Tasting the Sun

EATING HUILZILOPOCHTLI

Why is it
No one hungers now,
Trusting only each other,
Their divine hands helpless
In their pockets,
Their beautiful faceless heads
Down against a lowering sky?

But this little one sees,
Remembers the road that is
A milky spill of suns,
Turns toward a past
Where dead souls know that
Huilzilopochtli is the god who
Ate fire as a sacrament,
Summoning back life,
The resurrection.

See how she tastes his fire,
Lets his sparks light their
Common ether,
Lets them sift through her
Ethereal sky-skin.

She carries away in her hand
Hot coals to light her way across,
To wherever it is
Ghosts go.


(Written to another of Rick Mobbs terrific paintings, The Kiss. Needs work, suggestions?)

RIP, George

I am saddened to learn of the death of George Carlin from heart failure yesterday. If I had been a comedian, I would've chosen to be George. He got it right every time!

You were THE BEST, George. We'll miss you!

"Gee, he was just here a minute ago!" That's the way he wanted to be remembered. Let it ring!
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Russian Olives

Ten p.m. and the temperature outside is 78, after a HOT day. The back door is open and the night air coming in is delicious with Russian Olive tree smells. Just thought I'd tell you. (Something like noticing the color purple.)




The picture is one of MontanaRaven's. She's the very best photographer I know. It's called "some consider this tree a weed."
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A Tale of Two Junes (6-20-'07, 6-20-'08)

BOOKWORM:
Last summer, Hawaii! This summer, BRACES!
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(Clicken to embiggen, to better see all those rubber bands!)

Six-Word Bio

Ah, Mariacristina. Okay: I am always someone else's girl.

But there are so few of us who belong to ourselves, totally. And would we want that if we could have it? Sociable creatures that we are....
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Anniversary

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, my cousin Ginger made me a lovely bride dress out of old window curtains. I was nine. Many years later, I wore my best friend Jan's wedding dress (something borrowed) on the day we celebrated our marriage. Many, oh yes, many years later, we are still celebrating--today, forty-four years. My word. Where has the time gone?
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Pinocchio!

I spent two hours today on the phone with Tammy the Warrior Woman...I was so nervous before she called you might have thought I was awaiting an audience with the Queen. Which, of course, she is! She taught me how to do a sidebar, walked me through the tough parts, and generally re-vamped my blog. Like Chiefbiscuit, er, Kay, said, the place may look a little strange and those of you who think of me as Pepek may continue to call me by that name...but, like Pinocchio, I have become a real, well, girl!

Thanks, Tammy!

Happy Father's Day!

To all you fine dad's out there: YOU ARE!

Image:
Excalibur
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The Joy of Lex

Double-Dactyl

Remember my little poem about Orson Scott Card, which form I couldn't recall?

Hey Nonny, Hi Nonny,
Weird Science-Fantasy
Hasn't the wherewith to
Buy this cannard;
Try us again next year
If we're not bankrupt, for
Remuneration, Dear
Orson Scott Card.

Well, I found it! From: The Tenth Muse.

The double-dactyl is a short verse form invented by the American poets Anthony Hecht and John Hollander in 1966. The poem consists of one sentence containing forty-four syllables that are distributed over eight lines and fall into two four-line stanzas. The first three lines of each stanza are dactylic dimeter; the last one is a choriamb. The two stanzas end with a masculine rhyme on the last syllable of the choriamb. The final feature of the form is found in line six of the poem: a single, six-syllable word which is a double-dactyl. The example illustrates the rhythm, rhyme scheme, and other salient features of my favorite form.

Double-Dactyl

Higgledy-Piggledy
Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs
(Masculine rhyme):
One sentence (two stanzas)
Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who
Don't have the time.

One more example, from The Tenth Muse:

Higgledy-Piggledy
Pitiful Tantalus
Stole food and drink from the
Table of Zeus;
So, he was punished with
Juxtapositional
Torture of sustenance
Just beyond use.

Give it a go!
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RWP: Watching You

Anniversary: Keep Away


After forty years
Your face is one
I no longer recognize
Among other half-remembered faces
Of children grown
Lovers gone
Friends departed

In your endless rage
I know only
The red wilderness
Of burnt Mercury
I would be glad
For some small thing of Earth
A red carnation

Once keep-away
Was something children played
Now I listen to you breathe
You sleep in pieces
This part of you
That part of you
Awake

I think how as a boy
You hid a pocket knife
In the top of your Commando boots
Had a nosebleed at Grand Canyon
And threw your unsold newspapers
Into gutters

Now you lie buried
Belly down in pillows
Mouth open
The outlines of your dreams
Of Guam, of flight, of Halley's Comet
And the end of the world
A trailing current
Of your death

Leaving no notes behind
No messages

(I posted this one
last year, so if you think you have seen it before, you probably have.)
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Rescue the Princess

Oh, do not try.
She is bought and sold, and
smells of old cheese.
She has lost her story
and does not want
to be rescued.

She is what she is,
will never arrive, never
depart, be welcomed,
or suffer. She is
what she needs: a bed,
a cigarette, a coffee pot.

She is blue, a sort of mold
grows where it takes
getting used to, but she will.
You cannot give her anything.
She is all on her own.
This is her career.

People go by, and
mention her name, but
save your breath--
this Princess will never
be fixed. Do not
defend her. Do not

resusitate.


(painting by Rick Mobbs, "rebirth.")
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Home Again!

Home again! Jiggety Jig! We had a great time in the Big Woods. Wish you were there--the best I can offer is a few pictures of the festivities. Minnesota is green as Ireland. The company was the finest!

This is Grandma's House at Walnut Grove, the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prarie," only one of our many adventures! (See below!)
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A Prarie Home Odyssey

The Mini-Apple of Minneapolis (not to be confused with the Big Apple)! Did you know St. Paul was first called "Pig's Eye?" Me, neither. Enjoy this little trip!
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Tunnel of Love

We are getting ready to take off for the North Woods to visit with I and K and their Mom and Dad, so I will be gone for the next few days. But here's a new picture of the Rhiesling in the Tunnel of Love for your viewing pleasure! Have a good week!

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ZZzzz's

Gosh. I dreamed last night I was Meredith Grey (of Grey's Anatomy), and I was about to perform life-saving heart surgery on my friend, Nila, who died last week. Anyway, I told them I wanted a big room with lots of light, so they took me to this huge room with a lot of windows, with the sun pouring in. I tried to get my surgical gloves on, but they seemed to be filled with paper, which made them stiff and awkward. I couldn't bend my fingers, and the paper was sticking out like a scarecrow's straw. When they wheeled Nila in, she was not simply covered, she was wrapped like a mummy. On the operating table there was a dirty cardboard box with my surgical instruments--some saws, screwdrivers, a butcher knife...I rummaged through the box, looking for a scalpel. I finally found what looked like an exacto-knife, and I began practising my planned maneuvers in air, over and over (just like Christina did before her big surgery on last weeks show). These moves were like a tic-tac-toe grid. So I began. I carefully cut through Nila's mummy bandages, and to my surprise and horror, discovered a grody OPEN EYE. I knew immediately I was too high, so I moved lower and began to carve another grid...

...I woke up, let the dogs out, and brought them in, and went back to sleep. I dreamed I was trying to tell my dream to everyone, and nobody was interested, which is probably true. Lala.

lol
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The Charmer

The Charmer

You found the story
telling how the Indians
put a fish
under the planted corn
the adventure illustrated
in your third-grade reader

It happens now somewhere
everywhere that this boy
plants rice
while they watch
he bends over
the bewitched rice or corn
the red or white beans
the potatoes and melons
the squash
like the angel
who whispers grow
grow

Maybe he simply charms
the fish to leap out
of the water
into his hands
in the red dawn

Tatay's white umbrella red
under the fairweather red sky
washing them all
with morning light

Nanay and Nanay Gurang
the Very Old hesitate
studying how he bends over
the grains
how the earth and water
closes over them
like a blessing

The fish is for dinner

(painting:Rick Mobbs, Water)

Nila Wallin Barratt

My dear friend Nila passed away in her sleep. Most every Saturday for years the two of us went to lunch and a movie. She was one-of-a-kind, and I loved her. Now Henry the Hawk, in the form of an angel, has finally taken her flying away with him. But I shall surely miss her! She was a young 83.

She was, as her obituary said, "a salty old gal" who loved life and did everything she wanted to do, and more. One of those things was to write a novel called The Hawk and the Heart, a semi-autobiographical story of a woman's grief at the sudden death of her husband (personified by a hawk, who appears one day at her window to watch over her until she recovers). At one point, in a dream, he takes her on a night flight over the countryside, over the rooftops of her neighbor's farmhouses, off toward the moon and stars.

Sweet dreams, m'dear. Enjoy the journey.

...

i thank You God for most this morning
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

now the ears of my ears awake and
the eyes of my eyes are opened)


e.e. cummings

photo by tinyfishy
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What They Said To Him

You can see him there, a boy among the banyan roots, with light falling like coins through the leaves, his book stirring with dragons and spotted leopards. They are taking him where he'll never again, with shoes and suitcases and boarding passes, travel. Turning a page, he finds yellow-eyed wolves and their pups, the bones of rabbits. See how his bare toes curl when the animals talk, turn up when they lift their large, rough paws, their lacquered claws, their roars, off the paper and up into his body, as wild as theirs, and his fingernails and toenails grow long and tough and curved. He roars. He feels the ground shake as they pass out of his body into the jungle, past the snake that winds through the highest branches of the banyan tree, past the fixed white-eyed stare of parrots looking at the moon. Someday, when he is old, and the book is dust, and the black owl of night overtakes him in his heavy shoes, he will remember what they said to him: Follow our tracks: we are your people. He will remember all their names, and what they said to him.


Painting: Rick Mobbs, 5-9-08 image prompt


(OK, Rick, I am a little behind, but I'll catch up!)

A Primary Allegiance

"Molecules don't have passports. All the creatures on Earth are in this together. We need a primary allegiance to the species and to the planet Earth."

A quote from Carl Sagan--The Compassionate Universe, borrowed this morning from Alyssa at My Examined Life.

Have you examined your life lately? How's that workin' for ya?

My Dr. Phil profile on Facebook says: "Others see you as someone they should 'handle with care.' You're seen as vain, self-centered, and extremely dominant. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you. However, they don't always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you."

You don't trust me? You think I'm vain and self-centered? I LOVE polar bears! I'm sorry global warming is destroying their habitat! I hate that the rain forests and the coral reefs are disappearing! If I had a million dollars (I don't) I would split it between China and Myanmar! I'm nice. You can trust me.

...maybe I'll go now and examine my life....


"An unexamined life is not worth living."--Socrates

I and K in Legoland!

My two little Swedes at the Mall of America in Minneapolis! They love to build things with Legos, so this was a real treat. We are looking forward to our visit with them in a few weeks. Aren't they handsome dudes? I is five years old, and K is three. They are both clever and polite and very very smart!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to Me...
Do you see why I need help with the candles? You are all invited to help blow (and you can each make a wish of your choice) at 6:00 PM Mountain Standard Time. Then we'll all sit down together and put on our birthday hats and have cake and sing...I can hardly wait!

The God Particle

It's interesting to note that sometime today, the Large Hadron supercollider (LHC) and particle accelerator 300 feet below ground in Switzerland was supposed to start things colliding inside a huge cavern stuffed with 8-story gold wheels and as much metal as has the Eiffel Tower. All this has to do with particle physics--gluons, neutrinos, charmed quarks, antimatter, etc, and most interestingly, with the Higgs Boson particle (the God particle), whose existence is central to modern physics. It's supposed to tell us (if it does exist) more about the origins of the universe, string theory, alternate dimensions.... It has been suggested that this expensive and grand experiment might, upon ignition, create a mini-black-hole that will devour the planet upon which we stand in a matter of seconds. I think I remember that before they split the first atom, in the first experimental bomb detonated at the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945, some scientists believed there was a possibility that the fission process would expand, and keep expanding in one colossal uncontrollable explosion that would kill us all. And they did it anyway.

In light of a slow demise caused by global warming, fires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods, wars, and rumors of wars, that doesn't sound too bad. But you will probably be relieved to hear (if you have not already been told) that the experiment has been postponed until later in the year. So it looks like we won't be dying today.

Celebrate!

I find this all very interesting because the thing was first supposed to have been built right here in Utah! But, alas! wasn't.


(UPDATE: 50 days 12 hours 15 minutes until the next try....which would make it, like, um, the Fourth of July! Perfect!)

WE WOMEN

Many people think that Mother's Day is a modern innovation created by greeting card conglomerates. But the history of this holiday is much deeper, with roots going all the back to Egypt, where there was an annual festival to honor the goddess Isis, the mythical Mother of the pharaohs and the goddess of gift shops. The ancient Egyptians depicted her carrying a bouquet of flowers in one hand (though sometimes a single rose or lotus blossom is shown), the keys to her gift shop in the other hand (the "ankh" symbol, the symbol of endless economic life and business vitality), and a pop-up greeting card on her head. So yes, the core values of this holiday are ancient indeed.

Mother's Day in the US also has roots in Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870. The woman who wrote the The Battle Hymn of the Republic in 1858 had become disgusted with the carnage of war and wanted mothers to join together in preventing the unnecessary slaughter of their sons. In her proclamation of 1870, she wrote:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:

"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.

"We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

Not the sort of thing we see on Mother's Day cards today, but I can respect her feelings on the matter.

Me, too. I have borrowed this quote. from Jeff Lindsay at Mormanity

Happy Mother's Day

to all you Cyber-Moms!
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Wull, helk!

Remember, how we always say 'helk' at our house because 'hell' is a bad word? Naw, this time I'm going for the real thing....Hell! I've just been diagnosed with scoliosis and a little arthritis in my lower back. NO WONDER my back hurts like hell! My backbone is shaped like a capitol S. Oh, Mama. I have had to sleep in my Lazyboy for the last 5 nights. And I have discovered that there is nothing good on TV between 2 and 5 AM. The hydrocodone doesn't do much, either. I walk like Quasimodo. So, there it is!

This is something I have apparently had for forty years...hence, (don't you love that word?) hence, I am sharing a poem I wrote a long time ago--some of you might remember it from a Poetry Thursday post:

backache
flattens me

gin in the veins
might help

tonight I fly on brittle bones
out of this skin

this old pain
disconnects

my top and bottom
halves

sleep waivers like mirages
in a white fossil sea of aspirin

that dulls the saw
between deeper jacknifed vertebrae

this great grey sleep of bone
sucks me dry
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Boy Meets Flowers

Here's a picture to brighten your May morning: the Rhiesling in Tulips!

(Click it for the full 3-D effect!)

And one of my favorite spring poems,
The Goose Girl, by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still.
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me.
If ever I said, in grief or pride,
I tired of honest things, I lied:
And should be cursed forever more
With Love in laces, like a whore,
And neighbors cold, and friends unsteady,
And Spring on horseback, like a lady!
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My Family

In My Life


There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

--JOHN LENNON lyrics - "In My Life"
(Lennon/McCartney)

This is the only photo of my father and mother, my brother and myself together at the same time, in the same place. My family, together for an instant of time stopped, caught at some fancy dinner a long time ago, maybe a wedding, or--? God bless the camera, and whoever looked at us there, at that table, through the viewfinder. Mama wears a polkadot dress, daddy wears a flower in his lapel, flowers bloom in vases, and oh! there are CANDLES! The plates wait for whatever food will soon fill them. Someone says: Say cheese! And we all turn our faces toward the camera. On this night, for this one moment, we are all together. It is all good. My family. I often stop and think about them...in my life I love them more.

Blogfather

My son slick, of KnownUnknowns, is my Blogfather. He is the one who set me up, showed me how, sat beside me while I asked stupid questions, and ultimately led me to you, my cyberfriends. For this I am grateful. Thanks, slick. Because of you, I can spend many fun hours at the computer when I might otherwise be trapped into the neverending cycle of drugery and insipid TV (housework, cooking, CNN, Days of Our Lives, The Price is Right, Dr Phil etc).

Much obliged!

May Day

I feel as if I am living inside a snow globe--here it is May and it's snowing hard all over the tulips in the yard. The trees have new leaves, the ants are thriving, the grass is greening, and snow is swirling around like it's been shaken out of some gigantic snow machine. When I open the back door to let the dogs out, they take one quick look, see the snow falling AGAIN and hurry back under the table. Their eyes say No way! Simon had his Spring Is In The Air program at school this morning, sang and danced with the the other kindergarteners, wore a big blue necktie over his white shirt. Every afternoon when he comes home he changes into his Batman clothes, cape with bat-ears and all, and is Batman for the rest of the day. Seems impossible to look out the window today and know that school will be out for the summer in a few weeks. Napowrimo is finally over, so now I can go clean my house without feeling I really should be doing something else!

My new book from Amazon came: the left-handed story, Writing and the Writer's Life, by Nancy Willard. An eclectic collection of essays. I have become an Amazon addict. It gives me something to look forward to. Besides blogging, I mean.

"Our memories, too, make journeys. What is lost comes back to find us when we need to be found." --Nancy Willard

#29, 30 No Alarms

No alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises, please.

(I'm busy and desperate, so I stole this from Radiohead because it's been running through my head all morning, and I can't think of anything else...now, just 1 to go!)

Okay. Hurrah! Here is the BIG #30!!! It seems to go nicely with #29!

WHEN ANNE BOLEYN WAS BEHEADED, SO WAS HER DOG--I GUESS THAT SHOWED HER!
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR D!

So, seventy-five years is next to nothing in the grand scheme of things!

(I love you more than I love chunklate covered grab crackers--and you KNOW how much I LOVE chunklate covered grab crackers!)
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#27 Outrageous Contrasts/Oil and Water

little david

your smooth soft freckled body
and the quiet fury of those children
in grass up to your knees
that burns like fires in the fields
kites that fly in circles
naked jaws and neckbones of skulls
the shaken joy of snowflakes
crawling lines of blood, and the spit of guns
and the sleeping gift of seeds
a fucking handful of shit
lucid shoals of children's laughter
preserved, a needle in the brain
a bird's egg in the hand
the stone that killed goliath
your soft clinging mouth
exhausted children calling, calling
like the lamb before the lion
the kid goat tied to a tree
like a kiss upon the brow
the tap tap of a drum
a bed that's warmed by love
faraway no thing moves but
the silence of a secret
the blinking of a crow's eye
where church bells thrash the morning


(Video: The Prayer Of The Children))
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#26 Hallowed Ground

In the temple
of our flesh,
we follow Adam.
We are the earth.
The earth is us:
a Holy Family.




(The prompt is the painting "Hallowed Ground" by Rick Mobbs.)
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# 25 Inspiration

And so I said to myself: Self, whatever shall we write about Now? I know--we'll write how he wore his mentor's thumb on a chain, a necklace!

(Note: David Belasco (1853-1931) was a famous American actor/director/playwright whose early education in a San Francisco monastery may have inspired his wearing a priest's garb most of his life, which in turn, inspired the nick name "the Bishop of Broadway."

At the age of 12 he ran away from the monastery and joined the circus. He became an actor, and in Carson City, Nevada, he met Dion Boucicault (whose thumb he is rumored to have worn on a chain about his neck as inspiration.) His off-stage life was often extravagant and bizarre. As a director, he would rip out his pocket watch and stamp it to pieces in front of his actors (he kept a stockpile of these cheap watches for just this purpose). And it was reported that he once dragged actress Leslie Carter around the stage by her red hair to inspire emotion and passion in her performance. I'm just sayin' here that I know it would have surely have inspired ME! Anyhow, this is the way I remember it from my theater history classes long ago. If I remember it wrong, please let me know....)
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#24 Girls

She's the kind of girl who will rescue stranded earthworms on rainy days.
. . .

At the school bus stop early this morning--yes, it's raining again--a worm fell into a puddle in the gutter. Everyone there surrounded the puddle to watch. One of the dad's there saw it as a teaching opportunity and they began a discussion on respiration. My first impulse was to pull the worm out, but I (being the self-conscious old codger that I am) was too concerned that this guy would think I was a crazy lady. I decided to wait until everyone was gone to do it. By that time the poor worm would have drowned. So, one of the little girls there did it! She walked right in, took him in hand and laid him in the grass. Hurrah for her! Boo for me....

Speaking of girls...my first reaction to this Texas/polygamy thing was acute embarrassment. I just wanted this whole affair being blasted out into the world by CNN and everyone else to go away. IT won't. And yes, I was embarrassed by my peculiar FLDS fringe-cousins (most of you already know I am LDS) with their peculiar hair-dos, and their funny dresses and wierd lifestyle....and I am appalled at the idea of a thirteen-year-old girl marrying a fifty-year-old man and having babies. Even though one of my great-grandfathers had two wives at once, I find the principle of polygamy incomprehensible. Most of us believe in obeying the laws. These people live in a world apart (or think they do).

BUT--they are a part of American society, if not culture. Their constitutional rights have been grossly violated, and the seven hundred Texas authorities were WRONG to go like gangbusters into this community with their tanks and machine guns and M-16 rifles and badges and helmets and begin storming into homes (and their temple) on the flimsy evidence of one phone call that turned out to be a hoax. The caller was NOT an abused 16-year-old, but a disturbed 33-year-old Colorado woman who has done this sort of thing before.

STILL--the state's police and do-gooder child protection people continued to remove 437 (Can they count? They first said 416!) innocent children from their homes and families. I think this is outrageous! The authorities broke into private homes and essentially kidnapped hundreds of children! WITHOUT EVIDENCE. Think: The invasion of Iraq and WMD's that were never found. What an arrogant and unmitigated disaster that was. Think: The Gulf of Tonkin incident (never happened) that led us into Viet Nam. People looking for excuses to do the WRONG thing.

If there are people guilty of doing bad things they should be punished, and their crimes stopped. But not like this. These are Americans, people, just like you and me. If they can break into their homes without evidence, they can break into yours. If they can break into their sacred places, they can break into mine. Who will be next? Probably me, because my brand of Christianity is not "mainstream" and I wear funny underwear. You might be next, because you are Amish, or Muslim, or Seventh Day Adventist, or because you home-school your children, or because you protest the war, or are Gay or Jewish.... It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see where this might go. And it must not!

My mother taught me that two wrongs do not make a right. My church teaches me that I must obey the laws of whatever country I reside in, that I claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of my own conscience, and allow all men to do the same. If there is abuse going on, by all means, help those who are being abused, and punish the guilty. But don't violate an entire community with an armed invasion and steal its children. These children are gentle and polite, used to praying twice a day and eating fruits and vegetables from gardens they have tended. They haven't seen TV, so they don't hero-worship the Power Rangers and Hannah Montana. They are used to playing outdoors, to giving and getting hugs. They are tender, and kept squeaky clean and combed. They are loved! One Texas lawyer who volunteers his services on behalf of the community has written the Texas raid was a "fiasco" and observed: "Once again, the Texas state government has shown it couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel."

Shame on you, Texas! Let the children go back to their mothers.
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#23 Haiku

The moon is a hole
cold wind wears a black slicker
the last bus goes by the board


photo by B O H E M I A N
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# 22 Earth Day

SEEING EVE


I once saw a women,
Call her Isha, heart and bones
Formed, in fact, chosen, like Eve
In Eden, by the breath of His mouth,
By a rib in the sweet dough
Of her flesh. Before she emerged
Was it like a fire, then? Like coming
Out of some great silence
Not dark, not light, but out of some
Infinite blank page set so suddenly
Aflame: No Thing, igniting some dust,
Some tinder, with sparks, bonfires, conflagrations
Of particles created, colliding, decaying,
Like everything she knows as real?

And After Word, under a harmony of
Constellations, after the naming of animals,
Those beautiful beasts in the rumbling seas,and
In the seeded fields, knee-deep in grass, or
Above her, touching the air like God
Walking on water, like men and caribou
In marshes, planting rice, like women
Dancing under trees, like children digging
For treasures, like the painter with his
Oils and brushes, like the doctor with his
Medicine bottles and his pills, like the soldier
With his rifle and his helmet and boots, like the
Boy with his book, like the murderer and
His victim, like the drowned, and the saved.

It is so hard to be chosen; to be
The Beginning of The Rest of the Story
Is to divide and expand forever outward
In a sequence of possibilities, growing greater
With each division. We are mere followers.
As simple as that.


(Okay, in honor of Earth Day I wanted to write something that would suggest earth through the Big Bang, through Eden, on to whatever is ahead, and I wanted to do it using this wonderful painting of Rick Mobbs, called: Tapestry. based on the Fibonacci Sequence. It didn't turn out quite as I imagined it. I think I bit off more than I could chew.)
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#21 I Am A Desert

Today I am dry, dry as the dry Kalahari, dry as burnt toast.

Photo: Kalahari Gemsbok

# 20 His Mate

Their calling voices clash over the great dark fields, each of them alone.

# 19 The Great Horned Owl

Listen: the call of a Great Horned Owl, lovely, if you're not a field mouse.

# 18 (Place Names) RWP

A Map of American Sentences


I don't live in Toole, Dutch John, Duchesne, Ibapah, or Nephi.
I won't live in Koosharem, Iosepa, Mexican Hat or Mummies.
I might live in Sundance, or Thistle, or Roy, but not in Skutumpah.
And never in Kolob, La Verkin, Hog Spring: my hometown's Salt Lake.

# 17 Mother

HANGING OUT THE CLOTHES

She wears a straw
Sombrero to hang the clothes
On the line
It keeps the sun
From her pale freckled skin
She carries the wooden pins
In a green-flowered bag
Tied at her waist
The wind whips water
From the corners of the spotless
Sheets the long pants and
Endless shirts, figures
Writhing in a blast
Like men afire
Racing like couriers with
Meaningless messages
Her red hair twists around her
Pale freckled face
Like flames
Her tiny white hands fasten
Each pin like a candle
A row of candles
On the trembling line
She bends over the basket of
Wet clothes again and again
Hushing the baby
Who weeps at her feet
Tomorrow she irons


Prompt from Poetic Asides: Write a poem in the 3rd Person--keep yourself out of it.
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# 16 Los Abuelos

Los abuelos,
the old ones,
know the music
of embers
and ashes,
hold both longing
and love
under a holy
chalice of stars.


Okay, this is icky, but maybe I will try another one later. I like the picture. Maybe you can do something with it!

It makes me think of that old song BOTH SIDES NOW: I've looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose, and still somehow, it's life's illusions I recall--I really don't know life at all.

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How many faces can you find?

I found 21.

# 15 Facebook

Facebook

Out there, somewhere
you have real faces, like
or unlike, mine. People
I pass on the street
might be you. They are
all going somewhere. I, too
am going somewhere.
Sometimes our eyes meet
but only for a moment.
Was that you I saw
last month, at the airport
going to Buenos Aires, or Seattle?
Was that you behind me
in line at the supermarket
buying wine and flowers,
oranges from Florida, avocados
from Brazil?
Do I know you?
My face is a keyhole.
Your face is a key.
This little glass contains
the world, unlocked.


(For all you bloggers, who are also friends, out there, somewhere....)

# 14 A Rothko

Red bird rising
Deep blue day
Born again: green


(3 lines, 3 words each, a color in each line, tic-tac-toe pattern)
Photo by mightyquinninwky
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# 13 Haiku

another fine day
the paper whites are blooming
take a deep deep breath

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# 12 American Sentence

Starfish wept true tears when the abandoned nest of nine duck eggs grew cold.



(See AS # 8!)
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# 11 Image Prompt

A Woman Without Arms


A woman without arms
is still a woman, nonetheless,
given a torso, two good legs, a head.
Without a mirror
she falls in love with herself.
Think: Venus.
Think: Winged Victory.

Think of wings that have been interlocked
so long, folded like an apron, unfolding
now as intricate as a moth's.

She has abandoned rings,
fingers, files, polish, gloves, bracelets,
for these feathers. Yet
she hungers for touch, for the
astonishing grace of nakedness, the endless warmth
of flesh, the chill of water.

She has forgotten how to hold a pencil,
how to play the Tarot. The harp
sits silent in the corner, gathering dust.

How does she eat? Make bread? Who
will feed the mare? Who
will water the fading plants, and gather
sticks for the fire, and turn the pages
of photographs, those foursided pastimes?

And where are other angels,
so long unseen?

(Painting, Rick Mobbs, at mine enemy grows older)
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