TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG

(Trees through the blue glass on my kitchen window sill}

To blog or not to blog, that is the question several of my facebook friends' posts.  Blogging uses up a lot of time, and in the midst of a busy life, not to mention in the midst of late middle age, I feel the urge to blog less than before.

  

Still, here it is, a clear sunny morning at the end of 2012, and I'm sitting in my easy chair looking out at the mountains.  And the trees.  The trees I watch every morning, noon, and evening as they settle into darkness, which now that the solstice has passed, will be shorter and shorter until in July I can look out my bedroom window at trees I dream of climbing, winding my soul around, as I drift off to an early bedtime.

    

 I've tried to write poems about this, the mountains and the trees framed by my windows.  "The magic of windows and doors," as my novelist friend Vicki Lane calls it.  The magic is in the calling. Come here, come here, our windows and doors beckon. Here is darkness falling, here is light rising up, here is your own face in the glass after dark has taken hold.  Your own face through which what is left of outside flows through just enough to haunt, to beckon to you.  Come inside yourself.

       

At the year's turn, we do that, whether we want or not.  Resolutions, what are they but an inner journey into what we believe we desire.  Fewer pounds, more friends, less moralizing and judging each other, including ourselves.  "Help me not to be so mean," a Flannery O'Connor character prays.  I pray the same, that the meanness that so easily seeps into everyday can be kept at bay.

       

Meanwhile the sun journeys across the clear sky, the bare trees shine like silver, and I sit here blogging my way through the short while before noon.
    
       Another lunch to prepare.  Butternut soup,
        turkey sandwiches.
       A glass of wine.

(Winter dawn through my bedroom window)

       Another year's window about to open.
  

Poets OF THE DAY: Vicki Lane & Britt Kaufmann

Vicki Lane is special. A gifted photographer, inventive cook, quilter, blogger....all this and a novelist, too! A novelist whose work often makes me think it's poetry! Life's just not fair. Vicki lives in Madison County, on a farm that she manages with her husband John. She's well-known in mystery writing circles, as well as book clubs and other gatherings of folks who like good writing. She's one of our region's best prose-writers. You'll see that for yourself in the excerpt below from her most recent book, The Day of Small Things. This excerpt is in the voice of Birdie, the main character. I enjoyed this book for many reasons, chief among them Birdie's always believable voice and the haunting use of Cherokee lore and history.

New York Times best-selling author of the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mysteries has this to say about Birdie's book:

"Vicki Lane is one of the best American novelists writing today. In The Day of Small Things, she has once again rendered a lyrical, evocative, and haunting portrait of life in the Appalachians, both past and present. And in Birdie, she has given us a character who will steal your heart and stay with you for a long time to come. I loved this book—The Day of Small Things will definitely make my short list for 2010."

Chapter 2 ~ The Burying Ground

Tuesday, May 1

(Birdie)

The hickory walking stick digs little holes in the hard red earth as I make my way along the path that snakes up the tree-covered slope. The black plastic garbage bags hanging over my left arm rustle and swish in time with the huffing sounds of my breath and the steady thump of my footfalls and the lighter tap of the stick. All them different sounds working together . . . they put me in mind of the one-man band in the Fourth of July parade, away back when Luther was yet living. Me and him took Cletus in to Ransom for the rodeo and the parade and law, he had him a time! That boy played one-man band for the rest of the summer, rigged out with an old juice harp and some of my pot lids and a cow bell he took off of old Pet. Golden memories.

This old trail ain’t used but seldom now and it’s growed narrow with the grass and the weeds reaching out into it. Most folks heading up to the top take the road that runs by the river – twice as long but any vehicle at all can Cadillac right up to the end. Hunters comes this way now and again and I reckon deer and such use the trail. Right here it runs along a rusty barb wire fence that borders the upper edge of the old corn field. The field’s going back to the wild too, like so much of these mountains. Where once there was corn growing, thick and tall and green, food for man and beast alike, now there’s young locust and poplar shooting up through the roses and blackberries. It’ll all be forest afore long, though I’ll not live to see it.

I spy the fire pinks in their old place by the leaning gray fence post and it lifts my heart to see them bright faces just a-smiling up at me like always at this time of year. They’re good as a calendar, the wild things are. Humming birds coming back mid-April, raspberries bearing fruit early June, and the fire pinks blooming just afore Decoration Day. Always has been so and I pray it always will.

The trail runs into the old woods now and in the cool shade beneath the new-leafed trees, there’s a world of those little three-leafed flowers, the white and the pink too, making a pretty carpet over the ground. The branch is running bold after last night’s rain and all along its banks, big old clumps of blue and light purple flowers look like lace against the solemn gray rocks. Over beyond the tumbling water, wild iris and larkspur climb the steep slope, reaching back into the trees far as the eye can see.

It is a sight on earth and that’s the truth. I stop and lean on my stick to breathe in the rich woodland smell. There’s some things don’t change, thank the Lord -- that fine loamy smell of the dirt and the clean bite of the branch mint and how the water gurgles and sings as it goes hurrying down to the river. There’s the birds calling out – sounds like one of them’s saying Sweet, sweet, sweet, and there’s the wind stirring the trees -- it’s all the good things of life itself and I pity the city folks who ain’t never been in a mountain cove come May time.

**********************************************************

I first met Britt Kaufmann five years ago at the first annual Carolina Mountains Literary Festival. She's a whirlwind of activity--the mother of three children, a gardener, a planner, a web designer, and a poet. Her first chapbook of poems, Belonging, was recently published by Finishing Line Press in Kentucky.

Britt helps plan the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival ( cmlitfest.com) in her home town of Burnsville, NC, and hosts a women's open-mic reading in Spruce Pine. Her poems and non-fiction have appeared in Western North Carolina Woman, Kakalak 2007, Main Street Rag, Literary Mama, The Mennonite, Elegant Thorn Review, and The Pedestal Magazine. Her website is brittkaufmann.com

March Madness

While bombs drop on Baghdad

hail pounds down on me amid

thunder that is not a convoy of stealth.

I watch without fear, the green screen,

the green flames, the tiny yellow crocus

shut tight, a smaller target for white missiles.

When the rain lets up, coverage and bombs do not.

I itch inside my skin, nauseous at the thought,

so I change channels since I prefer battles on the court.

Buy Nothing Day 2005

(Black Friday)

I live the lesson of my stock:

In the world, not of it,

shun the material for the other life.

A child, my grandfather jumped the fence

from Amish to Mennonite

(still a subset yet set apart).

Now I am grown with children

missing the four part a capella Sundays,

but today I do my grandmas proud.

I cook the picked-clean turkey carcass

with onions, salt, and celery,

boil it long and slow,

crack a bone or two, so

marrow seeps into the stock,

passes down the rich value of blood.

Each generation of this Thanksgiving

meal sustains family.

I add the heart, neck, and innards too

instead of tossing them out.

Those women never threw anything away,

cupboards overflowing with old margarine tubs.

I feel their smiles, short

ones that might not seem to merit praise,

but I know they would be pleased

as I strain broth into old containers

from take-out egg drop soup,

preserve them for the future.

Chemo

“He’s feeling his mortality,”

My mother said over the line.

I wonder, what texture it could be?

Does he reach out his hand

To finger the shimmer of a wedding veil,

Or hold his hand out flat

To let the summer breeze push sun

Thinned muslin against it?

Will his sweaty palm leave

A forever handprint like the one

My father left on the thigh of my mother’s

New black velvet skirt, before I was born?

Does he clutch tightly,

Bury his fingers in red chenille

Feeling only the tension in his hand?

Maybe his fingers are spread wide,

Like my baby’s, as she reaches,

Too slowly, for the cat as he purrs

Past, feeling only the cool silk tail

Slip under her grasp,

Instead of warm plush fur.

FULL MOON, by Vicki Lane

The first person to respond to my request for pet-related comments was Vicki Lane. Her poem for her dogs, who at the time this was written stayed in the basement, made my hair stand on end! "Electric with excitement"....oh yes, I know that dance. Two of our dogs did the electric dance this morning and woke me up! No full moon outside, though. Just morning beckoning with car sounds and neighbor dogs barking.

And doesn't the full moon make US want to dance with excitement? Vicki captures that "ancient longing" beautifully. Go to my sidebar to find the link to her wonderful blog, www.vickilanemysteries.blogspot.com.

For her memorable response, Vicki will receive a copy of my chapbook WAKE.

Full Moon ~ 4:30 AM

In the basement, dogs are restless -
Soft whining, imploring,
Door scratching, demanding,

Surfacing from sleep and warm blankets, I rise,
Push my feet into slippers and stiffly descend steep stairs.
The dogs dance, electric with excitement
As I fumble with the door.

Outside the setting moon illumines fields, woods, hills ...
Bright as night.
My heart swells; unseen fur rises and with it an ancient longing...

To run ... to hunt beneath the moon ...
Paws wet in the dew-crisp grass ...
To see forever...

Tomorrow my good friend Lisa Parker will be up, with a poem she feared was too much of a downer to post as a comment. It's about what Vicki, and several others of us who have beloved animals, have written about already--losing a pet we love. Fabulous poem. Drop back by to read it.

DOGS--OR GODS?

(This post is for Vicki Lane and her blessed dogs. )

DOG IS LOVE--yes, we've all seen this bumper sticker. But sometimes there's too much love on the sofa. Where are YOU gonna sit?

Ace of Dogs and Big Bro don't look at all ready to abandon their snoozes. Maybe the title of this photo should be DOG IS SLOB. But don't they look peaceful and, well, adorable?




And here is Ace of Dogs, looking seductive. Maybe he's in his Lord Krishna mood? He hasn't a flute of course, but just look at those eyes. Can you think of any young maiden who wouldn't follow him? He is definitely in his God mode. I swear he seems to be trying to sing to me at times, especially when he wants a treat or to jump in bed and place his head atop mine.

I found this poem today while sitting in the WNC Retinal Associates Office (yearly routine check-up), titled THE BLESSING OF THE OLD WOMAN, THE TULIP, AND THE DOG, by Alicia Ostriker, from her new book of poetry, The Book of Seventy. (University of Pittsburgh Press) Here's the last stanza.

To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it

Our four dogs are blessed many times over and they sure smell like it!

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS BOOK FAIR

ARCHITECT'S RENDERINGS OF THE NEW JACKSON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY:



TOMORROW IS THE BIG DAY, SO PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDAR! I'M HOPING NETWEST MEMBERS WILL COME OVER TO SYLVA TO ENJOY THE LITERARY FELLOWSHIP AND BUY BOOKS. (WWW.gsmbookfair.org) THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS ALMOST HERE, SO THINK ABOUT YOUR GIFT LISTS AND REMEMBER THAT BOOKS MAKE THE BEST GIFTS, ESPECIALLY THOSE PURCHASED FROM INDIE BOOKSTORES LIKE CITY LIGHTS. AND IF YOU BUY BOOKS AT THE BOOKFAIR, A PORTION OF THE PROCEEDS WILL GO TOWARD BUILDING THE NEW LIBRARY IN SYLVA, A FACILITY THAT WILL SERVE NOT ONLY JACKSON COUNTY BUT THE REGION, AS WELL. IT'S GOING TO BE BEAUTIFUL, SET ATOP COURTHOUSE HILL.

CLICK ON THE POST LINK TO GO TO SMOKY MOUNTAIN NEWS'S FEATURE THIS WEEK ON THE FAIR.

Up Close and Personal, Too

After looking at my friend Vicki Lane's post, I decided to go outside and find something to get up close to. One Asian lily was blooming, so--yes, I decided I wanted to be up close to that. Here she is, with a few raindrops shining on her raiment.



And as I was walking out to the garden, I disturbed this little guy. He is giving me a not so friendly look. I hope he made it safely into the foliage and away from our dogs.



Here's a poem by Jeffery Beam, Poet of the Week on my Laureate Blog.
I hope you will visit it and read all of his poems posted there.


Credo

Now, when I talk
it is not just to say
this or
that.
But it is to say
what is between.

Over there,
under the sycamore, runs
the argumentative
periwinkle.
The blue eye
of southern spring.

Over there,
chickadee whistle
& blue
bird.

Here swings
the blues’
rightful cadence.
Words’ melancholic
swarm, thick with
dribble, &
slang.

To my own self
be true.

To say what is
between:
the periwinkle,
the chickadee.

Originally published in the Asheville Poetry Review 10th anniversary anthology issue, 2004.

Tomatoes

My counter top is covered with tomatoes! Last year our crop succumbed to blight, but this year we have a glorious harvest. Two writers come to mind when I gather my tomatoes in the early morning--novelist Vicki Lane, whose recipes for preserving tomatoes--and her photos of them--can be found at vickilanemysteries.blogspot.com, and poet Becky Gould Gibson. I've taped Becky's poem "Tomato" to my fridge and have at this moment a batch of tomatoes in my oven, roasting according to Vicki's specifications. Here is Becky's poem, with left lines not aligned as they should be, thanks to my incompetence as a blogger. The poem should be rounded like a large plump, ripe tomato. My apologies, Becky!




(Becky Gould Gibson)

TOMATO

for my mother

Every July the same story
the same rumor runs through the market
tomatoes ready and ripening displayed on the tables
Early Girls, Better Boys in all their blemished perfection
For these, Atalanta would stop, give up her freedom
Tomato is text, drama, needs no exaggeration, heightening
a myth of the purely obvious, of nothing under the veil
A child sprawls in her grandmother’s garden, book in one hand
tomato in the other, eats as she reads, skin and all, the flesh
with the words. As juice runs down her eating arm onto
the spread pages, she knows she’ll never read only
for meaning, but always bite into language
a shaker of salt at her elbow
take it in whole.

This poem is from Becky Gould Gibson's Aphrodite's Daughter, recently published by Texas Review Press and winner of the 2006 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. Becky has lived in Winston-Salem for many years. Her Needfire recently won the Brockman-Campbell award from the North Carolina Poetry Society.