Bouncy Pine

Things I say, particularly in those pieces which may eventually become poems, are not always intended to be taken literally.

That's the case today, of course.

Anybody who has ever looked even casually at a pine tree knows it doesn't have springs, concealed or otherwise.

But it doesn't take much observation to lead one to the thought that it looks like there must be some kind of mechanism at work there.

There have been times when I've been in the company of pine trees, unaware of a slight stirring of air, but there is movement in their needled branches.

How else explain that movement?

It seemed to be the way to describe them at the time. The moral of the story ... the "lesson" ... the "mini-sermon" ... seemed to follow naturally.

It's a thought, at least ... and I use it sometimes to cheer myself up.

Here's the poem:

BOUNCY PINE


The boughs of the pine
ride on concealed springs,
rising and falling
at the slightest touch
of a summer breeze.

Oh, that we could be 
as resilient, as quick
with our enthusiasm.

 © 1996

(originally published in Explorer)

Today's word: concealed

Before I Gallop

No, I don't have any immediate plans for another big move. The most recent one was big enough, thank you very much.

When I wrote today's poem, I was just beginning to think about the time when downsizing would be the practical thing to do. I looked around at all the things I had accumulated over the years, and it seemed an impossible task.

It still does.

It's really hard to turn loose of things ... I have trouble seeing them as being only "things" ... because they stir so many memories.

I'm actually making the effort now to turn loose of some items ... to use up others ... to give some away. It's still not easy, but I'm trying.

When I wrote the poem, I tried to take a light-hearted look at this dilemma which faces so many people.

Still, after one reading before a small group, one listener told me that she liked the poem, but found the ending a real downer. She thought I was referring to someting very dark there ... death.

That hadn't occurred to me ... in fact, was furthest from my thoughts. I was actually thinking of Hawaii, a place I've never been, but wouldn't mind seeing someday.

Meanwhile, back to the shredder ... but first, the poem:

BEFORE I GALLOP

The time has come,
in this hunkered down,
bunkered up life
of mine, to start
turning loose of all
those precious papers,
stacks of things
left unread,
undone, untouched
these many years,
to end each day
with less than I had
at the beginning,
to divest, to shed,
to shred, to trash
all those dear things
that I can't take
with me, whether
I simply move
to more fitting
local quarters, or go
the whole route,
whisking away
my tell-tale tracks,
then galloping off
toward some
distant paradise.

© 1999

(originally published in Midwest Poetry Review)

Today's word: furthest

After Ordering

Some of you may have seen this "bridge" before ... and quite recently. Well, here it is again, ready for someone to go teetering across. 

One thing I like about writing ... poetry or whatever ... is the surprise element.

I never know when a poem ... or an idea for a poem ... is going to leap out at me. Those are the ones I really like, as opposed to the thought which keeps tugging at my sleeve, day after day, trying to get my full attention.

Today's poem came to me somewhere in Ohio. I don't remember where we had stopped, or where we were headed ... probably just out for a lazy afternoon drive.

We'd found a quiet place, studied the menu, placed our orders ... and then the sounds of the place, the orderly movement of people in and out ... all of the activity began asserting itself.

I don't even remember whether I started jotting down some things then, or simply made some mental notes (risky business, because I sometimes have trouble finding those again), but the end result was a poem ... one that eventually found a home in a publication.

The poem:

AFTER ORDERING

As I take my first sip
of ice-cold water,
I notice the sizzle
rising from the grill,
the soft clink of a spoon
hitting someone's glass,
an infant gurgling,
insistent, distant
beeping, then, at a table
just for two, a young
couple sharing a scoop
of vanilla ice cream
that's swimming
in a delicious, sticky
sea of strawberry syrup,
and I almost want
to change my order.

 © 2006

(originally published in Capper's)
Today's word: sticky

Then one Day, Spring

(I know ... we're a little out of step   with the dogwood blossoms, but give them time; they'll be back)

As with 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 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 my collection, Wood Smoke, published by Finishing Line Press)

Today's word: jubilation

Sleepless Night

Today's poem addresses something I've experienced at various times ... 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

Morning Talk

(Not the kind of tree I'm talking about in today's poem ... but I thought I'd share my little watercolor sketch with you)

I like to think that poems come to me ... and they will, I've discovered, if I can just sit still in one place long enough.

This one may not have come to me, exactly, but I found the material for it in the tree just outside my window.

I sat listening to a certain sound, then located its source ... and watched.

From there it was simply a matter of putting my impressions on paper before they ... the impressions, that is ... flew away.

I admit that I found more than just the sights and sounds of a mother-and-daughter exchange between two cardinals to write about.

Before I'd finished, I couldn't resist drawing the parallel between these two beautiful little creatures and the rest of us ... 

we superior beings who "own" so much of this material world ... and are, perhaps, so bent on possessing more of it ... that we neglect to build little bridges between us ... particularly between the generations.

End of sermon. 

And now, on to the poem:

MORNING TALK

Amid a rising tide of summer sounds,
I slowly become aware of one pair 
catching my ear more than the others.

Then there they are, a mother cardinal
and her offspring, flitting and talking
to each other in the blue spruce.

Talking of food, perhaps, or safety
in these thick boughs, weighty subjects,
or maybe just chit-chat between

 
this mother and her young daughter.
I have no way of knowing, but they
seem to have found an understanding,

a quiet accord, like a gently swaying 
footbridge between the generations,
that we humans keep hoping to find.
© 2003

(originally published in Capper's) 

Today's word: chit-chat

Let There Be Light

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

What a jolt that was.

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

At least I got a poem out of it.

This poem 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

Ice-Cold Memories

When I was a youngster, winter was probably my favorite season.

Oh, I could've done without the tingling toes, the fingers sticking to cold metal ... the nose that froze ... but I loved the snow. It was like having a featherbed ... albeit a very cold one ... to romp on.

But that changed.

I suppose age has something to do with it, and I don't know if the weather is becoming more extreme ... or if I am becoming more sensitive to changes ... or it's all just my imagination.

I'm sure of one thing, though, a search of my extensive records would show that today's poem was written in the middle of one of those sizzling summer months when the pavement starts turning to goo and thoughts turn to the prospect of frying an egg on the sidewalk.

And I know this, too: I was looking for ways of surviving.

Ice-cold memories pressed to the sizzling brow may not be the answer, but I think they help. 

The poem:

ICE-COLD MEMORIES

In the root cellar
of my mind
I have memories
of last winter
lying on the shelves
to help me survive
these front-burner
days of summer.

I shall pull them out
one by one, to press
to my sizzling brow,
daily hoping that
I have stored enough
to carry me through
until autumn
comes galloping up.

 © 1995

(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: sizzling

How the Cinders Danced

This is a homecoming poem only in the sense that I had returned to the place where I grew up.

There were no welcoming crowds, no band ... and I hadn't expected any. I had walked around town, looking for a familiar face, but found none. I ended up at the site of the bridge where a frightening experience had etched itself on my memory.

And how frightening a steam locomotive could be to a youngster, especially up close, as my grandmother and I were caught walking across that bridge ... with a freight train passing underneath.

Standing there, alone, brought that memory rushing back to me.

How quiet now! How calm. How vivid the memory of those cinders "dancing" on the deck of that bridge! I just had to write about it.

It later received recognition as a Plainsongs Award Poem, published in their October, 2005, issue.

HOW THE CINDERS DANCED

Cold, I stand recalling
how the cinders danced
on the highway bridge

while I watched a slowly
swaying freight train
creaking beneath us,

its dark, hulking engine
chuffing like a dragon,
hot cinders swirling

up, dark clouds seeking
the walkway, our lungs;
how my hand lingered

in Grandma's after that
frightening train had
gone clacking off, and I

stand here now, alone,
a stranger come home,
breathing clear air,

no cinders dancing, no
engine chuffing, but
my gloved hand rising

to a sudden welling up

that causes a blurring

of childhood images.

© 2005

Today's word: chuffing

(OK, so I made up the word, but that's how I remember the sound that the steam engine made as it struggled underneath the bridge. Oh, and the art? One of my photographs ... and, no, that's not the bridge mentioned in the poem; it's a Nature-provided "bridge" along the trail at one of my favorite walking places.)

Finally, Sleep

Sleep, that blessed escape from the cares of the day, is not always easy to come by ... but I recently slept well for two nights in a row ... and woke up thinking about a certain poem ...  about those mortal enemies - writing and sleep.

At least I've found them often directly opposed to each other. 

When I'm in the throes of writing, sleep is the last thing I want ... and then, sometimes, when I sleep before I've finished a project, I wake up feeling writing-deprived.

"This attic room" used to be the place where all of my serious writing took place. Excluding, of course, those frantically written notes while waiting at the bus stop, or in the doctor's office ... any place I had a few free moments and an idea that just wouldn't wait.

You know the story about that.

That place just beneath the roof was peaceful and quiet ... and when it rained, I enjoyed rain's gentle cadence that accompanied the tick-tick-tap-tick of the keyboard, the rustling of papers, the stifled yawns, and ... finally, a bit of sleep.

But we've moved ... and, though I don't miss that extra set of stairs ... I do miss those evenings up there.

Especially on rainy nights ... I find myself pausing to think about those crinkling ribbons of light, the words which came streaming across the screen as I continued my quest for a poem, in this case:

FINALLY, SLEEP

Ribbons of light
crinkle across
the glass atop
this attic room,
moving slowly
to the cadence
of gentle rain,
then vanish
in the quiet
of these small
hours that call
me to sleep.

© 2001

(originally published in St. Anthony Messenger)

Today's word: ribbons

Echo

(Today ... for no particular reason ... one of my watercolor sketches)

Today's little poem recreates a childhood memory of the sound of my voice coming back to me, not literally saying, "lonely, lonely," but giving me a feeling of being alone in those woods, with just that echo for company.

Of course, this was only a momentary feeling, for there were other adventures to pursue, other trails to explore, other bluffs to climb, other voices to hear ... either those voices answering me or those calling me on.

Still, recognition that, for the moment, I was all alone there, listening, not to someone else repeating what I'd just said, but to my own young voice bounding faintly back to me, was a feeling not easily forgotten.

I still think of it sometimes when I become immersed in a certain kind of quiet.

Memories! How we cherish them, make them forever ours, polish them, enhance them, store them away, pull them out to comfort us in our old age.

The poem:

ECHO

The sound of my voice
hurried through the woods,
past sandstone bluffs,
went running across
cooling ridges,
dipped into hollows,
then came back to me,
repeating
lonely, lonely ... lonely.

© 1997

(originally published in Midwest Poetry Review)

Today's word: repeating

Delia's Dream

Today's little poem is about my grandmother, who took me into her care when I was two years old and guided me until I was 18 ... when I went into military service ... and even beyond. 

I still feel that gentle hand in the small of my back.

Times were not just hard, but really tough, requiring frugality with those few material things which came her way. Still, those circumstances seemed to inspire in her an exceeding generosity.

She knew that others had needs greater than hers. She accepted the fact that her good works might be received without thanks.

And she didn't talk much about "those distant places," but I know she dreamed about them sometimes, especially those where her children were.

She did get to visit them, but she never got to be there, as she would say, never got to "pull up and settle down" there.

It was simply not to be. And she accepted that, too. 

How I love her, for all the things she taught me ... for all the butterflies she pointed out to me ... and paused to watch with me.

And now, the poem:

DELIA'S DREAM

How she'd say

nothing is ever lost,

meaning wasted,

pieces of string,

each carefully coiled,

or a rubber band

snapped around her wrist,

her good works received

without thanks,

and thoughts,

especially thoughts

of those distant places

where she dreamed things

were better, where she

hoped to be someday,

but never was.

© 1997

(originally published in Riverrun)

Today's word: guided

Ceiling Monster

(Another of my little watercolors, an early attempt to capture a sunset)


A summer poem? Could be ... but it could be an anytime poem, because the "monster" is always there ... has been, ever since I installed it.


But simmer - er, summer, it is. At least in today's poem.


Oh, how many times this has happened to me ... I settle into my favorite chair, pick up a book ... or a magazine ... and lean back.


Next thing I know, I'm waking up again.


But this time, at least, I got a poem out of it:


CEILING MONSTER

Five blades embrace
heavy summer air
while four globes stare
at a pair of strings,
slender, descending
like spiders seeking
new worlds to claim,
and my eyelids flutter,
fighting against sleep,
for I have sat down
intending only to read
a few paragraphs,
but find I'm slipping
now, glasses off, my book
slowly rising, falling
as it rests on my chest,
both of us helpless
against that monster

cooling, whirring, 

soothing, hypnotizing

us in the afternoon.

© 1998

(originally published in Capper's)

 

Today's word: hypnotizing

Bridge Builder

Sometimes, I think, it's best just to let the poem tell its own story. My comments about a poem's beginning ... the inspiration for it ... my purpose in writing it ... in transforming scribbled notes into the finished product ... all of these, sometimes, are helpful.


Today, though, I think I'll just step back and let the poem do the telling ... all of it:

BRIDGE BUILDER

My grandfather built bridges, 
not the bright, towering
monuments to engineering like
those spanning the Mississippi.
His bridges were squat, dark,
wooden things, put up by gangs
of common laborers who spent days,
weeks, sometimes, away from their
families, so trains could go
rolling smoothly across the creeks
and small streams that wrinkled
the face of the earth.
One evening I watched as his
rough, scarred hand gripped a stub
of pencil, and the pilings,
cross-members, all the timbers,
ties and rails took shape across
a ruled page of my writing pad.
His eyes glistened when my small
voice asked how far he had traveled
in this work, eating alien food
that strangers plopped on his plate,
trying to sleep in crowded, hot
bunk cars alongside the mainline.
"Too far, and too long," he said,
and I knew the story was over.
That paper is gone, his bridges
replaced by steel structures,
or abandoned as railroads began
surrendering to the superhighways
and airplanes, but how I wish
I had that little drawing, so I
could slide it out, look at it
again, something of him to hold,
now that I’ve come to appreciate
his most important bridge, those
huge hands reaching out to me,
the child nobody wanted, saying,
"Come ... live with me."
© 2006

(Second place winner, Dayton Metro Library 2006 Poetry Contest)
Today's word: reaching 

After Summer

In keeping with my repeatedly-broken 

promise (to myself) to be brief, I’ve selected a 

short poem to share today. 

I’ve written a lot of those. Perhaps it has 

something to do with writer’s cramp ... or

writer’s block ... or maybe attention 

span. But that’s another story.


Briefly speaking, though, I see now that it 

might have been just a line or two longer ... in 

order to incorporate the chorus of leaf 

blowers (which also provide background 

music) ... and then I could have mentioned 

the dreaded snow blowers.

But I did indicate I was going to be brief, didn't 

I?


The poem:


AFTER SUMMER


Comes autumn,

when the mighty

chorus of mowers

ceases singing,

an intermission

too soon followed

by a chorale

of snow blowers.

(originally published in Capper’s)


Today's word: chorale