Poetry Thursday, Millay's Hair

Millay’s Hair
~Ann Townsend
New York Public Library, Edna St. Vincent Millay archives

Because Norma saved even the grocery lists,
              it was no surprise to find a lock of hair

                             coiled and glued loosely into the scrapbook,
crimped and rusty, more weird

and alive than any calling card or photograph,
              letter, erotic or otherwise, sweeter

                             than the candy kisses fixed upon the page.
I shouldn’t have touched it, but in those days

I was always hungry. Despite the rare books
              librarian lurking, I set my thumb against it.

                             Weightless, dusty, it warmed at my touch.
By 1949, all the grocery lists affirmed

the same fixations: Liverwurst, Olives, Cookies, Scotch.
              Liverwurst, Olives, Cookies, Scotch, penciled

                              on squares of insipid paper. By 1950,
unsteady on her feet; by year’s end, dead at the foot

of the stairs. As I placed the book of relics
              back into its archival box, a single

                              copper wire fell from the page,
bright tendril on the table. I lifted it,

casket of DNA, protein, lipids, and still Titian red.
               Really, was I wrong to swallow it?

So it begins...

Full disclosure: life on the road got long and complicated and exhausting. And it turns out BLOGGER does not offer a free phone app. So my grand plan to keep posting while on the road was trounced.

I TRIED. I SWEAR.

Then, I got home... and that pit in my stomach that told me that I would walk into a mess was right, but, perhaps not exactly in the way that I expected.

I am really not ready to write about it, today, but I will, soon, because if I don't I am going to have to commit myself to a mental health hold.

Yeah...

So, this is my recommitment post.

I promise to start posting again, as close to every day as possible.

Writing is going to be a major part of my mental health plan.

----

But, so as not to post yet another non-post, I am going to also add in a little working definition here.

I have been thinking (read: worrying? fretting?) about the notion of being home with my parents. I will admit to only wanting to look at this picture through the barely opened fingers of the hand covering my eyes.

I am thinking about this book that I heard about on NPR the other day. Wondering if it is a good idea to read this or if it will give me nightmares.

I heard someone refer to her situation as a sandwich - taking care of parents and children. We used to call it extended family ... and it was no big thing. But none of my grandparents lived past 78.

Being back with my parents, but being the unmarried daughter with no children, one would think this is not a sandwich.  Maybe a low-carb sandwich with only one piece of bread. Since we spend all our time around here trying to explain to my father how the body metabolizes simple carbs, it just might be apt.

However, I think I would rather call it the open-faced sandwich. In mind's eye it is messier. No where to hide the state of situation... and, truth be told, my nieces and nephews need me as a not parent sometimes. And that is seriously messy as well.

So, there you go, my current state is somewhere inside that open-faced sandwich.

New adventure...yeah, let's call it that.

Poetry Thursday, Millay ... late edition for Thanksgiving ....

Afternoon on a Hill
~Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing
    Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
    And not pick one.

 I will look at cliffs and clouds
    With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
    And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
    Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
    And then start down!

Poetry Thursday, for Chila

A Little Bit
 ~Eileen Myles

It’s a little bit
true that the
hole in my jacket
pocket
the breast pocket
yeah all relaxed
has a hole &
pens keep
slipping through
one’s in the lining
but this one
perched
now it’s a writing
bird
silly black out there
wants to
tell its
song. Miguel’s
book was
in the air &
I was on
a train
my feet are cold
and you wouldn’t
be in the
air so
long it doesn’t happen
like this
there’s no climate
in a plane
and I was in one
but not on
earth
my mother
is gone
each thing I do
is a little
bit wrong. I’m willing
to apologize
but they never
help it’s
just pointing
out the hole
& people
forget but I
won’t forget
you

Poetry Thursday

My Love Is Black
 ~DéLana R. A. Dameron

You might say fear
is a predictable emotion
& I might agree. Whenever
my husband leaves
for his graveyard shift,
when he prepares to walk
out into the abyss of black
sky, I am afraid
tonight will be the night
I become a widow. I don’t
want to love like this. But
here we are: walking
hand in hand
in our parkas down
the avenues & he pulls away
from me. I might be
in some dreamy place,
thinking of the roast chicken
we just had, the coconut peas
& rice he just cooked,
& how the food has filled
our bellies with delight. How
many times can I speak
about black men
& an officer enters the scene?
I don’t want to love
like this. But there is a gun
in the holster & a hand
on the gun in the holster
& my husband’s hands
are no longer in his pockets
because it is night & we are
just trying to breathe in
some fresh evening air,
trying to be unpredictable, to
forget fear for a moment
& live in love & love.

Not Poetry Thursday ... VOTE!

Gitanjali 35
~Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
     Where knowledge is free;
     Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
              domestic walls;
     Where words come out from the depth of truth;
     Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
     Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
                          dreary desert sand of dead habit;
     Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening
                                thought and action—
     Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Dia de los Muertos

Take a look at this face. Her name is Evie; well, she goes by Evie.

See that feisty look? See that strength? She that twinkle in the eye that tells you she will go toe-to-toe with you happily.

For the past five months, she had been battling leukemia.

I don't know her, but I know her.

That is to say, I have been FB friends with her dad, who I also don't know personally, for several years. In those years, he has posted seriously funny stories about Evie. With each one, I became more and more smitten with this girl.

She reminds me of our Evie with her quick wit and feisty spirit.

When they announced in June that she was about to embark on this fight with cancer, my heart sank.

But my instinct told me to hope. To believe. To fight with her.

When they started looking for an out of family marrow donor, I did all I could to get more people sign up for Be the Match. [If you haven't signed up, you should, someone's life could depend on it.]

And I continued to hope, to believe, to fight with her.

When they found a match, I celebrated. And hoped and believed.

I thought somewhere back in my mind, for her to need a bone marrow transplant, the cancer has to be really bad. It is not first line defense. It is brutal ... painful for the donor but truly brutal for the recipient.

When they started the process, I hoped and believed and feared.

I watched on FB with each day to see if the graft would take. And it did. And I was relieved.

And then the rest of her body began to die.

It really is the only way to say it. Some month and a half after the transplant, the infections had turned to sepsis and the kidneys and liver were nearly shut down.

I raged against this reality. I wanted it to not be true. I wanted a miracle.

And then she was gone.

Despite the enormous grief I have suffered in the past six years (how can it be six years?!), I cannot imagine the fresh hell her family endures right now. I know that the road of life without Evie will be long and treacherous.

On this Dia de los muertos, I am going to add Evie to the altar. And I will probably cry some more.

Apologies

We are not supposed to apologize so much.

By we, I mean women.

But, now I have to... I meant to finish Grace and write at least three more posts.

However, the impending move, yes I am moving, and all the work and stress has just piled up unreasonably.

Sometimes there is so much to do, all I can do is stay in bed and pretend the rest of the world does not exist.

But it's November and I though I am not going to really try to do NANOWRIMO while I am driving cross country, I am going to try to post something every day.

The poems are already scheduled, so they don't really count. But you better believe I will count them when I am on the road!!

Hang in there, with me, I will be sharing much more...

Poetry Thursday, don't forget to vote!

Defiant
~Patricia Spears Jones

Fruit from one vine tangles with another
Making a mess of the intended harvest, yet
the lack of calculation is welcome

that accident that shifts bodies from shadows
into a locus of light midday bright & caustic
wounds un-healed   newsreel cameras trap

this old & angry man in a bespoke suit lifting
white pages & refusing to read them, mumbles
unwelcome threats & thanks the nation

the nation kicks him out—finally defiant
after years of misrule, disruption, murder
and the choked voice youth terrorized

he wants more blood on his hands so that
when he enters his version of paradise
all will be red.