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.

Mid February reverie

 
I spent a good deal of time this morning shoveling after yesterday’s snow. The storm dumped a lot and there was a good breeze all day keeping the temperature below zero and giving us some drifts. The snow even blew to the front and dusted the hedgehogs and forget about the teal fox, his perch is under a foot of snow right now. See you later, teal fox. Our weather this morning was fantastic, startling cold but sunny. Once I cleared the snow from the driveway and the walks, they dried. And on cue, as it is ordained, the city’s snow plow came just as I finished and pushed three feet of snow in front of the mailbox and made a nice dune at the edge of the driveway. No harm, at least he was able to create a lane for driving in the cul-de-sac. And since the snow was powder it was light and easy to move.
 

Before I came in, I took the opportunity to make a snow angel on the deck. It’s going to be cold for the next day or so and more snow may arrive tomorrow. But we’re warm and don’t need to go out for work, so a lazy morning shoveling snow is a luxury.

 

The birds on the other hand are hustling. I have three feeders out with seeds and two suet feeders. Also, every day I spread some seeds out and about for those birds that don’t do feeders. So today the cardinals and black birds (including red-winged blackbirds!), dark eyed juncos and sparrows were on the deck and the starlings were attached to the suet feeders front and back of the house. At one point this afternoon I could see a perfect brown ball in the lilac bush and it was the Brown Thrasher that showed up yesterday during the worst of the snow. Poor thing.

 Late this afternoon I took a picture of the lonely pine and its giant shadow across the snow and it reminded me of the pine that was in our pasture in Klamath Falls. That particular tree showed up in a lot of pictures, some poems and we buried the old dog, Red, there; he was a good dog and had a great place to rejoin earth.

 
The best part of the day was not thinking about politics or the pandemic. I was able to throw snow and watch the thousand crystals catch the light, hear the red-winged blackbird’s song, laugh with my neighbor as the snow plow re-buried her daughter’s car and marvel at the bluest sky I’ve seen in quite a while. Be safe, be kind. 
 

The new little black dress

 
Insurrection is the new little black dress. Worn with a necklace of non-factual glass beads and alternative facts earrings, it is all the rage (except for the actual rage of seeing a seditionist thug just go back to the golf course). Throw in some off the shoulder chants of kill her or hang him and the young go-getter is all set for a day of mayhem and treason. Don’t have a date? Looking for a proud boy or an oath keeper or maybe just a yellow-bellied GOP senator? We’ve got ‘em by the state-full. If you’re leaning toward toady yes-men/women who like Glocks/spears/baseball bats and police shields you’ve found your home! Your new dress will look fabulous at any event where racist and Holocaust deniers gather; where lost cause flags fly; where the feeling of entitlement can be cut with a knife.

Getty Image 2021

An old poem, a new picture

 
I will write of what I know
 
…because there is in this world no one thing
to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
                                               ~ Robert Haas, Meditations at Lagunitas
 
What of bullfrog’s song slicing
through a snowy night:
dirge, celebration, want?
 
At the base of Doak Mountain
the last piles of slash
are burning like luminaria,
 
by dawn the frogs will be silent
the fires out and a new crust of snow
will weigh on the pines.

 ~~M.E. Hope

The god who taught you to romanticize misery *

This poem from World Literature Today, by Federico Villegas, has been rattling around with me the past few days, I'm copying it from their website which I have also linked above. That's it. Be safe, be kind.

When Blood Boils
by Federico Villegas 
translated by 
George Franklin and Ximena Gómez

What is the reason for your visit, Embera Wera?1
You’ve walked fourteen hours through the muddy night, 
you’ve crossed an entire mountain range to see me, 
even knowing the demon moana lay in wait for you in
      the darkness;2
when your legs failed you, Embera Wera, 
your War, your son, carried you strapped to his back.
Did you tumble?
Is that why mud stains your dress and your wounds are
     mapped in blood?

What brings you to the hospital, Embera Wera?
Malaria that has your blood boiling, 
poverty that’s handing you its bill—
I don’t understand your language, and you don’t
      understand my dialect.

Are you in pain . . . Boro pirabu, tani pirabu, bi pirabu?3
It’s your seventy-three years of neglect that’s hurting you,
war that’s taken away the land and the fruit of your
     womb, 
your rivers that were poisoned by mercury—
you feel you can’t take anymore.

What are you holding on to, Embera Wera?
The god who taught you to romanticize misery *
who with whipping and witch-burning taught you to love
and who is waiting for you to “bless” your suffering?

But don’t let me die—your eyes say—
clinging to life is not a sin.
—Administer fluids, blood sugar, an EKG, chloroquine—
    and justice?
Have her fill out the SIVIGILA form for malaria!4
But, why not also report violence by the State?
Why not denounce the indolence of history?

Translation from the Spanish

1 “Embera” refers to an indigenous people who live in Colombia and Panama and is the patient’s tribal name. “Wera” is the patient’s given name.

2 “Moana” is a demon who attacks travelers.

3 “Boro pirabu” means headache, “tani pirabu” means stomach pain, and “bi pirabu” means pain in the womb.

4 The Sistema de Vigilancia en Salud Pública (sivigila) refers to a Colombian national health system.

Federico Villegas resides in the Colombian Andes where, as a physician, he works to bridge the gaps of social inequality while dreaming of being a writer. He has published two articles in medical journals.

George Franklin is the author of four poetry collections, Noise of the World, Traveling for No Good Reason, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (trans. Ximena Gómez), and Travels of the Angel of Sorrow. 

Ximena Gómez has published “Habitación con moscas” (Ediciones Torremozas) and Último día / Last Day, a bilingual poetry book (Katakana Editores), co-translated with George Franklin. 

We'll always have Paris

In January, (or was it December?) we updated our wills. Just one of those things that needs to be restructured as you move and acquire cats that may one day need a caretaker. That’s not the important thing, cat assets, but while we were at the law office, we met a man who had lived in Europe, had married a woman from Belgium, who missed travel and especially their apartment in Malaysia. And of course, we had a good time chatting with him as we miss travel a great deal too.  Jerry often asks, Will we see Paris again? and I always answer Yes, just not soon. Not this year I am certain. But we will eventually get back. The Louvre has been renovating since the pandemic shut them down and I’m anxious to see what has happened there. I think my last trip to Paris was when my sisters visited and we did a whirlwind tour around Belgium, zipped over to London, they went to Germany for a few days and then we ended up in Paris. It was a really, really good time. They flew out of Paris early that final day and I spent the rest of the morning strolling about on my way back to the Louvre for a few hours before I had to get myself to Gare du Nord to catch my train home. Sigh.

We’ve been watching a lot of travel shows to compensate. Some are just YouTube videos, of course Rick Steves, very random offerings, places we’ve been, places we’d like to go. Travel Man with Richard Ayoade is a favorite, when you really need a laugh or to see something most people won’t. So today I will leave some travel pictures and hope that 2022 will be a time the world will be ready to receive visitors again. If you’re looking for normalcy, I suggest following the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, on Instagram as she goes around her country.

 Just that.

  

"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.