Afraid So

Food facts I wish were true:


There are no calories in food eaten standing up. This includes the truffle you snatched from the box at the back of the pantry, the mashed potatoes you ate out of the pot while you cleaned up after dinner, and the cheese cubes put out as samples at the grocery store to entice you to purchase more.

There are no calories in the broken potato chips at the bottom of the bag. When chips break, all the calories leak out.

There are no calories in any food if you eat only a handful. A handful of walnuts, a handful of M&M’s, or a handful of little marshmallows don’t count.

There are no calories in liquids used to wash down your daily pills, even if it’s milk or orange juice. Besides, you drink them standing up by the refrigerator, don’t you?

These daily nibbles seldom make it into my food tracking for the day. I call them “off-track eating”. Tracking every bite I put into my mouth just seems so compulsive. Maybe this is why I usually meet my daily calorie goals, but don’t lose weight as fast as I’d like.


Here is a poem I found on The Writer’s Almanac website right after I broke my ankle. It was written by Jeanne Marie Beaumont


Afraid So


Is it starting to rain?
Did the check bounce?
Are we out of coffee?
Is this going to hurt?
Could you lose your job?
Did the glass break?
Was the baggage misrouted?
Will this go on my record?
Are you missing much money?
Was anyone injured?
Is the traffic heavy?
Do I have to remove my clothes?
Will it leave a scar?
Must you go?
Will this be in the papers?
Is my time up already?
Are we seeing the understudy?
Will it affect my eyesight?
Did all the books burn?
Are you still smoking?
Is the bone broken?
Will I have to put him to sleep?
Was the car totaled?
Am I responsible for these charges?
Are you contagious?
Will we have to wait long?
Is the runway icy?
Was the gun loaded?
Could this cause side effects?
Do you know who betrayed you?
Is the wound infected?
Are we lost?
Will it get any worse?


writersalmanac.publicrad
io.org/archive.php

Everything Nice

A lot of people eat when they are stressed out, and I have been known to do some "stress eating" myself. But a lot of times when I'm stressed out I clean house, or when I'm really crazed, I start a home improvement project.

When my daughter moved to California I cleaned every window in the house, inside and out. I think cleaning house makes me feel like I'm in control of something in my life.

Holidays seem to bring out the home improvement strategy of stress control. Although, since home improvement is stressful in and of itself, the strategy has some flaws in it. One 4th of July I got the notion to remove the wallpaper from one of my bathrooms. Removing wallpaper is one of the nastiest jobs in the world, but I was getting along pretty well until I pulled on the sink cabinet to try to get the wallpaper out from behind it and broke the hot water pipe. My screeching woke my husband up from a nap to turn the water off at the basement shutoff valve. (Forget trying to shut it off under the sink when scalding water is spraying out.) We couldn't get a plumber on the holiday. The guy who showed up the next morning just rolled his eyes when I told him what had happened.

So this morning I woke up feeling antsy and decided to paint the room I use for my treadmill. A quick trip to Home Depot and I was ready to go. I patched the nail holes and removed the switch plates. I moved out the few pieces of furniture, and decided no drop cloth was needed since I plan to replace the carpet with bamboo flooring. Things actually went pretty smoothly, but by the time I got the primer up I was exhausted.

I'll get t he paint color up another day. Or, if I have any sense, I'll call my favorite painter and pay him to finish the job. My treadmill room will be a beautiful space, full of everything nice to encourage me to exercise.

Outside a moderate breakfast and lunch, I did no eating at all today. I ignored the gluten free brownies and mint meltaways. I stayed away from the Pumpkin Spice Latte at the Starbucks next to the Home Depot.

I didn't walk on the treadmill today, but I think painting definitely counts as exercise. I can plug in the treadmill and walk on it again tomorrow, even if I don't finish the painting.

The following poem is by Beatrix Potter. My daughter loved it when she was a child.

Appley Dapply, a little
brown mouse,
Goes to the cupboard in
some-body’s house.

In somebody’s cupboard
There’s everything nice,
Cake, cheese, jam, biscuits,
-- All charming for mice!

Appley Dapply has little
sharp eyes,
And Appley Dapply is so fond
of pies.

Beatrix Potter

A Lovely Thing

Does anyone but me find the holiday season stressful? I'm trying to just enjoy, but we all have so many expectations and don't want to disappoint each other. Added to all that is trying to eat healthy and find time to exercise.

Yesterday was my birthday. I got many lovely gifts and my family took me out to eat at my favorite Chinese restaurant. I planned ahead of time what I was going to eat: Chicken corn soup and Steak with Green Peppers. I shared the steak dish with my husband. He ate most of the meat and I ate most of the peppers & onions, so that went pretty well. Then my husband gave me a box of Fannie May truffles. I love those things. I had one, and some of the Cadbury chocolate also in the house, and was over my calorie count for the day. I've got to hide the chocolate.

My daughter is home for the holidays. I love her dearly and I only see her once or twice a year because she lives on the opposite coast. We have so much to talk about, and so much last minute shopping to do. Well, mall walking is exercise, too, and I've planned our trips to avoid mall food.

This morning I got a spark mail from my sister. She is as stressed as me, with more reason, but she took time to write and tell me about the deer she saw in the field by her home. I'm so glad she shared that peaceful moment with me.

Here is a poem for her and all of you to enjoy. It's written by Sara Teasdale.

The Coin

Into my heart’s treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor thief purloin---

Oh, better than a minting
Of a gold crowned king
Is the safe kept memory
Of a lovely thing

The Revenge of the Maple Tree

I finally had the maple tree in my front yard removed last summer. It was too big for the space, it kept the grass from growing, and the roots were threatening to crack my new driveway. I knew some day the limbs were going to take down the power lines to the house. Plus, every fall that maple dropped leaves all over the yard. So I paid an itinerant tree crew to remove it.

A month later I slipped on a wet leaf and broke my ankle in three places. Coincidence? I think not. I think the trees in the back yard heard the cries of distress as their colleague headed for the wood chipper and took their revenge when the opportunity presented.

The following poem speaks to cutting down a tree and also is a fine poem for a snowy winter day.

In winter in the woods alone
Against the trees I go.
I mark a maple for my own
And lay the maple low.

At four o’clock I shoulder axe
And in the afterglow
I link a line of shadowy tracks
Across the tinted snow.

I see for Nature no defeat
In one tree’s overthrow
Or for myself in my retreat
For yet another blow.


Robert Frost

Promises to Keep

We are in the middle of a huge snow storm, expecting 12 to 20 inches before it's over. Since I don't have to be out in it this weekend, I'm happy to sit inside and watch it come down. My kids are both home for the holidays. My Christmas shopping is almost done and wrapped. I just need to relax and enjoy.

In my old life I might have cooked bacon and spoon bread for breakfast and served up hot cocoa. This morning I was satisfied with high fiber cereal and blueberries. I still might make ovaltine later, but only after I shovel snow.

In honor of the first big snow of the year, I'm sharing the following Robert Frost poem. I've loved this poem forever.

Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


We all have promises to keep, but sometimes we just need to stop and look around and enjoy what we've been given.

Random Acts of Eating

I posted this blog on another site: SparkPeople.com. I did a lot of posts on that site while I sent on a weight loss journey. I'm going to transfer all of those posts to this site, with the original dates.

The best time to track your food is before you eat it.

Last Friday my husband and I decided to pick up my son at his apartment and have dinner at Fuddruckers. It's close to my son's apartment, and there are things there I can safely eat. I usually get a grilled chicken sandwich (without the bun because I'm gluten intolerant), a baked potato with butter and sour cream, and a strawberry milkshake. Those milkshakes are awesome: rich and creamy, with chunks of whole strawberries blended throughout. We're not talking McDonald's "shakes" with artificial flavors and precious little milk. We're talking the real thing.

But I sat down before we left to "track" this meal on my nutrition page. What a wake up call! The only strawberry milk shake I could find when I searched the food list was like 390 calories for 10 ounces. Fudd shakes are probably twice that size. That would be 780 calories for the shake alone. Couldn't do it. Better get diet Coke or water instead. The grilled chicken sandwich was about 6 ounces of lean chicken breast. I decided to eat only half of it for a more normal serving of 3 ounces. I also decided to skip the butter, and eat only a tablespoon of the sour cream. And I added a side salad, no croutons, dressing on the side. Now I had a reasonable food plan. Armed with this plan I ate a reasonable meal and enjoyed our night out immensely.

Last night I was watching Monday Night Football and snoozing in front of the TV. Suddenly I decided that a small snack was in order and got into the jar of roasted, salted pecans. They were delightful and I ate a couple of handfuls. Then I sat down to "track" my snack. Oops. Pecans in all their roasted, salted loveliness are full of fat and calories. How many nuts is in an ounce? How many did I actually eat? Granted, nuts have "good" fat in them, and a little bit of fiber, but I didn't need any more fat or fiber in my diet yesterday, so I blew my goals.

Oh well. Sometimes you need to remember that fat is not a personality disorder. One unplanned snack is not an eternal condemnation. I will hide the pecans at the back of the pantry and eat them again after I've tracked them into my food plan for the day, and not before.

My poem for today is one I can totally identify with. It's written by Joyce Huff:

The Hymn of a Fat Woman

All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same
Latin root.

Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.

Hard
as pew seats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.

They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.

Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.

I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.

My Mother Used to Say

My mother gave me a bit of wisdom one time when she was teaching me to iron. Ironing was a weekly chore in the days when everything you wore needed to be ironed, and I was probably eight or so when my mother decided I could learn to help.

I started with my Dad's white handkerchiefs, and was doing my best to make them perfect, when my mother suggested that I hurry things up a bit. I told her, "If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well."

"That's not true", she replied. "There are a lot of things in life worth doing whether you do them well or not. Some things are only worth a little bit of effort, and ironing handkerchiefs is one of them."

My mother also used to say, "All cats are grey in the dark." I never asked her how she knew.


This poem by Tess Gallagher always reminds me of my mother.

I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.

The Best is Yet to Be

I could say that I've struggled with my weight all of my adult life, but that wouldn't be true. There wasn't much struggle there.

I was a skinny child and an average sized adolescent. I gained weight in college, but lost it in my senior year after a nasty two-week bout of flu. I was quite slim when I married at age 23. Over the next 10 years, and two children, my weight crept up to what was to become my adult poundage. I knew intellectually that I was overweight. I even joked about shopping at the fat lady shops for clothes, but I never really felt fat. I just accepted my weight and got on with my life.

We lived in Bermuda for 5 and 1/2 years and kept pretty active with swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving. After we returned to the states and eventually settled in Virginia, I joined the local county recreation center and swam or did the treadmill for 30 to 45 minutes a day, six days a week for about 10 years. I even did the weight machines 2 or 3 times a week. My husband and I went out to eat a lot and my weight didn't vary much. I lost some weight after developing gluten intolerance, but after my digestive problems were diagnosed and solved by a gluten free diet, the weight came back.

After Bermuda I had returned to the interesting, challenging job that I'd left before my daughter was born. I bought nice clothes so I would look professional at work. I shopped for plus size clothes, but I shopped at Victoria's Secret, too.

As I aged, the excess weight began to take it's toll on my health. I took medication to control my high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I developed diabetes and took more medication to control my blood sugar. Unfortunately, one diabetic drug I took, Avandaryl, caused me to gain 30 pounds. I switched medication to Metformin and 10 pounds came off immediately, but the rest of the weight I'd gained seemed to want to hang around.

I couldn't really worry about my own health at that time because my husband's kidneys failed and he had to go on dialysis and finally get a kidney transplant. Since the transplant his health has been wonderful and things have settled down a little.

Then this past year my right leg began to swell and I had several episodes of cellulitis. I saw a specialist who prescribed compression stockings for me. I asked how long I would have to wear them and he said, "Until you lose 50 pounds." My first reaction was, "Well I guess I'll be buried in those suckers, then." But when I thought about it I decided I would give dieting a chance. I knew my sister had lost a lot of weight and kept it off with the help of Spark People, but I decided to go it alone, and I lost 12 pounds in 6 weeks.

Then life intervened again. I slipped on a wet deck and broke my left ankle in three places. I used 2 months of my accumulated sick leave to recover from the surgery and found myself with no ability to be active, and a lot of time on my hands. So I joined Spark People and starting tracking my calories. I really enjoyed that and found it helped me to eat rationally. I lost another 8 pounds and hope to lose 30 more.


I love poetry. I don't write poetry, but I collect poems and like to share them. Here is a poem by Robert Browning that I've always liked:


Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be;
The last of life, for which the first was made;
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: See all, nor be afraid!”


I'm living a good life, but I still believe "the best is yet to be."

Happy Birthday Emily Dickinson

Today is Emily Dickinson's birthday, so I am sharing the following two poems. Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets, and Billy Collins is another.


Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes

by Billy Collins

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything—
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that Reason is a plank,
that Life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.


by Emily Dickinson:

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

Table Talk

My son and I were talking about favorite books recently and I remembered doing a blog entry on that once. I just went back and re-read it and I'm not sure I would change the list although I've read a lot of books since. If you want to read my list follow the link to my November 2005 Blog.

The question that came up with my son was why do we like some books and not others? I tried to explain why each of my choices was on the list, but sometimes we just like what we like.

My poem to share today is by Wallace Stevens.

Table Talk

Granted, we die for good.
Life, then, is largely a thing
Of happens to like, not should.

And that, too, granted, why
Do I happen to like red bush,
Gray grass and green-gray sky?

What else remains? But red,
Gray, green, why those of all?
That is not what I said:
Not those of all. But those.
One likes what one happens to like.
One likes the way red grows.

It cannot matter at all.
Happens to like is one
Of the ways things happen to fall.

Now it's your turn to share by sending me your list of favorite books.

A Poem for Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods is married to a super model, one of the most beautiful women in the world, yet he has been having sex with cocktail waitresses. This is difficult to understand, but maybe he married a really beautiful woman and then discovered she had nothing to say for herself, or maybe he married for status, but really just likes his women a little on the trashy side.

Here is a poem on the subject by Charles Bukowski:

the way it is now

I’ll tell you
I’ve lived with some gorgeous women
and I was so bewitched by those
beautiful creatures that
my eyebrows twitched.

but I’d rather drive to New York
backwards
than to live with any of them again.

the next classic stupidity
will be the history
of those fellows
who inherit my female
legacies.

in their case
as in mine
they will find
that madness
is caused by not
being often enough
alone.

Writer's Block

I liked the following poem, but I couldn't really figure it out at first. Then my sister was talking about having writer's block (she blogs, too) and I realized that sometimes I have a story to tell, but I have to search for a relevant poem, and sometimes I have a poem to share, but I have trouble relating it to a story. Some days I don't have either a story or a poem. So those days I don't blog.

Bad Day

by Kay Ryan


Not every day
is a good day
for the elfin tailor.
Some days
the stolen cloth
reveals what it
was made for:
a handsome weskit
or the jerkin
of an elfin sailor.
Other days
the tailor
sees a jacket
in his mind
and sets about
to find the fabric.
But some days
neither the idea
nor the material
presents itself;
and these are
the hard days
for the tailor elf.


My sister's blog.

The Day After Thanksgiving

For my family, Thanksgiving was all about the food. My mother was not a spectacular cook, but she could do turkey. She found a recipe once for cooking a turkey in a greased paper bag, and that was her method of choice. She used the Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix, adding onions and celery. She made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans and peas. She put two packages of brown and serve rolls in the oven after the turkey came out, then usually forgot about them until they started to smoke. We always called them black and serve rolls, but we ate them anyway. Desert was pumpkin pie, apple pie and home make fruit cake. We started dinner in the early afternoon and it basically last all day. Desert was followed by several rounds of leftovers.

I have finally learned to practice a little restraint for Thanksgiving. We had a lovely meal yesterday, without overdoing it. My son helped me cook, which was wonderful, and my husband helped clean up, always appreciated. I talked to my daughter and my Dad, and both sounded happy, so my day of thanks was complete.

Here is a poem for those who were perhaps less restrained.

The Hymn of a Fat Woman

by Joyce Huff

All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same
Latin root.

Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.

Hard
as pew seats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.

They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.

Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.

I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.

Sometimes Stuff Just Happens

We spend a lot of time in America trying to fix the blame. A madman shoots up Fort Hood and committees are formed right and left to try to blame it on Islam. The economy tanks and Congress wants to blame the Secretary of the the Treasury. There is a flu epidemic and people want to blame the president because the needed vaccine isn't growing fast enough. And if anything is not the president's fault, let's blame undocumented immigrants.

The two poems I am sharing today are only vaguely related, but I saw a connection.


by Emily Dickinson

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play
In accidental power.

The blond assassin passes on,
The sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another day
For an approving God.



A Brief for the Defense

by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music, despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Fireflies

Are fireflies disappearing like the honey bees? I haven't seen one in a long time. When we were kids we used to go outside after supper on summer evenings and try to catch them in jars, then let them go again.

My father worked the evening shift at the plant, so we had our main meal of the day, dinner, at noon. Supper was a smaller meal, usually at 5 o'clock, leaving time in the evenings to chase fireflies or play hide and seek while my mother watched from the front steps.

The following poem is wonderful, even the title.

Slow Children at Play

by Cecilia Woloch

All the quick children have gone inside, called
by their mothers to hurry-up-wash-your-hands
honey-dinner’s-getting-cold, just-wait-till-your-father-gets-home-
and only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off
paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their mouths, ohs, that glow and go out and glow. And their slow mothers flickering,
pale in the dusk, watching them turn in the gentle air, watching them
twirling, their arms spread wide, thinking, These are my children,
thinking, Where is their dinner? Where has their father gone?


And, on the same subject, only different, a poem by Robert Frost.

Fireflies in the Garden

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.

For Veteran's Day

My father is a veteran. He enlisted shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when he was 28 years old. The Army put him in the Signal Corp, taught him Morse Code, and sent him to fight for 39 months in the Pacific.

Like many World War II veterans he didn't talk much about his war experiences, only sharing a few details. He said he was afraid on the landing boats because his brother had drowned as a young man and that event left him with a fear of the water. He said the Signal Corp wasn't usually in the first boats to come ashore so that wasn't as bad as being part of the initial wave of Infantry.

His favorite story was about a portable outhouse that he built. It was a three-sided affair with hinges and a drop-down seat. It could be collapsed flat to stash in the back of a truck and unfolded to stand over a hole in the ground.

Of course it was during R & R in New Zealand that he met my mother, and they were married after the war. He didn't talk much about their courtship, either, but I have the letters my mother wrote to him, carefully saved through all those years.

My mother was a veteran, too. She claimed she was an anti-aircraft gunner in Auckland, New Zealand, part of the homeland defense. New Zealanders were very worried about the possibility of a Japanese invasion, and many young women were trained to defend against an invasion. I have her payroll books from her time in service.

My brother is a veteran. He joined the Army at 17 after dropping out of school. This was during the Viet Nam War, but he was sent to Korea. I'm not sure what he did there.

There are a lot of good poems for Veterans. I'm going to share two of my favorites, for veterans everywhere.

The first is actually song lyrics, translated from Spanish, I believe.

Tremo E T'Amo

I love you and I'm trembling
Said the woman
To her soldier
Who wouldn't be coming back.
Her plaintive voice
Was carried by the wind
Across the chilling snow
To where her soldier fought.

I'm trembling and I love you
She whispered as she cried
And in the darkness of the room
Somebody laughed
In conquest of the fear
That this love was about to end.

But sweet memories can betray you
The soldier doesn't feel anything anymore.

Too late, his enemy strikes
Suddenly
From behind
Who, strangely, was speaking
Of roses, of wine, of life's other joys
That were promised him in another life.
Oh, how many brides
Will war take away
From that first night's warm embrace?

I'm trembling and I'm cold
Said the soldier
To his enemy, a man, just like himself.
His voice hung motionless in the wind
Heard by the silent audience of those that fell before him.


The second is a poem by Louis Untermeyer. My father could play reveille on the trumpet.

Reveille

What sudden bugle calls us in the night
And wakes us from a dream that we had shaped;
Flinging us sharply up against a fight
We thought we had escaped?

It is no easy waking, and we win
No final peace; our victories are few.
But still imperative forces pull us in
And sweep us somehow through.

Summoned by a supreme and confident power
That wakes our sleeping courage like a blow,
We rise, half shaken, to the challenging hour,
And answer it -- and go.......

The Music Room

In the house I grew up in, there was a room next to the living room that we called the music room. My father hung French doors to separate it, and built book shelves to line two walls.

My mother bought an old upright piano and had it tuned. She played the piano pretty well. I remember a metronome that my father bought at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. There was a music stand and chair for practicing the clarinet or trumpet.

My father played a saxophone and sometimes a harmonica. He also had a ukulele that he must have brought back from Hawaii after the war. He only knew one song for the ukulele and every time he started to sing it my mother told him to hush up. I suspect the words weren’t suitable for young ears.

My older brother and I took piano lessons for years. He turned into a wonderful musician. I struggled through the basics, but have no natural sense of musical pitch or rhythm.

We had a record player in the music room, and my father would check out records from the public library to play for us. He loved jazz, but also loved J.S. Bach. I remember hearing the Goldberg Variations for the first time on that record player.

My mother would sit on the piano stool and read to us kids, while we all sat on the floor in front of her. She read stories by Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I remember a story about a man getting bricked into a wall in the basement. (I’m still nervous in tight space - and basements.)

One day when I was about 11 or 12 years old, my brother was probably 13, and my two younger sisters were around 8 and 4, my mother called us kids into the music room to read a poem to us. She was taking a night class in poetry and studying T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, so she read us the whole poem – just read it – no explanations or discussions.

It was kind of a strange choice for children our age, but I loved it. My mother had a beautiful reading voice. (Later in life she read books on tape for the blind.) So I’m sure she did a beautiful reading of Prufrock, and maybe that’s why it impressed me so much. Or maybe it’s just a wonderful poem. I’ve read it to myself numerous times since and always taken something new out of it.

Prufrock wasn’t the first poem I’d read. I had a Mother Goose book, and A Child’s Garden of Verses. I had a book of English poems my mother had given me. I had even memorized Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which starts out:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

And goes on for 32 some verses.

But Prufrock was different, and I think that afternoon in the music room was the real start of my love affair with poetry.

Poetry should be read out loud, for the pure enjoyment of the words, without worrying too much about what it means.


Introduction to Poetry

By Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.


You thought I was going to give you Prufrock. No, not today. Discover it yourself.

No One Will Worry a Bit

On the front page of the Washington Post this morning is a picture of a young soldier who lost both his legs to an IED in Afghanistan. One leg was amputated above the knee and another at the hip. Certainly puts my own recent temporary disability into perspective.

Does anyone know anymore what we are doing in Afghanistan, besides killing and injuring young Americans? What would victory there even look like?

Thank God we now have a president who thinks before he acts.

My daughter shared the following poem with me some time ago:

by Siegfried Sassoon.

Does it matter? – Losing your legs? . . .
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? – Losing your sight? . . .
There’s such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? – those dreams for the pit? . . .
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won’t say that you’re mad;
For they’ll know you’ve fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.

Paradise Lost

Today I have two poems about change. Enjoy what you have, and if things change, find a way to enjoy that, too.


Otherwise

Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.


The Expulsion

Katha Pollitt

Adam was happy -- now he had someone to blame
for everything: shipwrecks, Troy,
the gray face in the mirror.

Eve was happy -- now he would always need her.
She walked on boldly, swaying her beautiful hips.

The serpent admired his emerald coat,
the Angel burst into flames
(he'd never approved of them, and he was right).

Even God was secretly pleased: Let
History begin!

The dog had no regrets, trotting by Adam's side
self-importantly, glad to be rid

of the lion, the toad, the basilisk, the white-footed mouse,
who were also happy and forgot their names immediately.

Only the Tree of Knowledge stood forlorn,
its small hard bitter crab apples

glinting high up, in a twilight of black leaves.
How pleasant it had been, how unexpected

to have been, however briefly,
the center of attention.

Think Watch Think

My daughter has a website Thinkwatchthink.com on which she summarizes and analysis television show episodes. She is really a good writer and quite thoughtful about what she sees and writes about. I don't watch most of these shows, but I enloy reading about them on her site.

I ran across this poem today on the Poetry 180 website and it reminded me of my daughter's television analysis.


Sidekicks

Ronald Koertge

They were never handsome and often came
with a hormone imbalance manifested by corpulence,
a yodel of a voice or ears big as kidneys.

But each was brave. More than once a sidekick
has thrown himself in front of our hero in order
to receive the bullet or blow meant for that
perfect face and body.

Thankfully, heroes never die in movies and leave
the sidekick alone. He would not stand for it.
Gabby or Pat, Pancho or Andy remind us of a part
of ourselves,

the dependent part that can never grow up,
the part that is painfully eager to please,
always wants a hug and never gets enough.

Who could sit in a darkened theatre, listen
to the organ music and watch the best
of ourselves lowered into the ground while
the rest stood up there, tears pouring off
that enormous nose.

The Peace of Wild Things

I was feeling miserable and sorry for my self today. I caught some kind of intestinal bug, probably at the surgery center, and was sick at both ends. Just what I need when I can barely get to the bathroom.

My ankle is doing well. I now have a "boot" on it that can be removed for brief periods of time starting in a day or two. This will allow me to finally get in the shower. What happiness a shower will be!

I quit eating, took some Immodium, and lay on the couch to listen to my ipod until I started to feel better. I listened to Nora Jones, Enja, Lyle Lovett & a little Bob Dylan. I can feel my son rolling his eyes at Enja, but I enjoy her. I was going to include some some lyrics from the songs I liked, but changed my mind after talking to my daughter who asked for a happy poem. This is not quite happy, but is peaceful and that's the best I can do today.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Will it Get Any Worse?

I was going to write about something global, like Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize, presumably because he is not George W. Bush, but I found the following poem today and I just had to share. Once again a poem has influenced the way I look at events, both global and local.

Can you imagine waking up to the news that you had won the Nobel Prize and thinking to yourself, "Crap. Now I'll have to come up with a speech." I almost expected Obama to pull out a list and say "There are a few people I'd like to thank..." as if he had just gotten a Golden Globe Award.

My ankle is healing. The pain meds made me throw up, so I'm doing without. I will definitely have a scar, but hopefully won't lose my job.

Afraid So

Is it starting to rain?
Did the check bounce?
Are we out of coffee?
Is this going to hurt?
Could you lose your job?
Did the glass break?
Was the baggage misrouted?
Will this go on my record?
Are you missing much money?
Was anyone injured?
Is the traffic heavy?
Do I have to remove my clothes?
Will it leave a scar?
Must you go?
Will this be in the papers?
Is my time up already?
Are we seeing the understudy?
Will it affect my eyesight?
Did all the books burn?
Are you still smoking?
Is the bone broken?
Will I have to put him to sleep?
Was the car totaled?
Am I responsible for these charges?
Are you contagious?
Will we have to wait long?
Is the runway icy?
Was the gun loaded?
Could this cause side effects?
Do you know who betrayed you?
Is the wound infected?
Are we lost?
Will it get any worse?

Jeanne Marie Beaumont

More My Left Ankle

I had surgery on Monday to pin my ankle back together. Everything went well, I guess. I don’t remember much of it, thanks to some very good drugs. Someone dressed me in a paper gown that had an air hose attached to it, blowing warm air up my crotch and over my chest. It felt pretty good. My voice is hoarse today so I’m assuming they put me completely out and inserted an air tube down my throat. The ankle hurts quite a bit, even with narcotics, and I am supposed to keep my leg elevated above the level of my heart unless I get up to the pot by the couch. Tom continues to cook for me, keep ice on the ankle and track my medications. A good mate is a blessing.

There is a cherry tree outside my living room window so I can watch the birds come to the bird feeder. I found this poem several months back and have been waiting for a chance to share it. It really is addressed “for Carol”.

Cardinals

for Carol

I had seen them in the tree,
and heard they mate for life,
so I hung a bird feeder
and waited.
By the third day,
sparrows and purple finches
hovered and jockeyed
like a swarm of bees
fighting over one flower.
So I hung another feeder,
but the squabbling continued
and the seed spilled
like a shower
of tiny meteors
onto the ground
where starlings
had congregated,
and blue jays,
annoyed at the world,
disrupted everyone
except the mourning doves,
who ambled around
like plump old women
poking for the firmest
head of lettuce.

Then early one evening
they came,
the only ones—
she stood
on the periphery
of the small galaxy of seed;
he hopped
among the nuggets,
calmly chose
one seed at a time,
carried it to her,
placed it in her beak;
she, head tilted,
accepted it.
Then they fluffed,
hopped together,
did it all over again.

And filled with love,
I phoned to tell you,
over and over,
about each time
he celebrated
being there,
all alone,
with her.

by John L. Stanizzi

My Left Ankle

Last Sunday I broke my left ankle. My husband and I were grilling bratwurst and fresh pineapple on the barbecue. Tom said as he came from lighting the fire, “Be careful, the deck is slippery”. I wish I had paid attention. I put the pineapple skewers on the grill, came back across the deck, slipped on a wet leaf and went down. I landed on my butt with my left leg twisted under me.

When I tried to move my leg I discovered two things: It hurt like hell, and my ankle was flopping in unnatural directions. Tom tried to get me into the house, but the flopping and screaming convinced him to call 911 instead. A fire rescue truck and an ambulance soon showed up. Some nice young medics carefully got me onto a stretcher and on the way to the hospital.

Let me say that if you arrive in an ambulance, the ER will let you by-pass the waiting room. A nurse showed up pretty much right away to make sure I wasn’t dying and to take my medical history. It saves time if you have a list of your medications with you, but I spent some time explaining why in the last six months I had seen a dermatologist and plastic surgeon (skin cancer), a neurologist (ophthalmic migraines), an internal medicine doctor and a vascular doctor (cellulitis and swelling in my right leg). I sounded like a hypochondriac even to me, but the flopping ankle could not be ignored.

A portable x-ray machine showed up to take some pictures and I was told that my ankle was broken in at least two places. (Later x-rays showed three breaks.) The resident doctor said not to eat or drink, then ordered an oral pain medication. I took it with water. No one started an IV, probably just as well considering my uncooperative veins. I was shaking with cold and asked for a heated blanket. The nurse promptly produced two of them, bless her heart. I’d have given her more points if she’d thought of it herself.

There was talk of a shot of morphine, but it never materialized. An orthopedic doctor showed up to “put a splint” on my ankle. This seemed to involve dripping strips of plaster and a great deal of pain. You can’t put a splint on until the bones are maneuvered back into place, although this wasn’t mentioned by the doctor ahead of time. When I say a great deal of pain, I mean really real pain: having-a-baby pain, having-a-gall-bladder-attack pain, I’m-being-tortured-and-I’m-screaming-about-it pain. The splint did stop the flopping.

I was given a pain pill prescription, a pair of crutches, and a referral to an orthopedic surgeon, and sent home. The pain pills work well, the crutches are useless and I found my own orthopedic surgeon. The surgery is scheduled for Monday.

My husband is a saint. I can’t make it up and down the stairs, so he has fixed up the living room for my crippled self and is waiting on me hand and ankle.

This poem is a little dark, but seems to fit.


After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?
The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

Emily Dickinson

Faking the Leave

Whenever my husband and I are trying to leave the house we seem to find other things that need to be done first. For example: we are going out to the grocery store and my husband will need to go to the bathroom. Then I will start unloading the dishwasher, so my husband will go to the basement to switch the laundry into the dryer and suddenly I will need to go to the bathroom. This is such a regular habit of ours that the kids named it - faking the leave: as in “are you ready to go or are you still faking the leave?”

I thought maybe ours was the only family where this happened until I found the following poem in the Washington Post Book World Poet’s Corner. The author is Kay Ryan, Poet Laureate of the United States. She says she wrote the poem because of her habit of “suddenly having to do all kinds of things” when it was time to go someplace. She says she was “spurred to action by not having time”. She says she could “now read it as a meditation on the approach of death” but that’s not where it started.

The Edges of Time

It is at the edges
that time thins.
Time which had been
dense and viscous
as amber suspending
intentions like bees
unseizes them. A
humming begins,
apparently coming
from stacks of
put-off things or
just in back. A
racket of claims now,
as time flattens. A
glittering fan of things
competing to happen,
brilliant and urgent
as fish when seas
retreat.


My father, who is 95 years old, has been hospitalized 3 or 4 times since Christmas. Every time he goes in I am frightened that this will be his last trip. But a couple days of intravenous antibiotics and he bounces right back. He will go when he is ready. Until then he is just faking the leave.

WWJD?

If Jesus Christ were president, the Republicans would call him a Socialist. "Sell what you have and give to the poor" sure sounds like redistibution of wealth to me.

And they would worry that he was soft on foreign policy. The greatest nation on earth doesn't have to turn the other cheek for anyone.

If Jesus Christ were president, the Democrats would complain that he hasn't fixed the economy yet. What does he mean, "The poor will always be with you"?

And they would fret because he hasn't said anything yet about Gays in the military.

So I'm not surprised that people are disappointed in Obama.

All of which is just an excuse to share a poem I have enjoyed for a long time.

e e cummings

no time ago
or else a life
walking in the dark
i met christ

jesus ) my heart
flopped over
and lay still
while he passed (as
close as I’m to you
yes closer
made of nothing
except loneliness

It's About Time

I was listening to Willie Nelson in the car today. I'm not a big fan of country music, but I like some of it, and this song by Willie Nelson is a favorite of mine:


Funny How Time Slips Away

Well hello there. My, it’s been a long, long time.
How am I doing? Oh I guess that I’m doing fine.
It’s been so long now, but it seems like only yesterday.
Gee, ain’t it funny how time slips away?

How’s your new love? I hope that he’s doing fine.
I heard you told him that you’d love him until the end of time.
Now that’s the same thing that you told me, seems like just the other day.
Gee, ain’t it funny how time slips away.

I gotta go now. I guess I’ll see you around.
Don’t know when though; never know when I’ll be back in town.
But remember what I tell you; in time you’re gonna pay.
And it’s surprising how time slips away.


Hearing that song got me thinking about other bits of poetry I like. Please take the time to read them.


On An Old Sun Dial

Time flies,
Suns rise,
And shadows fall.
Let time go by.
Love is forever over all.


From the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Awake! for morning in the bowl of night
Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight:
And lo! the hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s turret in a noose of light.

Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring
Your winter-garment of repentance fling;
The bird of time has but a little way
To flutter—and the bird is on the wing.


Cervantes
The Time

There is a time for some things,
And a time for all things;
A time for great things
And a time for small things.


Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

The Flat Earth Society

Forty years ago this month, Americans landed on the moon. There are still people who don't believe it really happened. They say it was staged on a Hollywood set to make it look like Americans had the capability to go to the moon. That's ridiculous of course. NASA has the pictures taken on the moon, right?

Only they don't. I read in the paper this morning that NASA erased the tapes from the first moon landing and used them again, to save money. What were they thinking? How could they erase history to save a couple of thousand dollars? Historians everywhere are shuddering.

So here is the joke. NASA took tapes of television news from those dates and sent them to a Hollywood studio to be "cleaned up" so they could be used as the official record of the moon landing.

The conspiracy people will be going crazy.

At the time we all thought that the moon landing would be the start of regular travel to and from the moon. When my daughter was young she looked up at the moon and asked "When can I go to the moon?" and I told her that by the time she was grown up she would be able to buy a ticket and go. Didn't happen.


Moon
by Billy Collins

The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.

It’s as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby’s face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth’s bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.

And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.


by Dylan Thomas

In my craft of sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages.
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

For Olivia

Twenty five years ago, shortly after I moved into this area, I ended up in the hospital emergency room with a gall bladder attack. I needed a doctor, and Dr. Bhushan was on call, so in one of those lucky coincidences that shape our lives, I became his patient. He’s a wonderful doctor, competent and caring.

Dr. Bhushan has never had a partner, but several years ago he hired a Nurse Practitioner named Olivia who is every bit as wonderful as he. The woman knows what she’s doing. She is careful. She listens to what you say and she laughs with you about the absurdities of life. I never had a problem trusting my health to someone without an MD after her name.

Two days ago I went to see her about the cellulitis on my leg that is healing nicely under her care and she told me she was not going to be able to see me again because she was being laid off. The practice isn’t making enough money to keep her on the payroll.

I know Dr. Bhushan must feel bad about letting her go. She sees 20 patients a day, and her presence allows him to occasionally take a vacation while she keeps the office open. I will be waiting longer for appointments, I fear, and while I am perfectly happy to see Dr. Bhushan, Olivia will be greatly missed.


I have three poems she might like:

Life is no straight and easy corridor along
Which we travel free and unhampered,
But a maze of passages,
Through which we must seek our way,
Lost and confused, now and again
Checked in a blind alley.

But always, if we have faith,
A door will open for us,
Not perhaps one that we ourselves
Would ever have thought of,
But one that will ultimately
Prove good for us.

A.J. Cronin


If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.

Emily Dickinson


The Courage of Women

I think of the courage of women,
how they endure,
how they walk miles to carry back water,
silence their pain, apportion
what’s lift of the rice.
Keepers of eggs without shells,
they know how fragile the days are,
how hope can spill into the ground.

Jane Glazer

A Poem for My Dad

I talked to my Dad today and wished him Happy Father's Day. He sounded a little short of breath, but he said he felt pretty good. He'd gotten a Father's Day card from someone at the nursing home, but they didn't sign their name to it. He liked the idea that someone remembered.

This is not so much a poem as song lyrics from a song Louis Armstrong sang. My Dad loved Louis Armstrong. He went to hear him in person one time, and got his autograph on a record album. I like the sentiment of these lyrics, and I'm sure my Dad did, too.

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

(George Weiss / Bob Thiele)

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Oh yeah

A Poem for David

The other night at dinner my husband, son and I were discussing the origins of creative thought. How do mathematicians even start to think about string theory? How do writers start to write? Here is one answer.

Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?

by Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

from Fever, 2006
Red Hen Press

Redecorating

I'm having my office painted, along with my son's old room that will become my husband's new office. So, we went to the hardware store last weekend to look at paint colors. My husband took one look around, pointed at a paint sample on the shelf and said, "That's the color I want". Just like that. No agonizing. No hesitation. I, of course, brought home 8 sample cans of paint to try on the walls, and numerous little paper paint chips to hold against the furniture. I visited Home Depot to collect paint samples, too. I think I've decided on a beautiful blue that looks great with my dark wood desk and bookcase. But, I'll never really be sure.

What color did my husband pick? Something as close to white as he could get - without actually choosing white. There is a faint hint of gray-green in it. I'm sure he won't lose any sleep over whether it looks good next to the color of the hallway.


A poem to share:

Charles Harper Webb
Buyer’s Remorse

I’d hate to take a job teaching, then spend the rest of my life trying to get out of it. –Mary Oliver

No sooner do the ruck of us declare
“I do”, than we don’t anymore. Go out
for football, and we who never dared
stand up on a pair of ice skates, pout
that we can’t play pro hockey, too. The ink’s
still wet on our tickets to France, and we
wish we’d picked Japan or, come to think
of it, Kauai, New Zealand or Tahiti.
Open any one door and we’re deafened
by the roar—loud as the sea swallowing Atlantis—
as other doors slam shut, and their wind
knocks us down. The serpent didn’t hiss
to Adam and Eve, “Hide your nakedness!”
He wore his best suit and whispered, “Look at this.”

A Poem for Sonia Sotomayor

I like the woman. I may not agree with everything she ever said or did. I may not agree with everything she says or does on the Supreme Court. But, so what? She seems like an intelligent, capable person, well grounded in reality. I think she is honest and will be fair. So here is a poem in celebration of strong women everywhere.

Dorothy Parker
Observation

If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

Bowling for Jesus

Not long ago my sister took me bowling. I had a wonderful time. Not that I'm a good bowler, because I'm not. I bowled maybe slightly better than President Obama, and that was with the bumpers on the lanes. But nobody took the game too seriously. We all laughed and talked and just generally enjoyed ourselves. I mentioned the following poem to my sister, but she hadn't seen it, so I'm sharing it again.

Heaven on Earth

I saw Jesus at the bowling alley,
slinging nothing but gutter balls.
He said, "You've gotta love a hobby
that allows ugly shoes."
He lit a cigarette and bought me a beer.
So I invited him to dinner.

I knew the Lord couldn't see my house
in its current condition, so I gave it an out
of season spring cleaning. What to serve
for dinner? Fish—the logical
choice, but after 2000 years, he must grow weary
of everyone's favorite seafood dishes.
I thought of my Granny's ham with Coca Cola
glaze, but you can't serve that to a Jewish
boy. Likewise pizza—all my favorite
toppings involve pork.

In the end, I made us an all-dessert buffet.
We played Scrabble and Uno and Yahtzee
and listened to Bill Monroe.
Jesus has a healthy appetite for sweets,
I'm happy to report. He told strange
stories which I've puzzled over for days now.

We've got an appointment for golf on Wednesday.
Ordinarily I don't play, and certainly not in this humidity.
But the Lord says he knows a grand miniature
golf course with fiberglass mermaids and working windmills
and the best homemade ice cream you ever tasted.
Sounds like Heaven to me.

Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Three Poems For Memorial Day

By three of my favorite poets:

William Butler Yeats

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan’s Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seem waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.



Siegfried Sassoon

Does it Matter?

Does it matter? – Losing your legs? . . .
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? – Losing your sight? . . .
There’s such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? – those dreams for the pit? . . .
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won’t say that you’re mad;
For they’ll know you’ve fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.



Edward Arlington Robinson

The Dark Hills

Dark hills at evening in the west,
Where sunset hovers like a sound
Of golden horns that sang to rest
Old bones of warriors under ground.
For now from all the bannered ways
Where flash the legions of the sun,
You fade—as if the last of days
Were fading, and all wars were done.



Wouldn't it be wonderful if all wars really were done?

Susan Boyle

I got goose bumps as I watched and listened to Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream". Her performance on British television became an internet sensation - maybe because she is just so good - maybe because we all dream dreams.

The following poem reminds me of Susan Boyle:

The Dance

A middle-aged woman, quite plain, to be polite about it, and somewhat stout, to be more courteous still,
but when she and the rather good-looking, much younger man she’s with get up to dance,
her forearm descends with such delicate lightness, such restrained but confident ardor athwart his shoulder,
drawing him to her with such a firm, compelling warmth, and moving him with such effortless grace
into the union she’s instantly established with the not at all rhythmically solid music in this second-rate café,

that something in the rest of us, some doubt about ourselves, some sad conjecture, seems to be allayed,
nothing that we’d ever thought of as a real lack, nothing not to be admired or be repentant for,
but something to which we’ve never adequately given credence,
which might have consoling implications about how we misbe-lieve ourselves, and so the world,
that world beyond us which so often disappoints, but which sometimes shows us, lovely, what we are.


C.K. Williams

Earth Day

Earth Day was this week, and my sister helped my father plant a flower in a pot for his room at the nursing home.

When my father was young he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps program, planting trees in northern Minnesota. I have a picture of him from then, lean and handsome, standing on the shores of a lake. He said he liked the CCC camp because they fed him all he wanted to eat three times a day.

They feed him three times a day at the nursing home, too.


Martin Van Dorn

Gardener

Under the window, on a dusty ledge,
He peers among the spider webs for seed.
He wonders, groping, if the spiders spun
Beneath that window after all. Perhaps
His eyes are spiders, and new veils are dropped
Each winter and summer morning in the brain.
He sees but silken-dimly, though the ends
Of his white fingers feel more things than are.
More delicate webs, and sundry bags of seed.
That flicker at the window is a wren.
She taps the pane with a neat tail, and scolds.
He knows her there, and hears her – far away,
As if an insect sang in a tree. Whereat
The shelf he fumbles on is distant, too,
And his bent arm is longer than an arm.
Something between his fingers brings him back:
An envelope that rustles, and he reads:
“The coreopsis.” He does not delay.
Down from the rafter where they always hang
He shoulders rake and hoe and shuffles out.

The sun is warm and thick upon the path,
But he goes lightly, under a broad straw
None knows the age of. They are watching him
From upper windows as his slippered feet
Avoid the aster and nasturtium beds
Where he is not allowed to meddle. His preserve
Is further, and no stranger touches it.
Yesterday he was planting larkspur there.
He works the ground and hoes the larkspur out,
Pressing the coreopsis gently in.
With as old hose he plays a quavering stream,
Then shuffles back with the tools and goes to supper.

Over his bowl of mil, wherein he breaks
Five brittle crackers, drifts the question: “Uncle,
What have you planted for the summer coming?”

“Why – hollyhocks,” he murmurs, and they smile.

Teaching Abstinence

The following two poems are ones I've enjoyed for a while. They are not related to anything in particular going on in my life right now, but I felt like sharing.

She said:

Suitcases

Piled high in a corner of a second-hand store
in Toronto: of course,
it's an immigrant country. Sometimes

all you can take is what you can carry
when you run: a photo, some clothes,
and the useless dead-weight

of your mother tongue.
One was repaired
with electrician's tape—a trade

was all a man needed. A girl,
well, a girl could get married. Indeed
each case opened like an invitation:

the shell-pink lining, the knicker—
like pockets you hook back
with a finger to look

for the little linked keys.
I remember how each held a wraith
of stale air, and how the assistant seemed

taken aback by my accent;
by then, though, I was headed for home,
bored, and already pregnant.

Kathleen Jamie


He said:

Pregnant you sit, and pale,
How you have changed, poor girl.

Plucking at your dress, you sit
And you want to go on weeping, weeping. . .

What makes you women spoil us
And, falling, give us your lips,

Then run beyond the platforms,
Outstripped by speeding trains? . .

How hard you tried to keep up
With the blurring carriage windows. . .

Trains rattle by, express and mail,
Trains to Khabarovsk and elsewhere. . .

From Moscow all the way
To Ashkabad, like numb idols,

Women stand as if turned to stone,
Their bellies proffered to the moon.

And swinging into the light,
In the unpeopled life of the night—

How well the moon, with her
Big belly, understands them.

Andrey Voznesensky

Over My Head

I guess I must be feeling a little overwhelmed at work these days because I've been re-reading the following two poems.

He said:

Robin Robertson

Waves

I have swum out too far
out of my depth
and the sun has gone;

the hung weight of my legs
a plumb-line,
my fingers raw, my arms lead;

the currents pull like weed
and I am very tired
and cold, and moving out to sea.

The beach is still bright.
The children I never had
run to the edge

and back to their beautiful mother
who smiles at them, looks up
from her magazine, and waves.


She said:

Stevie Smith

Not Waving, But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Pour chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.


It's been a while since I've done a "he said" "she said" blog, comparing poems by male and female poets. Yes, Robin is a male poet, and Stevie is a female poet.

Barbie is 50

I never had a Barbie doll. I did go to a Janis Joplin concert once.

Here is a poem for Barbie:

Hippie Barbie

Barbie couldn't grasp the concept
of free love. After all, she was born
into the world of capitalism
where nothing is free. And all she had
to choose from was a blond or dark-haired Ken
who looked exactly like Midge's boyfriend Alan.
Ken wouldn't even get bell-bottoms
or his first psychedelic pantsuit
until it was way too late, sometime in the mid-seventies.
And then, whenever Barbie tried to kiss him
his peel-off lamb-chop sideburns loosened
and stuck to her cheeks. There were no black male dolls yet
so she guessed a mixed-race love-child
was out of the question. Barbie walked her poodle
past the groovy chicks who showed their bellybuttons
and demonstrated against the war. She couldn't
make a peace sign with her stuck-together fingers.
She felt a little like Sandra Dee at a Janis Joplin concert.

Denise Duhamel

Signifying Nothing

I planned to write about Rush Limbaugh, but decided he wasn't worth the trouble. He's just a celebrity, like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, only he eats more. He claims to have 20 million listeners. A lot of people read the Star magazine, too, but that doesn't make it gospel.

A bit of Shakespeare seems to relate:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

From MacBeth

Small Pleasures

My father has always taken pleasure in small things.
He loved sardines in a can that opened with a key.
He loved the way a well-crafted hand tool fit in his palm and did its job.
He loved a mug of steaming black coffee.
He loved shoes that fastened with velcro.

For many years he took pleasure in having a job and working.
After he retired, he took pleasure in that.
He always lived within his means - never had a new car, never had a car payment.
He took pleasure in what he could afford.

The following poem is about one of life's small pleasures. In Bermuda they call it "tinned cream" and put it in tea or make Ovaltine with it. I like it on a bowl of cereal or fruit.

Carnation Milk

Carnation Milk is the best in the land;
Here I sit with a can in my hand—
No tits to pull, no hay to pitch,
You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.

Anonymous

Uncle Jim

There are some really interesting characters in my family.

I had an Uncle Herb, who worked at a brewery and drank free beer all day. My mother didn't approve of him, needless to say. Us kids were fascinated by him because he was funny, and because he gave us dimes and quarters whenever he saw us. He named his dog Lucky, which we thought was a pretty cool name. Lucky ate Uncle Herb's dentures one night and survived. I guess he was a lucky dog.

My kids have 2 Uncle Jims - one on each side of the family - neither particularly like the man in the following poem, but I had to share it, because every family has its share of members who don't quite fit the mold.

I heard the poem on "The Writer's Almanac" on NPR Radio one morning this week.


Uncle Jim

What the children remember about Uncle Jim
is that on the train to Reno to get divorced
so he could marry again
he met another woman and woke up in California.
It took him seven years to untangle that dream
but a man who could sing like Uncle Jim
was bound to get in scrapes now and then:
he expected it and we expected it.

Mother said, It's because he was the middle child,
and Father said, Yeah, where there's trouble
Jim's in the middle.

When he lost his voice he lost all of it
to the surgeon's knife and refused the voice box
they wanted to insert. In fact he refused
almost everything. Look, they said,
it's up to you. How many years
do you want to live? and Uncle Jim
held up one finger.
The middle one.

By Peter Meinke

Changes

My son left home last week to move into his own apartment. I'm thrilled that he can support himself and make it on his own. At the same time, I'm missing his company. He took some stuff with him - a dining table and chairs, a bedside cabinet, a lot of books. He left some stuff behind - his old desk, his twin bed, a lot of books. He took his integrity and his independence and his sense of humor. He left behind the nightly burp and fart show while his parents eat dinner and watch Jeopardy on television.

My daughter got a cat last week. She has been on her own for 10 years and I'm delighted that she has some company in her apartment. I'm calling him my "grand-kitty".

Here is a poem about moving on:

Moving Day

Scraps and small reminders said the scissors to the shelf
Why do I feel empty said the oven to itself
Some of us are hungry said can opener to tin
Tell me said the radio how much you want to win
And take us along when you go.

All the way from Thailand said the topmost row of cans
Rise and turn around again explained the standing fan
None of us are broken said the tumblers to the towel
Scratch me up or polish me said banister to dowel
And take us along when you go.

When they come to get you said a carton to its box
Count your lucky hours said a doorjamb to its locks
Will she will he will she sang the plumbing to the void
Did you mean to build me will I ever be destroyed

Carpet said to ceiling Can I offer any more
Nothing I can give you said the lintel to the door
You always overlook me said the baseboard to the stair
Board games valise said the attic and a folding chair
And take us along when you go.

Stephen Burt

Fear of Flying

When I fly I am afraid. I do not worry about terrorists taking over the plane. My fear of flying goes way back before 9/11. I am afraid that the wings will fall off, or the tail will fall off. (Don't laugh, it's happened.)

I read a book once that was supposed to help me get over my fear of flight. The book said that even a large jet that loses power to both engines will glide for long distances. Yeh, right, I thought, that jet is not going to glide, it's going to head straight down, crash and burn. The book also said that a plane will float for quite a while after coming down on the water. Sure it will - unless it loses structural integrity on the way down. Have you ever notice how they describe a plane "losing structural integrity" instead of just saying "the tail fell off"?

Then last week a jet took off from Le Guardia Airport and lost power in both engines after hitting a flock of birds. The pilot glided that plane into alignment with the Hudson River and came down with perfect control. The plane floated long enough to evacuate all 155 passengers and 5 crew. People stood on the wings and the inflated slides until rescued minutes later by ferry boats. That is an absolutely amazing story. I watched it over and over on the news channels and cried with relief watching those people get pulled up onto the ferries.

So here is a poem I've been wanting to share for some time. It's about a flight that didn't end so well.

Waiting for Icarus

He said he would be back and we'd drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don't cry

I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets,
a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added : Women who love such are the
Worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.

Muriel Rukeyser

A Penny Saved

Two weeks without shopping have flown by. It's too cold to go to the mall anyhow. Of course, not shopping does not mean not spending. I dropped $450 getting the cats examined, vaccinated and supplied with little packets of flea treatment to put on the backs of their little necks once a month for the next 6 months. Yesterday I spent $200 getting the little skins tags burned off my chest. They sat in a ring under my bra and complained. The insurance won't pay for this because it's cosmetic. Cosmetic? Who looks under my tits? I'm just trying to avoid the itching and irritation. Today I had a barium swallow x-ray of my esophagus and stomach. Apparently I have acid reflux disease. The insurance may not pay for this either as I have not yet met my deductible for the year. Someone once said, getting old is not for sissies. It's not cheap, either.

Ogden Nash wrote the following:

A Penny Saved Is Impossible

The further through life I drift
The more obvious it becomes that I am lacking in thrift.
Now thrift is such a boon to its possessor that years ago they began to tax it,
But it is a bane to him that lacks it
Because if you lack it you will go into a shoppe and pay two dollars for a gifte.
But if you possess it you find something just as good for a dollar fifte.
A penny is merely something that you pull several of out of your pocket before you find the nickel you need for a telephone call, if thriftlessness is in your blood,
Whereas to the thrifty a penny is something to be put out at stud.
Thrifty people put two-cent stamps on letters addressed to a three-cent zone,
And thriftless people on the other end pay the postage due and the thrifty people chuckle and rub their hands because the saving on every six letters represents a year’s interest on a dollar loan.
Oh that I were thrifty, because thrifty people leave estates to delight their next of kin with;
Oh that I were thrifty, because then not only would I have money in the bank to pay my bills, but I could leave the money in the bank because I wouldn’t have run up the bills to begin with;
Oh that I were not a spendthrift, oh then would my heart indeed be gladsome,
Because it is so futile being a spendthrift because I don’t know any places where thrift could be spent even if I had some.

You Can't Buy Love

I plan to avoid unnecessary shopping again this year. I'm aiming for 6 months of no shopping and my husband has agreed to join me. This will probably be harder for him because he loves to shop more than I do. I seldom shop on line, for example, while little boxes come in the mail for him all the time. We can do this. We will have to find other forms of entertainment besides hanging out at the malls. We can still go out to eat, and we can stay home and play with the toys we already own. My daughter has said she will try to take the no-shopping pledge as well. I hope she can. We all have way too much stuff. Not adding to it is refreshing.

Naturally I found the perfect poem. I heard this on the Writer's Almanac on Christmas Eve morning. The line about the closet full of shoes particularly hit home.

Oniomania

Not so much the desire
for owning things
as the inability to choose
between hunter or emerald
green, to buy
just roses, when there are birds
of paradise, dahlias,
delphinium, and baby's breath.
At center an emptiness
large as a half-off sale table.
What could be so wrong
with a little indulgence?
To wander the aisles of fresh
new good things knowing
any of them could be hers?
With a closet full of shoes
unworn back home,
she's looking for love
but it's not for sale —
so she grabs three of
the next best thing.

By Peter Pereira