I celebrated the standstill of time

The Last October Moon     painting  by Greg Cartmell




Another October poem, this one by Czeslaw Milosz:

"In the great silence of my favorite month,
October (the red of maples, the bronze of oaks,
A clear-yellow leaf here and there on birches),
I celebrated the standstill of time.

The vast country of the dead had its beginning everywhere:
At the turn of a tree-lined alley, across park lawns.
But I did not have to enter, I was not called yet.

Motorboats pulled up on the river bank, paths in pine needles.
It was getting dark early, no lights on the other side.

I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches.
A delegation would appear there in masks and wigs,
And dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living."




-   Czeslaw Milosz, All Hallow's Eve
    Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan  

 

day poorer yet,

from restless sleep I wake
early now to note

how the pale disk of moon
caves to its own defeat,

cold as yesterday’s fish
left over in the pan,

or miserly as a sliver
of dried soap in a dish.

Oh for a sparkling froth
of cloud, a little heat

from the sun! I shiver
at the window where I plant

one perfect moon-round breath,
as I liked to do as a girl

against the filthy glass
of the yellow school bus

laboring up the hill,
not thinking what I meant

but passionate, as if
I were kissing my own life.

 

I'm on a search

Have been in a sporadic email correspondence with someone I haven't seen or heard from in 50 years.

We only knew each other for two years back then, but he has appeared in dreams of mine many times.   It was a platonic relationship, but deeply meaningful to me.  It could not have been any way but what it was.

I know I wrote a poem that had something to do with it, but I can't find it.  The closest I can come is my poem " Were You There?"   which I wrote about 25 years ago... but when I looked at it as it appears in my 2007 volume Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky, the phrase I am looking for is not there.

So I've been searching through the back pages of the many journals I've kept, but still can't find it.
Sigh.

A Tongue of Flame

Here's an Autumn poem by Grace Paley:

Autumn by Grace Paley

 

1

 

What is sometimes called a   

   tongue of flame

or an arm extended burning   

   is only the long

red and orange branch of   

   a green maple

in early September   reaching

   into the greenest field

out of the green woods   at the

   edge of which the birch trees   

appear a little tattered   tired

   of sustaining delicacy

all through the hot summer   re-

   minding everyone (in   

our family) of a Russian

   song   a story

by Chekhov   or my father

 

 

2

 

What is sometimes called a   

   tongue of flame

or an arm extended   burning

   is only the long

red and orange branch of

   a green maple

in early September   reaching   

   into the greenest field

out of the green woods   at the   

   edge of which the birch trees

appear a little tattered   tired

   of sustaining delicacy

all through the hot summer   re-

   minding everyone (in   

our family) of a Russian

   song   a story by

Chekhov or my father on

   his own lawn   standing   

beside his own wood in

   the United States of   

America   saying (in Russian)

   this birch is a lovely

tree   but among the others

   somehow superficial

 

 

I live a small life

Here's a wonderfully unsettling poem by Lucia Perillo:


Say This

I live a small life, barely bigger than a speck,
barely more than a blip on the radar sweep
though it is not nothing, as the garter snake
climbs the rock rose shrub and the squirrel creeps
on bramble thorns.  Not nothing to the crows
who heckle from the crowns of the last light's trees
winterstripped of green, except for the holes
that ivy winds each hour round. See, the world is busy
and the world is quick, barely time for a spider
to suck the juice from a hawk moth's head
so it can use the moth as a spindle that it wraps in fiber
while the moth constricts until it's thin as a stick
you might think was nothing, a random bit
caught in a web coming loose from the window frame, in wind.

Lessons of Darkness

As the days grow shorter, and the dark hours lengthen, I don't feel everything he expresses, but I sure do feel some of it.

Here's a sad poem by Clive James:

Leçons De Ténèbres  ( Lessons of Darkness)

 By Clive James

 

But are they lessons, all these things I learn

 Through being so far gone in my decline?

 The wages of experience I earn

 Would service well a younger life than mine.

 I should have been more kind. It is my fate

 To find this out, but find it out too late.

 

The mirror holds the ruins of my face

 Roughly together, thus reminding me

 I should have played it straight in every case,

 Not just when forced to. Far too casually

 I broke faith when it suited me, and here

 I am alone, and now the end is near.

 

All of my life I put my labour first.

 I made my mark, but left no time between

 The things achieved, so, at my heedless worst,

 With no life, there was nothing I could mean.

 But now I have slowed down. I breathe the air

 As if there were not much more of it there

 

And write these poems, which are funeral songs

 That have been taught to me by vanished time:

 Not only to enumerate my wrongs

 But to pay homage to the late sublime

 That comes with seeing how the years have brought

 A fitting end, if not the one I sought.

 

Moon-Breath

Another wonderful October poem, this one by Mary Jo Salter:

Moon-Breath     by Mary Jo Salter

 

Dark mornings staying dark

 longer, another autumn

 

come, and the body one

 day poorer yet,

 

from restless sleep I wake

 early now to note

 

how the pale disk of moon

 caves to its own defeat,

 

cold as yesterday’s fish

 left over in the pan,

 

or miserly as a sliver

 of dried soap in a dish.

 

Oh for a sparkling froth

 of cloud, a little heat

 

from the sun! I shiver

 at the window where I plant

 

one perfect moon-round breath,

 as I liked to do as a girl

 

against the filthy glass

 of the yellow school bus

 

laboring up the hill,

 not thinking what I meant

 

but passionate, as if

 I were kissing my own life.

 

 

 

 

Reading Kate Atkinson

Several years ago, I read and loved her novel  Life After Life. 

Very recently, I finished reading her first book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

Now, I am in the early pages of  A God in Ruins.

She's a beautiful writer.  She's also witty and bitingly honest in her portrayal of her characters.

She's very quotable, too.    This, for instance:

 

“Moments left, Teddy thought. A handful of heartbeats. That was what life was. A heartbeat followed by a heartbeat. A breath followed by a breath. One moment followed by another moment and then there was a last moment. Life was as fragile as a bird’s heartbeat, fleeting as the bluebells in the wood. It didn’t matter, he realized, he didn’t mind, he was going where millions had gone before and where millions would follow after. He shared his fate with the many. And now. This moment. This moment was infinite. He was part of the infinite. The tree and the rock and the water. The rising of the sun and the running of the deer. Now. ”
― Kate Atkinson, A God in Ruins

I hope to have more to say about her work.

A Beckoning

Here's a haunting poem by Brian Jones, which I recently stumbled across:

A beckoning
by the circle of the seven,
move closer to us.
They call to me.
They are colored of the raven
but do not shimmer thus.

A beckoning.
The tight hooded figures, changeless,
sit cross-legged, knee to knee,
backs ever so slightly hunched.
Directional stares are bunched
and piled up in a heap,
all eyes the center, though faceless.
They call to me.

I sit on the outside looking in
with a countenance dark, as sin.

The circle bigger 'round
I'm on the inside looking down.

They called to me,
to join the circle of silence.
Now my knees join their knees,
eyes become filled at the touch.
We eight, we do suffer much.
The passersby don't see
that with sorrow steeped in timelessness,
they beckoned me.

You who look at us
steer towards safer havens,
not knowing, we call to thee.
You move swiftly by our crux,
not hearing, by gift of heaven,
the beckoning.

-----------
Copyright 1996

written 20 December 1994
Inspired by untitled work (1987) by Dominique Blain
on display at the L.A. County Museum of Modern Art

Watching "Network" in 2018

I had never seen the film "Network" but someone spoke of it in a recent article ( don't remember where) and it caught my eye. 

So I rented it from iTunes and watched it. 

It was made in 1976, but it still has relevance today . Back in 1976, we could never have imagined the power of social media and reality tv and the computer and the internet.  This film is prophetic.

The acting is great, too.

Monarchs and Hurricanes

Hurricane Florence is lingering over North and South Carolina, dumping destructive flooding rains.

That's what's going on now.

As for me, I am rejoicing that those caterpillars have gone to chrysalis mode and some have emerged:

August 23

 

 

August 27

 

 

 

As for me,  I have been back teaching since August 20 - almost a month!  I am teaching "Introduction to Poetry"  and "Women of Faith"  this semester.  I told them I no longer wanted to teach the Freshman Comp course. After 19 years, I don't have the energy, and this present generation demands much more energy to keep them engaged.  So I feel somewhat liberated in not teaching them this time around.

 

And I have finally written some new poems and revised some old ones.  And tonight I sent out poems to three places.

 

Fennel and Calendula

 

 

 

Caterpillars!

I am very excited to report that the Monarch butterflies have favored the Milkweed plants in my garden with caterpillars!

Within the next ten days, these guys will crawl away to a hidden spot and become chrysalises, and ten days more, and they will be new Monarch Butterflies. 

I planted these Milkweeds for just this purpose, and it's happening!

Pollen

I have assembled a pollinator garden! I have filled  previously bare mulched quadrants with mostly perennial flowers that attract pollinators.

All winter I browse the Internet and learn more about Native Plants,  Plants for Full Sun,  Butterflies,
Hummingbirds, etc.  Then, in the Spring, I buy some new  plants to add to the old ones just coming up,

This is its third year. The perennials have established themselves.  Not only that, it has rained more than anyone wanted, except those plants.

As a result,  here are some of the plants that make the bees very happy:

native phlox and calendula (an annual , from seed!)

 

 

Cherry Bells, Anise Hyssop, Perennial Sage, Crocosima

 

 

Yarrow

 

 

 

Lantana

 

 

 

As a result, the pollinators are happy.  I am now  miserable with early onset hay fever!

The Summer Garden

Taken last week, this photo shows an overview of the courtyard garden.

 

Perennials!  Verbena, Swamp Milkweed, Coreopsis, Russian Sage, Liatris

 

Anise Hyssop, Gladiolas

 

Oriental Lilies, Phlox, Coneflowers

 

 

Cardinal Flower, Phlox, Shasta Daisies, Liatris, Catmint, Asters

 

 

 

Farewell, Donald Hall

Donald Hall died recently -  another one of that wonderful generation of poets who include Richard Wilbur and Anthony Hecht.

Here is one of his poems:


Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

Donald Hall

Back in the USA

I had a marvelous almost four weeks in Paris!

I posted a photo each day on Facebook. Here are some of them:

I did make it to the Musee d'Orsay:

on March 1, I went to the church of Saint Sulpice, to the Sainte Chapelle, and to the Pompidou Center.  I loved this painting in the Pompidou Center:

 

I feel a poem will come from that one.

 

On March 2, I slept quite a long time, recovering from the intense touring/walking of the previous two days.   But I did visit the Bon Marche, which is literally next door to the Motherhouse. Outrageously expensive, but a gorgeous department store.

 

 

and the bread department!

 

too much to put in one post.  More tomorrow, I hope.

 

 

Catching Up #4

I am not sure if I will be able to post on this blog while I'm in Paris; all I will have is my iPhone.

During the days when I am not in the silent retreat ( March 7-15), I will be touring.

I have been pouring over Rick Steve's Paris:

and among other places, these are some I am aiming to visit:

Musee d'Orsay, the Impressionists museum

L'Orangerie,  home of Monet's waterlilies

The Pompidou Center, the contemporary art museum

La Sainte-Chapelle, for the stained glass

the church of Saint Sulpice, hopefully, for an organ concert

and then, just for fun,

the flower and bird market. Maybe I'll be able to bring home a birdhouse.

Catching up #3

Here is where I will be in Paris, this time tomorrow!   It's the street entrance to the Motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity, at 140 rue du bac.

The chapel is open to the public: it's the place where the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Catherine Laboure in 1830, and where Catherine received the design for the Miraculous Medal:

I'll be praying here .

Here's a view of the Motherhouse, behind the chapel - not open to the public:

Catching Up #2

I am using this neat "app" called Duo Lingo to brush up on my French!   I studied French for five years, but that was fifty years ago!   This very interactive app is game-like and fun, and I am stumbling and occasionally sailing through it. Why am I doing this?

I am not teaching this semester; my one class was cancelled due to no enrollment! It was a section of Modernity, and it was scheduled from 2-3:15 T-Th. Other years I have taught it from 11-12:15, and it was always full to overflowing. The other afternoon session was cancelled too. Apparently the seniors who needed to take it got there first to register, and the juniors decided to wait until the fall. Athletes can’t do those afternoon sections… who knows? ( I will be back in the Fall, teaching two courses) Adjuncts don’t get sabbaticals, even though I’ve been teaching at the Mount for 18 years.

 But I am glad for this one. The cancelled class has turned out to be providential for me. For several years the community has invited me to make the annual International Retreat, but they ask so late that I had always already committed myself to teaching. Not so this time around! I’m taking extra time there, too, before and after the eight day silent retreat, which runs from March 7-15. The Motherhouse in Paris is at 140 Rue du Bac, around the corner from le Bonne Marche. It’s a huge old complex; once the chateau sized mansion of some aristocrat, after the Revolution, the Daughters moved in in 1810. So I plan to see the museums and neighborhoods of Paris, and do some writing as well. I hope to post some notes about this trip on either my blog or here.

So I have been working on DuoLingo pretty religiously.  I'll be staying at our Motherhouse.  People have told me "Don't worry: everybody over there speaks English!"  I reply:  "Not the French Daughters of Charity who live at our Motherhouse!"

Catching Up #1

On January 6 and January 13, I spent 8 hours each time in training to be a tutor with the Literacy Council of Frederick County, Maryland. Here is the photo of all the new tutors.  Now I am certified to teach someone how to read, and also to work with someone who is learning English as a second language.  The training and trainers were excellent; however, I know I need a good deal more practice before I am any good at it.  

I won't be able to start tutoring until April, though.  Other things have happened!