Once More

Once more with feeling
once again step out.
into the sunshine,
into the rain,
into the snow,
out into the mists.
Open each day like a present,
let it rest upon your hand for a moment
watch it transform
from morning to day to night
from box with heft to weightless paper leaves
as light as down;
feel them flutter and multiply
into a breeze, lifting your hair
filling the air.
Open each present like a new day
a chance
a whispered wish granted
an answered prayer—
a thing transported to you
from another with love
with hope for usefulness
and for your happiness.
Open your heart
light the candles
feed the fire
remain upright
with open hands and arms outstretched
breathe and begin again
to pretend really hard
until you believe.

Make merry.

I am sorry, widows.

I am sorry, widows.
I am sorry for only giving you a lunch or two out.
I am sorry for only sending a card on your birthday.

I am sorry for letting you go.

I am sorry I didn’t organize your fringe of friends
Into taking care of you when you were sick.
I am sorry I didn’t move into the guest bedroom
And bring your meds on time,
And crackers and juice,
And fresh water and hot tea;
And watch TV in the living room
So you would know someone was here,
While you got better.

I know it’s not summer now

I know it’s not summer now
I am set back breathless.

The sun no longer blazes high
The clouds between us
Grey or black or white
Filled with rain or lightening

The earth below green
Breathing the heat
That makes sweet
The flowering and fruiting

Now, in time between
Before flaming fall
There is the tantalizing hint
Of new colors lying in wait.

Of crisp air on my face
When first I open
The door to the morning
I am set back breathless.

Labor of Love Day Weekend

Labor Day of Love Weekend

I got there.
She got sick.
I took care of her.
The apartment was hot.
She is grateful.
I went home.

I have driven 52,865 miles.

I have driven 52,865 miles

I have driven 52,865 miles in 2 years and 4 months. Most of that is to and from work—54.4 miles RT. Some of it is to and from Baltimore—598 miles RT. And there have been several holiday and wedding trips to West Hartford, CT—628 miles RT. Once I drove to Maine—1121 miles RT. Sometimes I drive back to Hobart-William Smith to see my former students. Sometimes I drive back to Honeoye Falls to see old friends—37 miles RT.

Many miles. As I drive I have tried to watch where I was going, to drive carefully. I have also tried to really see what is out the window—to find what is interesting and beautiful. I have seen the run down houses and old barns covered in snow and then framed in green. I have seen traffic lights winking through the windshield wipers. I have discovered mini-pictures in my rear view mirrors—like little periscope pictures.

I have often brought my cameras with me. Sometimes I shoot on the fly with my cell phone. Is that safe? Probably not. Mostly I stop and pull over. Lately I have gone back to a scene to shoot it from different points of view—not just from my window. The problem with this is that the photographer is not part of the picture. I am not part of the world. He is an outsider. I am an outsider. Somehow that fits perfectly. Of course, I could start using a timer and jump in the shots. There’s thought.

I drive and drive. Practically zooming. Mile by mile. Minute by minute.

Soon I will shorten these necessary and unnecessary drives. Will I miss them? Will I be happier without them? Will I be happy?

I am crucified on my deck

I am crucified on my deck,
arms outstretched,
toes to the west,
watching the mothership of a grey cloud
pass overhead.

I want it to surrender,
to fall and blanket me.
I want the cool grey air
to descend as it would into a valley
Hiding me, protecting me.
A shroud of cloud.

But instead, it drifts
across the sky
in ever shifting patterns.
A loose shiftless layer of smoke
between the blue far above
and my little house below.

Instead I am left behind--
the cloud sailed by,
revealing the bright sun.
I shut my eyes
and the heat nailed me back
against the deck.

I have a storm front headache

I have a storm front headache. It is only one of a sundry of nagging little ailments that are hanging around this summer.

My radio tells me that Virgil, New York is supposed to get hit. June, July and now August--just about all of upstate New York has been hit.

My body tells me my head hurts, my heel hurts and sometimes my hip hurts. My teacher vacation is fraught with these throbs and twinges.

Apparently, the rain and the nagging little pains never end. 90 days of wet, cloudy aches speckled with drops of sunlight. Such a conundrum: exercise through the pain or don’t exercise; embrace the cool temps, put on a sweatshirt and run outside; or when the sun is out, stop dead, strip and soak up the rays. Force the body to run and jump and kick and stretch; or rest the weary bones and muscles.

The Queen Anne’s Lace is waving to me. Welcoming the storm? Or signaling danger? Who are we kidding the Queen Anne’s Lace doesn’t care. It is a pliant and patient plant. Busy undulating as the temperatures decrease and my head ache increases.

Camryn Elise arrived today.

Camryn Elise arrived today.

Camryn Elise arrived today. Although in no hurry to make our acquaintance. She is 8 lbs 6 oz 21 inches of baby girl-ness. With lots of black curls. And fingernails. And the most alert eyes. Looking, searching, studying. A serious little thing. All business.

Two big brothers and an adoring aunt. Loving parents. A chosen child. Just like her mother.

It hadn't happened for a long time

It hadn’t happened for along time. I avoid it. It’s easy to avoid. But sometimes I let it come. It was night. I had turned off the lights. But could not sleep. I gave up and sat up in the dark and looked around. And there it was. That sense that I am a being in a dark bedroom in a house on the earth floating in space. I could not separate floating in larger space from lightly floating in my body in my bedroom. There is a sense of aloneness, no an awareness of existing. Of existing in a body. An awareness of time sweeping past. Rocketing around the room and yet I am in the midst of stillness. It is not a good feeling. It is a very scary feeling. I am aware of everything around me being around me, sitting there in the darkness, two nightstands, a rocker, the dresser, the walls, knowledge of the rooms beyond. But it is all just sitting there. While I wondered where I was.

When I first had this experience, I was about 6 or 7. I remember it was afternoon and I was in my living room on Oakwood Road, sitting in an armchair, looking at my hand as if it were outside of me. I kept turning it over and back as if to check and see if I was there. Had I left my body? I was terrified. Only I could see that I was experiencing time. Only I could see that I was surrounded and all alone. Everything around me just there. Where was I?

Does anyone else go there? You can’t tell anyone, because there are no words to really explain it. So, as I walk down the street, looking the strangers who pass by, perhaps lots of people have been there too, anxious and alone. But you’d never know it. And to what end if we shared? We’d still be alone. Aware, made knowledgeable, but powerless.

Mostly I can keep it at bay with lists and tasks, goals and objectives. But I can also go there in an instant. If I want to. Just to see if I can. I am never any better or worse because of it. Well, it is a little heavy on the heart to do so. And when I come back I feel diminished.

I drive the long road home

I drive the long road home. The linked telephone poles make a fence stretching high above me on the left and the post and wire runs beside me on the right. The toasted fields in furrows chase me on one side and green fallow fields follow on the other. The road ahead is painted with a yellow stripe leading me up and down, straight and logical. It rises before me, crests, and dips. It focuses my journey forward.

I have watched the trees twig and bud and blossom as they fill out in readiness for summer. I have watched the sky evolve from white to grey to black sometimes smothered by clouds filled with rain or snow and later, cross fade into a vast and distant ceiling of blue.

I see cars and trucks, sometimes a runner or a pair of walkers, out-buildings, farms, houses, stores and gas stations—inhabited and abandoned. I try to see, really see, what is going on in the world around me as I fly by. I pay attention. I am an encapsulated voyeur.

You know what? You’re not in it. Anywhere.

As I lie in bed in the morning light gazing from my pillow out my window

As I lie in bed in the morning light gazing from my pillow out my window

There is a tree that sticks up on my horizon and not prettily either. I want to shave it off. But then I will need to topple the cell phone tower with the pink lights first, won’t I? Why mess with the tree? Usually I lower my shades to hide the offending tree and tower framing only the green of the field and the darker green of the treed hills beyond.

Do I hide the tree and tower to avoid the offences of daily life--looking only at what I prefer. Or do I embrace the good to survive? Is this another sign that I choose not to deal with the vicissitudes of life, or that I know I banish disappointments in order to live, because I know I am not equipped.

I finished my book and the words that broke my heart are written by the author, but are not in the story: “ I hope too that my book will illuminate my belief that love of art—be it poetry, storytelling, painting, sculpture, or music enables people to transcend any barrier man has yet devised.” Mary Ann Shaffer

Sometimes it is all you can do. It is the only skill you have. You create art because you can’t do anything else.

Tiny Baby Turtle Dead

Hiking a day of discoveries
There were age old tracks
Flanked by pastures of wild willy-nilly trees and shrubs
And farms of orderly pines leading us to frog talk
A regular confabulation of frog talk.

There were age old trails
Sloping up to the sky leading hearts upward toward hope and spring
Forking north and right
Beckoning: take me, take me, now.

There were miles of leaves underfoot
Creating and concealing the muddy, squishy path
Layers lessening and making way for sand and moss.
To revealing traces of winter survival.

There is a hole dug in the sand; a ravaged little pit
Surrounded by broken shriveled egg shells.
And a tiny baby turtle dead remains--
Telling the tale of its little tragedy.

She takes up the dirty little thing
Still fragile in death
But a bit of a thing perfect in many ways;
Promise at an end; future denied.

It seems important to cherish it
Care for it in death as it deserved in life.
Perhaps she should have passed by the turtle,
Evidence of the violent ebb and flow of living and not living
Perhaps she has not let go of other dead things.

But the day of discoveries was a trek upward and happy.
Perhaps the turtle is in is proper place within the day.

We hurt our necks

Changing the shower curtain liner
reaching up, to the rod
over our heads
arms held high for just forever
squeezing and un-squeezing
un-threading and threading,
ring by ring hurts our necks.

My river

You can have your mighty Niagara and Mississippi;
I have mine, the River It is mine.
The swift current, the cold depths
The dock above, the waving weeds below.
Wide in space; dividing 2 nations.
Uniting lake and sea and sphere.

We wear fins and masks to delve the deep
And swim around the island.
Scary, monster rocks swell before out eyes;
weeds licking at our legs.
It must not touch me, any of it.
Ooo, my chest is tight, but I must see.
Water must encase me safely as I search
her depths.

My river. It is mine.
On a good day, the surface shatters the sun
into innumerable twinkling stars.
On a bad day the wind whips up white caps
and hides the floor of the water filled canyon
of my heart’s home.
There are no bad days.
My face is wet from rain or spray or tears.

We zoom about our water world by day…
waiting for glass, waiting to ski, skiing.
Fishing for sunfish in the slips for fun
with worms and bread;
or cast for pike and bass with lures.
Just to be on the river, near enough to see her…
in the quiet dawn or dusk.
My river. It is mine.

Just to be on the river, near enough to see her
at all times. Like the need for air.
My river. It is mine.
She is in my soul. She is in my heart.
Sold or not. She is mine. My river.
St. Lawrence. St. Lawrence.

Miss Berry sallies forth

7:30 January 17, 2009 Canandaigua, NY
Temperature: 21 degrees Wind: SSE 9 mmh

I let her out. Undaunted.

Not much new snow, lots of wind.
She saunters, sniffs casually.
Spies something.

Someone is out shoveling
in their pajamas and coat.
… what are they thinking?

She returns to sniffing and searching.
Her tail like a semaphore signaling planes,
her fur wind-blown, in no hurry.

I watch the shovel-er.
Does he like to shovel more than I?
Evidently. I am not out.

No, not shoveling.
He’s getting his paper
and scurrying back inside.

She begins to circle. One, two, three.
She’s looking worried. Six, seven, eight.
Still not right. Nine, ten—Ah.

Another paper retriever sortie
She’s done. I don’t need to call her.
She races for the door.

I let her in. So proud of herself.