Crashing forward

Earlier this week when I was out getting the bird feeders, I could hear some owls chatting. It sounded like they were over behind my neighbor’s house. Their backyard butts up to the wooded area that ends the neighborhood and it’s where the deer often enter the yards (and fox sightings happen). I tried to listen closely to see if there was anything they wanted to tell me but the cicadas were out of control. Ear splitting levels of sound.

Because we are crashing toward the fall equinox the light was perfect and low and, because we are crashing toward the fall equinox, the temperature and humidity were also perfect and low. I stood out a long time. The brown cat came by to see the flat cat and agreed I could talk to her for a few minutes but she really was looking for a groundhog and left me quite soon. She comes around mornings and afternoons and looks in my windows, I know she’s looking for Ursula and Zora, so I broke it to her today that they are gone. She took it well, bit me while we talked and then walked off to her next adventure. That’s how she is.

Tonight, the owls are quiet, the cicadas calm, we’re suppose to get another few hot days and then we may slide into fall. I’m ready.

Owls as love birds

I imagine in their cages that they see me a prey,
that at the moment the door is left they will swoosh out,
hold me down with their talons. Do they hear a death knell
when I speak; pretend that I am some rodent
to digest and pass? As I walk past, indifferent eyes
never look at, but through me.

I believe that even though they hunt as solo entities,
they would tag team me like an evil wrestling duo,
each hold another horrible and unfair pain. Would I blame
them, plotting like this, if they plot?
Deep, deep in the dark they call in their hollow
throated way, and my heart tells me to beware.

Distraction

 

I’ve lost a good deal of time the past few days watching various birds around the house. The weather has turned cooler and the humidity has dropped below sauna and the activity level outside is up. Today a tufted titmouse pair were swinging through the magnolia searching for bugs and they didn’t notice me as I came by the window. This was behind the house where I look out from my office. Once I spotted them, I froze, and they hopped and gobbled, gobbled and hopped up and down the bush. Then a hummingbird arrived, they don’t care if I’m at the window but the titmouse (titmice?) got a number of close fly-bys and hovers. Little busy body busy-body. And then a Carolina Wren ran down the forsythia and into the little garden of sunflowers and cosmos. Lost time. I’ve gone down a number of time traps as I’ve been organizing closets and relooking what is in boxes (after so many moves and gathering of things from Oregon a couple of years ago, it was needed). I finally, finally, finally went through the pages and pages and pages of printed out poems and I know I have electronic versions so I emptied the folders and sent these things to the recycle bin. But in all this I came across things I thought I had lost, a dear poem from a dear friend written for me when I turned twenty; an essay I wrote once about poetry with single syllable words and no repeated words. Precious things my children wrote or drew, a collection of ticket stubs from various travels and museums and concerts (a headband from Bob Dylan and Carlos Santana’s 1984 World Tour – I typically wore bandana headbands then; it was thrilling to find. I saw them in Rome). Later this weekend I’ll continue through the boxes of photos. That’s the hard work. Jerry already said he wouldn’t be helping with those. These just need organized (why is a baby picture of Justine in with a picture from Krakow?) but I know I’d lose him: emotionally it is hard. And when I need a break, I’ll look out my window for some wonder and light.

Gray skies are gonna clear up

A century or two ago when Jerry would put to sea, I would pine for him and walk the widow’s walk searching the horizon for his ship. Okay, typically, if his ship was leaving, I would see it pass Point Loma as it departed and I would start the clock moving toward his return. I worked on the Sub Base in San Diego (at Point Loma) and his ship was homeported across the bay at the 32^nd Street Naval Base. Coming and going he had to pass by. I remember the first time I dropped him off and then headed to my work. They were off for a six-month WestPac and had been scheduled to pull out by 0900. I finally went to get coffee in our mess about 1030 and there was the ship passing by…goddammit! I did a sad little Charley Brown shuffle back to my office where my co-worker, Darla, and I commiserated. She too was married to sailor. The long time apart, wasn’t new. We’d spent nine months separated after we’d gotten married: he went to his ship in San Diego and I was in Norfolk. So, when I finally got to my command in SD it was a little disheartening to find out the ship was leaving and with it, Jerry. Setting into a routine wasn’t hard: I worked long hours, I hit the gym daily, I ran miles and miles and miles, I wrote a lot of letters, I went to the beach and played volleyball with my co-workers and I missed Jerry. And I allowed myself time to be sad, to be down, to, well, pine. And when that got tiring, I stopped. I actually put a notice on my calendar when I’d indulge and I had a rule I could feel sorry for myself and cry and wail for one day a month, after that knock it off, find something to do. And the moment I stopped being sad or ripping my hair out I had to stop until the next scheduled time. For me this worked, I got tired of myself really fast. For me the indulging in, allowing myself to feel this way worked. And it is something I have done since, indulge it and get it out, let it ride. This past week I’ve been riding it. I can feel it stumble, it’s wearing down.

How will I ride

The darkest of nights is already lightening.
Coyote song begins again
and the moon fades back to yellow.

How will I ride? Like my cowboy
grandfathers, my bronc busting uncles.
I’ll find the meanest horse and we’ll
out mean the day. I’ll ride with poetry
and song in my saddlebags up
to the mountains and high lakes
where time is tasted in every breath
and stars cover the skies so thick
you are drunk in the dazzle.
Where trout are covered
in stardust and bear and elk
leave faint trails in the night.

How will I ride? Like someone who’s
been told they can’t ride. How will
I ride, like someone with a mission.

Kindness and sharing

A few days ago, I bought some peaches and nectarines. They weren’t quite ready to eat so they’ve been in a paper bag on the counter in eager anticipation. This morning I opened the bag and sweet summer promise wafted out of the bag. After our walk I took a couple of nectarines and tried to slice one, mush, eck. I placed it on a plate and tried another one, mush. And not even good tasting mush. Disappointing. I looked outside at the day just beginning to heat up and then took the plate and carried it out to the deck and placed where I could watch who/what would like it the most. It wasn’t long before Olive raised her head near the railing and came over to munch down on the mush. Or slurp, or however a groundhog eats mushy nectarines. Both nectarines were gone by the time we had lunch. A small kindness, I guess. It seemed a day when whatever kindness or care or sharing could be released into the world one should have at it. 

Cleaned of flesh

Is memory just carrion
that time picks clean?

I can’t name my third grade
teacher but I see the odd boy,
Ivan, I sat next to all year.

His dirty plaid shirt and paste
covered fingers and the singular
scent that washed him. I moved
my test papers for his wandering
eye, hoping he’d copy one right.

It was really not deceit but a sort of kindness.
The teacher did not care either way
she punished us both the same.

This bit of history
cleaned of sinew and hide
exists as fossil
separate from every sad
moment I witnessed and forgot
that horrible year.

 

 

Come to my window

I like how the sunflower opens its face
to the world, hurls its globe toward the sun
and looks back as though challenging light.
When the bumble of bees explore the surfaces,
covering themselves in the flower’s riches
I like how they become the flower
and forget for a moment how they flew.

When the goldfinch tears off the petals
in their loves-me-loves-me-not fury
I like how the sunflower feeds them
regardless of their litter and carelessness.

 
And when the Carolina Wren, uses the whole leg
of the tallest flower to show off its agile
and bright life, I love how it waits for the breeze
to part the leaves, only then lifting its voice
into the world, stopping as the wind stops.
The show is over. Please wait three
                                                          seconds for the next to begin.

A lot of rhyme on a dime to make the world turn twice

I try very hard to be kind while I’m out and about. For the most part it is easy (aside from driving Tourette’s) I don’t have a lot of interactions and, when I do, it’s generally a quick question or to pay for whatever item I have. My thoughts may not be pure but I won’t make anyone feel bad. It’s all please and thank you, how are you, be safe and no worries. Masking here has been along the lines of if you are vaccinated you can forget it. I suspect that there are a lot of liars when I shop, just based on the local, state and national numbers. With that in mind I mask, I distance and I sanitize during and after my trips. Knowing all this I think a woman tried to provoke me yesterday when I was in a local shop. She came up way too close, she’s unmasked and when I moved away, she made a point of coming close to look at the displays and bins near me. Finally, she asked an inane question about the item I was holding, that’s when I turned to her and made eye contact – when I noticed she had the sad crazed eyes of Marjorie Taylor Greene – I suddenly felt so bad for her; this is what she did with her day. I answered her question and then turned back around. Then I focused on the two clerks, both helping people without masks (even though they were masked and behind the plexiglass), they seemed defeated. I tried to radiate calm toward them, and peace and maybe just a little of the silly joy I had that morning as I was dancing around the kitchen to Grandmaster Flash (or flailing depending on what your definition of movement is). So, I started humming Freedom, thinking if I needed to start dancing (or flailing) it would be so alarming that anyone would keep their distance. I always tell Jerry that if I am in danger I will react like a turtle and start peeing on people. Though if someone was just trying to help me out of the road, I would not use that defense…the turtle I’m speaking of knows exactly who they are.

Be safe, be kind. Dance or flail, whichever feels best. Keep your distance, wear a mask. Vaccinate. Watch out for turtles.

A warning flash, in the breaking light

 

The Midwest is under another heat advisory. In our area it runs until Thursday evening. In the past 24 hours we’ve had quite a bit of rain and some thunderstorms. Typical August stuff. Another typical thing are the Goldfinches come to dine on flowers. Last year they were stuffing their beaks on Zinnias. I didn’t grow any this year so they are ravaging the sunflowers. 

The male finch has landed on the window a few times today and peeked in, cheeky beauty that he is. With the hummingbirds that buzz psychotically by the flowers, the abundance of bees in so many sizes and the butterflies and dragonflies that come about (not to mention the blue jays, grackles and cardinals, sparrows and robins) it’s a regular air traffic control nightmare.

I rarely see the cicadas flying but they have their deafening and extraordinary song. When we pass them on the street some mornings they buzz and wriggle sounding like wind-up toys that are done with playtime. Evenings there are still a few fireflies out. Then there is the no less wonderous but less airborne amongst the garden community, the groundhogs, the squirrels, the rabbits and the occasional cat. With the heat I try to leave out water during the day especially for those wrapped in fur and low to the ground.

In the past few days, I’ve been watching the COVID numbers climb (infections, deaths) the whole scenario I watched last year, except now those dying are younger and, for the most part, unvaccinated. But dying, still, and turning hospitals back into trauma centers – for those dying and those trying to keep them alive. It is alarming (again) and painful (again) and avoidable (again). It is (again) distressing as I have people I know and love, who have loved ones (and those I love) in hospital(s) for non-covid, lifesaving endeavors. But they remain vulnerable to the selfish. To the petty. To the hypocrites.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I was rereading notes from a year ago. Feeling bad now for everyone who has tried to hard to stay safe, to keep others safe, to be a lifesaver. Carrying on. Ordering some new masks tired of basic black, though maybe the ones I have now would be good arm bands.

Stay safe, stay kind, vaccinate. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Tell those you care about how much you care.

A poem fragment from last year:

Everything is burning

Small fires are burning all over this morning,

the begonia back from winter hiatus

is aflame in the dawn; the geranium, dreaming

of sun, reaches for day, its tight bud an angry fist;

a ruby-throated hummingbird, sits

on a branch perfectly in shadow

until with a slight turn he is a beacon,

a warning flash, in the breaking light.

 

Beside the front door, wrapped around a fire bush,

                              a rat snake, gleaming like a jewel

                                                I call my husband and we watch it move from the shade

                                into the total darkness of the low pine.