Back Again

Forty Eight years ago I obtained an MA from Michigan State University in Graphic Design where I met John Metheany, then married with a new daughter Jan. We lost touch for many years, reconnecting when I googled him and found he was just moving to Canada. These last few years he has insisted that I come visit him, see his place, meet his daughters, and see his painting, and hear his piano. I am planning to be in Saulte Sainte Marie for ten days this month.

John continued to paint and teach, while I worked in stained glass, clay, collage and small books, finally arriving at poetry by way of storytelling for eleven years.

Amazingly John has, with the help of his daughte Ann, arranged, or is arranging, a little gathering to hear my poetry. I am touched  and pleased and curious to how it will go. If you are reading this, perhaps it is because there was a link on  Ann's  Facebook page (I think.) Maybe we will meet at the cafe!

My Mac runs on OS 10.3.9, and Picasa and most other software has outgrown it. So I am not able to post photos. Not of the five cats, the two dogs, the garden, the funky farmhouse or the black dirt fields a few blocks away from me in this small village of Florida, NY. I will therefore share with you a poem that relates to living out here:

 BACK ROADS IN SPRING

A nun, dressed in sweats,
stood by her mailbox
and gazed into the sky.

A child, listening to an ipod,
walked up a driveway
past a tricycle on its side,
two cars in the yard.

I saw colored eggs dangling from a bush;
clothes swinging on a line
in the sun by a stream.

Tire tracks of black dirt crossed the road
where farm vehicles had passed from
one field to the next.

And then, a mail box with it’s mouth open,
perhaps in astonishment, like me,
to know that a nun in sweats
saw god in the light blue spring sky
while Chopin played the piano in my car.

Trouble Posting

Darn. I am having trouble posting!  I am not able to upload photos from my computer!  Let's see.  I will try again. Nope. They only allow photos from my blog that I have already posted and from Picasa which I do not have. I guess this is the end of my blog!

Here is a poem:

Road

Today is the day
that I burned my lips
after the big pot of rice
was cooking right next
to yesterday’s pan
where broccoli’d steamed
to perfection.
And, like my mother before me,
as I washed the dishes
I went to drink that broccoli broth
where all the vitamins floated --
except that I didn’t,
the rim of the pan
now exceedingly hot
from proximity to the rice next door,
a condition I had perceived;

But did I think? No.

I lifted the pot to my lips
touching it oh so gently
just to the lower lips’ outer edges
and then quickly let go the pan
ran to the sink, filled a cup with cold water,
rested my lip in it
like a huge hippo caught with its mouth
open, half in the water, half out,
then tossed the broth
down the drain, frowning,
as if the broccoli water
was who was at fault.

But that’s not all.

Today is the day
I gassed up the house
cooking rice, as I said,
setting the timer for forty-five minutes,
checking my watch,
going away and returning on time,
the timer was beeping.
Gracefully I reached over the stove
halting its beep by pushing a button,
and thinking I was deftly
turning the flame off,
instead I turned on the big burner
next to it, the one
with the broken pilot, the one
needing a match.

Did I look at the burners? No.

Later upstairs I looked up from my work
smelling gas, ran down the stairs
turned off the rice,
now overcooked,
turned off the bad burner
still spewing fumes,
turned on the fan,
opened the windows,
checked on the dogs
lying there on the floor,
to make sure they still lived.

But that’s not all.

Today is the day
that I burned the oatmeal.
Yes I eat oatmeal for dinner at times,
a half cup of oatmeal
to one cup of water,
I timed it, and then went away.

Did I check the flame? No.

Coming back as the timer was beeping
this time I saw smoke,
windows already open, fan on.
turned off the burner,
went to the door,
confusing the dog
as I opened and closed it
to clear out the house.

“Don’t come in,” I said to my partner
over the phone,
“You won’t like it.”
“But I’m in the garage,” she said,
“back with ourtakeout.
What did you do?”
“I burned the oatmeal,” I said
“Let’s eat in the yard.”

Later, when I was upstairs
writing this poem,
I smelled incense
I opened my windows
and wondered:
What will come next
on the road to senility?

POETRY READING, September 4th, 2010

MY GOODNESS, I have not posted since July!  Well, August was..... August. But then.....

.... I experienced my first opportunity to be a featured poet! With everyone looking just at me, ham that I am. And this was not expected, but was a result of reading at open mikes for a couple of years, and taking a class at the College of Poetry. The wife of the man who runs the College apparently suggested me to him.

So, since you weren’t there I would like to share a few of the many photos that my devoted partner and fan Cecelia took on that day; plus also I want to share a poem that I wrote especially for the occasion. Thank you for letting me bring you in to some of that day’s fun for me, ham that I am!

POETRY READING

I sit up and leave off smiling and nodding to fellow listeners.
The room quiets; we face the poet standing at the podium and
settle in, anticipating images, cadences, journeys through
lightness and pain -- gifts from the poet who, often
when least expecting anything, received
brief inspirations bestowed by whirlwinds of chance,
or felt small pirouettes of the heart, or knives embedded in the chest;

gathered these, placed each one down carefully as if setting
a miniature storyteller on a miniature hill, or in an ally, or on a ship;
bent down, listened closely to each one, scribbled words
on scraps of lined or unlined paper, watching them come and go,
choosing them to fit nonverbal meanings; then left the phrases
to rest like bread rising or seeds buried in dirt.

And when they had melded together, picked them up, shook off
loose beginnings and endings, trimmed their shapes, added pauses, then at last
the poet brings them to us, here in this place, these new poems. Brings them here;

offers them to us as words on strings of orderly enunciation,
or in boxes from which each word jumps out like Jack,
or on a softly waving silk scarf of syllables wafting over our heads.
Surprised, we feel the air moving above us and we shiver with
tingles at a soft unexpected brushings on our skin.

The poet throws out to us, as if at a wedding,
poems as easy to catch as a bouquet of gardenias,
as clear to see as a photograph, as challenging to accept
as a feral kitten clasped to the breast
whose claws pierce the skin reminding us
 of Life! Life!

Sorrow, Loss, Special Memories

Not happy. That bird, so full of life, just hours after I posted excitedly about her -- if you notice I posted in the wee hours of the morning -- at around 6 when Cecelia went to feed her, couldn't cheep! She isn't cheeping, Cecelia said, poking her head into the bedroom where I still dozed. We gave each other That Look -- and prepared for the unheard of -- unheard of in our smitten little hearts that visualized her perched on our shoulders and on the curtain rods, minus bird poop of course. Yes, she did perish after about 12 hours, at dinnertime that night. I had written this poem in May, not knowing why it came to me, and have adjusted it to fit her last moments. I share it with you: NELL IN MY HAND Let your head lie heavy in my hand, relax your neck. Fold your wings over your body to keep warm. Such wings I've never seen -- so light and clear. For hours I feel your tiny heart vibrate softly in my palm, until at last, surprising me, you lift your head up in the way wrens do, unfold your wings and beat them as to fly, and then collapse. "She was so small" they'll say, "light as a feather, and at the end, she flew away." July 15, 2010

A SMALL OBSESSION

All this spring, we delighted to see a mother wren hop along the top of the fence, dart up into a branch of the maple tree, fly over the driveway to the trim above the barn door and disappear under it’s opening to feed young ones in a nest. Of course we despaired when we found dead wrens on the ground in the mornings, not many but enough to whittle the wren family down to one or two.

These are the culprits: Mikado, Boo, Abby and Molly. Especially Molly. So I was surprised one morning as I headed for the garbage can with some bags of garbage to find something little flailing about in a patch of grass -- a baby wren NOT dead! Pitching the bags, I gathered the fledgling in my hands and took her inside to show Cecelia. (I decided it was a female just to get away from the assumption that it was “he”).

Cecelia ended up falling in love with the tiny bird. She sat holding her for an hour in the barn waiting for the mom to fly in and show her which nest the baby belonged to. Got the ladder and returned the bird to a nest in which another bird, fully feathered, lay. She had errands that day, so I kept vigil, looking out the window often to see if the babe had left the nest again. Then I went out, and when Cecelia came home half an hour later, she found the baby bird on the ground AGAIN, with NO CATS to harm her! We think she kicked herself out, she is so active!

So we decided we were the designated parents! Research on the web told us to feed her cat food diluted with water (ironic, no?), and mealy worms. We bought a cage. We snatched an unused robin’s nest that had resided near the wren nests, a much stronger nest than the tangle of dry weeds and leaves that the wrens lived in.

We placed the cage on the desk in the guest room and proceeded to feed her as often as she seemed hungry. Here are the tools we used: water, cat food with dropper, and tweezers to pluck -- woops! -- pluck -- darn it! -- pluck and HOLD the mealy worms.

Now, if we were to be the parents, we had to agree on the name, and after some trial names, decide on the name “Nell” as the most fitting. Nell-a-Wren.

Of course we kept the door closed to the guest room.... until we didn’t. And Molly who had been listening to the sound of the rasping little cheep, was very curious.

Here is Molly being curious. And here is the rug I had to clean after Molly dumped the cage!

I had been on the phone on hold in the next room when I heard a thump, ran into the guest room and saw Molly reaching into the bird cage on the floor. Just then the nurse came on and said, “Hello, Mary? I have your answer for you.” “No you don’t!” I shouted at the cat. Surely the nurse heard me, but seemed not to notice, even when I corrected my name. So I didn’t try to explain my rudeness!

Here is Nell-a-Wren to tell you her own story:

Hi! This is me when I first came inside the Big House......all fuzzy and with feathers on only part of my wings.

See my wings spread out ? And my yellow mouth --what mother could resist regurgitating food into that beautiful flower-like opening?

These Big People are pretty good to me. They regurgitate chicken and tuna and all sorts of food that comes in a can labeled CAT FOOD. I am pleased that the cats are going to starve while I eat all their food! I know they are out to get me. And I get worms. I bet the cats don’t get worms!

Here is Cecelia falling in love with me and here is Anne showing me how to open my mouth the way she did when feeding her babies.She answers me when I cheep. She says it reminds her of when her girls cooed and she would talk to them. Builds the vocabulary, she says.

I eat a LOT, almost every hour. Here is a picture of me eating on the Big Field they call a Bed.

And here is a photo of me Not Eating.

And here is one of me peeking out of my cage.

Just wait. Soon I will fly!

Bye for now! I will come back later when I am more grown up! Love, Nell-a-Wren

FIRST BIRD EXPERIENCE

This is a photo taken on April 14th, my daughter Tanya's birthday I now realize. My friend Connie has a bird feeder in her window that allows her to see birds up close while they cannot see her. So, knowing she enjoyed birds, I gave her a copy of this photo. Also, as she is a poet, I was motivated to write the accompanying poem. Now I share it with you! FEMALE NORTHERN FLICKER 6/10-18/2010 The Fence The fence still remembers the sudden shuddering of wires, the stunned recognition of soft weight ensnared within the verticals and horizontals; can still feel the beating heart, hear the sharp small breaths. Remembers the quiet waiting, holding the frightened bird now silent, since flight, its brave quick skill, is gone. The Hands I want to free you no, don't touch me Let me bring your head back through the wires don't touch me and now this wing stop stop it won't hurt let go let go I'll pull you back a bit so you can fly away I 'm gone! I'm gone! The Tree The tree regards everything below -- newly planted sunflowers, smooth mowed grass. Two women watch a female northern flicker whirl across the yard to land high on a leafy limb. The women point, look up and nod. The flicker on the blowing branch sways back and forth, sings, home now! Safe! Safe! home now! Safe! home now! (ps--My daughter Heidi asks: ...{the bird} doesn't look stuck so did you get the photo later? My response: The photo was taken first, then as I got nearer to the bird she tried to fly away from me, which meant she poked her head and part of a wing through the fence. So I had to disengage her.)

If you should come over to our house, and comment that it must be nice to have a room for everything, I would show you around and tell you how that came to be.

It started when Baxter the Dog got too old to go upstairs.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t sleep unless he was near his pack leader, Cecelia.

At the time, we were sleeping in separate rooms. We exchanged my bed for a sofa so Cecelia would have somewhere to sleep downstairs. Then we put the sofa in my room, which became a “sitting room.” A luxury for sure!