Day after day I hear doors shut*

It is the end of March. A year of pandemic lifestyle changes. Poetry Month is coming up. I’m revamping the look of the flower beds out front, a new edge and rock to fill between plants vice mulch. I’ve pruned the shrubbery back, moved some bulbs to a pot, found the Hostas and marked their space. The weather in perfect for outdoor work, sunny and a little breeze. I dug up some of the Mondo Grass which has grown so tight came out in giant bricks of sod. I’m hoping I can separate some and transplant. I cleaned the raised beds this weekend, added some topsoil and will turn in a little fertilizer soon. I’ve been calculating how much mulch I need around the house for areas not getting rock. All of these activities come in a week where I have three appointments that can’t be shifted, so I’m also calculating how much I can get done between days. Next week I’ll get my second dose of COVID vaccine. Jerry gets his (second) the week after and then we enter the two week “after that” period. Then we see what happens. I won’t stop wearing a mask. I may never stop wearing a mask, readying for the next pandemic and the anonymity is spectacular, though it really is just the gloss over what comes from just being a female of my age; that’s probably enough.

I think of this distinction often. Invisibility, the “not seen” and then there is the not-not seen. The invisibility of a graying woman is a nuisance. The always in the open and watched and ignored that my love gets is (for me) heart wrenching. I remember reading an essay once by a white poet about her daughter of mixed race and her saying her daughter will never be able to go into the world as she has. And it was one of those shaken awoke again moments. Of course. How many times during the week do we repeat to each other (and mention one of our friends that we owe money for the saying) I’m surprised that you’re surprised over some new slight or injustice. Then, too, we have a Dave Chappell quote we like when things really get going, from Mr. Chappell’s opening on Saturday Night Live November 2020. What kind of a man would do that (referring to 45 and his ilk)? A white man. I use that one a lot, I think of that one a lot. I worry for my family, I worry for my friends, I still worry for the Palestinian woman in Connecticut, who after September 11th, was afraid to take her children to the library.

The interesting thing about being invisible is what you can see and hear under perfect cover.

*Invisibility by Renato Rosaldo

Lost at the Big Box Building Supply Store

Though I wasn’t really lost I did have specific things I was searching for and in this particular store you can order a house that will be delivered for you to assemble (à la Sears Modern Homes or Wardway Homes from Montgomery Wards) or buy a gallon of milk. Sometimes direction is needed.

Menards Garden Section, retaining walls and paving stones
 
I appreciate the young man, Alec, who steps off his forklift
to help me at the building store. About the age of my son,
an easy smile and can I help you? The yard is dusty and growing
hot and we search the alleys for the stone I want.
He says it’s here I know and so I follow asking how’s your day,
noting that he too is lost in this search. When he apologizes
for not finding it, when he turns to go (to find someone else) I tell him to stay safe,
have a nice day and thanks, again. And on turning I’m right in front
of what I was looking for, so I call It was right here!
And I thank him again for his help. And he smiles and waves. 

Talking to a stranger in those few minutes
(though less and less I understand this)
is also what I was looking for.

Lessons for the human heart

Periodically I like to fly around the earth and look at things. Google Earth and Google Street view has made this a lot of fun. Much of my curiosity comes from an interest in maps and later Geographic Information System (GIS) imagery. When I worked for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) the imagery we used for mapping was bought from contractors who flew certain areas as requested. Google was using some of those same images. Now, of course, Google uses contracted planes and satellites to capture the imagery and create their maps; these are updated fairly regularly as I found my raised bed sunflower garden from last summer is on the current Earth view. Street view isn’t updated as often. The imagery for the front of my house is from June 2013.

Being able to access these images, and the ability to drop in on a street, has been quite helpful as well. I was working on a poem one day and thought, what was the name of the street that ran behind our apartment building in Formia, Italy? A few minutes later I was there outside the apartment on Largo Enirco Berlinguer. By walking down to the next street, I was able to fine the name and stand outside a small park where my children used to play.

This afternoon, after a busy morning in and out of the rain, I laid down with Ursula [side note 1: she’s gained a pound in the past two months] to nap, but I got very, very distracted after looking at a couple of places I fly over a lot. I thought, hey, Mom told me that the house they sold in Wallowa burned and I wondered if this view was available. It is not. But, after flying in and over I dropped into street view. [Side note 2: the other day I was reading some information about how on Google Earth you rarely see people in the imagery from above. And I did some tests one Naples Italy and then the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis. You can’t see people (well, mostly) because of the way they overlay the imagery, interesting stuff.] So, here I am on a rainy afternoon with a purring cat, scrolling across the world to Wallowa Oregon and finding the house where my parents lived until June 2019. I ticked the little person on Google Earth and drop to street view; there they are, my mother and father working in the yard. This image tells me it is from April 2012; it made me laugh. What are the odds you’d capture the two of them (and the dog!). Or that someone would look for something else and find someone who was missing in plain sight all those years?

     Anatomy Lesson

 
I should have known how the heart works
not the medically technical – valves and chambers
structure of the heart wall, but the chutes
and ladders, the twister version
how one falls down into the echo
how hard it can be to un-hear and crawl out.
 
At the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry you could
enter into a heart as though a confessional
stand in the left atrium and listen to the hushed
lubb/dubb of synthetic rhythm, lose yourself
to the chambered beat. The plastic wall glowed
like bubble gum or a fiery dawn. At times
the heart is furious, on fire, racing to
catch the mind – or mouth – a slow neighbor
calling “No!”.
 
I wonder if the lesson on how to live
with the intricate clichés of the heart happened
on a day I was absent from class.
Maybe that Spring when the snow melted
early and I ran flying a kite followed
by new lambs, all of us jumping and bleating.
I paid more attention to my steps than that
caged muscle in my chest. How did I miss
knowing this fragile thing? Forget cholesterol
and clogging fat, this fist that beats, stalls, breaks
and stops … how do we survive at all?
 

Why light a way

Ursula

She doesn’t see the light and yet I still share it with her:
a large owl shaped vase bursting with colors, a string of bulbs
the perfect size to fill its belly and create bright eyes
that look at me tenderly without sorrow or pity.
Why light a way for a blind cat that is dying?
 
It’s all I can do today.
 
She walks into the room and quietly
waits for me to speak so she can move forward.
Her eyes still searching, her tail raises and she purrs.
She cuddles on my lap this is how I know she is changed:
not a lap cat, not a cuddler.
 
I hold her until I know she is done
her nature is to be solo and I place
her on a chair. She curls
into sleep, runs through dreams;

misses every wall.

~~M.E. Hope

Vedi Napoli e poi muori* (Part One)

Outside it is wet. It has just rained again, though I took time to slosh through the yard and look in on the new growth. The Barberry bushes have all put out minute leaves after a fairly aggressive trimming. New growth is also happening on the spirea. And, of course, the tree in the backyard is busy pushing out small scarlet buds. It’s been warm overnight as well as during the day so winter is winding down hard.

This past weekend I read a lot of Kathleen Dean Moore and Aimee Nezhukumatathil. If you must be inside on these cloudy, weepy days find writers who write such stunning things. Find writers who delve into such tender and beautiful subjects about families and love and place. Find writers who remind you that place and belonging comes about often. I was reminded as I read about an uncommon love I have for a volcano.

"*Vedi Napoli e poi muori ("See Naples and then die") was a common expression, echoed most famously on his grand tour by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to identify Naples as the most naturally and artistically beautiful city in the world; so beautiful that one needn't look upon anything else after seeing it. (from Global.risd.edu)"

I started writing this meander and realised I wasn't ready. Thinking about Vesuvio makes me realise I need a bit more time. Here's a poem I wrote a long while ago:

                                Miracola
 
                San Gennaro is the patron saint of Naples -- his fame rests on the relic, 
                allegedly his blood, which is kept in a glass vial in the Naples Cathedral.
                Of solid substance, it liquefies 18 times each year.
 
 
On the street I say, “Slow down, my American ear
cannot catch your words,” tardare – orecchio – verbosita
each day’s careful lesson: patience and conjugation.
 
Yet in the church there is no mistake
this liturgy has not changed in two thousand years.
My slow ear devours the prayers.
 
Here there is no youth: each obsidian eye
on the priest, has watched before,
each face borrowed from Ercolano’s walls,
is raised toward the light.
 
I imagine fluency in both language and belief
as though I know the son and certainty.
But I am here with my neighbor’s passport,
her sympathetic tongue.
 
Faithless and mute I watch dust turn to blood.

Flat shoes, good ankles, places to walk

New shoe Tuesday as another (older) pair moved from the walking category to the gardening category. I have two pair of snow boots: one a muck boot type, every weather, quick slip-on as needed and one a going to town boot. It is funny to say, going to town when you live in a very towny suburb on a cul-de-sac, but we grew up (for the most part) “going to town”.  Once when I had called Lawson Inada about coming to Klamath Falls for a reading, I mentioned I was going to town that day and we had a quick discussion on that particular saying. He asked if it was a hold over from Joseph and I said yes, but we do live outside of town so if you’re going in, you’re going to town, we laughed over it. He has the most wonderful laugh. 

But I’m talking about shoes. I have a pair of slip-on shoes that live in the basement, these are the emergency shoes so that I always have "shoes in the basement". Something needed in tornado prone country. Then I have two pair of shoes that are for everything else; by the back door I have a pair of flip-flops for quick trips in and out. I have more slippers than shoes. Truth be told I did just recently break down and throw out two pair that were wrecked: torn, nearly tread-less and fairly dirty from all the miles put on them before they shifted to yard shoes. I got my money’s worth. And yet I still felt I should have kept them longer – if I still had a river to swim in, they’d be perfect river shoes. Enough to protect your feet on the way down (to the river), no need to worry if they got wet and then quick drying; here, they were spider condos.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic tendonitis in both ankles. My podiatrist took X-rays, made a mold of my feet and I had inserts made to help alleviate the strain and pain. He also said “Never ever wear high heels again.” Which made me laugh because I hadn’t in years. And, so, I trundled about on sore ankles for a few years. The inserts helped. I learned to warm my ankles up before stepping out of bed, to take those first few steps carefully and to keep good flat-ish shoes handy. My tendons were even bowed out, it reminded me of something I’d read about racehorses with bowed tendons, like them I was never racing again. And then, in year three, in Belgium, I noticed that the pain was nearly gone. The knotty tendons and bow was, almost, gone. I blame the cobblestones and the steep up and down around Mons. The miles and miles of walking we did across Europe, the good inexpensive sitting in parks, the sloth pace through museums, the wandering along old alleyways and bright squares. Then too working at the library was 40 hours a week of busyness.

So now I have good ankles and good shoes and I’m ready for the next hill, the next bright dawn.

Here’s a river poem, this river was someplace I know I wore worn shoes to:

Imnaha

I know this river, know this river by the soles of my feet

river rock glass and sand. Know this river by the green depth
I swim through as fish. Know the shadows beneath the fallen
trees, waving like ribbon – sleeping trout.
I rise slick-headed like the otter, met that sunny day
he as curious as me and then we both dove
and I glanced the web foot waving.
This river, stuck down deep in the dry, dry canyon
purple rim rocks above the yellow grass
the river attracts green, trees shade by the bridge
swallows swirl and dive and the emerald dragonflies
bless my arms as I float downstream.
 

~~M.E. Hope

"i do not believe in object permanence"*

I haven’t fed the birds since the snow melted. I was waiting for them to clean up the areas where the bird feeders hung or where I had thrown out seed; there was a lot. Today’s yard inspection shows that most of the seed is gone, so I’ll clean the feeders and put them out. This week I’ve been doing some yard work, taming the barberry bushes, cutting and shaping evergreen shrubbery and mowing down decorative grass in one of the flower beds.

My neighbor’s cat came over to tell me she did not approve and then peeked in at Zora asleep by the front door. Speaking of neighbors, my next-door neighbor (not the cat’s owner, she (the cat) lives one more house down) told me she won’t be using the raised beds so I will get those ready for the season as soon as I get done with my yard.

The weather has been wonderful, Wednesday it was 70, that was the high for the week but we’re averaging 55 during the day, at night it is getting cooler but nothing that isn’t expected at this time of year. And, now this time of year, is the before time, time of year.
A year ago, I was looking forward to the trip to Chicago, Jerry had work and I was tagging along; I had tickets to two events, I had plotted out my days (reading, walking, museums, Poetry Foundation), Jerry would be able to see his former colleagues, get his scheduled visits done and we’d have the afternoons to spend together; a poetry reading by Jane Hirshfield was to be the highlight of the trip. The before time.

Today world-wide deaths recorded from the Coronavirus are 2.58 million; 523K in the US.

Poetry Daily has a singularly stunning poem by *Fargo Nissim Tbakhi today, a poem that reminds me to look to poetry and look toward the world that can seem hidden or forgotten by our own dark times. The title today is a line from that poem.

Be safe, be kind, get outside if you can. 

Morning in Zagreb

The barberry bushes around my house need to have a good pruning. Barberry have vicious thorns but seem to need little care, or at least they are happy with the care I give (nothing). Two varieties are planted around the house, one has leaves that run from dusty pink to burgundy and the other has bright yellowish green leaves. I’ve trimmed them but never taken the dead wood out. Last fall I found some articles online to guide me and I watched a few videos on You Tube and some gardening sites. Today I worked on just two. It was sunny and cool, with plenty of birdsong for background noise. I was distracted quite a bit looking at the three raised beds behind the house, the one is mine and the others belong to my next-door neighbor and she let me use them last summer. It’s just March and I have to remind myself of just that fact, nothing is ready to go into the ground at this time: nothing.

This morning I read a poem by A.E. Stallings from Rattle #70, these lines got to me:

“Even before the virus, these
Were nearly empty galleries,
But now we have these cluttered shelves
And halls of statues to ourselves.
Stickers on the floor, in Greek,
Tell us “Watch your apostasies”:
 
“Mind your distance,” so to speak.
But since the guards outnumber us
There is no nearness we need fear,
No tourists herded from a bus;
Here on the coast, the coast is clear.”

I’ve been in those museums that get less than Louvre-like traffic (and there are galleries in the Louvre that need some love). One morning in February 2017 I had the entire Mirmara Museum in Zagreb to myself. I remember wandering room after room and never seeing another being. After a few hours I’d covered about two thirds of the building and checked in with the front desk to ensure I could come back in after lunch with the same ticket, “Of course, Madam.” I walked down to the main square, Ban Jelačić Square, and met Jerry and we shared a sandwich somewhere and then I went back to the museum while he stayed in the square for people watching. When I got back the museum was packed, there must have been ten people around, but most were headed downstairs where there was an exhibition of contemporary art from Croatian artists. When I eventually got downstairs that crowd had thinned out. And the exhibit was really good, really good. 

That late February it was quite warm and most of the days were sunny. We were sitting in King Tomislav Square enjoying the sun on our final day, watching people and dogs and birds when I took notes on this poem:

 
Morning in Zagreb

The man eats & eats & eats
unpacking & repacking his bags.
He unfolds & refolds, sorts & stacks
placing coins, bills & food
into smaller bags. The sun shines
warming a February day & he hangs
his dirty coat on the park bench.
He is still eating. Now he unpacks
a carcass – chicken, rabbit? – & slices
meat from bone. He pulls the soft bread
from a loaf chewing hard. He never stops
eating. Occasionally he throws pigeons
bread, but he keeps the crusts, stacks
& repacks them & then continues to carve
at the meat on the small body.
When he no longer has food enough
on the skeleton, he throws the whole
thing into the grass where two pair
of hooded crows stake claim. The man
has not stopped eating. He has a beer,
he cleans his knife & he tears more bread.
The man eats & eats & eats.