Points of No Return

Kismit; synchronicity; fate; luck; puzzle pieces falling into place; happy coincidence. This is my day of happy coincidence.

I woke this morning from a dream; a dream that I was still working at the Temple; searching through a stack of papers to find some detail for Beth; going to the sanctuary to make sure the candles were in place; then to an auditorium and outside in the courtyard, a statue and in front of the statue Sara, as a girl of ten or eleven, with her friend, Beth, taking turns at performing cartwheels; their limber backs, long arms, stretched and easy with life, no future but the promise of anything they might imagine; sunlight on the grass and strands of Sara's sunstreaked hair winking with the light, swinging around her cheek as she landed hard on the ground in an imperfect cartwheel, smiling. She is undisturbed by her imperfection. Then I was back inside and Charles asks why I am in the building and I realize I don't have the keys anymore, that I'd turned them in, and a woman was just leaving my office and before the door shut, I slipped inside to get the piece of paper and left it on Doreen's desk and woke wondering what I've left undone.

Stretching in my sheets and wondering what day is this? Is it a work day? Where am I to be? The muddled mind of a few extra days off trying to organize my orbit. Slowly realizing, I belonged no where. No one anywhere was waiting for me; waiting for me to show up, to call, to clean up, to even get up. This was the start of my day; a dream of a place I don't belong and will not return and a dream of Sara to a time that she cannot return. The steps we take, tapping along the walk, not even aware of the door slowly closing behind us.

At the end of my day, I was driving home with Sally and as I passed the intersection at Cape St. Clair, a small car merged behind mine, turned into my neighborhood, turned down my street, all the way down, allowing me the space to pull up a bit and then back into my parking space. Dylan, smiling his same smile that to me is just as the smile he has had since a toddler, generous and genuine. He'd been driving to his father's house but at the intersection, he saw a red Prius and realized it was me and followed me home. Dylan has a new guitar, a Les Paul Gibson, beautiful and suited so well to him. He followed me and showed it to me and said he'd spent two hours playing it and it was so beautiful that he thought he might cry. That is who he is now; a musician. My son is a musician who has played long enough and has had music throughout his life, such that he'd spend all his savings so he might make a beautiful sound. He will never be without music, without his fingers plumbing notes out of the dark. Sara will never be without her friends, even the ones who are gone like Beth.

There are moments in our lives that are informing our future from which we are blinded in our blurry life. And in the background, maybe in our peripheral vision and just at the zenith of our hearing, the door softly clicks, closed.

In the Stacks

Well beyond her reach
on the highest rack, Cordelia
searches the stacks.

Rare manuscript, not for the gilded
page, the gold embossed leather title
like royalty. Blind, her fingers

know the skin, rubbed and oiled,
trace the crease of the elbow
where the binding forms the spine.

He is here, in the stacks, in the
yellowed pages, caught in the maelstrom,
undone, well beyond her
reach.

Solitary Second

The road under her feet,
her ally; road grit, shin splint
sorcerer. The solitary champion,running
against her shadow,her heart beat,

leaping the felled log, cutting
the corner close, branch braising
her hip, leaving a lover's blush
against her hip.

As on the court, her back-
hand stronger than straight on, left-
handed inconsistency flying
over the fence or

right at you. Duck and cover,
play the net, go for the long
shot. He passes near, running close
to the tree line, ahead and

behind the blind. His courage wrapped
in the knot of terror snaking
along his satorious. Blazing
impoverished trails to Atlantis

never arriving, fishtailing into
the drift, collision muffled by enjamb-
ment. She traced his trajectory,
gathered bark, created salves,

massaged, grew titanium thin, perfected
her forehand, still left-handed, ill-
suited for partners playing, returning
to the grit beneath her sole, running solo.

Everyone just wants to be . . .

happy. Right?

We think we know what makes us happy:
- a new car, an expensive new car, with a moon roof so we can always see the moon. (Well not always. Sometimes the moon isn't visible. We are already wasting our happy.)

- losing eight pounds. (Unless you are underweight and then you would want to gain, but the point is that somehow your body comes in sync with that perfect vision of your body. For many women that might be Angelina Jolie or Charlize Theron, but for someone who always longed to raise her leg in a perfect arabesque, like me, my perfect body would be the body of Suzanne Farrell, with fabulous turnout, great feet, doe-like eyes, a long neck.)

- landing your dream job with a private office, a key to the executive suite, a private plane at your disposal, minions. (Except that for me my dream job would include horse stables converted into writing kiosks for writers visiting my writers' refuge and the doors would be unlocked and my dog would have run of the house and the grounds and I might go months without using or thinking of the word "executive.")

- winning the lottery. Yes, that one might enable me to achieve the Demeter's Den dream, but would it come with publicity and difficult decisions regarding who to help and how and resentments when I said, "No." So winning the lottery would not make me happy.

This morning, I was happy. Why was I happy? What happened? What amazing windfall did I experience that I stood in utter joy, in the moment, glad to be alive?

I "had to" walk the dog before I went to work. It was cold this morning, 28 degrees with a light snow and just enough wind to cut right through my skirt and leggings cold. I grab a plastic bag to pick up Sally's droppings. I wrap my scarf over my head like a hat, put on my coat and zip it so I can turtle my chin into it, and pull on gloves. I put the leash on Sally and she tugs me down the front steps. As soon as we reach the grass across the street, Sally halts; her nose twitching, her ears like signal receptors on full alert. She jerks towards the woods, her nose mapping the ground. Insistently, her paws clawing the earth and pulling as if I were a barge she had to bare.

"No. Stop Sally." I pull hard on the leash. "We go this way." I try to lead her up the hill, to our little bluff where she quite efficiently "gets busy" for me in the mornings so I am not late to the office. Sally is a good girl. She does stop. She does turn. She starts toward me and seems as if she will walk up that hill. But her nose hits the ground and she turns and leaps back toward the wood, toward the small hill that goes down and around behind the last townhouse, where the woods are deep and a muddy artery runs through the base of that gully. I stand still.

"Sally." She does not turn toward me but her right ear flicks in my direction in recognition. "Sally," I command with all the sternness I can muster. She turns her head, appeals to me with her eyes, gives a small whimper, and returns immediately to her watch. Sally has important business. Sally knows why she is here. Intent, focused, all her senses engaged, she is truly here. I don't think I should resist that. So I follow her lead. My shoes slip a bit on the muddy silk and we go toward the gully, round the bend, reach a crest. The air is sharp with snow; my lungs braced with cold, my heart happy.

Sally stills. Her posture very solid, her tail raised. I follow her line of sight; between the brown tree trunks, the fall leaves, a rack of a buck, then the majestic chest and shoulders, frozen cadence of a stilled buck comes together, like the fragmented moments of our lives that end up telling the real story come together. Once you can get paste the bracken, your sight is clear and you wonder how you hadn't seen it earlier. I can see the buck. I see the buck see me. We are looking at one another. We stand and breathe and look and I am full of the recognition of something I don't need to understand. Three seconds at best, but the reach is much longer. Sally's softest whimper sends the buck fleeing for shelter, the heavier blanket of deeper woods.

"Good girl, Sally." I rub the hair soft as pudding behind her ear. "Good girl. Thank you, Sally." And for moment, I feel like Suzanne Farrell knowing I'd turned out of my routine, had sure footing, and at least, for a moment, a buck had looked into my eyes. I was happy.

I am happy. This is that nature of happy. Creating, writing, looking at the world, engaging, slurping it up; this is my definition of being happy.

Destination

No one comes here to lose.
We don't show up to fail, to be
alone and lost.

And the most selfish action is
to create, to build, to embrace,
to persist and succeed.

Never doubt the strength that selfishness can wield.

Why I left....

What is this place of dispossession? No.
No is the place.
There is only one way in
and one way out. So go,
go as deep, walk as far,
scratch as hard as you can.
Your nails succumb
and still dig.

Stop at nothing. Don't stay
outside. Slip undetected;
shadow behind the homeowner. Grab
the door handle at the moment
before the lock
locks;
knock; smile;
smile; ask.

If the door closes, find the
worm hole, the chink; find the
way inside.

It is dark inside. Air
rank. Breathe. Souring
from the inside out.
Let the dark settle, gather;
gather in the dark;
suffocate a little; feel
the drowning;
let consciousness beige your brain.

Sleep. Do not open the door.
The door is as solid as when
you arrived.
Gather in the dark.
Hold a pillow over your mouth.
Wait.
Wait in the dark,
in the silence.
Gather the dark,

the quiet, the
steel. Then
shimmer.

Kendra Kopelke and Steve Matanle

Readings are inspiring. Tonight, Kendra and Steve (I actually get to call them that if I want) read at the University of Baltimore. Awesome. No. Quieter than that. humbling; not the work - which is rich, generous, not their presence and rich voices, but the resilience, the showing up. That awes me.

I am always uncomfortable in their presence like an add-on guest, stepchild, chipped glass at the table, smeared lipstick (I think they will be surprised). It's okay. I show up anyway. I'm practiced.

I challenge myself: Can I find a place to put it down, a vehicle for the writing, the work, the tencity that Steve and Kendra possess.
____________________________________________________________________

If you ever did believe

It is 12:03 AM. My daughter and I just got off the phone. This is my litmus, my balance, my gravity, my solid center. Tonight was not a very special night but it was one of those nights that no matter how old she grows to be, she will recall. She will know I was in her corner, listening, sharing, loving. This night in my life will matter. This is important.

Two writers, who also happen to be instructors of mine at the University of Baltimore read tonight - poetry. Brave, raw, new work; they have yet to render or polish or rethink or craft. They put their early work out for the students to listen, learn. That is how generous they are as instructors, as artists. My daughter, Sara went with me; no one else has heard as much of my raw work as she; no one has stood as solidly in my corner as she; no one knows all the dark and all the bright in equal measure as much. And she knows she is made of some of the same fuselage: It burns brighter in her though and gets better mileage.

I got to Sara's apartment, third floor walkup on North Calvert, guided by the Christmas lights she had hung on her balcony and divine providence had granted me parking just a half block away. I phoned from the vestibule, "You're 3F, right?" "Yes." And she buzzed me in, but I was thinking of the next time, when I can push 3F and lean and say, "Hi, this is Carlton, your doorman." and listen to her peel of laughter as the buzzer buzzes to grant me admittance.

We share a glass of wine and see her holiday decorations, how she has broken the room into functionality and social interaction. She is a master of space. If there were a crown for that, Sara would win every time.

Then she goes with me, to my place, to the space where my work and life thrives: we go to the reading at UofB of the professors I most admire for both the way they teach and for what they write. I want to be as honest as they are; I want to move the world the way they do; I want to be able to say what I see as they do.

After, we return to Sara's latest haven. She is on a path and I do not see the end. She makes me salad with chicken and ginger sesame dressing. "You have to eat something if you are drinking wine," she says. Yes.

She sits on her small couch with me, and we unveil the day and our lives.

She is so alive in this space; her balcony, the moon to the right, the stars all above, her smiling leaning over the railing waving. In her living room with ceilings twice again her height, with a bricked up fireplace, with wood floors thick with paint, with art hangings about her and her smile and dropped right shoulder as she tells me a story of her father, and I tell her of the day she took her first steps between the two of us and of our celebration and there she was, connecting everything. And then she pulls out an album and in it, a photo of me; young, young. Maybe two, three. Walking. Balancing. She had snagged it, my childhood. Precious to me, but more precious to think it was precious to her. "I show this album to my friends. I say, that's my mom." and how I don't overflow with tears is a sign of the shield we build. "Yes." I say. I mean "Thank you."

We talk on a bit but all the ride home, I carry that photo and that thought in my mind. I marry it to the memory of her peel of laughter, unchanged since she was two.

If not you

We are so powerful. Immensely strong.
Responsible. We know what is right, almost
every time.

I was at Barnes and Noble today picking out a special card. A few feet from me, a large man, khaki jacket, jeans, hair curling over his collar, two days beard on his face, sat with a book in his lap, his beefy hand at his brow shading his face, seemingly intent on reading. Except he was not reading; he was crying.

How could I be certain? Was he crying? This large man, slumping in the reading chair, an open book on his right thigh, is whimpering, his chin trembling. The card in my hand is a photo of friends leaping from a cliff into water. I glance again, at the book in his lap, at the tilt of his fingers veiling his eyes. I focus on the card rack, open the card, "I'm here with you. Leap."

I want to buy the card. I want to say something to the stranger in the chair. I want to see the title of the book. I want to put my hand on his shoulder. I put the card back in the rack. New Fiction is just to my left: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Breakable You, Trespass, One Mississippi. I step back to the blank journals, plain covers, sunflower covers, leather bindings. He is still in the chair. His hand is still at his brow. His chin is quiet. I move to the back of the store, far from the stranger in the chair.

"Getting and spending
we lay waste our power..."

It is our responsibility to care for and protect every single living being. I shirked that responsibility. Did I?

Infinite power. What if the stranger had been a child? I would not have hesitated. But we are all children. We are all frightened children and we cannot afford to be so. Everything and everyone is counting on us; to take care, to evolve, to leap together.

I went back to get the card, to touch the man in the chair. He was gone.

Change Everything

In your dreams, you see her
Tall, broad brow, narrow chin
Strong shoulders, square teeth,
The names of international leaders
tripping off her tongue.

Straight to the college
her Daddy graduated, finished
in three and half, played the cello
and once sang in the opera. Somewhere
in her lineage is a member of the DAR.

Graduate school at 22. Ph.D.
at 25. During the summers,
she volunteered at the therapeutic
riding camp, fed Biafra, saved
the whales, saw a dermatologist.

But you are cut from thinner cloth,
a world of untidy lineage, of a
firm grip, narrow, slipping
unnoticed behind the chair, feasting
on the image of his
hand holding her elbow.

I don't want to be in love!

It's not that there are not men. There are always men, right? Just as there are always women.



Available, interesting, attending, listening attentively, nodding, smiling, practically fawning.

Because we are all alone. We are not alone. But we are alone. When it matters; in that small moment when you set your jaw, when you turn away with burning eyes, when the center of your chest cracks; we are alone.

Are you available?
For what?



Rubbish. What is the point if the potential is not there? Why bother?

I understand, the desire, though, to not dive so deep, to tread water. Isn't that what the recently abandoned, abused, forlorn, do? And while they are treading, they hold onto a bit of drift wood, just to get through, just to keep from going under again. Meanwhile, the drift wood grows saturated, heavy, weak, less buoyant. There is no where to go but under.

His Heart

Some adults, if they are lucky, overcome whatever losses they suffered early; the childhood horrors large and small. My children have been my gravity belt; they hold my center; not in a way that I must hold onto them; but rather through the tenuous utter faith that we love one another and are in this life together, come what may. Gravity/grave. Is it a grave responsibility? I don't think so. I think I am their gravity too. And if I go with what Sara said, I'm also the lighthouse.

This poem is not about me. It about a father and his daughter. She's part of his gravity.

His Heart

Impecunious planet,
Denied a moon,
Erratic orbit.

Orbited by
A sanguineous heart,
Bereft of center.

In this inimical atmosphere,
A barefoot warrior
Wings through his heart.

Julia plants
Gardens of tulip
Rose trees and

Full leafed trees
Birds, butterflies,
Over his navicular.

Lassoing the heart,
She tethers
Precious gravity.

Jm oct 28 2007

Sweets

Ducking the saffron stars
landscaping hyacinth skies,
we trail urchin footprints
disappearing in the new night.
Dew of last October, a waning
moon setting early and
shadows like pewter bamboo
strands falling into a low river.

We trail singed pumpkin smoke,
sighting witches snagged in
the old oak branches, river winds
scrambling their cries. We
trail the ladybug, the witch, the
butterfly, the sugar maple leaves
skittering like rats at our feet.
Asphalt diamond and grape soda

Pooling at our feet, spells lifting
strands of hair at the back of
our necks and at every door, a
sweet hospitality and we
flee, seeking the next.

Word choice

Recently I told a friend that I'd written a new poem and the very first phrase was "Impecunious planet". He asked, "Why would you start with a word no one knows?"

He has a point. If a writer wants their work to be something any one can enter easily, slip into like a McDonalds, into the familiar, nutritionally weak but filling substance, then any word would do. The word "impoverished" would work just as well. Except that in poetry, sound matters. One might ask, "Why did Mozart use so many notes?"

The answer: My poem would not be served by the soothing "sh" and the forgiving "r" in the word "impoverished." My poem stands solidly due to the harshness of the hard "c" and the sibulent "s" sounds in "impecunious." And what risk? A reader may like the sound and not truly know the word but if they read on, the meaning may become clear or they may seek the answer by finding the word in the dictionary and saving another word from extinction. But that is not why I choose the word. I choose it as a chef chooses the right spice and a musician the right chord and a painter the right color; because it is the word that must be used; it is correct.

Todays word, delivered by word of the day, arrives just in time as I need it for what I will write later today, perhaps tonight. I think I knew this word before but I've fallen out of using it. But I am fortunate that I am reminded and just in the nick of time.

peripeteia \pair-uh-puh-TEE-uh\ noun
: a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation
especially in a literary work

Example sentence:
In the last act of the play, the king's decision to avenge his brother
leads to a peripeteia that leaves him bereft of his throne and his family.

Did you know?
"Peripeteia" comes from Greek, in which the verb “peripiptein” means
"to fall around" or "to change suddenly." It usually indicates a turning point
in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. In his
Poetics, Aristotle describes peripeteia as the shift of the tragic protagonist's fortune from good to bad--a shift that is essential to the plot of a tragedy. The term is also occasionally used of a similar change in actual affairs. For example, in a June 7, 2006 article in _The New York Times_, Michael Cooper described William Weld’s second term as Massachusetts’ governor as
“political peripeteia”: it “began with a landslide victory and ended with
frustrated hopes and his resignation.”

Invocation

Here is the silky slip of hair
between my fingertips; Julia
whittling my waist with her legs
to see the Lincoln Memorial,

Her sucker sweet cheek near my face
and our breathes brushed back by the
chill autumn air. Here is the easy
hand up, Julia's cartwheel on the marble
wall, Francesca's visage in the
reflecting pond. She is

water and sky and the crimson,
amber, cinnamon tinted leaves and her
eyes level, spot on.
Her chin is true north.
All the porcelain of my life is
pulling together. All my joy is gathering
swept up in this vortex; surely
happiness and forgiveness will follow
for the remainder of our lives.

Niceties

Isis stood on one side of the chair with the razor clutched cleaver fashion. The niceties of razor-handling had passed over her head. The thing with her was to hold the razor -- sufficient in itself.

Mercury

Remember, mercury is in retrograde;
our past is often revisited
made evident at this time.

Or maybe I just notice
because I know mercury is in
retrograde
and it really happens that the past is always present in the
present and in the future,
just as TS Eliot suggested.

A Winter's Tale

a quote from the Shakespeare play:

HERMIONE
Sir,
You speak a language that I understand not:
My life stands in the level of your dreams,
Which I'll lay down.

Enough Said

New Friend

I made a new friend recently. Her name is Stella.

My dog, Sally, was not too fond of this idea at first but she has warmed up to Stella. The whole process reminded me of the old story about when a couple has a second child. The couple brings home the "new" baby and says to the other child (who was just moments before the only baby), "Look at this wonderful, amazing, beautiful baby who is now your baby brother/sister." The older child is usually not so enthusiastic about this development. The explanation I heard regarding the child's reaction was: "Suppose your boyfriend/husband came in the door with a younger, perfect woman who had never disappointed them and asked you to be happy about this." Ahhh. It all made sense. This is why older children sometimes try to smother the new baby and why dogs are not always as welcoming of a new dog.

Yet, once Sally realized that not only do I possess enough affection for both, but that Stella turned out to be quite an entertainment, she became fairly happy about the development.

So, meet Stella. She doesn't have Sally's energy or Sally's long limbed grace, but I am confident that you can see she has something charming.

Missed Connections

My friend Dave sent me to Craigslist this morning thinking that one of the "missed connections" may have been directed at me. My only familiarity with this aspect of Craigslist was via my friend, Heather, who once upon a time made contact with someone via this feature.

It sounds like an intriguing and simple and altogether delightful way to let someone know that you noticed them and give them the opportunity to respond if they wish. However, as I was reading some of the postings I discovered that something more was happening.

One post was full of such despair that I wished to find the person, give them a hug, a pat on the back, reassure them that all would be well and the sun would shine on them again. I was surprised at the intimate disclosures that would only be known by someone whom the writer knew. This very public forum was a way of reaching across the abyss of loss, of broken communications (thus the name "missed connections") took on deeper meaning.

Here is a string of posts I found particularly tender:
i had to.

Reply to:
Date: 2007-10-13, 11:35PM EDT
I'm sorry i had to leave. I know you understand. It was all just too much for me. I wish i'd been able to spend more time with you, to feel your arms around me for one last time, but it only would have made my decision even harder. I love you. I never told you, but i felt it every day. i still do. I hope you understand, i had to...

re: i had to.
Reply to: Date: 2007-10-15, 3:54PM EDT
it's ok. i know you did. doesn't make it any easier, though. i feel the same way you do. i hope you know that.

RE: i had to. (more info?)
Reply to:
Date: 2007-10-15, 4:41PM EDT
Can you give any clues re who you're posting this for? male? female? age? first initial?

If by some chance it is for me: I do understand why you left, but I'm more ready now. I've made room. Give things another try? If it is for me: you know I've been asking you to come back to my life. Think it over. And if not for romance, then as my friend.
More likely: it is not for me. Was soon for the L-word. But sometimes love is surprising like that.

I realized that any number of us may read this post and wonder if we are not the intended recipient of the posting. If not right now, then perhaps a while ago. If I go back to last year, would I discover some secret communication that I had missed because I didn't know this venue was out there, as big as a billboard and yet as easy to miss as a penny we've tossed into a wishing fountain.

I am sad for i had to and sad for the one responding. With all the ways we can touch one another's lives, why can't we stay connected? Why can't we speak the words that are most difficult. Why does the L-word make its appearance on a bulletin board instead of our lips?

BTW, I was not the subject of the post my friend thought might be meant for me.

Oh Henry!

So I've been back to the Renaissance Festival (I haven't been in several years). And what is the thrill moment? Maryland's State sport, of course, the joust!

And what is even more unimaginable to me is that my favored knight from years ago is there once more.
He is valiant, true, and victorious. Well, I assume he is victorious, because I leave well before the end and the local papers have not published the results of this contest so it is left to my imagination.

AT this particular Renn Fest, the year is 1540. The season of mourning for his late, beloved Queen Jane has passed, and now King Henry awaits the arrival of Anna, princess of Cleves. Anna, the woman who will become Queen of England and Henry's fourth wife.

Ever the romantic, Henry must marry for love, even if the alliance is political. He has been captivated by Anna's portrait and reports of her charm, beauty and talents.

The King, his Courtiers, and Councellors are in Revel Grove, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Anna. Will this first face to face meeting spark the passion of love as Henry fervently believes? And what will Anna think of Henry?

How can women be so deceived? Remember, it is 1540 and very few of them believed they had options.

So I took a quiz to see which of Henry's wives I am most like. I can't say I'm disappointed with the results. :

>>



Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?

Well, she did manage to remain Henry's wife for 24 years. Till the end of her life Catherine of Aragon would refer to herself as Henry's only lawfully wedded wife and England's only rightful queen consort; her faithful servants continued to address her by that title. Catherine has long had her admirers for the bravery and courage she displayed in contesting her divorce and fighting for her daughter's rights. She became a symbolic representation of the wronged woman. I guess you could say that the similarities speak for themselves.

What confounds me

"For those who are walled up, everything is a wall . . .
even an open door."
French poet, René Char

You Know Everything

Karen London died today. Karen left this place. And my life seems such a sham.

This is no pity party for me. This is not self-punishment in hopes of some redemption. It is just that when life/death stands right up to you, challenges you, deserts you, places the lump in your breast, the lump in your throat, the speeding train, the crash position on the airplane; you know. You know everything.

Every frivolous breath, every protective posture, every missed chance to speak true. You know and you can't close your eyes because it is within you now.

So all your falsehoods are laid at your feet. This is not the work I am supposed to be doing. This is not the man I love. This is not the right house for me to make art. This music on the radio, this snippet of conversation, this gossip at my feet, is fetid, rotting, unworthy.

And all that is worthy of attention, time, breath, step, and reach is that which is folded in grace.

Karen is gone but the love, of her husband, her children, her work, her friends was so true and so absolute that they will always possess it. Karen died today but nothing died, nothing passed away. Nothing at all.

The other side of the world

A few weeks ago, working on a new book, a handmade book based on Chinese cookie fortunes; well that is not what the book was based on, it was a part of the "trusting the random" process to use fortune cookie fortunes to make up the content (this would eventually be eliminated as the good idea). The book was a gift for Sara's birthday, a treasure of all the words, messages, that might inspire her, hold her, shake her, comfort her, for the next year.

Measuring and precision cutting of book board, measured folding along the creases of the bone folder, colorful marble end papers on a slat of deep pewter, all for my sunshine girl, Sarasita. Everything in place but the content.

So I dive into the trove of cookies of fortune. Crack open the first, nibble on the crisp sweet almond husk and read the first prophetic words, "Practice makes perfect."

Seriously. Come on. I studied classical ballet; fifth position - tendue - fifth - tendue second, close back, tendue dégagé , close back, relevé , turn, repeat on the other side, relevé , balance, hold, hold, hold, hold. . . .

I know practice. Sara studied too. We know practice, balance, the focus on the spot on the wall that does not move, breathing, the energies in your body reaching in opposition. We have spent years at it.

So the cosmic forces were mocking me in my little book effort? No. There must be something more. I dig deep into the brown sack and pull out another cookie, split it and the pieces tumble onto the table.

"Practice makes perfect."

Okay. There are times when it is best to just listen. Practice. Practice listening. Practice patience. Practice life. No. Practice my craft - practice, the craft of art. Abandon the dive to the bottom of the brown sack of fortune cookies. Go to the source. Find her fortunes where I always have found them - in story - in poetry - in art.

From the bookcase, I gather the texts, Recipes from the Wizard of Oz, Naomi Wolfe's Fire with Fire, The Little Prince, The Dogs of Babel, Daddy Long-legs. Here is Sara's fortune. I add a few grants of my own design, reminders. I flip through the books, I let my eyes fall on the pages and the words reveal themselves, as they always have. "Have a little courage. That's all." "It is only with the heart that one sees truly."

I print them out, fortune cookie dimensions and glue them in her book. I paste in the final one and open and close the edition several times, testing the fold, the weaving of the flags, the binding.

I allow myself a reward - a fortune pulled without agenda, without necessity, without without, and I feel as if it is a ballet - with out, the seeming effortless piorrete, that does not know friction, that turns without resistance. This is how I reach into the bag.

"Your love life will be happy and harmonious."

I set it on the table. This was obviously a mistake. I've been lost and blind and quincunx in matters of the heart; which is hardly a happy and harmonious state.

Oh, sweet denial, rains over me. I pull Sara's book into proper form, wrap a purple rubber band around it to hold it through the night. And shake my head in waves of no ~ no ~ no ~ no. Obviously the cosmic gods are not done having their fun with me. Practice makes perfect. and Your love life will be happy and harmonious.

I lean on my elbows, prop my chin in my hands, and sigh, the long breathe of oh no and oh please and okay. Okay. Well, this has not been my experience. And I have to wonder if it is even what I would want. What would I want? Who would not want that - harmonious and happy? Yes. I want that. I do.

But that doesn't happen. Does it? Not if my experiences are any indication. Well I took the end of the summer and threw a lot of the bundled memories away or buried them with the accompanying redoubtable ghosts.

I decide the Chinese fortune cookie gods are just having fun with me. I plunge in once more, hopeless optimist, seeking the authentic truth in my brown paper bag of fortune cookies. I pull one off the bottom. Weigh it in my hand, it is almost nothing, the weight of three feathers, three wishes. I snap it with practiced efficiency, and slip the paper out. I won't give up.

"Your love life will be happy and harmonious."

I start to hope. After all, this is about the future. This is what "will be" and why can it not. If I seek that, surely I can discover it. Happy and harmonious. Guess it is time to look up the definitions of those terms!

When an old lover I happened to see. . .

I was sitting having dinner with my brother at one of my favorite haunts in Annapolis, when an old lover I happened to see. He came through the door, a lady trailing shyly. We said hello and hey, how'd you do? and stammered goodbye. With no regrets or longing. Simple.

I tried to write about something a few days ago here, but the words were insufficient. I've been reading "If on a winter's night a traveler" by Italo Calvino and writing as narrator and author, he writes:

"This is what I mean when I say I would like to swim against the stream of time: I would like to erase the consequences of certain events and restore an initial condition. But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts, and each of these new facts brings with it its consequences; so the more I seek to return to the zero moment from which I set out, the further I move away from it: though all my actions are bent on erasing the consequences of previous actions and though I manage to achieve appreciable results in this erasure, enough to open my heart to hopes of immediate relief, I must, however, bear in mind that my every move to erase previous events provokes a rain of new events, which complicate the situation worse than before and which I will then, in their turn, have to try to erase. Therefore I must calculate carefully every move so as to achieve the maximum of erasure with the minimum of recomplication."

This is how our lives play out.Wanting to make it over and not wanting to lose what we had, not wasting. Once upon a time, in a land far away, was a true and innocent maiden and a strong and honest man...
Then things got complicated.

The Power

Zelda Fitzgerald and I are not so different - given space and resource, a ballet floor, a barre, a mirror would be at my disposal and the time to move like a willow and step on the tip of my toe like a dagger and spin would be mine.

I've returned to taking ballet. Last week, balanced on demi-pointe, Shirley came and stood behind me. "Look at you. You are perfect. Beautiful." And whatever the reality may be, in that nano-second of dance and frozen stillness of dance where alignment and grace pause to portray the control of head tilt, arch of arms, unwavering ankle; there I was beautiful and joy full.

Since I've returned to dance, my pants have begun to hang lower on my hips and if I add the weight of my cell phone to my pocket, they nudge down to the hip level where the teens wear their jeans, and suddenly I understand. The caress of the yoke of the pant across the anvil of my hips is seductive; my step is more precise, my years leave me, a swarm of bees honeys between my hips, and under my toes, the earth is influenced. Heady stuff. Now wonder the boys and girls are wearing their pants low.

Is it any wonder that once a woman has ballet in her frame, she cannot let it go?

Approfondement

this is the nature of this man,

I like to watch him reach,
his arm extended, lean and
purposeful, the apex exposed, the fingers
already curving for the object
he will lift, carry, cover; rare
flesh, railroad vein lattice, care
in smooth skin,

the moment just before, the
breadth of circumstance. I like to
watch him reach.

I like to see him stoop,
coming to the place of
eye sight with the flower, the
willow stem, the child, the
pup, the woman,
the lips and eyes that are
up reaching toward his, toward that
scent, visage, voice.

this is the nature of this man.

Ruler of my Heart

Plenipotentiary ruler of my
heart, seeking the benison
of the waxing moon,
the salubrious climate
of understanding.

Inconstant moon
camouflaged in the
afternoon sky
too late rising to
grace the night.

Fear is not the ambassador
of my heart.
Watchful aorta skittering
the hairpin turn,
leaning toward the fall,
spin of earth, fearless;

trusting the moon,
plenipotentiary ruler of my
heart.

It took a while to figure out . . .

Today's word of the day:
fissiparous \fih-SIP-uh-rus\ adjective
: tending to break up into parts : divisive




Last night I had dinner with some of the most amazing women I know: my daughter, my sister, my sister-in-law. After dinner, my sister and I remained behind, to catch up, to tell the things that sisters tell. Epiphanies sometimes come when we finally say some things out loud; they become more real, undeniable. First you need the safe haven to put those stories so that the courage comes to say what needs to be said.

So I thank my sister in particular and to all the other sisters (or those that fill the role) that are on your side, that can see all the darker parts of you and still see the beauty and potential and strength; who tell you that you can....

The Book of Days

I was wrong. What I wrote about Rosh Hashanah services at temple was proven to be incorrect. For just a few moments this morning, I was moved, I was shaken and reaffirmed; not in any Jewish faith (or any other organized faith) but in the faith that is the resolve within any one of us.

One portion of the service reads: "Every word, every act inscribes itself in the book of life. Freely we choose, and what we have chosen to become stands in judgment over what we may yet hope to be."

That is a theology which I firmly endorse. My thoughts will become my words. My words will lead to my actions. My actions define who I am and are the steps to who I still choose to become. My actions are my signature in the book of days.

So although most of my words from last night's post remain true, the idea that I would not find faith in the temple is mistaken. Wherever I may be, if I am introspective, thoughtful and deliberate, then it is a choice I make to have faith in myself, in the person beside me, in the people with out me. I decide.

Not really Jewish, not really Christian, no really done, Mary

Not g-d, but rather love

Erev Rosh Hashanah will not find me in a synagogue. There is no happy new year there for me. And being the workhorse for the congregation, it is not a place of celebration. I celebrate that it is so for them. But I prefer the quiet times, the empty days alone in front of the eternal light, alone before the yarhzeit plaques. No audience except my own thoughts, unbiased by observation or influence.

So it is the Jewish New Year – and although raised as a Catholic, I’ve always felt that September was the time of the new start: the fading of the flower, the return to education, freshly shaved pencils, the smell of shoe polish on saddle shoes, crisp white cotton blouses, plaid skirts, the chill air sweeping stagnant summer. So September was always the opportunity for a new start, a chameleon leaving skin in the parched August earth and discovering new colors.

Last fall, I was disheartened in matters of the heart and casting off the idea of romance and oddly, I find the same sentiment strong within me now. Last year, it resulted in making plans to travel to Truth or Consequences with another woman of similar mind. And of all the things that have transpired this year, that is one for which I’ve no regrets. It is disturbing to discover that 10 months ago I was as I am right now. So obviously something is needed.

What? I am a woman of strong passions: my children, my writing, other writing, my brothers and sister, all the sensual pleasures that life offers, my loves. So where is the dissatisfaction? My loves. My love of men has not proved successful. Please do not misunderstand. I place no blame on one party any more than the other. Is it because I do not choose well? Or perhaps it is my nature in the relationship? Or even in the way it begins?

Since my romantic life began, I do not think there was ever a time I was not either engaged whole-heartedly with a love or pursuing one. I love men; their furry arms and legs, the Adam’s apple, the strength of their stride, the width of their wrist, the boy still living within. I do not think that is a mistake. But I wonder if I should pull up the bridge, fill the moat with an alligator or two, and spend some time denying the pursuit, the pleasure, the idea that someday I will meet my man, counterpart, true heart.

Even as I write those words, I doubt my ability to stay absent. The ache in my chest and the impulse for my arms to reach and the tilt of my head and exposed throat and the tears that burn at the back of my eyes lead me to believe it may be a foolish thing to think I am capable. But I can try.

So here is to the new year, the year of giving my best to my art, my children, my career, my home, and to my fitness. Here is to seeing how it is to be invisible, to fly under the radar, to walk the land where “beyond this point be dragons.

But it takes more than words to make us whole. And not god, but rather love, love is my witness.

Life Goes On

Today's word:

fungible \FUHN-juh-buhl\, adjective:

1. (Law) Freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation.
2. Interchangeable.
3. Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. Usually used in the plural.


"Genuine eros makes us desire a particular person; crude desire is satisfiable by fungible bodies."
-- Edward Craig (general editor), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Said too much

Every whisper
Of every waking hour I'm
Choosing my confessions

I think I thought I saw you try.
Oh no, I've said too much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The witness tree roots knit
the shale, snaking and drinking
all but rock, the dirt dense, layered,
emeralds clotted in the mud.

The grave digger's
axe cleaves
stem, root; finds
the fault, fills the
shovel and lifts, heaves the
fill to the side.

He will put her here; back her up
so she never sees, the turned earth. His fingers
pressing into her shoulders,
her gaze on the
lark, his voice slow,
stepping her back, like
a skittish mare into a stall.

He will not aim, will not attend.

He circles her waist, takes his left hand
and strokes her hair back, pulls his palm along her
skull until his index finger rests behind her
ear lobe and he replaces it with the muzzle,
no hesitation allowed.

She does not fall back
as expected, but rather her
legs collapse, as if this were
the moment she could stand
no more.

The grave digger lifts his
shovel and fills the dirt until all
that remains is the mistaken impression
of the earth rising and falling with her breathing
in the waning
moonlight.

Later, he would believe he heard her breathe
and the leaves of the witness tree would
turn over, ready for rain.

Shallow

At the northeast end of the orchard,
near a large brush pile waiting to be burned
she dug the hole, not only because the soil was
less rocky but also because the harvested field
was perfumed with fallen Fuji apples.
Two nights, in the moonlight,
forming blisters no one would see,
the pick axe clawing at tree roots.

Tonight the moon was waning, as she crossed
the threshold into a dusting of late autumn snow.
Fifty one years of first snows and she was stilled by it yet.
The air chilled her teeth, her throat, her nostrils,
deliciously racing down to her lungs. She walked
toward the northeast, the weight of the pistol in her
coat pocket thumping into her thigh. She approached the
hole roundabout so she would not have to look into it and
slowly backed up until the heel of her boot met the rim.

Reaching into her pocket, she gripped the pistol and positioned it
behind her right ear, the muzzle pocketed behind her ear lobe.
She did not want to see it, did not want to be the one to pull the trigger.
But she could not allow anyone else the job.

She thought the impact would cause her to tumble into the hole.
She thumbed the hammer back but it didn't catch and fell on the cartridge
and in that instant, she did not see her life spinning out before her,
her childhood, her loves, her children. No bright light, no choir of angels
or howl of heathens.
Instead she worried if she had needed a larger caliber for this final task.

Her legs crumpled and she went straight down
as if this was the very second in her fifty first year of life
that her skeleton collapsed under the weight of her own flesh. Into the
grave she went, in the freshly dug edge as if she were laying down to nap.

She'd made the hole shallow, hoping that when it was
filled, the rain would still reach her, and come spring
she might blossom.

Whistling

If an experience last 24 hours and 23.5 are interesting, happy ~ ~ ~
- then it is silly to waste time on the last 30 minutes that are not the equal of the rest.

This is my latest favorite song - do you like Martin Sexton?


I wish I were better at whistling.

Shedding

There are moments in life when you know you need to release things, clean out the closets, empty out the basement, brush the bats from your head. This moment comes for me most often in August. Because in August, Mother Nature has exceeded all sense: trees genuflect under the burden of leaves, flowers crowd one another into suffocation, roads blister and bubble under the relentless assault of the sun, and I can only survive by being less.

So the pink chiffon mini-dress worn to my oldest brother’s high school graduation goes, and the stack of New Yorker magazines from 1994 go into recycling, and old bottles of moisturizer and nail polish and tax returns from 1987 are tossed into the trash and restraint starts to slip. Until the thing I most want to cast off, is, well, everything.

This is the season of cutting back the overgrowth, of seeing what needs to be removed from the garden, of tearing down the deck and building a boat to sail away on. This is the season to realize the other woman actually is the best woman for him. And I am not. This is the season of withdrawal, retreat, release. Dig out the documents you thought would define you in your death and realize that at that point, you’ve either done the job or not.

This is the season to tear up my crappy off-white carpet and finally learn to put down wood floors. This is the season to put the antique sewing machine on Craigslist. This is the season to put the decrepit rhododendron in the ground in the woods and wish it the best.

Every morning now, I see the red fox who has raced the woods behind my house. This year, the fox is narrow, the red is redolent with silver and he walks where he would not normally, exposing himself to the civilized world. My most cherished vision of this same fox comes in winter, in the pre-dawn, slipping auburn through the white snow like a flame. And I want to keep the fox in winter.

So I don’t really want to cast off everything. Not everything. Not my antique vanity. Not my son or daughter or dog. Not my favorite sleep shirt or the smell of a distant fire or the sensation of a wonderful kiss or the remembrance of being cradled.

But it is August. So I want to release styling my hair, and smiling at bigots just to be polite, or dumbing down my intelligence to appear cute, or appearing interested in anything superficial. It is as if my flesh were peeled off, so the tendon and sinew and muscle stands, sentry yet vulnerable.

So the best thing to do is scrape away the barnacle, the rust; toss the debris. But like the fox, I don’t want to close the door but rather walk the rim of the crest, narrow and silver highlighting my hair, and know that I am still the fox. And if the August drought lets up, I’ll make it to the winter snow.

Curl

You don’t know
the curl of my sleep -
of my unrelenting vigilance -

For my children and the truth,

For the scent where your hair
nests behind your ear,
For every moment your
fingers find mine,

And for the way you look
at my heart, you find the chambers;
A seashell sculpted
by fine Bermuda sands;

The coral shaded velvet sides sheltering
gossamer chambers, where even now,
I am waiting.

Misleading

For days the air has been heavy with the promise of rain storms; the air thick and dense, flashes splitting the sky, rumbles of thunder from the horizon. Twenty minutes ago, the wind blew through the trees out front, all the leaves surrendering, turning over. And I thought, "Ah, now it will rain." But it didn't. That is how misleading the wind can be.

I want to show it to him

The moon is swollen
Draped in erasers.
I pull her across my life
Creating a new tableau
Of deep soft blue.

My inner gypsy
Sees the moon tonight,
Beaming on the hollows of
His skin, breathing.
Silver, silken, butter
Warming. I see
the pool of flesh,
wanting.

Why I have a crush on Ryan Gosling

I think I figured it out - he's a dead ringer for my first love. A man who was incapable of deceit, of cruelty. Those are not always strengths, but they were magic at sixteen. It's true. It's the shape of the apple of his cheek and the cut of his jaw, it's the line of his lip and the way his hair falls into his eyes. It is also his long, sinewy frame and the passion with which he moves through the role that he plays - but that is not necessarily Ryan Gosling - that is a character in a film, some other aberration of the man. Still, I enjoy looking on his face the same way I enjoy the first snowfall and the last brilliant leaf at the top of an old oak.

Anonymous Comments

I don't usually publish anonymous comments. I believe if you have something to say, you should be willing to put your name to it. Like John Hancock rather than a frightened women hiding behind her skirt.

I made an exception on a recent posting for two reasons: I found the comment very valid and it was not even the contributor's comment as it was a quote.

So if you do wish to quote on my blog, please feel free to submit the quote. I do ask that you attach some sort of identity. A personal conviction without a willingness to attest to it, is no conviction at all.

Alaska Sightseeing Plane Crash Kills Five

That was one of today's headlines. Sometimes you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time, take just a slightly greater risk than the average bear, sometimes it gets you killed. Sometimes it doesn't. This might have been an experience of a lifetime, and right up until the crash, it probably was.

The Road I didn't take

Many of you know that I had been planning to vacation in Alaska.
And even though I'm not taking that trip right now, I did find this article in the New York times that describes what some of that trip may have been like. And I know that some day, I will go there.

Beach Solo

Here is the gunmetal gray ocean, the taffy tinted sand, the brace of cold water numbing the ankles, the relentless sun and no forgiveness.

Here are the middle-aged body surfing men and their adolescent sons tethered to a boogie board.

And all along the beach, tiny children stare at the surf with fear, stepping back, shaking off mother's hand and saying, "No, no." Statues of staid two-year-olds lining miles of shore.

What do they see? What early intelligence do we lose that we ultimately succumb to the seduction of the sea -- that we allow the undertow to spin our bodies, coursing the tumult til spit atop the crest, salted, seasoned, breathless, quaking and jubilant, we desire nothing more than to dive back in.

Maybe we were mermaids and mermen. Maybe the children hold hidden unarticulated memory that we have lost.

As Deanna Bogart says

You can't decide to fall in love.
You can't make yourself fall in love.
You can't choose to fall in love.
You can't stop yourself from falling.

On One Foot

I can't help it - I like Sasha Cohen -
I don't mind that she's fragile
or that she falls down -
and I like the Russian Woman
with the name I don't know how to write and
the Japanese skater
who I call the dragon but is no dragon at all.

It is so difficult to be satisfied.

Why is the sky blue?

My first published, long writing is titled, Rayleigh Scattering. The main character is Margaret (Maggie) Rayleigh. As I was finishing the novella, I was flipping through the dictionary searching for a word when I happened upon the term "Rayleigh Scattering", a phenomenon which accounts for the colors of the sky and the predominance of blue. The description also describes the transformation that the protagonist experiences and much of the imagery of the novella focuses on how things appear in a given light.


So why is the sky blue? When one looks at the sky, rather than seeing the black of space, one sees light from Rayleigh scattering off the air. Rayleigh scattering is proportional to the inverse fourth power of wavelength, which means that the shorter wavelength of blue light will scatter more than the longer wavelengths of green and red light. This gives the sky a blue appearance. Conversely, when one looks towards the sun at sunset, one sees the colors that were not scattered away -- the longer wavelength, red light.

So this post is for Maggie, of the short wavelength and the immense scatter.

Neena

Blazing willow,
Worm hole path beading
Through sunlit bark
The sun in winter
and the moon at noon.
Extraordinary, blonde, paint
brush and ink.
Original.
Master piece.

Maybe it is better. . .

Michael said he wanted to give me a ring for Christmas. "What do you mean?" I offered nonchalance, turning away, rinsing a dish in the sink.

"It doesn't have to be a ring ring," he said. "It doesn't have to mean anything."

"Well, so long as it doesn't mean anything," I said.

I was 29 that Christmas. I wanted it to mean something. The ring is a thin gold band with a garnet no larger than the head of a nail held between two heart shapes. The garnet flashes like a turned maple leaf in autumn.

Michael gave it to me on Christmas Eve in 1985. He'd be shocked to know I wear it most every day now. So thin and unobtrusive and reminding me that maybe it is better to ask that things mean something, that it matters. It all matters.

Match Girl

The old social mixer of the 50's is now Internet dating and Internet dating means Match.com. And I imagine the social mixer of the 50's was fraught with the same type of disappointments that one experiences on Match today: no or too little attention from the partners you would wish to communicate with and too much attention from those you would prefer not to communicate with!

As for me, in the course of a three day trial, there were many too many emails and winks. And some of them are disturbing like when they come from someone who has chosen the name "alcapone" and lives in North Dakota, many thousands of miles away from me (which is a good thing).

And then there is the slippery reality of Match. Such as if you sign on, just to update your profile and sign right back off, you can search your "name" and it will show that you are "Online Now" for an entire hour even if you are only there three minutes. I suppose clients would enjoy it as it makes one seem more available, more engaged. But the truth is you are not there and given that they are trying to make "matches", it has the potential to create conflict rather than harmony between mutual match people. Besides, it's false advertising.

And then there is just the general uncomfortable feeling one gets walking through the grocery store and the same man keeps passing you and smiling at you as if he knew something you don't know, which he does. He has perhaps read your profile on Match and either doesn't post his own or doesn't fit any criteria you have searched so you would not have seen him there or he's married and just searches Match for jollies. Then, the last prospect is the one fraught with danger: he is a rapist, ax-murderer who searches Match to identify single women and the area they live in and then he stalks the local grocery store and follows them out to their car at night!

So it is a wonder any woman posts a photo on Match and it is some sort of ironic mystery to me as to why I have. Unless it is because, maybe, just maybe, there is someone out there like me, just hoping to meet a sane, mature, loving, unattached person to share the daily joys and disappointments that life offers.

Todays word was once again prophetic:
fraught \FRAWT\ adjective
*1 : full of or accompanied by something specified -- used with with
2 : causing or characterized by emotional distress or tension : uneasy

Example Sentence:
Cordelia found internet dating to be fraught with dangers, yet she reluctantly and hopefully posted her profile there.

The Grocery Store will get you every time

It's not seeing a wedding limo in front of a church or the big events that pinches your throat and makes it hard to swallow. It's the small domestic moment, like making the bed, taking the sheets out of the dryer, and doing the grocery shopping that will undo you, without warning. One minute your putting the grapes in your cart, and the next you are blindly walking past tins of soup and tomato sauce, the store's background music of "Never gonna fall in love again" haunting every step. And they have the audacity to follow up the torture with Carole King singing "It's too late..." and although I race up the detergent aisle and grab the Wisk, hoping to get out before it gets any worse. But the final assault is at the register line, where they hit you in the gut with Anna Nalick's "Breathe," and she's singing
"these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to"

So you just leave the cart and get out.

You Liar! You Judas!

What if Judas is the wronged one? I recently read this:

"According to Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, Judas was actually a more exalted hero than Jesus. He unselfishly volunteered to perform the all-important villain's role in the resurrection saga, knowing he'd be reviled forever. It was a dirty job that only a supremely egoless saint could have done. Jesus suffered, true, but enjoyed glory and adoration as a result."

So maybe the ones who betray us do so because betrayal is what is needed? Realizing in that instant that what has been changed can never be unchanged and that life will never be the same. Maybe it's necessary. Maybe.

So on this independence day, I think I'll liberate myself, embrace the betrayal and just recognize that theirs is the ultimate sacrifice - not mine.

Timely

As a developing wordsmith, I receive in my email several words a day. Often I am struck by the timeliness of their arrival. This is one of those times.


carom \KAIR-uhm\, noun:

1. A rebound following a collision; a glancing off.
2. A shot in billiards in which the cue ball successively strikes two other balls on the table.
3. To strike and rebound; to glance.
4. To make a carom.
5. To make (an object) bounce off something; to cause to carom.

"The anger caroms around in our psyches like jagged stones."
-- Randall Robinson, Defending the Spirit

Forgive Trespasses

During my early catechism training, I blindly mouthed the words "forgive us our daily trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" without comprehension. It was a memorized prayer. And I had not considered the seriousness of this offense: trespassing.

tres·pass(trsps, -ps)
1. To commit an offense or a sin; transgress or err.
2. Law To commit an unlawful injury to the person, property, or rights of another, with actual or implied force or violence, especially to enter onto another's land wrongfully.
3. To infringe on the privacy, time, or attention of another: "I must . . . not trespass too far on the patience of a good-natured critic" Henry Fielding.

And this is perhaps the phrase concerning trespassing that I find most interesting right now:
trespass quare clausum fregit - the defendant unlawfully enters the land of the plaintiff

Especially if you consider that one's heart is the a part of one's land.
Going where one is not invited or wanted
- Taking another's purse or wallet
- Taking another's car against their will
- Taking. Taking more than what is offered

Lately Shawn Colvin's song is in my head: Get Out of this House




So don't enter this land wrongfully, with actual or implied force -
"I spent eleven long years in a hot house zone
I spent twentynine more trying to get home
Well I never got home but I did what I did
And I got myself this house and you can't come in"

This is my house, my heart. Trespassing is not allowed. Only the invited are welcome.
"I've had all I can stand and I can't stand no more."

Saturday with my Mother

I went to see her on Saturday
A clear gentle July day.
Sometimes you get lost in this old cemetery,
all the hills and curving narrow roads.
There are two paths to come to her
one wraps tight between a stone wall and a large drop off into soft earth
beside the pavement.It is the most direct but
the most difficult to navigate.

The other takes you away from her first, past the largest
oldest markers, winged angels and holy saints with hands folded in prayer
large mausoleums and flowers and flags
punctuate the places where someone remembered
the people who breathed and you
think you've really gone too far til you discover
a split in the trees and a road gone to dirt
and if you slip your car through that shadow
you find the pavement on the other side
and my mother's yard
flat from a distance like an empty landscape
running out to the trees
but for the flowers and teddy bears and balloons.

My mother's plot is nearby the babies.
And I never have arrived to find the spot neglected,
except by me.

Seven Stages

Shock
Denial
Anger
What the hell comes after anger?
Because I surely am not guilty
and remorse . . .

I'm sure acceptance is what everyone waits for
but for me, it's some other stage
Some other landscape than acceptance.
Because this is unacceptable.

Wholeness in aloneness
Complete. Round.

No missing pieces.
No bruises fading.
No thundering heart.
No echo of vile voice
knelling through the night.

A solitary landscape
unpacked and unlimited
where the moon and sun
occupy the same sky
without complaint.

Perfect Mistake

If I started as a mistake,
and some thin circumstance
like a bead of liquid from tip to
tongue held on and sustained
me - - -
then it is reasonable it is
all a series of beautiful mistakes
mounting like the arches
of a rainbow, the
blood and bruises coloring the night
with morning
glories
is absolute
perfection

Be Water

From here you can almost
see it all, the breadth
of blue water, turquoise to
jade, azure to navy to
midnight.

Dive into it, the water
slipping like silk
Fall into it, through it,
seeking the dark, the quiet,
the absence of sense.

The water in you and the
water without all one.
Be water. Be liquid -
flesh thin as
gauze, bone supple as
a blade of grass. The
water flowing in and out.

Be water. At the deep,
be still, dark, blind.

At the surface, break, sparkle,
blind with reflection.

Changling

it is full and
opaque
opulence
wispy
ghosty

a wild white orb
changling in
our nights

never constant
so how come
we rely on it so heavily.

Out of the Blue

You hear them before you see them. Then they roar over you, the sound of the jet engines voiding all other sound. Yesterday the Blue Angels split the sky over the Severn River. I stood with the crowd, witnessing the mastery of man and machine, the precision, the beauty of the FA18s.

Although I've lived in the Annapolis area for eighteen years, this is the first time I have stood along the river with the crowds and witnessed the Blue Angels demonstration performed every year during commissioning week for the Naval Academy. Like many, I neglected to take advantage of my close proximity of this remarkable event.

How often do we overlook what we assume will always be available to us? How often do we have the chance to alter our focus so that our eyes are drawn to the sky and what is at our feet is unknown?

Lucy's Belt

Around her waist, Lucy
loves her loves, wears
her belt of love, pulls it
close across her hips
every empty night.

Last night, Lucy walked
out Rockaway pier, where
the old man casts
his illegal net.

She followed the wood
til her toes hugged
the plank's edge
and studied the moon
sunk mid-deep in the bay
and wondered if
the belt would
float or sink.

Premonition

'Twas a year ago and the moon was bright
(Oh, I remember so well, so well);
I walked with my love in a sea of light,
And the voice of my sweet was a silver bell.
And sudden the moon grew strangely dull,
And sudden my love had taken wing;
I looked on the face of a grinning skull,
I strained to my heart a ghastly thing.

'Twas bit fantasy, for my love lay still
In my arms, with her tender eyes aglow,
And she wondered why my lips were chill,
Why I was silent and kissed her so,
A year has gone and the moon is bright,
A gibbous moon, like a ghost of woe'
I sit by a new-made grave tonight,
And my heart is broken--it's strange, you know.

~ Robert Service

Widdershins

It started yesterday;
World gone widdershins
And the further it went
the less I felt.

I can't feel anything now.
Except maybe a mild
curiosity
to see how far it will go.

Lilith

The Authorized Artifacts of Lilith

Exhibit I:
A tattoo of Jehovah’s name
over her razor sharp left
clavicle.

What they said about me was inadequate.
Someone had to get there first. I was put here first.
See my footstep here? Two wells joined by a high arch.
It is sold for the privilege to light on this spot,
dirty your sole, slip it back into your
sock, your shoe, your sandal;
the sand biting, insidious as pollen on the back
of a wing. Til you wake, middle of the night,
dig your teeth into your husband’s
shoulder, your lips grinning and the knowing,
the knowing in your head burning, hot, hot.

Exhibit II:
Two missing ribs discovered
in a high bird’s nest in the Andes,
solid as titanium.

His name came to me like a pulse knocking
on the door of my hips, my hips rocking,
untamed, knowing. What they said about me was in
adequate. My bones would not burn and though
heat kissed every femur and tibia and my hair
fumed with oil, my eyes hard as stones, my flesh
crisp as dried camel tongue, they could not burn me.
Shivering, they huddled him with Eve and punished
men to shiver always, to burn and never cool.
It is not enough.

Exhibit III:
Thrush fetuses nested in
blossoming dogwoods
every spring.

Eve bore him sons. Though my child is lost. Still born.
Eve bore him. Eve succumbed.
The knowledge pouring through her like mercury
lighting her inside. Inside me, Adam had lit, curled
night and day, earth, water, and fire. What they
said about me, fire. Yelling fire. The cry – to
burn. Fire. Blue cooling to burnish yellow, nostril flare,
horse running, red rising to snap the air. Cain. Abel.
Inadequate. The wife over the hill, my daughter.
Not Abraham, but I. More than the stars
my children’s bones.

Exhibit IV:
Scrolls sleeping
in the Gondwana
sands.

They found my likeness in the lost city,
narrow burning rock passage,Bedouin women
turn my image to the wall; the wall will crumble.
What they say about me
is inadequate. A bit of fire burning in the brain is
my foothold, my talisman, my privilege.
To sit like a smoldering ember between your ears, your hips, wetting with spit and blood, icing to heat, ruining civilizations,
one beautiful sole with sand on the heel
after another.

Which Superhero are You?

Your results:
You are Supergirl
Lean, muscular and feminine.
Honest and a defender of the innocent.


Supergirl 85%
Wonder Woman 80%
Spider Man 75%
The Flash 75%
Superman 70%
Green Latern 65%
Robin 62%
Batman 60%
Hulk 55%
Catwoman 50%
Iron Man 45%

Walking on Alligators

Relationships, especially new relationships, or even long time relationships when you are known very well, are a lot like walking on alligators - so is writing.

A new relationships is like building a step ladder. The side rails encounter and put on the first few steps, solid. No worries. Then it seems they start taking turns adding steps, setting nails. sometimes a bit of wood has some rot left in it and just as you put your full weight on it, it gives. But you only slip one rung and it is not fatal.

Then each person is mounting a rung, a rung, a rung. Then one puts their hand against the tree, the house, the wall and pushes off. The ladder in the free air and all you can do is run.

Some people know.
They don't run.

The world is visible for them.They see beyond the physical troubles, the distances, the missing rungs on the ladder.

I am someone who is afraid of certain things. Having borne them and mourned already. Yet, I know, I was authentic and alive and real.
So here is a rung, screwed to the sticking point, fast, solid.

It is one rung.

But it is steady. And sometimes the view is the scariest thing, looming, a thunderhead, a bear upwind. It will come for you sooner or later. You could run. But you choose it. You turn into it and roar and wave branches over your head, and the bear runs away.

The bear. You fool the bear but the ladder and the water are waiting.

But sometimes the rung falls over water - those waves, churned, white capped, fingers curling, dark, dark. You just let it go. Let it go. It's not death.

It's life.

Mere Mortals

So it is difficult to reveal oneself and difficult to know when we meet someone if we have met them. I've been reading "I am not Jackson Pollock" and it is clear that the people in the story don't know Jackson but even more so that Jackson doesn't know Jackson. So no matter how genuine he attempts to be, the challenge is insurmountable.

A friend wrote to me today, "I think I have been misjudging you slightly on something which may not be true at all...." Well, the misjudge, misstep, misalignment, is one of the banes of man's existence. All we have are our sense and our perceptions and our own histories which are never exactly what someone else has experienced. So people layer meaning onto what they can see and touch but that is no measure for accuracy.

Neena Birch is a wonderful artist and yesterday at an art show in DC, she told me that as she studied this technique or some particular aspect of the art process, that she moved away from herself; "Such that sometimes you lose who you are. You get lost." She's right, of course. Having been lost repeatedly in so many years, the excitement is when you find yourself (as no doubt she does continually)!

Creation of something brand new is altered the minute outside influence falls upon it. But I know she hasn't lost herself in any fashion in which she has not also discovered some other aspect of herself, because her work is strong, solid. And the portent of it cannot be missed. Something is happening, something strong, shapely, meaningful, and yet, utterly without the artist and from within. This is what art is, how life is made, how we express what we can, being mere mortals.

This in life is also how we sometimes misjudge, although I am sure my friend meant misunderstand, one another. Because we see it all through our life's spectacles, tinted or now we have altered from the prescription. Things don't fit, the frame does not hold; until we widen the lens and allow for a bigger picture.