Strange Dirge

"You pluck strange dirges from the storm

sift rare stones from the ashes of the moon"

You've always been this way.

It's what drew me to you in May

of '71. Me with storms in my life

that needed music and moon-struck strife

that begged a mining of sorts, a sifting through

remains searching for stones you blew

to life like a shaman, prelude to all that came after.

We mined together then and sang out loud until we crafted

our sweet song. That time the strange dirge was sung
over our first daughter you stayed in such a way that along

with storm's barrage and from the ashes, we rose, not triumphant,
but still standing, longing that phoenix might bring bereft

to some other incarnation, any other incarnation than only gone,
us left alone, two not three, with nothing more to be done.



Posted for Grace at Real Toads who introduced us to the poetry of Wole Soyinka, the first Nobel Laureate in Literature from Africa and asked us to use his work as inspiration. The first two lines of this poem are his from the poem: Fado Singer for Amelia Roderinguez. The photo was taken by my Honey at the National Orchid Garden in Singapore.

This Morning

                                                                                 image by Brooke Shaden

I watched you

pulled from sleep

into the shadowland

between wake and sleep

you murmered

something indistinct

eyes still closed

against the dawn

half remembered dreams

played on your face

before today's task

list takeover

you stretched your limbs

back arched just so

when you opened your eyes

I'm the one you saw

gathering you in.


Inspired by the photography of Brooke Shaden as presented by Grace (aka Heaven) over at dVerse Poets Pub. Brooke talked about finding what you're passionate about and, after 41 years with my Honey, it was an easy answer for me.

Employ the Wind (in April for John)

When I sing of you I will employ the wind

and be schooled by wind in how the world sounds

then shout stout-stemmed your praises.
The silent roar of the vast

stretch of indigo sky gathers March gales,
zigzags twisted leaves here and there
to trumpet your eager energy harnessing
turbine gusts for family and friends,

shunning idleness headlong into spring
when winds shake the meadows awake,
air scented with bergamot from tawny trees.
You, too, stir your aromatic medicine

sweet scented. I breathe you in and sketch
myself larger than before. We cluster together,
whisper winds gentle above our heads, thorns
blunted, sadness a shallow thing as elder roots grow down.

Summer steals the sun and tells the story
of the grasses, strong waves of wind rush,
thrust and pummel stalks that sway in response,
force dampened not cursed, is this not your way?

And in the fall when flowers will not
wait for snow's howl, wind swoops and
swivels, wakes death to claim its rightful
place, blows change lashed to life, unafraid.

You wander and wend, my love, sail near
the four winds, use breath for resonant sounding.

One Wednesday, a long time ago, the guest contributor over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads was De Jackson of Whimsy Gizmo who had us choose from a list of intriguing words and phrases in a botanical book to construct our poem. It took me until now to finish it. April is my Honey's birthday month. Posted for Real Toads Open Link Monday.

OGM Day

How to decorate for this feast day
celebrating Ordinary Good Men?
Ask John, he's one. Not that he looked
for a holiday. That's the point isn't it?

He just goes and acts as an ordinary good man-
stays loyal to friends, stays in love with his family, works hard
at work he loves, does all he needs to be good at his work,
fixes broken things around the house, likes to cook, buys cool presents

for his main squeeze when he travels, tells her she's beautiful, tells her she's sexy.
Keeps his interests wider than sports, TV and drinking, lots wider.
Reads, initiates interesting conversations, listens closely, the kind of close that lets
his partner get clearer about what she's thinking. That alone

is worth a full fledged holiday with banners and parades and a day off to celebrate.
But there's more- he likes a good time, likes to play and laugh,
has dreams for the future. And when I think I've reached the end
of all that makes up an ordinary good man he surprises me

and tells me that he likes how my eyes look in my new glasses, how
my whole face looks open and pretty. Then brings me out to the balcony
and gives me the full moon with two planets close by, so bright and lovely.
Bring out the balloons, and streamers and posters

for all to cheer these treasures in our midst who do what they do
with no holiday until now. Sing songs, raise a toast, shout it out-
Here's to Ordinary Good Men! Hip, hip, hooray!


For Izy's Out of Standard over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads who asked us to invent a new holiday. As for my personal hero for whom the holiday is invented- that's easy, my Honey of 40 years, John. He's leading the parade!

What I'm Most Grateful for Today at Age 67

I only want to kiss you I lamented when I lost my libido.
You said fine. I love that you only kissed me
for a long time until I asked for more. You obliged
and we discovered a whole new way to ignite
passion that found its fulfillment. Today,
I love you most for that.

55 for the G-Man - giving thanks for things that really matter.

The Choice That Has Made All The Difference

In younger days before the strife
I sought a tall and mighty oak.
But when I had my share of life,
I closely listened to how he spoke,

To how he treated young and old.
And chastened thus by asking why,
I learned my lesson without it told,
And chose, instead, the clear blue sky.

In the labyrinth ways that only poetry can travel, this was inspired by Shay in her Word Garden by her poem: " In The Place Where I First Heard Your Name". It's a beauty, as is much of Shay's poetry, so check it out. It's offered for Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads Open Link Monday and is about waking up enough to choose my Honey. It's dedicated to him, also, because he lost his sister to breast cancer six years ago yesterday after caring for her tenderly and is missing her. He's a dear man. I took the photo on my way up to our town.

To Joan Didion

I keep my distance from you
secure in the belief that distance
means my husband could not
be taken. Like yours. Not now,

too soon. Distance so there might be
advanced notice of loss. Must be.
For life can not include such a loss.
That you made tangible. Raw grief

kept your husband's shoes closeted for his
return. In case. Not to be caught
without what he needed. Though
you were. Buffeted by depth charges,

stunned by waves of grief. Best keep
distant lest bomb's edges spread
outward and encompass bystanders
unaware. I am aware, however,

admire your words: exact, specific,
true in such a way that I turned away,
stepped back. Until my love lay ill, serious words
whispered. Then I was like you- lost, unflinching.



This is in response to a prompt from Claudia over at dVerse Poets Pub writing about Poetics and urging us to have a conversation with a literary figure. I've been in Ireland for a week where my Honey was hospitalized for and very sick with pneumonia. We're home now and he's healing well. My imagined conversation is with Joan Didion who wrote the extraordinary and heartbreaking The Year of Magical Thinking about the death of her husband and their remarkable marriage.

Employ the Wind - A Cinquain

When I
sing of you, I
will employ the wind, schooled
by wind to howl your praises, breathe
you in.

This is in response to Tony Maude over at dVerse Poets Pub who prompted us to write an American Cinquain of 2 syllables, followed by 4-6-8 then 2 again while staying mindful of ending words on each line. The phrase "employ the wind" came from a prompt by De Jackson at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads on Wednesday who gave us a list of words and phrases from a botanical book. I liked this one. The photo is mine taken at a friend's house.

Woven with Desire

We were woven
with desire, you and I,
enticed by promises
to explore friendship 'til
flickers fanned to flames,
hearts unpacked of baggage
brought to this union, clamps
undone, bulldozed of notions
not exact to our particulars,
which missed us, served up
another story. Ours-
a simple giving to each
other, prayers projected
but exceeded.

This is woven from word lists of the inimitable Shay over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads and offered for the G-Man for Friday Flash 55.

First Day of the New Year

I've traveled to Tobago, the sister Island to Trinidad, to spend ten days with my Honey and the grands to give my daughter and her husband a rare break from parenting. We're staying in a lovely house with a pool and next to a beach.

It's 4:00 in the afternoon, the day is sunny and fine with a breeze off the sea. Our house sits on a promontory of land that juts into the Caribbean and feels like the end of the world since no other houses are within sight. My Honey is swimming in the pool overlooking the beach with the grands and their friend. I sit in the blue Adirondack chair with my feet on the brick colored tiles still warm from the sun that is just leaving this section of deck. Sounds of Marco.....Polo, Marco.....Polo fill the air, broken by squeals as one or another is caught or becomes the fish out of water and is caught. My Honey is laughing: "You went right under me and I didn't even know it!" The child culprit is thrilled. The wind feels soft against my skin.

Last night we had a little ceremony with the kids to mark the New Year. They lit some fireworks that flew up and made a loud crack at the top of their flight. We had sparkling peach drink to welcome 2013 and talked of what we want to do in the coming year. My six year old granddaughter immediately said: "I want to make a potholder with my new loom." I smiled at the concrete nature of her goal. My ten year old grandson wants to make a bomb. His friend was impressed and murmured assent to this worthy goal adding it should be purple. I only raised a daughter so this is new territory for me but will pursue it later to understand more.

My granddaughter comes to me to beg me to come swimming and since she's the only girl in this group I comply although the wind is picking up enough to keep the swim short. One of the boys is on the autistic spectrum and circles the pool with a smile but not venturing in. Soon he starts to dig in the dirt around a palm tree and seems content. The others call to him but accept his need to be on his own while in their orbit. Sharks and minnows is the next game called, rules explained and new strategies devised with new squeals engendered. Is there any sound more delightful or sight more instructive than children throwing themselves into a game wholeheartedly?

The sun is down now, setting early at 6:00 on this island close to the equator. Even as the days lengthen, sunset is only one half hour later in this land of 12 hour days and nights. The children find quieter games to play and I come back to my writing to post my first blog entry for the new year. Even as my heart feels full I acknowledge the niggling need around the edges of the present to set my own goals based on my heart's reassessment of where I am and where I wish to go. The stirrings are there, the time is right, the year is new.

Blessings of growth, discovery and love be yours in this New Year.

This is How I Will Remember You

This is how I will remember you,
how I will recall you when I must someday,
astride the chair, ruddy cheeked. It's just this moment,
not another, that will echo you forever. You
know my spine stiffens when angry, fends you off,
so you reached out and touched my cheek. Just that. Knowing
gleaned from years together, decanted from our every day, suffused
in your bones with tenderness. That encrypted gesture,
vaulted past refusal, brought me you, not chined as
I expected, but tiptoed touch forged with covenant to
nudge memory of all we have and who we are. I
grieve my lack of heed, seek to encode that touch forever.

22 November 2012


This is in response to Sam's prompt for a Thanksgiving acrostic over at dVerse Poets Pub. He posted his wonderful memory/poem there as well. Because my Honey is in London, I miss him and realize the great gratitude I hold for the gift of him in my life. Happy Thanksgiving.

Why I Love my Honey

Because not only did he do the food shopping, but when he returned home, he presented the last of the season's, super ripe figs in a lovely white bowl with a large, green leaf underneath them.

Love that man!

Shooting Stars and Other Love Stories

Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon,
a bright, three point line strung between
Perseids meteor shower winging stars across the sky
to mark our anniversary. We count them as if counting
our years or all that shot into being through us.

Is that how stars fling themselves to the
far ends of the universe, scatter star dust on every
surface to be taken up and formed into all that is?
Is this why we love to stretch out under the sky as
streaks mark their way across our vision and feel
our oneness with the universe?

Or is it the yearly reminder of mystery and
miracle that thrills us because we know it's about us, too.
We scooped up star stuff and made our life, made
our daughters, aligned ourselves with universal
coordinates, took our place in the scheme of things together,
streaked love across our lives, hurtled it here and there
at random and on purpose for thirty nine years, scorched by its scions.




Our anniversary is August 11 and is often marked by visible meteor showers. This year, the richest of them, Perseid Meteor Shower , was active and showed its ancient self in the pre-dawn sky. My Honey and I went out at 4AM and saw 10-12 shooting stars. What a great anniversary gift. Venus, Jupiter and the moon lined up particularly bright as well (my attempt at capturing this is the photo above).
Happy 39th, Honey! My God, aren't we brave?

 "…The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo; adventures as I used to call them. I used to think they were things the …folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull…But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or stay in the mind. Folks seem to have just landed in them, usually–their paths were laid that way…But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten.." ~from The Two Towers, © J.R.R. Tolkien.

This is posted for dVerse Poets Open Link Night hosted by Claudia who encourages us to share the "stuff you discover as you go". What more treasured discovery than love and shooting stars?

Sonnet 18

From a British Poet during National Poetry month:

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is perhaps the most famous of his 154 sonnets.  Reference to the first line pervades our literature and language. Some see this sonnet as a tribute to the power of art or as the appreciation of the transient nature of life and beauty. But the sonnet is also a beautiful tribute to love.

So I dedicate this sonnet to my love, John, to celebrate his birthday and his exquisite love for me, our daughter and our grandchildren. "As long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." Those who know John know how true this is, his love for family and friends defines him, gives him life.

Give yourself a treat, read this with fresh eyes as if you had never heard it before. Let it delight you.


Sonnet 18


Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest:
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare
(1564 - 1616)

This is quintessential John: piled high with stuffed animals and dolls by our granddaughter for their photo together and he just said "sure".

p.s. Buona Pasqua (Happy Easter)!

The Gate To Love

I wasn't able to post on Valentine's Day (or since, but that's another story!) so I saved these photos taken in a friend's garden in Trinidad which reminded me of love.

 Love is a gate, isn't it? The gate to a whole other world - the world of our beloved. 

It's our opportunity to see things from a different perspective, from another inside- out as we can only do with a loved one. Who else would share so deeply? So personally? 

And we receive the gift of an expanded world, a change of mind, a jump shift in view, a way out of ourselves and into the stream of life, of love. 

We lovers are fortunate. If I can just say to myself: "What can I learn?" 

rather than "How can I defend?", then it's all just learning, and growing into a bigger self. 

Then joy awaits through this gate opened by love.

Thank you, John, for being my gate to a bigger world than mine alone. 

Thank you for loving me for all these 37 years with your sweet, constant love

and for discovering with me the wonders behind the gate.

It's been worth the risk, beyond my wildest dreams.

Their Map

This is in respose to Theme Thursday's prompt, "map":

She watched him as he slept.

She never tired of his face,

remarkable in its change over their 37 years together,

the warm familiarity of it despite the lines etched there.

She thought of them as the map of their journey.

There are the lines from his easy smile that lights up his face and her heart.

There are the lines from his worry about their daughter when she was sick
near death and so very tiny.
 There are the lines from his grief when they lost the baby
and he feared for her life as well.

There are the lines from his fierce love,
arrow straight and true, uneeringly true, a thing to be relied on she knew.

His face, their map, chronicles their story, reminds her how far they've come,

it guides those who take time to read it. 

Water From Your Spring

Water From Your Spring

What was in that candle's light

that opened and consumed me so quickly?

Come back, my friend. The form of our love

is not a created form.

Nothing can help me but that beauty.

There was a dawn I remember

when my soul heard something from your soul.

I drank water from your spring

and felt the current take me.

Rumi

Travels

I leave tomorrow on my travels and I'm feeling kind of nostalgic, or I'm not sure exactly what. Like serious, pensive, thoughtful. I'm leaving for 3 months and it's the longest my Honey and I have ever been apart. Still, it's  all good. 6 weeks at Crossroads in Antigua where I worked for 2 1/2 years (before moving to Italy) to help out while one of their administrators is on leave. I love it there, the work and the staff and reconnecting with old friends.

Then, for 2 months around Christmas, to Trinidad where my daughter, her husband and two children live. My Honey joins me there to give us a month together. Hooray! A nice long stretch of family time is balm to my spirit, for sure. Interacting with my grandchildren in their environment gives me a whole new appreciation for them. It cements our relationship as well since I get to know them in their own home and appreciate how it shapes them.

Then the final stretch in FL for a half marathon. Unique this time is that my daughter is running in the same half-marathon as me. This is a first for us and we'll be joined by a couple of my nieces for yet another first. Last year I ran the full marathon by myself. It's the National Breast Cancer Marathon in Jacksonville, Florida on February 13 and the last 10 days of my journey. Other nieces, their children and my sister-in-law will be there to cheer us on so it will be great family fun.

So, I'm excited about each phase of my journey and looking forward to each for different reasons. The work, because I love and believe in it and know that treatment changes lives. Family time because this is where my heart is happiest and my roots are deepest and the sprouts are growing and I get to tend/love them to fuller life. And the running because I can when others can't, and I feel good doing it and it makes my body healthier so I can live longer and it shows another choice for how to age to my daughter and granddaughter and nieces.

But still, there's this other indefinable feeling going on. I guess sometimes we're mysteries even to ourselves until clarity happens. Maybe it's the thought, not yet reality, of missing John. I don't know. I'll keep in touch.

Rumi Reminds Me

Maybe because he's been gone this week and last with only 2 days together in between. Or maybe because I've heard friends saying more than the usual 
number of negative things about their husbands as I'm missing mine. Or maybe because I had an affection spasm when talking with him on Skype last 
night as he was so sweetly supportive about my computer data retrieval problems. Whatever the reason, this part of a Rumi poem made me think of John.

You are the fountain of the sun's light.

I am a willow shadow on the ground.

You make my raggedness silky.

Rumi

Sweet Interludes

It's nine days without a computer now and I'm torn; my husband is home for a brief two day interlude between his programs. Yesterday he arrived from a week in Paris and tomorrow he heads for a week in Dublin. Should I use this time to compose a post for my blog or should I grab this precious
in-between

time to savor the moments with him? 

Silly question...

Because he's my....

And he brings me...