Discontent

Today's poem, I think, states the obvious. When we've always had little in the way of material things, we're content. Ah, but when we have more, the appetite is whetted. We want more.

I was interested in the content/discontent relationship as I jotted these few words on a scrap of paper. Later, it seemed to me that it had a certain feel, a certain sound ... a poem, perhaps.

Here it is:


DISCONTENT

I was content
with what I had,
until I had more.

After that,
I discovered,
I could not
be satisfied
with any less.
© 1996

(originally published in Capper's)


Today's word: satisfied

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

Butterfly

I will always remember that butterfly, and that once in a lifetime event, as described in today's poem.

I remember precisely the hillside on which I was sitting when the butterfly found me.

I had been mowing the grounds of a friend's summer home in Southern Ohio. It was a hot, steamy day. The mower had become balky, so I decided we both needed a rest ... a bit of cooling off.

I was just sitting there, hoping for a bit of breeze, when it happened. But let's let the poem tell what occurred:

BUTTERFLY

I remember sitting
so still, feeling
the sweat trickling
down my back, beading
along my forearms,
a touch like
an angel's breath
when a butterfly
fluttered down
onto my sunburned
hand and sat there
for the longest time
before sipping
that moisture born
of hard labor, then
lifted lightly off, wafted
away like a dream.

© 1996

(originally published in Read, America!)

Today's word: wafted

The Ashes Are Still Hot

 

 

 

 

(Today's photo was taken aboard a bus. Where we were, or where we were headed, I don't recall ... but I liked the sky, was glad I captured it ... and never let it go)

Today's poem brings a renewal of a frightening childhood memory.

I couldn't have been very old when this incident occurred, but the memory of it is still vivid. 

The fire seemed to spring up suddenly along the railroad, the flames were threatening our house ... we had no running water, no telephone ... no fire department, as a matter of fact.

We stood and watched in horror. Then, suddenly, the fire seemed to veer away. It was over. We had survived.

The poem:

THE ASHES ARE STILL HOT

When a white-hot summer sun
hangs high in a cloudless sky,
when it must be thought
there can be no more burning

in this poor punished land,
there comes the crackling,
leaping, lurching dance
of the very flames of hell,

consuming sere weak willows
along the thirsting creek,
leaping to fence-line elms,
sending their leaves towering

like swarms of angry hornets,
smoke and fire entwining
in an eerie, deadly spiral
from which rain the hot seeds

of more on our shingled house.
We stand there in the garden,
my grandmother praying, and I,
a child of only four, crying.

Wind, born of the fire itself,
where there has been no wind
for long, dry, dragging days,
snatches up the pitching flames,

takes them away from the house.
My grandmother sees a miracle,
but to me it’s a nightmare, for,
see, the ashes are still hot.

 © 1997

(originally published in Block's Magazine)

Today's word: towering

Wintertime Waltz

Stop me if you've ... actually, don't stop me if you've heard this before.

It's an old story that went something like this:

I may have commented in a December a couple of years ago that, after having unseasonably warm weather in our neck of the woods, winter arrived. Oh, did it ever!

It snowed, and snowed, and snowed. And then we had freezing rain and sleet on top of that.

It reminded me of the time we had similar weather conditions ... I stepped out the back door ... checked on the steps before starting down ... they seemed fine ... one step ... and DOWN I went. Ka-BOOM!

I went crawling back into the house with a lump on my head.

The next time I was carrying salt ... to put on the driveway.

Out the back door ... a careful look ... one cautious step ... and down I went ... Those icy steps had outsmarted me AGAIN!

Nothing broken, thank goodness, except the container of salt I was carrying.

But that reminded me of this particular poem, "Wintertime Waltz." After all, where would we be, if we couldn't have a little laugh at our own mishaps and minor misfortunes?

The poem:

WINTERTIME WALTZ

I have no

sense of rhythm,

no grace, no pace,

no with-it moves

from some great

dancing school.

But on ice? Hey,

I'm a dancing fool.

© 1995

(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: dancing

Treacherous Dust

Do things still get dusty? 


You bet. At least things in the vicinity of my usual haunts, the corner where my computer sits, waiting for the familiar touch of my flying fingers ... the file cabinet where treasured bits of writing are stored ... even one of my favorite reading chairs in another corner.


My earliest exposure to the never-ending battle against dust came as I watched my grandmother fighting it. 


I remember how those motes rose in the sunbeams invading the house, then settled back. I'm sure she managed to capture many of them with her dusting cloth, but it was those which escaped that I found most intriguing.


I imagine they're still up to their old tricks, because I can dust the screen of my computer in the evening, and the next day they're back, lurking, smirking, daring me to try again.


This poem, originally published in Capper's, is my tribute to those dust particles:

TREACHEROUS DUST


Resting at will,
but never sleeping,
it rises lazily
ahead of the cloth,
starts settling
back on everything
the very minute
your back's turned.
© 1996

Today's word: motes

Running the Hurdles

This photo was taken some time ago. I had a new camera ... a new "toy," if you will ... and I understood, from a quick reading of the instructions, that it had a built-in timer which allowed the photographer to be in the picture. 

Aha! A self-portrait! 

I thought I'd try a profile shot ... and I did. Trouble was, I became concerned that nothing seemed to be happening. 

Then, just as I turned to see what the problem was, something did happen ... and you see the result. 

It wasn't what I expected, but I never ... almost never ... throw anything away without finding a use for it ... so here it is. 

Today's poem, I think, cries out for more poetic detail ... and more detail would call for more than its eight short lines could deliver.

The poem may, in fact, have been considerably longer when it was first written ... but I was under the mistaken impression that Capper's only published eight-line poems.

See? I can be brief.

The poem:

RUNNING THE HURDLES

Have you
ever noticed
how many more
things go wrong
when you're trying
to get away early, 
or make up
for lost time?

© 1997

Today's word: hurdles

Matter of View

The thrust of today's poem, I think, can be summed up in one word: perception.

When the crow's call interrupted whatever I was doing, I found it rather grating ... actually, quite grating. It was like fingernails scratching across a chalkboard.

But after I gave it a bit of thought, it occurred to me that there might be another viewpoint, another way of hearing the crow's call, of seeing it as a means of communication, much as we humans try to communicate thoughts or information to each other.

Perception. It can lead to a better understanding of the world around us, if we'll let it.

Now, the poem:

MATTER OF VIEW

A crow's carping call
comes tumbling in
at my open window,
drowning out songbirds,
grating on my ears.
But to another crow
it's probably as sweet
as a baby's gurgle.

© 1995

(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: gurgle

The Late Run

I have ridden a lot of buses. The bus was my main mode of transportation when I was in military service ... later when I started college ... still later, during a good portion of my working life.

There's something about a bus.

Absolute strangers will take a seat beside you and start telling their life's story ... at least that's been my experience ... and the drivers ... when you're the first one on the bus in the morning, as I often was ... or the last one off at night ... as I sometimes was ... they'll strike up a conversation ...

There's just something about a bus.

You can't help but pick up information about people and places ... bits and pieces of information ... even if you're not a writer ... things, impressions that stick with you ... things that resurface at the strangest times.

That's what makes this poem what it is ... the bits and pieces.

It comes together as though it's all happening along a certain route ... on a certain Saturday night ... on a rainy Saturday night ... a certain driver ... a particular bus. Not so. It's a combination of those bits and pieces, gathered during hundreds of rides over thousands of miles.

So it didn't really happen? Oh, but it did. Not in the neat little package starting at Point A and ending at Point B. But it did happen.

I imagine it was ... as is often the case ... a rainy night that set the memories into motion ... this gathering of impressions from the recesses of my mind ... the narrative that followed ... the driver ... rain ... the sweeping turn ... rain peppering the dead roadside grass ... all of it coming together to form a poem.

And that, I suppose, is an example of poetic license.

THE LATE RUN

An almost-empty bus,
and I'm dozing as it
splashes down a lane
toward St. Leonard's.

Its headlights sway
as it makes a sweeping
turn, pauses, then goes
grinding off again.

"It's that way most
Saturdays," the driver
says. Then, glancing
at me: "I make that
loop, you know? Just
in case. But there’s
hardly ever anybody
waiting." A pause.
"Now ain't that life?"

We jolt along, listening
to the wipers slapping
the rain aside, tires
smacking puddles, and I
ponder what he has just
said. The rain peppers
the dead roadside grass
and dances its lonely
Saturday night dance,
while I sit thinking,
tired and a little sad.

© 2003

(from my first poetry collection, Chance of Rain, published by Finishing Line Press, 2003)


Today's word: license

Impossible July

Today's poem is from my first collection, Chance of Rain.  

As the collection's title implies, the poems in it are about rain, certainly, but it's also about the absence of rain ... equally important ... or worrying ... to those who raise the food on which we all depend.

This poem is about that absence. It was written in an attic room so perfectly fitted for talking about the "blue flame of sky/ leaping horizon-to-horizon/ and back ... "

It was a room never intended for air-conditioning, a place where "A fan labors, but fails" ... amidst a promise of rain, but an empty promise.

Oh, how it reminded me of those searing, rain-starved, melting days of July in Southern Illinois, where I grew up! And how I still sometimes miss them.

The poem:

IMPOSSIBLE JULY

End of July, and as far
as the eye can see
only a blue flame of sky
leaping horizon-to-horizon
and back to this room
so high, so near the sun,
that words have become
too hot to touch.

A fan labors, but fails,
to bring relief, while my
thoughts bubble and run
like tar on a lonely road.

And the sky flares up
with the promise of rain,
but an empty promise, full
of the heat of absence.

Wafting, shimmering lines
become a cruel mirage,
yesterday’s fading belief 
that relief from this
might still be possible.

© 2003

("Impossible July" received a third-place award in a ByLine competition, and later became a part of my first poetry collection,Chance of Rain, published by Finishing Line Press, 2003)

Today's word: promise

Hills

Today's poem pretty well tells its own story, I think. 

The hills I'm referring to are in the extreme southern portion of Illinois, an area that was sometimes referred to as "Little Egypt," perhaps still is. 

I grew up there. With military service, schooling and marriage, I left that area, but for many years we returned at least once each year. 

Now those kinds of travel are pretty much in abeyance ... as my orbit remains quite close to my present home ... 

Still, I travel back there in my thoughts ... and sometimes in my dreams ... particularly during those times when the peach trees are in blossom across the hills. 

My timing, I'm afraid, is a bit off ... but I have been thinking again of those beautiful peach trees "in full array" ... how the hills seemed so alive with them ... so inviting ... and, oh, how I miss seeing them in person!

The poem:

HILLS

Rolling smokey-green hills
keep calling me back to my
beginnings, where generations
of my people scratched out

a living, a sprinkling of small
victories for those, a stubborn
and proud people, laboring
to the cadence of the seasons,

while I, like so many others,
drifted away, lured by dreams
of a better world somewhere
just beyond the harsh horizon,

making a promise to return;
and now, with the peach trees
in full array, those hills are
calling again, and I must go.

© 2006

(Originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: array

Frozen Flight

I'll never understand computers.

One morning I woke up to what appeared to be just a normal day. I bounded out of bed when the alarm finally went off ... dashed to the computer to see how many visitors had stopped by to take a look at "Chosen Words" ... and maybe had left a comment.

I stretched and yawned and sat in my squeaky chair in front of the screen. I checked "Chosen Words." Mmmm ... not bad. The numbers are still clicking right along.

Time for another entry.

I said ... Time for another entry. The computer wasn't listening. I tried to log on. I could look, but couldn't touch. I tried again ... and again ... and again.

As usual, I wondered what I had done wrong.

I closed the door softly as I left and went about the business of running some errands ... getting out for my morning walk, etc.

Much later I returned ... tried again ... and things were working.

Mystery solved? Nope.

But things ... in this location ... seem to be working this morning ... and I have a summer poem.

No, sorry, I don't have a picture of a sweat bee to go along with the poem. Those rascals are too tiny, too unpredictable, too fast for me and my camera.

I do have a reminder of summer, however, with today's photo, one of many I've snapped during my daily wanderings ... -er, walks.

The poem itself is almost a haiku moment, a tiny flicker of activity broken off before I became fully focused on what was happening.

But it became a little more than that ... and it carries so many memories of all those places this kind of "stare down" has happened to me over the years.

Originally published in Capper's:

FROZEN FLIGHT

A sweat bee
hovers in my face,
wings invisible
in the heavy air,
then, satisfied
at having won
this stare down,
darts away.

© 1996

Today's word: invisible

Evensong

"Evensong" is a word picture painted from memory ... the memory of those times when the storms had passed and we emerged to assess the damage to the garden, our trees ... the neighbors' trees ... our house, their houses.

That was always the aftermath, that slow evaluation of what had happened to our world, what steps needed to be taken next.

It was almost as though the birds were doing the same thing, echoing our concerns, beginning to express their feelings after having survived another onslaught.

"Evensong" was not the result of a single experience, but a distilling of several, a boiling down to the essence of that feeling of kinship with the natural world, the world around us, a world, thank goodness, that had birdsong ... and still does, if we but listen.

The poem:

EVENSONG

Dark clouds scud off

toward the east, while

twilight descends

onto hail-torn foliage,

then from somewhere

overhead, tentative notes

slowly gain strength,

blossoming finally

into full-throated

birdsong near a lone

figure who pauses

on the slope of the hill,

eyes searching vainly

for just a glimpse

of this small creature,

then turns toward home,

less burdened now

for having been given

this healing moment.

 © 1999

(originally published in PKA's Advocate)

Today's word: healing

Do They Sleep?

Sometimes, especially with a whimsical piece, any explanation is too much ... so I'll spare you the details of my ordeal by squirrels ... the pain and humiliation I've suffered at their hands (er, paws) ... the ongoing battle of wills ... my refusal to concede that their ancestors were here in this country before mine ... all those things which went into the making of this poem.

If they were to write poetry ... perhaps it would keep them out of mischief for brief interludes, at least ... I suppose it would be as accusatory of me as this is of them.

I'm willing to settle for an uneasy truce. But are they? This one was originally published in Capper's:

DO THEY SLEEP?

I've seen 'em
nodding off
on a quiet limb
during the day,
but when do
pesky squirrels
really sleep?

And where?

Maybe they go
to little motels,
or perhaps they
go zipping off
to the suburbs,
where they plot
new mischiefs
on tiny laptops.

Some nights,
when the wind
sits and traffic
thins, I think
I see the glow
from their tiny
flickering
screens, hear
them chuckling
to themselves,
and I lie there ...
awake, wondering.
© 1998

Today's word: chuckling