tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-213127082024-03-23T13:47:25.681-04:00synch-ro-ni-zingRuthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.comBlogger888125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-24032853980502004152012-08-14T05:29:00.000-04:002012-08-14T05:29:52.329-04:00washed stones: a new space to write<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
I will not be reopening synch-ro-ni-zing. I am happy with this blog and would not change a thing. It has been rich here, interacting with friends. How I've loved the expanse of it all!<br />
<br />
I still need to write, and in an open forum. But I've changed, and I want a quieter and more sequestered space. I picture a monastic retreat, with a narrow bed, a desk and a window. And all the outdoors beyond.<br />
<br />
So I am emerging from hibernation into a spare, small room called <a href="http://washedstones.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">"washed stones"</a> inspired by a poem of Rilke's titled "Not Poor." (See my bold in the poem.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="p1">
<b>NOT POOR</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<i><br /></i>
<i>We are not poor. We are just without riches,</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>we who have no will, no world:</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>marked with the marks of the latest anxiety,</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>disfigured, stripped of leaves.</i></div>
<div class="p3">
<i></i><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>Around us swirls the dust of the cities,</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>the garbage clings to us.</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>We are shunned as if contaminated,</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>thrown away like broken pots, like bones,</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>like last year’s calendar.</i></div>
<div class="p3">
<i></i><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>And yet if our Earth needed to</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>she could weave us together like roses</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>and make of us a garland.</i></div>
<div class="p3">
<i></i><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>For each being is </i><b><i>cleaner than washed stones</i></b></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>and endlessly yours, and like an animal</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>who knows already in its first blind moments</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>its need for one thing only—</i></div>
<div class="p3">
<i></i><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<i>to let ourselves be poor like that—as we truly are.</i></div>
<div class="p3">
<i></i><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<i> ~ Rainer Maria Rilke</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i> The Book of Hours, III, 16</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i> Translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<i><br /></i></div>
<br />
I would love for you to join me, if you like. I warn you, I may be very quiet. You might not even hear me speak. But you'll hear me scribbling, because something in my poor (washed) being wants to be read. Like a stone.<br />
<br />
More about the poem at my <a href="http://washedstones.blogspot.com/2012/08/washed-stones-and-poem-not-poor.html" target="_blank">first post at washed stones</a>.<br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-29064873328712355292012-07-18T00:30:00.000-04:002012-07-18T01:46:41.097-04:00Guest post at Vision and Verb: On becoming a gramma<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NosDxx5iCLI/UAUqwFleQ7I/AAAAAAAATxA/YH5KaeJJPPY/s1600/DSC_2371+red+&+blue+striped+hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NosDxx5iCLI/UAUqwFleQ7I/AAAAAAAATxA/YH5KaeJJPPY/s640/DSC_2371+red+&+blue+striped+hat.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>James 6 months ago, at about 12 hours old</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white;">Today I am sneaking out of hibernation to write a guest post at the lovely <i><a href="http://www.visionandverb.com/" target="_blank">Vision and Verb</a> (. . . a global gathering of women of this age)</i>. My sister Ginnie, a collaborator at V&V (and at her own photoblog <a href="http://ginniehart.shutterchance.com/" target="_blank">Heart & Soul</a> and blog <a href="http://ginniehart.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">In Soul</a>), asked me to write about being a gramma. I am honored to join the women who write there, but what a challenge it is to gather in my feelings and set them down. Well, here goes. (Oh, and he is 6 months old today.)</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="background-color: white;">Get everything finished beforehand, because it will be some time before you get anything “important” done again. </span><i style="background-color: white;"> <a href="http://www.visionandverb.com/at-home/2012/7/18/on-becoming-a-gramma.html" target="_blank">Keep reading</a> . . . </i></span></blockquote>
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">- </span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-66825605137905926222012-06-28T03:07:00.000-04:002012-06-28T03:39:32.566-04:00Farewell<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jorY-qIYwXc/T-vtvYL38KI/AAAAAAAATj4/OfL9J4KJ8Xg/s1600/carrot+flowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jorY-qIYwXc/T-vtvYL38KI/AAAAAAAATj4/OfL9J4KJ8Xg/s400/carrot+flowers.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><i><span style="color: #bf9000;">purple carrot flowers on the farm</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">With some sadness I am putting my blog to sleep. I'd like to think of synch-ro-ni-zing going into hibernation, rather than permanent sleep, but who knows? Most hibernating animals go into the long sleep in winter, but I'm choosing the hottest day of the year in Michigan to tuck this little bird into its nest. (I guess birds don't hibernate, do they?)</span><br />
<br />
I've been at this six and a half years in the best time of my life. I've practiced writing and photography, and I've made friends with extraordinary people. All is well with me and my family, my grandson is a growing joy, our son will be married in August, and life is very good. I am simply feeling creative energy flowing elsewhere. I may post photos from the wedding here as I did from Lesley's. In any case, I'll keep in touch. <br />
<br />
I've started several blogs as my oldest friends know. I reserve the right to start another, which I may do when I begin arranging flowers for the new restaurant of dear friends when it opens. Nina and Tony run The Purple Carrot food truck, which has the best food in town, bar none. They will open the Red Haven restaurant in late August. In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram, the photo sharing app for iPhones and Android phones. My name there is <i>ruthie822</i>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white;">A few nights ago we watched the 2011 version of "Jane Eyre" and loved it. Mia Wasikowska is my favorite Jane to date. I didn't realize then that I would be saying goodbye to synch-ro-ni-zing so soon or use a quote from Charlotte Brontë's novel to say it:<br />
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;">Then you and I should bid good-bye for a little while?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> I suppose so, sir.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm not quite up to it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> Then say it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> What must I say?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> The same, if you like, sir.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> Yes.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands for instance; but no—that would not content me either. So you'll do nothing more than say Farewell, Jane?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> It is enough, sir; as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> Very likely; but it is blank and cool—"Farewell."</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
It <i>is</i> blank and cool, and I'd rather get a hug from you.<br />
<div style="color: white;">
<span style="background-color: white;">-</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: white;">- </span></span></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com106tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-46081520219257415982012-06-22T06:39:00.000-04:002012-06-22T09:14:03.536-04:00June bug<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e6_Ih5cwhWc/T-Q68rsw3kI/AAAAAAAATjs/t-0_wCKGKt0/s1600/Diane+preparing+to+read+at+the+Scarab+Club.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e6_Ih5cwhWc/T-Q68rsw3kI/AAAAAAAATjs/t-0_wCKGKt0/s640/Diane+preparing+to+read+at+the+Scarab+Club.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #bf9000;">Diane Wakoski preparing to read poetry at The Scarab Club</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
In Michigan in June we see lots of June beetles banging against lighted window screens and we also see them dead on the sidewalk like pieces of broken brown bottles.<br />
<br />
I went inside one very alive beetle this week. Once a golden scarab that could have been the Paris of the Midwest, Detroit is of course now littered with crumbling empty buildings and brownfields, photographed and even relished the world over for its <a href="http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.html" target="_blank">"urban decay porn."</a> But there are jewels in the city that are protected and showcased by loving enthusiasts. James and Kim hosted a poetry reading Wednesday by Diane Wakoski in the heart of Detroit's Cultural Center at The Scarab Club, across from the Detroit Institute of Arts, where Diego Rivera's famous Detroit Industry murals <a href="http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/2011/02/different-kind-of-uprising.html" target="_blank">glow</a>. When I walked into the club with Diane, Robert and Heather the space lit by the towering garden window opened me up like a beetle flying to light. Paintings by students from the art school Lesley attended backdropped Diane's reading of her poems about movies.<br />
<br />
Afterward some of us had dinner at the Union Street Cafe on Woodward Ave. Listening to James and Kim talk about the club I realized once again how little I know about the Detroit scene. It is alive thanks to the people who believe in its heart and culture.<br />
<br />
Here is a poem by Diane that conjures elements of summer and Detroit for me. I have these episodes of inspiration to get inside Detroit. And then I get distracted by my university and country life a couple of hours away.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>Inside Out</b></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">By Diane Wakoski </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I walk the purple carpet into your eye<br />
carrying the silver butter server<br />
but a truck rumbles by,<br />
leaving its black tire prints on my foot<br />
and old images the sound of banging screen doors on hot<br />
afternoons and a fly buzzing over the Kool-Aid spilled on<br />
the sink<br />
flicker, as reflections on the metal surface.<br />
Come in, you said,<br />
inside your paintings, inside the blood factory, inside the<br />
old songs that line your hands, inside<br />
eyes that change like a snowflake every second,<br />
inside spinach leaves holding that one piece of gravel,<br />
inside the whiskers of a cat,<br />
inside your old hat, and most of all inside your mouth where you<br />
grind the pigments with your teeth, painting<br />
with a broken bottle on the floor, and painting<br />
with an ostrich feather on the moon that rolls out of my mouth.<br />
You cannot let me walk inside you too long inside<br />
the veins where my small feet touch<br />
bottom.<br />
You must reach inside and pull me<br />
like a silver bullet<br />
from your arm.</blockquote>
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">- </span><br />
<br />Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-73673898507656095062012-06-17T06:52:00.002-04:002012-06-20T12:06:03.738-04:00Father's Day: a case for pushing kids out of the nest<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CiYHj2RdbrE/T92pZjLrNpI/AAAAAAAATjg/Q3SoPHKD5Mo/s1600/robins+eggs+nest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CiYHj2RdbrE/T92pZjLrNpI/AAAAAAAATjg/Q3SoPHKD5Mo/s400/robins+eggs+nest.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
These orphaned robin's eggs that Don found on the ground while he mowed around the spruce tree are normal in the earth's economy. If everything survived, the world would be overrun. Yet I tend to side with the prey, not the bluejay who knocked the nest out of the tree while he raided and stole eggs. There is a mothering instinct in me that wants the defenseless to be protected, and survive.<br />
<br />
It's Father's Day in the U.S., and I am feeling grateful that my husband and father of my two children agreed with Goethe: "There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings." I work with college students, and I witness the growing trend of "Velcro" parents to stay involved in the daily (or hourly) comings, goings, successes and failings of their college children. Truth is that the kids are half of that sticky Velcro and seem to want to be in touch many times a day by text. The roots are strong, the wings not so much. (I couldn't wait to be off on my own.)<br />
<br />
There is a fantastic article about breaking up with parents written by Terry Castle, the literary critic and professor at Stanford (Susan Sontag called her the most expressive literary critic alive today). I felt something shift when I read it. She uses literary orphans to demonstrate how strong and resilient humans become when they are forced to survive on their own (so many! "Witness Little Goody Two-Shoes, Pollyanna, Heidi, Little Orphan Annie, Kim, Mowgli, Bilbo, Frodo, Anne (of Green Gables), Dorothy (she of Toto and Auntie Em), Peter (as in Pan), Harry (as in Potter)". The article is <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/The-Case-for-Breaking-Up-With/131760/" target="_blank">"The Case for Breaking Up with Your Parents"</a> in the <i><a href="http://chronicle.com/section/Home/5/" target="_blank">Chronicle of Higher Education</a></i>. It is long. It is excellent.<br />
<br />
Of course we live in times of economic hardship, and some of our adult kids have to live with us now and then until they catch a break. The real point of the article is that we must raise children to think for themselves. Imagine a society of independently thinking people.<br />
<br />
Happy Father's Day!<br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-49695836664292156882012-06-11T07:26:00.001-04:002012-06-11T12:25:38.218-04:00Summer storm<span style="color: white;">- </span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-onD4bsczISM/T9XOF_k8FnI/AAAAAAAATjM/KmnZMV6Ynb0/s1600/220px-William_Butler_Yeat_by_George_Charles_Beresford.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-onD4bsczISM/T9XOF_k8FnI/AAAAAAAATjM/KmnZMV6Ynb0/s1600/220px-William_Butler_Yeat_by_George_Charles_Beresford.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
William Butler Yeats said,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h2>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">We can make our minds so like clear water that beings gather around us, that they might see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even fiercer life because of our quiet.”</span></span></i></h2>
</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ncv2Rml5AOo/T9XOPtYnXmI/AAAAAAAATjU/WOrhTx32wy4/s1600/Morrison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ncv2Rml5AOo/T9XOPtYnXmI/AAAAAAAATjU/WOrhTx32wy4/s320/Morrison.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
I remember one summer night lying in bed at the cottage in the big bedroom upstairs in one of the two double beds encompassed by open screened windows on three walls. I was fourteen, and I had my small FM radio playing quietly so only I could hear it from the nightstand a few inches from my pillow, the only light in the room from its linear dial. It was a hot Michigan night, and a storm was building around us, the way they always did at that place. One storm would come, the clouds would burst, and then another would follow it in a circle of storms. I loved sleeping in that room and waking to the rain on the tin roof, an occasional acorn falling with the rain. Quietly that night when I was the only one awake, my mom and dad in the bedroom downstairs, over the radio came keyboards, thunder, rain and Jim Morrison singing “Riders on the Storm” and I knew the luxury of sound. I did not understand who the “killer on the road” in the song was, or that Jim Morrison had just died of a heroine overdose. I had not yet studied Yeats in college, or visited sites of Dublin's Easter Rising. I did not know much at all, come to think of it.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
I still relish the luxury of that emptiness in a thunderstorm, surrounded by a sky brimming with power, and so much depending on how we listen.</div>
</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hCJm0kNm-2Y" width="640"></iframe>
<span style="color: white;">- </span><br />
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</span></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-23580305615764965592012-06-04T16:04:00.000-04:002012-06-04T16:04:57.252-04:00First outdoor blessings with my grandson, 4 months old<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"></div><br />
<br />
</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote><blockquote>1<br />
I have never been a farmer, or farmer’s wife, sweating <br />
fruit lost to hard frost, and livelihood, or praying for rain.<br />
I have never wanted to. (Will you?) We play here.<br />
Our fingers are smooth. But we grieve<br />
our lost plums so soon come. And we will feel <br />
the cold stone in the barn <br />
on a scorching day, and sigh.<br />
<br />
2<br />
I have been trying to tell you <br />
about the fanned gusts from hummingbirds. <br />
Look out!<br />
for their ferocious beauty.<br />
<br />
3<br />
Are you as warm as I am?<br />
Perfectly?<br />
<br />
4<br />
Just between us, we know the <br />
cool cave of solitude<br />
of the mouth<br />
and when to open it.<br />
<br />
5<br />
Do you think the bee<br />
was confused when the sage <br />
bloomed plum petals<br />
that look like iris<br />
through needles of rosemary?<br />
<br />
6<br />
I wonder when you will first feel <br />
that the road<br />
your tongue takes <br />
out of your own heart’s gate<br />
is one of loneliness?<br />
This is a mixed up place.<br />
For now, join all these birds singing together.<br />
<br />
7<br />
Hear the poplars?<br />
They are saying a dappled hello from<br />
Courbet, Sisley and van Gogh.<br />
(See, it isn't always lonely.)<br />
<br />
8<br />
This air is a bridge <br />
between us<br />
and all. <br />
All!<br />
<br />
9<br />
Creation is what you make<br />
of what you are given<br />
and also<br />
what you are not.<br />
The path in the woods,<br />
and what it passes through.<br />
<br />
10<br />
Please feel all this emptiness.<br />
It is absolutely necessary.<br />
May what you give back to it<br />
always be as true<br />
as the small clear stars<br />
of your voice today.<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>June 2012</i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
It is a hobby farm we live on. We have absolutely not a single apple on our three apple trees, or a single pear on our pear, or plum on our plum. But it is the fruit farmers in Michigan this season I really feel for. The heat in March brought out early blossoms on the trees, and then a hard killing frost in April annihilated the fruit. Pretty much the entire cherry crop has been destroyed, and Michigan is the source of 80% of the world's tart cherries, so you can imagine the impact this has on our state's already wobbly economy. I posted about cherries up North three years ago <a href="http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/2009/08/cherry-cherry.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Here is a minute and a half of video and audio accompaniment out of James's first real outing a couple of weeks ago. I was very moved by the undulations of his tongue, showing that he was meeting nature with it as much as with his ears, eyes and skin. You will hear a small interruption of James's grandpa laughing, then asking me "Where'd Brian go?" and me, grammy, answering, "talkin' to his mom" and you'll see James's grandpa watering his garden. The way James kept gurgling outside when I introduced him to the trees on a walk later made me feel he is simpatico about nature.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xphs-hDF0Lw" width="640"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;">-</div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;">-</div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-865853923684169742012-06-01T12:40:00.003-04:002012-06-01T15:27:24.026-04:00Carpe viam<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ioP7RDEG924/T8josM_zIxI/AAAAAAAATiU/6hy4b1y4Dyw/s1600/angel+sepia+newgrange.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ioP7RDEG924/T8josM_zIxI/AAAAAAAATiU/6hy4b1y4Dyw/s400/angel+sepia+newgrange.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>Carpe viam</i></div><div style="text-align: center;">"seize the road"</div><div style="text-align: center;">was Horace's alternative</div><div style="text-align: center;">in space</div><div style="text-align: center;">instead of time</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>diem</i> and <i>viam</i> </div><div style="text-align: center;">both symbols</div><div style="text-align: center;">of the circle</div><div style="text-align: center;">we live </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">the simple flight</div><div style="text-align: center;">of stones</div><div style="text-align: center;">seized and thrown </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">first rising</div><div style="text-align: center;">then falling</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">to become the road</div><div style="text-align: center;">in the end<br />
(that never ends) </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>June 2012</i></div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;">-</div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;">-</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-71804943762949041312012-05-29T08:17:00.001-04:002012-05-29T11:08:48.033-04:00To be, so unlike another<div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">- </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PXG6k0PvE2A/T8S7k8JmJZI/AAAAAAAATiI/iJ4H7vhqfnA/s1600/morning+sun+to+the+meadow+073+web-073.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PXG6k0PvE2A/T8S7k8JmJZI/AAAAAAAATiI/iJ4H7vhqfnA/s640/morning+sun+to+the+meadow+073+web-073.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>To be, so unlike another</b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Discomfited in a room where I <br />
have never been nor will ever be. <br />
No lace. No flowers. Unrecognizable <br />
to myself. Yet bending<br />
<br />
to sit in your imagined chair <br />
by your particular window.<br />
Mountain witness, sea air. A series <br />
of paintings in red and blue by Hokusai.<br />
<br />
How much useless effort I have spent <br />
climbing into that chair.<br />
Or marching against the wind<br />
of your breath, not floating in it. <br />
<br />
I accept at last my discomfiture<br />
with myself, with you; never mind, <br />
and run alone through slats of sun <br />
with cavorting birds who are anything <br />
<br />
but silent. Free to say that I want to love <br />
myself the way I want you to love me:<br />
Under song. In and out of tree-stripe <br />
shadows, one limb after another.<br />
<br />
As far as the sun’s eye sees along <br />
a flat land where orange hawkweeds<br />
swell in the random mist of spider laces.<br />
In the morning. In the morning.<br />
<br />
</blockquote><blockquote><i>May 2012</i></blockquote><br />
<div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">-</span></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-75211534705755725112012-05-25T05:15:00.015-04:002012-05-25T12:32:21.420-04:00Theodore Roethke lives on, but Morrill Hall will not<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yXx8hNSXH5M/T76Jy0925cI/AAAAAAAATco/yNhoNYz5hqI/s1600/091908+009+soffet+upward+view+Morrill+work+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="410" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yXx8hNSXH5M/T76Jy0925cI/AAAAAAAATco/yNhoNYz5hqI/s640/091908+009+soffet+upward+view+Morrill+work+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="color: #783f04; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>“The edge is what I have.” ~ Theodore Roethke</i></span></div><br />
I need to document a couple of things.<br />
<br />
I work in one of the oldest buildings on campus, Morrill Hall. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cexLWCgmV4s/T76KDdsfDQI/AAAAAAAATcw/6kR1rrWqEaY/s1600/Morrill+Hall+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="460" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cexLWCgmV4s/T76KDdsfDQI/AAAAAAAATcw/6kR1rrWqEaY/s640/Morrill+Hall+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Morrill Hall’s Chicago style architecture is simple.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EN6IRX_nyto/T76Kr_TG_TI/AAAAAAAATc4/6OgUrkcPkfE/s1600/112009+013+pss+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="504" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EN6IRX_nyto/T76Kr_TG_TI/AAAAAAAATc4/6OgUrkcPkfE/s640/112009+013+pss+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
The halls are old-school institutional.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5cS4sAkgjgg/T76LBFGFDCI/AAAAAAAATdA/S5vmQHCw7QQ/s1600/Morrill+hallway+3+color+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5cS4sAkgjgg/T76LBFGFDCI/AAAAAAAATdA/S5vmQHCw7QQ/s640/Morrill+hallway+3+color+web.jpg" width="474" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tj5y1HX7JFQ/T76LMv9y9JI/AAAAAAAATdI/LYOJloaZUZI/s1600/Morrill+hallway+color+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="560" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tj5y1HX7JFQ/T76LMv9y9JI/AAAAAAAATdI/LYOJloaZUZI/s640/Morrill+hallway+color+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ft1Xqo3hbNU/T76Ld_4QjwI/AAAAAAAATdQ/JdEZbqjNlyw/s1600/may30_07+misc+004rotwork-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ft1Xqo3hbNU/T76Ld_4QjwI/AAAAAAAATdQ/JdEZbqjNlyw/s640/may30_07+misc+004rotwork-web.jpg" width="456" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yEp_OWR7Oyg/T76j-DZ-Y3I/AAAAAAAATgA/WmPY5LYK-Wc/s1600/Justin+Morrill+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yEp_OWR7Oyg/T76j-DZ-Y3I/AAAAAAAATgA/WmPY5LYK-Wc/s400/Justin+Morrill+3.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>Morrill Hall was built 1899-1901 as a women’s dorm when there was a Home Economics major. It was named for Justin Smith Morrill, the author of the Morrill Act, which is also called the Land Grant Colleges Act. The act intended to ensure that there would be at least one college in each state of the Union that would be accessible to all students, especially “to the sons of toil” (agriculture, science and engineering). Michigan State University was the first Land Grant University in the United States, established in 1855, before the Morrill Act. It was a few years later that Justin Morrill, a Representative (and later Senator) from the state of Vermont, authored the Land Grant Colleges Act that was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, 150 years ago. It was from that point that Land Grant Colleges like MSU began to receive federal funding. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_land-grant_universities" target="_blank">Here</a> is a list of Land Grant Universities, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities.)<br />
<br />
Here are a few of us reading Diane Wakoski poems to her in a tribute on the occasion of her retirement a year ago below her Morrill Hall office window.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MXiorUI6Wow/T79R-H45avI/AAAAAAAATgk/3TGQd0FFVUE/s1600/Group-behind-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MXiorUI6Wow/T79R-H45avI/AAAAAAAATgk/3TGQd0FFVUE/s640/Group-behind-tree.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qH5uECcbflM/T79SH8myc5I/AAAAAAAATgs/meZJJElgEKM/s1600/Ruth-back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qH5uECcbflM/T79SH8myc5I/AAAAAAAATgs/meZJJElgEKM/s640/Ruth-back.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Me reading Wakoski's</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/2011/04/diane-wakoskis-poetry-lessons.html" target="_blank"><i>"Ode to a Lebanese Crock of Olives"</i></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nF-tUL38sR8/T79SOrhH3HI/AAAAAAAATg0/hzQyvdvAtYY/s1600/Diane-window.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nF-tUL38sR8/T79SOrhH3HI/AAAAAAAATg0/hzQyvdvAtYY/s640/Diane-window.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Diane Wakoski listening in her office window;</i><br />
<i>we gathered in her office afterward</i><br />
<i>and reminisced about going to office hours</i><br />
<i>back in the days of our classes with her </i><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">My second floor office is spacious with a ten-foot ceiling and oak trim, probably from the oaks that were clear-cut all across Michigan. (After the great Chicago fire Chicago was rebuilt from Michigan trees.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Morrill Hall looks and feels just the way an English department should.</div><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eMB-BluGSPs/T76LtlankrI/AAAAAAAATdY/ak9Qqn8zfUY/s1600/cabinet+with+teapots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eMB-BluGSPs/T76LtlankrI/AAAAAAAATdY/ak9Qqn8zfUY/s640/cabinet+with+teapots.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>This cabinet in my office is where all the department's</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>published dissertations were stored, but not any more.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The teapots are used for Teas with Professors. </i></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RszzHJSBhFg/T76eWnn_6zI/AAAAAAAATf0/EvZV4H34s_4/s1600/teapots+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RszzHJSBhFg/T76eWnn_6zI/AAAAAAAATf0/EvZV4H34s_4/s640/teapots+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><br />
Unfortunately, Morrill Hall was built to be a women’s dorm over a hundred years ago for forty pounds of weight per square foot, not as office space for the departments of English, Religious Studies and History, with professors’ offices lined with books floor to ceiling. The floors now bear about 140 pounds per square foot, and the structure of the building just can’t take it. Floors sag in the middle, and ceiling plaster falls on desks. My filing cabinet tipped over last year, thankfully not on top of me. My floor sags, and the filing cabinet was not properly shimmed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0PHPJa0uWPY/T76L9bOyF4I/AAAAAAAATdg/cr8UQywq99Q/s1600/DSC_8118web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0PHPJa0uWPY/T76L9bOyF4I/AAAAAAAATdg/cr8UQywq99Q/s640/DSC_8118web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Thankfully I was standing at the cabinet when it began to tip,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>and I was able to scoot out of the way.</i></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TRkml0K1hGQ/T76MFYd2xxI/AAAAAAAATdo/xufhjGFluTI/s1600/DSC_8119web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TRkml0K1hGQ/T76MFYd2xxI/AAAAAAAATdo/xufhjGFluTI/s640/DSC_8119web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CLva-Z9972k/T76MMpWWvGI/AAAAAAAATdw/so1tyk37Z-8/s1600/DSC_8123web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CLva-Z9972k/T76MMpWWvGI/AAAAAAAATdw/so1tyk37Z-8/s640/DSC_8123web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I hate to think what would have happened</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>if I'd been sitting at my computer;</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>though the copper vase fell on my macbook,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>the laptop didn't break. </i></div><br />
The building will be torn down sometime in the next year. Even most of the people who don't like Morrill Hall for its bats, cockroaches, falling plaster, hellish heat, dingy halls and the like are sorry to see it come down. We’ll be moving across campus to a newer refurbished building near the river. There will be central air and even floors. No dark, ominous hallways with bats fluttering around your head. No character, in my humble opinion. When I visited my new digs across the river last year, I cried all the way back to Morrill.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dxF1e7zYPKA/T76MftW3JrI/AAAAAAAATd4/IGVrY-WfmZM/s1600/091908+001+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="422" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dxF1e7zYPKA/T76MftW3JrI/AAAAAAAATd4/IGVrY-WfmZM/s640/091908+001+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
There are lots of stories about old Morrill Hall that are being recalled by professors and staff who have been around the longest, many of them retiring this year and not making the move with us, including my professor and mentor Diane Wakoski. I graduated from the department the same year I got my job as academic adviser in 2001. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GyNfIy69aHg/T76xyO88nBI/AAAAAAAATgM/btnTE9ED_pU/s1600/office+window+002+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GyNfIy69aHg/T76xyO88nBI/AAAAAAAATgM/btnTE9ED_pU/s320/office+window+002+web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I had supper with two retiring friends last week who have worked in the department since the 1970s, and they reminisced for a couple of hours while I listened and asked questions. One standout story was of a poet-professor who climbed out his second floor (or third, depending on who tells it) classroom window and peered in at the students from the ledge making faces “to give them something to write about.” My professor friend couldn’t remember the poet-professor’s name. Next day when I found out he was Theodore Roethke, the Pulitzer prize winning poet considered one of the great and important American poets of his generation, I was sorry it had taken the demise of our building for me to hear about it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qyb9gMaqbg0/T76MuVQWEFI/AAAAAAAATeA/gOmcCpL2ivU/s1600/Roethkeb-15c35b-5c20_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qyb9gMaqbg0/T76MuVQWEFI/AAAAAAAATeA/gOmcCpL2ivU/s400/Roethkeb-15c35b-5c20_small.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>Roethke (1908-1963) is one of the names I’ve heard since I got into poetry in the early 1990s with Wakoski, but I never read his work. I suppose there are so many wonderful and important poets, that you only focus on the few who catch your attention. I mostly spent time with William Carlos Williams from that generation. I assumed Roethke was intellectual and inaccessible. (Watch this lovely, artistic 25-minute <a href="http://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.53888" target="_blank">film</a> of him to see how he is not; he reminds me of Jack Benny and Charles Laughton at their most childlike and animated.)<br />
<br />
Today is Theodore Roethke’s birthday, born 1908, though he’s just been born for me. I decided to write about him in a post about the death of Morrill Hall, because so often one life ends when another begins. (I think of dear <a href="http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/2012/01/poem-birth-and-death.html" target="_blank">Lister Matheson</a>, the professor who passed away the day after my grandson was born.) You can read good bios at several sites. (<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/theodore-roethke" target="_blank">Poetry Foundation</a>, University of Illinois’ Modern American Poetry <a href="http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/roethke/bio.htm" target="_blank">site</a>, the Friends of Roethke home museum <a href="http://www.roethkehouse.org/index.html" target="_blank">site</a>).<br />
<br />
You can read in those abbreviated bios about Roethke’s importance to poetry, and about his struggles with manic depression and drinking. How he wrote “the Greenhouse Poems” out of his childhood when his father and uncle ran a greenhouse in Saginaw, Michigan, "the greenhouse — my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth" (from <a href="http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=1492532&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=8009a559de" target="_blank">today's The Writer's Almanac</a>). How he taught at Michigan State just a few months before being hospitalized in Ann Arbor after a mental breakdown. How after years of teaching at the University of Washington he died at age 55 with a heart attack in a friend’s pool. You can read the full biographical book about him called <i>The Glass House</i> by Allan Seager.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XUPWRgNaK2Q/T76M3JvXQlI/AAAAAAAATeI/Ju0GxMf_IR4/s1600/Roethke+smiling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XUPWRgNaK2Q/T76M3JvXQlI/AAAAAAAATeI/Ju0GxMf_IR4/s320/Roethke+smiling.jpg" width="320" /></a>Besides the fact that he worked in my university building, I am trying to comprehend why Roethke has captivated my attention so profoundly. If I’d read a poem by him after hearing he worked in my department and not been astonished with the sort of beauty that comes through suffering, I probably would not have been drawn to him as powerfully as I have. But I was blown away after one poem, satiated. I couldn’t read another for several days. It was this poem I read first. You can see how he uses nature to connect with the interior life, and vice versa:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #b45f06;"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>In a Dark Time </b></span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">by Theodore Roethke<br />
<br />
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,<br />
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;<br />
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--<br />
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,<br />
I live between the heron and the wren,<br />
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.<br />
<br />
What's madness but nobility of soul<br />
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!<br />
I know the purity of pure despair,<br />
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.<br />
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,<br />
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.<br />
<br />
A steady storm of correspondences!<br />
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,<br />
And in broad day the midnight come again!<br />
A man goes far to find out what he is--<br />
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,<br />
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.<br />
<br />
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.<br />
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,<br />
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?<br />
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.<br />
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,<br />
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.</blockquote></blockquote><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WR4N0KSBdxE/T76NFWiRofI/AAAAAAAATeQ/faFu0PlAbVo/s1600/theodore-roethke-200x350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WR4N0KSBdxE/T76NFWiRofI/AAAAAAAATeQ/faFu0PlAbVo/s400/theodore-roethke-200x350.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>What strikes me from Roethke’s story and poetry is the way he opened up rooms of consciousness through all experience, including, maybe most importantly, through what was painful. To suffer, and within the suffering take a step forward into creativity, is profoundly brave and loving. He explored the self and was introspective, perhaps to a fault. He used “himself as the material for his art” and was criticized for it artistically; using his breakdowns "to reach a new level of reality" may have intensified his manic swings. But who is to say, except the one who is within the suffering self, what is right, or harmful, or beneficial? Other suffering poets evoke anger, sorrow, pity. The feeling I get from the Roethke poems I have read is joy and beauty, fed by sadness. <br />
<br />
While I get a thrill that Roethke worked in the same halls where I work, unhappily his few months at MSU are when at age 27 he experienced his first mental breakdown. Rod Phillips, Michigan poet who wrote five poems about the MSU Roethke story of peering in at his students through a window in a collection called “The Ledge” wrote in the intro:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vO8S9r66ycQ/T76PWQPvD7I/AAAAAAAATfg/MljvM9N60BU/s1600/DSC_3813+Rod+Phillips+The+Ledge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vO8S9r66ycQ/T76PWQPvD7I/AAAAAAAATfg/MljvM9N60BU/s320/DSC_3813+Rod+Phillips+The+Ledge.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #bf9000;">In November, midway through the fall quarter, he suffered the first of what would be several mental breakdowns. Roethke became obsessed by his reading of the Russian dancer Vaslov Nijinsky’s mystical diary, written while he was in an asylum in San Moritz. Fueled by heavy alcohol consumption, enormous doses of coffee and Coca-Cola, and by Nijinsky’s insistence that the path to truly knowing reality was through a trance-like madness, Roethke spiraled into a psychotic break that left him wandering shoeless, freezing, and incoherent in the woods near campus.</blockquote><br />
Here are a few pertinent and poignant lines from the poems by Phillips about the Roethke ledge incident and subsequent breakdown:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="color: #bf9000;">(“Now watch” you told them</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">as you backed out the window</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">“Write about this.”)</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">I see you waving at them, making faces</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">through the rippling distortion</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">of the thick window glass.</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">Glowing for a moment on that ledge,</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">that high thin extremest verge,</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">just six weeks before your breakdown—</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">the dizzying fall from sanity</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">that ended your brief time here</div><br />
~ excerpt from “The Ledge”<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #bf9000;">It was all too big to keep indoors;</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">if the trees had souls as Nijinsky said</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">you had to verify this immediately,</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">before clarity was lost and you fell</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">back into the world of man.</div><br />
~ excerpt from “The Campus Hotel”<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #bf9000;">It was the creaking of the trees</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">in the night wind that brought you back</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">into yourself, sweating and shivering . . . </div><div style="color: #bf9000;">A stranger wrapped a blanket </div><div style="color: #bf9000;">around your heaving shoulders . . . </div><br />
~ excerpt from “The Secret of Nijinsky”<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #bf9000;">Later, when a doctor began to suggest</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">that mental states like yours had produced</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">some of history’s finest literature,</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">you cut him off in mid-sentence,</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">braced his arm and asked</div><div style="color: #bf9000;">“Don’t you know what poems like that cost?”</div><br />
~ excerpt from “There is Another Story”</blockquote><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UUtc1OMrAug/T79LTWStqkI/AAAAAAAATgY/qOsurfgVXzw/s1600/9574819-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UUtc1OMrAug/T79LTWStqkI/AAAAAAAATgY/qOsurfgVXzw/s1600/9574819-large.jpg" /></a></div>This summer I plan to visit one of the picnics held at the <a href="http://www.roethkehouse.org/" target="_blank">Friends of Theodore Roethke Home Museum</a> in Saginaw, Michigan. The curators want not only to establish a center spotlighting Roethke’s historical legacy; they also want to extend poetry workshops, community service and education about mental illness. I have spoken with them and might be able to help the Friends of Roethke dig deeper into facts of his time at MSU. (Photo of the Roethke house courtesy <i>The Saginaw News</i>)<br />
<br />
One last thing. A couple of our young professors created an event a few weeks ago to write literary graffiti on the walls of Morrill Hall. We got permission from the Dean, and many professors, students and staff came to write favorite quotes, an impermanent gesture in a crumbling building to highlight what lasts in the heart. Sadly, my camera’s memory card was not inserted properly, and I lost all the photos from that event. But here are a few taken afterward.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jkbmxVg_46w/T76Nxu_E2gI/AAAAAAAATeY/QXvo6oMUAgs/s1600/DSC_3687+grad+lounge+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jkbmxVg_46w/T76Nxu_E2gI/AAAAAAAATeY/QXvo6oMUAgs/s640/DSC_3687+grad+lounge+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The graduate lounge;</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>in the days of the women's dorm, this was one side of a lounge;</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>the other side is now partitioned as the graduate office</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>with an unpainted oak fireplace;</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>that was my office for my first year in 2001 </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gKuwiFLotzI/T76N6gQ-IuI/AAAAAAAATeg/AeIiDiD7d40/s1600/DSC_3688+Happiness+quote+graffiti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gKuwiFLotzI/T76N6gQ-IuI/AAAAAAAATeg/AeIiDiD7d40/s640/DSC_3688+Happiness+quote+graffiti.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L94weiRSqe4/T76OENGUjFI/AAAAAAAATeo/b7xC4wZI6T0/s1600/DSC_3685+catcher+quote+graffiti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L94weiRSqe4/T76OENGUjFI/AAAAAAAATeo/b7xC4wZI6T0/s640/DSC_3685+catcher+quote+graffiti.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>It was a window like this that Roethke peered through</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KM4RhG2iv_0/T76OWvGMZqI/AAAAAAAATew/nRRtFT9QQlQ/s1600/DSC_3690+Diane+Wakoski+graffiti+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KM4RhG2iv_0/T76OWvGMZqI/AAAAAAAATew/nRRtFT9QQlQ/s640/DSC_3690+Diane+Wakoski+graffiti+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Of course I had to write some Diane Wakoski,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>from her famous poem <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176005" target="_blank">"Blue Monday";</a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I picked a line with "bats" in it </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>and drew a little cartoon of her</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z1KfhOjnosc/T76OuRbESNI/AAAAAAAATfA/aNXR6-my_TI/s1600/DSC_3692+hindi+urdu+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z1KfhOjnosc/T76OuRbESNI/AAAAAAAATfA/aNXR6-my_TI/s640/DSC_3692+hindi+urdu+web.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Professor Singh, who teaches Shakespeare,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>wrote an Urdu poem in Hindi;</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I took a photo of her writing it,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>but as I say, my memory card wasn't in properly,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>so it never made it to the camera sensor</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gaZP4PgHTCs/T76O2kkcQGI/AAAAAAAATfI/mjPySlmlfZ8/s1600/DSC_3807+Roethke+quote+on+wall+-+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gaZP4PgHTCs/T76O2kkcQGI/AAAAAAAATfI/mjPySlmlfZ8/s640/DSC_3807+Roethke+quote+on+wall+-+web.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>This is my office (shorter filing cabinet now);</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>My friend Inge and I wrote on my office walls</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>last week</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PtXEK_1UGt8/T76O_uy_3LI/AAAAAAAATfQ/QijBws8KRLQ/s1600/DSC_3808+Roethke+quote+closeup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PtXEK_1UGt8/T76O_uy_3LI/AAAAAAAATfQ/QijBws8KRLQ/s640/DSC_3808+Roethke+quote+closeup.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I wanted to memorialize Roethke somewhere in the graffiti</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>where my students would see it when they come in for an appointment</i><br />
<i>for a couple more months</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4NCo8ENFGEs/T76PHmrKIbI/AAAAAAAATfY/mn0WERbt4Ik/s1600/DSC_3809+Inge%27s+Woolf+quote+about+madness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4NCo8ENFGEs/T76PHmrKIbI/AAAAAAAATfY/mn0WERbt4Ik/s640/DSC_3809+Inge%27s+Woolf+quote+about+madness.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I didn't realize until Inge had finished writing her Virginia Woolf quote</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>that we had both written about madness.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><br />
I'll end with one more Roethke poem, “Big Wind.” It is one of his greenhouse poems, about the rose house. I think of the rose house as Morrill Hall, the building many of us would like to save in the face of the big wind of time and progress. Ultimately, I guess, the building we want to save is ourself.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #b45f06;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Big Wind </b></span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">by Theodore Roethke<br />
<br />
Where were the greenhouses going,<br />
Lunging into the lashing<br />
Wind driving water<br />
So far down the river<br />
All the faucets stopped?<br />
So we drained the manure-machine<br />
For the steam plant,<br />
Pumping the stale mixture<br />
Into the rusty boilers,<br />
Watching the pressure gauge<br />
Waver over to red,<br />
As the seams hissed<br />
And the live steam<br />
Drove to the far<br />
End of the rose-house,<br />
Where the worst wind was,<br />
Creaking the cypress window-frames,<br />
Cracking so much thin glass<br />
We stayed all night,<br />
Stuffing the holes with burlap;<br />
But she rode it out,<br />
That old rose-house,<br />
She hove into the teeth of it,<br />
The core and pith of that ugly storm,<br />
Ploughing with her stiff prow,<br />
Bucking into the wind-waves<br />
That broke over the whole of her,<br />
Flailing her sides with spray,<br />
Flinging long strings of wet across the roof-top,<br />
Finally veering, wearing themselves out, merely<br />
Whistling thinly under the wind-vents;<br />
She sailed until the calm morning,<br />
Carrying her full cargo of roses. </blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JJwX5QbwEAw/T76QKwt1MrI/AAAAAAAATfo/rL4pjnz8qcM/s1600/Morrill+stairwell+002+crop+ps_filtered+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JJwX5QbwEAw/T76QKwt1MrI/AAAAAAAATfo/rL4pjnz8qcM/s640/Morrill+stairwell+002+crop+ps_filtered+web.jpg" width="572" /></a></div><div style="color: white;"> -</div><span style="color: white;">- </span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-8679265393110453952012-05-22T08:16:00.007-04:002012-05-30T07:39:03.320-04:00After reading Frank O'Hara<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DZ5OWd6dDhU/T7t8OoxR3hI/AAAAAAAATcc/fflm4YYjibw/s1600/mint+and+nettles-3806-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DZ5OWd6dDhU/T7t8OoxR3hI/AAAAAAAATcc/fflm4YYjibw/s640/mint+and+nettles-3806-web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
Frank O'Hara's perspective is profoundly urban, and I love his leaps and dives. The poem I read before my foray in the garden was not this one, a favorite, and with rare observations of nature. But it ended up inspiring mine. I don't know how he does it, just what he describes, to <i>deepen you with his quickness</i>. He catches that sense we get from a poem when you simultaneously feel you've discovered the deepest truth for the first time, but that you also <i>knew</i> it all along.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>POETRY</b></span></div>by Frank O'Hara<br />
<br />
</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote><blockquote>The only way to be quiet<br />
is to be quick, so I scare<br />
you clumsily, or surprise<br />
you with a stab. A praying<br />
mantis knows time more<br />
intimately than I and is<br />
more casual. Crickets use<br />
time for accompaniment to<br />
innocent fidgeting. A zebra<br />
races counterclockwise.<br />
All this I desire. To<br />
deepen you by my quickness<br />
and delight as if you<br />
were logical and proven,<br />
but still be quiet as if<br />
I were used to you; as if<br />
you would never leave me<br />
and were the inexorable<br />
product of my own time.</blockquote></blockquote><br />
</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">I actually wrote my poem below after reading another O'Hara poem, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/15741">"Meditations in an Emergency"</a> with the lines:</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #bf9000;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. </i></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"></blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>After reading Frank O’Hara</b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">I am weeding<br />
the bed of mint—<br />
spearmint peppermint<br />
chocolate —<br />
and feel the quick stab<br />
of stinging nettles<br />
through garden gloves<br />
<br />
the damn leaves<br />
almost the same<br />
and while I rub<br />
the tender spot<br />
you tell me<br />
it is good<br />
for pain<br />
<br />
<i>No kidding</i>, I think<br />
<br />
But what you mean<br />
is that its extract<br />
relieves pain <br />
in joints and such<br />
<br />
and so I squat back<br />
down in the delicious air<br />
and let the pain <br />
surprise my hands <br />
with goodness <br />
before <br />
they feel it<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>May 2012</i><br />
<div style="color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-28786231653228371332012-05-16T07:42:00.005-04:002012-05-16T08:51:56.274-04:00Shelved<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OgCc0pR7R34/T7OMhmABTLI/AAAAAAAATcQ/iuBpTeOGMUM/s1600/rose+aged-7302+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OgCc0pR7R34/T7OMhmABTLI/AAAAAAAATcQ/iuBpTeOGMUM/s640/rose+aged-7302+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
I began this poem by cataloging things that are set away for another time. While writing I became nostalgic and thought of my Uncle Jimmie, and the grief of his life when he lost his wife, my Aunt Ginny, first to mental illness shortly after their daughter, my only cousin, was born, then sometime not too long after, to death. Later he lost their daughter, too, much too young. Then the poem slipped into fiction, as he never lived on a farm that I know of, and he did find love again with a second wife, though he outlived her, too. So this is about a farmer who was not as fortunate as my uncle perhaps, but who I'm sure must have lived like this. I don’t write many rhyming poems, but rhymes seem suited for nostalgia.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Shelved</b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Bone plates in the cupboard<br />
for blackberries and pears;<br />
onions in a basket flaking<br />
down the basement stair;<br />
<br />
photos crammed in shoeboxes<br />
behind the cabinet’s frieze;<br />
winter boots under winter coats,<br />
and under the lid: piano keys;<br />
<br />
clippers in a copper bowl,<br />
mauve eggs in the house of wrens;<br />
golf clubs in the attic next to <br />
the glass ballerina “Madeleine”;<br />
<br />
amber rectangle of Chanel <br />
shining at the bottom of a vial,<br />
sleeping eyes and teeth and tongue<br />
in the silent accumulation of bile;<br />
<br />
poems in books, bats in the barn,<br />
attar in furrows of unopened roses,<br />
the moon and stars in the light of day,<br />
the sun, after night’s closet closes; <br />
<br />
needles and yarn in an old crewel bag,<br />
half-finished sweater, an undarned sock,<br />
piles of cotton, batting and lace,<br />
a refashioned dress just ready to smock;<br />
<br />
shovels and rakes hung head up<br />
between the nails of the shed, <br />
firewood honeycombed along a wall,<br />
the axe asleep in its bed<br />
<br />
like old Uncle Jim, love-lost and meek<br />
when at last we laid him in earth;<br />
wind in the crotch of the giant oak,<br />
hens lined up on their berth;<br />
<br />
his heart in its shell as snug as an egg<br />
dropped warm from its mother hen,<br />
eclipsed by a shroud when Aunt Ginny died<br />
and it never came out again.<br />
<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>May 2012</i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
Poetry should be <a href="http://web.me.com/ruthie822/flyinginsynch/Podcast/Entries/2012/5/16_Shelved.html" target="_blank">heard</a>. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-75095421831156250792012-05-11T08:53:00.001-04:002012-05-11T10:30:50.434-04:00Moose<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9Ouol1v-UHc/T60CWtETKgI/AAAAAAAATcE/bdMQauwQALE/s1600/800px-Mt_Hood_Wilderness_near_Ramona_Falls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9Ouol1v-UHc/T60CWtETKgI/AAAAAAAATcE/bdMQauwQALE/s640/800px-Mt_Hood_Wilderness_near_Ramona_Falls.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">This poem is an attempt at plagiarism. I come from poetry lessons with Robert Kelly and Diane Wakoski who taught that copying the poems of others was something like what the copyists at the Louvre did who learned from the masters. But in writing a poem, perhaps unlike painting, even when you try to copy another poet your own voice is bound to come out and no one might be the wiser as to what the original inspiration was. In an interesting project Robert Kelly wrote “into” Percy Bysshe Shelley’s <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist256/alps/mont_blanc.htm" target="_blank">“Mont Blanc,”</a> adding his own text, thereby creating a new poem in book form, also called <a href="http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/kelly/mont.blanc.html" target="_blank"><i>Mont Blanc</i></a>. Diane Wakoski taught that if you take a poem and change the words to be your own, you are creating something completely new. <br />
<br />
The past couple of mornings I’ve read and reread a poem by Native American poet Joy Harjo called “Eagle Poem,” which was the Writers Almanac entry for May 9. I was swept up in it, soothed, transported. Then I remembered a morning like hers when I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon the autumn of 1976, the semester I lived up the mountain from Ashland with twenty-two students and six professors studying philosophy, literature, science and nature. One morning of the five mornings on the trail, I met a moose, an animal whose size can only be imagined, until you stand within a few feet of him.<br />
<br />
Here’s my poem, a “plagiarism” perhaps of Harjo’s “Eagle Poem,” which I’ve included below mine. Of course plagiarism is not acceptable in prose. Is it in poetry? In this case, I am not stealing imagery or word combinations; I’m stealing the poet's pose as prompt. Maybe it is simply imitation, a form of flattery and praise for Joy Harjo.</blockquote></blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Moose </b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">To forage in a dark forest alone, <br />
nudging underneath all that has dried <br />
for a bit of life, for what keeps you going<br />
another day. To believe you will find it<br />
in a green leaf tipped up and up <br />
by a breeze, or in tufts of grass <br />
as fresh in your mouth as water.<br />
To trek on into the black and brown <br />
for more, always more, <br />
trusting there will be enough green<br />
to fill your huge being. Like the moose <br />
at Moss Springs standing broadside <br />
when as a college co-ed I lumbered <br />
around the bend a mile ahead <br />
of the trekking pack, mindlessly <br />
lost in myself, our distance<br />
less than his height. In his eyes<br />
such questions, not of justice <br />
or ethics, but of balance.<br />
We each stood our ground<br />
watching the other. How long?<br />
<br />
This long. Still. As long as it takes <br />
I know that it was on that woody hill<br />
my clumsy shyness grew less; alone<br />
with another I found patience to watch.<br />
And suddenly the forest crashed<br />
into awakeness when the bull ran off, <br />
impossible barrel on table-legs, his crown<br />
tipping up and up, like oak leaves.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>May 2012</i><br />
<br />
</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Eagle Poem</b></span></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">by Joy Harjo<br />
<br />
To pray you open your whole self<br />
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon<br />
To one whole voice that is you.<br />
And know there is more<br />
That you can't see, can't hear<br />
Can't know except in moments<br />
Steadily growing, and in languages<br />
That aren't always sound but other<br />
Circles of motion.<br />
Like eagle that Sunday morning<br />
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky<br />
In wind, swept our hearts clean<br />
With sacred wings.<br />
We see you, see ourselves and know<br />
That we must take the utmost care<br />
And kindness in all things.<br />
Breathe in, knowing we are made of<br />
All this, and breathe, knowing<br />
We are truly blessed because we<br />
Were born, and die soon, within a<br />
True circle of motion,<br />
Like eagle rounding out the morning<br />
Inside us.<br />
We pray that it will be done<br />
In beauty.<br />
In beauty. </blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<br />
"Eagle Poem" by Joy Harjo, from <i>In Mad Love and War</i>. © Wesleyan University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
Photo of Mount Hood Wilderness near Ramona Falls from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mt_Hood_Wilderness_near_Ramona_Falls.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia Commons</a><br />
<div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">- </span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-33982002784254921392012-05-08T09:30:00.004-04:002012-05-09T11:25:07.498-04:00Shades of Red<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GG92ubJDtic/T6et_S3hXUI/AAAAAAAATb4/J3gkonSTBHU/s1600/honeysuckle+morning+backlit-86-exp-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GG92ubJDtic/T6et_S3hXUI/AAAAAAAATb4/J3gkonSTBHU/s640/honeysuckle+morning+backlit-86-exp-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Shades of Red</b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">A man will tell you<br />
if you say <br />
<i>The dress was coral</i><br />
that he doesn’t know<br />
what color that is.<br />
It’s a funny joke<br />
that a man can’t identify<br />
shades of ruby, rose or russet.<br />
Don’t specify<br />
cadmium, crimson, <br />
carmine or cardinal<br />
or burden him<br />
with the fiery folly of mauve,<br />
maroon and magenta;<br />
these will topple him<br />
into a raspberry of despair;<br />
you won’t get to his heart<br />
through his stomach<br />
describing anything as<br />
candy apple, cherry,<br />
tangerine or strawberry.<br />
Just call it red.<br />
You and I know<br />
it doesn’t mean he<br />
doesn’t care about the dress;<br />
it may mean he doesn’t understand<br />
the subtle species of your feelings<br />
separated into seed packets<br />
in the complex filing <br />
system of your spirit;<br />
it means he would like<br />
you to hit the broad red<br />
side of the barn<br />
with your meaning<br />
so that he can love you<br />
with his strong brick red heart.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>May 2012 </i></blockquote><div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">- </span></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-48946141978108990822012-05-03T12:14:00.003-04:002012-05-03T12:20:32.144-04:00Bonfirebird<div style="color: white;"> -</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_OPsqiDmogA/T6Kr6EA_WHI/AAAAAAAATbY/DBixESR1OX0/s1600/Bakst,+Leon-Costume+design+for+The+Firebird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_OPsqiDmogA/T6Kr6EA_WHI/AAAAAAAATbY/DBixESR1OX0/s640/Bakst,+Leon-Costume+design+for+The+Firebird.jpg" width="468" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Bonfirebird</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">We circle ‘round </div><div style="text-align: center;">a bonfire at midnight.</div><div style="text-align: center;">The fire is warm, and dangerous.</div><div style="text-align: center;">We can’t turn our faces</div><div style="text-align: center;">away from its seductions</div><div style="text-align: center;">yet only get so close.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Next gray morning it feels safe </div><div style="text-align: center;">to poke the nest of ash and char </div><div style="text-align: center;">with a cold black stick,</div><div style="text-align: center;">looking for the truth of fire </div><div style="text-align: center;">in what is left behind.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">But, <i>O Soul</i>, don’t hide</div><div style="text-align: center;">your face and wait like that; turn </div><div style="text-align: center;">over the crimson ember-eggs </div><div style="text-align: center;">of desire buried in ash; pile on </div><div style="text-align: center;">dried spikenard and fig, </div><div style="text-align: center;">almond and cherry; smell </div><div style="text-align: center;">as they crackle to life; feel </div><div style="text-align: center;">how voluptuously </div><div style="text-align: center;">your flame-wings rise up!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>May 2012</i></div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4XLJRfx9X9o/T6KsWKuJZyI/AAAAAAAATbg/Ywe_sElpitI/s1600/Somov,+Konstantin-firebird-cover-of-the-book.jpg%21HalfHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4XLJRfx9X9o/T6KsWKuJZyI/AAAAAAAATbg/Ywe_sElpitI/s640/Somov,+Konstantin-firebird-cover-of-the-book.jpg%21HalfHD.jpg" width="516" /></a></div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div style="color: #bf9000; text-align: left;"><b>Art notes</b></div><div style="color: #bf9000; text-align: left;">Top: Costume Design for The Firebird, by Leon Bakst</div><div style="color: #bf9000; text-align: left;">Bottom: Cover of the book The Firebird, by Konstantin Somov </div><span style="color: white;">-</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">-</span></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-33733052462867115472012-04-28T09:22:00.008-04:002012-04-28T11:59:29.241-04:00Starting all over again: "Lark Rise to Candleford"<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HZJ45z3CAxc/T5vcuoKjSzI/AAAAAAAATaI/cnHEUaPrECk/s1600/3323557656_59ebd453d5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HZJ45z3CAxc/T5vcuoKjSzI/AAAAAAAATaI/cnHEUaPrECk/s640/3323557656_59ebd453d5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
It’s a remarkable thing when what you’ve been meditating on and practicing, important truths of human nature—identity, humility, sorrow, betrayal, forgiveness, understanding, patience and love—are suddenly demonstrated by people with real faces, in real situations. Never mind that it’s TV, and fictionalized. This is training of the highest order. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vQWw9f3u2gk/T5vegH_cEdI/AAAAAAAATaQ/Y15E3eSMSxs/s1600/LARK-RISE-TO-CANDLEFORD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vQWw9f3u2gk/T5vegH_cEdI/AAAAAAAATaQ/Y15E3eSMSxs/s400/LARK-RISE-TO-CANDLEFORD.jpg" width="282" /></a>In the last few weeks when Don and I got home from work, after we walked the property and then made supper, we sat down with our food to an episode or two of a British “costume” drama. I rarely watch TV. But as my friend Arti at <a href="http://rippleeffects.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Ripple Effects</a> <a href="http://rippleeffects.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/quotable-quotes-from-downton-abbey/" target="_blank">said not too long ago</a>, How are you holding up while you wait for the third season of “Downton Abbey”? Well, while waiting we queued up several other BBC costume dramas (thanks to our daughter Lesley’s recommendations) on Netflix. (I posted about “Little Dorrit” <a href="http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/2012/03/when-you-feel-imprisoned.html" target="_blank">here</a>; I love not having to wait a week between episodes, or for the next season months later.) Next was “Lark Rise to Candleford,” and now that we have finished it, I want to tell you that this show is affecting me so much that I am channeling characters in my job and relationships. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XYtMpBqLUtw/T5vfiyEQz3I/AAAAAAAATao/jJN79HlzINo/s1600/c-lark-rise-with-chickens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XYtMpBqLUtw/T5vfiyEQz3I/AAAAAAAATao/jJN79HlzINo/s400/c-lark-rise-with-chickens.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>The Lark Rise series is based on a trilogy of semi-autobiographic novels by Flora Thompson, written in the 1930s and '40s about her life in a rural hamlet in the late 19th century. The setting is Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, with serene and sublime rural scenery. Lark Rise is a tiny hamlet of families of farmers and craftspeople, and Candleford is a town eight country miles away where fashion and progress are edging their way in. Young Laura of the hamlet goes off to work at the post office in Candleford as an apprentice to her mother’s cousin, the postmistress Dorcas Lane. Thus begins our witness of relationships between the folk of Lark Rise and the folk of Candleford, a sort of lateral Upstairs Downstairs footpath.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6xITOXW47As/T5vlrqiOB6I/AAAAAAAATbM/8FnEewNMAs0/s1600/Queenie+&+Alf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6xITOXW47As/T5vlrqiOB6I/AAAAAAAATbM/8FnEewNMAs0/s640/Queenie+&+Alf.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="color: #bf9000; text-align: center;"><i>Queenie and Alf of the hamlet Lark Rise</i></div><div style="color: #bf9000; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P9a7eNwKGoE/T5vlBbSWgII/AAAAAAAATbE/4LCDZjQc5g8/s1600/Queenie+and+Twister.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P9a7eNwKGoE/T5vlBbSWgII/AAAAAAAATbE/4LCDZjQc5g8/s400/Queenie+and+Twister.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Each character is flawed and deeply developed through the four seasons; they model how to push through problems and meet one another with tough love. No one is spared humiliation or failure. There are wise souls in the hamlet, and there are fools. Likewise, you will find the same mix in Candleford, as in all places. When the hamlet and town folk meet, class distinctions and prejudice surface. Society’s rules get challenged. Neighbors help neighbors at home, and between town and hamlet; they hurt them too. They live Rumi’s advice: “Be generous and grateful. Confess when you’re not" (from his poem <a href="http://rumidays.blogspot.com/2010/04/well.html" target="_blank">"The Well"</a>). And then like the old Jerome Kern song says, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tAPHHXIzzEI/T5veudJTmPI/AAAAAAAATaY/573DPS4ZW5U/s1600/Dorcas+Lane+in+blue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tAPHHXIzzEI/T5veudJTmPI/AAAAAAAATaY/573DPS4ZW5U/s320/Dorcas+Lane+in+blue.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>Looking for wisdom, I channel Dorcas Lane, postmistress at the center of Candleford life to whom everyone goes with problems. When a student comes into my office for advice on what to do when she has gotten herself into a mess with a professor, missing class, handing in a paper late, threatening to fail, I ask myself, <i>What would Miss Lane say?</i> You can laugh with me when I tell you that when I do find something to say out of her deep wisdom, I often feel my head tip just so, and my voice lilt like hers. “You have to go meet with him, and see if you can set it right. It might not be too late, mmm?” The other character I channel is Queenie Turrill (in the previous photos, above, played with effortless perfection by Linda Bassett), the elderly Zen beekeeper in Lark Rise who opens her home to anyone who needs her, which they often do. She is the center of the hamlet as Miss Lane is of the town. She teaches me not to take myself too seriously, to live in the moment, and to connect with nature. Both Miss Lane and Queenie have failings. A thread through the series is Miss Lane's "one weakness" which accumulates into many weaknesses. I'm not the center of anyone's universe but my own, but I do have about 700 students who turn to me for advice. I also have a grandson who is listening and watching as his little life unfolds. Sometimes the best advice comes out of one's own failings.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rYDr3nhaz1Y/T5vfF3JQBgI/AAAAAAAATag/fQ_GQIXTkRA/s1600/Dorcas+and+Laura.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rYDr3nhaz1Y/T5vfF3JQBgI/AAAAAAAATag/fQ_GQIXTkRA/s400/Dorcas+and+Laura.jpg" width="400" /></a>Four seasons, forty episodes, 2008 to 2011, and one actor shared with Downton Abbey: Brendan Coyle (Mr. Bates in “Downton Abbey,” Robert Timmins in “Lark Rise to Candleford”). Another actor, the most important one in the series for me, Julia Sawalha, who plays Dorcas Lane, is shared with BBC’s 1995 six-episode TV series “Pride and Prejudice” (which I've watched a dozen times at least): she was Elizabeth Bennet’s sister Lydia, the air-headed flirt who ran off with Wickham. It's illuminating how Sawalha pulls off extreme traits of idiot recklessness in Lydia and prudent serenity in Miss Lane.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4ijvuZu1idA/T5viFjF60bI/AAAAAAAATa0/x0eiI4Ie0HI/s1600/emma+and+robert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4ijvuZu1idA/T5viFjF60bI/AAAAAAAATa0/x0eiI4Ie0HI/s400/emma+and+robert.jpg" width="400" /></a>The writing of Bill Gallagher’s screenplays is some of the best I have ever seen on film. Every episode made me weep (and often Don too). At the end of an hour’s watch, Don and I would look at one another, stunned that an easier and more clichéd line or closing had not been written, and that the writing was so intensely satisfying. Insights are astute and deep. This is not only for women. My husband got annoyed whenever the next DVD was delayed. Directed by Charles Palmer.<br />
<br />
I welcome suggestions for other series. Next on our queue is "Cranford" but I am sure we'll start this one all over again at some point. <br />
<br />
top photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/churchcrawler/3323557656/" target="_blank">ChurchCrawler at flickr</a><br />
<div style="color: white;"><br />
</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">-</span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-82840481342293189852012-04-24T20:14:00.003-04:002012-04-24T21:48:35.890-04:00Caravanserai<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yvf7FZfInAM/T5Ux2QBlqyI/AAAAAAAATZw/KlY8w6pvSVs/s1600/misc+304+crop+desat_filteredcrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yvf7FZfInAM/T5Ux2QBlqyI/AAAAAAAATZw/KlY8w6pvSVs/s640/misc+304+crop+desat_filteredcrop.jpg" width="372" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>Caravanserai</b></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Cords of silken blood flow in the peaks<br />
and passes of my body, a traveling<br />
<br />
miracle, while I read the news,<br />
all of which barely reaches me—<br />
<br />
economies of elections, wars, and<br />
minerals harvested from asteroids <br />
<br />
in the celestial commerce of billionaires. <br />
Numb with armchair trade, <br />
<br />
I remember the seduction <br />
of the Silk Road. Quieted, I hear <br />
<br />
spirit through the flutes of my bones—<br />
the music of the steppes, the tinkle of pots <br />
<br />
on your back. I smell the fust of Turkish <br />
rugs on the floor and know<br />
<br />
I would walk a thousand miles <br />
to curl up on felt-covered stone with you<br />
<br />
and these other traveling strangers, harbored <br />
inside trusted walls, away from danger.<br />
<br />
In the morning we finger sunrise apricots <br />
in a copper breakfast bowl<br />
<br />
before recommencing our planetary <br />
journey, a mouthful of sweet chai, and I ask <br />
<br />
what you know of the soul’s trade—<br />
its breakdowns, its tinkerings<br />
<br />
its thieves and swindlers? And you say,<br />
Tonight we will come again to a caravanserai, <br />
<br />
a courtyard of companionship, a warm stop <br />
on the long road. Nothing else matters.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>April 2012</i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #bf9000;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">Note: One of the thrills of my life was staying with Don, our two children, and my sister in a Caravanserai in Turkey, an outpost along the Silk Road where for centuries caravaners were given three nights free lodging, food and fodder for their animals. It was far from “free” as a hotel when we lodged, but worth every penny to me. These stone fortresses were built in a huge square, with one front portal large enough for camels to pass through. Rooms for sleeping were around the outer edge on the second floor, while service rooms, including a Turkish bath and shops to repair horseshoes, filled the lower floor. In the middle was a courtyard where goods and animals were kept. When we stayed at the Caravanserai in Kuşadası, transformed into a hotel, we dined in the courtyard. The best part of the experience for me was the two-foot thick stone wall that made our room’s window wells large enough for a small child to sleep in. My imagination has never rested since those nights.<br />
<div style="color: #7f6000;"><br />
<br />
Posted for <a href="http://dversepoets.com/2012/04/24/openlinknight-week-41/" target="_blank">DVerse Open Link Night</a>, hosted this week by <a href="http://www.waystationone.com/" target="_blank">Brian Miller</a>. Join the community. </div></blockquote></blockquote><div style="color: #7f6000;"> </div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #7f6000;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div></div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div></blockquote></blockquote>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-20657002534885920102012-04-20T07:09:00.003-04:002012-04-20T08:24:54.763-04:00Letters from home<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gH9rCPmRAVA/T5Bhhn0J1rI/AAAAAAAATZk/kG4y-qKhCA4/s1600/Almeida_Ju%CC%81nior_-_Saudade,_1899.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gH9rCPmRAVA/T5Bhhn0J1rI/AAAAAAAATZk/kG4y-qKhCA4/s640/Almeida_Ju%CC%81nior_-_Saudade,_1899.jpg" width="315" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Maybe it's because of National Poetry Month that I've been reflecting a lot on why I write poems. This blog has changed dramatically since I began in 2006, and these last couple of years it has become almost exclusively a poetry blog. I never intended it! It's just how things want to come out, a sort of shyness, not wanting to say things directly. I don't apologize, but I do realize poetry isn't for everyone. Funny, this write began as prose. I had every intention of writing prose! But it shaped itself into a poem. What is a person to do when a poem asserts itself?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Letters from home</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
That’s what poems are. </div><div style="text-align: center;">We are migrants from </div><div style="text-align: center;">somewhere that loves us. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Poems come from there.</div><div style="text-align: center;">News of a death,</div><div style="text-align: center;">news of a birth, both</div><div style="text-align: center;">in one letter. We want only</div><div style="text-align: center;">the truth, and nothing</div><div style="text-align: center;">held back. Things that</div><div style="text-align: center;">have come to pass,</div><div style="text-align: center;">and dreams held fast.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Read them again;</div><div style="text-align: center;">read them over again,<br />
softened with time </div><div style="text-align: center;">in the shifting dust</div><div style="text-align: center;">of this foreign place.</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>April 2012</i></div><br />
<br />
<div style="color: #7f6000;">Note: The painting is <i>Saudade</i> by Brazilian painter José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior, painted in 1899.<br />
<br />
The word <i>saudade</i> is a Portuguese-Galacian word that has no true equivalent in the English language. Wiki calls it a "deep emotional state of nostalgic longing" for someone, or something absent. S<i>audades</i> are woven in the fabric of Brazilian music (I've shared one below). There is a fine, in-depth write about <i>saudade</i> at wiki <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade" target="_blank">here</a>. However, I get the feeling that it can never really be understood by anyone who doesn't come from a culture where it is profoundly felt by its entire people. For instance, Brazil has a day of <i>saudade</i> on January 30, out of longing for the Portuguese homeland. I only recently discovered the word, and its melancholy and provenance have put me in a state of <i>saudade</i> for <i>saudade</i>, it is so beautiful. I find this helpful from wiki:</div><div style="color: #7f6000;"><br />
</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #7f6000;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">The "Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa" defines <i>saudade</i> (or <i>saudades</i>) as "A somewhat melancholic feeling of incompleteness. It is related to thinking back on situations of privation due to the absence of someone or something, to move away from a place or thing, or to the absence of a set of particular and desirable experiences and pleasures once lived."<br />
<br />
The Dictionary from the Royal Galician Academy, on the other hand, defines <i>saudade</i> as an "intimate feeling and mood caused by the longing for something absent that is being missed. This can take different aspects, from concrete realities (a loved one, a friend, the motherland, the homeland...) to the mysterious and transcendant. It's quite prevalent and characteristic of the Galician-Portuguese world, but it can also be found in other cultures."<br />
<br />
The similar feeling of <i>morriña</i> is defined as "Feelings and mood of melancholy and depression, particularly when caused by nostalgia for the motherland".</blockquote></blockquote><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Maria Bethânia sings "Saudade" in Portuguese<br />
(sorry I don't know who the gentleman is with her). </div><div style="text-align: center;">Music is the language of the heart, so for us</div><div style="text-align: center;">who don't know more than a few words of Portuguese,<br />
even without understanding the words<br />
we can feel the melancholy.<br />
But if you're curious like me,<br />
you can put the lyrics, below,<br />
through an online translator.<br />
There is moon, and sea . . . </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="40" id="gsSong3054887153" name="gsSong3054887153" width="250"><param name="movie" value="http://grooveshark.com/songWidget.swf" /><param name="wmode" value="window" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="flashvars" value="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&songIDs=30548871&style=metal&p=0" /><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://grooveshark.com/songWidget.swf" width="250" height="40"><param name="wmode" value="window" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="flashvars" value="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&songIDs=30548871&style=metal&p=0" /><span>Saudade by <a href="http://grooveshark.com/artist/Maria+Beth+nia/26812" title="Maria Bethânia">Maria Bethânia</a> on Grooveshark</span></object></object></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Saudade a lua brilha na lagoa</div><div style="text-align: center;">Saudade a luz que sobra da pessoa</div><div style="text-align: center;">Saudade igual farol engana o mar</div><div style="text-align: center;">Imita o sol</div><div style="text-align: center;">Saudade sal e dor que o vento traz</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Saudade o som do tempo que ressoa</div><div style="text-align: center;">Saudade o céu cinzento a garôa</div><div style="text-align: center;">Saudade desigual</div><div style="text-align: center;">Nunca termina no final</div><div style="text-align: center;">Saudade eterno filme em cartaz</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">A casa da saudade é o vazio</div><div style="text-align: center;">O acaso da saudade fogo frio</div><div style="text-align: center;">Quem foge da saudade</div><div style="text-align: center;">Preso por um fio</div><div style="text-align: center;">Se afoga em outras águas</div><div style="text-align: center;">Mas do mesmo rio.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
<div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">- </span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-60492349414848342192012-04-18T08:40:00.001-04:002012-04-18T13:11:40.613-04:00Dancing at dawn<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ksY9moSrwVg/T46w25zZ9uI/AAAAAAAATZY/TG_Su8jek_o/s1600/misc+088web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="410" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ksY9moSrwVg/T46w25zZ9uI/AAAAAAAATZY/TG_Su8jek_o/s640/misc+088web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>Dancing at dawn</b></span></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
I sit alone, like a pocketed wheel snail<br />
snugged in sandy dawn, the sun<br />
angling for salmon behind the barn’s thistle weeds;<br />
off to the side the sky is the color of shallow tide<br />
around the moon soon to be a filament<br />
of film clipped on daylight’s floor.<br />
The birds sing all at once and more, without <br />
bounds and oversound the shells<br />
of my ears with sea.<br />
I bob and skim my chest at the edge<br />
of the hot tub, the way seahorses slowly rock<br />
intoxicated with love on YouTube<br />
for us who only swim among the kind<br />
of coral that grows neon in the sky.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>April 2012 </i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">Poetry should be <a href="http://web.me.com/ruthie822/flyinginsynch/Podcast/Entries/2012/4/18_Dancing_at_dawn.html" target="_blank">heard</a>. </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zvGRVWGpdNg" width="640"></iframe></div><br />
And a less "produced" version, after a few helpful comments...<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/e8EfAODDoRo" width="640"></iframe></div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;">-</div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: white;">-</span></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-55768558880677217932012-04-16T09:18:00.011-04:002012-04-16T09:55:25.081-04:00How to read a poem<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U082HkGXzNA/T4wkloNtywI/AAAAAAAATZM/pdr7RUD_PEU/s1600/DSC_3589+James+with+Checkers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="560" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U082HkGXzNA/T4wkloNtywI/AAAAAAAATZM/pdr7RUD_PEU/s640/DSC_3589+James+with+Checkers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
It's the middle of National Poetry Month, time to pause for a lesson. Believe it or not, my grandson is nearly three months old. He's a good teacher, and I should not keep his lessons to myself.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>How to read a poem </b></span></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">Take him in your lap.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Look deep into his dark eyes.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Watch his arms while they </div><div style="text-align: left;">loop orbits in space</div><div style="text-align: left;">for no apparent purpose.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Let him ride his invisible</div><div style="text-align: left;">bicycle somewhere far—pumping, </div><div style="text-align: left;">pumping, pumping tiny legs,</div><div style="text-align: left;">making your thighs tremble.</div><div style="text-align: left;">See how still his eyes remain.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Fossick the meaning in his fists </div><div style="text-align: left;">where unknown words </div><div style="text-align: left;">are hidden and twirled.</div><div style="text-align: left;">(Don’t worry about the meaning</div><div style="text-align: left;">of those incomprehensible words now.</div><div style="text-align: left;">You can look for them later, together.)</div><div style="text-align: left;">He is telling you something</div><div style="text-align: left;">of where he has so recently been,</div><div style="text-align: left;">where you are desperately</div><div style="text-align: left;">trying to go in your perfectly</div><div style="text-align: left;">silent and heavy red chair.</div><div style="text-align: left;">He is showing you every truth</div><div style="text-align: left;">he has ever known</div><div style="text-align: left;">in a very small package.</div><div style="text-align: left;">When at last he smiles</div><div style="text-align: left;">in the otherwise motionless </div><div style="text-align: left;">residue following the flailings of his body,</div><div style="text-align: left;">you will understand what he means.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>April 2012 </i></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">- </span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-49124376208592631442012-04-13T12:28:00.003-04:002012-04-13T13:00:15.218-04:00Driving with pink angels<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ol6msSg_l7s/T4hQEhoufFI/AAAAAAAATZA/3hEb_0aVdec/s1600/may21_07+011+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ol6msSg_l7s/T4hQEhoufFI/AAAAAAAATZA/3hEb_0aVdec/s640/may21_07+011+web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Driving with pink angels</b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Pink of the dissolving petals, pouring out of the tree<br />
and pink in the palms of my hands. Pink dangling<br />
tongue over lips,<br />
coffee spilling into my throat;<br />
spring and pink allergic eyes<br />
tearing in the presence of fragrance.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">Sing for us, Joni,<br />
with packed pink linens<br />
in your traveling bag.<br />
I do not move<br />
here in this weighted world<br />
but only through our music.</blockquote></blockquote>Your pink sunset is my sunrise<br />
ahead of the weekday road, what lowers<br />
my feet into slippers<br />
morning by morning; black crow<br />
wings and a beak tearing pink breakfast;<br />
rise again, pull again, lift the <br />
pink-skinned sun across the sky<br />
into night as satin as your wings.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">April in wind, April in rain.<br />
April pansies and hyacinth;<br />
phlox, quince, alyssum;<br />
crystal vase on a black piano, <br />
pink tulips opening, floating<br />
like windblown hair, or<br />
jet trails from California<br />
to Michigan, traveling on <br />
a blue string song.</blockquote>My body pink under<br />
freshwater pearls; the painted stripe<br />
on rainbow trout in my rivers, <br />
wiggling like ribbons;<br />
hands spilling over ivory stones<br />
in your memory, every song<br />
a fish swimming into my next poem.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Mother, where have you gone,<br />
pink woman of the keys, <br />
white and even like your teeth?<br />
My poisoned hands play jazz<br />
out of your hymns <br />
in this sobbing flesh of ours. Pink mother<br />
with fragrant goodnight lips,<br />
pink moon of hearts<br />
cracked in crater-places<br />
healing under black-winged nights<br />
that rise with the crow <br />
every time I pass.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">An angel in pink walks up to me<br />
in my satin wedding gown<br />
with pink ribbon ‘round the waist,<br />
her pearlescent high heeled shoes<br />
bright as the diadems of her eyes,<br />
pink lipstick and raven hair.<br />
The rush of her wings says</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Poems live. </i><br />
Flesh from soul.<br />
Sing, body. <br />
Play the fractured song,<br />
pour Brandywine and redbud,<br />
maple fringe and weigela, <br />
pink as a baby just out <br />
of her mother’s bleeding peony.<br />
<br />
<i>April 2012 </i><br />
<br />
<br />
Poetry should be <a href="http://web.me.com/ruthie822/flyinginsynch/Podcast/Entries/2012/4/13_Driving_with_pink_angels.html" target="_blank">heard</a>.<br />
<div style="color: white; text-align: center;">-</div></blockquote><div style="color: white; text-align: center;">-</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BV4D1hez-Lw" width="640"></iframe></div><br />
</blockquote></blockquote>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-10148082252573956002012-04-11T12:19:00.001-04:002012-04-12T05:58:11.624-04:00after the lame goat in Rumi's poem<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f_NqTfR2m80/T4WthGm7RoI/AAAAAAAATY4/4jvoRlJ6gYg/s1600/composition-with-goat-1917.jpg%21Large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="472" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f_NqTfR2m80/T4WthGm7RoI/AAAAAAAATY4/4jvoRlJ6gYg/s640/composition-with-goat-1917.jpg%21Large.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>after the lame goat in Rumi’s poem</b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">not everything is beautiful<br />
said the gods of guilt<br />
and fear<br />
<br />
and I understood<br />
suddenly <br />
after the mountain’s<br />
height over the misty blue valley<br />
and its rocks underfoot<br />
<br />
that I like this hobbled life<br />
with its three legs of joy <br />
and one of wounds<br />
<br />
for the pace<br />
drummed slowly and syncopated <br />
by that one<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>April 2012 </i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<i style="color: #bf9000;">art note: "composition with a goat" by Marc Chagall</i><br />
<i style="color: #bf9000;">Rumi note: I am referring to the poem <a href="http://rumidays.blogspot.com/2011/03/lame-goat.html" target="_blank">"The Lame Goat" </a></i><br />
<div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">- </span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-10224916840467981502012-04-10T06:10:00.001-04:002012-04-10T06:26:35.309-04:00April wind<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P8N1gVD6IBM/T4P_GVDJqiI/AAAAAAAATYo/j0obA3aCStY/s1600/DSC_1397work2web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P8N1gVD6IBM/T4P_GVDJqiI/AAAAAAAATYo/j0obA3aCStY/s640/DSC_1397work2web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>April wind</b></span></div><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">On a day when April wind <br />
has tumbled clouds into mile-high<br />
snowy hills like in Chinese paintings<br />
<br />
I wonder what strength <br />
and precision it costs the honey bee <br />
to aim his hovering windblown tongue<br />
<br />
into frail blossoms fluttering open<br />
out of tight Brandywine buds. <br />
And how he does not spill nectar-<br />
<br />
drops on me lying on the blanket—<br />
a risk under sky and tree to him, to me<br />
and to the small gold star of a spider <br />
<br />
walking ellipses across my gold pillow <br />
suddenly visible in movement<br />
like the satellite we wait and watch for<br />
<br />
every night, <i>“There!”</i> as it crawls <br />
toward the sun on the other side<br />
of the world on its articulate path<br />
that looks so random to me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>April 2012 </i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VoBkplCXZaM/T4QDl4H2lEI/AAAAAAAATYw/9LuhVxvPQxg/s1600/brandywine+and+house-1404.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VoBkplCXZaM/T4QDl4H2lEI/AAAAAAAATYw/9LuhVxvPQxg/s640/brandywine+and+house-1404.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div style="color: white;">-</div><span style="color: white;">-</span>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-38910956275450773262012-04-08T08:57:00.006-04:002012-04-08T09:11:57.934-04:00How to Bloom: chicks, blossoms, and a Rilke poem<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eJC7RsGTCMY/T4GER-mvIXI/AAAAAAAATYE/Us999-Vne-g/s1600/bard+rock+and+white+leghorn+chicks-3561.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eJC7RsGTCMY/T4GER-mvIXI/AAAAAAAATYE/Us999-Vne-g/s640/bard+rock+and+white+leghorn+chicks-3561.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
After a couple of years Don has resurrected the chicken yard with 22 white Leghorns, 2 Barred Rocks (these photographed are a Leghorn and Barred Rock), 4 Aracaunas, 2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Isa Reds, a white turkey, a bronze turkey, and 12 quail. It is good to have their chirps again, and soon enough, eggs. The quail will lay by June, and the chickens by September.<br />
<br />
The ornamental crabapple and many other fruit trees are bursting.<br />
<br />
On Easter Sunday morning, I feel this blooming, and marvel, along with Rilke.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>How to Bloom </b></span><i><br />
</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>The almond trees in bloom: all we can accomplish here is to ever know ourselves in our earthly appearance.</i><br />
<br />
I endlessly marvel at you, blissful ones—at your demeanor, the way you bear your vanishing adornment with timeless purpose. Ah, to understand how to bloom: then would the heart be carried beyond all milder dangers, to be consoled in the great one.<br />
<br />
<i>~ Rainer Maria Rilke, from Uncollected Poems </i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vOf1oQ64MZ8/T4GKqV0ht_I/AAAAAAAATYc/EU4gL5qsT-E/s1600/chicks+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="620" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vOf1oQ64MZ8/T4GKqV0ht_I/AAAAAAAATYc/EU4gL5qsT-E/s640/chicks+cropped.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FkoPKEHkwA4/T4GFzAvi_TI/AAAAAAAATYU/3Bl-bHIf-g8/s1600/crabapple-1407.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FkoPKEHkwA4/T4GFzAvi_TI/AAAAAAAATYU/3Bl-bHIf-g8/s640/crabapple-1407.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div style="color: #a64d79; text-align: center;"><b>Happy Easter</b></div><div style="color: white; text-align: center;"><b>--</b><br />
</div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21312708.post-29979862053953713252012-04-05T07:21:00.005-04:002012-04-05T08:41:30.840-04:00Acrobat<div style="color: white;">-</div><div style="color: white;">-</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WgOi9GpIEyE/T31-D1dgdxI/AAAAAAAATX0/IKIFCJFGEjw/s1600/picasso-a-blue-acrobat-1929.jpg%21HalfHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WgOi9GpIEyE/T31-D1dgdxI/AAAAAAAATX0/IKIFCJFGEjw/s640/picasso-a-blue-acrobat-1929.jpg%21HalfHD.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Acrobat</b></span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
I have nowhere <br />
to put my arms away<br />
for the night and so I avoid<br />
taking them off, which<br />
only causes more problems.<br />
<br />
Lying on my back is novel.<br />
I could write a poem in my sleep,<br />
for instance.<br />
<br />
Sooner or later, however,<br />
my spine takes on a limb of its own<br />
and the inferior mattress is just too much<br />
there.<br />
<br />
I have considered a futon<br />
of the roll-up variety in my Zen arcs.<br />
Head on oblong block. Face open<br />
<br />
to the closed eyes of night,<br />
floating along in space<br />
in tandem with the poem<br />
that flies through the air<br />
with the greatest of ease<br />
<br />
and gets up and walks <br />
on its hands <br />
come morning.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>April 2012</i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O4KM4FtyMw4/T31-F-xEa0I/AAAAAAAATX8/vFmpr_G_Iz0/s1600/picasso-acrobat-1930.jpg%2521HalfHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O4KM4FtyMw4/T31-F-xEa0I/AAAAAAAATX8/vFmpr_G_Iz0/s640/picasso-acrobat-1930.jpg%2521HalfHD.jpg" width="508" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kbJLbIgcjG4/T31-AHfxm_I/AAAAAAAATXs/JQDOLksbsys/s1600/chagall-acrobat-with-bouquet-1963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kbJLbIgcjG4/T31-AHfxm_I/AAAAAAAATXs/JQDOLksbsys/s640/chagall-acrobat-with-bouquet-1963.jpg" width="470" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Art notes:</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>top: blue acrobat by Picasso</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>second: acrobat by Picasso</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>third: acrobat with flowers by Marc Chagall </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: white; text-align: left;"><i>-</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: white;">- </span></i></div>Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com25