Monthly Archives: April 2013

Saving Daylight

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I live in Mexico. We just changed over to DST today—a few weeks after the U.S. did. As though DST isn’t complicated enough, countries get to arbitrarily decide when to switch to it. Obviously, this poem was written during the fall switchover, not the spring.  I’ve never been able to remember which is switching on, which switching off.  At any rate, this is not my daily NaPoWriMo poem as it wasn’t written today.

Saving Daylight

After altering the course of rivers,
moving or removing coastlines,
forests, ozone-protection,
minerals and fossil fuel,
we look for what next to change
and notice time.

(Perhaps time, a manmade concept anyway,
can be less-devastatingly tampered with?)

There are those who know
better than God or nature
when light is needed
and they have set the world right.

We are saving daylight
all over the world,
taking it from the morning’s wallet
and transferring it
to a back pocket.

Led like blind lambs,
we change our clocks,
lost in dark mornings
so games of golf or tennis
can be played well past
the natural end of day.

Gardeners and house builders
climb the hills to work
lighting their ways with flashlights,
in search of that lost morning hour of light.

Like sheep made clumsy, stumbling over stiles,
schoolchildren’s toes
feel for cobblestones in the dark
between street lamps
spaced a block apart.

as, like investors too anxious
to save up for a rainy day,
a world in the dark
makes forced deposits every morning,
withdraws them, interest free, each evening.
Her animals and birds and tribes
lost to schemes
carefully planned.

NaPoWriMo Day 6- Just in Time

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I Promised NaPoWriMo

(or: Why you should never drink tequila when you haven’t finished your daily poem yet.)
11:09 P.M., April 6, 2013

Toss in the tequila
ice cubes and a lime.
Put it in a blender
and mix it for a time.

Put salt on your glass rim.
Pour the liquid in.
Take a little sip now.
Drinking’s not a sin.

If I hadn’t had two
with my evening meal,
I’d be writing verse now
you could take for real.

But Margarita got me
and holds me prisoner now.
I couldn’t engineer a poem.
I can’t remember how.

If you’ve a mind to scold me,
please don’t do it now.
I need to write something
to stay true to my vow.

There are laws against drunk driving
and driving while you’re stoned,
but nothing that forbids you
from writing when you’re zoned.

So please forgive this sad and
paltry little rhyme.
They need to make drunk writing
A misdemeanor crime.

To save you from the souls like me
who dare to take up pen,
disregarding just what
condition they are in.

You should give us pillows
and send us to our beds.
Remove our clothes, take off our shoes
and pat us on our heads.

Tell us that tomorrow
will be another day.
But now, for sure, the writing
we should put away.

Lock up our computers,
hide our ball point pens.
Throw away our pencils
in the garbage bins.

Please try to divert us
and help us to forget
so there will be no errant
verses to regret.

When we wake tomorrow,
we’ll hold our heads up high
with no embarrassing poetry,
no need to wonder why.

We posted here such drivel
that it could make one weep.
We just kept on writing.
We should have been asleep.

We did it for NaPoWriMo
against out better sense.
The late hour made us silly.
Tequila made us dense.

Tomorrow we’ll make up for it––
put bees within our bonnet
and write an ode, a ballad,
A haiku or a sonnet

Once more you’ll dare to call us friend
and read our royal rhyme.
I don’t know why I’m calling me
“We” all of this time.

I really don’t feel royal
my identity’s not split.
I simply started writing
and “we” just seemed to fit.

I can’t seem to finish
this awful little rhyme.
So I’m just going to have to
Stop and holler TIME!!!

Wasp Removal Tale

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Well, the story of the wasps continues.  After considering all angles, I decided that since the wasp nest was getting big enough to interfere with the barred gate outside the kitchen door, that it would have to come down eventually and better to do it now so they could get started on their next home.

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I wanted, however, a method of removal that would harm neither wasp nor Pasiano, who had volunteered to do the chore.  Through research, I learned that the best time to do it was early morning or evening.  Pasiano said he would be here today to do the job.  Of course, I forgot, so he surprised me in my nightgown, feeding the dogs right outside the kitchen door.  I went to get a robe and returned not only more clothed, but also with some vital coverup gear to protect him.  Bob’s old welder’s mask and a jacket with elastic at the wrists were musts.  We completed his ensemble with rubber gloves and one of my favorite scarves.

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He was a good sport and donned them all, but had a bit of a laughing fit and had to remove the helmet/mask until he could catch his breath.

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He showed me his solution to wasp removal–a hard plastic icecream container in a plastic bag.  He would put the container over the nest, scrape the nest off the wall and quickly close the plastic bag over it and carry the entire nest, wasps intact, down to the spare lot below me.

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The nest was quiet, with wasps clustered around on its surface.  None had yet stirred.  He climbed up on the ladder.  I watched from behind the glass door. The maneuver easily executed, he held the bag closed in one hand as he stripped off his battle gear. Not one fatality.  Not one sting.

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When he returned from the spare lot, he took the side of the ice cream container and scraped the residue of the nest off the wall.  Three tenacious black wasps remained–two still clinging to the residue from the nest, the other buzzing through the air a short distance away.

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Before I knew what he was about to do, Pasiano squashed the two remaining wasps with his fingers.  The other flew away.  So, our maneuver was blemished, as oftentimes happens in warfare.

Two minutes later, Pasiano was again pursuing his usual peaceful task of watering the plants.

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And I was left to put away the battle gear

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and to tell the tale.

 

 

The Power of Grief

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Grief has such enormous power that it is a shame to waste its energy.  If that energy can be channeled into a positive result, we finally have some victory over death. ––Judy Dykstra-Brown

This quote (I am quoting myself, what ego!) is opposite the title page of the book I wrote with Tony.  This is the book I celebrated having finished a week or so ago; but alas, I find the editing job goes on and on.  Just to be anal, we again had the printer print up a book and gave it to our most perfectionist friend, Sheila, who agreed to read it one last time.  She had done so before and found so many errors that we’d had to redo the pdf.  This time, we were sure, it would be perfect; but we had to check.  Well, we were wrong about the perfect part but right to check.  She still found 50 errors–mainly in the references and in the use of hyphens.  Who cares about such things?  We do.  And Sheila does.  So––most of yesterday and the day before, I rechecked the errors, made lists, shared them with Tony and Allenda, his wife, and we all checked and rechecked.  The result, somewhere around midnight last night, we had a perfect, we hope, 117th version of the book. It went off to the printer today.  if he again does a trial copy (it will be the ninth if he does) we will page through it quickly, looking for obvious flaws, and say “push the button” and this breech birth will finally be consummated. Then we get to celebrate again.  I’m afraid the earlier celebrations were all false labor.  Please put positive energy out into the air, willing this one to actually produce a child.

The Deadline (A Tweeted Poem) April 5 Poetry Posting for NaPoWriMo

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dogwomanallalonecomputerwindowrubberboneeyelockpleadinginvitationonethrownbonebringsjubilationfurtherbeggingisfornaughtasecondlaterfunforgot

The Gardener April 4 Post

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The Gardener

There is a story hidden
In the majolica mug
with watermelon,
pear and grapes painted
on a yellow ground
that sits on the
terraza table.

Pasiano, the man who drank
echinacea tea with honey
from this cup, coughed
loudly behind the hand
that cradled the telephone,
sly smile betraying a love story
as clearly as the small child
who sometimes accompanies him to work.

Some senora’s, he tells me,
but the child has
his eyes and solid legs,
his shy manner,
lives with his mother
and her husband,
but sits on my steps
with a sugar cookie––
betraying no more secrets
on purpose
than his father does.

“When Life Gives You Lists, Make Poetry” April 3 Post

“An Ode (of Sorts) to NaPoWriMo” 

or

“When Life Gives You Lists, Make Poetry” 

The poem in a nutshell:

A poem a day might be more possible

if only I were not so bossable.

Or, The unabridged version:

I had the best intentions when

this morning I picked up my pen;

but then the phone began to ring

and all day long, thing after thing

presented obstacles to rhyme,

ate up attention, devoured my time.

First, the printer who needed pay

of course, lived 15 miles away.

 Two hours later, home at last,

I had to cook a light repast

 for company who now have left

me feeling not a bit bereft.

My laptop open, my mind about

to function, I was beckoned out.

My mood was less than  joculant

as the gardener asked for flocculant

 for pool algae gone amuck.

When? Now? It was just my luck!

He made a list, demanded more

since I was going to the store.

He added chlorine and algaecide

as I considered suicide.

Finally home, I yearned to go

devise some verse, but to my woe,

my propane tank had just run dry.

We made the call. They said they’d try

to make it out within the hour.

My mood grew crabby, dark and dour.

From then on, things just kept on being

averse to my poesy-eeing.

Thing after thing came up to do.

If I know you, maybe some from you!

I‘m just a girl who can’t say no

so this is how ‘twas bound to go

until I figured how to make

adversity a piece of cake. 

Make the best out of the worse.

Let interruptions become the verse!

“Web of Night” April 2 Post

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I’m participating in this program where I’ve taken an oath to write a poem a day.  Here is today’s poem!  I need a website to link to their website, so I’m using the only one I have–this one.  By the end of the month, there will be 30 poems here…

 

Web of Night

We have been talking online for hours
and, as usual, lost track of time.
Now, after his good-bye,
it would be easier to go to bed
than to act on his reminder
that there should be hot water
in my hot tub tonight,
pumped in earlier from the volcanic depths,
left to cool all day.

I am living in sub-tropical Mexico
where things like volcanoes are everyday things.
I drink the volcano.
I swim and soak in it.
I absorb its heat,
draw from its power,
grow stronger.

This is the fountain of youth, I’ve often said.
Too long away from it, I start to grow creaky and old––
reversing those effects only by coming home again
to lie in its steaming bath.

I look up from it now
at a night sky unlike any other––
only the major stars distinct, like light seen through
irregularly perforated steel. The stars standing out individually,
between them the remarkable floss of clouds stretched
sparse as angel hair on a Christmas tree
to reveal the ornaments
between.

No one else awake in this morning hour
so early that it is really still the night before.

2 AM. Neither a dog’s bark nor a burro’s bray.
No harsh staccato though the cool night air
of air brakes of trucks
too wide for the two-lane carretera.
down below.

Alone in my world.

The clouds, while I’ve been thinking blind,
have obscured the stars
behind a thicker web of cotton wool.

I think of love so far away,
wishing it nearer but feeling it close
as the keyboard in the room behind me.
There are many of us
caught in this Web of internet romance.
Here we need not fear
the loss of a love
that is a part of an addiction
to the mystery of absence
yet words so close
they are almost
but not quite
touch.

“Old English Teachers” April 1 Post

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Someone sent me an invitation from NaPoWriMo to write a poem a day for a month, but I need a website to post them. Since this is the only blog/website I have, I’m going to use this one. There will be a poem each day for a month, all written on the day they were posted, dashed off quickly, but what fun to have completed 30 poems by the end of the month. Please join me and post your poems here, as well.

Earlier today, someone posted a comment, then wrote back to change “lying” to “laying.” Of course, I had to fight my better nature and write back that he was actually right the first time. I then included this little poem, written in about a minute, to soften that pedantic blow. Yes, I really am a “reformed” English teacher. But I backslide now and then:

Old English teachers never die.
They just advise on “lay or lie?”
Driving friends who are grammatically hazy
Completely crazy!!!!

Loss before Death

Judy’s Note: This story of loss was sent to me via email with the request that I post it on the blog:

“One person provided me with many losses and no immediate death. When

death did come years later, I was not told and so I lost again. Then
there was no grave and I lost a chance again to find some kind of peace.
It took me five years to, not only get over the death, but to get over
asking all the “why” questions.

My father left when I was 13. I lost all chance of having a complete
family. I had uncomfortable and disturbing encounters off and on after that.

When he died no one told me for a year, and I lost the chance to say
hello and goodbye. He instructed people to tell no one he died.

There was no grave, he was not buried and I don’t know what happened to
his ashes. I lost the chance to pour out my emotions somewhere.

I spent 5 confusing years asking a lot of why?? questions, until one day
someone told me I’d never know and that finally helped me to heal.

The real healing began and ended when I was able to forgive him.”

Violet