nedful things

Poetry is a mystery to many people, some of whom do not enjoy or employ it in any way. Although many have to endure poetry for some period of time in literature classes, they would never seek it out.  Others find poetry on purpose.  How they view it may differ.

There are two ways to analyze poetry.  The first is by form - counting syllables, analyzing structure, meter, and rhyme scheme.  This method can be taught.  The second way is to analyze what a poem does, instead of the way it was made.  This method is the one that I myself employ.

There are two kinds of people: those who hate poetry, and those who write it. It seems nearly universally true that if someone enjoys poetry, they have attempted the writing of it at least once in their lives. Although not all of those in the second category will be in the running for poet laureate, at least there is something about the art of poetry that speaks to them. Those in the first category will learn what a teacher or professor tells them the poem is about and remember it long enough to pass the test or write the essay.  Those in the second group will remember the images and emotions evoked by the words so artfully crafted to reach into their hearts and minds.

A poet, with an economical use of words, chooses only those which may best strike at the innermost part of his readers.   He writes for himself always, because to render beauty, love, hatred or despair, he must first feel it.  His words must touch the humanity we all share, or it cannot be art.

A poet does not lay his words out haphazardly, even though it may appear that way. ee cummings often left words seemingly hanging in mid-air, attached to nothing, when in fact they were the anchor of his meaning. To analyze poetry one must approach it with the willingness to see words employed in unexpected ways.  ee cummings, by shunning capitals and using punctuation to achieve his own ends instead of in accepted ways, revolutionized modern poetry. Consider how much less effective this ee cummings poem would be without the impact of his strategic word placement.

                 i have found what you are like

        i have found what you are like
        the rain,

                (Who feathers frightened fields
        with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

        easily the pale club of the wind
        and swirled justly souls of flower strike

        the air in utterable coolness

        deeds of green thrilling light
                                      with thinned

        newfragile yellows

                          lurch and.press

        -in the woods
                     which
                          stutter
                                 and

                                    sing

        And the coolness of your smile is
        stirringofbirds between my arms;but
        i should rather than anything
        have(almost when hugeness will shut
        quietly)almost,
                       your kiss

When analyzing poetry, allow the words to create their illusions, paint their pictures and stir the emotions.  There will be phrases, small bits and lines that attach themselves to your heart and reverberate within you.  If the poem does none of that, it is not for you.  Then you can count syllables, analyze structure, meter and rhyme. Those things are important too.

Young love should come when you are old
Enthusiasm has no time to fade, For-
ever is so much nearer
The heart beats out each moment
Seeking to prevent its passing
Yet can only trace with a finger
Time's signature etched in a beloved's face

Young love should come when you are old
When you own your soul, only
then can it be given
When masks of youth no longer worn
Lie discarded and youth is un-
Masked as a liar, then Beauty
is not Love, but Love, Beauty

Young love should come when you are old
Welcomed as an unexpected gift, Joy-
Full and of mysterious origin
For love is expected when we are young
opened and examined with critical eye
Replaced when it is no longer stylish
Or clashes with(in) the bed linen

Youth claims love unbending, yet
Wavers with a word, withers
Unless constantly attended

Young love should come when you are old
It glimpses perfection in time-
less essences of the soul
Clings faster to the prize
It never thought to hold
Each day a precious memory
It may never have leisure to recall

Easy Writer had an announcement on her blog that was two-fold.  It was her birthday but she seemed more excited about the news that caves have been found on Mars.  Scientists have long anticipated finding caves on Mars, lava tubes formed by volcanoes, in which they might set up future human outposts on the red planet.  EasyWriter asked for poems for her birthday and so I wrote this one, contemplating the possibilities.  I hope she won't mind if I post it here as well - after all, a post is a post.

Artifacts

Deep within ochre walls,
A chasm of darkness.
Until that same light
That rouses sleeping Earth,
Slides neatly
Through ancient doorways,
Grazes the icy blanket
That once cooled forgotten fires
Where molten rivers flowed.

This is no Lascaux.
No artist lived to scrawl
His existence into the walls
of this desolate womb.
No figures play or die
across the surface of this hollow.
No scribe of antiquity
bequeathed sagacious scrolls.

In this cavernous outpost
Deep within foreign walls,
These new primitives are
Roused by the light as it
Slips into ancient cavities.
Their machines hum and whisper,
Their language a strange music
That echoes in the emptiness.
Their artifacts will wait,
For explorers yet distant.

I was asked the question: If you could decide how long you would live, how many years would it be?  My initial response was to brush it off lightly by saying "just long enough to finish the housework" but the truth is, I really don't know.  I am in no hurry to die, but the world is not a lovely place to live, not as it is, not as I now know it. But I didn't always know it this way, once I knew it as a child knows it.

If I held the keys to time, if I could bend it to my will and lengthen some days, make others rush by, I would make time give me more of my child's world.

I would learn the language of water on the banks of rivers rushing by me on their way to the sea and by calm lakes whose waters utter rebukes as they slap against the wooden beams of invading docks.  I would hear cries of seagulls who punctuate the bold speech of the ocean as it crashes to the shore.

I would spend many days in quiet places.  I would once again hear the whisper of a pine forest, muffling my footsteps, trapping sound in its thick, yellow carpet of needles as the trees plead for silence. "Hush, hush" they urge as the breeze brushes through their branches. "Listen, hush, listen, hush".

I would spend days under the summer sun, watching clouds being made and remade into childhood visions.  At night I would lie upon my back in the cool grass, grass that is thick and soft and hasn't been mowed in just the right amount of time.  The sky is limitless at night - a child with his eyes on the sky knows no limits.

But could I?  I wonder.  Once time has control and has chopped your life up into tiny pieces, each of which belongs to someone else, can you revisit the timelessness of youth?  How does one recapture forever?  Would I lie silently listening to nature as it explained everything to my soul or would my conscience interrupt with nagging schedules and things to be done?

Perhaps it is only in memory that time is vanquished. It may be that it is the escape that allows sanity in a world insane.  We gather beauty and store it, to be taken out and viewed when life gets too close. Perhaps it is not many more years ahead that we yearn for, but for the years now behind us.

Related Post:  Boston & Maine

Learning to breathe                                                                              
                          unnecessary                                             
it's
unconsidered, unstudied
yet measured precisely
its rise
           and fall
a predetermined sentence.
A blue insolence
puffs a cheek
shakes a head
to refuse
but a mocking gasp
cries out the deceit of will
calls me a liar


Objections not withstanding
                                          unheeded
this
unsecured, unruly
life, insists on its course
to rise  
              and fall
and though I deny it
The strong percussion
twixt collar and breastbone
resonates  within
A taut skin
played with skillful finger.
Sings like the confession
of one accused.

I was missing from this blog for about a year.  The reasons are many and diverse, but mostly the business of life took precedence over quiet reflection.  My creativity had to find other outlets, some of which also had their profitable side and let's face it, money wins out over art any day.  Especially when your art is poetry - poetry is hardly a money-maker.

Meanwhile, I have started up some other blogs.  Many of the stories that here I would have categorized as "Nedful Things" are over at my new blog Why Keep Dogs and Bark Myself?.  If you liked the family stories about the kids and my mother with her quirky sayings, this may be one you want to check out.

I hope to get back to writing poetry on a regular basis, maybe even some short stories.  I know that it's good for me to exercise my writing in these areas.  So, if you haven't taken me off your list yet, check in from time to time and maybe I will surprise you by having actually updated.

Sawing through layers of sleep
the unanswered buzz
drones on
dispelling weightlessness
with the gravity of morning
Dessicated joints creak
as limbs sway with uncertainty
a hand
slaps down the call
A body at rest
Tends to stay at rest
Enclosed again in darkness
Legs, now motionless
May once again run freely

I have hated Mondays my whole life.  I have cursed them and dreaded them and wished them away.  I have heard the songs and sung them: "Monday, Monday, can't trust that day".  But Mondays are a cakewalk compared to a Wednesday following a four-day weekend.

I looked forward to that four-day Fourth of July weekend for months.   I planned for weeks, all the things I could accomplish in four days off from work.  Of course, none of them actually were accomplished.

Two day weekends, although technically time off, are fairly tightly scheduled. Saturdays are for madly running errands, Sundays are for laundry and housework and if you are lucky, a spare moment to sit in front of your computer with a cup of coffee and a blank stare and try to remember why you are there.  Then Monday arrives and you re-adjust quickly to that schedule, after all, you haven't really altered it that much.

A Wednesday that follows a four day weekend is a grim thing. A four day weekend looms as a great expanse of time in which to do everything.  So you do nothing, because there is always tomorrow to do that chore if you don't do it today.  You begin to fall into natural patterns of sleeping and waking, your body's natural rhythms start to take over.  You become used to deciding what to do or not to do or to do nothing at all.  Four days is all it takes for you to revert to a human being from a corporate robot.

As I drove the long road to work, it was like the death march of the weekend, for this is where it truly ends.  The car is still full of sandy towels and beach toys and other evidence of its occupation by children on holiday.  The four days are conveniently stored in the back seat as I determinedly drive towards the office, where the weekend must go to hand me over to the work week. And so I drove.

I noticed that the corn in the fields had grown appreciably.  I mean, it grew when I wasn't there.  For some reason this disturbed me.  I had been away from this road long enough for corn to grow and yet I knew it was only the blink of an eye, a few brilliant moments - how had I been gone long enough to miss inches of corn?

The parking lot was riddled with empty spaces although I arrived at nearly the last minute.  Ah ha!. I thought,  some furloughed workers have not returned or perhaps they would be in at the very last minute.  Certainly it was not an army arriving en masse as usual; rather the work force arrived in numbers of a few stragglers at a time.  No morning banter was heard, there may have been a nod or two exchanged.  They all looked straight forward at the doors or down at the ground as they walked, measuring out the last of their self-determination by paces.

I rode the elevator with two co-workers instead of being on the usual overcrowded lift.  We rode in grim silence.  No one spoke.  I wanted to say something to break the silence, to cut through all the unexpressed laments that hung in the air, but all I could think of was "The corn has grown".

When we arrived at our floor, someone waved a card at the door and it opened.  Words that may have been "thank you" escaped my lips finally as I pushed the door open and returned to our reality.  Someone may have said "you're welcome".  Maybe not.  It didn't matter, I understood the great burden of speaking on such a morning.

I understood that time bends itself and shapes itself and follows us.  Here, in a world where we succumb to sameness, each minute resembles its brother that came before and the one that comes after.  Each hour is a twin of the last but older and slower, creaking unwillingly through each movement of its hands.  Watch the hands, they play tricks and when you aren't looking they go back and start again.  

And when we are free, when we are carefree it moves on quickly, our spirits jump and sing and time dances on with its own sprightly step.  Every minute calls to its brother to come quickly and play with us and the hours run on ahead until they are spent.

But out in a field, under a sun that moves predictably east to west, even when we are not there to see it, there is only the true measure of days. The corn has grown.

I sat on the railing
just under the porch edge
A silver sheet
streamed
like a shimmering curtain
to my stage.
And I, behind it,
awaited my cue.
In the distance grew
a growling tympany,
stirring the audience
with a drumroll,
throwing its voice
east
to west.
I accepted the introduction and
stepped forth.
The shuttered sky
opened into light,
as I stood
soaking in
the thunderous ovation.

The rain has stopped.

For a time there I had forgotten the look of a blue sky, the feel of the sun's warmth on my face.  I had not squinted at a sudden glare assaulting my eyes as I stepped outside in over two weeks.

It started the day my car door wouldn't close.  The door that usually refused to open had given way easily and then decided to lock itself open.  It's hard to say why it does these things. It's something special that Ford built into the car, a certain capriciousness that makes it a series of misadventures to own.  Strangely, although I often resent and fear its gift for practical jokes, overall it is a most fitting vehicle for me. Bits fall off for no apparent reason, doors decide to stay open or shut at will, latches come off in your hand, the key refuses to come out of the ignition, but it starts and runs and does so reliably.  It's a workhorse that amuses itself by displaying eccentricities that keep us on our toes. When I noticed from my office window that it had started to rain, I went out to the parking lot to apply some duct tape to the top and sides of the door.  I had tied it shut but because the latch was stuck in the locked position, there was a space and I didn't want to fill the back seat with water.  Later when I went to have my mechanic spring the latch, the falling rain was steady and soaking.  It never really stopped again for two weeks.

That first week there was every manner of rain: sudden bursts, steady drizzles, winds of fine mist.  In early spring the rain intensifies the color of the newly unfurled leaves and grass, they are a tender green but vibrant, not yet dulled by the sun and droughts of summer.  The leaves of summer become dark and lackluster, but these trees of spring pour every bit of life they can into these newborns.  Flowering bushes burst out in brilliant pinks and purples, a few trees still show white blossoms, the pavement is slick and black.  The effect fills the eyes and overflows the senses with beauty unspeakable.

However after a week or so, my protestations of "I like the rain" and my explanations of its aesthetic qualities were being met with snorts and sneers by coworkers, and to tell the truth, I, myself, was a little tired of being constantly damp. I think even the rain was tired of just being annoyingly predictable, so it changed.

It started on Saturday, the day I had satellite TV being installed.  The rain became heavy and steady, falling in huge drops.  Globs of rain fell like water balloons, striking your forehead and splattering over your face.  It continued throughout the day, soaking the poor man who had to attach the satellite dish to the garage roof, soaking the ground, running down the streets in rivers, making lakes of all low-lying areas.  It continued with that intensity all through the next day as well.  And the next.

It was serious now, this rain.  Rivers overflowed, streets and bridges washed out, schools closed, highways were shut down for stretches of miles in length.  It was raining, still raining, always raining.  The weather report was watched only for the video of impossibly flooded roads and houses.  Tides were high, flood watches were announced near every waterway.  Life became intense and every drive to work a series of detours around roads that were impassable.  

Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.  The sun shone and I expected to feel the difference, to have some irresistible feeling come over me and to rise up with renewed hope and life.  That didn't happen.  Life is busy and we tend to notice only those things that hamper us.  In two days the waters had receded enough that schools and roads were reopened and life went back to normal.  It was hardly even noticed that after three short days of sun, it rained again.  

It was only rain, after all.

We gathered
chairs encircled
defensively against grief
quietly fingering memories
as the album changed hands
Your hands changed now
to those that can no longer
hold me
I saw you with your mother
and the circle of mothers' days
and daughters

l heard you
in knowing narrative
of younger and youngest
Voices that sang with love
Voices that broke with pain
Held together by shared stories
of teas in the garden
The dress your mother made
that you straight off
(to adorn your new straw hat)
tore that first wearing
climbing the grape arbor
( you plucked an early flower that
tantalized you from a neighbor's fence)

"One year on Mother's Day"
I excitedly burst in
"I planted flowers for her
 along the walk"

Today we left you in flowers
each dropped a peach of a rose
upon the sheen of mahogany
and each turned to another
bonded firmly to family
formerly distant
now drawn together
We gathered
our chairs encircled
passing memories
each to another
in the circle of
Mothers' days

**This poem was written as a submission for a poetry contest last Mother's Day.  It won first prize**

Of what use then are hands untouching? Yet
Ready with reverent fingers they long
To hold the outline of a face,  and with
Gentlest touch trace the lines there drawn
  Join its story of joy and sorrow
  And write a name on its tomorrow.

Of what use then are eyes unseeing? Which
Beholding not the image of desire
Instead through a shadowed view envision
That vessel which holds the means of fire
  The lessons of a heart engulfed they learn
  The cause of its flame and its call to burn

Of what use then are these things to love? That
Fitfully tosses dreams and walks the floor
In anguish it calls its beloved's name
In hope waits for a hand upon the door
  Refusing the emptiness of its bed
  Seeks now only a place to lay its head

While pretzeled in a chair with
cummings you came to me,
you do that (constantly)
you sneak up on my mind
and disguise yourself as an idea

again

(as if it were yours) wrap-
ped yourself around my wandering
so that I was always ahead
or behind you in thoughts

(and were they yours or mine?
it gets so confusing when we're this way)

together

it was ee with a limb tucked under
and just when I (having calculated
that my life had only average
expectations) was as numb as
my leg was becoming

I'm all pins and needles

again

It's March.  The face of March is pasty, a pale and unhealthy grey and its clouds are a mottled beard, scruffy and ill kempt.  The grass is a sickly yellow, the sod clogged with rain and the runoff of melted snow.  March struggles towards spring as its wind woefully sings around the buildings, stirring tattered brown leaves that were never collected from corners and crevices but spent the winter huddled against fences and frozen into puddled soil.

It's empty.  Nothing has life in it, nothing owns beauty.  The sea is a mirror, flat and currentless, reflecting stone walls and weatherbeaten structures whose white paint bears marks that are the only evidence of winter's ice and summer's drying sun, for there is nothing extreme in this day.  The tide has come full and placid and lies just beyond my feet at the edge of the bridge.  I remember suddenly a dream of a few days past, the water finally lapping over the edges of the road and pooling at my feet.  I want to call out to it, plead with it to wash over and engulf me, to fill the emptiness of my soul.  But the sea knows its bounds and keeps them, and leaves me standing, alone.

 The sky looks upon me though, and in understanding it sheds empathetic tears.  I think one fell upon my cheek, yet it is warm.  Sister drops join it and it is lost.  

The redhead draped long white arms over his shoulders, her hands behind his neck.  The dancing candle flame and her firey hair reflecting on the sequins in her gown made a shimmering red moon in the center of each silver circle.  His hands traced the swell of her hips as she cooed softly but his eyes were steely determination.

"I've been trying Gil, I swear", she said.  "He never goes anywhere without his wife and sometimes I don't think he even notices that I am flirting with him.  It's enough to really destroy a girl's ego. I don't understand it, I never had any trouble getting a man's attention before".

"Maybe you're being too subtle, Ginger".  His hands pried hers apart and he brought her arms down to her side.  She pouted at his sudden move to separate them and tried to re-establish her position.  He pushed her away from him, holding her at arm's length to survey the bait he had brought to hook his chosen fish.  She looked as if she had been poured into the iridescent evening gown she wore.  The plunging neckline automatically drew eyes down its V and into the imagining of what those narrow straps that were anchored at her neck held.  Here, in this sweltering tropical heat she wore full makeup, her eyes rimmed with thick, black lashes and her lips full and red.  "No baby, I guess no one would ever accuse you of subtlety.  Go back to your hut, Ginger, the Skipper and I have some business to discuss".

Ginger started to protest being so coldy dismissed, but even she realized that in his present mood, her feminine wiles would have no effect.  A bit of self-preservation kept her from trying to persuade him but she couldn't resist a defiant toss of her red hair as she exited.

"She's gone away mad now Gil.  You hurt her feelings".

 The sympathetic voice for the rejected Ginger came from a large man in the corner of the hut. He was older than the first man, as pudgy and out of shape as Gil was thin and wiry.  They looked a bit like a Laurel and Hardy team.  The big man's face was softer, and he spoke without the embittered edge that was present in Gil's words.

 "You're lucky to have a girl like that, Gil.  She's beautiful and she loves you.  She'd do anything for you.  It's not her fault that Howell character isn't interested, must be something wrong with him. Who wouldn't be interested in a gorgeous girl like that?"

"Who wouldn't be interested?" Gil lifted his left eyebrow and pinned the fat man against the wall with one look. "Are you maybe a little interested, Skip?"

"No, Gil.  Uh uh, no way", Skip's voice revealed his panic at having angered Gil with his chivalrous defense of Ginger. " I didn't mean that.  I would never do that to you Gil, you know that."

"Don't look so scared, Skip.  She's nothing to me.  Besides, we got bigger problems than that right now.  That crazy professor has made another receiver, caught him trying to pick up ships' radio on it.  I had to play the bumbling sidekick again and pretend to stumble over it.  I think I disabled it for now but he'll probably have it fixed by tomorrow.  That's all we need right now.  If he manages to contact a ship, he'll tell everyone we're here.  Rescue is not on the schedule just yet, not until we have Howell's signature on that will."

"Will?" The Skipper looked nervous and surprised.  "I thought we were just going to pretend to take good care of him until we got "rescued" and get Ginger to convince him to give us a fat reward.  You never said anything about killing him, Gil. I didn't think we was gonna kill him."

"Who asked you to think, Skip?"  Gil's tone was sharp and condescending.  "I mean, that's not your strong point is it?  Who was it let those two tourists on board, little miss Girl Next Door and the Nutty Professor?"

"Hey Gil, that wasn't my fault.  I couldn't get rid of them without raising suspicion, I had to let them on board".

"Yeah?  Well, you were only supposed to pretend to be shipwrecked, not actually scuttle the ship!  Now we got no way out of here.  I can't even get rid of that pain in the ass professor because we may need one of those crazy coconut radio inventions of his to really get off this damn island.  So don't think anymore Skip, okay?"

Gil growled out his orders within inches of the Skipper's face, accentuating each word with a finger drilling the words into the Skipper's chest, his voice rising in anger.  "Do me a favor and don't.. think... anymore!"

"Okay Gil.  Whatever you say, it's your plan."  The Skipper backed his rotund frame out of the door of the hut, trying not to look as if he was in a hurry to get away.  "You know Gil, there's a good moon tonight.  I'm gonna go down to the lagoon and do a little work on the hull while everyone sleeps."

"Yeah, okay.  Just don't make it obvious.  We don't want anyone to notice if you do get that barnacle farm seaworthy.  We need it ready. Although, with the way this job is going we could end up on this god-forsaken island for the next ten years."

The big man pulled on his cap and smiled reassuringly. "Oh no, Gil. You're too smart for that.  Don't worry, that ain't never gonna happen."

*For anyone who didn't grow up in the United States or who may have lived under a rock since 1964, we offer this link by way of explanation.

Unfamiliar territory

in the dark
The trees gesture
with blackened fingers
but reveal no secrets
The night conceals
clues of my path
Swallows corners
making speed my dare

Alone

yet over the crest
two red eyes
speed into the distance
under this prophetic sky
Spattered with stars
forming some new constellation

Divined

It looks like tomorrow
until the tiny star that anchors it
flashes red and green
and flies south to land
Eyes in the distance
Speeding under the sky
Tomorrow still

Unfamiliar territory

I hate chain email.  

That includes all the many varieties  of chain email.  I hate the danger email chains, the ones that warn you about things that have never happened (such as men lying under your car with knives waiting to slice your ankles or that you should not lick envelopes because spiders will hatch in your mouth).

These are just evil little missives hoping to whip people into a frenzy over imagined urban legends.  When I get this sort of email, I research it and email the true story back to the sender, relieving them of fear, encouraging them not to use the internet to disseminate such ridiculous falsehoods, and cautioning them against being so gullible.  Strangely, no one thanks me for this.

I hate the missing children email, they are almost always hoaxes.  There is never any real information given about where the child disappeared from and the contact emails may not even exist.  

Most of all I hate the good luck/bad luck chains.  The ones that promise wealth and riches if you follow instructions and sure death to you and all whom you love if you fail to pass it on in the specified time allotted or to fewer people than demanded.  

I got this email today.  I think I had different reactions to it than I was supposed to have.

Hope you can send the green dog back to ME!  Read Each One Carefully and Think About It a Second or Two.     
(a second or two doesn’t sound like reading carefully or thinking but perhaps for these sage words one or two seconds is at least one second longer than they deserve)

1.    I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.  (Smack anyone who tells you this.  It says, I love you not for yourself but for what you can do for me.  Yeah, just lovely.)
2.    No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won't make you cry.   (Does anyone think that tears are a sign of abuse?  Love can make you cry, even when you are happy.  Instead, be happy you love someone enough that you would shed tears for him or her, and be happier if they will take your tears and count them precious.)
3.    Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.   (This is a lovely excuse for all sorts of behavior.  I mean really, I could use this line and get away with anything. " Sorry honey that I sold your wedding rings for drug money. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, just that this is the most I can manage to love". )  
4.    A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.    (Well I can go with this alright as long as that reaching hand isn’t reaching for your wallet and the heart touching isn’t an excuse to pretend to miss and touch something else)
5.    The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.   (Okay, this isn’t called missing.  This is called lust, longing, frustration and downright uncomfortable)    
6.    Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile. (Yeah right.  I agree, if you are sad, don’t frown.  You go have a good cry, wail it out baby.  You are under no obligation to keep the world comfortable by being happy for them all the time.)
7.    Don't waste your time on a man/woman, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.    (First, if either of you are “wasting” your time on the other, then both need new partners.  If someone is worth your time, it isn’t wasted.)
8.    Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.   (This is too close to the “God is a vengeful God”thing for my taste.  Don’t blame everything on God, He didn’t make those decisions, you did.)
        REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS FOR A REASON.      (rationalization, clearly)
  True friends: How many people actually have 8 true friends?        Hardly anyone I know ! But some of us have all right friends and good friends!!!        You have been Tagged by the Green Dog!  (insert large green dog made up of keyboard characters and say Ruff!!!  This is so cute.  Did I mention that the whole thing is in eye-straining neon colors? )

  You will Have Good Luck For Two Years if you send this to 8 people or more and if this is sent back to you then you are a true friend. (Okay, I am perfectly willing to admit that I don’t have 8 true friends, but apparently the one who sent it to me does not get validation as a true friend unless I burden her inbox with a reply in kind.  I decided that since this is my one true friend that I will just send this back to her 8 times.)
You must send it in 5 minutes or your good luck will run out.  (And just a minute ago, I had two years.  How time flies.  I missed the deadline, needless to say.)

I tried to write a Valentine's Day poem but I couldn't decide on a theme - should it be funny? romantic? historical? or perhaps, should I just write about the proliferation of pudgy, winged children with arrows and explore the possibility that this is a mutation brought about by environmental pollutants?  After a time spent in the eye-straining pink and red card stores, I finally ended up with this:


I searched the aisles and the rows
of hearts and flowers and pretty prose
For words that said just what I meant
amongst the Hallmark sentiments
There were I "heart" you's everywhere
But does that say I really care?
When a bumper sticker thinks it's grand
To proclaim to "heart" the high school band
And those that "heart" horses and quilting bees
Make the heart's song a wilting wheeze
I needed a card that says that I comprehend
how rarely an acquaintance becomes my friend
When finally I spied just the right emotion:
"Congratulations on your promotion!"

Then while searching through my document files, I ran across this unfinished thing:

Do you see?
I have painted the room in sun-
washed colors, red and gold
I have made your bed
in tranquil tones
I have bathed you in moonlight
and lain beside you  
I pulled the petals from the single rose
and made a halo on your pillow

Which reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Christopher Marlowe:

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

So, there you have a hodgepodge of Valentines, and you can choose from them.

I think I will just go eat some chocolate-covered cherries and wait for a real holiday, like National Quilting Bee Day or something.

Here do we sit
Here do we speak
of the life flowing on
outside these walls
Here does the ocean
come up to meet us
without a trace
of the world on the other side

Here do we speak
of dreams never dreamed
in this timeless prison
but remembered as restless nights
Here do we hold each other's
souls in our hands
and comfort them
soothing our spirits
and resting our minds

I love April. The signs of spring are all around me.  Daily, the sun creeps higher in the sky.  My morning drive no longer consists of hugging the bumper of the car ahead of me and hoping the driver of said vehicle knows where he is going as the slightly risen sun flashes between buildings and glares through bare branches obscuring the view.  

The sky changes rapidly, the wind carries it along tearing off pieces of clouds and depositing them in portents in the sky. Suddenly the sky becomes an open faucet, drenching with a rain that billows like a grey curtain whose departure is as quick as its arrival.  The sky then smiles in innocent blue, full of promises. No longer is the sun a cold light, but a fire whose warmth can be felt.  A lone bee ventures forth, too early to find food and seeks the baked interior of my car through a window I have opened to catch the freshness of the April breeze.  

The best thing about this April, of course, is that is has arrived in February.  Dusk settles and the temperature hovers at 50 degrees farenheit.  It's a gentle twilight that requires no layers of protection, winter seems to have forgotten to arrive.

I always say that what I like best about New England are the seasons, even the blustery and  bitter days of February.  I think what I like best about this February is that we are having so many seasons in rapid succession.  Before long we are sure to return to winter and learn again the art of dancing over icy parking lots and navigating our cars around slushy corners without fishtailing. In fact, I can feel spring slipping away already in these early morning temperatures.  But for now, I will take April for as long as it lasts.

I am missing the blog.  One reason is that my trusty PC has developed a small hardware problem.

I heard it coming for quite a while, in the grinding groan that emanated from it when I turned it on. I knew it had to be a fan going bad, but I kept playing the odds, hoping I would get by one more day.

Then one morning, it shocked me by making this most alarming noise that sounded like...well, an alarm.  At that point I decided to investigate and found that the CPU fan was clogged with dust and dirt. Aha! I said to myself, this is something I can fix without replacing anything.  I cleaned out the fan and vacuumed out the inside of the case and the first time I booted it up, it was golden.  The next morning: groan.. grind... whirr...lack of whirr... alarm.

There was nothing for it then but to buy a new fan.  These come fairly cheaply and so all the effort to avoid purchasing one seems excessive but I am Danish.  Stubborn and frugal, we will waste hours trying to fix something rather than spend a dime.  I went on-line and checked out the computer superstore nearest me to see what they had before I set out shopping.

I think these computer stores hire all the same people.  The sales staff is almost always completely made up of males in their twenties. I want to like them, I like the way their hair is a little too long and that it was a little too long even before it started to become fashionable again. They have the best job in the world, they get to do what what they like best. They like talking about computers.  They like that they know more about it than you do.  They like to look at your bemused gaze as they explain it to you in language they know you will not understand. They will spend endless hours talking to some guy who has no idea how he botched the networking of his systems so that when he puts one online, another goes offline - but, they will not wait on the blonde in the faux fur coat.

When I finally manage to get someone's attention, all I find out is they don't have what I want. I knew that already from looking at the stock on the shelves  but I hoped they had more in the back or something.  I explained that I had first confirmed they sold the right fan; I had seen it on their website and so ventured forth to purchase it. "We have more online than we carry in the store", he told me.  As I was already mentally categorized under "Female - Subsection Blonde" I asked him petulantly: "how can you be a superstore if you don't have what I want?" (I didn't stamp my foot, however, that would have been overkill).  I was going to walk out without the power supply that I found on 60% clearance but then I realized it was too good a deal to pass up and maybe I should have one on hand.

So off I went to the next store.  I saw a perfect parking spot that would have saved my tired legs from a long trek, only to have it stolen from me by some young kid.  I was tired and cranky so I rushed to the next aisle to park within a few cars of him, intending to scar his conscience but he was too quick for me and scurried into the store before I could catch up.  Youths always scurry, I wonder why.  They have more time than anyone, but they are always in a hurry. 

But I wasn't just demonstrating the slow movements brought on by, well let's not call it age, let's call it the absence of youth. By this time I was tired from standing in the other store, attempting to appear worthy of waiting on.  I walked around  this second superstore in circles without even finding any section where they had such things as CPU fans until finally I managed to catch the tiny attention span of a young male who told me they didn't carry fans. Turns out he thought I meant the kind you put in the window. What else would a blonde in a fur coat want in the computer section? I set him straight and he led me to them but knew nothing about them.  He suggested I go online because: "We carry more online than we do in the store".

I gave up then and didn't even look at the bargains on keyboards. I headed back out to retreat to the safety of the Internet, where no one steals your parking space.

I went online.  I found the fan I want that is the right size, doesn't come with a heat sink and has the TX3 connection I need.  It is $4.99.  The shipping is $5.00. I will have to pay more than twice its price to get it but the best part is that is will take more than a week to arrive. There was an option to get next day shipping for $18.00.  Then it would take only 4 days to arrive.

I decided that the way the computer "superstores" stay in business is by making it impossible for you to find even the smallest and simplest item that would allow you to keep your own unit running by yourself.  They want the average person to give up and in a state of confusion agree to buy an entire new package.  This is their real business, selling  computer packages and waiting for them to break down so you will come buy another computer system package.

All of this is only to say that I haven't been blogging with any regularity and here is one reason why.  And since I didn't pay for the four-day express shipping,  it will be a while yet.

They're calling her Molly.

A few days ago Molly decided she wasn't going to stay in line and wait to be killed.  A few days ago, Molly was slated for the slaughterhouse, destined to be dinner. A few days ago, she didn't have a name.  But Molly decided to get out of line.

Her 1,200 pound frame jumped the fence, crossed roadways and railroad tracks, swam the Missouri River and wandered into town.  It took workers and police six hours to capture her.  When they did, they didn't insist she get back in line.

Molly is a cow.  A cow who was in line at the slaughterhouse and while all the other cows followed along, Molly decided to get out of line and follow her own path.

An off-beat story, to be sure.  Doesn't happen often, I hear you say.  No, it doesn't, but it does happen.  How about Louise the pig? Louise was being transported with four other pigs to slaughter when she decided to jump out of the window of the truck carrying her onto a busy highway.  Rudy, another pig, was found wandering a truck stop after he had left the vehicle that was taking him to the abattoir.

I wonder, is that all it takes? Is that all there is to it,  just getting out of line?  Had Molly gone along, stayed where she belonged and fulfilled her apparent purpose, I would have had no second thoughts about my burger.  She could have been my dinner and my conscience would be clear.  

If I stay in line, is it my purpose and my destiny I am fulfilling or that of those who make the lines?  Maybe greatness isn't being more than average,  perhaps it is the inability to go along quietly and soothe the conscience of the line drawers.  As long as you are content there, within the lines, nothing has to change.

So perhaps you should smile and be pleased the next time someone tells you "you're getting out of line". I hope you find more ways to do it, find fewer opportunities to go along, and if you escape, I hope you run.  Make trying to reclaim you an exhausting experience.  If you jump the fence, I hope they never catch you.  

I suffer from a rare disorder.  Sympathetic Vertigo.  Quite often it is misdiagnosed and thought to stem from an excessively nervous nature or an extended maternal instinct.  Sometimes it is even ascribed to personality disorders, such as Chronic Compulsive Buddinski's Complex.

I have no balance.  A friendly sounding of my name behind me and the subsequent turning of my head in the direction of the call, will cause immediate dizziness and loss of direction, often resulting in my falling headlong over a curbing.  I don't know about you, but headlong is one of my least favorite ways to fall.

I prefer to walk with a wall directly to my right or left, where a steadying and guiding hand can be run along the structure as a reassuring guide for my errant feet.  I caution companions not to walk to my left as they will inevitably be used as bumper guards when I start to drift.  I have a fear of heights as well, not a fear of being at heights, a fear of falling from heights.  One of my earliest memories is that of standing at the top of the stairs and upon looking down, falling the entire length of the staircase.  It could be the spotty memory of a child but it seems to me this happened more than once.  I must not have been a bright child. Possibly I suffered a closed head injury and believe me, that would explain a lot of things.

Over the years I have flown down many a flight of stairs and over a few porch railings.  I have learned never to trust my feet to land where I sent them and to be acutely aware of my body's attempts to hurl itself over the nearest precipice.  But this is my imbalance.

Most people I know are perfectly capable of running down a flight of stairs, or even walking through a store without major injury or damage to property.  So why is it that I can't trust them either?  

Sympathetic Vertigo.  

I can't look when people stand at the edge of railings and peer over three floors to the lobby.  I turn my head when I see someone standing with their back to the top of a staircase.  I won't go to the circus or even watch it on television.  The fact that it is video-taped does not mean you will be spared the sight of the untimely and ungraceful death of a formerly high, high-wire acrobat. Sorry, been there, watched that.

It's a lack of faith in equilibrium and a healthy fear of gravity.  Other people seem to lack what appears to me to be a huge self-preservation instinct:  try not to fall.  Don't jump off cliffs or bridges on purpose, even if you have a long elastic tied to your ankles.  Don't go very high on amusement park rides that were put up in a day and will be removed 5 days hence to be set up elsewhere.  Don't lean over canyons, don't stand with your back to a precipice.  Try not to fall.

I guess it is just my natural concern for my fellow human beings that drives me.  There seem to large numbers of the population that ignore this very basic survival strategy: try not to fall. Skydivers are a group who are particularly afflicted with a basic lack of fear.  For these and others I step into the gap left as a result of a devious side-stepping of the process of  natural selection; their ancestors apparently not having fallen until after having reproduced.

My doctor has suggested there is medication that would lessen the effects of Sympathetic Vertigo and if the truth be told, I could use the rest and peace it might afford.  But I cannot take that selfish step.  There is a world of people out there, teetering on the brink.  Someone has to warn them.

There are places that are beautiful in any season or in any weather.  Well-groomed gardens, nature's magnificent mountains, canyons that were carved by glaciers but now eternally reflect the orange glow of the sun and exude warmth.  These places end up on postcards and calendars, and sometimes on Christmas cards. They fit the commonly held concept of natural beauty.

I get a lot of Christmas cards.  I am ashamed to say I never send any, but that is my peculiarity and for some reason forgiven by most (which I think is rather decent of them and in-keeping with the general holiday spirit).

I love the artwork on Christmas cards.  There is always a peaceful winter scene, golden light shines from windows onto soft, rolling drifts of snow.  The stars glow bright against an azure sky.  We are overcome with beauty and the warmth of home.

Snow. Definitely beautiful.  A snow can transform the most ordinary spot into something you wish you could paint.  Or put on a Christmas card.

But how about a couple of days later?  What about when the plows have made high walls that line the streets, and sand and salt spray from the wheels of passing vehicles have splattered them brown and black like old and dingy paint that needs a fresh coat?  What about when the delicate lacy edging on tree branches and the hollow tubing of long-dead vegetation has been stripped by bitter winds, leaving nothing but gnarled and angry fingers pointing at a sun that lends no warmth by its shining? Does anyone want to paint this?

I do.

Winter transforms the world daily.  It grants it beauty, takes the earth as its young bride and bedecks it in white; fresh and clean, a sparkling vision.  But the course of winter, like that of life, makes no guarantee of eternal beauty and peace.  It teases with a rise in the thermometer, it slaps down optimism with the cold wind of its hand, it rains down pebbles of ice and chases the blood from your fingertips.

I love the indecision of winter in New England.  I love the way it  pushes and punishes with arctic blasts, pummels the  body and spirit until in a capricious moment, it leaves off its bitter cruelty and lifts its icy roof to allow  the sun and an errant wind to warm and restore.  

Yes, I would like to paint the winter that is not beautiful, the one that reaches an icy finger into your soul and sends the wind to tear its own white coverlet off the shivering trees. I want to paint the muddy slosh of sanded parking lots, the dried salt that leaves a powdered sugar finish on every car, the puckered skin on bloodless hands, robbed of their warmth by subzero temperatures.

Of course, this is December.  Catch me around the third week of February after the 24th snow storm of the season.  I may find it all a little less enchanting.

Michael brushed the sawdust from his sleeves and worn denims. He slipped into his quilted flannel jacket and slipped out the door of his cabinet shop into the street.  A light snowfall was painting a picturesque Christmas Eve in the town square.  The flakes that danced under the streetlights made a lacy confetti, a decorative edging on the wreaths that hung from every lamp post.  He hurried down the street, eager to get home, eager for the smile on his wife's face and the peace it brought him.  He smiled at  the nervous excitement of Michael, Jr., whose bedtime would be voluntarily early, so concerned was he that Santa may come and find him awake.   He knew that would mean no presents, for Santa could never be seen.  Michael Jr. was so like his father, and at six years old, still lived in wide-eyed wonder.  He might believe in Santa forever if it were not for the inevitability of other children sharing their discoveries.  A sudden yearning for the simple joy of his childhood swept over him, awash in memories of his own days of wonder and magic so long ago. And so, it surprised Michael a little bit when he turned in at the door to Joe's Bar instead of walking straight home.  

The only difference in atmosphere between the deserted bar and the deserted street was the temperature.  The bar was as dark as the dusky street and inside as well as outside,  the night was illuminated only by   strings of Christmas lights. They twinkled around the doorway and over the mirror behind the bar but did little to dispel Michael's cheerlessness.  Joe looked up and nodded at him.

"You just made it Mike. I was about to close up.  What'll you have?"

Michael opened his mouth to answer Joe's query but another voice rang out ahead his.

"You should have an eggnog with a little rum to warm you.  It's fitting for the season", came the suggestion.

The voice that spoke to him was deep but tremulous.  It belonged to the only other patron, the only other soul who was not at home this evening.  An elderly man sat on a stool, square in the middle of the bar. He didn't turn around but addressed Michael's reflection in the mirror beyond him as he spoke.

"It's a cold night and a long walk home."

"Yeah, it is".  Michael sat at the bar, deliberately leaving an empty stool between him and the stranger who had invited him as if he were the host of the evening. "I'll have a beer, Joe".

"Gonna have to be a bottle tonight Mike, I pretty much have everything shut down. " Joe set a glass and a bottle of beer in front of Michael.  "How's that little guy of yours? Looking forward to Christmas morning I'll bet".

"Yeah he sure is" Michael answered. "Reminds me of when I was a kid, you know? Christmas was always this magical time.  You believed everything and expected everything, and no matter what you got, it was everything you wanted.  It's different now."

"It is different now", the old man chimed in.  He stroked the bristly whiskers on his chin. They looked as though they once made a magnificent appearance but now grew like scrub across his jawline.  "Christmas once meant something, but now it is just a lot of lights and glitter.  No one understands what it means anymore, no one believes..." His voice trailed off into a gravelly whisper.  He gestured silently and nodded his head in agreement with his own inaudible points.

Michael shot a concerned look at Joe who leaned over in a conspiratorial huddle. "Don't worry, he's alright", Joe said. "Been here all evening and he's still on the one rum and eggnog.  I won't make any money on him but he doesn't seem dangerous, just a little titched in the head".  Joe tapped a finger on the side of his head to emphasize his opinion.

"You know, you believed once Mikey", the old man looked straight at Michael this time as he spoke. "You know you were one of the last ones to get a real crafted toy, before Christmas came from a store."

Michael stared at the old man, taken aback at his familiar address.  Of course.  Joe had called him by name when he came in, that was how the old man knew it.  Still, it was a little disconcerting to be called Mikey, he hadn't been called that since he was a little boy.

"That's where Christmas is now you know", his voice rose and he spoke excitedly.  "It's at the mall.  It's sold on television,  commercials pounding the name of the "in" toy for this year into the minds of children.  Children who know what to demand from the laps of eight-dollars-an-hour store Santas. It's a fad, a gimmick, it's not real anymore."  

The old man shook his head sadly and repeated the words slowly and to himself alone now. "It's not real anymore."

He sipped a little eggnog, still shaking his head; his hand shaking on its own as he lifted the glass to his lips.  "Even still", he said.  "Even today, the children that sit on such laps might believe if someone gave them something really magical to believe in.  But their parents have long forgotten the dreams they dreamed as children, they cannot remember what magic they once held in tiny hands."

"Do you see that?" the old man pointed a bony finger towards the door.  There, on top of the jukebox, a four-foot animated Santa sang disco versions of Christmas carols and danced to the beat, his electronic hips swaying provocatively.  Someone had crowned the figure with a headband that sported reindeer antlers."That's what Santa is these days, a comical figure; shaking his booty and looking like the office clown at the annual Christmas party."

The old man rose and with groans announced the enormous effort it was to unbend and straighten to a standing position.  For the first time Michael noticed his clothes. They were tattered, worn and several sizes too big for his wizened frame.  He pulled on a long overcoat and wrapping it against him in folds, tied a belt around his waist to keep it closed against the cold.

"Keep the spirit alive Michael, you are one of the rare ones.  Give that rocking horse to your son, pass on the magic inside you."  

Michael eyed the old man half in wonder and half in suspicion.  How did he know about the hand-made wooden horse he had kept all these years?  He had wanted to pass it on to Michael Jr. but his wife had convinced him that there were newer and better rocking horses at the store.  In the end they had chosen a plastic rocking horse in those bright primary colors that were said to visually stimulate children and he had left the wooden horse in the attic, a reminder of the Christmases of his childhood.  

The stranger reached the door and paused. He jerked a thumb at the dancing Santa.  

"It's a good thing he's a mythical figure", he said. "Otherwise he'd be pretty embarrassed when he sobered up".

He winked and a sly smile crept over the worn and wrinkled face.  "Merry Christmas, Michael", he called as he walked out into the night.

  Thanksgiving is a very special day, symbolizing the hopes and dreams of the very first settlers on our soil. It's an interesting day really.  It's all-American.  These days I don't know if we are giving thanks or just celebrating our right to excess.  In any case, it's worth it if only for the pumpkin pie.

Every family has its own tradition and my personal Thanksgiving tradition has always been to find someone who was cooking dinner and wanted guests, someone who would feed me and feed me well. That's what holidays are all about, tradition.  For years the family gathered at my mother's house and she cooked, and cooked, and cooked.  She was great at tradition.  We ate, and ate, and ate. We were pretty good at tradition too.

The first year I broke tradition was the first Thanksgiving my mother was feeling ill.  It was a long time from when she started to slow down and fail to when we forced her to the doctor and got the sobering news that she had cancer.  That year, she just wasn't herself, not as strong and not as capable.  She didn't want to cook and she didn't want to make the trip to my sister's house for dinner.  That year, my children and I were the only Thanksgiving guests and I did the unthinkable but entirely logical.  I ordered the meal from a local supermarket and on Thanksgiving morning picked up a bird roasted to perfection with all the side dishes and dessert already prepared.  It was a good meal and very little trouble.  I briefly thought about making this a new tradition.

The next year it was clear that if my mother lived to Thanksgiving, it would surely be the last November she was with us.  Suddenly my traditions seemed unimportant and I had domestic urges.  I felt an overwhelming desire to learn to bake beans as she had, and I needed to learn to roast a turkey.  It was time for me to grow up, to take responsibility; and for the first time in my life, it was my own idea and not just forced by circumstances.  That year I bought for the very first time, my very own raised-to-be-eaten, fattened and plucked-naked turkey; the symbol of what America means to me.

I started two weeks before Thanksgiving to give myself a test run.  I was immediately thwarted at my first attempt because the roasting pan I had purchased was too large to fit in my apartment-sized oven.  When I moved in I had the choice of a large stove or room for a washer and dryer. Having spent far too many years at the laundromat, I opted for the washer and dryer. As we are a small family, I decided we needed only small meals. There is no such thing as small amounts of dirty laundry if there are children in the house.

Not to be daunted, I found a new pan, one that fit in the oven and still allowed the door to close completely.  I did everything that I could discover one was supposed to do.  I read about turkeys on the internet, I googled.  I asked friends.  I discovered that every single person on earth cooks the turkey a different way.

One wraps it in bacon so that the skin gets crisp but does not burn, another uses a special rack, some go for frozen turkeys, others for fresh, some cook it on the grill, some others deep-fry.  I didn't even get as far as stuffing the thing.  I didn't make the usual mistake that most new cooks do and leave the insides of the turkey inside the turkey.  I violated him like a professional, removing the entrails through the proper orifice and marvelling at how efficient these fowl are to keep all their organs in a nice plastic bag like that.  Not nearly as messy and probably reduces the risk of infection.  

To my surprise, I didn't completely ruin that turkey.  I opted for a cooking bag that promised I could not fail and amazingly, I didn't fail. I had one nicely roasted turkey under my belt and I was eager now for the main event.  I bought another turkey, another set of cooking bags, stocked all the usual vegetables and stuffing and chilled the cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving morning came, and I was ready for it.

There was something odd about this bird.  I prepared it exactly as I had done before,  I cooked it the requisite number of hours, the little pop-up timer had popped and all signs pointed to it being ready for consumption.  But when I went to carve it, the meat was pink.  I put it back in the oven and waited a bit longer.  When I removed it the second time, it was pinker, in fact it grew more and more pink-stained as cooking time went on.  The strange thing was, the meat was white and well done near the bone, but grew from faint to shocking pink near the skin.  I didn't know what was wrong with this glowing pink turkey.  I cut off some meat and put it in the microwave.  It got tough and rubbery, but it was still a faint magenta. I started wondering just where this "farm" was that was the supposed origin of this turkey.  I suspected it may be near a nuclear power plant.

I tried to find white and cooked meat to serve, it was a strange bit of carving.  I filled a plate with any meat I could scrape off that didn't look as though it came from a turkey with radiation sickness. Ultimately, I didn't have the guts to feed it to anyone and I wrapped that turkey carcasse in three plastic bags and tossed it out. I would have lined the trash can in lead if I could have.  We had a vegetarian Thanksgiving.  We gave thanks that the turkey didn't seem to be emitting subspace signals and there was no increase in UFO activity over my house.

I was feeling defeated so two days later I bought another turkey and we had Thanksgiving all over again.  This bird turned out fine.  I was told later by someone who works as a cook, that the pink meat was a sign it had been frozen, thawed and then frozen again.  I was thankful once more that we didn't attempt to eat it.

This year I fell back on tradition and sought out someone else to cook the dinner.  We gave thanks that my sister made the meal and required no outside assistance or anyone to bring dessert (I haven't had an urge to make pastry crust yet).  I have returned to the tradition of finding someone else to do all the work.  Tradition is so important.

Child of the ocean
            I am

feet shod in swirls of
green weed and sand

My spirit rises and falls
to its rhythm
bows in sympathy
with the trees that bend
to the ocean wind

My footsteps

capture a wave
foamy sea pools
in this impression of me
until another rush is made to reclaim it

We have no peace in us today
            the sea and I
 
The gulls bicker
over candy wrappers
and brittle crab shells
the cracked remains
long empty

I echo their unsatisfied cries

I launch my soul in a bottle
with a grain of salt
and a grain of sand

Autumn comes and
sets fire to the trees,
And the Wind
sets fire to the air.

With the evening newspaper spread out across the table, Amy cradled a cup of comfort. Warming and aromatic, her coffee was her favorite companion.  At the end of a long day - the children asleep, the supper dishes washed up - there was time to put aside formulating the plans for morning; time to take a few moments of quiet and scan the newspaper. Most evenings Amy had only enough of an attention span left over to chuckle at the "wrong" advice column, but something suddenly took her attention captive.

"Miss Hammond!"

The named exploded out of Amy's mouth. She hadn't thought or said that name in years. But in that moment that it appeared in front of her, it leaped off the page into her memory, bringing it to life.  Miss Hammond - hadn't she been dead for years?  Miss Hammond, frail of frame but determined and imposing in her way, cultured, refined and not at all the sort of person Amy would ever have expected to meet.  The sort of person Amy might never have met if it weren't for those fateful words, the sudden and unthinking exclamation of a seventh grader in a troublesome situation and looking for a way out.     

I always wanted to play the piano", Amy had blurted in that desperate moment.

It was just something to say, something to give the guidance counselor something to concentrate on.  It was another one of those sessions, the ones where her guidance counselor tried to live up to her job requirements and guide her.  These discussions always went the same way, Mrs. Garcia was no different than any of the others.  

"You're a good student, and gifted.  Your grades don't reflect your abilities and this is Junior High School now, Amy.  This is where your academic career begins to be important to your future. If you don't come to school you miss opportunities to learn and your grades suffer."

Academic career.  Why had they never understood that words like that meant nothing to a twelve year old girl?  Why was it so difficult for them to see why she didn't like school?  Was she as invisible to the adults and faculty as she was to everyone else?  Mrs. Garcia droned on and on. Why did she always pick on Amy to practice her counseling skills on? Amy was in no danger of failing and there were plenty of other students who were.  Amy even knew who they were.  She was in all the same classes as they were.  Amy didn't understand then, she didn't realize that the more school she skipped and the more her grades slipped, the more likely it was that she was going to end up in classes that became increasingly less challenging. The overall effect was to make school a less attractive choice than it was already.  She had a passing grade in all her classes, why wasn't that enough for people like guidance counselors?

Mrs. Garcia was searching for something to interest Amy, not in school but in life.  When she asked for the hundredth time what Amy would like to do or study that would interest her, Amy said the first thing that came into her head.

That was how she ended up taking piano lessons from Miss Hammond.

It was decided - after the guidance counselor had contacted her mother - that not only Amy, but her brother as well, should be quickly enrolled in the study of music.  Amy's mother was very pleased with the idea;  her sister played the piano and so she was very sure both her children had latent musical talent.  She quickly located and installed in their tiny livingroom the most inconveniently large upright piano she could find at the Salvation Army store and called for the tuner.

Saturday was the appointed day for lessons and each Saturday morning, instead of running outside wild and free, Amy and her brother Nick trudged to Miss Hammond's to be instructed in the fine art of tickling the ivory.  Miss Hammond lived on Randall Hill, where all the large and imposing houses built by the richest and most important citizens of town were located.  The hill was steep, and Amy felt this weekly struggle with gravity was just her punishment for having opened her big mouth.

Miss Hammond's struggles had to do more with the students she had taken on.  She certainly earned her seven dollars when it came to Amy and her brother.  Nick could read music, but he couldn't sight-read.  Nick would learn the piece and then play it by heart every time.  He had a wonderful touch, but couldn't play anything cold.  Amy, on the other hand, could sight-read but wouldn't practice.  Miss Hammond constantly scolded her for the way she positioned her hands, Amy having a tendency to use whatever fingers were handy to strike the notes that danced across the page rather than following the accepted patterns.  Perhaps if Miss Hammond could have combined the two children into one, she would have had a prodigy.  Unfortunately all she got were two very musical but very lazy and stubborn students, whose careers were destined to be in something much less disciplined than the playing of Beethoven.

Amy probably never would have admitted it then, but she really didn't hate going to piano lessons.  She loved music and it was interesting to learn how it was made. The best part of the morning was when it was her brother's turn for a lesson.  While Miss Hammond scolded him for not reading the music, Amy was free to explore the world Miss Hammond lived in.

Miss Hammond's parlor was spacious and airy.  The baby grand piano was set by a bay window adorned only by sheer panels and that part of the room always seemed awash in sunlight that made the polished mahogany of the instrument gleam. The floors were polished as well, dust-free and shiny hardwood.  There were two rugs, persian, in rich tones of blue and red, but not matching.  One was placed under the piano and the other in the part of the room meant for sitting and socializing.  The spare look of the piano's space was sharp contrast to the other half of the room.  Deep cherry wood tables with intricately carved legs and feet were topped with embroided scarves and  books of every kind, picture books, history books. Some had been written by friends of Miss Hammond and inscribed by the author on the inside cover.  It was a glimpse right into the soul of Miss Hammond to inventory this room, her love of art and music and fine things was everywhere displayed.

Amy never knew what Miss Hammond seemed to like about her, or Nick for that matter.  It never occurred to her at that time that perhaps most of Miss Hammond's students were even less talented or diligent about practice than they were.  She now wondered if Miss Hammond felt there was something alive in them that she wanted to cultivate, something she didn't see in her other students.  Amy never knew why Miss Hammond chose her and Nick to accompany her for an afternoon of chamber music and a display of vocal talent of the operatic sort given by a tall, blonde, curly-haired man in an impressive suit. Whatever the reason, Amy had felt very grown-up and yet somehow out of place in that auditorium. Amy thought then of all the worlds that Miss Hammond had introduced to her, all the experiences she would never have had if she hadn't been trying to escape an eager and concerned guidance counselor that day so long ago.

The last time Amy had heard Miss Hammond mentioned was at least a decade ago.  Miss Hammond was gravely ill and in the hospital, with the sort of illness one does not survive.
Over the years, Amy had relegated Miss Hammond to deepest memory; the place where people long gone are sent to reside, in brain cells that are rarely called up to deliver their bits and flashes of those lives that have briefly intermingled with our own. Until that that evening, as Amy sipped her coffee and skimmed the paper.
    
        "Virgina E. Hammond, age 97,
        from complications of pneumonia,
         in a local nursing facility"

In that moment, in those few words: "survived by" "leaves" and " taught piano in her home",  Miss Hammond came brilliantly to life; resurrected from memory to scold and instruct, tapping a hand on the piano and counting out the beat as Amy struggled through Fur Elise one more time.  

And then, Miss Hammond was dead.  Again. 

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