The Silk and the Tassel

 

The apricot moon rises in my window

as the whirr of the coffee mill

grinds hand-picked Guatemalan beans                

and the pungent scent wafts up the stairs

where I’m abed with a reading light

one eye on the antics of The Monkey Wrench Gang

and their wandering skipper

and one on the sturgeon moon

rising unobstructed above the trees,

a sight the eco-terrorist hooligans would celebrate.

Sheets of rain rattle the corn in the night

rinsing dust off the tassels and dampening the windowsill.

The rain gauge fell into the peony bush Gracie hides under

cool soft earth, her secret place.

Only green marble eyes and velvet rose nose peep out at me.

I fish the gauge out of the foliage

and hang it back on the railing.

For what would I be willing to risk

shackles and confinement,

cat and home and coffee in the morn?

Written to a prompt from dVerse asking poets to choose at least three names of butterflies in a poem. 

My three are: 

Wandering Skipper

Green Marble

Velvet Rose

And for What's Going On  the poet's blog where this week they've asked us to write something about eyes, what we see or what sees us.

Sunshine in the Cemetery

                                                                      Dark Matter is like the space                                                                                       between people                                                                                        -Tracy Smith "Life on Mars" 

This month is named for Mars, that bloodthristy Roman God of War and eponymous red planet, and this post is a tribute to Tracy Smith's "Life on Mars" the Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry in 2012.  Frank Tassone at dVerse, the Poet's Pub, has suggested we write a haibun in the spirit of Smith's extended elergy for her late father. 

She who taught me to set a table, make my bed, and say my prayers waits for spring with no complaint— the boys of summer—but another sore appeared on her ankle and she wonders aloud What will become of me? I’m still a child while she is here, when she is gone what will become of me?

Whirl of black wing through the trees. Watchful crows remember face. Red tulips match her dress and his bow tie. Easter finery, cemetery grass, soft and matted underfoot. Why not believe as Camus did that two can become reunited as one?

Vase of daffodils

Last a week when brought inside

Sunshine in a jar

The haibun form consists of one or two paragraphs of prose that evoke an experience followed by a haiku, nature based, that complements the prose.

Thanks Frank for the evocative prompt.

When We Were Mad or Feeling Sad . . .

 

Dad said Smile!
Hard to smile when feeling bad
But he’d insist
Smile!
It felt invasive

I wanted to be mad!
But hard to stay mad when forced to smile.
I don’t know if that was right 
But I never forgot it
Did I.

Today at dVerse, the pub where poets hang out, we were asked to write a Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words) which includes the word smile, in any of its forms. We need more smiles nowadays so I repeated it three times to make it stick. Now visit the poets pub for more smiles, from Nat King Cole to Tim McGraw to Charles Bukowski. 

The Drone

 
Of the crop duster drifts through my window
like a helicopter looking for a landing.
 

Birds sing and flit around the feeders

But where are the butterflies?

 

What is a will-o'-the-wisp?

What is a whip-poor-will?

 

The bees that escaped their hives in protest

Of a neighbor’s rough handling swarmed

 

My porch, my yard, my window screens.

After two days, they rediscovered their hives

And lifted the siege. I went to the grocery. 

The anniversary of a death approaches

But I’m not a Buddhist to celebrate the end. 

I’m not pining like the doves who coo

From the highwire from where they see what they see 

But where are the butterflies? Where are the pond frogs?

 

The crop duster returns in the evening to herald dusk

the way frogs once did.

 

A murder of crows caw from the top of a tree

struck by lightning. Will they remember my face?

Written for Poets and Storytellers who challenge us to write something both spooky and summery (summerween!). Nothing is spookier here in the lowlands of Southeast Michigan than the constant drone of the cropduster. What they are doing can't be seen, like the roots of a tree. 

And for dVerse Poets  who gave us a poem from Pablo Neuvda's Book of Questions, Why do trees concal their roots? a poem that prefers questions to answers."

 

I Never Wanted Anything More

The sun burns off the fog

as orioles eat store-bought

grape with no mind

as to where it came from

or who grew and picked

the grapes and filled the jar.
Me, sipping coffee from beans we can't grow

but remembering young girls with shy smiles

picking beans under triple canopy jungle.

I open the door to snap photos

as the fog lifts from the headlands

and a bank of clouds pose as a mountain,

white-peaked with angry undertones—

indigo bunting breaking free of the mother cloud.

Red wing blackbird glides in for a landing

confident as a pilot adjusting his flaps.

I never wanted anything more.

Written and posting for dVerse, the Poet's Pub, "Go and Open the Door" and for Poets and Storytellers who ask for a Slice of Life. This is mine. Have a cuppa with me?!

The Greatest of Lakes If We Can Keep It

 

Sand gives way under my feet

as I bend to the effort

of climbing a dune

on the sweetwater sea.

 

Beyond waving fronds of seagrass

water to the horizon heaves and hurls

plumes of foam that pound the shore.

It polishes stone

and whittles driftwood

burnished and smooth as a baby’s sole.

 

With sand in my shoes

hardpack underfoot

I fill my pockets.

Clouds scurry happily overhead

as gulls ride the waves

like surfers in wet suits.

 

Where water meets sky

the stars and the moon live in the depths

while on a rush of wing

eagle eats gull and feathers fly—

            ferocious predator

            rules the sky

while fox of the bayou

trots over the sedge

to circle his den of many rooms—

            intrepid hunter

rules the beachhead

as Superior turns herself

inside out to bring in treasures

whittled to size by the push and pull

of the big shining sea.

For dVerse, the Poet's Pub, and their Open Link Night, Poets and Storytellers, what does "low battery" mean to you, and how do you recharge?  and What's Going On the writer's blog that asks us to think about the personal nature of homemade gifts, and while they're the best, I think gifts washed up on the shore of Lake Superior might be their equal 

 

Feeling Small in a Multitude of Ways

                "I will love my crooked neighbor with my crooked heart"                                                                                           W.H. Auden

If the sky were any bigger it would kill me clean.
like an iceberg into the melting sea.
 
The sun colors the sky best before it breaks dawn
each wisp of cloud a red kite on a string.
 
It enhances the tree clinging to its last wind-torn leaf
like a mother to her child through the fence of the king.
 
It’s bigger than a barn from afar, that tree
and I don’t know its name or how old it is,
 
limbs full of empty nests unraveling in the wind.
Too lazy to have walked through a field of grass
 
to stand under a tree, the vast sweep of its arms,
and pay homage to that which is braver than me.
 
Too cowed to lob arrows at he who'd be king, 
my capacity to feel small is undiminished  by lies.
 
The sun travels its arc across a blood-splattered sky
and I finish the day in a multitude of small ways.

In concert with the theme March of Time from the poets at What's Going On and with OLN (open link night) at dVerse, the pub where poets hang out.  A good way to finish out the week, methinks!!. 

IMPERMANENCE

The women gather at the riverbank
Musician, hunter, poet, mother.
Far from the withering gaze of the preacher
They bare their breasts to the sun.             
Sacred herbs for the midwife—
Sweetgrass and yarrow, sage, and cedar.

They gather and gaze

At the image of their mothers
In the mirror of the river.

Like snails in an aquarium
loosened from their shells,

In the reel of the river
They bare their breasts to the sun.

 

Bird’s plaintive cry o’er

purple nestling on the walk

Flees in silent flight.

 

 

May is a time of transience, and Frank Tassone, Monday’s host at dVerse, asked us to face the inevitable passing of it all with a Haibun, a literary form that blends prose and haiku.  

Grandpa's Haymow (The Secret Place)

 We appreciate what we have after we no longer have it

 

I unhook the latch on the door and climb over the ancient
threshold of the haymow erected when grandpa was little.
The wind moans and groans through the cracks in the boards
and the door swings and bangs on its rusted hinge.
The smell of hay baled in summer and stacked for winter
from floor to rafters to a peekaboo window
the fun of seeing without being seen. But there—

A cache of eggs in a bowl of straw.

Brown and warm, chocolate and tan

Hens who like to sit, murmur, and coo

Beneath a watertight roof safe and secure.

Puffed-up doves preen in the rafters.

One flies overhead, east to west, the length of day.

Temperatures drop, wind rifts through the cracks

The sound of eaves dripping,

November come calling.

But the mow stays dry, a refuge from the farm on the farm.

I write in here. If I were a bird I’d nest in here.

If I were an owl, I’d sleep in here. 

If I were a architect I construct this here.

But they don't make barns like this anymore.

The resident cat from a long line of felines is on patrol.

When dad had dairy there were many of them.

Does she have a batch of newborns curled in a ball

In grandpa’s hay mow? 

A melodic song from high in the rafters

Stirs the hair on my arm.

No common sparrow this trilling song. Doves don’t mind

Our looking at them but somewhere up there—

Where no light can shine, nor eye can see

Perches an uncommon bird warbling a song.

My breath freezes in frame like a cat on the prowl

But this diminutive bird

Compelled to sing of the day 

Remains hidden from me.

 

For dVerse, a poem about a building that was more than a building to me.

 

Graveyard Hierarchy

My son asked how much a tombstone costs
as we trace ancestry through the graveyard
and calculate dates—how common it was to bury babies.
 
Some lucky souls merit saintly companions
who guard their tombs with outstretched arms
or a wrought iron fence to ward off vagrants.
But look how the monied died just as young.
 

At the rear of the yard are the stones we can’t read—

all the names swallowed up by the cold.

Bare of epitaph, they lean against each other,

even their stones are tired.

 

Then there are the markers that only bear a number,

like the tattooed at Auschwitz.

One straggler is off alone and we wonder

if he wanted it so.

The rounded stone juts white from Earth like a tooth.

And what of those who couldn’t even get inside the fence—

separated from the gilded, even here.

To celebrate Swedish Nobel Laureate Tomas Transtromer, dVerse's Bjorn Rudberg asked us to write a poem of exactly 144 words, including a line taken from one of the Nobel writer's poems. In case you can't guess, it's all the names swallowed up by the cold.

More at dVerse on this renowned poet and how he captured the long winters of Scandinavia in his writing.

Note: All the photographs herein on my own. No peeping AI on my shoulder with his shudder eye.

The Newspaper City

We walk to mass along sidewalks
slick with mist from the ocean bay.
Hulking shapes huddle in doorways
where the sun won’t ever shine
to shiver the whole night through
under newspaper blankets.
 
We hasten into church to kneel and pray
with Asian, Latin, and Creole speakers
as incense wafts over the pews and candles twinkle
like the flickering of the holy spirit
descending on the fortunate.

 

With the transubstantiation of altar bread and wine

there’s a rush from the back for the body and blood.

Confused at the lack of decorum

  (do they fear the chalice will spring a leak?)

we ease our way into the jostling line of supplicants

like automobiles jockeying for an off ramp.

 

With a finger dipped in the font at the door

we exit into the misty morn of a cash-strapped city.

Beggars await us on the steps with their outstretched cups.

Father always dropped a five in the tin can of the gaunt man

who sat wrapped in wool at the top of the exit ramp

on trips into a different city.

 

We walk back to the hotel

past darkened storefronts and empty streets.

Silent except for the rustle of newspapers. 

Written for dVerse in memory of Kurt Cobain, the legendary alternative rock musician whose birthday was this past Tuesday. Nirvana's lyrics were known for metaphor and emotional depth. Challenged to use lines from one of the songs posted in the prompt, I chose a couple that would fit this poem.  Check out Melissa's post at dVerse for more on the enigmatic Cobain, photos and lyrics. And the poets at What's Going On who've asked us  to write about "Color" so taking liberty, as this is more about the absence of color.  There are other more beautiful poems about color passing through so head over. 

A City, A Country, A Gift

dVerse (the pub where the poets hang out) has asked for a city-inspired verse. 

Turning Down The Linen

The lost sunrise, rare coin, I now lament.

So too, its flaming slide at end of day.

I can’t escape my farm girl sentience.

Unleash me over those fields of fresh mown hay,

Not here, where brick and steel climb up the sky,

Where wren and hawk have flown a quick retreat.

Gray smoke and stacks alike tarnish surprise,

Over a city that rumbles beneath my feet.

This busy beast that swallows every sound

With clotted breath. To water’s edge I’m drawn

Where stars appear from out the black surround.

Like fields of wheat, waves undulate in song.

 

And then there’s you with power to part the night.

You turn the linens down and dim the lights.

That's the only sonnet I've ever written. Now, living where I do, I have to say this cold country sky is on fire!🔥 Streaks of crimson flood the windows, coming in from all directions, a sky made more beautiful by the dark sentinel trees and the white ground beneath. How is such a thing possible on a dark winter morn in the northern hemisphere? Window to window, I draw back the curtains. A blue jay is rocking it in the bare branches of the maple tree, and the fleeting shadow of an owl escapes over the shed. A quiet house, a cup of coffee, jays for company, a rural morning.

To go with the gift of a new day, my novel is on Barnes and Nobel!! It's also now on Amazon but somehow the B&N makes me more excited. Maybe it's the brick and mortar? I feel like they've given me an early Valentine's gift. 💝💘💕  

I am also now officially a Goodreads Author.  Please consider signing up for my newsletter where I'm sharing what I've learned on this journey from idea to draft to an ISBN. I will have a drawing for signed copies from the subscriber list on April 2nd to celebrate the launch of

I'd also like to mention a new site for discovering and sharing books called Shepherd. They're awesome. I love his little staff and hat-you gotta check it out!

In looking back, I've been blogging here since 2008. I laugh at some of my first posts. (What's Under The Bed) It seems so long go. I've had some ups and downs but stuck with it. The writing has been an exercise in itself. I cringe at some of those old posts but am also proud of a few. 

In closing, I just want to say thank you to all old and new friends and followers who have been so kind and supportive. You who have been generous with sharing your own writing and expertise, especially those at dVerse and Poets and Storytellers.  I wish I could have you all over for a drink. The house is small but I'd make it work!

Over and Out,

Yvonne
Human

REMEMBER SNOW

 
I remember the year it snowed
on the drive home from Midnight Mass.
Walking to the car, snowflakes on our tongues
the slap slap of the  wipers
noses pressed against the window
dizzied by the storm swirling around us.
Will rain remember being snow?

This is a Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words) written for the challenge at dVerse to write one including the given word, snow. Twas easy to do. Even though we don't have any . . .  

I remember when it was otherwise. And the poets at What's Going On are asking us to share a poem about looking back.

Uncommon Fruit

 

I need to see the sun’s first light

and flaming slide at the end of day.

I can’t escape my farmgirl sentience—

what it was to fall asleep

to the thrum of the hay dryer

with a pillow cooled at windows of sweet scent,

to hear the whistle of the freight train

on its rumble through the night

to pick up grain and carry it off.

 

With hay cut and drying in the sun,

I see those strong boys paid to help.

Heavy bales to lift, throw, and stack;

chaff in our hair, sweat down our backs.

We gathered at the hydrant,

close but not touching. Closer than touching.

 

Knee-deep in Queen Anne’s Lace

on a wend among the boulders,

glacial erratic that lined the fence—

worn pocket tops caught the rain

and made a seat for dreams of Oread

hawks and love and common things

 

and lent a view of the jagged line

of rogue apple trees

that grew along the creek

in unmannered ways,

withstood the winds of winter

and bore uncommon fruit

without the nod of a care from us.

 

Sharing an old poem about home at dVerse  (the poet's pub) and Poets and Storytellers, What conjures up home?  Nothing was ever sweeter than the smell of fresh cut hay and first love. 

Super Blue Moon

The last rain stopped

and the steel sky lifted

a bit.

Six crows fly in battleship formation

across what might be the sun,

visible orb through cumulus gray

a bit.

Then dusk descended and the crows went

where crows go and bats took flight

from their hidey holes

and the moon- what they call blue-

rose over the hill where cattle sleep

and my father's house once stood.

For a bit.

Blue Moon on the rise

shames the breadth of artless men.

Bathes the earth in blue.

Written for our BLUE MOON, which won't happen again until 2037. Who knows what state the earth will be in by then so shine on tonight and check out the poets of dVerse as they praise the moon which dims the light pollution of humankind. The haiku finale is requisite in the haibun poetry form. Also, from dVerse is their Open Link Night for all to join in.

The Pet Peeve

 

On my mind of late is the increasing use of the term "guest" instead of "customer."  I was standing in line at a checkout when a clerk waved an arm and called:

 "Next guest!" 

I looked around. Guests? Whose a guest? Who...me?

I wanted to ask the perky person behind the arm why refer to me as such an animal.  I thought I was here to buy something. Am I to be entertained? How nice, where may I sit and should I have taken off my shoes? 

I thought this experience was an abberation. Perky was obviously out on a limb of her own choosing. This misuse of the term couldn't have been suggested or condoned by the powers that be. It couldn't possibly take root in the lexicon of customer/business relationships. And so, I forgot about it. But then, alas, it happened again and again.

Guest, per Webster is a person entertained in one's home or a person to whom hospitality is extended. 

Customer, per old Webster is one who purchases a comodity or a service from a store or a business.

I'm a customer when I go to the department store, the uptown store, or the downtown store. I don't expect an easy chair, or a glass of wine, or a crumpet. I neither expect nor want to take off my shoes. I don't expect anything other than efficient, polite service and a commodity at a fair price. It grinds my goat to be called a guest when I'm a customer. Guest implies friendship and comaraderie. It implies a gift exchange. I think someone far removed from those of us who grease the gears of civilized society decided it would make us feel all warm and snuggly to be thus labeled; complacent as lemmings as we stand in line to pay for our gifts with Guest stamped on our foreheads, bamboozled by yet another example of the flagrant misuse of the English language.

Gift, per Webster is a thing given willingly to someone without payment.

The final straw was the tire guy. We needed a tire rotation, which was free because it's where we bought them. Unfortunately, this turned into four new tires and an estimate for brakes and rotors that if not attended too would land us in the ditch where we would be neither guest nor customer but SOL. In reading over the estimate and invoice, we were referred to over and over as a Guest. This service (please refer to Webster's definition of Customer) was going to cost us (now their GUEST) over $1,200. 

Is that any way to treat a guest when all we wanted was a free rotation?

Challenged by Bjorn Rudberg at d'Verse to use rhetorical device to argue a cause you believe in, I have argued a pet peeve of mine. As Bjorn reminds us: "rhetoric is the art of convincing." Did I convince you?

Christmas Shopping at the Liquor Store

We met between the cabs and the sirahs —

My old lover and I.

A hank of chardonnay-colored hair

Fell between the Prosecco and Aperol

As he peered at a label with a falconer’s

Eye and I tripped over the Budweiser

Horses into his arms.

If wine is poetry,

Old friends are run-on sentences.

Let them come and take us away.

Playing with words for Shay's Word Garden.  Her word list this week is taken from A Coney Island of the Mind by the late beat poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a favorite of mine, and also the owner of the famous City Lights Book Store. Visit her post this week to read his Junkman’s Obligato. 

 

And for the last dVerse of the year, a Meeting at the Bar, Zen Poetry. This was my Zen moment in the store before we went to the bar!  Happy Hoppy Holidays!!!