Poetry Thursday

Shards
~Aline Murray Kilmer

I can never remake the thing I have destroyed;
   I brushed the golden dust from the moth’s bright wing,
I called down wind to shatter the cherry-blossoms,
   I did a terrible thing.

I feared that the cup might fall, so I flung it from me;
   I feared that the bird might fly, so I set it free;
I feared that the dam might break, so I loosed the river:
   May its waters cover me.

Poetry Thursday - oops, back dating

While looking at photo albums
 ~Kay Ulanday Barrett

Before everyone died – in my family – first definition I learned was – my mother’s maiden name, ULANDAY – which literally means – of the rain – and biology books remind us – the pouring has a pattern –  has purpose  –  namesake means release – for my mother meant, flee – meant leave – know exactly what parts of you – slip away – drained sediment of a body – is how a single mama feels – on the graveyard shift – only god is awake –  is where my  –  family banked itself – a life rooted in rosaries – like nuns in barricade –  scream – People Power – one out of five – leave to a new country – the women in my family hone – in my heart – like checkpoints –  which is what they know – which is like a halt  – not to be confused for – stop – which is what happened to my ma’s breath– when she went home – for the last time – I didn’t get to –  hold her hand as she died – I said I tried –  just translates to – I couldn’t make it – in time – I tell myself  – ocean salt and tear salt – are one and the same – I press my eyes shut – cup ghost howl – cheeks splint wood worn – which is to say – learn to make myself a harbor – anyway – once I saw a pamphlet that said – what to do when your parent is dead –  I couldn’t finish reading  –  but I doubt it informs the audience –  what will happen –  which is to say – you will pour your face & hands – & smother your mother’s scream on everything – you touch – turn eyelids into oars – go, paddle to find her.

Poetry Thursday

Song
 ~T. S. Eliot

If space and time, as sages say,
    Are things which cannot be,
The fly that lives a single day
    Has lived as long as we.
But let us live while yet we may,
    While love and life are free,
For time is time, and runs away,
    Though sages disagree.

The flowers I sent thee when the dew
    Was trembling on the vine,
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
    To suck the eglantine.
But let us haste to pluck anew
    Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though the flowers of love be few
    Yet let them be divine.

Poetry Thursday

Amid the Roses
~Alice Dunbar-Nelson

There is tropical warmth and languorous life
    Where the roses lie
    In a tempting drift
Of pink and red and golden light
Untouched as yet by the pruning knife.
And the still, warm life of the roses fair
    That whisper "Come,"
    With promises
Of sweet caresses, close and pure
Has a thorny whiff in the perfumed air.
There are thorns and love in the roses’ bed,
    And Satan too
    Must linger there;
So Satan’s wiles and the conscience stings,
Must now abide—the roses are dead.

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.

Poetry Thursday

Poetry
 ~Claude McKay

Sometimes I tremble like a storm-swept flower,
And seek to hide my tortured soul from thee,
Bowing my head in deep humility
Before the silent thunder of thy power.
Sometimes I flee before thy blazing light,
As from the specter of pursuing death;
Intimidated lest thy mighty breath,
Windways, will sweep me into utter night.
For oh, I fear they will be swallowed up—
The loves which are to me of vital worth,
My passion and my pleasure in the earth—
And lost forever in thy magic cup!
I fear, I fear my truly human heart
Will perish on the altar-stone of art!

Grace, Part 2

In the early years of my schooling at a Catholic elementary school, I learned about Grace.

It was one of the most interesting and difficult to grasp concepts I remember learning.

I think if you asked each of the forty of us in that class what we took GRACE to mean, you would get forty different answers.

This is what I remember from those lessons: Grace is something that you want to collect - that you will bring with you from this world to the next. It is something only God can grant. Grace is not something you can buy or sell. [I guess I learned at a much later date about the buying of indulgences, note, this is quite different from Grace.]

There were ways that you could EARN Grace. I understood from what the teacher told us that Grace was earned by doing things selflessly; that you would never know when the Grace was granted, rather the heavenly tally was something God and St. Peter would know when you met them after death.

I am not sure that I was moved to try to earn Grace by that lesson. It seemed like one of those things that was so out of your control that you shouldn't worry about it. Besides how would you know if you had reached the correct level of selflessness? Wouldn't that just invalidate the action if you were worrying about whether or not your act was selfless.

By the way, I was probably seven when I was trying to assimilate this concept into my life.

I equated the concept of Grace with my dad who would literally give the shirt off his back if you needed it, even if you didn't ask for it. My dad never appears to stop and consider whether or not he should give. He certainly doesn't seem to worry about whether or not the act of giving is selfless.

In my mind, this meant that Grace was another one of those amorphous rules, like the Golden Rule, that you strove to achieve, but that was not something you could reach and then coast through. Rather it was like a heavenly measuring stick you needed to keep trying to reach. I don't remember fretting about it at all.

I had a classmate, though, who clearly spent much more time considering how to achieve Grace. Let's call her Melanie. I discovered Melanie's Grace quest by accident.

Our school, like many Catholic elementary schools, was on the grounds of a Catholic Church. We walked by it everyday. We played in its shadow at lunch and recess as its parking lot became our playground during school hours.

At this Catholic Church, like many others in the country, there is a morning mass every day. It starts at 8am and runs roughly thirty minutes. Though my dad's regular schedule when I was in school had him leaving the house by 7:30am, during Lent, I would often walk past the church parking lot in the morning and see his work truck, painted bright orange, parked there.

It turns out during Lent, my dad liked to go to morning mass every day. It is now his daily practice in retirement to go to mass every day. I started leaving for school as early as I could, and this was extremely challenging for me as I was almost always late for school. I wanted to spend a little more time with my dad, so my reasons for trying to make it to morning mass were anything but selfless.

I noticed, on those mornings that I arrived in time for mass, that Melanie was there. As I got one last hug from my dad [who we have to say is lovely and wonderful in so many ways, does not really do well will showing physical affection], I noted that Melanie was sitting in a pew outside the confessional.

It turns out during Lent you can also go to confession right after morning mass. Maybe not everyday, maybe only one day a week. I can't exactly remember. But on those days, I started to notice that Melanie would be late for school, but she never got in trouble. Being inquisitive and not employing filters, one day at lunch I asked Melanie about it.

Melanie was one of four classmates who came from an inordinately large family. The "large" families ranged from 8 to 12 children. And Melanie was number 10 of 12 in her family. Her mother prescribed to the healthy, earthy-crunchy lunches way before it was fashionable. So, there was Melanie with her perhaps homemade whole grain bread, thickly sliced, with peanut butter and jelly. I asked innocently why she was coming late to class sometimes.

She answered briefly, "I went to confession after mass." This is why I think it was every day during Lent because my response, probably read in my eyes widening, was astonishment and shock. Pretty sure my follow up question was, "What do you have to confess every day?"

She looked at me innocently and resolutely and said, "I'm collecting Grace."

We clearly had gotten different messages about earning Grace from the same lesson.

What does this have to do with Jamey? Sorry, it's getting long, you'll find out in part 3.

Poetry Thursday

Grace

~Sarah Gambito

You will transcend your ancestor’s suffering

You will pick a blue ball. You will throw it to yourself.

You will be on the other side to receive.

Green leaves grow around your face.

Hair stands on your body.

You look at old photographs

that say:

The bread is warm!

A child is a blessing!

That’s what I said!

I meant it!

You could say this is a poem.

Like the great halves of the roof

that caved and carved together.

Found us before words

and tender-footing.

Before wrongdoing

and the octaves of blue

above us all.

Copyright © 2018 Sarah Gambito. Used with permission of the author.

I swear it is a complete coincidence that I chose this poem for today and also felt called to write about grace. Seriously, I chose this poem weeks ago. I just reopened it today to add a photo.

Grace, part 1

I have a friend at work, I'll call him Jamey, not short for James, just Jamey.

He is an original.

He seems to the outside observer to be slightly off. Actually, he just doesn't care what you think, and he is willing to be "ridiculous" in order to make you smile, make a point, or just entertain himself. He delights in your belief that he is ridiculous; and his very being challenges you to be some more authentic part of yourself that is associated with whimsy or joy or both.

Jamey loves to talk to strangers; rather, he loves to make strangers his friends. He knows the name of every person we pass in the halls at work from the maintenance crew to the vice presidents. Often, he knows the name of their family members and inquires about their latest trouble or triumph.

There is no one I have seen that doesn't meet Jamey with the greatest smile, head tilt or shoulder drop - the sure sign that someone has really seen you. He never addresses someone without truly wanting to make a connection.

He is the kind of person you meet and instantly know you have found one of your tribe.

But from the outside, we might look like the most unlikely of friends.

Over the year plus that I have known him, though, I have learned to see that he shows that whimsical side in a carefully choreographed, even though it may seem haphazard, way. He is not open and vulnerable with just anyone.

I told you, he is one of my tribe.

Jamey seldom rests, either sleeping or sitting still. He is almost always exhausted and subsisting on daily runs and breakfast biscuits from the same (unnamed here) fast food restaurant. I imagine him ordering at the drive-through, but also wonder if he doesn't know the name of all the workers and their family members, too.

You might also think he was textbook manic/depressive.

If you peel back the layers, though, there is more evidence for a soul struggling with dark and light than a brain misfiring despite its best attempts at "normal."

Jamey loves music, especially of the stringed variety, preferably guitar. He makes them. And then he gifts them. They are art through and through.

He likes to give his gifts as anonymously as possible. I rationalize that it is because he wants to remove his presence from the gift. He wants the gift to be pure gift, not generosity, but purity of freedom. That's not quite right, but I need more words for gift than I can recall at the moment.

If you probed Jamey, and he were feeling particularly open and willing to be vulnerable, he would admit that he gifts the guitars in a spiritual way; that he thinks the guitar is finding its way to the soul that needs it, for whatever reason. I might say the guitar is Jamey's spirit animal; and I would say that his guitars are alive.

Jamey often speaks through music in his life outside of work. And Jamey's work outside of business hours is his life. He is that extremely rare person who is inordinately good at his work, yet that work does not dominate his mind or soul.

Our work is not creative work, though Jamey's title is "author" - an apt title though the work he does is anything but cathartically creative. It might be covertly creative as he tries to weave bureaucratic language into as authentic a portrait of a people as possible. But it is relentlessly bureaucratic, the definition of boring. So, Jamey build guitars, breathes life into inanimate pieces of wood, and sometimes plastic, weaves strings into these newly animated appendages and then hands that life/spirit to someone who needs it.

In his other work, the work outside of work hours and not in our building, he ministers to the dying.

I drew the picture of the work work and the guitar work so you could see the contrast - and begin to capture the meaning of giving life in all aspects of Jamey's toiling.

Others have said to me that Jamey's sometimes depressive mood comes from his work with the dying. They say it in an accusatory tone, one that makes you see that they think he brings it on himself.

I think it is just another generous, humble life giving act that is at the base of his being.

These acts, done without need for recognition or recompense, bestow on us that ineffable nourishment I will call here Grace.

Poetry Thursday, a day late...thinking of home

Gulls
~Leonora Speyer

Fearless riders of the gale,
In your bleak eyes is the memory
Of sinking ships:
Desire, unsatisfied,
Droops from your wings.

You lie at dusk
In the sea’s ebbing cradles,
Unresponsive to its mood;
Or hover and swoop,
Snatching your food and rising again,
Greedy,
Unthinking.

You veer and steer your callous course,
Unloved of other birds;
And in your soulless cry
Is the mocking echo
Of woman’s weeping in the night.

Poetry Thursday, secrets

Secrets
~Lola Ridge

Secrets
infesting my half-sleep…
did you enter my wound from another wound
brushing mine in a crowd…
or did I snare you on my sharper edges
as a bird flying through cobwebbed trees at sun-up
carries off spiders on its wings?

Secrets,
running over my soul without sound,
only when dawn comes tip-toeing
ushered by a suave wind,
and dreams disintegrate
like breath shapes in frosty air,
I shall overhear you, bare-foot,
scatting off into the darkness….
I shall know you, secrets
by the litter you have left
and by your bloody foot-prints.

Poetry Thursday, prepping for the 1/2

Brown Girl Has Walked Into the Wild, Palms Open
~Barbara Jane Reyes
 
                   See how she lists. The body is bent as light, as wind will it.
And so you must tread light. Mind the rocks under foot. You must tread

          slow.
There has been drought; see where water has long ago troughed, has

          carved her.
                      See how she branches, twisting, her many hands reaching.
Her roots also reach, sweetened from reaching. When fire arrives, she

          toughens.
She will slough away the thick. She will be slick, and dark beneath the

          rough.
She will mimic the fire her bones remember. Know her bones glisten.
                      See how she rests. The body will fall, as time wills it.
See how it hollows, how her pieces return to earth.
          And from her thick trunk, mushrooms cluster—
                                 Her belly a nest of moss and poison.
When broken open, see what of her mother she has kept,
                                 what of her father, what of the stars.

Poetry Thursday

Leaving
 ~Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

No matter how he wrested himself silent in night,
six days post-stroke he woke fluent in former languages,
backtracking this time here.

Mercy nurses, attendants, remedied in their own.
Once he registered, all he cawed out was
          if it’s too far gone, we need to talk.

     All of this, what I am, doesn’t know how to die.
     All I know how to do is survive. All I ever done.

     If it’s time, tell me, tell me, give me four days.
     I’d like to have that blanket Dustin designed.
     Damnit, I hate to leave this beauty,           life.

On the fourth, came the Pendleton, delivered
right on time. His breath slowed, eased, then quit.
That was it.

After some hours the rest of us slept.
Some of us sleep still left.

9.19

Since September 19, 2012, everything in my life is either pre-9/19 or post-9/19. The myriad of other cascading tragedies all fall underneath this day.

The sadness clouds my vision - and I never know if I should stop and cry, soldier on, tell people why it is a hard day, or stay in bed (or any combo of those actions).

Last year, the first year I was in a "real" job since Greg died, I took the day off. I could not predict what the emotions would be... being away from home and not having a ritual. I have either gone with my mother to church or gone in solidarity to church away from her. But church is not a safe or happy place for me, so it is not really an option.

This year, with a horrible deadline looming, I could not even entertain taking the day or even a few hours off.

It turns out that all the hard work I put into the project is for naught. My piece, such as it is, is done but it broke the system, so nothing works. Now those who should be fixing the problem are pointing fingers (at me, of course) instead.

At first I wanted to scream at them. But then I did my little pivot, and I thought: "At least I could scream at them if I wanted to." I am alive. I am breathing in and out and their pettiness cannot take that away from me, unless I let them.

Don't get me wrong, I am irritated. I am so irritated, angry, frustrated, exhausted (after putting in over 12 hours for the past two days and getting little to no sleep for the past three nights).

But, perspective is lending me a hand in bringing down my blood pressure.

This is the email that I want to send colleagues today:
"I will happily take the hit for [our project] not working. We can say I misunderstood or took it upon myself to implement a fix that was not appropriate, or whatever you want. But I have one condition: next time a colleague asks for your help with a project, stop and listen. Give that colleague an hour of your time. Don't say, "I don't know any more than you do." Or send the person away to someone else who will also throw up his/her hands. Answer emails. Stop long enough to figure out what the issue is before you dismiss it as not your problem.

I will take the fall. You can have my job if you like. It will not make [the project] work. It will not help in getting [the project] to work. But spending some time collaborating and assisting your colleagues just might make all of this work a little more smoothly."

Here is the part I also want to send but probably wouldn't:

"Six years ago today my brother died. He was the person I was closest to in the whole world. When he left this universe, he took parts of me with him that cannot be replaced. It was the worst day of my life. It irrevocably changed me.

Your pettiness in pointing fingers rather than helping or even accepting your part in how [the project] doesn't work today is so small compared to that loss."

Ok... out of my system, carry on, internets.

ugh, frustration and exhaustion rant, feel free to skip on by

If I were to judge the amount of effort I should put into my work based on the amount of effort (and attention) my colleagues put into their work, then I should not have come to work today.

I should not address any issues facing my content areas until it is too late to do anything about the mistakes. I should, then, say that taking measures to rectify the mistakes would be too risky.

Finally, I should suggest that these are not truly issues, rather, whatever (and I mean whatever) is happening, is, in fact, a direct result of user error. User in this case refers exclusively to the person who has uncovered the mistake.

I am pissed. Can you tell?

In part, I am tired. I traveled all night, and came directly to work from the airport. I did not go home, I did not collect $200. I am coming off a few days reflecting the shortness of life and the choices we make to spend (or not) time with those we love.

I am exhausted, physically and emotionally. I am tired of being one of very few who cares about the outcome of our work.

And, my teacher voice dangerously near to my lips, I want to counsel my colleagues; I want to let them know in no uncertain terms that the time we spend making up excuses for why will not fix what is obviously not working would be better spent looking for a solution.

I often told my students when I was teaching that I preferred not to have the excuse. Excuses are/were completely and utterly meaningless to me.

Day two...
My first impulse is to look for another job. But then I remember that I have faced this issue before although not always in the same exact way.

I need to calibrate my reactions, I get it.

This situation is dangerously threatening to kill my post-vacation glow. I have managed to maintain it through some very trying situations, both personally and professionally, for a few weeks. I did this by straining to see the silver lining every time an obstacle appeared.

After some sleep, I am going to rededicate myself to see shining through these clouds. Wish me luck.

Poetry Thursday

A Tempest in a Teacup
 ~A. Van Jordan
Prospero

Assume, just for a moment,
I am denied a job
in the factory of my dreams
under the fluorescent lights
of a porcelain white foreman.

It’s orderly and neat.
I feed my family.
No one questions my face.
I raised my son in my likeness,
so he would never go unseen,

bobbing on a wave of expectation,
I set in motion with my back
put into my work, praying
for my country, blessed
with more of me, never worrying

about those who might die,
or those who did, trying
to stir a storm, trying
to stand where I’m standing.

Poetry Thursday, transformations

Humdrum
~Carl Sandburg

If I had a million lives to live
   and a million deaths to die
   in a million humdrum worlds,

I’d like to change my name
   and have a new house number to go by
   each and every time I died
   and started life all over again.

I wouldn’t want the same name every time
   and the same old house number always,
   dying a million deaths,
   dying one by one a million times:
   —would you?
                        or you?
                                or you?

Poetry Thursday

The Average Mother
 ~Camille T. Dungy
The average mother loses 700 hours of sleep in the first year of her child’s life; or, what that first year taught me about America.


Most of us favor one side when we walk. As we tire,
we lean into that side and stop moving in a straight line—
                      so it takes longer to get anywhere,
let alone home.

                      In wilderness conditions,
           where people don’t know the terrain,
a tired person might end up leaning so far into one side
           they’ll walk in a circle rather than straight ahead.

It can kill you, such leaning
                      —and it can get you killed.

                                           Rest helps.

                                                                 I told my husband,

I walked in a circle in my mind but you came out okay.

                      Initially, he asked me to clarify,
           but then he let it go.

Who wrote that first If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now sign?

                      It seems I’m going to have to move.

           I am tired and also sick
of helping other people in lieu of helping myself.

                      Rest now.

It's really not that bad: we’re in the home stretch.

           That’s the mind of a parent.
Relentless optimism in the face of sheer panic
                                                                 and exhaustion.

Poetry Thursday, actually a quote

Sorrow, 
accumulating in 
one's heart, 
may one fine day 
burst into flames 
like a haystack, 
and everything will burn away 
in the fire of extraordinary joy. 

~Mikhail Prishvin.

Poetry Thursday

I looked up and realized -- It's Thursday! And, I had not yet posted a poem ... so here's one, with no photo. Thanks to Poem-A-Day for introducing me...

Spirits
 ~William Archila

At daylight, he surrendered to the gutters’
thick cirrhosis, his trajectory

half awake, half anvil from the glass to the killing floor
I was raised in, each thin thread tethered

from the root of a nicotined tooth
to the rusted bars of the slammer.  I couldn't tell you why

Felix the Cat came to mind, totally inebriated,
two Xs, bubbles popping, his gait

a saint carried in a procession—Cherry Pink
& Apple Blossom White, 1955—

except that my grandfather died
with a bottle in his pocket, his Robert Mitchum

chin & pompadour distilled
from a banana republic in fire, a slow, steady

drinker, perfect fulfillment to drown out
his manhood. There's a certain kind of fix

that falters precariously,
a benediction when they allege

one more drunk for the hood. He didn't matter
to the dispenser nor the riffraff crowd.

Nothing about him capsized, except his compound
of cologne & corrosion.  All those rotguts.

All those bums. They didn't matter
to the nation, though they were the nation.

Come at me bro

I live near a lot of woodland creatures.

On the nights when I walk the dog, I generally see deer, fox and rabbits. All of these creatures excite the dog. I should, perhaps, write incite the dog.  For several nights in a row, said dog has either tried to add resistance training to my walk or just doesn't care if he pulls my arm out of its socket.

So far, I still have an arm, actually two. I am sore, but not broken.

The interesting part of the encounters is how the parent woodland creatures behave with the dog.

At first, I noticed one deer stationed in full view. Standing stock still and eyeballing both me and the dog, the deer seemed to say, "Chase me!" but not is a playful way.  It took me a few minutes to really be present enough in my surroundings to see that she was trying to pull all of our attention her way.  On the other side of the street were the juvenile deer and fawns, probably with a mother standing guard.

Once we were safely past, with me holding the dog back and the mom finally running off in the opposite direction of the deer family, the rest of the family leaped across the street.

The other night, I had a similar encounter with the fox. I have always called the fox, Mr. Fox or Fox in Socks. [Yes, I speak to the creatures when I see them. No, they do not speak back, at least not in words.]

The dog had been trying to pull me all over the place that night. When we were approaching the corner to cross the street, the fox streaked by. Usually, the fox would dip into the trees, but this time, it (he/she?) stopped. Staring down the dog, who standing at attention but not pulling at me, with an expression that really read, "Come at me, BRO!"

It wasn't until the fox dropped its gaze and slipped into the trees that the dog remembered he wanted to chase a fox.

I wasn't sure what to make of the encounter except maybe the fox was tired of being chased.

The very next night, in the same spot, we saw TWO small foxes run across the road. Neither of these two stopped to stare us down. I decided that they were babies, or juveniles. And so not Mr. Fox but Mrs. Fox who had dared us to chase her.

Guessing that like her deer counterparts, she was standing her ground to give her babies a chance to get home safely.

Motherhood... apparently not easy for any species.

Poetry Thursday

Always we hope
someone else has the answer,
some other place will be better,
some other time,
it will turn out.

This is it.
No one else has the answer,
no other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.

At the center of your being,
you have the answer:
you know who you are and
you know what you want.

There is no need to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.

Rather abide at the center of your being:
for the more you leave it,
the less you learn.

Search your heart and see
the way to do is to be.
Abide at the center of your being.
— Lao Tzu

borrowed from a friend...

caffeinated

Since December, I have been trying to decaffeinate.

That is to say, I was traveling for much of December, and coffee the way I like it might not always be available. So, since I detest being beholden to the god of caffeine, I thought, this is the perfect time to step down, step away from coffee.

I have this long term goal of having energy and being awake without stimulants. That implies being rested and healthy and, to some extent, happy.  These are all goals I have out there in the ether, the first of which I have the most control over, the other two, perhaps only tangentially. [Though those chose to be happy believers would disagree.]

It should also be noted that at the time, I was also up to more than two cups a day almost every day.

For some, that would not be much.

In fact, I drink dark roast coffee which has the least amount of caffeine of coffee.

However, I also have an incredible predilection to addictive behavior - from both the emotional and physical perspective. My body easily slides into need of coffee, sugar, carbs, chocolate. It never decides to *love* protein, though I do enjoy good tasting food. I rarely crave anything healthy in that way of needing caffeine.

And, I don't care for the taste of coffee. I never have.

But I am addicted to the awake feeling that surges through my body when I drink it -- and worse, I love to drink it when it is full of cream and sugar. That was the other *secret* reason for wanting to give it up. 

In a vain attempt to give up sugar, I keep trying to move towards tea with and without caffeine. I am able to drink most of my teas with only milk and no sugar.

Tea, it turns out for me, is not the answer. Rather the teas I like all have way more caffeine than the coffee I drink.

I remain, therefore, semi-caffeinated. I take days off on the weekend to test my resistance. So far, I am not winning, but still in the game.

Poetry Thursday, LONG, but so worth it

Fannie Lou Hamer
 ~Kamilah Aisha Moon
                        “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!”

She sat across the desk from me, squirming.
It was stifling. My suite runs hot
but most days it is bearable.

This student has turned in nothing,
rarely comes to class. When she does,
her eyes bore into me with a disdain
born long before either of us.

She doesn’t trust anything I say.
She can’t respect my station,
the words coming out of these lips,
this face. My breathing
is an affront. It’s me, she says.

I never was this student’s professor—
her immediate reaction
seeing me at the smart board.
But I have a calling to complete
& she has to finish college,
return to a town where
she doesn’t have to look at,
listen to or respect anyone
like me—forever tall, large
& brown in her dagger eyes,
though it’s clear she looks down
on me. She can return—
if not to her hometown, another
enclave, so many others, where
she can brush a dog’s golden coat,
be vegan & call herself
a good person.

Are you having difficulty with your other classes?

No.

Go, I say, tenderly.
Loaded as a cop’s gun,
she blurts point-blank
that she’s afraid of me. Twice.
My soft syllables rattle something
planted deep,
so I tell her to go where
she’d feel more comfortable
as if she were my niece or
godchild, even wish her
a good day.

If she stays, the ways
this could backfire!
Where is my Kevlar shield
from her shame?

There’s no way to tell
when these breasts will evoke
solace or terror. I hate
that she surprises me, that I lull
myself to think her ilk
is gone despite knowing
so much more, and better.

I can’t proselytize my worth
all semester, exhaust us
for the greater good.
I can’t let her make me
a monster to myself—
I’m running out of time & pity
the extent of her impoverished
heart. She’s from New
England, I’m from the Mid-South.
Far from elderly, someone
just raised her like this
with love.

I have essays to grade
but words warp
on the white page, dart
just out of reach. I blink
two hours away, find it hard
to lift my legs, my voice,
my head precious to my parents
now being held
in my own hands.

How did they survive
so much worse, the millions
with all of their scars!
What would these rivers be
without their weeping,
these streets without
their faith & sweat?

Fannie Lou Hamer
thundered what they felt,
we feel, into DNC microphones
on black and white TV
years before
I was a notion.

She doesn’t know who
Fannie Lou Hamer is,
and never has to.

Poetry Thursday

Citizenship
~Javier Zamora

it was clear they were hungry
with their carts empty the clothes inside their empty hands

they were hungry because their hands
were empty their hands in trashcans

the trashcans on the street
the asphalt street on the red dirt the dirt taxpayers pay for

up to that invisible line visible thick white paint
visible booths visible with the fence starting from the booths

booth road booth road booth road office building then the fence
fence fence fence

it started from a corner with an iron pole
always an iron pole at the beginning

those men those women could walk between booths
say hi to white or brown officers no problem

the problem I think were carts belts jackets
we didn’t have any

or maybe not the problem
our skin sunburned all of us spoke Spanish

we didn’t know how they had ended up that way
on that side

we didn’t know how we had ended up here
we didn’t know but we understood why they walk

the opposite direction to buy food on this side
this side we all know is hunger

rainy days and Mondays

There are days when everything makes me want to cry.

I wonder if it is left over grief that got pushed down over the past five years. When it finds a fissure, it just pops out before I can even contemplate its origin. Like a puff of gas from a geyser, not a big eruption, just a sigh, it releases with just the tickle of a tear.

I have learned to stop and allow. I sometimes vaguely wonder where the deep emotions were hidden. But then I remind myself that it is perfectly acceptable to feel whatever I am feeling. I try not to resist even if tears need to flow.

Sadness is far better than searing red hot anger in the long run.

snippets

Scene 1:

Three cop cars, one is a K9 unit, on a lovely summer afternoon in downtown Princeton. I was thankful when I looked over and it was four young white women talking with police. None of them were smiling, the police were doing most of the talking.

I interviewed several people who were watching the scene. No one had noticed how or when the encounter began. We all watched as more and more police seemed to arrive. Turns out there were already four cars there when I noticed the situation. One was all black with the writing in black as though it were incognito.

From another angle, you could see a white car with Pennsylvania plates left in a space that wasn't a parking space. I think the car had been there all along, since I had arrived for happy hour. I wondered at it when we walked by because it wasn't a parking space, the car was pulled in diagonally and it was blocking egress from the parking lot. Entitled people, I thought, even though there were plenty of spaces available, someone had left this car essentially in the middle of the parking lot. I imagined there was someone inside of the car the whole time.

I watched for a while, went in to the library, came back out and the cops were still talking to the women (girls? hard to tell).

I don't know what was more interesting, watching the scene unfold or interviewing the spectators to try to figure out what had happened.

Scene 2:

Training. I lost a week and a half of training first because of the humidity (and my fear of the humidity) and then because I was so swamped at work and exhausted. 

The first day back running I felt like the wild horse who has been penned up for the first time. My body was so happy to be running.

Day three back to training, not so much. I have decided to run a bit each day for the next few days to see if I can regain the stamina I had been building. Ugh.

Poetry Thursday

Facing US
 ~Amanda Johnston
            after Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside black smoke.
I knew they'd use it,
dammit: tear gas.
I'm grown. I'm fresh.
Their clouded assumption eyes me
like a runaway, guilty as night,
chasing morning. I run
this way—the street lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the back of a police van
again, depending on my attitude
to be the difference.
I run down the signs
half-expecting to find
my name protesting in ink.
I touch the name Freddie Gray;
I see the beat cop's worn eyes.
Names stretch across the people’s banner
but when they walk away
the names fall from our lips.
Paparazzi flash. Call it riot.
The ground. A body on the ground.
A white cop’s image hovers
over us, then his blank gaze
looks through mine. I’m a broken window.
He’s raised his right arm
a gun in his hand. In the black smoke
a drone tracking targets:
No, a crow gasping for air.

views from the run

As I did a turn around the field next to the lake, I spooked a great blue heron. I hadn't noticed the bird in the brush near the lake. But it noticed me and flew off across the lake. I watched the huge bird and its long wings glide along the surface of the lake, choosing its next landing spot.

It was a welcome pause to my long run on a humid but overcast morning.

The spot it chose, finally, was directly across from where it had been, in a little area that appeared to be an inlet to a creek or just an area protected by some logs and trees. As it landed, another great blue heron swooped over. It had been hidden alongside that lake shore. Obviously, this spot was already taken.

The second heron vocalized, rushed the first one, furiously flapping its wings while in mid air. I have never seen more than one great blue heron in the same spot, perhaps this is the reason.

The interloper did not really fight back, it just picked up and swooped away gracefully.

Afterwards, the one that had claimed the spot, swam around its area proudly.

And I had to get back to my run.

Not Really Poetry Thursday, I may have repaid my debt...

[A Crumb in the Cobblestone—Tell Me This Landscape Darkened Without You]
 ~Jerika Marchan
Say despite all the churches with their unlocked doors
and outstretched strangers’ palmskin, I hungered still

—squandered when, fell through like a crumb, I sat waiting
for discovery or disintegration—something marvelous
teething at the surface—a crumb, devotional, religious ecstatic
closer to being worthy

Desire me ruthless and naked but still in my Sunday dress
you opened the window—we humid and slept open
into dreaming, yes, conduit. Conduit or nothing. Conduit
or bust. Nothing or busted. Hug the breakwater’s edge

more the grit, my fingers—whorl, the inches of all
concrete make miles of this low, walled city. 

Pretend expansive with me like ocean.

River.   Lake.   Bodies. 

60

Yesterday was my parents' 60th wedding anniversary.

If you know my parents, or their story, this should not surprise you. My parents have been in each other's lives at least since they were 7 and 8 years old. It shouldn't surprise me.

It doesn't. But it startled me.

When I started to try to wrap my head around 60 as I scrambled to find them a gift I could put into an envelope, I realized I had never stopped to think about it.

My parents renewed their vows in the church for their 25th wedding anniversary... and my sister got married that year as well. That was the first recognition I ever made of their anniversary.

I never thought about how young my mom was when she got married. Or, maybe I didn't think it was young at the time... I was 14, and if at 22, my sister seemed old, my mother at 49 was ancient.  It didn't occur to me to do the math until yesterday.

My parents were 24 and 25 when they got hitched. My aunt was 15. And probably every one I knew growing up had gotten married *young* or at an age that seemed appropriate to them. And longevity in marriage was also not an issue. I only knew one person who had gotten divorced when I was growing up.

I should have put it together then ... I was 25 when I got married, just one year older than my mother was at her wedding. And three years older than my sister was at her wedding.

It never mattered to me at all except when I got divorced because I knew instinctively that one outcome of the divorce was that I would never be married to someone as long as my parents would be married (at the time, I think they were well over the 40 year mark).

It is a remarkable accomplishment to have weathered 60 years of storms. My parents bicker and that is super irritating. I keep wanting to scream at them to stop because they have no idea the blessing that is their marriage.

Happy 60th to my mom and pops... however irritating they can be, they are an inspiration and a blessing.

Poetry Thursday

Field Notes on Beginning
~Tyree Daye
1.
I wear my grandmother’s bones like a housedress through the city.
Some nights the block tells me all its problems.
I’ll meet you at the top of the biggest rock in Rolesville
or on train headed to a reading in Queens, just tell me where. I promise
to gather your bones only for good.
I was not swallowed by the darkness between two buildings.
I don’t want to die in the south like so many of mine. I want to be
      carried back.

2.
I dreamed we were digging in a field in Rolesville
looking for an earth we knew the name of.
You stepped into the hole, looked behind you and gestured me in.
I saw every lover who held you while your children slept
in rooms of small heaters, you wrap the blankets so tight,
afraid of any cold that might get in.

3.
I said my goodbyes, my dead will not come. I will not see a cardinal in
      the city
so I drew one on my chest. A coop inside a coop inside of me.
Leaving is necessary some say. There is a whole ocean between you and
      a home
you can’t fix your tongue to speak. Others do not want me
no further than a length of a small yard, they ask where are you going
      Tyree?
Your mama here, you’ve got stars in your eyes. A ship in your
      movement. 

Ants

Have I already told you this?

I whisper at ants. Okay, I whisper at all beings, sometimes I don't even bother to whisper, just talk like no one is around but me and the ant or the bird or the squirrel or the bright neon green bug that just landed on my arm.

Ants.

I don't want to hate them. I love them in an ant farm.

So much to love about ants. They are industrious and determined and strong-willed, but quiet and seemingly unimposing. Except when they keep trudging up your arm, tickling you when you are trying to get your work done.

I tell them, in a whisper, go back to your home and tell them all that the giant will smash them mercilessly.

It's true. I will.

Don't piss off the giant, she will crush you.

The ants persist, however. Smashed ant smell might be more compelling even than sweet sugar smell.

So, I build them a corner where they are allowed to be. I give them cookies and salty things, too... and I whisper... over here, you can be here, I will share.

But not on my desk.

Not on my desk.

Not Really Poetry Thursday, but I owe you two or three

It Was Summer Now and the Colored People Came Out Into the Sunshine
 ~Morgan Parker

They descend from the boat two by two. The gap in Angela Davis’s teeth speaks to the gap in James Baldwin’s teeth. The gap in James Baldwin’s teeth speaks to the gap in Malcolm X’s Teeth. The gap in Malcolm X’s teeth speaks to the gap in Malcolm X’s teeth. The gap in Condoleezza Rice’s teeth doesn’t speak. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard kisses the Band Aid on Nelly’s cheek. Frederick Douglass’s side part kisses Nikki Giovanni’s Thug Life tattoo. The choir is led by Whoopi Goldberg’s eyebrows. The choir is led by Will Smith’s flat top. The choir loses its way. The choir never returns home. The choir sings funeral instead of wedding, sings funeral instead of allegedly, sings funeral instead of help, sings Black instead of grace, sings Black as knucklebone, mercy, junebug, sea air. It is time for war.

Recommendations

I have been thinking about writing a recommendation for a book I just loved ... and now I have another two things to recommend.

It's been a long time since I felt the strength to do a NRU... honestly, I am still not there. But I read this piece and fell in love. *wink*

We all need a little more inspiration to 1) be ourselves and 2) open to possibilities despite setbacks.

***please note it has been so long since I started this post that I honestly cannot remember the other thing besides the book I was going to recommend.***

The book ... a while back, because I have been moving the publish date on this post for MONTHS, I listened to Hunger by Roxane Gay. I have been listening to books more than reading, but I still call it reading. I hope that is okay.

So, Roxane Gay and her memoir Hunger - wow, WOW, I listened to the author read her memoir. I heard the life in the words. It was amazing.

My takeaway was that every WOMAN should listen to this book. Not read. Listen. There are dark spots, a lot of them, that you need to push through to get to the honey. Because it is sweet when you get past the darkness, when you are deep inside the heart of Roxane Gay, it is all sweetness and reality. And those two things do not always go together as perfectly as they did in this book.

You should listen to it.

You will learn to love your body and hear the story it is telling you every day, at least a little bit you will learn this, by listening to this book. You will, at least, learn that loving your body and listening to its stories is life changing.

Or maybe you won't ... as some reviewers have noted, and Gay herself has as well, this is not a book about transformation. It is not a victory lap. It is not this is how you do it.

But, for me, it was a how to and why to love your body, just as it is, and to listen to your body because it is engaging you in the dialogue every day, even when our too busy minds and emotions are yelling loudly over our bodies attempts at conversation.

You should listen to it.

Read/listen to this book, if you are a woman, or a man, or whatever, and you have not yet committed to loving your body and listening to its stories.

------
This is not the other thing that I was meaning to recommend when I started this post, but I have come upon this realization in the past two weeks: I am not only more productive when I listen to books while I work, I am more peaceful. My emotions to do not get the better of me when I am listening to a book and someone asks me for the work item I delivered three weeks ago, or tries to dump their work in my lap because I am a good worker, or tries to organize my work life to make their lives easier. I just smile and listen to my book and do my work.

My blood pressure appreciates listening to a good book. Maybe your blood pressure loves listening to a book, too.

hmmm

For a while, I have been saying, quietly to myself, that I will start writing again.

Every day ...

Every day in July, I will write.

I will work on my book.

Scratch that, I am not ready ... there are preparations to be made in order to write every day.

Bull shit, but, okay, not ready.

I will write on the blog.

Every day.

I will write on the blog every day in July.

It is July 6th and I have barely gotten it together to post a poem for Thursday... it has been a few Thursdays, right? No poems even they overflow in the poem-a-day folder.

What am I busy doing?

Living.

It takes an effort.

I promise, I will promise.

I promise to be better about writing. Every day. Every. Day. Write.

Poetry Thursday, trying to get back on track...

How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This
~Hanif Abdurraqib

dear reader, with our heels digging into the good
mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something
about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself
but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown
& lord knows I have been called by what I look like
more than I have been called by what I actually am &
I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this
exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning
something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything
worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics
arrive to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out
     grandfather
clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent
heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning,
you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

Poetry Thursday ... it's still Thursday...

Friendship 
is always 
a sweet responsibility, 
never an opportunity. 
― Kahlil Gibran

It might be a repeat ... but hopefully it is worth it.

Quote Thursday, Helen Keller - a day late...

Avoiding danger 
is no safer 
in the long run 
than outright exposure. 
The fearful 
are caught 
as often 
as the bold.
~Helen Keller

I was looking for a birthday card quote the other day, and I decided for something from Helen Keller (making mental note to actually read a book she wrote so I can find my quotes the old fashioned way). I stumbled on a bunch of quotes. This one grabbed my heart. I wanted to send it to my niece, but decided it was not the right moment. But it is my wish for the young women (and men) I meet.  Fear is not a blanket we should wrap ourselves in. It is not armor; it will not protect us.

But today, after two prominent suicides, and the millions not reported in the news, I thought it was especially important to note - one of the fears we battle every day is the fear of reaching out - either for help or with help.

I challenge all to win that battle a little bit every day - maybe you can only smile and say hello; maybe you can engage a stranger in a meaningful exchange of how are yous. Maybe you will make someone's day brighter just with your openness. Maybe you will give a ray of hope to that person thinking life is too hard. Or maybe you will just lighten the load long enough for that person to see that nothing lasts forever.

Spread some empathy, sympathy and compassion. Please.