a ghost-eyed dog
trots across a field
lately crew-cut of its corn
brown stubble
and rich clay exposed

plump gray clouds
hoist their heavy sails
there's a southwest wind,
the fishing might be good
barometer's right

an empty wicker rocker
moves in time with the breeze
on the new cedar porch
finches crowd the feeders
in the maple trees

naked cottonwoods host
a pair of red-tailed hawks
it's not yet thanksgiving
we've had a little frost on the pumpkin
we are deep down in the fall
we hunker down with
strong, hot coffee
look out over our steaming cups,
anticipate the winter to come
and hope for the best

November

too close to call

i nearly wept when ohio was called
for obama

and now, an hour later
i fear going to bed

a glass of wine,
low-fat triscuits
and cheddar cheese
at my side

switching channels
the comedy channel, of course
the channel of choice

every four years
we do this

every four years
we 'redefine'
america

every four years
we spend time and money
and lose friends and
lose ourselves in the
hustle and flow

and yet
America endures
we endure
and somehow prosper
and grow

and find a way
to live with
ourselves.

A Goddess Needs A Waistline

I am built more for comfort

Than for speed,

At sixty-five I have become

Zaftig

Which is not to say fat.

I miss my waist.

It has expanded to unrecognizable

Girth.

It is out of control, and growing

More unmanageable every year.

My girlish figure has

Taken a powder, rude tramp.

I wish I didn’t mind,

But I do.

I do.

Happy Halloween!

and now, for those of us who are amused by haints, All Saints/Souls Days which follow All Hallowed Eve.

starting over

you need a story sometimes
to live with yourself

a sacred narrative with blurred lines

we do not always need to see clearly
what we have done and what we have
failed to do

on the far horizon, it may not matter, anyway

and after all, it's your story

ghinko leaves lay

like bright yellow fans

 in the dimming of the day

We Live a Small Life

We live a small life on the Loran blacktop,
elegant in its simplicity,
quietly proportioned.
You can hear the corn grow;
waves of fireflies rise from the fields
in an ancient dance of cold fire.

Red-tailed hawks patrol the Plum River
basin; they ride thermals and roost,
dignified, in the cottonwood
at the bottom of the drive.

In Autumn, the breeze rustles the cornstalks,
whispering the secret of the first frost.
Geese, replete with gleanings,
vee west to the big river, the Mississippi.

Winter will come to us too soon.
But first, the blazing Autumn,
the smoke of bonfires a veil across the valley,
hoarfrost delicately laced in the mornings;
the garden is gone.

But first, the Harvest moon will rise fat and orange
over the hills, the tracery of bare trees against
the night.

There will be that moment yet, that one moment
when the earth is in perfect balance
waiting to die.

Life in the Slow Lane

Still don't have high-speed internet on accounta I'm gardening and fishing and falling into bed after a shower every night.  Boxes not unpacked, mostly.  But we have had broccoli, green beans, sugar snap peas and beets and of course, zucchini.  Not many fish, water's high.  Hot and hotter.  Hope to get back to this when I can work from home.  In addition to dial up:

local library is not on computers; they are still stamping the little due date tags
the lady at the bank took piano lessons with me in the 50s
you can get an appointment anywhere the next day, and sometimes the same day
they didn't really need my driver's license to cash an out of town check

well, i'm bummed i can't get on here regularly, and the muse is hot and cranky, so...no inspiration, other than Farm and Fleet.

The Moving Diaries

A couple of days behind, that would characterize the move so far.  I was laid low by some vicious bug in late April and did not get as much packed and sorted as I wanted.  Many thanks to Jan Laansma for her help.

On to the move move:  departed Loran Road on 17th May - rode fifteen hours in the Merry Oldsmobile without being entirely crippled up, so mark it as a victory.  Second victory - scored Neil Young tickets for Red Rocks concert.  August 5th.  This equates for Bill to my delight at being able to see Leonard Cohen, so is a VERY big deal.

Arrived six-ish, went to O'Malley's after a beer at home and called it a day.  Leigh has done a wonderful job keeping the house presentable.

First full day in Palmer Lake:  Good news, bad news.  Murphy's Law is operable.  Tim Eckert came over to grade the driveway - rock looks so much better, the ditches on the east side of the driveway have been filled.  Yeah!  On the downside - looks as if we had a leak in the south outside faucet - well, we do.  Period.  Driveway operation suspended for plumbing project.  Good news:  we think we don't have to replace the front door.  Bad news: looks like another project to adjust the fit.  All about the fitment.

Day Two:  Up and at 'em.  Mom to make cookies - does anything smell better than fresh baking?  Out of flour.  Hmmm.

moving on

I am moving from my Colorado home of nearly 24 years (35 years in Colorado).  The house is in disarray, many familiar objects packed, unfamiliar echoes in emptier rooms.  My old fat bastard cat, Boris, and the irrepressible Lab, Monique, cautiously prowl their disrupted environs.

animals always know
something's
up

cats switch their tails
dogs look questioningly
- as only dogs, especially Labs, can look -

there's a plaintive meow,
a rubbing against my leg
a paw on my lap

allowances are made
for petting
and cat business is left
unattended

the dog plops at my feet,
grounding me
in familiar places

it's as if they've already heard
the strain of the moving van
grinding past the corner
of Virgina and Suncrest,
rounding the sharp corner
and down-shifting
into their lives

No Poem Today

no poem today
no dancing pen
no muse has come
no spark, but then
no day is spent with
no thought
in rhyme; but today
no blank verse calls
no iambic time
no brief haiku
No! I'm through

Thanks to Marilyn Krysl who suggests this writing exercise on her website:  write a poem where each line starts with 'no.'

Lights on a Ground of Darkness

I recently discovered Ted Kooser, former  US Poet Laureate, Iowa native, Presidential Professor of U of Nebraska - whatever honor that may be.  He wrote a lovely little book on his family in Iowa, sixty pages of nostalgia, reminiscing and the lingering presence of the irises that followed his family from home to home, a Midwestern and Southern tradition, sharing flowers from the home place.

In the preface, a quote from Edwin Muir:

  'Time wakens a longing more poignant than all of the longings caused by the division of lovers in space, for there is no road back into its country.  Our bodies were not made for that journey; only the imagination can venture upon it; and the setting out, the road, and the arrival:  all is imagination.
  Our memories of a place, no matter how fond we were of it, are little more than a confusion of lights on a ground of darkness.'

Lady Darkwing

The dawn Raven flies
to where the sun sleeps

before departing, she shakes the shadow
from her wings

Ora Pro Nobis

We, who have lost our innocence
and our youthful dreams,
pray for us

We, who have lost our mothers,
our brothers, our sisters and fathers,
who have lost our way,
pray for us

We, who have lost our eyesight,
our fine creamy breasts,
and our waistlines,
pray for us.

We, who have kept faith,
pray.

Young Girls

Young girls can't
wear red red lipstick
(even Scarlett
Johanson
they look as if
they're trying too hard

or manage a cigarette
gracefully,
having not grown up
with Joan Crawford

young girls
fresh and sweet
Lolitas perhaps


but young girls can't
ever be

The Older Woman

A French Woman's Fondness

Marguerite Duras said, "You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable."

Duras was born in French Indochine (near present-day Saigon), and fell in love with a wealthy, older Chinese gentleman who was the subject of most everything she wrote.

from William Wordsworth

Glad sight wherever new with old

by William Wordsworth

Glad sight wherever new with old
Is joined through some dear homeborn tie;
The life of all that we behold
Depends upon that mystery.
Vain is the glory of the sky,
The beauty vain of field and grove
Unless, while with admiring eye
We gaze, we also learn to love.

et cum spirit 220

you never know what you have in a child, what is yours, what is god's; what is learned, what is the world's gift. you may look on a familiar countenance, observe a common gait, admire a trait you do or don't possess. or a weakness, for all that. what is your gift? what is the world's? the only certainty is that the child does not belong to you. she is of the wide world, consubstantial with the wind, the breath of god.

time and tide

I have learned, finally,
to slow down, if not to smell the roses,
at least to rest
between trips to the curb with heavy trashcans;

to pace myself, if not to
savor every moment,
at least to save my breath, which
along with the rest of me, is shorter now.

I realize that time is infinite, but it does not
tarry,

and there is nothing worth dying for

but love.

Memento Mori

A bow to Billy Collins' poem of this title - I'll have to come up with another one, but it's a common enough phrase.

It doesn't take much to remind me
that all is dross and my coffee
will cool into a weak shadow
of its formerly robust self

while I, in my big, soft armchair
rot from the inside out even as I
pen these few lines and consider
the mortality of every living thing:

my loyal black dog, and yes,
eventually that old fat bastard cat
although I suspect he may have found
the key to eternal life

the exuberance of the crocus along
the sidewalk will fade and blossoms drop
onto the fickle ground which
too will someday cradle us each and all

and as the coffee cools and the crocus
shyly greet one more sunrise, I believe
I will survive this day in surprise and gratitude

and that the inexorable rhythms of
an indifferent world will spare me:
another day, another sunrise,
another prayer

wait up for me

Slow down! your mother cried
as the green Chrysler swerved
and fishtailed across the
snow-packed cemetery road

leading to the fresh-cut rectangle
that would cradle your father
in his bronze bed, harsh and dark
in the November afternoon

the sun pale and weak in
long November shadows,
the grave hard dug into the deep frost
of Rosehill, hard dug into the hillside.

A neighborhood cemetery,
old Oscar Peterson nearby
and Iowa Dunseth Nelson
resting just East, facing the cold sunrise.

You can see Grandma's from here,
the flat-backed Herefords scattered
along the Western slopes of close-cropped
pasture.

Grandma's, Charlie Boy, Section Five -
pastures to the West, rolling West
to the Missouri, the home place
South, behind the shelter belt.

Slow down! as we skidded over
your Mother's side of the plot,
she in no hurry to get there,
reluctant to look into that certainty,
in no hurry to bury or be buried.

We stood in the relentless November
wind, huddled in impatience,
waiting for the sun to set,
waiting for the eerie bagpipes to cease,
waiting our turn.

POV

I thought of you fondly as I passed that dead squirrel splayed on the side of the road, up by Wilma French's. Knowing you share my deep-seated aversion to the little bastards (especially after they invaded my attic), but then I've always run their chattering little asses out of the yard, even before the home invasion. I considered just that sort of bond between us, hard to explain to someone else, someone perhaps soft hearted, or we would say soft-headed. The ineffable commonality of thought arising from our mutual perspective, a point of view some might term 'crotchety,' the charm of which does not elude me. There's poetry in the world view of grumpy old men and sharp-tongued crones, a symmetry achieved across decades of experience with rodents masqueraded as cartoon characters, and the realities of survival in the wide world.

Redemption

It is mid-Lent, or late, even, in that solemn season. I came across this poem on The Writer's Alamanc for today and thought it appropriate - this is my 200th post, and almost everything I write is about redemption, forgiveness, the never-ending second chance. Hope and despair dwell within us, Lent is upon us with Easter looming - another resurrection, another Pasqueflower abloom in the woods, another sunrise awaiting.

In the heat of late afternoon...

by Gary Young

In the heat of late afternoon, lightning streaks from a nearly
cloudless sky to the top of the far mesa. At dusk, the whole south
end of the valley blazes as the clouds turn incandescent with
some distant strike. There is a constant congress here between
the earth and the sky. This afternoon a thunderstorm crossed the
valley. One moment the ground was dry, and the next there were
torrents running down the hillsides and arroyos. A quarter-mile off
I could see a downpour bouncing off the sage and the fine clay
soil. I could see the rain approach, and then it hit, drenching me,
and moved on. Ten minutes later I was dry. The rain comes from
heaven, and we are cleansed by it. Suddenly the meaning of baptism
is clear to me: you can begin again, and we are saved every day.

Poetry West

This poem came from a poetry gathering in Colorado Springs - I wasn't sure I was at the right spot, but then...

I knew, when I saw
the multicolored broomstick skirt
topped by a canvas
barn coat,
a flash of turquoise,
and silver
Vail bears
twinkling beneath a flat-top
Santa Fe hat -

I knew I had arrived
at the Poetry West
Saturday morning
coffee
klatch.

Before the Weather Turns

Before the weather turns and the winds from Limbaugh come down around us
We'll again go to the woods, to the pond where mallard drake and hen
nest, to the cliff of swallows where ragged, broken roots cling to naught but rock.
We will cross the Sunridge and climb to Raspberry Mountain, shining in the pale
afternoon sun.

Before the weather turns and the gray clouds swell and hide the cerulean April sky.

*********

Before the weather turns,
and the winds from
Limbaugh
come down around us,
we'll again go to the pond
where mallard drake and hen nest,
to the cliff of swallows,
where ragged, broken roots cling
to naught but rock.

We will cross the Sunridge
and climb to Raspberry Mountain,
shining in the pale afternoon sun.

Before the weather
turns,
and the gray clouds
swell and hide
the cerulean
April sky.

*********
Before the weather turns
and the winds from Limbaugh
come down around us,
we'll again go to the woods,
to the pond where mallard drake
and hen nest, to the cliff of swallows,
where ragged, broken roots
cling to naught but rock.

We will cross the Sunridge and climb
to Raspberry Mountain, shining
in the pale afternoon sun.

Before the weather turns,
and the gray clouds swell
and hide the cerulean
April sky.

*****
Before the weather turns
and the winds from Limbaugh
come down around us,
we'll again go to the woods,
to the pond where mallard drake and hen nest,
to the cliff of swallows,
where ragged, broken roots cling
to naught but rock.

We will cross the Sunridge
and climb to Raspberry Mountain,
shining in the pale afternoon sun.

Before the weather turns,
and the gray clouds swell
and hide the cerulean April sky.


*****

Looking at the Sky

by Anne Porter

I never will have time
I never will have time enough
To say
How beautiful it is
The way the moon
Floats in the air
As easily
And lightly as a bird
Although she is a world
Made all of stone.

I never will have time enough
To praise
The way the stars
Hang glittering in the dark
Of steepest heaven
Their dewy sparks
Their brimming drops of light
So fresh so clear
That when you look at them
It quenches thirst.

Hildegard von Bingen

For the air is alive in the verdure and the flowers and the waters flow as if they lived the sun too lives in its light and when the moon wanes it is rekindled in the light of the sun, as if it lived anew. Even the stars glisten in their light as if alive.

+++++++

The soul is like a wind that waves over herbs,
Is like the dew that moistens the grass
Is like the rain-soaked air that lets things grow.
In the same way you should radiate kindness
To all who are filled with longing.

Be a wind, helping those in need.
Be a dew, consoling the abandoned.
Be the rain-soaked air, giving heart to the weary,
Filling their hunger with instruction
By giving them your soul.

...I am a feather on the breath of God

a fetch of retrievers

it's good to have a retriever
dog
you can sit in the lawnchair
in the sun
with a refreshing beverage

wearing your oversized sunhat
and big dark glasses,
flame-orange chuck-it
in hand

and you only have to bend over
to reach that ball
when she brings it back
panting
happy to be
retrieving
whatever you throw

Iowa State Fair - 2011

except me, of course

everybody lies - dr gregory house

everybody lies
we lie to ourselves
we lie to our confessor
we lie to the tax man
we lie because we can
and because we can't
help it

everybody lies
we lie out of love
we lie out of spite
we lie about our weight
and what we ate

we lie as an art form
an embellishment
or an abbreviation
of our pain

everybody lies

Smoke Break

sometimes I wish I
smoked
so I could go out into the sunshine
and take a break

muse over the contrails
and the habits of the crows
on the light post

I would inhale deeply,
wrinkling my brow
in thought

I'd have a book,
or a cup of coffee in hand

and expect nothing

but the next breath

Moving Pains

Surreptitiously, I peer
out the window
hoping the trash collector
picks up those broken
windows and the old
screens

and maybe even the
nail-studded frames
that I snuck out
among the other detritus
of a life here
along the front range

dishes cracked and
scarred cups with
no handles
an old broomstick
that could be useful
I suppose
some day

busy busy part II

so i was getting ready to go out
when i decided to check my
email and hannah was there and we had
a chat

i stuck to my schedule, though
except that that old fat bastard cat
threw up in my chair
and the clothes weren't quite dry
and i had to put them in the dryer
again

i stayed way too long at jerry and
kathy's visiting, but
i did pretty well at the post office; then
tom allen was at the library and
i got to talking politics:
take that you republican't assholes.

when i got home, the snow
was so lovely that i had to play
outside with the dog for a while

but i did get the soup on
and the kettle is whistling and
maybe i won't get to the attic
after all.

busy busy

well, it's friday
and i should catch up
on the stuff i didnt get done
earlier in the week,
like wednesday when i went golfing
and yesterday when i did two hours
of cardio at the Y when i usually do one
and had to take a nap
(do not underestimate silver sneakers)

so today is busybusy:
i need to vac & dust and get into either
the garage or the attic
and make room for the next round
of cleaning & sorting & boxing up.

but first i'd better go to jerry
and kathy's for that dvd they are
lending me
and stop at the post office, of course

then to the library for my reading contest
gift and to pick up the items
i had on hold and maybe
chat with whoever
might be lingering there
over the paper

by that time, the dog will need
to be taken outside and
look! the snow has started again
so first i think i'll make
potato soup
and have a cup of tea

the reality of it

the foxes got her, of course
that big dog fox down by the
dovecote, I imagine
her fine bones bleached
in the rock bed
of the creek,
dry now in the remains of winter,
the creekbed she'd hunted
brave and foolish

i don't go there much
anymore
nor through those woods beyond
not as brave
i suppose
but foolish: i hang onto
the echo of her yet.

we avoid the old path, my dog
and I
missing her in the odd
moments of the evening walk.
we await the spring
when the creek again
rushes and the aspen bud out
in tender green glory and her echo
fades into a new season
her death a mere fact
in time

From the Hermitage - First Friday of Lent

I heard something on Oprah's radio soul class this morning and thought: there's today's meditation. Then I went about my day and forgot whatever it was that I had been so taken with in the first place. Lost the thought Later in the day, I lost an earring, prayed to St Anthony and walked right outside, in the snow, and found it in the road. I never did remember that first meditation, but St Anthony is a good friend of the Bristol-Holden family and worthy of consideration here. Long ago, I heard a priest talk about the many aspects of St Anthony (patron of lost objects and husbands - I have always wondered if the husbands were lost, too) for the many things we lose along the way: we lose our faith, we lose our youth, our waistlines, we lose our belief in happy endings. And the thing is, while we contemplate praying to St Anthony for our many and various losses, we can use Lent to celebrate loss: we can lose our pettiness, our pinched spirits. We can lose our incapacity for wonder, we can lose our capacity for cynicism. We can lose our differences, our barriers, our fears, the fences around our hearts. We can lose the old versions of stories that imprison us in our past. We can lay our burdens down.

Snowed In

No wind. Blessed silence
after the raging of the night.
Fat snowflakes drift along the windowpane.
We are snowed in.

I turn and run my hand
along the flannel of my winter bed
tracing the memory of you
curled against me
my hand on your chest, fingers trailing
along the broken wing of your
collarbone

your heartbeat echoes in the palm
of my open hand,
moving down your belly and across
the sharp plane of your hip
where we curve deeply
into one another,
memory warming my blood

Snowed in.

Collateral Damage

Who are these precious girls
in scarves and burkas
mortar the soundtrack
of their childhood

hungry to learn
where a powerful woman is
inconceivable

they dream in the stacatto
of war

they hope in the shadow
of ignorance

their blood is on our hands

Lent from The Hermitage

The Huffington Post (!) has a lovely Lent blog, with a wonderful variety of authors, philosophies, reflections. My aim is to post daily on my own Lenten thoughts, frustrations, whatever. And I did not post yesterday, although I did share part of the iconic TS Eliot poem for Wednesday.

Following and interspersed will be the Czarina's Lenten offering.

from 'Ash Wednesday' by TS Eliot

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the
garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Rio Abajo Rio (The River Beneath the River)

A sestina offering:


Dawn blesses the Sangre de Cristos, a redeeming dawn in shadow,
bleeding dry onto the cleansing plain, the vein of redemption
opens where the bones of the earth meet old rivers,
where the wind carries the cries of La Llorona seeking her lost children,
her eyes soft with unshed tears, the unforgiving earth
strewn with forgotten stones, with small bones of mice and rabbits.

La Llorona haunts the careless dunes, floating weightless among the rabbit
brush, the errant wind wild in her hair, evil like a tuning fork among the shadows.
We float in loss and hope, we find no words, we are swallowed by the earth.
Small crimes of atonement mock our redemption.
A storm brews in the boundary lands. Voices of children
along the ancient river echo in the dawn; the arroyo hides the river.

Forgiveness comes with light and searing heat. We seek the coolness of the river.
Shy small deer come to drink, bloody arrows quivering in their dusty hides and rabbit
bones like sharp stones cut our feet. We seek our lost children.
The dead have no privacy in our howling sorrow. They hide in the shadows,
in pinion and sage where the doves go to die; they deny our redemption
in the landscape of the past. They are the bones of the earth.

The dawn fades, the sands shift, we open the veins of the earth.
We cannot bear our sadness, we cannot bear our loss. The old river
beds are dry; they do not yield up the waters of our redemption.
Fortunes are told with old stones, with dried bones of rabbits
tossed carelessly into the fire, the future read in the ashes and fickle shadows.
We stir the cinders of a cold fire, we listen for the laughter of our children.

White Shell Woman rides the ghost ship of the moon, a million cold stars her children.
Sins of omission scar the sacred geometry of the earth.
The cold mountains yield no answer; there are no shamans in their shadows.
They do not answer to the ancient rivers, they know not the ancient rivers
where we walk alone, where we are frightened like timid rabbits,
where we dream the ancient rivers, where we chase the foxfire of redemption.

Lady Raven flies westward, shedding her long shadow. Redemption
lies in the shifting sands, in the prayers of our children:
children playing in the arroyos, children running wild, running free among the rabbit
brush, the unbound wounded, our better angels in the crimson stain of the earth.
Our gnarled hands rake the sands of the Sangres, we remember the ancient river.
Sangre de Cristo. Sangre de Madre. We cast no shadow.

I am your lost daughter.
I am your unknown son.
I sing your salvation.

Well, I went and did it

self-published (vanity, vanity) a volume of poetry, mostly posts under Zwicheraum. I have mixed feelings (being Midwestern) - the vanity of it, the hard look at those that are not so great and yet, I like some of this stuff. I do. And it was supposed to be a gift - there you go - it wasn't for me.

And I haven't been writing as much, so need to get back to the computer, where it seems to go easier for me, for some reason. At any rate, I did it (no, they haven't been mailed yet) and need to move onto the next project. Except for mailing, I actually finished it - didn't complete NaNoWriMo this year, but hey - sixty pages of poetry and photos and drawings - not so bad after all.

Modesty, that's me.

baby oh baby

baby,
you are so beautiful
i love you
i need you, baby

every woman i know
has heard those words

babybabyohbaby

and heart in hand
has taken in
and been taken in

hoping that this time,
this one time
will be different

this one time
the shine will not
wear off

this time

passion will not fade
into a comfortable

silence


And after re-reading this, I can only imagine what a reader might think: oh, man, somebody's bitter. The poem was inspired by a movie late at night with sharon stone and voyeur billy baldwin - where at the end of the movie she finds tapes of billy and his former lovers. he's saying the very same things to each one that he says to her. rather than shoot him - she is armed and dangerous, after all - she shoots up all of his recording equipment and multiple viewing screens and tells him to get a life.

It's also influenced by the reality of romance. I have friends who have fallen into that comfortable silence. Fortunately, I have not. A checquered past, marriages that have ended, passion that has not. Well, in one less than memorable version, passion was not a visitor, but I digress and have revealed more than necessary. In fairness to all, being quietly comfortable ain't all bad.

I think I really just wanted to note that my Sweet William is not the subject of the poem, nor do I fear that silence with him.

Tab A, Slot B

you have turned my head,
won my heart, until every
part of me moves toward you
like the shoreline and the sea
we are drawn by some old memory of blood and desire
moving in inexorable ancient rhythms
beyond ourselves
beyond the past

memory bright and new
heart in heart

in breathless
certainty