The Problems with Poetry

When I get writer's block, I have drafts that have wonderful titles and nothing in them.  My draft board is filled with half finished thoughts which prove, I did write that day, I just didn't hit "Publish." These days, I have little time, so more half thoughts get started than finished.

The other thing I do when I feel as if I've said everything I can think of, and have nothing new to contribute that will either edify or amuse, is write poetry.   I don't like my poems as a rule for three reasons:

1) It's easy to write bad poetry.
2) It's easy to be pretentious about one's poetry.
3) I can hear in my head everytime I write a poem either my poetry teacher at Notre Dame saying, "We don't need to read her poems." or the Poet who visited Saint Mary's, saying, "I'm very surprised I almosts believed her poem."

Poetry is supposed to use form and words to create an indellible image in the mind, to engrave on the heart something that wouldn't be possible with prose.   Poetry uses active space in language, to create greater meaning in the language that does get used.   I tend to blather on, to cover the whole canvas with words, leaving little space for my poems to breathe.  See problem #1.

However I'm also protective about my poems in the same way any writer looks at their creation and thinks it beautiful.  See problem #2.

Problem #3 is the running tape in my head, which makes me highly supsicious of any praise of my poetry... because I know both problem #1 and problem #2 are real. Fortunately, I have a third teacher whose words also run through my head.

Die hard cub fan, Max at Saint Mary's remained a favorite all the years if only because despite being a poet, he could laugh at himself.  He laughed at me too, but I knew he didn't mean it except in the gentle way a professor might tease a student who needed to grow up a bit.   "Yes, but I'll never be as good as YEETS."  He wrote on the board.   A comment from some frustated student in the course of decades of teaching.   To which he quipped, "YEATS, no, Yeets, probably.  Now get back to writing."

The trick was to stop using everyone else as a yardstick, and learn what they did that worked and what they did that didn't, and apply all those lessons to the actual business of writing.   He taught us, be humble, and you can write whatever poem you like.

"That Max
pisses me off."

Possibly the most memorable poem in the semester began with these opening two lines. I can't remember the rest of it, but I honestly can't remember any of the other poems we read during that semester which proves since I didn't write those two lines, I probably made people suffer through #1 and #2, and legitimately helped foster the commentary listed in #3.   He laughed harder than anyone else at that poem, and taped it on his door. These were his lessons.  Wear your problem.  Bleed on the page. Laugh at yourself and recognize, much of what you write, is laughable.  

On top of that, he demanded, "Write until you stop thinking about what you will write, and just as a muscian will eventually be able to play a piece without looking, and a dancer to perform a whole routine without error, the words will flow and you'll only know after you write them, what they mean."  It sounded like nonsense.  It also sounded wonderful.    He made poetry something other than what depressed artsy sophsiticated people do, he made it fun.  

With all those lessons in mind, I give to you, today's poem, inspired by watching the students at my new job funnel out to the buses and cars waiting at dismissal.    



The Beauty We Cannot Yet See

It's three o'clock
and the students swarm out
all talking and walking,
so full of promise
some have already broken.

They stare at their phones,
at the ground,
at the sky
and anywhere at all
except each other.

Determined to remain
insulated and safe
in a crowd full of others
just as wary,
all just as full

of more beauty than we
or they imagine they can bear.
They are stars in the daylight
and every once in a while,
the veil lifts.

Revealing a glimmer
of what could be
of what should be
what would be.
It was always intended.

Small Stones Saturday

Craven Image
There is no courage
in saying you believe something
if everyone else approves.
...

There is no bravery
in going along with trending values
and standing where there is no real risk.
But what if there is risk on both sides?

What if you know, if you speak
there will be some who approve
and some who will not, either way.
Then you discover what true values are,
things you will fight for no matter what.
It is then that you know,
how timid the soul truly can be.
And how great and rare
and brave beyond measure
a single voice speaking
is.

A Different Sort of Small Stone...
My three year olds' question.
"Hey Mom? Can I throw a rock?"
(She has rock in hand). ...

All I can say is...
Thank goodness she asked.

Begin Again
Fail fail fail fail
fail fail fail fail
fail fail fail fail...

fail fail spectacularly
and fail again

but...
I will keep trying
until I get it right.

 

Going to the well

It stings to know
the well has been dry
for some time now....
I keep going
and looking in
hoping at some point
when I wasn't looking
it rained.
Every day
is an exercise
in hope against experience
maybe this time
I'll be able
to drink deeply.

I am a writer.
Was it a description? Yes.
A wish? Yes.
A declaration. Yes.
...

But what did it mean
and why?
Why did I want
to take words
and sculpt bone and ice
pain and light?
I wanted to invite others, all others
to run away with me in story
and find the world of my imagination
a place they wanted to stay.
That is why I write,
in hopes of creating that whole universe
that someone else discovers and says,
yes, it is very good.

Being Epic
We all live
for that moment
when we are...
epic, wise, beautiful
and change the world.

What we do not understand
is we change the world
when we go about
the business of living
even if it is tedious and hard
(and it often is),
by not surrendering,
we grow in wisdom,
the struggle is epic,
and our success,
all the beauty the world can bear.

Small Stones Saturday

There is a great and silent beauty
to the night,
to the snow,
to the whole world waking
It's just once we rise...
we forget to see it.

The beauty fades before us
as the heat of our days
melts it away
and so we do not stop
we do not slow
we do not remember
to wonder
And thus the world goes on fasting faster
starving and anxious
hoping someone will stop
and recall
this life was made for beauty.

Filling out a resume
It's been 20 years
since I had a job
the world would pay me for doing.
...

Listing dead places and dusty contacts,
never before have I felt
like I allowed so much time
to pour out
without taking full notice.

Pediatricks
For all her schooling
she really should have known better
than to think a three year old ...
my three year old
would agree to talk to her.
She shut her eyes
sucked her fingers
and declared NO to everything.
So the doctor
couldn't check the boxes.
I could have told her
if she listened
none of my children
ever check the boxes
but it isn't because they couldn't,
it's because they will to won't.
All the way home,
she proves the point
answering everything
she'd been asked
and pleased as possible
that the woman who asked
didn't get the answers.

Overheard at the Barber's shop
When I grew up
I lived near that house
set back against the woods...
down the street.

My sister and I
and eight other kids
learned to ride horses
from the old woman.

She trained for the Olympics
so she wouldn't take money
so my parents gave her
boxes of Scotch.

But the houses got bigger
and the families got smaller
there are fewer horses
and fewer people,
and something besides scotch and horses
has been lost.

Embers or Ashes
I have to wonder
why I write
when friends say...
they won't read
what I've written
for fear they
won't like me
after they've read it.
I have to wonder
do they really like me now,
or am I just far more needy
than even I know...
or worst of all,
both.

Named
I tend to call my husband Love,
so often I forget about it.
But my three year old hears us talk in the morning...
after everyone else has been shipped off to school.
Over breakfast or me fixing his lunch, she pays attention.
Friday, he was away on a business retreat.
My daughter and I went to mass.
She fished through my purse at the homily,
and pulled out my phone.
"Don't you want to call your love?" she asked.
And she hands me my cell.
"He is your love. You should call him. You love him don't you?"
she beams, knowing the answer,
equally proud to be in on the secret.
Yes. Yes I do.


Pondering Pondering
How did we waste the time
Before we had the internet?

Spring
There were three girls running,
one of them wore orange.
...

There were two toddlers
both plucked yellow daffodils at the top,
and left the blossoms at the foot of the steps.
And all the construction workers
popped up onto the roads next to the pot holes,
taking the place of crocuses.

Just a reminder
Last night I dreamt
of the beach house
destroyed back in 2008....
Instead of relishing
in this lost family luxury
I worked to get to the water.

The fish were biting
my father was fishing
and I spent my time
working and reworking
the baiting of the hook.
Then we were in a hotel
but there was a pond/pool
and I stopped fishing
to worry about my son
and so I did not swim.
I turned to visit
and the room was filled with books
my son and the pool and all else
was gone and still
I did not read.
I woke up and knew
it wasn't an accusation
it wasn't a condemnation,
it was just a reminder.
From the many who love me,
be present, be present, be present.

March 15, 2014
Six word Saturday

I keep waiting to feel less.


March 10, 2014

It was an awesome funeral.
That sounds so odd to say.
And yet it was right right right.
We drank. We sang....
We ate, we feasted.
There were far more stories than tears

And yet the grief stayed real.
The church, everyone should have this,
was standing room only.
Like a wedding, the guest kept coming.
Like a wedding, the wine and the song
like a wedding, the fish and the cake and the guests
We stayed and stayed and stayed.
God we loved our Dad
And God loved Him more.
We joked at the rosary.
The things my dad does to get out of fasting.
We sang and cried and hugged at the mass.
There were 8 priests, two deacons, four nuns and a bishop.
It sounded like the start of a joke.
At the burial, ducks flew over
and people wondered, was that their form of a 21 gun salute
to the hunter who put down his gun?
Or a mocking, "It's safe to come out now nahnah nah nah nah nah!"
And we sang again. We sang the Notre Dame Victory march
and went back home to start eating and crying and laughing again.
It was an awesome funeral.

March 5, 2014

Breaking Heart News
Monday I felt a tug and prayed.
I've never prayed for a peaceful death for anyone.
It's just not in my make up....

But I did pray
that when my Dad died,
my Mom would be there.
She's spent the last year
driving to Orange every day
to sit with him
and sometimes feed him lunch.
Some days, he talks.
Most days, he doesn't.
But his face lights up
when she comes in the room.
Tuesday, my sister, my brother,
and my mom all said
he'd taken a turn for the worse.
So I told Mom my prayer.
Today, Ash Wednesday,
she was there
when he died.
And despite being 47
and a mother of ten,
I feel like a little girl lost.

Big Wealth
There is no brighter smile
than the near unlimited joy
and promise of things to come...
found in the face
of a three year old
who found four pennies.

Small Stones Saturday

Seven Word Sunday
Title: Soul Singing
At mass, my father echoed in my voice.


Spring Break
Today, I have a 7 year old
with a tooth about to fall out.
She smiles and asks when we can practice skating...
and I think, next week,
we get the whole week together.

I can't wait!

Ow.
Today I got a rejection.
It was reasonable.
But the part of me...
that isn't rational,
wants to cry, pout,
stamp around
and maybe eat six or seventeen cookies.
 

Today at the piano
those dusty keys
got a work out
as my fingers remembered...
songs assigned
so long ago
and the hours of practice missed
between then and now
disappeared.
It was a concert
and I remembered
the last time I sat
and really played,
it was while my dad
was at a nursing home
and I filled the air with music
trying to will beauty
into every crevice
of that sad place
and wishing I'd spent hours more
so the flood of sound
could have been grander.
Today, the audience
was me
and the fingers remembered
more than I did
and filled the empty places
that still are empty
with the promise
that eventually,
the notes will fill
all the spaces
and all the sharp
and flat feelings
will be
part of a more permanent symphony.

Happiness is Denial, and it's the color green, did you know?
I tell myself
better sooner than later
she learns...

there's not always an answer.
"Mom, fix the crayon."
and she hands me the point
and the stub.
But admittedly,
I didn't want that lesson today.
So I threw it away
and handed her a different one.
This may be a problem
when she gets older
but I'm willing
to settle
for the time being
with her thinking
Mom is magic.
Mom can fix everything.

Best Music
The other day,
my husband caught up
his 14 year old son in a bear hug.
...

And the strangest sound
issued forth
from my teen.
He laughed.
I can still hear it

Small Stones Collection

I still write poetry, mostly because it's fun.  I'm now starting to collect them.  Here are my most recent ones. 

Perspective
The barred owl shuffled along the road,
stopped and stared into the headlights of our car.
Bored when we seemed to be doing nothing, ...
he pumped his great wings
and sought out other parts of the park,
hoping the next exhibit would include more interesting animals.

Ready for Prom
Her face at her face
drew an unexpected smile
as if seeing ...

what we'd seen
since the first day
we ever saw her eyes.

Proud...or not
My son
took two chocolate bunnies
and smeared peanut butter between them,...
making a sandwich.

I'm disturbed.
Both because he thought of it
as he happily munches away,
and that I didn't.

Banishing the Demons of 7th Grade
(It's about damn time)!
Today,
I will open a book and read...

and I will not grade myself
on how far I get
or how long I got to spend
and I will not
consider myself to have failed
if at the end of that time
I decide
this book
isn't the one
to feed me today.

Good Friday
Wasn't going well.
The very air is stale
of my mood...
but it all comes to a blessed relief
when my second son,
the one who always fights,
the one who always struggles
puts out his arms
and carries his sleeping brother
up the stairs.
It doesn't take much.
It never did.
Just love.
Just love.

Saturday Small Stones ...Poetry from the Week

This year, I tried writing poetry in a closed forum. It began as a way to fight writer's block, and to keep my brain from growing stale writing prose.  So 5-7 days a week, I write a poem.  Here are a few from that effort that people in the forum liked.   

Cinderella During the Day

Today,
I want something terrific.
Snow or wine 
or homemade pumpkin pie
red sweaters,
a party, a dance, 
a letter, a phone call
new shoes or a found earring,
just something other
than drippy fall rain
and a ton of clothes to fold.

November 6, 2013
We spent the morning
stomping at shadows
and flying up the driveway.

Later, in the interest of doing important things,
we rescued a pony and three hotwheels
from the vacuum cleaner.

Tonight, they repaid me
by screaming their loudest
frightening away the telephone solicitor.

The Reason
We write
and scratch
and hope
and love
and live
just for 
that moment
that never 
lasts long
or satisfies 
as our 
imagination 
imagines,
the moment
when we 
will capture
that thing
hidden
in words
that matters most.

Why I Think Any of Us Do Anything
At the heart 
of every artist,
ever person 
I think,
is someone 
hopefully hopeful
that they
will one day
be discovered
and remembered
as having
poured out every last drop of everything
in the hopes
of being something
like a star, like the sun,
to all the world around.

What Really Made Her Mad

was when her brother
took off her shoes
while she was sleeping,
he forgot
to remove the socks as well.

Blue

Whatever else you know, 
sharps and flats bleed blueness. 

They reveal the minor chords 
that fill all the cracks in our minds and hearts, 
where people and poems and dreams slipped out 

while we were overly busy 
with the redness 
and immediate readiness of life. 

Blue sounds like the echos
of loves lost and goals surrendered 
but which we still savor 

in those moments between sunset and night, 
before the stars and the moon distract us. 

To hear blue is to let yourself stop
and attune to the whisper 
that lets the world play like a flute, 

with all the punctured points where we wounded it, 
pressed just so to make all that injury 
pour out beauty.

Blue.

7 Quick Takes

1. Dr. Who

So my daughter is hooked on Dr. Who.  As a sign of love and solidarity, I am watching it as well. She started me with season 5, Matt Smith, and the funny thing is, while I find it enjoyable, I do not yet love it as I loved Babylon 5 or Deep Space 9 from the get go.  I see a lot of shortcuts in writing which bother me.  The force of the character is what drives the narrative, without the narrative being always internally consistent.  For example, the Doctor says he chooses his friends very carefully and that there is a lot of good in the friend he has chosen.  I have yet to see the depth of that goodness in Amy, except when she is driven by grief to have deeper feelings for Rory and even then, she does not pause for a moment to recognize that in surrendering one reality (that of domesticity) she is also surrendering her child.  So I'm not yet sold on her goodness, because I see her acting out of love for Rory, but because she needs Rory to be in her life.  She still seems like a soul that does not want an anchor in life, in relationships, in time.  She seems immature to me.  I'll reserve judgment. But I do however have some life lessons from watching Dr. Who.

2.  Weeping Angels have nothing on Active Toddlers.

You know the phrase, "Don't even blink." about the weeping angels. For those not watching this import from the BBC, weeping angels are aliens that look like statues of angels you would find in the cemetery. They can only move when you are NOT watching. But they do move. And their goal is to kill you.  The image of an angel becomes an angel. Ergo if you look at an angel in the eyes and fix the image in your head, an angel forms in your head which will eventually as you fixate on said angel, come out and kill you.

Toddlers notice when Mom in a fit of stupidity eats Frito Pie for lunch and thus crashes on the couch. Toddlers think, now is the time to experiment and explore.  With a 20 year old, 17 year old and 15 year old in the house, one would not consider this to be as dangerous as angels that make you weep, but they went to the closet.  They got out the powdered sugar.  They walked through the first floor.  At some point, they figured out that this mess they'd made was bad, so they got out the brooms.  My 15 year old woke me to show that our entire first floor had been dusted like a beignet.  It took two vacuums, three brooms, two mops, two rolls of towels and said 20, 17 and 15 year old plus myself to restore order.   They looked like little angels.   I came close to weeping.

3.  Father's day is coming up.  My kids made a video.  I'm very proud.

4.  School ended today.   Instantly my kids changed into swimsuits and had a water balloon fight outside.  Stupidly, I stayed inside. One of these days I really must learn.

5. Yesterday, we had a tornado to the north and the east of us and we're not in Kansas.  It took a considerable amount of persuasion to convince one child in particular that as strong, fast and capable as he is, I was not granting him leave to go jogging during the time when the warning was in effect.  The sky I saw had looked formidable, like the gathering dark at the gates of Mordor, and no amount of exercise is healthy in a storm.  After the all clear, it took equal parts of persuasion to convince littles to come out from the blanket camp they'd made out of the table.

6.  Working on Penelope. It was easier to draft Helen because there were stories about her  in every age. The story of Penelope is mostly the same, ergo I have to address how she coped with that sameness.  I also have to figure out how she didn't become turned inside out by the long loneliness.   Suggestions of books to read/research would be gratefully accepted.  Feel free to leave them in the com box.

7.  Lastly, a poem from my small stones collection.

All time has stopped
as my toddler
curls up into my lap
and holds my hands in his,
there are no words,
just an occasional nuzzle
and a headbutt when I'm not looking.
As far as he's concerned,
life is perfect.

Small Stones

For the past 30 days, I've been writing poetry as part of a practice to keep writing, to jog my brain, to tune my eyes to see what otherwise gets passed by.  Writing Our Way Home --Small Stones, is a facebook page project that invites all people to consider creating a poem a day.  Here are some of the pieces that came from that experience.

Poem #30
The Orange Unexpected Joy

of seeing a friend
seemingly lost before
to the business of lives,
hers and mine and time
time time time
erased in a moment
of accidental meeting
as we catch up
in a hallway
of a school
about kids
about books
about how much she hates football
and I love it,
and my heart goes home buoyant
as the first day of Kindergarten.
Where I'd been mourning
and dining on the rind
of a relationship,
suddenly,
I'm reminded of the taste of deeper fruit.

Poem #29
Not Because I Haven't Tried

Does she persist
in having a knot in the left side of her hair.
I cut it too short you see so
to have the right look,
she tied all the rest of her locks
to remind me,
you may be Mom
but I am in command.

Poem #28
Security

With the rain and the ice
there is one thing she knows is sure.
Her father's arms as he carries her
carrying the umbrella
because the bus that should have taken them
didn't come.

It's hard to post these, as I have to retype each of them and I have to scroll through Facebook and there are 890+ members.  That's a lot of poetry.   If you like them, let me know, and I'll dig up a few more.

Today's Poem

A few poems from the small stone collection this year of mine, from bad to verse. 

Four

There is no greater joy on a face
than the anticipation
as the boy prepares
to jump
deep into a puddle.

Two

She covers her eyes and pouts
at the hard truth we've worked so hard to pad
the world is not ordered to her liking.

Thirteen

I know that it is important
today, now, this instant already
But I promise you I promise you
you will not remember
the vitalness of this now
come tomorrow.

Reflections on my Sablogital*

Sablogital: (n) def: brief break from blogging, designed to encourage other forms of creativity, regenerate writing juices, engage in actual self reflection without posting it as if it is relevant to anyone else.  (origin: Larry D of acts of the apostasy).

Today, I testified in an annulment over the phone.
The taxes are due.
The bills are due.
My oldest is out all day so I've lost my driver.
A middle child has a low grade fever and is thus home.

I picked a stupid day to start a diet, i.e. no self medication by chocolate. ...sigh.

Happy New Year to all of you. I'm back.   There are scads of stories to share. 

First, I joined Small Stones, a private writing community where you write poetry every day for 3o days.  Poetry and I have never been friends, but it turned out to be a fun exercise.  I do however wince a bit because to me, a lot of time, the moments I tried to capture came out feeling a touch on the precious side. 

Here are a few of the pieces:



Day 1
Keeping Christmas

Every morning when she rises, she takes my hand. She leads me past the kitchen. She will not eat. She does not want television. She walks to the tree. "Lights. Turn the tree. On." she commands. Only then, can ordinary needs be met. She is not yet two. She understands the season better than us. Her eyes are awake to beauty. Now, she can have breakfast.

Day 2
Butterfly

At 15, she cannot see what she will become, she resents what she has been. She does not believe those who love her and does not believe others can or will. Even her favorite song betrays her longing and her fear. She only knows the cocoon and cannot dream beyond it. We are waiting, knowlingly, for her Spring.

Day 8
Trying to Read Joyce

I've decided reading Ulysses
is like going to the coffee shop.
I love the smell
I love the hearthy atmosphere
I want to be this wordy intellectual.
So I open the book and take a sip
and then I remember,
I have never acquired a taste for coffee.

Day 9
The crush of time
the rush of the morning
to find a shoe, a sock, a lunch
to stop a fight, load the car and put on coats
all ended in an instant
as an amber sleek fox loped across the back yard.
"If we'd been on time, we would have missed it." my daughter said.
and the day would have been duller and harder for it.

Second, as it is the new year, I am trying once again to get back into shape.  I joined a blogging round robin group, Writing to lose, 12 writers all seeking to shed a few by keeping each other honest.   So far, it has meant I've done 90 push ups and not eaten pizza or chocolate...and believe me, I wanted the chocolate.   We will go on a blog tour in this process and thus I will get to visit other blogs and have them visit me.  

Third, a story from daily life.

We all know the parable Jesus tells about the master giving three of his servants varying amounts of talents, ten, five, one. I always both love and find troubling this story. Am I burying my talents or growing them?  I would stipulate, when I spend hours on the internet, I am digging a hole for my talents to bury them.

When I surrender my desire to do things in favor of them, it is investing. I know how much a temptation vigilant sloth (checking the emails/facebook/blogs) and hyper sloth (reading reading reading) encourage digging that hole. The hardest part of trying to live an authentic Catholic life is knowing, if I want to do God's will, I need only look at my choices. Whichever one demands more of me, demands I surrender more, demands I serve others more, (and is thus probably harder), that's God's will. It is the humor of embracing the cross like a lover. Joy comes through sacrifice, but we have to chose to sacrifice joyfully.

Thus it is that I get the "BINGO!" sign from God, as my 7th grade son calls me over for a quick reminder that I have forgotten more than I ever learned about math. I was reduced to being the reference guide who could look up things in the index to verify his information. I did learn a few things about scientific notation but that won't mean I'll remember tomorrow or that I could apply it.

God is laughing at me. My son reassured me that I probably won't need to use scientific notation in my daily life at any point soon. Humility. A fruit of the Holy Spirit. Probably good for a 7th grade son and his self esteem as well. He just jigged out of the room bemused at his ignorant mother.

Why We Live in Maryland

Yesterday I cut my finger and required a jaunt to the emergency room. Stuck for three hours waiting to have a steri-strip, Neosporin and a tetanus shot, I began to read a book I'd held onto for over a year. "The Liar's Club" by Mary Karr. Like me, she is an East Texan but she's a generation older and the narrative from her non-fiction memoir paints a richly raw world that I found familiar.

I recognized the tall grasses that stunk near the beach, and the brown surf and the men drinking beer as they seined. I could smell the petroleum air of Baytown and see the once brightly painted but now chipped and faded wooden bars and stores that peppered the Southeast Texas coast sparingly and now not at all, owing to the recent Hurricane season.

As I waxed on and on about these little slices of memory that the book evoked, my husband who had waited up for me, (a gallant gesture of solidarity at 1:30 a.m.), shook his head. Having been caught up in the visions of seeing jellyfish and the story about the snake my uncle cut up with a children’s toy metal hoe, I didn't grasp that what for me was poetry, for him was prose.

"Give me a snowy winter and moderate summer where I can go out in the afternoon and tend my garden. I don't want a summer where I sweat." I was almost shocked that he didn't understand the allure. But maybe it was the hour.

The conversation continued the next morning as he looked over his garden before leaving for work.

Neither one of us consider Maryland "home," because home has the stars that you grew up with, and the little places like Jimmies --where my beloved would go to eat lunch by the beach with his father and grandfather. Home is where he went to pick fruits at a local farm with his mom, and the lake where he and his brother would catch sun perch, and the field where a very mean cow once gave him a scare, now a series of townhomes. Home has the streets where your best friend drove too fast. It was where you made bad trades in baseball cards because you wanted the complete set. It was where you built forts out of snow that were six feet high and walked home with your shoe laces untied because the teacher wouldn't help.

I shook my head. Connecticut. To me everything in that state seemed something one had to be "in the know" to find. There was a certain place to get pastries and the place to get hot dogs and bread and flowers. I had now been to many of the places he talked about, and they were fun and I liked them but like the places I considered jewels in the book, these were invisible to the non-native, untraceable, inscrutable. No one would find it if they didn't already know, "This is where you go to get crabs and feed hush puppies to the alligators afterwards." "This is where you go if you want the best Pizza on the planet." You could experience it via the other person's memories and create your own, but the depth, the poetry did not always convey. I did concede Pepe’s was the best and I did love the nooks and crannies type experience of one of kind places that Connecticut still held.

But like him, for me this was prose, not poetry.

So he only knows of that street where I got a warning from a policeman because five of my best friends got out and did a mock fire drill by running around the car three times after a CYO dance. And I have seen from the safety of our car, the mountain he and his friends accidentally found themselves on while hiking, the one called "Mount Lamentation" because of its high poison snake population.

Neither one is quite comfortable with the extreme climate elements the other one holds as part of what is "normal." Clear cold snappy air after August and plenty of snow and ice all winter as versus "squinting in the shade," and the bulk of the year and having that toasty air that late summer sometimes saturates with, and so we reached a place which is the spirit of compromise; Maryland.

There are days now that evoke South East Texas, and in January, sometimes he goes outside without a coat, spreads out his arms, breathes deeply and says, "Yes." "This is how it should be."

In writing, one is supposed to sit down at the chair and open a vein. Apparently, the left first finger of my hand had the blood in it that channeled "Home."

Haiku Haiku, I don't know how to do...

I’ve never been any good at Haikus, I’m not even sure how to write the plural of Haiku. Seventeen syllables has always seemed arbitrary to me, like having a plastic flower in a glass vase at the dinner table to create ambiance. Still, I picked up a very funny book, Haiku Mama –because 17 syllables is all the time you have to read which inspired this piece.

And Now, My Haiku

Printing Books
On cereal boxes
Would solve child literacy over breakfast.

Or at least they would in my house.

If The Cubbies Win it All, Will Baseball Still Matter to Me?

For years, ever since I went to school in Southbend, I have been a closet Cub fan. I never memorized stats or line ups although my husband shrewdly figured out I thought Mark Grace in his prime was cute, but I loved watching the team on TV.

I think the pleasure began when I opted to skip a class where the poet Denise Levetov was coming to speak in favor of an afternoon game Senior year. We had seen her the day before in a special lecture where she proceeded to insult virtually everyone including my favorite teacher. I decided I didn’t want a second helping from the lady who critiqued my poetry thusly, “I’m very surprised, I almost believed this.” So, I went to the game instead.

We left a note for Harry Carey as he had a soft spot for Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s. “Our Dates came for the Sr. Formal, but we came for the Cubs.” It didn’t matter that the four of us who signed it were each other’s dates, I knew Harry would like the sentiment. He read it and our names on the air.

That Monday, my Creative Writing teacher and head of the department, a die-hard Chicago true Cubs fan called me into his office. “Sherry…we missed you on Friday. You weren’t by any chance at a Cubs game were you?”

Now I hadn’t missed or skipped an English class in four years, even when sick or having pulled an all nighter. This was my first time ever to blow off a class. “Yes.” I answered meekly.

“Good for you. I heard your name on the radio.” He smiled. I’d forgotten he tuned into every game, and this was before IPods and downloading and TiVo were possible.

While that may have been the genesis of my interest in the perennial bottom dwelling little bears from the windy place, I realized over the years, it was more of a devotion to Greek Tragedy. Being in love with a losing team that never gets to the top is similar to loving unconditionally and requires a special willingness to pour out one’s heart. It is a state close to grace in the sports world. Being the Charlie Brown who never kicks the football and tries anyway is Sisyphean, Homeric, epic in nature. I have to consider if it’s the Cubs or the relentless yearly story of constant struggle and disappointment that I enjoy.

And thus I wonder as the Cubs continue to rank first in the NL Central, if the Cubs win it all, if the happy ending for the longest suffering fans in all of America occurs, will we then become soccerphiles like the rest of the world? Will we then only seek to sate our sports desires with winning teams and no longer derive pleasure from loving organizations that do not love us back via success? Will watching a Cubs game post a World Series Winning matter to me or anyone else?

And then I remember, Notre Dame hasn’t won a championship since 1988! I get mad at them even when they’re winning if they aren’t winning beautifully. I want no penalties and no close calls and there are always tons of both to drive me nuts.

Thank God for the Irish!

Oh and, Go Cubbies!

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T'was the Day After Christmas

T’was the day after Christmas
The whole house was a mess
From the overabundance
Celebrating great blessedness.

The Children were scattered,
At peace with their toys
While the mother wandered aimlessly
The House had been destroyed.

With ribbons on the sink
And the wrappers flung everywhere
She reached for the chocolate
She wasn’t going to share.

The tree it still sparkled
The open piles of loot still loomed.
And today was trash day
Her oldest son groaned.

When what to her trained suburban eyes should appear
The Garbage trucks’ early,
it’s practically here!

Come William, Come Bonnie
Come Marta, Come Pete
Grab a bag and make a sweep
Get your shoes on your feet!

To the end of the driveway
They flew like a flash,
Pulling the cans
Overpiled with trash.

It was touch and go there
For a moment but then,
The garbage truck stopped.
He said, “Merry Christmas My friends.”

And he pushed a button
And those great metal doors
Crushed the bags and the boxes.
My toddlers were floored.

They each wanted a try
And the man he obliged
And a line formed behind us
Of the neighborhoodside.

For Fifteen minutes,
People brought out their stuff.
And had fun pushing buttons
Then I said, “That’s enough.”

I wrote him a check
And he got a few tips
For being kind on a day
Famous for hangovers and sales slips.

The Merry Garbage man
Continued his route
Then I remembered,
“It’s recycling day too. Shoot!”

Happy Boxing Day! Many Happy Returns...