stealing fire

as summer passes

2010-09-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-06-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-05-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-30T17:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-05T17:57:00.001-07:00

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

2010-04-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

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

2010-02-02T20:02:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

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.

unfinished thought

2009-08-31T03:38:00.000-07:00

it's not that his smiles are any less charming
just because he uses them to punctuate
the joyful buckings of a healthy little body
at three o'clock
on monday morning

Of Watercress and Less Important Things

2009-08-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

Thanks to ursprache for somehow inspiring this train of thought.

The other day as I lay half-awake
I realized that for at least two days
my life had not ventured further than the mailbox,
which is right next to the front door.

And that really, when it came down to it, I was just fine with that.

Sunbathing on the patio
Sleeping baby inside
Cold grapefruit juice with the luxury of a straw

My life does not need words like confusificate or tumescent
to describe it.
I talk about other people's lives like that, sometimes.
But mine--well, maybe I should expand my vocabulary.
I'd really like it to include words
like watercress
and gesundheit and chiffon.
Those are good words.
I guess I'm just not quite ready to move on to delving into
the language of despondence and murky sexualism
till I have put a bit more watercress into my life.
I am still stuck at a point
where I clip coupons that I always forget to use,
and covet Audrey Hepburn's timeless elegance,
not to mention her figure,
and wish I could grow red geraniums in a window box
just because they stand for hospitality.
And I suppose I'll be here for a long time
before I ever make it to watercress,
let alone gesundheit.
So be it.
I'll get there someday.
Don't wait for me, though.
I feel like I might come across a few more important entries in the dictionary
between chiffon and confusificate.

Hardcore

2009-08-14T22:20:00.001-07:00

And she is hard.
I knew her once.
That night her lips were cherry red.

(I should have written this before,
The day it all ran through my head.)

There's strength, and there's the strong. And then
there's crabs.
You know, with hard-ass shells.
The skeleton is all outside.
Inside, it's all just gooey wells.

I just don't know.
I understand that wearing hearts pinned on your sleeve
Is too much like the children's games,
Where someone snatches, laughs and leaves.

But this--where did it go? and when?
The words are sticking to my pen.
I'd laughed and said, "You're so hardcore."
She didn't smile though.
"I am."

And suddenly my little life
Just shriveled up and ran and hid.
I'd planned to meet her there.
But where's the girl I knew when we were kids?

Candid Shots

2009-08-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

After that weekend in Seattle last spring, I found myself spending hours at a time scribbling lists of phrases in no particular order in random notebooks, trying to capture a thousand memories. I keep stumbling across those pages. Sometimes, it seems better not to try to organize the fragments. They are what they are.

Bittersweet
Life is made of pictures.
Plowed furrows flashing by,
Perspective, all angled from the flying shadow outward,
From the shadow of a little enclosed adventure.
Laughter
Loud music
Love somewhere inside.
And yes, I volunteered to sleep on the floor so I could

at least be next to him

within arm's reach.

They say it's always rainy there.
It was sunny for us
Sunny, and purple benches, and purple flowers,
And pictures in sepia tone in little corners of a garden.
Smooth bark that was hard to keep a seat on.
Sunny over in line with the emo kids

in the rain.

Sunniest in that dark basement of a venue,
With hot sweaty bodies and too much noise
That shook the dust from the ceiling.
Sunniest there.
For me at least.

I don't remember any rain, those days.
I still have the key to that place,
And the ferris wheel ticket,
And the band ticket,
And the parking ticket,

the good kind, of course.

Life is made of candid shots.

Awakening

2009-06-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

I stand before the closed venetian blinds
With summer morning sun a golden silent promise
Waiting, glowing and awake.
And blurred across my early morning mind
A hesitation, like the moment of a first kiss--
Most important choice I'll make.

2009-04-30T12:38:00.001-07:00

...found this in a notebook; forgot I ever wrote it...not poetry, but something...

Old man
Showing me the old town.
Sort of hopeless hope in him.
Proud
A million stories
All true? Dunno--sometimes
Just want to ask if they're imagined. Or read.
Or overheard.
"See this lot? Yup, I own this one and the two across the street.
Bought for dirt cheap.
Know how much I paid?"
No, I don't know.
And I don't hear the answer. Too aware
of the vacant, dead houses, the dead town,
dead and still as a hot summer afternoon
with grasshoppers.
Only it's a warm winter noon.
Too aware of a sort of singing in my ears,
an inexplicable feeling of desperate claustrophobia,
an urgent desire to scream over his endless voice
over his success plan,
over his bitter desire to be right,
not when everyone else is wrong, but
because everyone else is wrong.
Because they are all wrong.
And I can't.
I can't shut him away from me like that.
Because some of his stories are true.
Because once I heard him admit to making mistakes in his life.
Because once he said the only mistake he ever didn't make was his son.
And I love him for that moment, however brief, of humanity.
And so I smile and nod, and try to keep the walls of my world
bigger than this ghost town.
Because the world is bigger.
More alive.
Right?

for seattle last year

2009-04-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

mae in april, running headlong
caffeine steps of saturday,
and the world is spinning faster
for the children's games we play
lean your head back, don't be dizzy,
laugh out loud, forget the time
lean your head back in the music,
watch the dust fall down in rhyme
driving wrong way so they told me
gonna miss you kids he said
leanback make thewor ldspinfaster
fasterfa sterrou ndmyhead
don'tforgetthe purpleben
chestrafficstopperscoffeetown
nonoleanyourheadbackfurther
dontstopnowwe'llallfalldown...

Picture Them Home

2009-01-29T09:27:00.001-08:00

I saw summer leaving, this last year.
He passed me on our street.
He tried to look past me, through me,
Anywhere but into eyes where he could see blame
Or pleading to stay.
He looked like a little boy that afternoon,
torn jeans, faded t-shirt, short shock of blond hair
and bare feet on a bike,
coasting down the hill
with the wind caressing his childhood tan.
It's hard to tell when you see him, sometimes;
he has so many different faces, from day to day.
But I knew it was him, that time--
Because he wouldn't look at me.

Anticipation

2009-01-09T09:14:00.000-08:00

Airports are sad places, my mother said then.
But now, I'm not so sure.
Alone, I lean my head against the dark outside
And watch embracing wings.

Don't know that it's sad now, so much as human.
I feel the unborn's stir.
I think of all the love, and time, and lives inside
The darkness of these things.

No place else so lonely, and so surrounded.
The darkness of the womb,
And early morning hours. Anticipation. Yes,
It's that which makes us Man

Makes mankind my being. Our life is grounded.
Transition is our home.
So here we sit who can't, for all our human-ness,
And wait for times that can.

Shameless

2008-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes in a moment when I think
I'm gonna go completely crazy--
Not the good kind, the horrid kind--
When it feels like there's nothing in my soul but dirty dishes
and puppy puddles on the floor
and bills
and phone calls I hate making
And I stand before the stupid heater
And wish it could ease the ache in my back
I look up and see your eyes
And for some reason
I get a silly little memory from college,
of Russ, ten years older than I, scribbling away gently on his paper
red head and beard tousled.
"What are you writing?"
Just being nosy.
"A love letter to my wife--"
So open, looking up to meet my eyes.
"Read it."
And me, awkward, nervous laugh,
Embarrassed because I asked,
Because he told.
"Read it. Here."
And the notebook turned around, black words on a white page,
Standing naked and unashamed before me.
And I read it.
And somehow, today, life is not so bad,
Because a man wrote a love letter to his wife.

Contortionist

2008-11-04T22:48:00.000-08:00

A childhood story said that far away
And long ago, men bound themselves entwined
In twists and curves so tight that where those lay
The limbs would join. That sketch still in my mind...

So much they lost. The beauty, and the form;
Proportion gone. And where there used to be
That grace of movement, they had dared transform
And hinder part of them that would be free.

And hand to head, and arm to breast, they stand
And watch the pennies fall before their feet.
But all I think of is the useless hand
And how that closeness is its own defeat,

And how perhaps I, like them, could be free,
But keep the things I love too close to me.

Gnat

2008-10-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

(apparently I have always been obsessed with bugs......)

So effortless. I only moved my hand
And pressed one fingertip upon the stone.
Not even pressed, just placed. And that was it.
That winged speck of life that crawled alone
Was no more than a blot upon the grey
That looking back I couldn't find again
Once I had turned my eyes another way.
And yet, that was a life. It once had been
A little point of wonder, even it,
The center of a cosmos so minute,
And yet, to it, unknown and infinite;
And I had stopped that life. The things we do!
One finger from a bigger world reached in,
And world touched world.

It never even knew.

...any suggestions for a title?...

2008-10-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

He came upon her from behind.
What have you there?
My heart, she said.
He touched her shoulders, close and kind,
Face near her hair,
Warm breath, bent head.

I love you. May I have your heart?
She turned her head
And smiled up.
You've had it from the very start,
You know, she said,
Hands like a cup.

But it's in pieces. What is this?
And some are torn,
And some are bruised.
And here touched by a stolen kiss,
And heartache-worn.
Why is it used?

And she could only hold it up,
And look at him as though he knew,
Heart throbbing in her fingers' cup,
The beating fragments shining through.

My friends. I've nothing to confess.
I loved them so.
And that's just me.
It doesn't make me love you less.

He nodded,
Though he'd never see.

Frustrated

2008-09-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

"No time to stare at you right now."
No space for eyes, no room to look.
Cannot glance up.
Eyes drag themselves across the book...

I saw that somewhere else before.
That movement, creeping on the line.
Stumble and
backstep.
Ir-
rhythmic heart beat'
s anesthetic sign...

Remembered. Ant that crossed the rug.
Frustration, male and angry haste.
Crushed but not killed.
I watched it crawl across the carpet's waste...

Frustration is a bumpy word
To crawl across, at best of times.
I stopped its agony unheard.
Cream polyester.
Black punctation dot to end the lines.

2008-07-26T21:05:00.001-07:00

....another old one...

Frailty

The pages of my life lie all around,
In random heapings blown about the floor.
The storm is still. The memories on the ground
Are blurred from beating rain and wind that tore.

I pick them up and try to smooth each page,
And falling tears make dimples like the rain.
Why do I cry? I feel no pain, no rage.
Right now I'm happier than I have been.

High in the storm's eye, peace caresses me.
The fall will come. Of that I do not think,
Lest I should walk with Peter on the sea,
And look upon my frailty, and sink.

Daydream Fanjeaux

2008-06-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

What can I give you, O my heart's desire?
What can I give, my lover still unknown?
Today I have nothing but my arms that tire
Waiting forever till the time has flown.
But when you've come, I'll take you by the hand,
A lad and his lass, and she sees only him,
And show you the place I loved for you tonight
In Provencal sunset, while the shadows dimmed.

2008-06-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

Slam poet.
Sentences like mile markers in the era.
Pass the murky darkness of modern romance.
Look, actual real words.
Hear the cry to the crowds in the dark ahead.
These are words.
Coherent, magnetic,
Like highway lines into the dark,
Powerful.
One after another.
And you focus, and they pass,
And they draw you to the next,
And the next.
Cruise control in the silent night,
And you watch the lines pass
Through the sleeping world.
Are you the only one awake?
And the next.
Slam poet.
Past the exit.
5 miles over the speed limit and counting.

rewritten from a poem I found from years ago....was the original idea ever any good? don't know...

2008-05-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

My heart is broken, and it will not heal
Last night, until I fell asleep, I cried
I cannot put a name to what I feel
Much too confused for phrases cut and dried
My dream...so overused...came true last night
But as I reached with wonder in my hands
To touch it, it was rudely....so cliche...
And boldly snatched away, and now I stand....
Oh, please don't laugh. Before you call this trite--
You were the dream that broke my heart last night.

2008-05-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

Thoughts condensed like embers,
Amber-molten in the palm.
Was is all a dream? she said.
How much can I keep?

Thinks that she remembers.
Shuts hers eyes, stays very calm.
Puts her hands against her head.
Banks the embers deep.

2008-04-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

Empty angry words
and doors slammed silently
and then cold and alone and mad.

Where are the words?
What is the argument?
Futile, like tire studs on a summer road.
That gritting gnawing sound,
Purposeless,
Holding on for dear life
When life is no longer dear.
Tearing up by bits that which they hold so close.
The thin line between need and not
So quickly crossed.
The thin line between security and destruction.
A thin line of sound.
Listen for it.

2008-03-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

"Demetrius"

And there he lay,
His little cheek pressed hard into the rug,
His knees tucked in,
The padding of his diaper up behind
Above the curls,
His hands shoved close against his little chest.
So sound asleep.

He wouldn't cry, to say he missed your kiss.
He only waited, just beyond the hall;
I never even knew until I stopped
To check on him. So sound asleep, so small...

So quiet, when I laid him in his bed:
A little whimpered sigh, but nothing more.
And where he'd lain, I felt beneath my feet
The warmth of his small body on the floor.

2008-03-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, this must be a book; no other place
Could epics, heroes, tales like this one thrive.
Such sorrow graven on a heart and face
Belongs on paper only, not alive.

Oh, say it is a book, and turn the page,
As one who passes o'er what troubles him!
The evils gather, and the scandals rage--
Then turn, for honor pales and hope grows dim.

Why cannot this one drama, like the rest,
Like those of Greece, of England, of mankind,
Be put in poetry, the sins confessed,
And then forgot, for centures combined?

We are sad actors--we must play ourselves,
And cannot put our lives back on the shelves.

2008-03-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

See, I don't really need you when I fall.
I didn't ask for your help.
That's not what tears are.
I have my help
deep within myself.
snowflakes under lamplight,
and the smell of sheets off the line,
and damp curls on a sleeping child's forehead,
and wheat fields in southern France.
and yes, you help too, though maybe not
when you think you do.
the way your eyes match your hat,
and the way you drink out of the container
without touching the rim,
and the way you cuss when you were trying so hard
not to smile, and couldn't help it.
and you too.
the way your eyes are dark when you think,
and the way you smile at me.
don't want to give it all away, though.
see, though, my point is,
I don't need you.
I already have you.

2008-03-01T14:31:00.000-08:00

High on a graveyard hill
Shadow and sunset,
Peace of the sleeping will,
Peace comes at last.
Rain breathes a half-heard sigh,
Waits, doesn't fall yet.
Resting, the dead ones lie.

Life comes too fast.

2008-02-29T12:47:00.000-08:00

I lie here, still, with just a wall between
That sick strange darkness haunting all your dreams
And my small world of candlelight and prayers.
I wish you'd let me help. I'd die for you.
Much good would that do. Life's the question here,
My breath as I refuse to let hope die,
Your life as you refuse to live with hope.
And so you live without it. That for me,
That would be death. I cannot understand;
And still, I understand. Don't ask me how.
But somehow, when that darkness near your heart
Dares threaten once again to touch your soul,
Know I am lying just a wall away.
Know that I pray for those who cannot pray.