained forever.

Something to think about, perhaps.

The poem:

NEW GROWTH

Where crops once grew,
the skin of commerce
stretches into the distance,
acres in all directions.
On verdant prairie land
now grow waving fields
of carts, cars and customers.

They bring the green
to a soil long bereft
of plants, except token trees
planted as memorials
to what once was.

And when it rains, the rain
finds no welcoming soil.
It piles up at the drains
as it flees this alien surface.

What strange things
we now grow, and
how great the cost.

Someday the grasses
will retake
these smothered acres,
rightfully theirs
by prior claim.
The rain will come
in its gentle way
to bless this soil,
and it will prosper
as it did before.
© 1996
(originally published in Poetic Eloquence)

Today's word: smothered

Making the Pitch

First of all, a confession: I was not a pitcher.

Oh, I may have tossed a softball in the general direction of a batter a few times ... in a school playground game or two ... but, even in those games, I was usually somewhere deep in the outfield, keeping company with the gnats, just standing around, watching the slowly unfolding action, which seemed miles away.

Then there was a summer I spent much of the time "pitching" a tennis ball against the side of the garage (good practice toward the day when I might become a real pitcher ... and quite practical, because I had nobody to catch my pitches and toss the ball back to me).

But I wasn't a pitcher. Never was. Never will be.

Still, that didn't keep me from dreaming ... or daydreaming, as in this poem. Now that I have, for all practical purposes, given the secret of the poem away ... sorry about that ... here it is:

MAKING THE PITCH

I finger the ball, toe the rubber,
stretch and unleash my very
best pitch, watch it zooming

and dancing toward that pop
like a sudden shot against
the glove, watch the batter

standing, stunned, hear
the crowd's roar welling up,
filling the stadium, the buzz

of a fly nearby, the gentle
tinkling of ice, the hammock
swaying ever so gently.
© 2000
(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: swaying

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, Helen! It's really good to be back, albeit somewhat behind schedule still. The computer is still dragging its feet (can computers really do that?), but we're starting to dance together a little ... a waltz now ... maybe something a bit livelier later. We'll see.

Let There Be Light

(The photo has no direct tie-in, but I just wanted to share it on this winter day)

I haven't the foggiest idea of what I was watching on the TV that July evening ... just sitting, vegetating in front of the tube, when ... suddenly ... I was alone with my thoughts.

What a jolt that was.

I thought at first a fuse had blown ... but I fumbled down the stairs, looked up and down the street ... and arrived at a slightly different verdict: We had a bigger problem.

This is definitely a summer poem ... about a summer problem ... but it came to mind when I got home after an enjoyable evening of listening to an author describe her adventures with first, second and third novels ...

I opened an e-mail from a friend and fellow-writer in Kansas ... who was expecting to lose power at any moment.

"Over 30,000 already without lights here in this area," she said. "I doubt that I will be online much longer. Don't worry ... we'll be fine ... just have to ride it out!"

Her rather frightening situation brought to mind "Let There Be Light," though there is little similarity between her situation and the relatively minor inconvenience that I was experiencing on that steamy summer night.

When I looked up my poem, I noticed that the original version had ended: "powerless again/ in the hands/ of the trusted/ utility company."

Given the benefit of the perspective provided by time, I think I may have been taking an unfair swipe at the utility company then. What do you think ... original ending ... or a modified version?

Of course, the question is relatively moot, once the poem has been "abandoned" to a publisher ... but I was just wondering ...

The poem:

LET THERE BE LIGHT

In the hottest part
of summer,
in the darkest part
of night,
our reverie is torn asunder
as the picture we are watching
is swallowed by the tube,
accompanied
by a wheeze
that dies with a sigh deep
inside the air-conditioner,
and here we sit,
powerless again
in the hands
of the trusted
utility company.
© 1997
(originally published in Parnassus Literary Journal)

Today's word: powerless

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you for noticing the photo, Anonymous ... and for the beautiful comment! Take care. See ya.

It's So Simple

"Writing a poem is as simple as pouring a cup of coffee ... "

Oh, do read on.

Before we're finished, I will have led you down the winding garden path with still another poem about writing. As always, my usual disclaimer: I write about writing, not because I'm expert, but because the process intrigues me so.

As you will see, as you work your way through the poem, I don't think writing a poem ... or writing anything for public consumption, for that matter ... is a simple matter. Nor need it be so very complicated that only a select few may do it.

But the end product, I think, should give the appearance of having been done with ease ... not flippantly or shallow, but done with a certain polish about it which may intrigue the reader, without getting in the way of the poem itself.

It should appear to have been easily, naturally written, and none of the hard labor of producing it need show through.

What I'm saying in the poem, I guess, is that a poem should come to the reader with the ease one experiences in simply pouring a cup of coffee.

I hope you'll have a sip ... hope you enjoy it.

IT'S SO SIMPLE

Writing a poem is as simple as pouring
a cup of coffee. First, though, you plant

a seed, wait for the sprout, nurture it,
then transplant the seedling, let it mature,

hope that frost doesn't kill the buds,
let the bees pollinate blossoms, wait

for the beans to mature, pick the beans,
dry them, haul them, roast them, transport

them again, package them, grind them,
add water, let them leap as they

percolate and you keep an eye on the clock.
Then you simply pour, sit back and enjoy.
© 2006
(originally published in ByLine magazine)

Today's word: percolate

Help Wanted

Ah, I remember it well. We had stopped in Terre Haute to stretch our legs a bit.

We'd been walking the corridors of a shopping mall, turned the corner into the food court, and there he was.

The elderly gentleman was sitting alone, one elbow resting on the edge of the table while he squinted at the newspaper he had tilted toward the light ... and his coffee sat, growing cold.

We took a turn through the food court and walked on.

When we came by again, he was still there, sitting the same way, still poring over the paper.

I have no idea what he was actually reading, nor what his particular interest might have been, but something told me to find a place to sit and scribble a few words on a scrap of paper that I carry, just in case:

"HELP WANTED - Conversationalist ... "

In due course, a poem was born of that experience, that chance observation, those three words I had scribbled.

The poem:

HELP WANTED

Having grown old,
I haunt the ads,
hoping to find one
that might say:
Help Wanted -
Conversationalist.
Witty, yet reserved.
Willing to listen.
Flexible hours.
No travel required.
Age no barrier.
© 1997
(originally published in Midwest Poetry Review)

Today's word: conversationalist

The Good Deed

My reaction, at the time the event occurred, went from puzzlement ... to surprise ... to that pleasant feeling you get when somebody does a good turn for you ... and doesn't want, in fact, would refuse, anything in return.

The poem tells that story.

Oh, I suppose my neighbor was grateful for the small favors we did him and his family when they had a house fire shortly after moving in. But he didn't owe us anything for our help, either.

That's what neighbors do for each other.

He was grateful then ... and I was certainly grateful for all that shoveling he was doing for me. I had been waiting out the storm, dreading the task that confronted me.

Then, suddenly, there he was, the good neighbor.

If I were to go ahead with this, I'd probably become preachy ... so, I'll just say that this one was originally published in The Christian Science Monitor:

THE GOOD DEED

All day the snow
has come sifting down,
obscuring objects
in our shaken globe,
and I'm standing
staring out the window
when I see the shape
of a person who's
obviously been driven
wild by the storm,
who pauses and turns
into someone I know
... my neighbor,
shoveling my walk.
© 2003

Today's word: shoveling

Folding the Laundry

Memories! Where would we be without them?

Oh, how they help us to keep our bearings ... pointing out where we've been ... and sometimes helping us to remain pointed in the direction we should go.

They don't have to be of the greatest moments of our lives. They may even be of moments that could have been easily forgotten.

What, after all, is memorable about folding the laundry? Something obviously was ... and still is ... for me.

I still remember how the sun played across the items hanging from that sagging line ... how the movements of those items reminded me of dancing ... line dancing, I suppose ... long before I knew what line dancing was.

And now, before I wander off in some other direction, the poem:

FOLDING THE LAUNDRY

Still warm as though
just sloughed off
the bodies of wearers,
it yields softly
to my hands tonight,
recalling those times
Grandma and I pulled
sweet-smelling armloads
of hand-washed laundry
from a sagging line
in the back yard.
I feel the fatigue
again, bare feet
picking their way
among the honeybees,
finding little comfort
as she directed me
to look up, see
the clouds, which,
she insisted,
were somebody else's
laundry left out,
still flapping,
and now, an easing
of my tired back
as that memory
gently enfolds me.
© 1998
(originally published in Riverrun)

Today's word: flapping