as summer passes

these days give so much
in their too quick hours that I
breathe wordless in them


The summer has gone by--too fast, as always.
Fall. I love fall.
School. I love school schedules.
Gardens. And canning. And the timeless beauty of the task of saving the fruits of this season to feed my family for the winter. I never feel more the glory of being a wife and mother than in the fall, as I preserve those gorgeous healthy summer days in jar after jar, and wash the blankets, and stack firewood, and fill holes in the cellar walls, and build foundations, and .... oh, wait.
But I do love it.
And obviously, I haven't been on here often.
Autumn has a bad habit of leaving me speechless.
And my husband has a bad habit of leaving me computer-less now that the semester is fully under way.

But today, I have a computer, and a few minutes of blessed silence, and to prove that I have been thinking of this page for weeks, though I had no time, I shall put up a few pictures, in no particular order, of the past few weeks' worth of busyness, that I took with each of you in mind.

Summer apples.

Pickles. Dill ones. Tons of them.



SUNY Potsdam kindly landscaped their campus with crabapples, and every few years there is a great season with more than enough for everyone. Except, only my family is crazy enough to put a sheet under a crabapple tree in the middle of a college campus and shake the trees and drag home the loot. Makes a gorgeous spicy jelly.




Does he look ominous? We got an hour of happiness out of him:

stuffed with plastic bags, with jingle bells tied in his tail.
Anything to keep a very busy one year old occupied.

The makings of tomato sauce.

And...afore-mentioned one year old. One and a half, rather.

(No longer quiet right now, by the way).

And because the silence is gone, I must end this post prematurely. But I will come back. The "magnetic poetry" words are back on the refrigerator, and as they arrange and rearange themselves over the days, I have no doubt that inspiration will slowly resurrect while the leaves die and the cold cozy days return.
My best to all of you out there.
May your whiskers be long and your whiskey golden.
Or something.

There are more words in my head and my heart that want to be in these lines; probably one of these days I will add to the poem. For now, here it is: and as usual, I can't think of the title. It will come to me some day....I hope....

We called the earth
our mother,
The wind our father.
We sang the words,
and whistled, and laughed for freedom;
We laughed with love of dreaming,
of one another:
We missed the tears in his murmurs,
the sob in her breath.

We realized when we, silent,
stood by our children
And loved with so much anguish,
such helpless passion,
Our hands were his, caressing,
that could not hold them,
Her arms outstretched for her children,
but empty till death.

no one ever said
how lonely my heart would be
when it beat alone

Something about lamplight in the twilight:
I don't know what, just something.
Maybe I really am a hobbit.
Country roads and green leaves and sleepy birds.
And lamplight.

Just something.

Yours Truly

I am grateful most
Not that you are handsome,
Even though you know all too well that you are,
Not that you are the lover of my dreams,
Though you know you are that too,
Not that you are the father of my children,
Born and unborn,
Not that you are the hard-working husband
That comes home to me every night,
Not that you can take me to heights and depths of my soul
That I never knew existed,
Not that you call me your whiskey girl
And your sweetheart,
Not that you love to wear a flower on your lapel
And suspenders that button on,
Not for every little smile and scowl and temper and tease
And touch and movement that makes you mine, all and always mine,

But most that when we were younger
And before you were mine,
You respected me,
And that before I was your girl
I was your lady:
For that I am always
Most gratefully
Yours.

Still Naive

But why would they?
All of them.
Toppled like ninepins.
How am I different, or how was I missed?
We started together,
All clean white and shining,
Courageous sweet sixteen, and never been kissed.
And now I glance backwards
To look for my comrades
And stop in my tracks and the tears freely flow.
Why didn't they tell me?
They knew I was there.
I'd have carried them through in my arms had I known.

Diaphane

For a moment, when she turned her head,
The bursting leaves on the elm tree

Were cherry blossoms instead.

And I wonder now, she later said,
If maybe they were as happy
As I, that I'd been misled.

I thought they broke the mold

John Berberich over at SLAP passed along to me their latest challenge: a poem a day for all of April. As I lay in bed late last night fighting the stomach flu for the second day in a row, I found three random lines, and congratulated myself drearily on being ahead for one day. Well--um--yesterday was the first of April, as I realized this morning, so I was not at all ahead. Oh well. At least I wrote one for yesterday then, right?

The same devilment's
In the unborn brother's kicks
And that four-toothed grin.

it's just today

There are some days in life when poetry escapes us--the words are there inside, seething and confused, and we can't put them in order at all.
I don't like the poetry that comes out on those days--troubled, ugly, unhappy. Today has been one of those days; but I don't want to share that.
Instead, I will follow William's lead and post a visual poem, snapshots of things that have been beautiful today, little moments that save me. They are taken on a tiny camera; they are not a photographer's work by any means; and they may mean nothing to anyone else: but at least I know that I tried, on a pretty much no-good day, to contribute a little beauty to the world around me.

The Fine Art of Fermentation

We are like sauerkraut
Or cheese or wine.
We keep on growing while the world goes on.
Come back from time to time to check the brine,
Inspect the mold, and stir the bubbles down.
The age will do us good. Just let us rest.
The bubbles rise and fall while you are gone,
The veins that grow the bluest are the best.

I'll tell you when it's time to paint the town.