SUNDAY RERUN: THE SQUIRREL

Time again for Sunday Favorites, hosted by Chari, over at Happy To Design! To join in the party, click on the link in my left sidebar, which will take you to the easy-peasy instructions, or just click the link in the first sentence, which will take you to the latest installment. I've chosen another poem, this time from a blog post back in 2002:

My family & me, when I was 10 or 12.
Yes. That's a skunk, our darling Taboo.

THE SQUIRREL
The winter I was twelve
A squirrel,
I think it was a squirrel,
Got into the engine compartment
Of my grandfather's car.
It must have felt like Heaven,
An oily, black, warm
Nirvana.
Bliss was short-lived.
My grandfather, all unawares,
My gentle grandpa,
Drove the car
Into town
And back.

It was the smell that informed us, finally,
Of tragedy.
The smell.
Four decades later I wonder:
Where was that tiny corpse
That grandpa could not extricate it?
We suffered for weeks,
Tearing full-tilt through snowscapes,
Windows down
Coats buttoned
Eyes streaming.

I do not care for dogs.
That winter I would happily have been one,
Head out the window,
Face forward,
Tongue flagging
Icy crisp
Clean
Fresh
Air.

SUNDAY RERUN: BROKEN (a poem)

It's time for another Sunday Favorite! Click on the button in my left sidebar to see how you can join the fun--it will take you to Chari's blog and the instructions.

This is from the summer of 2002:


Broken

You used cleaning the kitchen
to show me how angry you were,
chattering the silverware,
clattering the plates,
and toppling the cups
into their positions on the upright prongs
of the dishwasher.

You used the dishes to show me.
It worked.
You broke my favorite glass
and
we both wept.

SUNDAY RERUN: But...

It's time for another Sunday Favorite! If you want to join the party, just click on the Sunday Favorites badge in the left sidebar, and it will take you to Chari's blog and the instructions.

I seem to be on a poetry kick with these. This is a poem I wrote in August of 2001, posted on my personal diary site:

BUT...

It can surprise me sometimes.
The paint looks so good--
smooth, not checkered, not bubbled, not chipped.
But
the head of the screwdriver rips along
where siding and window trim meet,
and suddenly,
strips of color curl away
and other colors reveal themselves.
Sunshine yellow and stormy grey and robin's egg blue.
I wonder if each color suited the mood of the painter
when they were brushed on.

You surprised me, too.
Under all the endearments,
the "I love you"'s, the kisses,
just where your words and your eyes come together,
a strip of my heart peeled away and curled up on itself.
It was only a word, just one word to jolt and astonish:
But.

These boards I'm scraping were never primed,
never prepared.
I wasn't either,
but
I will be next time.

SUNDAY RERUN: The Taste of Figs

My Sunday ReRun for today is a poem I wrote and blogged on another site, back in 2002.

Do you have favorite blog posts? Join the party over at Chari's blog by clicking on the Sunday Favorites button in my left sidebar! It will take you to the easy-peasy instructions for participation.

The Taste of Figs

In the dead of winter he ate dried figs,
watching through windows where snowflakes settled,
and melted against transparent warmth.
He remembered the geese,
flying overhead, beckoning,
while he lingered,
Stayed.
Outside, the twilit air was suddenly
summer-scented.
An apple glowed, rose flame
under the frost.
And, alone,
I tasted figs.

SUNDAY RERUN: Moving Day

It's time for a Sunday Favorite, a repost of a blog post from the past. (The Blog Party is hosted by Chari, over at Happy to Design. Click the Sunday Favorites logo in the lefthand sidebar to join!) I've chosen one from about eight years ago, called Moving Day.

"The Baby" at Seven

We helped Lauree and Toby move last Thursday. Their new home is beautiful. I am so thrilled for Lauree. She really is the kind of woman who loves being a home-maker, and stay-at-home mommy. I spent most of the day over there holding Abby, who was put off by the strange surroundings. I felt kind of useless, but Laurie said not, that it was a great relief to her that I could hold the baby and let her get things done and direct the moving in. RC's mood in the forepart of the day was abysmal. So, of course, I wrote a poem!

Moving Day

How can there be so much in the world to yell about?
He shouts his way through the hours.
I mutter.
I mutter, because if he hears me
there'll be one more thing to roar about.

But then it's finished.
The boxes are stacked in the garage,
the furniture is helter-skelter in the rooms,
and we lounge, chatting,
my head on his chest,
staring at the U-Haul parked at the curb,
and suddenly I realize:
This day was perfect.

---

And while we're doing poems. This happened a couple of days later. True story!

Renovator

Standing with one foot on the top of the ladder,
the other swinging free in the air,
my arms stretched over my head,
I squint as tiny, grey Chiclets of old paint
rain from my putty knife's edge
to my face.

I have spent so much time in the sun this year
that I am as dappled as the earth under a shade tree,
tawny shoulders sprinkled with russet spots.
My legs are sheathed in short denim
and a long summer's tan.

Yesterday, a man in a shiny white pick-up
swung into the driveway and proposed marriage.
You weren't here,
but I told you about it later and we laughed together.

Today, back on the ladder,
precarious,
I have leaned around the corner just in time
to see you walk chicken-style
the length of the scaffolding.

Is it any wonder I smile as I work?

WORD WEDNESDAY: ALIVE

There is serenity at my kitchen sink

As water runs clear over the dishes in my hands,

Clear as the window I’m gazing through.

My eyes are slaking their thirst with the delight of new flowers.

Red-leafed maple, pink-flowering dogwood,

A swath of pale pink clematis, bluebells,

The white and rose cloud of the crabapple tree.

At the center of it all, nestled around a big terra cotta pot,

Is a glory of pansies, purple, white, and gold, orange and maroon.

They bloomed through the winter,

Lifting their faces to pale sun and dark clouds,

Shining with hope when ice pummeled them,

Shrugging the snow from green shoulders,

More than surviving.

I know a woman like that,

And through her, with her, I myself learn to live.

WORD WEDNESDAY: SLEEVELESS

I went sleeveless today,
Risking sunburn and freckles.
I went sleeveless today--
I'll trade pale skin for speckles.
I went sleeveless today,
Kneeling down in the garden.
I went sleeveless today,
Where the robins were flirtin'.
I went sleeveless today,
Felt warm sun on my skin,
Heard a daffodil laugh,
Stopped to listen and grin,
And I know that tomorrow it will probably rain,
But today I went sleeveless--
It's Springtime again!

WORD WEDNESDAY: FIDDLEHEADS

Fiddleheads, all furry and brown,
have sprung from their beds in the dark, damp ground,
but I hear the fairies won't bring bows to play.
The spiderwort has them frightened away.

SNORING

I've been thinking a lot about something a number of my bloggy friends do, Wordless Wednesday. I love seeing the pictures they put up. Me, I'm too wordy for that!

My friend Mokihana does a Word Wednesday, always a scripture or otherwise uplifting post.

I'm not sure I could come up with something deep every week, though, or even most weeks, but I do love words. I love the taste of them in my mouth, the feel of them in my ears, the friction of my pen on paper when I write them. I love finding new ones, stringing old ones together, playing with them, taking them apart and putting them together again in my mind. Word Wednesday. Yeah. I like it.

This is my first Word Wednesday post. This time it's a poem I wrote a couple of years ago. Next time? Hmmm...

SNORING

The man lying beside me is snoring away--
What a racket!
He's sawing logs with a chain saw today,
It's a fact. It's
The roaringest clamor that ever lulled me to slumber,
A whole forest of grizzles, a whole sawmill of lumber.
It's a snort in the dark, a jarring surprise.
It's appalling! I love it! It means he's alive!
It's a terrible, horrible, wonderful noise,
And a small price to pay for sleeping with boys!

*~*~*~*

PS The picture's just for pretty.

MARY'S SONG--A FAVORITE CHRISTMAS POEM

This is my all-time favorite Christmas poem, one I have cherished for over thirty years. I wanted to share it as the holiday approaches.



Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Luci Shaw

WATER FAERIES: A STORY IN POEM

I was looking for old paper (not kidding) to print something on a bit ago, and found a poem I wrote several years back. I'd forgotten about it, and hadn't ever shared it with anyone, so (Lucky You!) I'm going to put it here.

Water Faeries

Legend has it that faeries dwell
In the water that glistens way down in the well.
What sort of faeries would they be,
Who choose to live so watery?

A lad with laughing, merry, eye
Came to the well 'neath summer skies,
Asked a maid for water, said, "Hot today!"
"But cool down there where the faeries play!"

She lifted the pail on the winch's rope
And a lark nearby sang sudden of hope.
"Will you draw, or I?" and they both looked over,
While she wished once again for the love of this rover.

How deep runs the water reflecting their faces!
Swirling along in deep channels it races.
A penny bright from her pocket she drew,
Tossed it, watched, as it downward flew.

He turned to her with a puzzled look,
As ripples recorded the path the coin took.
"Why did you throw your money away?"
"The faeries like pennies," was all she could say.

His hand, then, cradled and lifted her chin.
"Is it favors you ask when you toss a coin in?"
"It is," and she blushed as her secret she told.
"I wished you would love me, for my heart you hold."

"Faeries are hoaxes for children, I've heard,
And to ask them for love's like asking yon bird,
For my love has been given this many's the long year
To a lass whose least glances can fill me with cheer."

So, sadly she turned, but he caught up her hand,
Brushed from her forehead a wayward, red strand.
"The faeries have long had my coin and request.
'Tis you, lassie, truly, that I love the best."

And smiling they walked off together that day.
Was it the faeries? None knows as can say,
But each summer's day when, "Hope!" sings the lark,
They toss thankful pennies down into the dark.

Anitra Cameron

MIDNIGHT

It's best to go to bed before midnight, before
my confused circadian rhythms get the best
of me and I forget common sense and alarm
clocks and start that wide-awake prowl
through dim rooms with lost corners to the seat
beside the black window where I sip
solitude like wine and taste
the quiet, not a silence, but a different
kind of noise, as if shadows
could muffle your ears and only fearful sounds come
through like the sudden creak of a coffin's lid and you
gasp/laugh, embarrassed, because it was your own chair
squeaking and then you're past the scare
and you hold this hour like a hungry man
holds his plate with his forearm on the table and his hand
curved around the rim
and that plate's not going anywhere,
and you hold this because
it's yours, you possess it
and no one wakes to wrest it from you.

BURGUNDY LEAF, POETRY FOR AUTUMN

A brief entry today. One poem that I wrote, and a more visual one, by God.

Harvest Time

August sings a turbulent song
That rustles the grass as it tumbles along,
Then harvest comes to lay the fields bare,
And October weeps for the stubble there,
'Til Winter, in mercy, covers it o'er
And holds its breath for the Spring in store,
When Earth drinks joy as storm clouds sigh,
And fields sprout life as old seeds die,
And the head of grain in dust bowed down
Will rise up green, with a spiky crown.



Burgundy, Black, and Gray

THE FALL

The Fall

My head has claimed a gnarled root
for a pillow;
Its rough caresses curve
with the back of my neck.
This upward view is all meandering whorls.
My eyes and I are besotted
like village idiots
drunk on acorns, oak leaves, and mistletoe.
If I rise I will stumble on my thoughts,
unspoken.
I cling to the ground with the small of my
back,
clutch, white-knuckled,
the short blades of grass.

But it is not the earth that quakes,
and I fell long ago.


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WE'LL TALK

You go search cold arcane science,
If you can.
Will the starry vaults of night and time and mathematical equations
Smother your soul’s fire?
Will sudden muses wither your parasites of logic?

Me, I will study this rainbow,
And get back to you.
Tomorrow or yesterday.

THE FIRST DROP

My daughter wrote this, and I thought it was lovely, so evocative of summer and childhood, and so full of nostalgia. She gave me her permission to share it.

The First Drop

I could still see the heat
shimmering waves on the pavement
I wouldn't have noticed but
the smell is unmistakable
Everything clean and perfect
It reminds me of home
of perfect outside summers
standing on the deck
to see thunder and lightening
of being eight again
barefoot, grubby, sticky
That smell is time to go home
paper dolls and coloring books
strawberry leather and homemade popsicles
inside games and a fort made of pillows

I want to know if it smells the same everywhere
I think not
Home is magical trees
with perfect rainbows stretching mountains
But, I wonder
does your rain smell like home?