Lost Pencils

Phyllis pretends she's not with me when I discover a pencil lying on the sidewalk. She knows I can't resist. I'll simply have to pause, pick it up and put it in my pocket.

I've learned not to do that with pens. Sometimes they leak.

But pencils?

There's something safe, reassuring about a pencil. Even the most chewed up, stubbiest, disreputable looking pencil has the potential of a few more words, of writing a few lines, perhaps, that could someday turn into something big ... maybe a poem.

Here's one now:

LOST PENCILS

I find them during my walks

past schools, lying there, poor,

fallen things, pointing forlornly

to some vague destination.

Many bear the jagged markings

from anxious scholars' teeth,

some have been sharpened

to the point of extinction,

some are broken, and might not

write again, without my timely

arrival to bring them home.

Handling each with the care

one would accord a fallen bird,

I slide it into the warmth

of an inner pocket to keep

it safe, for this could be

the one I've always needed,

the one with something to say

that I really need to hear.

© 2000

(originally published in Midwest Poetry Review)

***

Today's word: potential

A Day for Flying

Actually, it's not a good day here for flying, weather-wise, but this poem came to mind, and it seemed like a good time for sharing it.

I was doing a bit of flying myself ... 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 was trying to pull things together for watercolor class ... check for e-mails ... find my list of things I intended to do yesterday ... all this while watching the time ticking swiftly away.

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

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?
So, for a few minutes at least, I'm putting hurry aside. I'm sitting here 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, here's the poem (I hope):

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

Biking by Degrees

Today's photo is of one of my "neighbors," having a snack, or, perhaps, just engaged in thinking up new tricks ... and, as far as I know, has nothing to do with the poem.
Meanwhile: In discussing a poem, particularly one of my own, there's the temptation to say so much about it that there's no need to read the poem itself.

I hate it when I do that.
I'm trying not to, with today's offering, but I'm afraid even the title may tend to give it away.
Let me just say that while I have an aversion to making New Year's resolutions (just around the corner, eh?), I do occasionally concede there are some activities I need to take up ...
"Biking" is one activity that I need to resume. This kind of biking appeals to me because I also like it when I can engage in "multi-tasking" ... at least to the extent of doing two things at once ... not that I'm such an efficient person. Quite the contrary.
Here, now that I've verged on giving the whole thing away, is the poem, originally published in Capper's:

BIKING BY DEGREES
I’ve put tons
of happy miles
on this bike,
clinging to its
slender seat,
pedaling steadily
while I catch up
on my reading,
its single wheel
whirring, pages
blurring, while
I exercise here
in my basement.

© 1996

***

Today's word: multi-tasking

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:
Hey, Magran, so you like "dessert" first. Welcome to the club. Before that particular food group went on my personal forbidden list, I was known to wolf down dessert first ... a time or two. I see nothing wrong with reading the poem first. In fact, I like it that you're looking forward mainly to the poem itself. The commentary is merely the door to the room where the poem is waiting for guests, and I try not to open the door too slowly ... but sometimes I do. I know. I do.   

At the Doctor's Office

I'm dusting off one that some of you have seen before.

It came to me on a routine visit to the doctor's office ... I was, indeed, perched on the end of an examining table ... waiting ... and watching the rain.

Then I reached for the folded scrap of paper I always carry in my hip pocket, and started writing.

"At the Doctor's Office" was originally published in Potpourri, was subsequently nominated for Pushcart Prize honors, and is now part of a manuscript in search of a publisher:

AT THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE

Random needles of rain

start darting diagonally

like the silent scratchings

of cat claws on the window

where the traffic is zooming

and sizzling past, hauling

away the remains of Thursday,

blurring beyond the sycamore,

its mottled gray-green trunk

whispering of a deep-forest

stream while seeming utterly

misplaced here where concrete

suffers the presence of so few

trees, where my strongest

efforts at contiguous thought

produce only fragments too tiny

to mend, unleavened images,

lacking all savor of meaning,

where I perch, dry-mouthed

and nervous, my legs dangling

from the end of this table,

and wait, as I always do,

for a door to open softly,

carefully, into this silence,

this sterile, stifling silence.

© 2001

***

Today's word: needles

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, Magran. I'm glad you felt that the poem put you there, sitting on the examining table, watching the raindrops slanting across the glass of the window. When that happens, I feel I've really done it right.

Sunflowers

I remember tooling along the highway somewhere in the Midwest.
The sun was shining, the landscape a quilt of varying shades of green, a sprinkling of houses and farm buildings.
Then suddenly ... it seemed sudden at the time ... I became aware of those acres of sunflowers "staring" at me. I was reminded of a classroom, not as a teacher, for I was never privileged to have that role, but as a visitor entering quietly, yet becoming, for the moment, the center of attention ... all those young heads turning, those eyes all focused on me, evaluating, questioning.
Oh, how that field of sunflowers reminded me of that moment. And now, this morning ... when there's a deep blanket of snow spread across Ohio, and the temperatures have plunged into single digits ... I'm enjoying the memory of that sun-drenched scene ... and how it set the wheels turning toward another poem.
It goes something like this:


SUNFLOWERS

Great gray ribbon
of road unspooling
steadily beneath me,
then, to my left,
acres of big brown eyes
all intently focused;
first day of school,
teacher's talking.

© 1995
(originally published in Capper's)
                             ***
Today's word: focused
Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:
Thank you for stopping by, June. When someone does that, and says, "I know that feeling" ... either about the poem or my own commentary ... I know I've succeeded, and that ... well, that just makes my day.

Renewal

Symbolism isn't always apparent when I take a photo. In this instance, I was prompted by the colors, the reflections, the quiet of this spot in Charleston Falls Park.

Now I see the greening of renewal, the fallen tree both as a symbol of decay which will lead to renewal and as a footbridge, offering a choice at that juncture, of wading through the stream of events, or of taking a dry, if somewhat acrobatic, but safer crossing ... all of these being symbols of passages.

Even though this last month of the year is upon us ... or maybe because it is ... I think it isn't too late ... or too early (those New Year's resolutions are coming up, remember?) to speak of renewal.

Renewal can come at any time of year ... any day ... any moment. End of sermon.

And now the poem:

RENEWAL

How sad sounding

the rains of spring

were, thudding

on the empty drum

of my young life.

Renewal lacked

meaning for me,

but the years

have washed away

that emptiness.

Now the song

of those gentle

drops on my roof

nurtures dreams

of beginnings

and new growth.

© 2002

(originally published in Brave Hearts)

***

Today's word: beginnings

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Oh, I obviously cling to beginnings, too, Magran ... and I think that attitude comes, not just with age, but increased understanding ... which can come at any point in our lives. I see these beginnings, even though they may not be large ... and may, in fact, be spaced close to together ... as my stepping stones to the future.

Morning Talk

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

LOOKING BACK – I don't do a lot of that ... looking back, that is ... but I was going through some old binders ... getting rid of things, downsizing, if you will ... and came across a printout of one of my outgoing e-mails from January 27, 2002, Subj: Scribblings.

Oh, did that bring back some memories! I notice that it went to 18 recipients, included a copy of my poem, "Only the Best Will Do" ... and opened with some meandering thoughts about "Scribblings ... by Robert L. Brimm."
Scribblings was my web page ... on AOL, if memory serves me right ... but (sniffle-sniffle) that page has since ceased to exist. It was fun while it lasted, though ... with an offering of a poem and some chit-chat about what inspired it. Sound familiar? 
I noted that there had been 363 visitors to the page since its beginning on January 8 ... but I was wondering why there had been so few visitors over that most recent weekend.
Maybe it was because my writing had put everybody to sleep.
Anyway, I noted that we were off to a good start toward our first million visitors to the page, adding ... "Also, if just one of you would click on Scribblings, that would get us off that uneven number."
Oh, that uneven number ... there was just something about being stuck on an uneven number, I guess.
So much for looking back ... for now ... maybe we can do it again some time. Meanwhile, thanks for stopping by.
Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:
I know that feeling Magran. I feel like a "taker," myself, when I fall behind ... as I often do ... with my responses to the comments I find here. I'm still "sprinting," of course ... typing as fast as I can, but at brief intervals ... for various reasons. On the other hand, I take great comfort in knowing there are those who come by for a visit ... even if they don't feel like chatting. When I look at the counter, it's like hearing their quiet footsteps as they approach, read a bit, then go on to re-enter the busy whirl of their lives. So, Magran, you ... and they ... are not just "takers," but "givers," too ... and those visits ... yes, even the quiet ones ... help to keep me going ... and going ... and going.