Tuesday, December 31, 2019

December 31, 2019

                                                

What anchors me here is no sense



of urgency, no mission, no calling



the love of my children

           

            tendrils of hope that curlicue



around wafting leaves  only to escape



into dappled light flickering



from a street lamp or the moon



or perhaps a bonfire in the aboriginal outback



when roasting marshmallows for s'mores



was the greatest challenge



finding the right twirl to assure



golden brown or flamboyant flames



smooth and sweet or the crunchy grit



of victory won in audacity's grasp



yearning irrepressible for sweet sticky nectar



unsheathed from the charred ruins



bursts in my mouth



            trickles down my throat



followed by a sip of champagne



            your lips on mine

           

                        the shudder of ecstasy




photo: Moon and fireworks over Nice, France, 2019







 
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019

In Transit

                
As leaves 

            cling to trees 

so flesh 

            to our bones

we tarry 

           together
 
knowing 

          all the while
  
we live in transit 

          from one

  sunrise 

          to the next.





photo: Carrboro, NC, 2019-11-28






Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Teacher talk after hours





The hotel clerk offers me a free dinner at the bar. I accept. It's way past ten, I haven't eaten and nearby restaurants have stopped serving. Downstairs by the serve-yourself salad bar, I find a three-by-five-inch menu printed in italics.



The effort invested in producing a four-item menu was touching—the flourish of oblique script adds the panache of pride: basil tomato bisque, Caesar salad, brownies and beverage of choice including beer, red wine or Chardonnay. This hotel was striving to offer the ultimate guest experience. The wine was out of a box—a box from California that was probably made in China.



I perch on a bar stool next to a woman in black slacks, a sparkly shirt and dark blond hair, Cheryl from, as she calls it, “Oh-hiya.” She's talking to Joe on her left, yet shoots a friendly glance to me on her right, “You don’t believe there are rednecks in Ohiya? Well I’m here to tell ya there are. We were six kids in my family. Let me tell you something, other kids went to the beach on vacation.”



As I try to figure out what beach exists in landlocked Ohio, Cheryl adds, “We didn’t even go to the river, and we lived down the street from it. We played in the house.”



Cheryl says that abandoned cars populated an empty lot near her family’s home. “Let me tell ya something, my sister got pregnant in one of those abandoned cars and had to give up the baby for adoption. Is that redneck enough for ya?” she says to Joe.



He winces. As I choose wine over beer, Cheryl says, “I drink wine with my neighbor back home all the time. He’s a big black guy with spongy hair. He lets me touch it,” she says, bouncing her fingers in the air like playing piano chords and giggling. She continues, “I didn’t used to like wine, but now I do, the fruity kind. I’m a wine lover, a wino.”



“You mean wine aficionado, my darling,” I say, rising to serve myself salad into a Styrofoam to-go box from the buffet and ladle basil tomato bisque into a sturdy, white porcelain bowl. Cheryl's stories remind me of looking at pictures through my great aunt’s View-Master stereoscope: one poignant little episode after another flash by in crisp succession as she clicks through her narrative.



She is a master of the non-sequitur, freely skipping from one vignette to the next. “Melissa,” Cheryl says, “told me she buys size medium underwear, but that woman is as big as a house. I told Linda what Melissa said and she did not believe me. ‘She’s bigger than you and me both!’ said Linda."


"Now me,” says Cheryl, “I am a large. ‘L’ straight up,” she says, forming her index and thumb into a sign language ‘L’—“That’s me.”



I am not quite sure what to do with this information. She was facing me as she said it, but I think it was intended for Joe. I rest my soup spoon on the edge of the bowl, look up at her and say, “Well, I reckon being comfortable is what matters most in that situation.”



To me, she says, “We have family reunions with all my cousins, aunts and uncles. Kids are everywhere. I confess, though, there are not many pretty babies at those reunions. I said to my Momma, ‘Momma, we have the prettiest babies.’ When I meet a guy, I want to know if he makes pretty babies. If he doesn’t, then I don’t want to go out with him.”



She says to Dave, the Latino bartender, “Do you have babies? Do you make pretty babies?” He pulls out his cell phone and shows us pictures of Maya and Estelle – aged four and one, respectively. “They are beautiful,” coos Cheryl. “Do you see their mother?”



“I live in the same house with their mother,” says Dave.



I imagine that must be the geopolitically correct phrase for the new millennium to avoid stating marital status. Cheryl looks a little crestfallen to hear Dave’s domestic arrangement, but charges on, “Well that’s just great. I’m not here to criticize,” she says and starts to chat up Joe again.



Joe has a shaved head, a short beard and a solid, Mount Rushmore silhouette. He is there for an electrician conference. He has a child with autism who is “real smart.” And, the way he says “real,” you know it’s true.



Cheryl’s rainbow-and-unicorn friendliness makes you feel like she is your kid sister. She’s attending a teachers’ conference on meeting the needs of special populations like autistic kids in the public school—kids like Joe's son. Cheryl does not seem like the ashen-faced disciplinarians of yore. She hovers over her bar stool, full of excitement to be at a conference, to be in a hotel, to be surrounded by menfolk.



She says, “For me, growing up with all these kids, staying at a hotel is heaven.” Turning to Joe, she says, “Remember Razzles with the gum inside? Let me tell you, I want me some of them Razzles.” I get the feeling she is not talking about candy as she winks and paws nonchalantly at a couple of guys who walk past the bar.



I bid her and Joe good evening and retire with my salad and a couple of risqué, one-inch brownies on the side.



~ North Carolina, July 17, 2014





photo: evening falls on the roadside of 15-501, North Carolina

Friday, July 19, 2019

Tipped Ducklings July 1969


As the warm day settled into moonlight on Cape Cod
our vacation cottage settled to sylvan silence
sea salt heavy in the air, we five kids—
my siblings and a couple of friends—perched
our fifty toes gripped round the weathered handrail

of a gnarled grey deck—the kind that puts splinters
in your feet. Defying gravity, bottom sides up
we tipped like ducklings mooning the woods
—a breeze swept over our bums producing
ecstatic giggles as we teetered above grass

and trees far below. Indoors, adults murmured
over martinis, smoked cigarettes preparing
to watch history change. Outside, giddy
with the threat of falling with freedom
far from home up way past bedtime unattended

the cool night air bathed our skin.
The screen door creaked open. Freeze!
Mom's arm appeared—not her face
her voice snapped, “Come in, quickly!”
Uh-oh, we're in big trouble.

We hoisted up our britches, jumped down from the rail
ran into the dim, pine-paneled living room
hoped the scolding would be mild—
it was vacation after all and we had company.

Mom shushed, “Sit down and watch,” —Phew
she hadn't seen us. We sat on the worn, braided rug
adults on the tobacco-stained couch. The TV glimmered
through musty vacation-rental air in wavy black-and-white lines
crackled, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,”

and in that unimagined moment we were one
with the cosmos. We all left the TV, stood together on the deck
looked up in silence at the moon. 

We were Neil Armstrong.
We were America. We could do anything 
our hopes and hearts desired. It was as exhilarating 
as the wind on my bum.




photos: 21 April, 2019, Nice
19 May, 2019, Nice 


Historical note:
Listening full speed to Armstrong's quote, my childhood ears did not hear "a man" just "man" on TV.
 

Friday, June 7, 2019

Photos





Tally marks
on the prison
wall of mortality

graffiti
pixels

spray paint
smiles

signature
sunsets
burgeoning
over limpid
seas



fuzzy jowls
of my dog

ancient wisdom
of olive trees

of peace
flickering
through shadow
light

civilizations
come and gone

like my breath
my life.









photos:  
1. Olive tree in the Jardin Théodore de Banville
            2. Looking toward Jardin Félix Rainaud in the direction of le Cap Ferrat
            3. Ferris wheel and some Buddhas, Place Masséna (characters representing the seven continents, an installation by Jaume Plensa entitled "Conversation à Nice”) 
reflected in the Fontaine Miroir d'eau





Friday, May 17, 2019

Wondering How to Read the Directions



Maps are pictures we are told to read,
where read, from German raten,
means to guess or interpret from a dream.

To read a map one must turn it
this way and that to decipher
dreamy roads from landscape.

Sometimes there are words
like "Main Street" or "Chattanooga"
but the forte of maps resides in their lines and circles—

how roads nestle among soothing colors
scaling mountains, forging rivers with ease.
The lost must imagine themselves in that foreign, painted world

the cartographer's Ozwhere each point relates
to every other point with its own
fantastic application of cardinal directions

—a reminder that we are all
just visiting.






photo: from The Harvard Map Collection

Gerard de Jode's "Quivirae Regnum Cum Alijs versus Boream"

(Antwerp, 1593)
 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=d308acff91544f90af5f1ebdde50549f


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Sunday, April 21, 2019

Telegram to the Dark Side



Dear dark night of the soul stop
Welcome to my little life
stop Threatening abandonment
is futile I know you remain
near as my dreams stop

With each breath of life
you recall death stop Calling
me to the grave makes me wonder not
fear stop Like a child called home
I digress enchanted by beauty
World I won't let go




photo: Atlanta airport from the parking deck (2017)








Wednesday, April 3, 2019

the memory of light


all that i needed was
some small light and know that indeed
i would rise again and rise again to dance.
                  —Louise Clifton, “moonchild”


looking over stubbled fields
shadows lengthen
meet cows that crowd the gate

corn stalks rustle
with pheasant and quail
unaware of their fate

we too shall breathe a last breath
wonder why now
how yesterday

the harvest moon rose
to burn like the sun
we earthlings shivered

dismissed Jupiter—a fleck in the dark
marveled at the fly
blinking—a space station

uproarious clown car
piercing the horizon
to disappear

into the dark silent
womb of space
where the moon

undaunted
will again
birth the sun


                             





photo: Missé, France farmer's field 2018-09-27