for Gerard Manley Hopkins

Huh.  Here's a poem I found that said "draft".  I remember writing it, but I totally forgot about it.  It's dated 4/1/17.   I wonder how many other drafts I have in here.

It seems somehow important and relevant that I discovered it TODAY, being the fourth of July and all.  I remember I was trying to copy a form (from Gerard Manley Hopkins) and that it involved rhyming, and it was hard, but rewarding.  Anyway, happy whatever, America!


Glory be to God for dappled beings —
    For humans of couple-color;
        For the immigrants' brindled descendants;
Butt-dimpled newborns who cross borders in slings;
    Deserts dotted with dolor;
        Following the Pied Piper of Independence;
Vainglorious attempts at Euclidian geometry;
    Whatever is not-so-evenly divided (smaller);
        Freckled, splotched, mottled, transcendent;
He knows that beauty does not rely on symmetry:
                         Praise Him.


 
     

Vespers for the Voiceless

If I were to commission a stained-glass window for my Church,
It would be a single Nightingale upon a beech branch in springtime.
Her tongueless trills would be the Hymns we would sing at sundown—
No noticeable pattern, only an algorithm inherited from the Ancients.

Our Priestess wears her sandy plumage as a sacred vestment,
Her legitimate lineage endows her with the power to Pardon.
Her mutilated blessings would help us to forgive our Tereusian Trespassers,
And dare her Congregation to turn laments into Praise.

geometry is death math
a one-degree-at-a-time backwards death march
from one hundred eighty to zero in a lifetime
infinite possibility and perpendicular pomposity
end at the forty-fifth parallel while waiting for results
that don't come

because
once again
we have failed
to ask
the right-angled
questions

rough craft

i wonder what poem to put in my pocket
after i secret the life of bees and i
live the secrets of me
under the vespering prelilac trees
causing my eyes to itch and i
want a cigarette
to help me remember from which
i used to be

barb spencer

difficult problems
in full bloom
through seasons of sweat and chill
a breakthrough may only be a small step away
all in good time
you can count
on
the power
of
God
to
ease the
experience
day be day,
finally,
you win.



1997-1998.....In my second year of teaching sixth grade at Carmel Middle School, I was working with an amazing team of teachers. There were three of us. We all taught a Reading/Language Arts Block, and then the kids rotated through for Social Studies (me), Math (Lisa), and Science (Barb). In February of that year, Barb informed us that her breast cancer had returned, and she would be undergoing intense treatment for the rest of the school year. She would be taking the rest of the year off. For two young teachers, the news was hard; for our kids, it was devastating. Somehow, we made it through to the end of the school year, having lost a teacher the kids loved, and having to make due with a substitute they could barely tolerate.

Over Spring Break that year, I made Barb a journal. For the cover, I cut out various pictures and phrases from magazines, and arranged them together with some homemade paper I had left over from the days when I made homemade paper. She told me that it would be her gratitude journal.

In September of this year, after my breast cancer diagnosis, Barb returned that journal cover to me. She had somehow cut if off of hers, and glued it onto the cover of another. I take it with me to every doctor appointment, jotting down notes, unfamiliar words, statistics, observations of waiting rooms, phone numbers, and occasionally, things for which I am grateful.

Today, I am grateful for a found poem.

moving day

it was the
shrink-wrapped tubs
of tiny treasures
that finally did me in
that, and the multi-colored
metallic dragon
unnecessary as a hundred
and eleven friends
but still
you wouldn't want to unfriend
a dragon
sometimes there's no need for
small boxes to
pack, check, x, stack
volume is fascinating
with its emptiness and
howtofillitness
and imsorryifilostitness
patience I mean
with those too young to understand
friendship is never easy
and full of ums

WWYS - What Would Yoda Say?

Cancer makes impossible-to-ignore demands-
rearrange your priorities
be content to be who you are
let go of the illusion of control

Cancer shines a light on what really matters

I try not to think trite thoughts
(Do or do not; there is no try)
but I can't get
Pachelbel's Canon in D or
Klimt's Kiss or
That which doesn't kill us....
out of my head

I could even
throw
a party now
with the
theme of "pink"
without
throwing up

Neitzsche was wrong-
I don't feel any stronger
At least not yet

Even the cliched could sound sagacious
if conveyed from the mouth of Yoda:

"Your priorities, rearrange you must."

"Be who you are, if content you wish to be."

"Illusion of control, let go of you must."

"On what really matters, a light cancer shines."

Beings are wise, not because they can
comprehend the complicated, but
because they can
simplify it
for the rest of us

"Makes us stronger, hmm?, that which kills us not."

trapped

When she is upstairs, she is petrified
That if she goes down, she will get
Distracted by the too-many-things
When she is downstairs, she worries
That if she goes up, she will miss
Hearing the doorbell's opportunities

Where the hell is the Mezzanine, she
wonders, when you really need it?

Cancer Snuck In

In her black overcoat
nudging open the door
like a stealth robber
and she has been here ever since.

she changes everything
crowds the bookshelves with unwanted binders
her hand hovers over the jewelry box;
she will steal now, she says;
just like she stole your mother’s

Tonight, she climbs
into the shower and taunts, “Truth or Dare?”
before daring me to
look down at the truth
later, she crawls under the covers
between us
stripping sexy from the lexicon
and whispering whatifs
in my ear

Even as I sit here,
she lurks behind me
threatening to
invade every conversation
and bends over my naked dome
and quietly demands,
From now on,
you write about me.

[using the poem “Death Barges In” by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno as a template]

number 5

Mothers' Day
in Mexico
is always on May 10th
5/10
predictable
like mothers should be
but frequently are not

light of day

through sleep-shifted eyes, the room appears
picassoesque, water color effects-
highways and high seas wandering beyond...

into spaces perhaps they oughtn't

words (too thin) fly through air (too thick) and
settle
like dust on the dresser
reminder
of duties left undone



[suggestions for titles welcome]

ferrus interruptus 10

he remembers the winter
when patches appeared on his too-short trousers
and his mother often found
food on their porch-
origin known or unknown, they ate

the dinner table talk was harder to
hold onto that year, but still he listened,
for he discovered he could hear
even behind tone
and gesture

that year, he became Harry Potter for the third time,
Anakin for the fourth,
and a Dragonborn Paladin for the first.

that year, his mother left for mysterious places;
he missed her more than he was able to show,
and sometimes more than she was able to see

that year, he put metal in the microwave,
never returned the lid to the litter box,
and mismatched the socks.

that year, magic was real,
and there was still-
real maple syrup
clean clothes
the symphony
a wedding
solo flight
and
trust

the morning

perhaps
it began with
a peeling open of the eyelids
to see a clementine on fire

or

maybe
it was a suffusion of
gray and unwinding dreams

either way
it was
perfect

for deposit only

just for today, i will
grow skin as thick as
century-old cedars, guard
my heart from
cupid's arrow and
my breast from
cancer's lust. i will not
cry for unknown loss nor
weep for the unblossomed

[written on the back of a deposit slip in the car while waiting for the boys to get out of school]

poem-a-day

Being that it's poetry month and all, I have decided to challenge myself to write a poem a day. I will post it here. Even if it's bad. Which it probably will be. But I need some sort of external motivation, you know? Something to make me get up off the couch and grab a pen when the first (or usually, the last) line pops into my head. I have missed so many. We'll see.....

So for today, just to get me started, I'll post an old one:

hwy 101 with dad

It takes time, yes, for
liquid lies to solidify into stories
of Alaskan icebergs-
impervious to the truth of our
emotions, hidden somewhere in
the mist of Oregon’s
simplified seventies psychobabble
poured out as
rationalization for falling
in love and out of love and in love

"you’ve changed", she said
it takes time, yes, but
we all change-
the world changes
not even global warming can melt these
lies turned into truths by the telling
over and over and over

tell me something about the nature of
the human heart
that doesn’t fit into a box-
but rather
an endless curving road
miles stretching ahead and behind
we drive forwards, you know, to get
to where we’re going
and rarely ever look back