"a little to one side it is there"*

Thursday afternoon I was looking for a poem or two to read for an open mic following a reading for First Draft Writers' Series, from Pendleton, Oregon. I was going to just read love poems because I thought that’s just easier and mine are those “seen from the corner of your eye”** and not overly sentimental. I’m opposed to overly sentimental in poetry and in life. Keep it in commercials and made for TV movies. I want emotions that are earned. Don’t give me cheap theatrics or sick kittens just to soften a heart. Jerry says for a poet you are devoid of a soul, my reply to that is I don’t believe is souls.

So I was shuffling through some older folders and found a poem of mine called Mythology, I had forgotten about it. What I find curious about it is the opening thesis, what is that about? I’m wondering if I wrote this before or after I wrote a poem called Considering my father’s heart. (quick note, I see I wrote them both around the same time about nine years ago) So here are two poems about hearts, gritty and scarred and curious. (And after the poems, a snoring cat!) Be safe, be kind!

Mythology

The heart breaks and ruptures, heals
itself, weakens and hardens with tough
new scars. No doubt it skips
speeds and causes reckless words.
It peers into the past, worships the future,
lays claim to whatever the brain says avoid.
And so I wait for whatever the world holds
knowing my heart, and its minor gods, can
wait for new stories, different outcomes.

These are the myths I grew up with:
China Gold, Sasquatch, D.B. Cooper,
the Northern Lights, a father’s unshakeable love.

One summer a hundred head of elk
crossed the just graded road
outside of Granite Oregon. Their meadow
caught in the gloom, as sun 
made its way over the mountain
and lit the top of the highest pine.

A quarter mile up, my father stopped
the road grader, as the tan
animals moved like a wave of honey
into the timber. The machine shuddered,
a reverberation that echoed
through the dawn with the distant
elk voices, and opened the day

to this last myth I thought I understood.
My father drove out of sight
into deep and unknowable shadow.

 

Considering my father’s heart

Which I haven’t, for years, really, since we stopped talking,
or he stopped talking, to me. But today, with news
that he is in the hospital with heart trouble, I think
about it, and him. His father died over fifty years ago
from a bad heart. And I wonder if he thinks about
that. If he weighs the heart ache and the heart break
the way I weigh mine. If he smiled wryly, like I did,
when my sister told me that he has heart blockage
but that his body had already created a bypass,
and it was working so well that doctor said there
was no need for surgery. Of course, I thought,
even in life and death he’s too stubborn.
And then I think about calling him for his birthday,
wondering if our hearts have found other ways
to survive, how mine has healed in miraculous
ways as well.
 

 “Poetry is the kind of thing you have to see from the corner of your eye**. You can be too well prepared for poetry. A conscientious interest in it is worse than no interest at all, as I believe Frost used to say. It's like a very faint star. If you look straight at it you can't see it, but if you look a little to one side it is there*.” William Stafford from What It Is Like, Writing the Australian Crawl Views on the Writer’s Vocation, The University of Michigan Press, 1978

 

"When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid."*

Over the years I have indoctrinated Jerry to poetry. Like a lot of people who went to US public schools, poetry was something that was touched on occasionally and had a tendency to carry the labels classic and good even though we did little more than parrot what was needed for a test. (Prufrock anyone?) Those words had zero to do with our lives and the poets had little to do with us, [they] being primarily old, white men from other realms of the world; worlds nothing like ours or our parents. Of course, over the last two days the world has been awash with poetry, or poem, thanks to the radiant Amanda Gorman. What every writer, and reader, of poetry knows is the power of one poem to inspire and to make you search for more – more poems, more poets, more poetry that gives voice to what so many need to hear, wonder about, what touches us.

Jerry has gone with me to many poetry readings over the years and he has found poets among my friends that he enjoys (quotes!); he has his favorites and also he is a fan of Sunni Patterson, Joy Harjo and his new favorite poet, Amanda Gorman. He judges poems/poets like this: “She’s no Bette Husted.” Or, “Paulann Petersen is safe.” Or, “Peter Sears would have read him under the table.”

Ms. Gorman was appointed to the National Youth Poet Laureate during National Poetry Month in 2017. I remember listening to her poetry then knowing that we would hear more from her, and didn’t we? Here is a link that takes you to her poem to read for yourself or listen to. (* this post's title is a line from The Hill We Climb)

Be safe, be kind. Here's a begonia clipping that has finally bloomed. Light and beauty!

"To heal, we must remember,"*

Evan Vucci/AP

[From NPR] President-elect Joe Biden addressed a grieving nation on Tuesday, after the United States had earlier in the day passed 400,000 deaths from the coronavirus.

Speaking at a service to remember Americans killed by the virus, Biden praised medical professionals for their roles in caring for the ill and their families during the pandemic.

"If there are any angels in heaven, they're all nurses. We know from our family experience what you do. The courage. The pain you absorb for others. So thank you. Thank you," Biden said at the Lincoln Memorial event.

Four hundred lights were turned on to honor the 400,000 Americans who died since the pandemic began in the U.S. one year ago.

"To heal, we must remember," * Biden continued in his brief remarks. "It's hard sometimes to remember, but that's how we heal. It's important to do that as a nation."

Biden was joined by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who called on Americans to unite through their mourning of lost loved ones.

"For many months, we have grieved by ourselves. Tonight, we grieve and begin healing together. Though we may be physically separated, we the American people are united in spirit."

~~~~

Be safe, be kind, the hard work continues. 

"What shall we not perhaps get over,..."*

 

The cats we have had as roommates and designated yard guards over the years: Comet and Sunspot (roomies), Phil (both, until he lost yard privileges), Kiki and Jackson (YG), and now Ursula and Zora, definitely roomies. Briefly we had a cat with us in Klamath Falls named Captain Jack (because of his eyeliner) who would have been a yard guard, but he was with us only as long as it took to look for who he belonged to -- no one claimed him -- and then I had him vaccinated and neutered. He left us shortly after that, as Jerry said with that kind of welcome why would you stay. Today I had to take Ursula to the vet with a condition we can only say is tied to her lymphoma diagnosis back in September. She’s also lost weight recently. She’s now on prednisone and she seems to be in no pain, she is still active and vocal and in charge. She of course was insulted by getting placed in the carrier and whisked away to the vet, blood taken and all those strangers prodding. Due to COVID protocol I was not allowed in, so that added to the indignity. But Ursula forgave me and we curled up together after lunch and took a short nap together. So now the time of Ursula. Ursula to spoil, Ursula to hunt down the sunny spot in the house, the best place to watch birds, the extra food that Zora will not get as she doesn’t need the extra food; we just got her weight stabilized. Just over a year ago we said goodbye to Comet. Now we will fill Ursula’s days, Zora’s. Damn these fur hearts and the holds they have. Be safe, be kind.

Here’s a poem by Quinn Baily from The Currents of the World (Homebound Publications, 2020) Thank you, again, Dragon for the book.

*Luck by Carl Phillips from The Tether

"...the lost ones, growing into the never-heard-of." *

Today was a day of worry and sorrow. Worry and sorrow for the world, the country, people I love, family, friends and my dear fur hearts. Outside it was blustery, I put out extra seed around the house for the birds and spent the morning trying to catch up on a couple of poetry blogs (both available along the right-hand side of this page) Deborah A. Miranda’s Bad NDNS and Devin Kelly’s Ordinary Plots: Meditations on Poems + Verse. I get both via email and will tell you that Miranda’s was very hard to read, I had to take breaks, her most current email sent out a number of older posts, all of which deserved extra attention and time. Posts that do a James Bond thing to my heart, I say shaken and stirred. Kelly’s, I like because it reminds me to slow down and really look at the poem, also I’m being introduced to a number of new poets – new to me.

That there is poetry available, no matter the subject matter, that one can swing through, right now, is a luxury. One I will hoard. As the world burns, as truth has to fight for air and light, as sad old ideas continue to come out of the shadow, out of the dark, out of the grave to ignite those who can only own this power, this delusion. I will continue to turn to poetry. Not as shield or a room to hide in but as a way to help me to talk to or consider what the liars are saying, to learn how to counter their arguments, their untruths, their twisting of language and logic. It will be like writing a sestina every day or a 100-word essay made of one syllable words, none of which you can use twice. (I did this once the topic was poetry, but it was a long time ago when my mind felt more nimble.) It will be like creating an epic poem on how to share the world and how it was never, ever just yours no matter what the history books or nights around the fire with your monochrome legend says.

Here is a poem, Nightriders * by Yusef Komunyakaa from Night Animals (Sarabande Books, 2020)

Like held lanterns, wavering*

I use to read up to 200 poems a week. I was active on some online poetry forums, for a while I was a moderator at a couple of these. I was active in real life poetry groups and prompt groups, I helped find funding and organize readings and workshops. I bought and checked out books of poetry, studied anthologies, encountered poets and found everything I could of theirs online and in print.  I had books of poetry around the house and in the car and whenever a moment of waiting occurred, I had a book of poems. I took poetry books to the gym sometimes gasping, with tears in my eyes, at some work which should have never been paired with an elliptical – but there you go. 

I thought about all of this as I opened a book of poems Monday by Jane Hirshfield, The October Palace, from 1994. I’m not sure where I got this copy, a book sale or a poetry event. It’s a used book and I hadn’t opened it until now. There are pages with holes, not formatted with huge amount of white space, but lines and stanzas that have just disappeared. On one page a title and the last two words of the poem remain. It’s quite something, but it made me realize that in the good old poetry days I would have found this a day or two after picking the book up. I would have sat down somewhere and opened it up, dipped in, read aloud. It tells me I need to read more, more poetry for sure. I’ve been sprinkling books around the house, opening them at random and reading. I’ve missed this and I’ve been negligent.

Last night I was able to hear a William Stafford Birthday reading sponsored by the Southern Oregon University Hannon Library. I was invited by the event host, a poetry pal from Oregon and there were poets I know and admire who read both their work and a poem by William Stafford. It was really very nice, wonderful to see and hear these poets. And I loved being at a reading in my nightgown. Part of the residual wonderfulness is that today another poet I know from Oregon has sent me an invitation to a reading next week. It has made me feel warm and connected. I may not care for Zoom workshops but the readings are good, good, good.

Here’s poem by Jack Gilbert. Be safe, be kind, in the words of another poet I listened to recently, the Trump Epoch is almost over.

*Jane Hirshfield, At Nightfall, from The October Palace

Cardinal Party

Be safe, be kind. 💗