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.

  

 

Footnote on broken things

 
My heart is too tender at times. I want to collect and hold all the broken things that I encounter. What can I fix in the broken world? What can I salvage? The latest pet is here beside me having gone blind in the last month, the cancer working its horror through her small body. She looks out toward the world no longer knowing what is there. She can see shadow from one small spot everything else she reads by whisker, scent and sound. Yesterday Ursula was tangled in the legs of nesting tables and panicked at the last moment to escape the beast and hit the wall, she sat shaken and lost while I gently spoke to her and pulled her close. This morning I followed her silently watching as she navigated back to the litter box. She halted twice as she neared the doorway but made her destination.

With the old cat, Comet, she lost her sight slowly over the years, probably at 18 or 19; she always saw shadow. Our gray guy, Kiki, lost most of his sight after an eye injury, one of his many nine plus lives moments that surprised us and our vet. It never seemed to slow Kiki down; Comet didn’t slow down either, except her normal I’m 100 in human years type of gearing down. Sunspot just fell ill and was gone, there was no linger and really little symptom. Jackson after many years of being obese, think tuxedoed barrel, got in shape, was the great hunter for years and then got skin cancer on his oh-so-pink nose. We did what we could working with Dr. Hullman, but we flailed and failed, not wanting to torture the old warrior.

We got Kiki and Jackson from a woman in Keno, we needed some outdoor cats to take care of mice and she needed someone who could give them more care. They became our terminator-bachelor-farmer cats, two of the sweetest cats I’ve ever met, but lethal to mice, squirrels, snakes, lizards, moles and a packrat (and an attempted meal of a jack rabbit). And birds, I’m sorry to add. Those two spent their days outside and at night I put them in the garage where they had beds that were warm and dry. Inside because there were too many night creatures looking for a nosh: coyotes, bobcats, owls and occasionally a cougar was in the area. I don’t think the eagles were too interested as there were so many other dining options.

I haven’t mentioned Phil, whose great body just gave out at age 17. Why do we keep on with these beasts? Bits of fur and sinew that to rule us, beasts we bow down to and coo, who’s a kitty, you’re a kitty, yes you are.

                            Equinox

And it is done. Snow this morning, Doak Mountain a promise.
A yellow finch topping the cup of snow on the monk pine
and the blind cat, Kiki, making his way across the lawn
as slow as a diver. The great bell of his head lifted,
he guides by sound and temperature, his body forever
taking him east, he crosses into the aspen grove, pauses to pat
a rock, walks across three more and then finds the large volcanic
slab, snowless, out of the wind. There he sits, gazing
at the world which is now shadow; how much depth or light
I can only guess. Face into the sun, eyes slits, birds
slowly forgetting he is not stone.

The Nature of Dawn

 I was watching my neighbor’s son walk toward the school bus stop this morning. His usual pace is what I call sloth-walk, a teen affliction, and he is always looking at his phone. He’s a nice kid, a tall black boy who wears his hoodies year-round, which is an amazing feat once it gets hot here in Illinois. I love talking to his mother because he exasperates and makes her so proud, as well he should, he’s an amazing young man. He reminds me of my own son as after I wave, he ducks his head and grins before waving back, but not too hard, not too uncool.  It was cold this morning, but all the snow has gone and the bus stop is just down one more street. I watched him heading out gave a little be careful wish and turned to the news.

Today is the anniversary of the day Trayvon Martin was murdered in 2012. As President Obama said about a month after the killing “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon…”. My son looked very much like Trayvon at the same age. There is a quick choking of fear and worry for my son and my daughter as young black people. There is that same worry whenever my husband goes out, just that niggling jiggle of nerves until he returns. This has been a constant for many years; when we lived in Europe, I really didn’t feel the cloud. But here, especially lately, it is back. 

In 2013 after we moved to Belgium, I started a blog, but I only ever got three entries. There seemed to be a pressing down and then I just stopped writing (as much as I had). I wrote this entry after the murderer of Trayvon Martin was found not guilty of second-degree murder and acquitted of manslaughter.

 THE NATURE OF DAWN, 14 JULY 2013

14/07/2013 · by mehope01 · in Uncategorized · Leave a comment ·Edit

The sun was a ball of severe light burning into the morning mist, the color of molten steel, ringed with ochre and blue shadow. Day comes on this way here.

At this time night is falling in America, things are falling further into gloom.

Go, call every child home: take them into warmth and light and tell them again and again their value, how and why they are loved. Step to a doorway or a window and call out the names of sons and daughters, stop their games and gossip, stop their innocent freedom. Hold them as though this was the last time you may be able, hold them until they stop fighting the hug, the wet kiss on the side of the head. Hold them.

Hold them for the thousands of parents who can never hold their child again. Hold them for Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin. Hold them tight.

Neighbors and friends

 

Last night I read as part of Poetry at the Point from the Saint Louis Poetry Center. Originally, I had been scheduled for July of last year but knew over the course of the Spring that those dates would be pushed back or cancelled; they were of course. There were readings and events cancelled throughout the March and April and most everything has been shut down since. It has been wonderful to see the various venues shift to online; it has really expanded the audience. It has been quite a while since I read as a “featured” poet. The last event was actually in Belgium when the open mic was still happening. But it is always fun to work on a lineup of poems to read and then rejig just an hour before time. My last-minute substitution was to add a lighter poem, Cats in the time of Coronavirus. I thought I would highlight it here today based on the friends who have shown back up, I know they just like the now snow free deck and the close exit routes the deck provides.
 
Cats in the time of Coronavirus
 
The cats come to our house
because they know we are vulnerable
and we are home. They know
our weaknesses and our tender hearts.
They sense our many griefs
and know how to manipulate us.
 
They’ll be shy at first.
And then needy.
The moment we open the door
they’ll twist their whiskers
and whisper, “Yes. Yes, just as planned.”