Category Archives: Poetry

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Spacious Skies

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I spent the day in the 19th century, working at Old World Wisconsin, so naturally, I wasn’t allowed to be wandering around with a camera.  I have to admit, though, I did square off my fingers to imagine a few frames.  The sky today was absolutely breathtaking.  Big cumulus clouds with flat, gray bottoms were floating around as if on parade.   Looking up outside St. Peter’s church, with its 1839 bell tower and cross silhouetted against these clouds was like looking at a catalog of “INSPIRATIONAL”.  I remembered back to the days when I was living in Los Angeles County, CA, feeling as if I would suffocate any minute.  To look across the atmosphere to the horizon was like looking into a thick bean soup.  Even looking straight up would remind you of watery hot cocoa.  I longed to escape the valley and take off for clearer skies.  I thought I could simply ascend the mountains and be in a brighter, cleaner, more natural world, but it wasn’t that easy.  Everything is Owned in California.  There is hardly any open land.  We did get an invitation one weekend to house-sit for a retired couple who lived on Mt. Baldy.  Their home was beautiful, furnished with antiques, quiet, nestled away from the highway in the pine trees.  It was good enough.  I took our nine-month old daughter in the baby backpack, my Canon AE-1, and left the smoggy valley behind.  There is a photograph from that weekend etched in my mind.  I’ve got on my beloved hiking boots, Susan is smiling in the pack on my back, my skinny legs are striding over a boulder.  I was in the throes of postpartum depression; I weighed 98 pounds, and I was nursing.  My husband’s buddies called me “Tits on a Stick” behind my back.  I was struggling for survival. (photo added Jan. 20, 2024, see below) 

Some years after that, I was living in suburban Illinois, and the skies opened up over the prairie.  I would wander out to open land while the kids were in school and get lost in the clouds.  I remember September 11, 2001, as a clear, sunny, perfect sky day.  I spent the afternoon out in the prairie after having saturated myself in the news that morning.  I look to the sky when I am confused.  Back in the heyday of my Christian spiritual journey, I wrote this poem:

The Sky

 

Did I ever thank you for the sky

spread far around like an open field

piled high with moods and structures,

a playground for my soul?

 

This space above bids my thoughts expand

to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud

and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare

or slide down the shafts of the sun,

 

To swim to the center of its lonely blue

Where I find no mist to hide me,

and lie exposed to the western wind

like a mountain braced for sunrise.

 

Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray,

it coaxes me to musings

far removed from the minutiae

that chains me to my life.

 

I search for light and openness

to shadow the bonds of earth,

exploring the vault of heaven

for its meaning and its truth.

 

Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art.

Thank you for these eyes admitting You into my heart.

 

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Friday Adventure

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Steve & I went on a driving excursion today through rural Wisconsin.   Today’s post will just be a teaser; I promise there will be more substance when I have more time.  We began the day by re-reading W. H. Auden’s poem“In Praise of Limestone”.  Little did we know that we would chance upon a cave by a river later that afternoon….

I hope everyone can make some stunning discoveries this weekend!  Go out and enjoy the world!

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Dodging Art

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What an amazing day!  Training at Old World Wisconsin included visits to the Animal Barn, the Garden curator, and the Collections curator.  I met two oxen, each weighing a ton, and stroked their noses and chins.  I was introduced to three horses who are each in their 90s in “people years”.  I saw a sow who had given birth for the first time just this week and her seven pink little piglets.   Oh, how their little faces captivated me (and made me wish I’d brought my camera)!  I visited a greenhouse full of tiny sprouting seeds which will become food and decor to an entire community, a future rooted in the present and informed by the past.  I browsed through shelves of antique artifacts that illustrate the lives and time of people whose stories encompass miles of external and internal territory.  So much to take in, visually, mentally, physically and spiritually!  I came home to my usual tasks of dinner and chores and a phone call from my darling youngest…and now I’m sitting at my computer and entering this century of technology for the first time today.  It feels kinda weird!  I can only imagine how this feeling will intensify as I spend more time in the Old World. 

I have one more week of the poetry challenge from NaPoWriMo to complete, and already I can tell that it’s not going to be easy to be in the mood to concentrate on composing verse each day after training!  Still, I hope to have a little time to dabble in the word pond.  Today’s prompt is to write an “ekphrastic” poem, a graphic description of a work of art.  “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous one.  I went through some art photos that I had collected for a game I invented, and this one caught my eye.  It’s a self-portrait by Van Gogh.  Here’s the picture and the poem, and then I think I’ll call it a day here in the 21st century and get ready to go back 150 years again tomorrow!

Freckled, wistful world

Speckled, swirling molecules

Boundaries camouflaged

Fits and bits punctuating disappearance

Addled, dappled, sparks in the dark

Furtive sideways glance to the canvas

Back to dabbing, daubing, repetition

Poking at the flat reality

Testing the surface, then

Bouncing off again

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Happy Earth Day, Earthlings!

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The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970 and marks what some consider the birth of the Environmental Movement.   Of course, cultures throughout history have celebrated and appreciated the earth according to their particular perspectives.  Harvest festivals, rain rituals, volcano appeasement, fertility festivals, river ceremonies…I can think of many ways that humans have venerated the earth.  Since 1990, when the Earth Day campaign went global, we’ve focused on the planet as a whole.   We are the ones who have seen it (at least in pictures) as a whole from outer space, and I think we are realizing more and more how our relationship to the Earth is effecting that picture.  Large scale weather patterns, extinction rates, pollution and population are just some of the issues that are “going big” in our consciousness.   This is all very well, and at the same time, each of us has a particular and specific and local intimacy with Earth that should never be overlooked.

NaPoWriMo is acknowledging Earth Day with its prompt to write a poem about a plant.  I have so many favorite Earth/Nature/Flower/Animal poems already dear to my heart that I’m having a hard time being original, so I think I’m just going to share a few favorites with you here instead.  The first one is a lullaby that my mother used to sing to me.  I have no idea of its origin.  I just hear Mom sing:

White coral bells upon a slender stalk,

Lilies of the valley deck my garden walk.

Oh! Don’t you wish that you could hear them ring?

That will happen only when the faeries sing!

Here’s one I wrote back in March as I looked at my lilac bush:

When will the buds appear this year?

When will the lilac be full in bloom?

When will that perfume make fair the air?

When will that purple bedeck my room?

Soon, oh, soon; let it be soon!

I’ve been wearing lilac oil from a little vial that Jim bought me when we were on Mackinac Island years ago.  A few drops on my neck assures me that the fragrance of my favorite flower will not fade too quickly from my consciousness. 

I took a walk yesterday to photograph some of my local earth miracles.  May I present:

White tail deer

Bleeding heart

Red Admiral butterfly

Tulips, daffodils, hyacinth

And to represent the hippie protesters and the environmental movement, I have to share one of my favorite earth songs.  Nanci Griffith, “From A Distance” (written by Julie Gold).  Socks with sandals, passion and integrity.  She moves me.

Love our planet, today and every day.  Treat her and all life with respect.  Please.

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Cultural Awareness

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I am about to venture out into the retail world in search of shoes that might pass as reminiscent of the 1870s.  Having come up empty yesterday at two Goodwill shops, I’m not sure if I will be successful.  It’s interesting taking stock of what’s out there in the resale stores.  This is the stuff that people give away…and other people buy.  It’s not marketed; it’s not about status or brand.  It’s about filling a need with something serviceable.  I would do all my shopping at a resale place if I could.  That’s probably why my kids call me “cheap”.  I don’t get the whole “status and style” idea.  I just want to get the job done.  I’m not trying to fit into a competitive culture of consumerism.  My “work outfit” for my new job will be a reproduction of 19th century pioneer clothing.  My “work outfit” for my last job was jeans and a T-shirt with the latest musical production logo on it.  I guess I have a different idea of dressing for success. 

One of Steve’s favorite fables is The Emperor’s New Clothes.  He often sees himself as the little boy at the side of the parade who looks on in bafflement at what everyone else is celebrating and asks, “Why are we doing this?”  He sometimes talks about it as being the one who points out the elephant in the room, that glaring awkwardness that no one wants to mention.  He’s not judgmental about it, he just wants to discuss it, bring it out into the open, make everyone aware of it.  He’s not cynical or sarcastic, he’s genuinely curious.  We don’t have a TV, but we do watch basketball games online that often include commercials.  Those ads bring up a lot of questions.  Why do we sell what we sell the way that we do?  Why is sex and violence so prevalent?  And stereotypes?  Why do we think having a good time is so important?  What do we really think is important?  And why?  Why?  What is the Big Idea?  Everything comes down to that level, that three year old inside who stands watching and asks, “Why?” 

It’s a really good question, I think, and one that I have been trained not to ask.  “Theirs not to reason why/ theirs but to do and die.” The military motto, President Bush’s command to go out and spend money rather than debate economic policy, my father’s and the Church’s instructions on being obedient…there are so many examples of hushing up that 3-year-old.  I admit that there are times when it’s useful to forgo the philosophical and act decisively and immediately, but shouldn’t we return to the subject eventually and periodically to keep our motivation clear?  There are members of society who are watchdogs to our conscience, in a way, and I very much respect them for their courage and thank them for the questions that I forget to ask.  I am more characteristically concerned with “How?”  I want to do things lovingly, primarily; efficiently, much of the time; and as correctly as possible.   That may say a lot about how effective my indoctrination into Judeo-Christian thought was.  

Intentionally asking both questions and fashioning a life around the answers we find deep in our experience is the focus of our Saturday Summit (what we call our “relationship discussions”).    The poetry prompt I found today on NaPoWriMo’s site challenged me to write a hay(na)ku, which is a recent poetic invention.  It’s simply 6 words in three lines of ascending (or descending) measure.   One word, two words, three words (any number of syllables) or vice versa.  We can link several together as well, we’re told.  So, here is my hay(na)ku series and a few photos. 

Why?

Keeps asking,

“What is important?”

 

How –

“Am I

A good person?”

 

Questions

Are for

Shaping my character.

How now, brown cow?

Why?  Just…why?

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Traveling Mercies

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Today’s poetry writing prompt is to write a travel poem about getting from Point A to Point B.  I took this with me as I walked with Steve to meet his mom for breakfast at a cafe on North Avenue.  Here’s what I came up with:

Suburban sidewalk, cement sanitation

Fighting blight from untidy dandelions

Writhing, withered stems polluted, poisoned

Preventing spreading superfluous seeds

 

Muddy raindrop crater-pocked parkway

Mini helicopter maples, twin neon confetti

Mossy black trunks, petal-splashed branches

Tinny worm smell, saturated iris-limp toilet paper

 

Hiking boots treading asphalt pathways

Longing for the purity beneath.

 

Yesterday’s rain has left a distinct damp chill over everything.  I miss the golden sun.  My mood is slow and overcast as well, but I think I’ve had an epiphany in the recent “relationship talks” we’ve been having.  A serious and positive epiphany, too complicated to explain.  I never knew that shock and denial could last four years and then drop in an instant.  I feel like a snail without her shell.  Perfect for crawling about a rain-soaked environment. 

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Opposites and Equivocations

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Just when you’re ready to declare that you have had a defining experience, another experience comes along to blur that definition.  How do you know what you think you know?  Epistemology is enough to explode my brain, I fear.  I have to be very careful venturing into that discipline.  Taking an open, artistic approach spares me from the pressure to get off the fence.  The poetry prompt from today’s NaPoWriMo post helpfully supports that position.  They invited me to take a poem that already exists and re-write it so that each line is the opposite from the original.  I assume that the fruit of this labor is to see that both are valid in some way. 

Does this drive you crazy?  Are some of us driven to be dogmatic, the ones who enjoy boxing things up and nailing them down and painting them in black and white?  Is this a fear-based activity, presided over by the threat that there is a right and a wrong and you could be Wrong? Is life written in either/or, both/and, neither/nor or without the slash mark altogether?  How many school teachers asked you to “compare and contrast” and then told you that you did it incorrectly?  

Life is diverse.  You could say it is “un-like”.  It just is.  “Are you, like, for real?”  No.  I am real.  Real isn’t “like”, it is.

Original poem by Emily Dickinson, “Wild Nights — Wild Nights!”.   Opposite poem by me:

Dull Morns – Dull Morns!

While I miss Thee

Dull Morns have come

Familiarly.

 

Priceless – the Calm

to a Soul at sea –

Tossed by my longing –

Thrown to the lee!

 

Exiled from Heaven –

Oh! with thee

Might I but soar – today –

Full free!

 

Juxtaposition: somewhere near Lancaster, Wisconsin

 

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Summoning the Sand Man

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I am thinking about my oldest daughter today.  She has been sick with a terrible cough, possibly pneumonia, and left a message on my phone yesterday afternoon saying, “I just needed some Mom.”  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to contact her since to get more information although I’ve left messages.  These are those “Mom moments” that teach me how to manage anxiety.  Her voice actually sounded better than the day before, I know she’s on antibiotics, so my brain can convince me that there’s little evidence that something catastrophic is happening.  My imagination, however, cooks up a million scenarios that are “possible”.   My spirit tells me that I live in this moment, not any imagined or borrowed moments from some other plane, and so I act in the present as best I can.  Practicing living in peace with myself and the world, what I think I know and what I don’t know is an ongoing project.  At this point in my life, I do not need added drama. Reality is exciting enough. 

My daughter has always been open to engaging with lots of stimulus.  Even as a toddler, she had a hard time shutting her brain off at the end of a day, relaxing and falling asleep.  As a grad student, there are just so many exciting things to pursue, that I think she resists shutting down to re-charge.  She’s a fascinatingly energetic person to talk to, but she has a hard time slowing down.  No wonder she’s succumbed to illness, right?  I checked out the poetry prompt from NaPoWriMo this morning, and they suggested writing a lullaby.  Perfect!  I know just who to write one for!  I am hoping her phone is turned off because she’s resting, sleeping, meditating and healing.  When she was a little girl, I used to do a kind of guided meditation that I made up in order to get her to relax.  I had her visualize floating like a leaf on the surface of a slow-moving brook.  So, here’s a lullaby for Susan and pictures of the Sand Cave at Wyalusing State Park.  I apologize if this makes anyone sleepy in the middle of their work day! 

Lullaby for Susan

 

Float gently, float slowly, my baby, my dear

Like a leaf on the water, no burdens to bear

Gaze skyward to heaven while stars gather there

Like a leaf on the water, no burdens to bear

 

With mermaid hair flowing, glide slowly along

While Mama’s beside you, she sings this sweet song

Go slowly, breathe deeply, my child; nothing’s wrong

Your Mama’s beside you, she sings this sweet song

 

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Treasure Cave

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I was up early this morning and sat through 6 hours of information in training for my new job, most of it filling out administration paperwork.   My post today is a small escape into creativity, but I fear it lacks the patience and pace of a truly open process.  So be it.  The poetry prompt from NaPoWriMo for today was to write a poem inspired by a photo.  The site provided 3 photos, but I have my own to post, so I let them act as my muse.  I promised spelunking and sunsets, and posted a shot yesterday of myself disappearing into a cave in the bluffs over the Mississippi River.  Here is what I found:

Treasure Cave

Spreading fertile earth, penetrated by relentless drops,

Her fragile rock abducted by the wind,

Exposing a shameful cavity of twisted darkness.

The damp mystery in danger of collapse

Now sheltered in a chamber of aged secrets.

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No Bull

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Today’s poetry prompt from NaPoWriMo is to write a parody poem.  Inspired by the prospect of another basketball game tonight, I decided to go for a tribute to the Chicago Bulls ala Edgar Allan Poe.  This is a project that is now taking up WAAYYY too much of my morning.  So, here are two verses, some photos and a polite exit so that I can spend time with Steve’s family.

Join the running of the Bulls –

Chicago Bulls!

In computer graphic imagery upon a screen so full

How they rumble, rumble, rumble

Down the wide Chicago streets!

Toward the stadium they stumble

At the enemy they grumble

And their digital hoof beats

Growing near, near, near

Filling lesser hearts with fear

As their mesmerizing energy upon your senses pulls

Seeing bulls, bulls, bulls, bulls,

Bulls, bulls, bulls–

Seeing snorting, fuming, sporting cartoon bulls!

 

See the dance team of the Bulls –

Love-a-Bulls!

With their long, loose hair a-flyin’ and their outfits minimal

See their skanky bodies shakin’

And their pom-poms all a-quakin’

While the players calmly practice with the ball

Getting ready for the game

For the glory or the shame of it all.

Oh! from out the sounding fans

What a gush of harmony is swelling from the stands!

How they cheer

How they leer

At those bodies, healthy bodies

Nicely honed, nicely toned,

The athletic celebration that is Bulls, Bulls, Bulls,

That is Bulls, Bulls, Bulls, Bulls,

Bulls, Bulls, Bulls –

This amazing team of crazy, grazing Bulls.

 

Wish I had a picture of the enormous bull I saw in New Glarus on Wednesday, but I was too scared to get out of the car and take one!

What's inside the cave? More to come....