Music to My Eyes

Altitude

2010-06-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

This one is not quite finished, but I like the idea that I awoke with this morning.

I have an attitude about altitude,

about flying on waxy wings

following sunbeams

back to where night's chill

replenishes.

What if Icarus could have flown

over the rainbow with the bluebirds,

would we then be able to believe

in the power of our dreams?

Warnings are warnings,

best heeded, and then seen

in the piercing light of the heart.

We are born lie detectors

with lifetime batteries

if only we believe it.

For now, I'll keep shooting arrows

at shooting stars, I'll be

careful to follow the arc of the universe

for the boomerang effect.

I've drooled on enough pillows

to know that dreams

are night's rollercoaster--

maintenance is required.

Packing a Life Into Paper Bags

2010-06-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

As I cleaning out closets,

I think about death--

how personal

yet anonymous

our clothes are.

How they evoke the seasons,

our hard work and simple leisure,

the photographable days and the time

that slips by in an increasing blur.

Shoes, especially,

warp and wear so differently

that I wonder who buys

our shed soles at the resale shop?

Who walks that mile in our ill-fitting

mocs when we leave them behind?

It is my own death I'm celebrating

today, a death of outfits

from one life, and the demise

of garb from another, moving on.

Several small deaths I pack

into bags and donate

so that others can dress in them,

make entirely different lives

of them. Maybe I'll see someone

wearing that shirt I loved,

and for a moment I'll think I

must know them.

I wonder, too, if I'll do this again

for someone else, packing the clothes

I loved seeing them wear, that nubby

sweater I wept on, the button I replaced,

the pants whose pockets I picked

every laundry day. I wonder who

will do this for me, when my clothes

outlive me, and go on to live other lives,

as unknowing as the four-eyed buttons
joining one side to another.

2010-06-10T22:09:00.001-07:00

green Subaru

just-married hearts

and streamer remnants

in line

for the car wash

In Bed at the Beach

2010-06-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

I listen for it breathing,

as soothing as a kitten's purr.

But it has retreated now,

and all I can hear

is the mechanical snore

of the refrigerator,

and, when that shudders to rest,

a vaguely electrical buzzing

which could well be the actual

movement of current

through the embedded

lines, it is that quiet.

The Man With the Cane

2010-06-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

The Man With the Cane

The dog is red right up to the muzzle,

which is white with a big raisin in the middle.

The dog is greyhound thin, with long legs

and a sharp scoop of stomach.

The bushy tail is setter-ish, and furls

behind like something burr-ish

got stuck in there.

The dog sets down one paw at a time,

so old the paws all work separately,

and the leash is dress-up, not a command.

When the dog trips into the street,

it blinks blindly at the light of day,

trying to please the man with the cane.

All the cars watch, and the helmeted bicyclist

and I begin to cry in the left-hand turn lane,

and when the light changes no one moves,

no honking or revving. We all stop and pray

at the old dog, even though we've never

prayed before.

Maybe we're all weeping--the loyalty

of a white-muzzled dog who obviously

doesn't need a walk anymore,

and the man with a cane who might love the dog

or not, and we all see, at last, how we could

be better people, and we give thanks in our

silent cars for that.

haiku continued

2010-06-10T19:10:00.001-07:00

first fall rain
the gate has lost
its squeak

haiku continued

2010-06-10T19:08:00.001-07:00

chipped blue
amputee
garden gnome

haiku

2010-06-10T19:07:00.001-07:00

The old haiku isn't the new haiku. Like much of poetry, haiku is no longer limited by the old 5-7-5 syllable "rule".

small conference room
perfumed latecomer
coughing all around

Evening

2010-06-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

The sun stretches out
to float on the faint ripples
of McCook Lake, South Dakota, as the day
begins to shake out its blanket of heat.
The muggy, muffled songs of birds
give way to the clear, scarlet call of crickets,
and a few fireflies unfold on the tips
of the overgrown lawn.

Two silhouettes, wearing wide-brimmed hats,
putt-putt past, their voices unnaturally loud
over the hypnotic clink of wavelets
tapping the rusting barrels floating our dock.

There is a strong smell of lake water and mud,
high-pitched Doppler of a mosquito settling
down for dinner (my treat), the merest slow
caress of a damp coolness that sniffs
like an old dog and then retreats.

The lake is dimpled with feeding fish,
the sun, deep red, sinks into the cattails--
a window drags a screech up the sash,
and a woman calls dinner, come on, dinner.

Coming Home

2010-06-08T18:41:00.001-07:00

Coming Home

Before you were born

we took a good look,

where would you land,

on heaven or earth?

We held up the slides

to see what you might be,

we saw your walk-around

legs, and let you roam free.

Not all of us go to the gravity

lands, not all of us go to the fire

or the sand. We simply don't know

until we see you inside

where in the universe that

you might abide.

The body you receive

when you are ready to birth,

isn't the body you had last on earth.

Not the body you had eons ago,

just the body we give, good to go.

You won't live long,

unfortunately, but you'll

still learn and teach, and

come home free.

South Dakota Summer

2010-06-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

This one came from a poetry workshop led by the poet laureate of Oregon, Lassen Inada. When I read this to the participants, he said, "Wow! Fantastic!"

The buttery white sand is totally smooth,

so soft it almost surprises

when it sticks to my summer brown skin,

tiny blonde hairs

sheltering tiny blonde grains.

The edge of the sandbox is tractor tire

black, and so hot, it leaves a red stain

under the dirty smudges that smear my legs.

In the sand, a green toy tractor

lies on its side, rust streaking the raised

metal warps of the tall back wheels,

the all-blue driver asleep at the wheel.

On the highway side of the house,

the fields, yellow and frothy with wheat,

stretch to a hazy horizon,

a breeze bustles through, musses, moves on,

and returns hissing.

In the deep shade of the boxelder windbreak,

a wide green John Deere lurks, ticking,

waiting the end of the noon hour,

and the overalled man to climb on again.

Falling Down the Well of Joy

2010-06-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

I've fallen down the well of joy,

the water is black and crystalline

as tourmaline, pungent

as West Virginia moonshine.

I crouch, drinking and sniffing

damp stones, caressing the spongy moss

until my knees creak with the sound

of saddle harness.

They keep pulling the bucket up

and letting it back down, I hear

their voices echo in this dripping grotto,

"hello, hello, are you still there?"

Yes I'm still here,

and no, I'm not. I flew out of this well

like a bat leaving a cave at sunset,

I visited the sweet sajuaro flowers,

frilly stickpins with yellow yolks,

sucked and sucked on what only lasts

for a day, maybe two.

The wheel of the night sky

streams overhead, all the parts

I could not see below fanned

like a poker hand. I'm betting the farm,

pushing the chips into the middle of the Milky Way

taking a chance, again.

St. Helens

2010-06-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

This was written when Mount St. Helens began to be active again, a few years ago.

In Helens crater,
a slab is building,
four or five feet per day--
one small human at a time.

On one side, cold lava,
frozen ooze, crumbled
and falling off in bits,
while to the other side,
an underground river
vents steam
into the ceramic blue sky.

On the top,
it is smooth as asphalt,
with a few disjointed
cracks and fractures.
It ends abruptly there--
a broken blade
pointing at the sky.

It so resembles a narrow road,
I look for the middle line--
the divider for traffic up
and traffic down.
Maybe it is only a one-way road--
only Helens knows.

Jacks

2010-06-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

My mother was good at jacks.
She and my girlfriend had a tournament
on the kitchen floor,
over and under, onesies, twosies,
all the games I never learned to play.
I was 31 and my girlfriend 43.

My mother was good at jacks,
not so good at mothering.

Bucket Drumming

2010-06-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

Bucket drumming is a whole bunch of fun! Here are a couple of links so you can see Stormi's Giant Ass Drum Corps:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=39004557
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&vanity=giantassdrumcorp

And now, for the story:

This morning is cloudy, and our dogs are restless. No matter where I put my dog Rudy, she yips every minute or so, looking up and waiting for something I'm not smart enough to figure out.

Some of the music campers have lunch on the patio, as usual, and as we eat and chat, the thunder begins to creep up. A low growl to the south, faint as a baby's snore. Darkening clouds bloat into stony pillars, and, like an old man recently moved from wheelchair to bed, the thunder grumbles on and on.

After lunch, bucket drumming is scheduled. Using 5-gallon plastic buckets we strap on, and drum sticks with rubber bands wrapped around the ends as beaters, we boom, boom, boom on the bucket head, tap, tap on the edge, whap whap, whap on the sides, boom boom boom, tap tap, whap whap whap, in unison. And then it gets more complicated, as the group splits up and drums different patterns, that blend and weave in and out of the rhythm, all to Stoni's calls and her big grin.

Our drumming seems to draw the thunder. We're standing under a copse of lodgepole pines, the air pressure deepening like a late-night conversation. The lake becomes freckled with widely-spread drops of rain.

Boom boom, and we echo boom boom boom. A cool breeze asks if we're ready for what is coming, and the lightning approaches like a brand new sewing machine needle, there and there, and now here enough that I wonder if we're standing under the tallest trees.

A downpour of rain and hail, lightning and thunder puddles all around us, and pine needles cornrow across the lawn and down to the lake. The lake looks like a stubby beard just growing out, and the thunder rolls ponderous and liquid as the rain.

Later, at bedtime, storms come through again. It bounces off the hills all around, teasing, daring us to track it. The booming is nearly constant, punctuated by the sharp, tinny sound of individual raindrops, rumble, tink tink, rumble, tink tink tink, all around, like we're in the middle of a big pot, the mellow sound of a wooden spoon striking the sides, little bubbles breaking all around.

This goes on so long that at last Rudy sleeps, head up, ears still pointed, but sleeping still, unhearing, her eyes half open.

It reminds me of a time, 11 years old, camping with my parents and their friends on the Missouri River, in my dad's 19' Bell Buoy cabin cruiser. Our day had been spent seining for minnows and fishing, the women sunbathing and chatting, small children splashing and running in the hot sand and the cool silty-green water.

Suddenly, or so it seemed to me, it was nearly dark and we were boating downstream, spot light shining ahead, poking for submerged logs in that wild and untamed river that changed with every big rain and with every spring flood.

I could sense my parents' anxiety, see the spotlight reflecting off the pilings stacked vertically like the walls of army forts, keeping the river from its meandering ways. I could see the whirlpools and eddies, dimpling the greasy water ahead. The night was pitch, needled with our spotlight, seven miles to go.

I laid down on the floor of the boat, on the chilly, damp fiberglass, aft of the cabin. The 70 HP Merc outboard's vibrations thrummed through my body. As our boat hit a submerged log, and the log rumbled the length of the boat with a sound like boxcars crashing, the motor flipped right out of the water, propeller keening away into the air, and I fell soundly asleep.

RV Adventure, Day 3

2010-05-31T22:41:00.000-07:00

Been awhile since I last posted about my 2008 RV adventure. Thought I'd continue it again, just to keep up the discipline of writing here.

Day 3: Cascade, ID to Wentworth Campground, National Forest Service, near Lolo Pass
miles: 231
fuel: $74.00
campground fee: $8.00

Followed the Salmon River through eastern Idaho, a wide blue-green highway with Class 1 and 2 rapids. Not many rafters today, a Saturday, but lots of fisher folks around Riggins, their cars lining the highway on both sides for a half to three-quarters of a mile. They must be elbow to reel out there, below the pavement, in the rocks.

The hills here are nearly bare, sandy gravel covering the tracks of old volcanoes. As I got close to Grangeville, I noticed a few fancy houses way up above the river. Folks with a true love of solitude, who don't want to spend any time mowing would be my guess. They can see for miles, and that reminds me of the Anasazi, who lived on cliff faces, under rocky, smoke-stained overhangs, their places of entry hidden from enemies.

I left the Salmon, and followed the Clearwater, one branch and then another. This is what sells postcards--conifers as far as you can see, a soft understory, the wide, shallow river, bluer than the sky, frothing with rapids and winter melt. Here were the rafters and kayakers, some in wet suits, as the water must be numbingly cold.

Highway 12 from Kooksia to Lolo is surely one of the most scenic routes in the U.S. The tumbling blue river, the deep green conifers, the indigo sky, round brown granite peeping out from under the slick, flowing water.

And the motorcycles! Hawgs, I mean. Big fat tires, guys with ponytails, and gals hanging on their backs like papoose. They ride the corners so low, their handlebars almost touch the road. Blasting hawgs, just like an old Henry Fonda movie. I even saw a few baby boomer couples, riding their candy-apple Hondas, towing trailers.

The heat wave I've been running from has finally caught up--must have been in the mid-nineties high in the mountains today, and I resisted using the a/c in the Jeep as we steadily gained altitude. I am scaling the back of the river, upstream to where I'll find her youth, small and boiling.

Sitting outside, surrounded by flies and the occasional mosquito (scouts for this evening's grazing), I don't want to move. Finally, the bugs drive me inside, and I turn on the fan in the trailer, which immediately blows a fuse. I pray I've got a replacement in this little playpen I haven't used for 5 years. You might guess the anthem I sang when I found one and the fan sucked some warm, but moving air, inside. It wasn't the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but it was sure heart felt!

Hyber-Nation

2010-05-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

When Hyber-Nation
first came online,
I was among the first
to wear their eclipse-black
sweatshirt with matte-finish
Olde-English letters
just under the left arm.

We recognized each other
that way, a forlorn
little half-wave was all it took
to see that you were not alone
in your Hyber-Nationhood.

At first, there was no other way
to find other Hyber-Nation members.
Just the little half-wave,
and you were left wondering
how long that person
had spent in Hyber-Nation,
whether they ever came out,
how many others there were.

Once online, we were able to blog,
to add masks to our logo apparel,
to give news of the years spent alone
in Hyber-Nation. We found couples
who shared a Hyber-Nation, even
entire families, and as knowledge
of our existence began to spread,
others joined us, if only to buy
the sweatshirt.

Soon, we were receiving thousands
of hits per day on our website,
Hyber-Nation dot net.
We elected our first president,
exchanged recipes, spoke of our
mutual distastes, some even ranted,
an unfortunate few were flamed.

People left jobs to blog full-time,
others divorced when their spouses
complained. People dropped out
of colleges and divinity schools,
soldiers went AWOL.
People were left stranded
in locations with WiFi reception
as their cars ran out of gas.

Service clubs began to close,
schools began to empty as parents
forgot to take their children,
symphony halls stood empty thanks
to the extraordinary attraction
of Hyber-Nation to violinists and
oboists. Sports teams folded
as players refused to leave
the bench.

Fights broke out in libraries as crowds
packed in to use WiFi and computers,
and people became irritated
at the inherent contradiction.
Eventually, Hyber-Nation
exceeded available band-width
and server space. No permanent
record was ever kept
of Hyber-Nation members.
I never see the sweatshirts
or the masks anywhere.
It feels so lonely again.

Oil "Spill"

2010-05-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

When you said yes,

I thought you meant yes,

I thought I owned you

like a man owns a dog.

They told me Jesus

said that you were mine

by rights, that we'd

be together always

until I got tired of you.

They told me that in church.

Now, you're bitchin'

and spreadin' rumors,

and spreadin' yourself

around town

until I want to slap you.

What the hell are you thinkin',

you whore?

I was told you'd put out,

but nobody said

you wouldn't listen.

Preacher said you was mine,

and by god, I'll see to that,

damn you to hell,

and when in the fuck

will you stop puttin' out?

You goddamned Earth!

White Clouds on a Still Black Lake

2010-05-28T18:33:00.001-07:00

White clouds on a still, black lake,

so smooth, we walked in space,

saw the moon rise under our feet,

fell upward into warm, deep, water.

Online Relationships

2010-05-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am tired and wired

as the frayed fabric cord

of a toaster my grandmother

kept using, despite the cries

of "FIRE, FIRE" every time a slice

of her homebaked bread

went into the oven a second time.

Our planned meeting date,

at first so safely curled in the cozy

nest of the distant future,

now approaches with the speed

of glaciation, as tomorrow torture

drips into yesterday, and the day after

that becomes lost

as a forgotten coronation.

With every email, each phone contact,

my elevator makes an express trip

to the top of the Expectations Building.

The view from there is stupendous,

but where is the Down button,

the floors in between,

is the window the only exit?

I'm searching for the stairwell,

that drab spiral of concrete and metal,

where hoarse breaths echo and clang,

where landings give pause, and doors

open onto law offices

and insurance companies,

and pert receptionists ready to help.

I know myself well enough by now--

a life's practice of introspection

and second-guessing. I know just what to do.

I'll march past the dreary Stairs sign,

past the smirking receptionist,

I'll run, yelling, "Hold the elevator!

Hold the elevator!"

Anti-Biotic

2010-04-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

In my old age,

my luminous doom

transforms

into the bacterial helpers

of a digestive system

no longer attacked by antibiotics.

The dark skirts of my anti-angel

swish and menace only in memory

now transformed into polished

prose agates and newly-sprouted seeds.

A stone on the river bed

has traveled further,

but my monsoon days are returned,

scented with sweet rain and dust.

The white fire of the stars

greets my eyes new as eggs,

a childhood postponed

turns tinker toys into houses.

My luminous doom,

light as moths now,

sturdy as hand-worn tools,

vanished into something sharp

and piercing as winter sunlight.

Note: My birthday poem. My 30th poem this month! I've impressed myself, and that feels very cool!

To the Digital Historian who Filmed the Music Camp Full of Old Women

2010-04-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

She sees--

she sees and she sees and she sees,

and makes it digital,

what a terrible word for love...

digital.

She sees and she sees, and she sees,

and suddenly

we see, we see and we see and we see,

and then we are more than we were,

suddenly we're all so human,

so human, and yet,

so beautiful,

how can we be human

and beautiful?

Because she sees

and she sees...

and we are, aren't we?

Note: today's prompt was to write about intuition. This poem was written to a loving photographer.

Dakota

2010-04-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

Note: today's prompt was to write an acrostic poem, using a word or phrase as the first letters of each line of the poem. You can see mine in the title. This is not a good poem, but the best I can do today.

Dogs keep us human.

Any day of the month, they're kinder than we are.

Knowledge of time combined with a fine sense

of when to keep silence

tells me I have much to learn

about living and loving.

Oregon Sun

2010-04-26T18:26:00.001-07:00

I wonder who uses the sun

when it has been taken

from the soggy shelves

of Oregon skies.

Is it left on a plateau

somewhere in the recesses

of the stratosphere?

Maybe some unruly student

left it lying open,

face-down and dogeared

where it is of no use to anyone?

Or perhaps it is on hold

for someone else at the library,

more likely a population of elses,

waiting damply in the murk.

Note: our prompt today was to resurrect a poem and edit it. I've done that here, an old poem from an old notebook. Still not quite satisfied with it, but it will do for now.

Homeless

2010-04-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

Note: Today's prompt is First Things First. There was more, but this is my first things first.

I crouch on the cold edge

of the bright blue dumpster,

the same high school blue

that looked so good with the gold stripe

on the boys' football uniforms.

My boy, my prom night gift,

is solemn this October morning,

fingers entwined in the red plastic mesh

of our overflowing shopping cart,

half covered with muddy black plastic,

protecting a damp heap of charity clothes

and army surplus.

The alley's first shaft of sunlight

makes my cracked fingers look

as if I've just been fingerprinted.

A sleek brown rat dashes up

from the stinking metal box,

fearless, it scrabbles

across my knuckles and down

to the oily pavement, disappearing

into the sewer grate.

Teetering, I gasp, and my boy,

his lip adorned with a worm of green snot,

shoots his wide eyes up at me,

where I cling like an overgrown squirrel

on the rim of the container.

Still refusing to commit myself

to the slippery innards of the dumpster,

I reach one hand toward the tattered

foil packets that spill crumbled

remains of baked potatoes.

Breakfast, or maybe it is lunch time already,

I don't want to know.

I want the taste of the mealy potato,

and maybe the pleasure

of smooth butter on my tongue

before I continue my rounds for the day.

I almost duck down when I hear a car drive

into the alley, but my eyes flash to my boy,

who turns and touches his forehead

to the cold blue of the dumpster.

My unwilling eyes are drawn to the sheer boxy shape

of the squinting white movement.

Through the glass, and through the ghost

of my own image reflected on the windshield,

I meet the stare of my best friend from high school.

For one tiny moment,

as she glides by in her metal capsule,

I see a flash of brake lights,

before the vehicle lumbers

into the bank parking lot

around the corner.

Night Work

2010-04-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

The beep, beep of backing

pours through the open window--

marbles pocking the panel of sleep--

while the rumble of machinery

drums in like the elephants' hajj.

"Night work", the sign said,

letters spelled out in puny full moons,

the dates from Independence

to the first school holiday,

winking, the joke on sleep.

Note: today's prompt was to find a phrase on Phrase Finder (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/k.html) and write from that. I love that site, and this prompt, but today was nearly 12 hours of work, so I've pulled another from my knapsack.

Pelicans

2010-04-23T15:55:00.001-07:00

Note: today's prompt was to combine a speaker and an event that don't ordinarily go together. I sure couldn't beat the example given http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/04/24, but this one is equally tongue-in-cheek...or is that fish in pouch?

They cruise the gleaming green glass

cases of the fishmonger,

the wares inside attractively displayed--

a fan of lace framing the silvery scales

of fresh fish still swimming.

It smells good here--a little briny, a dash

of iodine, salt, and ozone. None of that dead stuff

for these discerning shoppers.

It's just a little dive, really,

providing something to fill pouch and belly,

maybe some sushi to take home to the young'uns,

or to stop and eat on the fly.

Sometimes they settle down for a closer look,

perhaps complaining of long commutes,

or squawking about the diminished size of the catch,

about the curl that doesn't last,

or the friend whose belly couldn't.

A Day Past Full

2010-04-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

That old cheddar moon

just a nibble short of a wheel

you waited a bit too long tonight

as we kayaked a slow, thirsty river

smooth as tile

so quiet we stopped talking

forgot to paddle

forgot to breathe

as the rusty calls of geese

echoed on the black water.

Note: Today's prompt gave us a choice of 12 lovely words to use in a poem. I used 'rust' from that list.

Doyle

2010-04-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

He passes cans over the scanner,

one, two, three for a dollar.

A soft loaf to one side,

crackers pushed to the other.

Polite, quiet, a nice looking man,

his smooth dark hair brushed,

waist trim, the kind of man

who would look about this same age

when he's in his seventies.

He announces the total, a small smile,

not quite meeting my eye.

While he waits for my check writing,

does he think about how he will do it?

Sometimes he loses minutes imagining

how long it will be before his wife finds out,

what his kids will say at school,

whether it might hurt more than living.

The tiniest pause until he notices

I've finished writing.

A second more for the receipt to print

as he checks again the steps he'll take,

like a tongue poking a missing tooth.

"Thanks," he says, "would you like help out?"

More groceries on the conveyer,

who will find him?

One, two, three for a dollar,

Will it hurt?

"Plastic or paper?" he asks.

Note: Today's prompt was to write about perfectionism and/or flaws, and this is what came to me. This poem is based on an obituary and photo of a man I recognized from the grocery store. I didn't know him, but his death shocked me. Like so many deaths like this, I always wonder why.

Poseidon Adventure

2010-04-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

When you went under,

I took a deep breath

determined to last

as long as you did.

I could dive to the bottom

of our murky lake,

fingers seeking the mossy

clams nestled in the silt.

When I stayed too long,

sparks flashed in my vision,

I'd swallow and fight the charm

of breathing in the green.

You, in your sturdy suit,

and me in mine, we in our sturdy

bodies, made for birth, farming,

and saving what needed it.

Our world loved Twiggy,

but we did the real work,

modestly dressed in shame,

insulated and alone.

Safe as kitchens, study as barns,

suited up, Shelley and I

held our breaths, and went about

saving this watery world.

Note: Today's prompt was to write about a hero. I chose this poem because Shelley Winters portrayed a heroic woman at a time when women, especially "sturdy" women, were not seen as heroes. I believe that most heroes are as ordinary as one can imagine, and that women in our culture are almost always heroes.

Over the Hill

2010-04-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

Note: Today's prompt was to write a poem based in the French word eclater, which is interpreted as kind of a light bulb moment. This poem came from an artistic endeavor I participate in each year, called The She Project www.sheproject.com. This wonderful event provides a prompt to each participant, and participants have only 2 hours to prepare a piece of visual art in response to that prompt. Last year, my prompt was "she was over the hill". I must admit that I wasn't very happy about that prompt at first, and then I surprised myself with what came out of it, both as visual art and as a poem. I am suffering from too much work right now, so I have pulled a poem from my knapsack for today.

She was over the hill

and into the woods

where silence

took her pack

gave her peace

and bird song

She was over the hill

the longest hill

of forgiveness

of letting go

of letting be

of being

quite comfortably

over the hill

She was over the hill

and paces down

the other side

when she looked

and saw

everything

every

thing

she had ever

ever

wanted

waiting

patient

with

bird song

Spring Promises

2010-04-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Note: Today's prompt was to write a poem about the cat family. Here is my offering, created while on a walk with my dogs.

Spring Promises

at bedtime, the open window

at midnight, the yowling tabbies

at dawn, chirps, caws, whistles

tonight, earplugs

Day's Night

2010-04-17T19:05:00.001-07:00

The asphalt-black storm comes whistling

like a sailor on leave.

I wake to a sound like flocks of birds

salsa-dancing on the roof.

The rain comes to a boil in the street

while gutters vomit stone gray soup.

Crumpled leaves of last year's blackberries

hide sodden and ashamed behind the wood pile.

I pull out a yellow legal pad, bright as headlights,

uncap a pen with a pop like a tiny champagne bottle.

Nightcrawlers slink across the pavement

like pink and gray bird intestines.

In the sky, clouds like moldy cauliflower

are stitched with gold threads.

I stare at my reflection in the TV screen,

kitchen lights behind me, writing the bright world.

Note: Today's prompt was to write about an element, i.e., fire, earth, etc. This poem seemed elemental to me--we have earth, we have air, we have fire, we have water. I'm not sure this poem is finished yet-what do you think?

Jergens Lotion

2010-04-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

I remember riding in the car,

dad driving, mom shotgun,

me in back, windows open,

hair blowing,

smelling Jergens lotion.

My mom had Jergens

at home, but I don't remember

ever smelling it there.

I remember dense green rows

of corn whizzing past,

the smell of Jergens lotion.

Brown stalks beheaded,

a snail crawl in the car

hunting for pheasants,

the scent of gun oil,

smelling Jergens lotion.

Drive-in theatre,

speaker hanging on the glass,

popcorn smells weaving

car doors slamming,

kids screaming,

the smell of Jergens lotion.

Maybe I didn't need any lotion

when I was a kid, I never had my own,

but I always knew

that when I grew up

to be a grown woman,

I'd use Jergens lotion.

Note: today's prompt was to write about a smell and a memory. I'm not done with this poem, but the day is nearly over, so I'll come back to this one.

Bugs

2010-04-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

I love bugs!

Crawly bugs,

quickie bugs,

big bugs and small,

fuzzy bugs

and bald bugs,

I love them all!

I love to see their legs

all in a double row,

skittering, jittering,

they creepy, crawly go!

I love bugs!

Swarming bugs,

Martian bugs,

hidden under rocks,

nosy bugs,

lousy bugs,

bugs in my socks!

I love to see their spots,

so different for each one,

carapace and buggy eyes,

reflecting in the sun!

I love bugs!

Buzzing bugs,

humming bugs,

bad bugs that chew,

spotted bugs,

striped bugs,

purple bugs and blue!

Note: Today's prompt was (basically) to write a song. Here's one for the kid in all of us!

It Is Only Life and Death

2010-04-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

(Note: Today's prompt was to write a Cleave poem. This is a form new to me, in which the poem can be read in any/all of 3 parts. The first column is a discrete poem, the second column is a discrete poem, and the whole is a third integrated poem. This was challenging! I've put the second column in bold so that it is easier to read all 3 poems. Usually, I think the lines would run together, but that doesn't work on this site.)

I wouldn't mind living at the cemetery,

it is almost always very quiet,

there's usually a beautiful view,

whenever you pause.

I wouldn't want to be dead there--

That seems too permanent somehow,

but living there would be

like being surrounded with love--

peaceful, full of life, really--

consider the careful chiseling of birth and death,

smell the newly-mown grass,

bright flowers freshly cut,

note the mementos fading in the sun,

the sky full or sometimes empty,

it feels good knowing there's still room for me

somewhere on this precious planet.

The Poetry Workshop

2010-04-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

My brain freezes up

like a trick knee.

I read the prompts again,

muttering similes,

flat, uninspired,

lobotomized.

Five hundred dollars,

not including the room shared

with a woman who rises

at four a.m. and demands

silence at eight p.m.,

who sighs like a mattress

being whacked.

Two hundred miles in a bus

that stops every fourteen miles,

where yet another man

whose Right Guard ran out

along with his last wife,

embarks, guttering off the seats

like a badly thrown bowling ball.

The shaggy poet, one of the few

who actually files tax returns,

strews prompts like the pope

bestows blessings, while my brain

freezes up like a fifties Amana

on a humid day.

Note: today's prompt was to use a line of another poet's work to start a poem of your own. Eleven specific lines were provided, and the above poem may give you some idea of my reaction to them, not one of which appear above.

Bare-Breasted Women

2010-04-12T17:16:00.000-07:00

They were eating cherries

in Barcelona

on the day my grandma died.

She left me her apricot tree,

a closet full of rag rugs,

and a black and white photo

of her with a palm tree

coming out of her head.

She promised me her Victrola,

but my mom's cousin

took it, and then somehow

another cousin bought it,

and the last I knew,

my mom's cousin's daughter

had it, and that was goodbye

RCA Victor for me.

In Sierra Leone,

they were still selling people,

at least that is what National Geographic

said, with a full color spread

of a market, and some bare-breasted

women, which were okay to look at

in National Geographic,

but not to see anywhere else.

I haven't eaten a decent apricot in decades,

not since we sold the place.

Now the trees I climbed are 40 feet tall,

and the rag rugs are reverting.

I don't know about Barcelona's cherries,

but the palm tree is still coming

out of Grandma's head, and bare-breasted

women are everywhere.

Note: today's prompt was to write a few nonsense sentences, like "The raindrops tap out a cry for help." Come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Revise and make a poem. I came up with the first line, and the rest just happened!

Choices

2010-04-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

prom night proposal

my incredulous response--

the road less taken

Note: today's prompt was to write about a choice you didn't make. This one fit into a haiku.

The Spirit of Place Mats

2010-04-10T17:53:00.001-07:00

The spirit of place mats,

left on the table,

day after day

meal upon meal....

the curry so hot

it dropped off the fork

into a pool of neon

yellow lava

the little rivulet of magenta

Syrah--a point too vehemently

made on election night

the splotch of cream cheese

from the New York bagels

Tom went out to get on the Sunday

morning the dog got loose,

and ran into the highway

grinning like an idiot,

the screech of brakes, panting,

the cursing driver,

hearts all beating

like rock and roll drums.

The dot of blue ink

from the morning Sudoku,

leached through the fragile

newsprint, the faulty pen,

the faulty logic--

given up after the indelible

error in the middle box.

The spirit of place mats

left on the table

day after day

meal upon meal,

slowly losing their memories

to washer, sunlight and rain.

Note: todays prompt was to write about a celebration. This is a poem about celebrating the quotidian, the commonplace, even the stains!

Fly Away Home

2010-04-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

I wish I could be a bird--

no clothes to wash or iron,

my vehicle a fast flap

or a slow updraft.

I could grab fresh spawning sushi

in frightful talons, jam slippery

mouse livers into my gullet,

no cooking, no waste.

In winter, no frost or sooty chimney--

I'd fly my own airline

to watery lands where octopus

stow away, limp in warm salt.

I'd roost above campfires,

startle hikers with my passing shadow,

strum the winds with winged fringe,

a marionette of the spirits.

My music, the migrating geese,

long silences, and the pulse of surf.

Note: today's prompt was to choose 12 words from a list of about 24 (I used flap, winter, strum, octopus, marionette, jam, limp, campfire, startle, chimney, talon and fringe), include something that tastes terrible (liver), include something from a previous poem that didn't pan out (long silences and the pulse of surf), and include a sound that makes me happy (music, geese, silence and surf--okay, so I used 4!).

Why Didn't We Make It Darling?

2010-04-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

you were so sweet
(sweet as a green lemon)

you acted so gentle
(gentle as a pressure washer)

we were so close
(close as the Ring Nebulae)

our time together was delightful
(delightful as a root canal)

our relationship was so healthy
(healthy as buttered croissants)

why didn't we make it, darling?

Note: today's prompt was to think of your current love, your current obsession or the one who got away. Now come up with five or more unusual metaphors for the object of your affection/obsession Choose your favorite of the bunch and write a poem celebrating (or trashing) your love

doggod

2010-04-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

she snorts, she bows,
her eyes greet mine
she wags--
in exchange for food
she teaches

Note: today's prompt was to write a tanka about love. Tanka is a traditional Japanese form, similar in some ways to haiku. Tanka are always 5 lines.

The Scream

2010-04-06T12:47:00.001-07:00

The boy in the University of Georgia t-shirt
has irises like you see in an Alfred Hitchcock movie--
the ones like dark half-moons setting
into rosy cheeks.

As far as I can see, he doesn't have any cavities
in his lower jaw, and his upper teeth will not need
the services of an orthodontist.

His posture reveals the possibility of a future
in the military, shoulders squared,
perhaps even slightly flexed.

He has a towel or sweater
in a lovely shade of butter yellow in his lap,
which nicely sets off his clipped, auburn hair.

His shirt has red writing outlined in black,
and is complemented by the gray upholstery
of the vehicle whose back seat he seems eager to vacate.

All this almost completely opposite the creature
whose head has entered the open window
in close proximity to the young man.

This, presumably 4-legged, animal
has large, buck teeth in its bottom jaw,
and it appears that the top teeth could use
a set of braces, not to mention a good cleaning.

The animal is not large, as it has had to lift
its head in order to insert it into the window.
The animal appears to be completely unclothed,
and will probably not have a future in the military.

The camera has distorted the image,
so that it is difficult to tell what this animal
might be, but the size and shape of the teeth
speak vegetarian to me.

Both animals, the boy and the ruminant,
seem to be singing together, one of those long,
extended notes so popular in opera.

An interesting photo, one that may come back
to haunt this young man in his manhood,
although I doubt very much the grazer will care,
or even receive a copy in the mail.

Note: today's prompt was to pick an image and write to that. I got this one from Google Images, by typing in the word "effluvia". This was the first one to come up. I've tried attaching the picture, but blogspot won't have any of that right now, so here is the URL: http://whiteoftheeye.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/5186web2-1.jpg. I hope I don't have to say that the above was written tongue-in-cheek...

The Bestselling Memoir

2010-04-05T16:07:00.001-07:00

It is all true, of course.
Except the part about the kidnapping
which was only an exaggeration,
and actually could have happened
if I hadn't known we were only going
to Grandma's house.

It is all true, of course.
Except the part about the train wreck--
that was only added for suspense,
and besides, there was a train wreck
that year, wasn't there?
Maybe it is a metaphorical wreck...

It is all true, of course.
Except the part about the rape,
which is actually a part of the universal
female experience,
or at least the potential
female experience.

It is all true, of course.
Except the parts I embellished,
and the parts I left out
to protect the innocent,
or those who could easily be injured,
or those with damn good lawyers.

Note: Today's prompt was to get personal. Well, I didn't give my poem a name or personality exactly, but what could be more personal than memoir...right? Ha!

Hubbard Season

2010-04-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

From up here,
the valley floor
resembles the warty skin
of those winter squash
that grow huge in the long autumns
of the Pacific Northwest.

The grass is beginning
to yellow now, the faint
parallel trails of plowed fields
still discernible,
yet blurred from rain
and distance.

Meyers Creek, not yet full
of its winter binge,
appears as a deep cleft
down the middle of the valley,
and its neighbors mirror
the fields harvested rows.

From here, I can see
where Uncle Henry's outhouse
burned down, a year ago
Halloween, thanks to a little help
from neighborhood ghosts.

I've walked these fields
more times than I can recall.
I can almost hear the crunch
of the dead and dying grasses and weeds.
The green of spurge, a chiaroscuro
of butterscotch and the scaly
clods of clay soil.

Down in the creekbed,
secret lives scurry
under the willows, leaving prints
no more permanent than the green
of the grass, and the ticking of minutes
spent on a high hill above the valley.

Note: this is what I saw in a poetry workshop, while looking closely at a 15-pound Hubbard Squash. It is submitted as day four of the RedWritePoetry celebration. Today's prompt--to bring the inside out or vice versa, seemed to fit this poem, since the skin of the squash sitting right in front of me became a view into a valley from a high peak.

What I'm Afraid Of

2010-04-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

I wake
on the bathroom floor
pants around ankles
a bad smell
my dogs stand
in the doorway
wagging.

The New Politics

2010-04-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

Any right wing pundit
can posit right wing policy,
turning radioactive waste piles
into rain water pipes,
publishing research work papers
on right wing porn.

We need a Revolutionary Workers Party
to promote a reduced workload program,
and a respectful workplace program,
for employees producing reliable wheel products
and roof wall panels.

I'm impressed by the Reconciliation Working Party
which publishes a regular white paper
on the Roman Warm Period,
which is uploaded to the Roman Web Place
and Rosamond's Web Page
using Repository Windows programs.

Best of all, the Refugee Working Party,
sponsored by the Rural Works Programme,
used recruitment and workforce planning
to improve the road to Wigan Pier,
install swings at Roger Williams Park,
and update Roberts Wrestling Page.

It takes a village, folks!

(Note: Day 2 of the ReadWritePoem celebration. Prompt was to go to AcronymAttic online and write a poem inspired by any of the RWP phrases. As you can see, I used quite a few of them!)

Seattle '73

2010-04-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

Seattle, '73:
instead of rainy day blues,
it is 103.
I bake inside a cheap motel room
sans breeze and a/c,
as "Ain't Misbehavin" seeps
in through the slats of blinds
glinting in nickel-plated sunlight.

Piano jingle and teletype leads into the news--
the all Elvis news,
the newly-deceased Elvis news.

I surrender to memory:
his voice, like the inside of a windowless
padded room, stuffy, overheated,
slightly adenoidal.
His Brylcreem hair a topiary atop
a head full of boundary issues.
Girls screaming, throwing undies
rarely seen in his heyday.

Shocking to die old at his age.
My redemption?
Now I'm hotter than Elvis.

(Note: from a poetry prompt: take 5 titles at random from your iPod on shuffle. Mine were Seattle, Redemption, Rainy Day Blues, Surrender, Ain't Misbehavin')

April is poetry month

2010-03-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

I'm taking the challenge to write a poem a day in the month of April (http://readwritepoem.org). I'll post them all here!

Time

2009-01-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

I've been working on some aphorisms lately, and here is one:

Time, that invisible thief.

I thought that perhaps I'd heard it before, but couldn't remember where. So I googled it, and could not find it. Isn't it amazing that, not only can a person come up with something new, after thousands of years of human speech, but that you can actually check and see if it is original?

I'll write more about what it means to me. If anyone is out there reading this, what does it mean to you? I've enabled comments now, so...talk to me.

Qwerty

2008-12-28T22:21:00.001-08:00

As I was keying in a story for one of my blogs recently, I started thinking about how I learned to type. It was in high school, I was in 10th grade, 20 people in my typing class, all but 2 of them girls. The others were sissy boys, who played on no sports teams, but one of them did beat me in the student council’s presidential race. Typing was a girl’s thing in those days, 1964, the same year the Beatles first performed on Ed Sullivan.

Last week, I got an email from Craig, a guy I graduated from high school with. Presumably, his email was from himself, and not from his secretary. I wonder how Craig learned to type? I wonder what happened to all the secretaries? I do know that Craig was on the football team and not in the typing class.

Remember when the first men landed on the moon in 1969? It was on TV, and those guys weren’t sending typed messages, either. I wonder if that was because they didn’t know how to type? Seems like a typed message would have been one heck of a lot easier to arrange than a voice message. But a typed message would not have been very macho in 1969, and they sure as heck would not have wanted to send women up there into deadly space where it might be seen that they could survive quite as well as men.

After high school, I worked as a secretary for a while. I took “dictation”, but I didn’t know shorthand. Gregg’s shorthand, another “girl’s” class offered in my high school. The dictation I took in my first job out of high school was tape recorded, and it included loud throat clearing’s, hacking and harrumphs from my cigar-smoking (male) boss. Sometimes I even got to listen to an entire (one-sided) telephone conversation, as I waited for his next paragraph to drop.

I never wanted to take Home Economics in high school. There were certainly no boys who took it, and that wasn’t because they were refused. I wanted to take shop, but that was prohibited. I learned to love to cook, anyway, and have spent a good part of my life making a living as a chef. Of course, the people who have made the most money and accumulated the most fame cooking are….boys. I didn’t want to learn to sew, either, and wouldn’t you know it, the most famous and wealthy clothing designers are…boys.

Men’s work and women’s work have long been two very different things. With the speed of snails moving through a garden, some changes have been made. I now see men pushing strollers. My favorite car mechanic is a woman. There are many other examples, but I still wonder—what happened to all the secretaries?

Wintersing

2008-12-28T22:18:00.001-08:00

Wintersing

The frozen pond is snowed solid now,
a smooth shroud for the ice beneath.
If we had shovels, we could clear a space
and skate, end to end, side to side,
like we swayed to the music
during Summersing.

Back and forth, our blades
would riffle the ice like canoe wakes
or breast strokes.
Fish gaze up
like they did in June,
icy surface unbreakable, the other skaters gone.

The deck is covered in ice,
railings frosted,
roof quilted white as a bride’s bed.
Windows etched, grass hidden and brittle,
road ruts rough as a cheese grater.
Deer nose deep on warmer mornings.

The iron stoves are cold and flameless,
mousetraps lurk in the bathrooms
where the water keeps silent
as the elk, religious in their wanderings.
Brown birds chant, a gusting wind hoots.
Nowhere is the snow unbroken.

My Dad Needs Me

2008-12-22T19:10:00.001-08:00

My dad needs me.
He’s told me again and again,
how when he was my age
his dad almost killed him.

He needs me, he tells me,
when he turns red and pants like our dog,
and when he yells that I don’t love him,
and he rips my doll’s arm off.

He loves me, I know that he does.
Sometimes his tears run into my ears
when he covers me with his hot body
and he says, “Oh, yes, oh yes.”

When he gets the wooden spoons
he says I’ve been bad,
and as a good dad he will teach
me what it is to be a good woman.

Did he teach this to my mom, too?
Is that why she doesn’t come home?
I know he’s careful not to hit my face.
He promised I will always be beautiful.

When my new sister came to live here,
he started teaching her, too,
but she didn’t learn very fast—
she is only three, and at first she cried.

I woke up to hear her midnight lesson,
the wooden spoon sounds like a wet ball bouncing.
My new sister must be learning now—
she is so quiet and Dad is too.

In the morning, my new mom screams and screams.
I just want to go to school.
Dad says, “Oh my god!”
but I know he doesn’t mean it.

Workin' for the Woman

2008-12-16T18:50:00.001-08:00

Used to be, you worked for the Man, a white man, of course, one who had power in the community or industry in which you worked. A man who had gained that power by working his own way into it, or maybe his Daddy did, whatever it took for that Man to be the Boss. No matter his skill, or his gifts, or his values. He was the Man, and you did what he said or you found other employment.

Now, you can work for the Woman. And it ain’t that different. I cooked for a Sorority for a year and a half, and I can tell you it is no different at all. My “boss” is a board member of the sorority—a 97-pound, coiffed and designer-clothed woman who sells stocks and bonds by day. She knows nothing about food, in fact, I’m betting that the woman hasn’t eaten for months. When she gets hungry, she drives through Burger King without stopping, just inhaling. I never see her in anything but black. She looks like an exclamation point without the swelling at the top.

The sorority girls are a different matter. They love salads. No surprise there, but they love their salads with a half-cup of sliced black olives and a half-cup of Ranch dressing on top. These girls think Ranch dressing is a beverage! They also love macaroni and cheese, and stir fry, and, well, anything fried at all. This is Kappa Kappa Gamma, one of the wealthiest sororities in the Greek system. They have no clue what good food is, nor do they wish to learn.

They hate the chef. Not just me, but any chef. Because we prepare food. We prepare food they insist that we prepare, and then they eat it, and then they gain weight, and then they hate us, and then they replace us with another chef who prepares low-cal food they hate, and then they hate that chef, and then they replace that chef. Year after year after year. With no thought to the fact that chefs work so they can support themselves and their families. With no thought to the fact that chefs often cook because they like to feed people, even bratty sorority girls. These girls have no thought for anyone besides themselves. They don’t even care what their sisters think of the food. It is all ME and the Chef's terrible food. There is one brain in that sorority, and that is who decides that the food is crappy. The rest just go out drinking.

It is rude and disgusting. It is amazing to come into work every day and not even know what pots and pans will be available in the pantry to use to cook meals for these brats. Whatever might needed for whatever reason by the sorority sisters would be taken away and returned when convenient, or not. One day I went in, and the microwave was missing. There was still a microwave in the “nook”, the area that the girls used to prepare their breakfast cereals and oatmeal. But the microwave in the kitchen was gone. About 5 weeks later, it showed up again, all plugged in and ready to go. Apparently, it had been found in one of the girl’s rooms, used to make microwave popcorn so she didn’t have to go down the stairs to do it.

My solution? Cook for dogs—they ALWAYS love the food!

And then I have to stop and think about what this all means. What it means for the state of women in the world and how little that has changed since I was a raging feminist back in the day. What it means when people hate the food they have to eat, which nourishes and sustains them. And especially what it means for young women, just finding their place in the world, just becoming themselves. And now I feel sad, so sad, that weight is such a loaded issue (pun intended). That how we look means more than who we are....still. That how we look IS who we are. Loaded, it is loaded with meanings I couldn't begin to address in multiple books. Suffice it to say that dogs are so much easier to get along with.

Good Morning Aunt Alma

2008-12-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

Good Morning, Aunt Alma
By Lee Lawton

The summer after I graduated from high school, I went to stay on the Colorado River with my aunt and uncle. They had a trailer park just below Parker Dam, on the Arizona side, which they purchased in 1958 or 1959. The B & B it was called, after the original owners. My aunt and uncle had the only stick-built house on the property, the rest were…trailers. One or two may have been double-wide, but most were 28-52 feet long, single-wide, and meant for a cheap vacation on a pristine and quiet stretch of the Colorado River during the winter months.

It is 1966, just before this section of the Colorado River gets discovered by California spring breakers and jet boats. The river flows fast and cold from under Parker Dam, known to be the deepest dam in the U.S., smooth and roiling in the red sunsets that backlight scraggly mountains with profiles of bearded old men and camels. It is quiet here all day and all night. The river is empty of boats except for a couple of fishing boats now and then. Fishing from the dock is good, depending on how much water they’re letting out of the dam. Sometimes the current is so fast, it strips the bait right off your hook.

A paved highway belts the two sections of the B&B. Near the road is the laundry, and sinks and toilets in a brown-sided building. Before Marguerite and D.C. bought the place, the previous owners rented to the overnight crowd. Sometimes we do, too. The washing machines are the wringer type, like my mom has at home, with rinse tubs nestling close. The dryers are plastic coated lines just outside, four lines about 12 inches apart, stretching about 24 feet from t-poles, just like the telephone wires along the road.

The trailers here tend to be pink and white or brown and white, their tires sagging in the sandy soil. The longer the tenant, the more the tires sag into the sand, and the more chunks of fool’s gold litters their driveways.

Near the laundry is Aunt Alma’s trailer. Aunt Alma, as she is known to everyone, is my uncle’s aunt. My uncle is my aunt’s husband, as you might expect, but he is also my father’s uncle, being my grandfather’s half-brother. Our family is one of the leaders in complicated family arrangements.

All I know is that Aunt Alma is exotic, having been to Mexico many, many times. She is also very, very old, but her being exotic makes her seem younger.

By 1966, I had traveled to Iowa from eastern South Dakota, many, many times. I’d even gone on a bicycle, since it was only 3 miles away. I’d lived in Nebraska, and had traveled in Nebraska when my family boat camped on the Missouri River. I’d been to Minnesota on a summer vacation. I’d never been to Mexico, but after meeting Aunt Alma, it was the place I dreamed of.

Aunt Alma fascinates me. She has pots from New Mexico with unusual designs. She makes pizza from scratch—her dough is famous among the trailer park tenants. She has never been married, and she has traveled all over the southwest by herself. She has a parrot named Polly. I’m too shy to say much to her, but I watch her every chance I get.

Did I say that I visited my aunt and uncle during vacation? Well, that isn’t quite right. I graduated from high school, and would go to college in the fall, but meantime I was there to work. My work is watering the bedraggled lawns each trailer has. Mowing them when needed. Moving the irrigation hoses. Waiting on customers at the gas tank and in the store, helping Marguerite in the kitchen.

Western Arizona, in the summer, is hotter than melting plastic. That is nothing new—just check the records for Parker or Blythe, and I’d mention Lake Havasu City, but it didn’t exist yet. Because it was so hot, we went to work early. Like 5:00 a.m. early. At age 18, 5:00 a.m. is a good time to go to bed, not a good time to get up.

Mondays are wash day at the B&B. We wash bedding from rental trailers, and our own clothes, towels and bedding. My aunt comes knocking at about 4:45 a.m., when the sun isn’t up yet, and the light is gray and gentle. I get up and meet her at the laundry, which smells like bleach, soap and too much work.

The soothing grind of the washing machine begins, hypnotic, making me want to go back to sleep. While we wait for the first load to finish churning, we clean the stalls in the restroom next door. Then, we run the wash through the wringer and start a new load. Out to the lines, we shake out the flattened cloth, and hang it, using spring clothespins and those two-legged clothespins they make dolls out of.

This takes a long time, as we load wash after wash. About 7:30 a.m, Polly wakes up. She sleeps in a big, round, wrought-iron cage on the concrete patio of Aunt Alma’s trailer. She sleeps covered with a heavy piece of canvas. When she wakes, she starts talking.

“Aunt Alma.”

The sloshing sound of the washer almost drowns her out.

“Aunt Alma.”

The hose fills the tub, and I just barely hear her.

“Aunt Alma?”

We shake out the clothes and fill the clothes baskets.

“Aunt Alma?”

While the tub drains the soapy water, we hang the clothes.

“Aunt Alma?” Polly’s voice gets a little louder.

Back into the washroom we fill another tub, adding a fistful of Tide. When I go outside, I can hear Polly’s nails on her wooden perch, back and forth, back and forth. She pecks at the heavy cover, which dimples slightly under her beak.

“Aunt Alma?” I hear a bit of strain in Polly’s voice, some tension in her voice.

Through the wringer the next load goes, my Aunt commenting that it will be a hot one today. Even though the clothes are wet and cool, I am beginning to sweat.

“AUNT ALMA?” Polly demands, again.

We drop the flat, wet clothes into the basket, and walk them outdoors, heavy, sodden, the sky bluing, like the bluing we use on the whites.

“AUNT ALMA??” Polly shrieks, toastless, ready for the day.

I stop pulling cold, wet, cloth out of the basket, stretch my back, and look over at Aunt Alma’s patio. Polly’s cage is still covered in heavy canvas. The sun is just beginning to clear the rough, scraggly mountains in back of us, where my uncle has his toolshed, his playpen my aunt calls it. The temperature is rising, now about 85, which passes for cool around here in July.

‘AUNT ALMA!!” Polly proclaims, her claws scratching back and forth along her perch. “AUNT ALMA!!” Her voice rises even more, as she screeches, all patience lost.

Just as I shake out a pair of my uncle’s boxer shorts, Aunt Alma’s trailer door squeaks open. Aunt Alma appears, wearing a printed cotton robe with kittens on it. Her hair is mussed, her eyes are swollen, her left cheek has a pillow wrinkle I can see from here. In her hands is an old pie plate with toasted bread, grapefruit slices, a bit of cheese. She sets it down on a small table on her patio, and slides Polly’s cover off her cage. She lays the cover on the concrete, and says good morning to Polly. Polly begins to bob her head, rub her beak along her perches, mutter, “Aunt Alma, Aunt Alma, good morning, good morning.” Polly’s eyes are glinting so that I can see them across the yard from the laundry room. Her feathers are ruffled. If a beak can smile, she is doing it.

Aunt Alma opens Polly’s cage door and sets the food inside, one piece at a time. She is murmuring words I cannot hear. Aunt Alma caresses Polly’s head, but Polly is too busy to comment.

Bill

2008-12-14T11:20:00.000-08:00

Into the funnel of your death, I was able to pour more hurt than I even knew I felt. The thought of going to your funeral scared me right into a cold that kept me home for two weeks.

Let’s face it, I was fifteen years old and I didn’t know squat. You were killed, and I knew right then that we all skated on thin ice. I was right, too. Kennedy was killed that same year, Suzie got pregnant, Bobbi’s mom died of cancer, and that boy from Jefferson hung himself. And Dennis’ eye…Dennis’ left eye kept tearing like that was the only part of him that grieved. They said he’d scratched his cornea as he ran for help, leaving you lying alone in the bright yellow leaves. All the rest of that year, half of him wept.

When they told me that Dennis had shot you, my mom had just dropped me off for the weekly Luther League meeting, and all the kids were waiting outside in the weak light of an early fall evening. I wasn’t Lutheran, but I would have converted to any –ism in the book just to get out of the house. We had our usual snarling match on the way to the church, except I was finally learning not to say a word, no matter how she tried to peel back the bark and screw the knife in. Every time I slammed the car door behind me, I felt like I had just started breathing again after diving too deep in the murky waters of the lake that bordered our back yard. I had done that too many times, going deep, blind fingers feeling along the bottom laden with soft muck and countless small clam shells, waiting until I just had to breathe, then kicking upwards, sure I wouldn’t make it, swallowing to make the air last, then choking on the water that streamed off my hair in the bright sunlight.

When they told me you were dead, I just took off running. I didn’t even know you, really, except I’d see you warming the bench at football games, and I’d wanted a different debate partner than you, somebody not so nice, a real sarcastic cut-throat like me. Good old pudgy Bill. How could you get shot, when the thought of you hunting was just plain ridiculous? It seemed like a long time until somebody caught up to me, and I can’t even remember who it was that caught my sleeve and wrapped me up against their scratchy, wool coat.

Dennis stopped football, he just about stopped altogether, and he never talked about what happened out there in the woods. Then, my best friend Bobbi tucked him up under whatever she had left after her own mother died, leaving her with her six-pack-a-night father and her slut sister, and Bobbi and Dennis went steady. Later on, they married, but all I remember is they went someplace I couldn’t go even though I hurt too, and they just stayed there, Bill. They never came back and neither did you.

Dakota's Duck

2008-12-05T19:40:00.000-08:00

Dakota's Duck

Yesterday, I went to Bimart to pick up a few things, and of course I had to check out the dog toys. I didn't see anything in that department that appealed to me on her behalf, but being near the Christmas season, I checked out the soft toys meant for children. In one of the bins was a duck. A mallard to be precise. About twelve inches long, with a green head and orange feet, as mallards are meant to be. This was not a toy for children, but a toy for dogs, as the tag said. And it quacks when you squeeze the tummy.

I had already tried some of the squeaky toys in the dog department, and I knew that I would soon be screaming if I gave any of those to my year-old pup. EEKY-EEKY, over and over and over again is not a good way for me to spend the day. Plus, I work at home, work that takes some concentration, and I really like my new dog, Dakota, a 55-pound white shepherd mix, and I didn't want to have to kill her anytime soon.

Duck sounds are good. A deep, low, gutteral, uck-uck-uck. I can live with that. Unfortunately, when I got home. Dakota had been a very bad girl. She had pooped on the floor in the living room. She had peed on my bed. On my bed, fer crissakes! That was nearly enough for me to want to superglue her little pee-pee shut! I checked online and there were all sorts of opinions and theories. We went to the vet, they tested her pee. We're going to dog training next week.

So, back to the mallard. The next day, being a forgiving sort, I offered the duck to Dakota. She sniffed it carefully. Then I squeezed it. Gutteral uck uck. She ran like hell. My house is small, so she couldn't go far, but she could get behind a wall between the kitchen and the living room. "Dakota!", I called. She peeked out from the hallway. I wiggled the mallard and squeezed, "uck, uck". She ran like hell.

Okay....I'm not about to let $7.49 go to waste. I call her again. She peeks around the corner again. I wiggle the mallard again. No squeezing this time. She looks. She backs away. I wonder, and not for the first time, just what kind of childhood this dog had before I got her. Carefully, she peers out into the kitchen where I'm standing with the duck in one hand, laughing my ass off. I don't mean to be rude, but really.....

No way would she come and take that duck. This is not the first stuffed toy I've given her. I even gave her my RCA Victor dog, and she acted like it was a spiritual experience as she carefully took it into her mouth, and chewed softly. She didn't let that one go all day, and even brought it into her bed that night. But the duck scared her spitless.

Finally, I sat down with the duck, now silent, in one hand, while I petted her with the other. After awhile I just dropped the duck and went back to work. A few hours ago, she brought the duck into my office, wagging her tail. Just a few minutes ago, I heard uck, uck, uck from the living room. Guess we've got a new mallard, too!

RV Adventure, Day Two: Where All the Men Are Cowboys

2008-11-24T19:38:00.000-08:00

Friday, June 27, 2008. Ochoco N.F. to Cascade, Idaho, Arrowhead RV Park.
327 miles, 8 hours.

Expenses:

Fuel $102.00
Campground $28.00

Western Oregon is high desert country. The radio, where there is reception, is all country music and Rush Limbaugh. Now, Rush and I live in completely different political galaxies, but you’ve got to give the guy credit—he almost got me believing that there is actually more ice in the Arctic this year than ever before!

American flags fly everywhere. One town is all gussied up for the 4th, and they must have voted in a tax increase just to cover the hundreds of red, white, and blues shading the entire three blocks of Main Street.

This is a land of unusual churches—Church of the Nazarene, Church of the Holy Redeemer. You don’t see many Lutherans or Presbyterians out here, not to mention Unitarians or Quakers.

Rising out of the high desert east of Redmond are forested ranges with cool breezes and chilly nights—the Malheur and Wallowa National Forests. I make a mental note to remember Dixie Campground in Malheur N.F., and two or three others on the east
side of the summit. The brown and khaki tones of the high desert below are interrupted only by the deep blue-green waters of a reservoir, miles long, which doesn’t even rate a name on the map. It is nearly deserted, even in this ninety-degree weather.

Much of Eastern Oregon is populated with far more cattle, magpies, rabbits, ravens, vultures, deer and elk than with humans. This scrubby desert somehow feeds them all.

I take Idaho 55 north from Horseshoe Bend, the highway curling upwards beside the Payette River canyon, the trees getting taller with every mile. It is still hot, though, even as we approach 4,000’, and the long line of vehicles I’m in, like one boxcar in a train, reminds me that it is Friday, and I’d better settle in early.

It seems like it takes a long time to drive the 53 miles to Cascade, where I decide to camp at a large RV park. An employee, driving a golf cart, models the park’s 5 MPH requirement as she escorts me to my campsite. The site is sandwiched in between two big rigs, one with a pop-out I can barely squeeze past when I go out to attach my hook-ups. I’m careful which way I bend over, so as not to frame my butt in their big picture window, from which they can probably read the labels on the cans in my cupboards. My sixteen-foot Nash looks like a dollar hamburger lost inside a big bun.

There are many 5th wheels parked here, trailers that hitch into the back of pick-up trucks. These trucks are loaded with custom features, like red and yellow flames, and lightning bolts, which make them resemble the drawings pre-teen boys make while ignoring a teacher in middle school. The owners of these pick-ups, however, haven’t seen middle school in quite a few decades!

At Arrowhead RV Park, I realize that I am safer than I was in my mother’s arms. All around me are men, 75+, of the Hunting and Gathering Culture, who only speak to each other and rarely to women they are not married to, men of diminished testosterone who still take their roles as protectors of women quite seriously. These men are happy, even anxious, to offer advice on any question of trailer maintenance. They are delighted to second-guess the guy who actually worked on my trailer, the guy I trusted completely before hearing what these guys have to say.

Even though I rarely spend this much to camp, preferring National Forest campgrounds, when I think about getting water, electric, and sewer hook-ups, a shower, wireless Internet and technical advice, all for only $28.00, I realize I have gotten a real bargain!

Lee Lawton is a Renaissance woman, Jill of all trades, writer and poet.

RV Adventure, Day One: The Lock Doctor

2008-11-24T19:37:00.000-08:00

Thursday, June 26. The great adventure begins—me, my 12-year-old chow-corgi mix, Rudy, and my 16’ Nash trailer. Corvallis to Montana and onward.

Day One. Corvallis to Ochoco National Forest. About 170 miles, 4 1/2 hours.

Expenses:
Lock Doctor $78.00
Fuel $50.00
Propane $12.00
Lunch $5.00

All packed early this morning. I’ll just hook up, which is not rocket science, as I remind myself. It is the first time I’ve done it alone however. I’ll get the stabilizers and sway bar out of the side compartment of the trailer. No stress, I’ve got plenty of time—I’m planning to camp in the Ochocos in the middle of Oregon, only about 4 hours over the Cascades from home. It is a pocket of coolness at nearly 5000 feet, surrounded by Oregon’s high dessert, now getting uncomfortably hot in late June.

The lock on the side compartment of the trailer has always been fussy. I’ve got bent keys to prove it. This is where the hitch-up items are stored, along with the tools needed to let the awning up, and to put the stabilizers down so the trailer doesn’t rock when I’m parked. Plus, a few other tools.

This morning at 7:45—no way I can get that compartment open. I’m grunting loud enough for people already camping in the Ochocos to hear me, and I cannot get the dammed thing open.

Okay, call the Lock Doctor. It is not quite 8:00 a.m., but this is a lock emergency, right? Lock Doctors must work all hours. Two rings. Three rings…damn! Four rings and a man with a calm voice answers, “Lock Doctor, how may I help you?” Sweeter words were never spoke!

I tell him my story, he asks directions; he can be here in half an hour. Sweet!

Okay, I’m all packed and ready except for hooking up the trailer. I was going to hold off on the shower until afterward, but with half an hour to wait, might as well take it now.

Feels good, and I get out and apply a new lotion I got while I was stocking up on travel-sized toiletries. Olay Body, the bottle says. I like Olay products. I squirt some into the palm of my hand, and start rubbing it, two-handed, onto my legs. Jeez, this stuff is THICK!

I squirt a little more and rub it on my arms. It stays on my skin like frosting on a cake. Yuk. Wish I’d stuck with the cheap stuff I usually buy.

I am just about to exit the bathroom and get dressed when my brain says, “wait a minute, why is that stuff so thick, and why isn’t it sinking in?” I peer at the plastic bottle, no glasses on: Olay Body, it says, then something about it moisturizing your skin….uh huh, uh huh, the Lock Doctor is going to be here any minute, and unlike other doctors, he may not expect me to be naked.

Then I see, at the bottom of the label, in small letters, the words, Body Wash. This is SOAP, not lotion! Back in the shower I go, frantically washing the soap off, trying to remember to rinse all the parts I’ve rubbed it on.

Doubly clean and properly clothed, I meet the Lock Doctor, who replaces the faulty lock, and I begin to hook up the trailer. He admires my skill at getting near the hitch the first time I back up, and I am feeling pretty darned confident, until, that is, I try to drive away with the chocks in front of all four wheels.

How the Stars Move Above the Mist

2008-11-24T19:30:00.000-08:00

It was the night of the comet. The best viewing night of all, and after busy weeks stacked on each other like a pancake supper, we loaded the telescope, carefully set in the molded safety of its case, into the back seat of the car. A warmed-up supper of Campbell’s bean and bacon soup and melted cheese on tortillas sat in our stomachs like an anchor holding a boat in a storm.

There is something about anticipation that slows time. A half-mile from the city we held to the speed limit. Within a few minutes of passing the last convenience market, we sped up a little, just above the speed limit. By the time the lights of the city hid themselves in small valleys and behind tree farms and fields where pumpkins gave birth to themselves, we were a full ten miles over the limit. The trees and the pumpkins couldn’t care less.

We dropped over a hill into a bottle of smoky ink, fog throwing our headlights back in our faces. One faint light to the west, two to the east, and a reddish glow behind as Sodom must have looked after a long day’s walk. A faint luminescent sign pointed the way to the model airplane field.

Empty. Did I neglect to mention that with every mile we drove, the fog became thicker? It was like falling into an old box of insect specimens where exoskeletons were pinned to the very same cotton we now drove through. Slowing with each curve, signs wreathed like romance, we made our way to the field of grounded toy planes.

We set the telescope up anyway, pulling each smooth black piece from its molded bed as if the very act of bringing into the open such a precise instrument could turn the weather around.

The comet should be near the horizon now, in the northeast sky. Like the fallen tree in the forest, we could not know if it made sound or light.

We ranged the sky with the lens, caught a fleeting glimpse of the North Star, and then moisture covered everything. It was raining without gravity—droplets forming underneath the tube as quickly as atop it. Like the angels, we lived in the clouds and did not fall through.

It had been a long day for both of us. The necessities of life in middle age, the unaccustomed body slowness, the speed of the days passing, the need to work when the joy of it was long gone. The anticipation of an evening just for the two of us, our minds on the heavens, the warmth of the eyepiece like a seat recently vacated. No way were we going to give up.

When the skies yielded nothing worth watching, like naughty children we pushed the lens into a more horizontal view, and we did not give one thought to passing that large, lighted window.

Framed there, like some gothic nursing home scene, were two bent figures leaning on silver aluminum walkers, facing each other. These old ones slowly pushed their walkers into the middle of our framed view until they met, with an almost audible click. The fog pulled a curtain over our view, as if what was about to occur demanded the respect of privacy. We fiddled with the scope, adjusting the focus, unable to pull away from this shameful act of peeping. Peeping at these ancient people, as if at our futures.

The sharp yellow light returned to view, and now the old couple was facing us, as if they knew we were watching, as if they had some act of wisdom to perform for us--an heirloom of shuffling movement granted to an unlikely pair with a dripping telescope and no comet to pursue.

The old couple took a couple of awkward shuffling steps, leaving their walkers just behind. They moved at the star’s own pace, as they inch across the night sky. One step, two, a scarf of fog, the walkers obscured by bodies turning, hands reaching and meeting, melding into one shapeless form. And then, face to face, cheek to cheek, belly to belly, with infinite care, and with the slow grace of snails moving through a garden, they began to dance.

Music to My Eyes

Altitude

Packing a Life Into Paper Bags

Next

In Bed at the Beach

The Man With the Cane

haiku continued

haiku continued

haiku

Evening

Coming Home

South Dakota Summer

Falling Down the Well of Joy

St. Helens

Jacks

Bucket Drumming

RV Adventure, Day 3

Hyber-Nation

Oil "Spill"

White Clouds on a Still Black Lake

Online Relationships

Anti-Biotic

Recommended Reading

To the Digital Historian who Filmed the Music Camp Full of Old Women

Dakota

Oregon Sun

Homeless

Night Work

Pelicans

A Day Past Full

Doyle

Poseidon Adventure

Over the Hill

Spring Promises

Day's Night

Jergens Lotion

Bugs

It Is Only Life and Death

The Poetry Workshop

Bare-Breasted Women

Choices

The Spirit of Place Mats

Fly Away Home

Why Didn't We Make It Darling?

doggod

The Scream

The Bestselling Memoir

Hubbard Season

What I'm Afraid Of

The New Politics

Seattle '73

April is poetry month

Time

Qwerty

Wintersing

My Dad Needs Me

Workin' for the Woman

Good Morning Aunt Alma

Bill

Dakota's Duck

RV Adventure, Day Two: Where All the Men Are Cowboys

RV Adventure, Day One: The Lock Doctor

How the Stars Move Above the Mist