Ladies of Autumn

work in progress -

I'm thinking about autumnal ladies in jewel-toned blouses and chunky gold and silver jewelry, expansive in their histories, steeped in grandchildren and bridge, ladies of a certain age who know who they are and where they have been; autumnal ladies with calendars full of appointments and the past:  past engagements,  passed times; ladies who look upon life in a softer light, whose sadness is carefully folded away, that season has passed, gentle women.

in lieu of...

since i'm not coming up with a poem a day - i have two in the works:  one about the spring runoff and another about crows eating hamburger off a garage roof- i found a little something i particularly like.  i also particularly enjoy the horrendous punctuation and syntax of the former sentence, but i digress.

'Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those I love, i can:  all of them make me laugh.'

WH Auden, 'Notes ont he Comic'

Ron Rash

I listened to an NPR interview with native North Carolinian Ron Rash, author of a short story collection entitled "Nothing Gold Can Stay," which I have not read.  I haven't read anything else of his, either - but was quite impressed with the interview.

A few observations on storytelling:

1.  Find the universal in the particular (answering a question on why he stays in NC).  I believe he cited Eudora Welty here ( a good researcher would confirm that).  The best regional writers know this:  imagine William Faulkner in the San Fernando Valley, or the Columbia Gorge.  No.

2.  If you don't get the small things right, they won't believe the big lies.

3.  Your landscape is your destiny.  His example was "The Great Gatsby."  To paraphrase, 'no one but a Midwesterner could have written that book.'

turkeys and crows

a lumbering hen
turkey chased the laughing crow
through the cornfield

***

the turkeys meander
through the fields in an icy rain
not a crow in sight

***

crows grip the high boughs
of winter sycamores, bare
limbed

an eagle soars
in the frail February light

***