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

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

Autumn Dreams

It wasn't raining as I stirred, turned my pillow cool side up, and went drifting off again, but I thought about the coolness of that pillow, later, while I was shaving, thought about the sound of rain ... and about this poem.

So here it is again:

AUTUMN DREAMS

Softly, the rain
descends, puddling
in the darkly
glistening street,
pausing to quench
the thirsting roof
before dripping,
a muffled sighing,
to the ground.

Wind chimes stir,
and the cows
are suddenly home,
winding along
that narrow path
where the sun
lately streamed.

I stir, savoring
quilted warmth,
softness of pillow,
go drifting off
again like a puff
of milkweed.

© 2000

(originally published in St. Anthony Messenger)

Today's word: puddling

Touch of Spring

(One of the paintings I've done ... of a favorite place, Charleston Falls) 

We were out and about ... had a few errands to run ... had to get out for our daily walk ... a bit abbreviated, but still a walk.

It was a little too crowded indoors ... and a little too nippy outdoors, so we compromised, cut the walk a tad short, stopped in at a favorite place for a cup of soup, a bit of conversation, and came on home.

The weather had me thinking about spring.

No harm in looking ahead, I always say ... or, in this case, back to a particular day well before this poem was originally published.

I still recall that moment ... a brisk day, the exact bus stop where I felt the sun bouncing off the brick building ... like it was putting an arm around me ... offering reassurance.

And so it is with that season of renewal, of hope, that warm promise of things to come.

The poem:

TOUCH OF SPRING

I feel a touch
like a friendly hand
on my back, an arm
across my shoulders,
for the sun has
broken free of clouds
and is projecting
a warmth I had
almost forgotten.
I smile at strangers
and they smile back,
for they're feeling
that touch, too,
that warm embrace.

© 1999

(originally published in Capper's)


Today's word: embrace

Solitude

Today's poem was written at a time when I was setting a particular kind of challenge for myself with my writing: Take a randomly-selected word and define it, not in dictionary terms, but in personal, human terms ... terms that readers would understand for having lived or witnessed some of them.

It helped that I had some experiences to call on ... the relative isolation of a rural upbringing ... military service ... being "alone" on a crowded subway in New York City.

It helps, too, to be able to block out present surroundings, for at least those few minutes of the writing exercise ... all of those things of the moment which are the opposite, in this instance, of the word you're trying to define: friends, family, companions, even the voices coming from the TV in the other room ...

The poem, originally published in Shawnee Silhouette:

SOLITUDE

It's not just
the hollow, echoing
sound of nights;
days can be
lonely, too,
with a consuming
emptiness spreading,
crinkling as it burns
the thin paper of time
on which we scratch
the names of our thoughts.
With no one to touch,
no one to hear,
no one to care
that we exist,
there is no breaching
the walls of that cell
in which we are locked,
listening as the minutes
slide into hours,
pyramiding themselves
into coldness,
the absolute zero
of solitude.
© 1996

Today's word: emptiness

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