XLIII

if there are any heavens my mother will (all by herself) have
one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses

my father will be (deep like a rose
tall like a rose)

standing near my

(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my

(suddenly in sunlight

he will bow,

& the whole garden will bow)

- e. e. cummings

The New Year

It is winter and the new year.
Nobody knows you.
Away from the stars, from the rain of light,
you lie under the weather of stones.
There is no thread to lead you back.
Your friends doze in the dark
of pleasure and cannot remember.
Nobody knows you. You are the neighbor of nothing.
You do not see the rain falling and the man walking away,
the soiled wind blowing its ashes across the city.
You do not see the sun dragging the moon like an echo.
You do not see the bruised heart go up in flames,
the skulls of the innocent turn into smoke.
You do not see the scars of plenty, the eyes without light.
It is over. It is winter and the new year.
The meek are hauling their skins into heaven.
The hopeless are suffereing the cold with those who have nothing to hide.
It is over and nobody knows you.
There is starlight drifting on the black water.
There are stones in the sea no one has seen.
There is a shore and people are waiting.
And nothing comes back.
Because it is over.
Because there is silence instead of a name.
Because it is winter and the new year.

Mark Strand

All we have to decide is what to do with the time we are given.

Gandalf to Frodo--Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring



Knockout Roses and Bleeding Hearts

By the time I chucked my work duds,
donned my Pineapple Willy's t-shirt and a pair
of shorts, loaded my shovel and my shoes,
it was late afternoon. The days are growing
shorter, the shadowing afternoons longer.

I didn't expect her to be back from the nursing
home by then. She doesn't like to leave Gene
there alone to fight this fuzziness that has inhabited
his brain. So she stays until visiting hours are over,
but fatigue had made itself uncomfortably at home that day,
and her heart, 87 now and growing weary with worry,
skipped around so much she wasn't sure she'd make it home
for another tv dinner.

I bought the knockout rose and bleeding heart
on her 87th,


Maybe I'll work on this and shape it into something. I did get the rose and bleeding heart planted and Marie was so grateful. She said it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for her.

There are places in the heart which do not yet exist,
and into them suffering enters so that they may have existence.
Leon Bloy

Don't know who Leon Bloy is. I don't attend church, but I am still
listed as a member at First Baptist Church. I received a book from
some church members a few weeks ago. I also received prayer
cards about a month after Dad's death. The book is called

Turning to God to Get Through Grief

I am not religious, but I believe there may be a god who listens to me,
and I've talked to him/her/it many, many times a day since Dad first
became ill and in the many long hours since his death.

I don't know that I'll read the book, but the day it arrived, it just opened
to that quote and that quote brought tears to my eyes once again.

Hey! and Yay for me!!! I am going to Dodge--
as in the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Ordered my 4 day pass last week and booked my hotel room over
the weekend. I will be within 10 miles of Waterloo Village.
I've wanted to go for quite some time, and rather than sit around
and think about going, I decided to make the plan to go.

I so much want to hear Billy Collins read. There are many others I want
to hear as well, but Billy and Coleman Barks reading Rumi are my two absolutes.
Then there's Lucille Clifton and Mark Doty, and I have a feeling Donald Hall
may show up (Laurie tells me the poet laureate always makes an appearance
at Dodge, but he's not on the agenda).

Never been to Jersey. Looking forward to the road trip through WV (well...
hard to say one is looking forward to much of anything in WV...hate to sound that way
but I've been through there before and wasn't too impressed, but the folks are nice
in those parts), Maryland, Pennsylvania, and then Jersey.

The first day of the eighth month


Heat advisories today. Temp around 98--heat index
105 or so. Even hot inside with the air conditioning.
Just trying to say something about this pain--this relentless
breaking of the heart and spirit--this despair.

and so what is this grief?

It is the mouth’s refusal to lift
even slightly at the corner when the eye
views the first crocus of spring.

It is the lack of inclination
the feet have to splash through a summer
rain puddle.

It is the slow way the whole
body moves when nearing the stone
above the grave.

It is the yen in the trees as the wind
wantonly rustles the full branches
of the oak above the stone.

It is the lingering in bed until noon, no compulsion
to check the compost pile or to see whether the squash
are sporting their seed-sprout hats in late spring.


It is so many things that I can't seem to write about.
Can't write much at all. Can't think clearly. Can't think.
I just have to keep trying to get through this and hoping
each day to improve.

My posts aren't posting...what's up with that?

Pale Blue Eyes & other things this 27th day of the seventh month


Brilliant blue sky. Depressed today. What's new?

Been on an REM kick again. Dead Letter Office over and over,
which just takes me back to Lou Reed (Pale Blue Eyes, Femme Fatale on D.L.O.)
and to my childhood when Michael Stipe starts singing
"Trailer for sale or rent/ Rooms to let, 50 cents/
No phone, no pool, no pets/I ain't got no cigarettes"

Makes me think of Virgina Beach and to days when I was young
and so were my mom and dad. Things were always
so volatile then and unpredictable that it's hard to remember
something from that time that makes me smile, but Roger Miller does.
Guess because people seemed happy when that song came on the turntable.
They'd all start singing along with it. Even if just moments
before they were arguing or being cool to one another.


Don't know what to do about my job. Supervisor has no respect
for me or any of the front-line staff. Although my work is done
with little or no supervision, she's still out there, lurking in the shadows,
waiting for the next opporutnity to demoralize someone (she does
that so well). But, the autonomy I have with my position and the confidence
I feel about myself and the kind of work I do and the help I can provide
to others through this program tend to weigh out the negativity.

Yet, I am tired. Bone-weary some days. Been working full-time, raising
a family, and going to school for so long it's hard to remember a day
when I felt I could just freely vacation or garden or read a book or enjoy
myself.

I really wasn't going to write about those things this morning. I was going
to write about photographs. Maybe another day.

Read some Ted Hughes Birthday Letters this morning. Been reading Adrienne
Rich's Dark Fields of the Republic with breakfast each morning, but chose Ted
today. Finished the book The Best Day the Worst Day last week (Donald Hall's
book about his life with Jane Kenyon). Reading Wicked and Technopoly.

Time to get some work done.