Christmas poems

I recently finished a "10/10"  -- ten poems in ten days, on the Writers Anonymous site on Press 1.  Three other poets were writing along with me.   Since it was Winter Solstice, and so close to Christmas, many of the poems reflect that theme.  I began to take some favorite lines from Christmas carols and spin some poems off them.
Here are several:

   Approaching the Dark

Approaching the dark,

I consider the ladybug
traversing my copybook,
ardent-hearted red,
looking for a place to spend the winter
who must view the edge of the desk
as the Grand Canyon,
but who can fly
to the radiator
to the icy marble windowsill
where the sky turns dianthus pink
looking for a place to spend the winter
singing

Gaudete

Gaudete

Always we are following a light

Always we are following a light.
It draws the eye, the light in the window
of the house in the distance
aacross the dark meadow
at the end of a dark lane.
Snowflakes catch the headlights
on a road where the shoulder shrugs and
disappears into the blizzard’s buzzard boast.
The small flame on the candle in the clear glass vigil
flickering at the feet of our Lady of Chartres,
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre,
only light I see
from the other side of the room.

Late in time, behold him come

Late in time, behold him come.
Not the Christmas child
but my homesick student
early balding boy, shy , tall,
missing from class since Halloween,
arrives on exam day to see if it’s too late
to drop the class
and the other classes, too.
What has he been doing in these busy weeks
as rainy fall turned into
clotted winter,
so far away from family,
on the side of this brown mountain?
What will he tell that furious father
or the grandfather
whose name is on the School of Business?

Nuns Decorating Their Christmas Tree

Richer by far is the heart’s adoration…

It’s a fake tree, safer for the giant convent

Where so many old sisters lie helpless in bed.
We’re in another wing, still working,
Still mobile, lucid, continent,
Though our young women live far south
In houses in poor neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, we decorate the fake tree

Already festooned with lights by the
Maintenance men.
We bring out those shiny brites
from the fifties,
wondering which of our sisters,
now dead, purchased them
in some long ago Woolworths.


We bring out our family heirlooms,
ornaments from our trees at home
hung by us as little girls
long before we joined this
enterprise.

We bring out bells and angels

from our siblings,
Redbirds and partridges.

Everyone comes with her Christmas

from home
which we join with our convent Christmases.

Together, together,

with stories of our Christmases as young nuns,
cutting down the tree, anchoring it in place,
when the aromatic presence
caused our hearts  lilting love.

And still, through cloven skies they come

In the full moon’s glare, the sky’s lit up with clouds

fluffy and definite as clover,

they scud and trip, pretending  to be close

when no one’s angels pass between their cracks

where mice can pass through cracks as fine as fingernails

the cloven hooves of horses, cows and goats

the clouds resemble
where the angels enter the world
like young nuns coming from their cloister
into the sunlight.

Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing

When I first learned to play the piano,

in the piano rooms at school,

not having a piano at home,

first learned to read music,
I bought a book of Christmas carols,
seeking out the ones I never heard

but liked the lyrics. Liked the titles:

The Holly and the Ivy

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night
The Coventry Carol
The Cherry Tree Carol
Once in Royal David's City...

I’d read the music , try to sing the melody,

but having no piano

and no memory of the tune,

no idea of the timing,

I’d give up and go back to

Silent Night.

Vainly we offer each ample oblation

All over America,

  in thousands of KMarts,
anonymous donors are paying off
the balance of layaway accounts.
Fifty dollars here,
Two hundred there,
so people with no credit but love
 can release
 their children’s Christmas toys
from captivity.

 

I woke up happy

Gaudete Sunday, in the Catholic tradition.  At Mass, the priest asked the question "When were you last happy?"

I woke up at 5:45, grumbling because I could sleep late and didn't.  But I went back to sleep and dreamed I was at my Alma Mater, Saint Joseph College, in the present time.  I was a professor there, and was living with the students on Third Marillac.  It was move-in day in September.  The campus was teeming with students and parents. It was a sunny, lovely day, and everyone seemed to be busy and happy.  I climbed up the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor, and someone's Dad said to me, "Why don't you use the elevator?"  He indicated an elevator just around the corner, in a new wing.  I then noticed that the whole dorm had been renovated.  It had always had the high ceilings and large windows, but now it was even brighter. There was carpeting in the halls, which seemed to be wider than I remembered.  The students ( it was still all girls) were busy moving into their room.  I boarded the elevator and climbed to the top floor, the third floor.  The scene there was the same, even better, because there was a cafe-like coffee place in the middle of the third floor, where students and parents were enjoying coffee and talking.  I looked out the window at the campus, and could see all the way over to Brute - the dining hall building.  Everywhere students and parents were walking.

I woke up happy.  Even after I remembered that my Alma Mater had closed in 1973, and that in 1979 the campus was purchased by the Federal government and now housed FEMA,  I still felt happy.

Happiness is a mystery, isn't it?

Almost a month

has passed since I wrote here.  Can't believe the swift passage of time.  I've been occupied with end of the semester grading.  Before that, I was occupied with a "30/30"  - writing thirty poems in thirty days on the listserv Inside the Writer's Studio.  Between the two activities, I almost forgot about this blog.

Need to finish the grading and get back to writing. 

I'm watching the winter birds from my bedroom window.  A pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers are regular visitors to the birdseed bell hanging there.

I had some good photos of them, but the photos were lost when I got this new laptop.  I don't own a computer; the laptops are from school - they are replaced every five years.  The folks in "I.T." there were not able to retrieve any of the photo gallery pictures that I hadn't stored in folders.  Sigh.

new publications

I have two poems in this issue:

Blue-Winged Teal

Small dabbling duck,

wallow in freshwater,

mince your steps on the sticky fronds

of April,

rest your blue bill on your speckled chest

like a dignified dowager

looking down her nose.

Fashionable in your touches of sapphire

on breast and wings,

your color is more blue than

what the paint store calls teal,

something more moody than

turquoise,

more matte than satin.

and...

The Cat and the Fireworks

At the first volley of fireworks,

unseen except for flashes

of lightening like light,

the calico cat sprang to alert.

leapt to the windowsill,

retreated under the bed,

then emerged and sprang to the

top of the bureau.

A low growl rumbled from

her belly-

a sound I never heard her make before.

Deep, rolling growl

sound radiating through fur

as she watched from

her patrol post

for the duration of the fireworks.

She became the cat in someone’s bedroom

in London,

on the first night of the Blitz.

She became the cat distracted from catching rats in the church

in Dresden,

as the planes rained down fire and boulders.

She became the cat cowering in the doorway

in Baghdad,

When the Americans bombed Saddam

back to his bunker.

All the cats

in all the arrowstruck, cannonstruck

cities down the centuries,

interrupted, startled,

terrified, growling deep,

feral, innocent,

instincts bristling.

Our House

Picture a building four stories high and miles long – seven wings. Four wings in a square with a central courtyard. Branching off the four wings, three more. A Wing through F Wing.

The Facebook Page for "Provincial House Transformation" posts this description:

“St. Joseph’s Provincial House, a 360,000 square foot building, was completed in 1965. The house was originally designed as the chapel and headquarters of the Daughters of Charity. Since then, the chapel has become a minor basilica dedicated to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and to where she has been laid to rest, St. Catherine’s Nursing Center leases an area of the house to provide nursing care and rehabilitation to lay people, and the Daughters of Charity elderly and infirmed sisters have moved in from Baltimore to live in the house (St. Vincent’s Care Center for nursing care, and Villa St. Michael for assisted living). In the meantime, the provincial house has remained the headquarters of the Daughters during the entire time.”

Here's a photo from the early '60s, when it was under construction:

At that time, one wing was for the seventy plus novices ( we call novices “seminary sisters”. Another  wing was for the seventy-plus postulants.In another wing were 60 plus retreat rooms for the sisters who came back for retreats in the summer.  In other wings lived the 40 plus semi-retired "Provincial House Sisters" and in another, the 5 sisters who ran the Province. 

To get more of an idea of how the uses of this enormous building have changed, I've drawn a few sketches. If you click on each, you will see the whole sketch, and can read the information.

Here it is in 1965:

Here's how it was in 1978, when I entered:

here it is today:

Here's how it will be in another two years:

I live in one small room on the second floor of "E Wing"  The noise of drills and hammers and asbestos removal and reconstruction is loud in most of the halls and wings.

This is a needed change, but it's still hard to live through.

New poem published today!

Here's the poem -  it appears in the Autumn 2011 edition of the Seminary Ridge Review:

Vineyard Stories


One son was invited and he said yes
and he did not come.
the other one said no
and regretted it
and came.
Was that the same son
who was killed by all those
tenant farmers?
Were those farmers
the ones
who worked all day
and got the same pay
as the ones who came
at the last horn’s blow?
Did all this happen
in the same vineyard
that glistens in the evening sun
where the lovely macramé of
green strings
reaches out
for the anchoring pole?
Grapes are heavy in the
September air.
Here is a place for
the liar and the rash.
Here is time to say no
and change your mind.
Here, also,
the jealous
and the killer.
Here, harvest.

Snow for Halloween

Yesterday, a "nor'easter" hit the east coast of the USA -  and well inland, too. We're four hours from the ocean, but it snowed all day here.  I was worried about snow weighing down the trees still filled with golden leaves, but here it was just warm enough for the snow to keep melting.  Our neighbors in Pennsylvania and further north fared much worse.

This is the earliest snow in my memory - apparently a record-breaker all around. 

On another topic, I am seven days into another "30 poems in 30 days" at ITWS ( Inside the Writers' Studio).I'm very happy to be joined in this round by several poets from previous rounds: John Vicks, Valerie Fox ( who alerted me and invited me to jump in), Annie Bien, Brenda Nixon, and a new voice, Sarah Munroe.  This website/listserv really helps me to keep writing daily.  I have also become close to these other poets - one can't help feeling close when one has read about 200 poems, and has had  200 poems of one's own read by them.  And commenting back and forth. 

New poem published today!

My poem "Diptych" went up today at the online poetry magazine Damselfly. There's even an MP3 file of me reading it.  Very exciting!

http://www.damselflypress.net/

 

Issue 17 Poetry

Diptych
Listen to the Poem
Her face came together between August and October
like two photos that fit better together than they did apart.
That first trimester of her life
the bones, mirror images, two ivory cups,
curled toward each other and joined
in the center of the forehead, nose, cleft of the chin
seamlessly and whole.
Like a diptych skull
Like cupped hands hinging toward each other.
- A native of West Chester, PA, Anne Higgins teaches English at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, Maryland. She is a member of the Daughters of Charity. She has ninety poems published in magazines, as well as five books of poetry published.

Another boot entirely

Two weeks ago, I fell down some steps on my way to my 11AM  Intro to Poetry class.  They were concrete interior stairs.  My backpack saved me; I had slipped and both feet went out from under me, but when I landed, the backpack hit the steps instead of my back or head! However, my left foot twisted under me... leaving me with an AVULSION FRACTURE. Never heard of it -  the doctor showed me on the xray.  Seems that this occurs when tendons or ligaments tear away from the bones, pulling pieces of the bone with them.  Yes, it hurt like the devil!  
However, it's not a broken bone ... so I have been outfitted with a walking boot from the Darth Vader Collection ( see photo). It's removable so I can shower and climb into bed. What a relief after the first three days
when it was splinted and I couldn't put any weight on it. 

Foot is still quite swollen and bruised , but not as painful.  I return to the orthopedic doc tomorrow for more xrays and another verdict...

It's Pouring

We're getting the remnants of Hurricane Lee; right now in buckets. Before the last hurricane, I bought myself a pair of glossy black rubber rain boots; travelling from my office to the classroom building to Patriot Hall ( the dining hall, named by a benefactor for those who died 9/11/01) is wading through many puddles.

  Today I brought my camera to record some of the bright and cheerful rainboots worn by many of the young women around campus. I'm so glad these have become stylish!  In my day, we wouldn't have been caught dead wearing them, and as a result we went around with ruined shoes and constant colds.

Hurricane Irene

She's coming soon.

It's raining here in Emmitsburg... more to come, and harder, and wind.

Not so bad a forecast, though, as Cape May...

Bear Gulch Road, Woodside California

Today in this humid, rainy August weather in the valley here in rural Maryland, I came across an entry from my journal from August 31, 2001. Just before that, I had been staying at our Provincial House in Los Altos Hills, California. I went out for a ride to see the Djerassie ( sp?) Artists' place not far from there, on Bear Gulch Road, in Woodside.

I never reached my destination; I became too afraid to drive any further on Bear Gulch Road. These photos, from Google images, don't begin to give a true image of it:

Bear Gulch Road - the size - narrow as a twin bed,
bolstered on the right by the mountain's shoulder,
on the left by a chasm broken by huge old redwoods.
I hugged my car to the right side...
what if some reckless and impatient California driver
came up behind me?
I saw myself rolling down into eternity,
into the embracing , unbending arms of redwood.

It's strange to me that I have not been afraid when I have flown in a helicopter; have really enjoyed the view...
But put me out in the open , anywhere near a precipice, and I fling myself to the ground and hug the ground,
so afraid I am that somehow I will fall.  Even in a car, that feeling persists.  Way back in 1973, my friend Mary Lou "Scotch" Kincaid and I took a camping trip across the United States. We began in West Chester and went northwest, all the way to Seattle, Vancouver Island, the Canadian Rockies, and back across Canada and into the US at Niagara Falls.  When we traversed Glacier National Park on Going to the Sun Highway, I had a terrific experience of fear of heights.  Here are some photos from Google images that give some indication - no guardrails on most of this road, which snakes along the edge of high mountains:

This road was much more frightening than Bear Gulch Road, when I see these photos and remember. In any case, I've also driven on California Route 1, from the Golden Gate Bridge all the way north to Mendocino, and remember that as another nightmare ride. As much as I love California, I don't think I could live there with those roads.  Within my adventurous inclinations there lurks a true fraidy-cat.

Recent Publications

My poem “The Least Terns” is up on the Miriam’s Well blog.

http://miriamswell.wordpress.com

And I just received word from Lalitamba that two of my poems, which they accepted in 2008, appear in their latest print publication.  Better late than never!

Here they are:

The Angel and the Gargoyle

I'm into God; I perch on stone pillars.

Spread golden light; spew rain water.

I wear a halo; I wear pigeon dung.

Deliver messages; spring and crouch.

Golden light like honey; dirt encrusts my cow face.

I accompany travelers; I guard the gates.

Kneel over graves; hunch over parapets.

Deliver death; terrify children.

Wings like hope; browns like shelving.

I'm always eighteen; no one asks.

My eyes lift to heaven; elbows on knees,

palms raised in praise ; chin gripped in talons.

Both of us brace, grace,

corners of garden,

walls of cathedral.

Angry Enough to Die

God found Jonah and asked him, "Have you reason to be angry?"

      "I have reason to be angry," Jonah answered God,

       "Angry enough to die."

My shady gourd plant is gone,

my cucumber, my castor,

under which I sheltered,

within which I heed.

Now I grope for the sky, that false mirror,

hot burning my skin,

skin cancer blossoming like a dandelion.

I have reason to be angry.

I have still not tasted

the flavor of my tears.

Still I mirror

Magritte's painting,

where the sand yellow leaf blossoms a watchful hawk,

though the leaf borer makes lace of his breast

so the grey sea gapes though it.

Angry enough to die.

I'll eat and drink till my heart chars.

Till that sunset burns clear through.

He is not speaking.

I lower my concrete mask

and listen.

Magician Stories

 

 

I am presently reading ( or, rather, listening to it on my iPod) Lev Grossman's novel  The Magicians. It's not the most interesting novel of its kind; the ideas are, but the prose is somewhat affected - that prissy irony which sometimes I sense in the attitude of the author. However, the plot has held me. I want to see what happens to Quentin and his peers. ( Later: after finishing the book, I just plain did not like it)

What is it about me, or about these books?  I read them voraciously.  I am drawn to them.

I am NOT drawn to the Twilight series, or to many other “magic” related books.  Just these.

It seems that one common thread is the theme of slipping into another world.  Passing through onto Platform 9 3/4… or passing from a weedy garden in Brooklyn into Breakbills… or through the back of a wardrobe into Narnia… or through the gates of an old graveyard …or using a special knife to create a small tear in the air… or the appearance of a very old book with a woodcut of a dragon…  something about these actions or images pulls me in.

Part of it is the quality of the writing. Part of it is my poet’s imagination. Part of it is being a dominant Intuitive.  But there’s a part I don’t understand at all. 

Here ‘s a poem I wrote when trying to express this attraction:

    Addiction

Oh Harry Potter,

how have you bewitched me

with your orphan story,

your unobtrusive self?

Your movie melody echoes in my dreams,

plays lightly right below my consciousness,                    

a lilting down up down

with xylophone

evoking magic.

Why do I love the halls of Hogwarts?

Shadowy and drafty,

watched over by the moving portraits,

deceived by the moving staircases?

Why do I love the moon on the lake,

the roots filling the floor

of the forbidden forest,

your incantations bringing light?

Give me some time with your loving owl!

Place her gently on my knee,

where I can stroke her wide white feathers

and gaze into her golden eyes.

Give  me time to dip my face

into the mercury syrup

of the Penseive,

to see my mother six years old,

whole, playing, undisturbed.

Poetry

T

“For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions ... they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning.”              

    —Rainer Maria Rilke

The other night, I had the pleasure of reading my poetry at the Ragged Edge Coffee House in Gettysburg. The little upstairs room was full of other poets; I followed an open reading period in which most of them shared a poem or two of their own, or a favorite from someone else. It was very  enjoyable. It’s heartening to find that there are colonies of poets in Gettysburg, Hanover, York, as well as in Frederick, Columbia, and Annapolis… not to mention Baltimore and Washington. 

The Art of Losing

Here is a poem by Elizabeth Bishop:

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.   Before: Zinnias in garden - August 2010 After: Holly trees uprooted,  plants removed - August 2011       "One Art" is one of my favorite poems; it’s by Elizabeth Bishop, who is one of my  favorite poets. I am not a good loser.  When I lose an object, I spend hours searching for it, and more hours searching for it in my mind.  Many times, my mind gives me a mental picture of the lost item in its location, but many times, it doesn’t.  It is very difficult for me to let go of the search for the lost item. About two weeks ago I lost the credit card sized ID card needed to gain access to many places in the large house where I live. I call this object my “flasher.”  My peers know this for another meaning and get a big laugh out of it when I say I need to get a new flasher.  Today I succumbed and went to the Security guy to get a new one.  But I have been searching for the old one for two weeks, expending untold energy on the search. Losing loved places, as Bishop says, is much harder. I still live in this place which is no longer the “PH” ( Provincial House) and is now to be called “Holy Family House.” How long it will take me to remember it by that name, I don’t know.  Losing the names of places is hard, too. I begrudge every tree that is lost to me, that is cut down by the grounds people both here and on the campus at the Mount. Today I mourn the loss of some of our old gardens on this property;the new grounds guy tells me they were old, worn out plantings, and the trees were diseased and had to go.  I myself feel like an old, worn out planting sometimes, too.  I know that my vocation is tied up with the qualities of availability and mobility, and in many ways I am highly mobile but not so available as I once was. I think about Elizabeth Seton, one of my favorite models, and how many places she lost, and worse, PEOPLE she lost, during her short life. Those losses cost her dearly, but made her focus on the one Person she would not lose.