vintage, also weekword:simplicity

When I was a kid, I collected things, such as wheat back pennies.  Somewhere along the way, I got it into my mind, either my mother mentioned it or someone else, that if a thing was 45 years old, it was officially an antique. I became obsessed with examining coin years. This habit still lingers, on the rare occasion I handle coins in the age of the debit card.

I'm definitely more than retro.  These days that seems to be applicable if something is even 10 years past due.  There are a couple of cans in my pantry that may qualify.

I think it is safe to say I am vintage.

I don't quite qualify as an antique, even if I am a bit lopsided and rickety these days. At least my drawers don't stick.

Should I make a list?  I won't make a 45 item list. Should I write a poem for my birthday?  Some time ago I used to write a poem as many lines as years on my birthday.  That habit stayed in the past, when the poems were shorter.

I guess my one thought on turning forty-five is that I am glad, if a bit surprised by the number. I am glad because the more I hang around, the better I feel in my own skin. I am no longer trying to be something other than what I am.  I am no longer an idea of myself. Or a hope of something else to be. I have been the yearning poet.  I have been the bohemian. I have been the mom, and still am, I have been the student, teacher, lover, writer, cynic, optimist, enthusiast and quiet.

Yes quiet.  When I am around others, I am a talker.  I really am, I don't know why I feel the need to fill silence in so many situations.  Because in other circumstances, I really do love the quiet.  If I hang around a situation long enough, I start to quiet down and listen better. Honestly, these days, I don't tend to stick around long enough.  When no one else is around, I really enjoy the quiet, especially these days, because rarely am I ever alone.  But here's a neat thing I've found:

If my family is hiking or at the beach or some other adventure together, after the hustle and bustle settles down, after the things and stuff and directions are taken care of -

When we get together and just are - not eating dinner, doing homework, laundry, trying to get to school, work, the day, the usuals,

when we step outside of that and stop - or walk,

We get quiet.  And listen  -

the waves on the shore.

the laughing gulls.

the scuttle of a squirrel through the brush in the woods around a lake.

the fall of a branch. 

the crow surprised, taking wing.

the red flash of a cardinal.

the changing light of the sky.

the wind's direction.

and there,

in that quiet

I find love

and everything I ever needed.

And that's why I am happy to be turning forty-five today.

York River, Coleman Bridge, my dog and kids, 10.2.2010

Addendum: Weekword is a weekly creative challenge that bops around the internet. On Friday go to Silver Linings 4 Me to see a wide variety of people's responds around the world.  Enjoy!

weekword prompt: synesthesia

Joye at Joyefulart chose this week's prompt: synesthesia:‘the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.• the poetic description of a sense impression in terms of another sense, as in “a loud perfume” or “an icy voice.”

My initial thought was yay!  Perfect for a poem, which is my first love in writing, and the second was, holy crap what a week I have lined up, and then other things threw themselves into it, but still others dropped away.

Isn't it something how the Universe can so easily realign according to need?  Well, I still need it to line up a bit lighter. The cold I have been ignoring/battling since mid last week has hit me full force.  I am at the end of anything resembling inspiration.  Still, I want to take a stab at synesthesia, because it is what informs my sensibility as a writer.  Get it?  Sense-ibility.

a tortured luncheon screams from my schedule
as my throat chafes.
my sinuses blanket a mask in my face
too close for comfort, it strangles my eyeballs.
The wintery air crisps my fingers
and the grasses grow furry frost.


Eh, not so great, but better than nothing. Not sure I really got that sense of the opposing sense in my descriptions.  Okay, time for me to steam out my head in hot shower. But that's my result after being too busy and my health crashing because of it.

Please click on the link at Joyefulart at the top of this post to see many more wonderful participants' tasty arts.

this morning

I slipped from room to room,

opening curtains and windows

for a breath of fresh air.



In first son’s room,

he who loves the dark,

I drew back the yellow curtain.

Dark of early morning mid fall, I

looked down to the deep grass,

wet dark fence,

jasmine vines still green tangle,

one burst of red among the leaves,

a cardinal alarm to wake the day.



Later, I return from drop-offs,

I find myself still alarmed,

want movement and more air.

I find the bicycle tires flat,

Forego resuscitation, and grab the leash.



I ran, the dog ran, too.

She wondered what to make of it -

rare beyond rare -

through the traces of fire in the trees.

The sky greyed up

more so than that early hour,

and the black birds repudiated

the gifts the sky brought in fat wet drops

to wake relief in the dank morning.

pure jack poetry

Jack Powers, 1937-2010

image source: www.artseditor.com 1999

Jack Powers is a Boston Institution. He was the founder of the long running poetry venue, Stone Soup Poets. Unfortunately, at this time, I can’t find an obituary to link to his name, because I am not going to write one here for him. When I find one, I will attach it. He passed away yesterday.

I am just going to share with you the ways that Jack personally influenced me. I would be lying if I said anything of this man that did not reflect how he influenced literally every aspect of my life. I absolutely would not be who I am today, personally, professionally as a writer and as an educator if I had not met him.


September 1989, not even completely fresh out of college, as I was still working on my thesis, I arrived in Boston, a 23 year old intent on making it as a poet and fiction writer. I spent a lot of my Western, MA college years in Boston but had not sought out the arts community until I arrived and unpacked everything I owned into a small apartment on the frat block of Beacon Street near Kenmore Square. In my first week there, I bought a Boston Globe and a Phoenix, and scoured the Events section for poetry venues. One called Stone Soup Poets called to me from the newsprint pages of both. The following Monday evening, I ventured across the river into Central Square and down a side street. Other than walking into a temp agency, this was really the first time I navigated my way around Boston and Cambridge and the T completely on my own. It felt epic. I felt as though I were the young hero of a novel about to be written, and it was my life. Little did I know that walking into Charlie’s Tap, an unassuming backstreet pub, and up its back stairs into the closed restaurant night would make me.


I was shy then, nervous, sitting at a corner table out of the way by the bathrooms, wondering if I was at the right place, because I was the first to arrive. Slowly the room filled with an odd assortment of people, young, old, gruff, quiet, smelly, clean and passionate. It seemed every facet of the character of this metropolis walked up the stairs into that small, smoky, covered in paintings of jazz musicians space. I wrote them down in my little notebook as I kept to myself. Eventually, a towering, salt and pepper haired man blew up the stairs and took command of the room and set up the microphone. I watched as everyone approached him, wrote their name in his book for the open mic, and chatted him up. He graciously, if somewhat distractedly paid attention to each of them with his frenetic, barely containable energy. He was obviously the man in charge. But also, his spirit was huge and filled the room. Jack Powers.


Months later, after attending the venue weekly, I finally worked up the nerve to walk into his orbit and sign up to read one short poem. I was in a sweat. My leg shook like an earthquake long before he called my name from the sheet. He still didn’t have any idea who I was as far as I knew. I barely made it through that poem without breaking the mic stand because of my right leg’s violent shaking.


The next week, when he read the list of upcoming dates and features, I heard my name cross his lips for the second time. I had no idea, except that a little bird name Gary Hicks had kind of taken me under his wing and wanted me to spread mine, so he convinced Jack to give this little nervous unknown a featured reading. The rest is a smidge of poetic history around Boston in the first half of the 90s before I started having kids. Because of Jack, I eventually became comfortable and confident reading my poetry in front of an audience of fellow poets. Because of Jack, I got a reading at the Cambridge Public Library. Because of Jack, I began to have a bit of public recognition. People on the street, in stores, on the T walked up, said “Excuse me, aren’t you that poet I saw read at [such and such venue]? I love your work!”


Because of Jack Powers and Stone Soup Poets I met my closest circle of friends for many years in Boston. I met still one of my dearest friends, Joe, who prefers a bit of anonymity. I met my now ex-husband, and father of Mr. Cynic and Captain Comic. We had a long, albeit half-life relationship. I met and was mentored by the poets Wally Butts, Peter Kidd and Bill Kemmett. Poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ray McNiece, Billy Barnum and Brother Blue, just to give a range; songwriters Jan Luby, Jim Infantino, Don White, again, a range all influenced me greatly, including storyteller Raelinda Woad. Jenny Harrison from Australia amazed me more than most, she wrote of my life before I lived it as a mother, and I felt that when I heard her read.


At some point I found myself as part of an inner circle around Stone Soup that met periodically at Jack’s little apartment on Joy Street in Beacon Hill. Lots of laughter and deep conversations occurred there, running the gamut from politics and good works, to beauty, life, the nature of poetry, and always the rich well of stories from Jack and all his years around Boston. From that, I babysat his two boys a number of times.


I tired of temping early on in 1990, and amazingly, and I’m not exactly certain how this came about, but Jack Powers wrote me a letter of recommendation to begin working for the Boston Department of Education as a substitute. He gave a way in to the world of education, I always felt drawn to, yet simultaneously was unsure I could do. I remember distinctly all these years later, what a glowing recommendation it was, even though I felt we didn’t know each other well. He was much more confident in me than I was in myself. “She thinks well on her feet and has a good eye for the Big Picture.” I still remember that line from the letter and it is what gives me my confidence as I walk into every new situation. Professionally, I basically have done something in education ever since, if you just ignore my 3.5 years as a law firm receptionist.


I have felt blessed in my life to feel that I have two professional raison d’etres: writing and education. In writing, I never would have found my voice without the influence of Jack Powers and the faith he had in me. I never would have built the confidence I have in my writing if I had not stood by his holding me up in front of an audience for the first time, completely on faith and the continued support he gave me after. I never would have found my second raison d’etre, my career in education, such as it has been over the past 20ish years, if he had not suggested it and written that letter of recommendation.


And more importantly than both of those, I would not have my boys, my heart, if Jack had not created Stone Soup out of thin air, had not that place existed in that upstairs smoky back room above a bar where I first met the father of my boys.


I am terribly remiss in that I did not maintain contact with him as I moved on in my life after having the boys and moving into other directions and places. But when I heard of his passing this morning via a message from the boys’ father, I immediately broke into tears as the memories of all he did for me, as well as his laughter and energy came flooding into me. I honestly would not be who I am today in all aspects of my life, if not for Jack.


Jack Powers left many legacies, not just for me, in his wake when he left this earthly world yesterday. The reason for this is the passionate heart of a man who continually put the success of others before himself, providing at the very least, a place for new voices in Poetry and the Arts of Boston to bloom and be heard.


May he truly rest in Peace. His work here is done. But I bet he doesn’t think so.

image source: stonesouppoetry.blogspot.com

Obituary Update: Boston Globe

Happy September

"The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."

- John Updike, September

fun prompt: weekword

I'm a new convert to the weekly prompt project that Aimee at artsyville seems to have generated.

Every Monday, she posts winners and who is hosting the prompt among the participants from the previous week.  The blogger posts a word to inspire for the week, then other creative bloggers post on their blogs their own endeavors from the prompt on the following Friday.

At least that's my understanding of how it works.  I hope I'm right. This is my real first go at it.  Last week, Aimee had posted her prompt 'flavor' when I had just posted the perfect shot of Toots eating watermelon on the 4th which happened to fit the prompt well. 

Peggy Fussell is this week's host and her Weekword is Number.  Here's my response, a haiku and photo pairing:

home isn't only

a number to calculate

location, but heart

dream state

Toots did not want to go down for a nap yesterday.  So I lay down with her to help.  I was tired anyway after the weekend of furniture schlepping.  As her flip flopping subsided, words and images I really liked began to fill my head.  I thought, as soon as she settles, I have to get up and write this down. 

Next thing I knew, I caught myself snoring, poem gone.  I never nap.

About an hour later, I began to recall the initial images of the opening line and end lines, but not all the others in between with as much clarity.  Then I thought, did I really need them?

So here's what I captured from the ether of dream land's edge forest:

Another love poem


He said I love you like a cold beer and pocket knives.
She answered I love you like chocolate ice cream.
He said Honey, I love you like blueberry pancakes.


She said I love you like ice tea, potato chips,
and the sweet tang of bread and butter pickles
on a hot summer day.
He said But those are all side dishes, there’s no sandwich.
She answered Honey, you are the sandwich.

Summer Green

Everything is so green,
so very very green.
It’s easy to take
all that green
for granted
because it’s everywhere.

In all that big green,
one pink or purple
or yellow flower
or one blue and white
butterfly
suddenly makes you say
to yourself,
“OH!”

But it’s not really the butterfly
or the little flower.
It’s that there it is,
against all that green,

And not so long ago,
the green wasn’t even there.
It was drab,
maybe little hints of green
here and there
to make you happy and say,
“Oh! Spring is coming!”

But now everything is
so very very green
and just a little while before,
mere hints of green to tease you,
and just before that,
no green at all.

Just drab and blah,
and if you thought at all,
you thought of ghosts
among the bare branches,
or walking through the dull
dull ghost grass,
maybe you felt like a ghost yourself,
nothing at all worth a hill of beans.

But now everything is
so very very green.
Beautiful lush, thick and green,
so you just have to sit back and enjoy it.
“OH!”

And if you don’t,
pretty soon it won’t even be green,
and you will miss it,
again.

wishing ocean

I am wishing ocean
the weather is there
and then it is not
the summer glimpsed
then the wind picks up

the ocean the ocean
the summer breeze
the ocean the ocean
calls to me
the rain threatens
the temperature drops

please summer come
and all this teasing stop

the ocean calls
and I must swim
the ocean calls
and leads me in

the swirling waters break
around my ankles
and come together again
rise to my knees, my waist,
I dip my hands in

take a deep breath
and plunge wholly in,
holy in the water
fresh salt on my lips
the scent of the tide
as I break surface for air

the ocean ebbs
the ocean flows
and with it
all of my woes.

she takes me in,
and out I rise again.

If only this were mine!

Jacqui Robbins's proscratination tactics are so much more productive and creative than mine. 


At least she got a poem out of it.  And what a wonderful one for me to hear.  Yes, I need to put all else aside to write.  I need to tell the world I am working. Mostly, I need to tell that to myself.

Any writers out there need to hear it, too?  Please click on the linkipoo around her name.  It's worth the extra one and a half minute distraction.

Trust me.

Poem

Love Poem Now We Are Older

Some nights, the dim light
of a single lamp
is so keen upon your face
as you, weary,
begin to doze, drowsy
of the long day,
that though I am alone
in the awareness, my heart breaks
only for you.

I love you again so much,
selfishly, selflessly
I let you sleep a moment longer.
Sitting up
there in your chair,
your head bobs in repose.

a poem

Open

On the very edge of darkness
I looked Death square in the eye, and smile.
He points two fingers at his eyes
and then at mine,
to say like a bad comedy gangster,
I’m watching you.
Then with those same two fingers,
he thumps my sternum,
tips me off the edge of the precipice.
I fall into the nothing, into the void,
and back home to my body.

I am home, I have been there
with Death a few times,
and somehow at that crucial moment,
something in me awakes,
shines the light back out
and says, I’m not done yet.

I fall like a meteor,
come back home
To earth
To my body
growing more achy
with the years
but still whole.

The vision doesn’t end
when I open my eyes.
I now know what to do.
I find the knot that stitches
my ribcage together, pull it,
and it comes apart -
an easy bow at the wrist of a boxing glove
the arch point of a sneaker
the back of a laced up wedding gown.
My chest opens like a robe,
and from in me
all the darkness of night
all the stars held in it
come pouring out.

I remain open,
a conduit to the infinite we.

Inspiration deferred

Last night I was popping with Ideas. They were magical, they were inspirational, they were....last night and I didn't write them down.

During the night a stuffy Baby C had to cuddle. Through the night she began to resemble a hot water bottle..which slowly heated itself more and more until she was a wiggly fussy constantly nursing very hot water bottle.

Needless to say, I have not slept. I feel like a wad of cotton has replaced my brain. C's pediatric appointment is scheduled for later this afternoon and with the exhaustion I slipped my disc first thing this morning.

This is what happens when I complain that it is too quiet now that the boys are with their father for the rest of the school break until we get on the road for the long haul to retrieve them halfway up the East Coast from here next Saturday.


C'est la vie. Maybe she'll nap off of me long before her appointment. Though I won't count on it. At least the sense of writing remains. Maybe tomorrow, a poem, something to do with opening my ribcage to find the starry skies within pouring out.

In need of some poetry, I found

Mary Oliver

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches?

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives --
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?
Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?

Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!

Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left --
fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!

To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened

in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe

I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daisies,
and I would bow down
to think about it.

That was then, which hasn't ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

poem for today

I went looking for inspiration
and read so many poems,
each becoming a bit better than
the other before it,
that I thought I would die happy,
before I could ever finish
finding the moment.
then I realized I had
with each
while the rain kept
tapping on the window
gently.

Poem for an Autumn Day

I should not be wandering the house aimlessly
When there is so much to do
And the toddler is napping.
But I don’t know where to start.
I’m too tired from cuddling
the little fusspot with the stuffy nose.
The fourteen year old is sick, too.
But I made him go to school today
Because yesterday, he lay listlessly,
chanted a mantra of
I’m booooored. Soooo bored.
Til I couldn’t take it anymore.
Then the middle child,
The one who presents
Very differently when he’s sick
Came home and announced
What a good day he had.
My immediate thought –
He must be coming down with it, too.

I wander aimlessly, wanting to write,
Looking at the spots on the kitchen floor,
The dog and cat hair collecting along the baseboards
And turn around to the room I won’t see them in,
Nor the dishes.

I look at the computer
And distinctly feel I cannot write.
I have no brain.
What is this stiff ache along the back of my neck
Moving up into my ears?

I can’t get sick.
They all need me.
The laundry needs me.
The baseboards need me.
The baby, the preteen, the teen
All need me.

I can’t get sick.
The writing needs me.
But I wander aimlessly,
My face feeling flush.
Maybe I’ll go walk the dog.

Or maybe I’ll just sit back down.
Through the window,
The sky is grey.
The leaves flutter in the wind.
The world is awash in lesser hues,
As the strong rains
Approach from the west
Just out of reach.

Friday Riddle? Nope, I'm fickle as a poet

Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I new 'twas Wind --
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand --
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled in the Road --
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the Floods abroad --
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sites of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.
~Emily Dickensen



I woke up today feeling very poemy. Admittedly I was leaning that way at the bottom of yesterday's post. September has a habit of doing this to me - so many transitions, so many promises of something new: the start of school for the kids; the idea that I will work on the next phase of the manuscript; find work outside of home; the natural wonder of the transitory nature of the season. Recently the rain has been coming down, so I'm not getting outside to see much nature, feeling like I'm missing it, missing the recent changes. It's the rain, the lovely melancholy rain.

Poets are such sensitive folks. So many poems about the rain, the moon, the clouds, the dark, the sense of longing brought on by the drop of leaves at this time of year. We are moved by brilliant color and anticipate the lack of it to come as winter rolls in to put this half of the world to sleep under a blanket of cold. Diciduous trees snuggle down into themselves and we add layers, turn inward, physically and mentally. And the rain comes down.

So many songs of rain:
The Beatles:
Rain, rain, ra -a a-a-ain, I don't mind
Shine, shine, shi -i -i-ine, the weather's fine.


Led Zeppelin:
These are the seasons of emotion
And like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion-
I see the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient-
Upon us all a little rain
Must fall.
Just a little rain?


The Eurythmics:
Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion


Traditional:
Rain rain go away
Come again another day


Prince's Purple Rain

Guns & Roses: November Rain

Garbage: I'm Only Happy When It Rains

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Who'll Stop The Rain

Bruce Hornsby & The Range: Mandolin Rain

Collective Soul: She Gathers Rain

Sting/Police: Shadows in the Rain

James Taylor: Fire & Rain

Blind Melon: No Rain

The Carpenters: Rainy Days & Mondays

And just for kicks and because this is what I'm doing:
Milli Vanilli's Blame It On The Rain.


Yes, I'll blame it on the rain. This poemy feeling, this sense of the fleeting nature of time, of the seasons, of life itself and the poor poor lonely old sun I haven't seen in days.

So just maybe, I'll get back to writing again very shortly, as it seems to be oozing out of me with the rain. Pitter patter.

Morning Rain
A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light.
I hear it among treetop leaves before mist
Arrives. Soon it sprinkles the soil and,
Windblown, follows clouds away. Deepened
Colors grace thatch homes for a moment.
Flocks and herds of things wild glisten
Faintly. Then the scent of musk opens across
Half a mountain -- and lingers on past noon.
~Tu Fu

Happy September

I love September, especially the September of my first forty years, which were spent in New England. Something about September's first hint of the change to autumn still gets me excited, though I now have to call it up from memory as the change is less in the air than in me and the start of school for my kids; the feeling of things coming to a close, while also beginning anew. I see no first yellowing of the skinny aspen down here in south coastal Virginia. There is no cripsing of the air. But I still get excited and slightly trepidacious about buying school supplies, even if I can't decide which color notebook is perfect for which class. That part is up to the kids these days.
After the ease of long hot August, my first burgeoning of new ideas come bursting forth in September. I have more poems titled September and October than any other title or poem topic in a lifetime of writing poems. There's such a mix of nostalgia for things lost and anticipitation for the new in September.
One of my favorite on September pieces I first heard when I was very young is Try to Remember from the Fanstastiks, the longest running off-Broadway show in the history of New York theatre.
I remember being a part of it in my freshman year in high school as well as going to see a production of it in NY. That was one of my favorite theatre experiences of my life. The dark, musty threadbare velvet seats, the tiny room, the actors practically performing in our laps.
Here's Jerry Orbach singing it from a 1962 production. Yes, for those who only know him as the curmudgeon recovering alkie cop on Law and Order or as a Disney singing candlestick from Beauty and the Beast, Jerry Orbach enjoyed a long stardust and pancake makeup covered career in New York theatre. For those of you who may find this a bit on the schmaltzie side, stick it out, please. Tom Jones wrote some great lines you really shouldn't miss.
After all, it's September, and what would September be without a little feeling of nostalgia and anticipation.

Moments

As a poet, the underlying theme of my life is to be present in it - to measure the moments by living within them rather than racing past in a constant pursuit of, well, to live in a different moment. That seems to be a pitfall of most of Western society at this point, don't you think? Isn't that the message of every Oprah show, self-help book, morning news segment, etc?

So, enjoy the moments below and hold your own within you as you live them.

As my son S said the other day, "Errrrg! I just get so frustrated when the future keeps becoming the present and then the past so fast!"

Ethereal

On the website, creativeconstruction.wordpress.com there is a weekly creativity challenge. this week's prompt word was ethereal.

Somehow, all I could think of was faeries and diaphanous material or mists. I wasn't feeling it at all. Friday, late morning, this came out instead, suddenly, like an earthquake. A very earthy real poem for me anyway. I did minimal edits, as it felt too close, I had to let it go as is. Here it is:

Finally quieting for nap
my daughter nurses,
tossing her feet to my face
as when she was littler, toes to nose
in laughing games of ‘stinky toes!’
dreamily seeking the same.

Now fifteen months,
she has spent the morning
running across the backyard
barefoot, chasing the dog,
picking unripe tomatoes,
watching for my reaction,
dodging, one in hand,
out of my reach,
squealing in thievery delight.

Her feet to my face, I inhale deeply,
as she is latched on, rhythmically
sucking, most peaceful sound on earth,
lids sleepily closing.
I inhale deeply in the spaces
where her toes meet the sole of her foot
the in between, the nothing,
the soft padding
pressing into my lips, my nose,
roughening skin from
barefoot wandering
where once all was softness
pressing into my face
the ethereal scent
sunwarm grass,
freedom, independence,
and a girl, a baby no more.