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

Where they sleep

 

Last night before I went to bed, I pinched open the blinds in the spare room to see if any deer were in the back yard. There were three dark shadows bedded down under the pine in the place they’ve slept the past few nights, their bodies melting the snow over the fallen needles, the needles I left unraked in the fall because I knew this is where they sleep. They had been working their way around the yard at dusk checking under the bird feeders, looking for corn.  I think they come from the little draw behind my neighbor’s house, checking their feeders first. During the day the short distance between our yards and feeders sees a lot of avian activity, my time is lost watching this activity but the heart slows and if one must lose time something this full of grace is certainly okay. With all the snow we’ve had the yard’s transit routes are easily followed. The deer do wider arcs away from the houses, whereas the cats that are out and about hug the walls and squeeze behind shrubs. While I was thinking about the deer and looking for some poems to read at an open mic tonight, I found this winter poem from a few years back.

Winter garden
 
The pine flaunts its green -- more brilliant
with the falling snow -- only a stellar jay
on the back of the bench gains more notice.
 
Each shadow holds secrets as quiet as dusk.
Listen, a breeze shushes light. The wheelbarrow’s
handle drops half its load onto the path.
 
A fence post, suddenly smooth, balances
wire, full of down and chickadees,
when either takes flight, magic.
 
Back in the woods, right where night collides
with stars, two does pause, heads high
waiting for the garden to sleep.

~~M.E. Hope

And here's a picture of a little buck that visited one fall, I've loved this picture for the bright flame of the grass. Be safe, be kind, waste some time watching.

"like ten tiny ostriches in the sand" *

After lunch today I listened in on a reading from Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio) for Poetry Ireland, A Celebration of Women Poets marking Brigid’s Day & Black History Month. Four poets I did not know, two American and two Irish. The readings were very good, fresh poems, a discussion midway through followed by more poems. A perfect dessert. Ursula curled up beside me and listened, the voices were soft and even so she didn’t mind the unknown women speaking. Just an hour, just a perfect hour.
 
Then I read a little news, a couple of opinion pieces about the new congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene. While I was reading, I was thinking how despicable I used to find Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr., then the Axis of Evil: George W., Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, the hard-hearted who would withhold truth to move their ideas forward and the little worm, Newt Gringrich. He is one of the true architects of what has happened in GOP politics. We had the Moral Majority bullshit, the Tea Party weirdness, 45’s various cults and violence laden policies that fed and bred this whole Qanon/MAGA incoherency.
 
So, with those items floating in my head, Ursula purring softly and sleeping in her tuxedo PJs, I went back to poetry and reached for a book and read feet by Ross Gay. Here’s a quick shot from the first page of the poem. This poem is in catalog of unabashed gratitude, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series, 2015 and today’s title is from this poem as well.

 

Winter rerun

 

 Celebration
 
 There is a reason we save this time
 of the year for celebration,
 this time when we need sun or star or flame
 to take us through the axis tip;
 when we need snowfall and miracle
 and warmth and song to carry us through
 till spring.  There is a reason
 we search the sky, listening for wingbeat,
 verse, the sound of doves hovering
 in the shelter of pine. We look toward
 one another, rather than away,
 pull in toward the hearth
 the sturdy chair, take the arms of one
 so loved, we could not go on
 without them, and in this
 pause, we pull in the world.
 The long winter night fills us:
 a renewal, a radiance, a reason for waking.

~~M.E. Hope

Pining again

Cutting the pine
 
It is as if a ribcage has lost a lung.
The body and the world note an absence.
The cavity empty of song;
the sudden change in breathing.
The birds fly by, their muscle memory
shifting up, or down, didn’t I land here
yesterday? The squirrel in his endless
accounting has lodged a complaint
sitting in front of the house loudly
scolding. Beside the stump, where sawdust
and bark are scattered, the partner tree stands
awkwardly. Like a long-wed companion
who doesn’t know what to do,
with an un-held hand.

Google Earth image June 2013

 

The tree on the right is the one that was cut, I thought I took a picture, but I can't find it. Even in this picture from 2013 you can see the vines all the way up. And the giant print of the stump and vine. Vines like elephant toenails. 

 

One small thing

The Sun Magazine arrived yesterday and this poem stayed on the kitchen counter all day. As I went back and forth throughout the house I stopped and read it, again and again. I've looked for more work by Cordaro and found her debut here in The Apple Valley Review.