tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297766072024-03-13T19:10:14.820-07:00The Memory ThreadJunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.comBlogger1860125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-38167758060612557592019-01-23T20:09:00.001-08:002019-01-23T20:09:57.485-08:00Memories, hoping to resumes this blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My mother with the movie camera. I am taking slides in my favorite pink skirt, I think it is the the summer of 1953, but it could be 1954, my cousin Susan Peters might know what year they visited our Farm near Schenectady, She is the child on this picture. This shows the corner of the house that my father was lifting gradually with a jack; it is where he explained a plumb bob to me.</div>
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<br />
I have been reading Scott Momaday... this is about his father...<br />
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From <i><b>The Names; a memoir,</b></i> by N.Scott Momaday. page 41. University of Arizona Press, 1976.<br />
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I see. There us moonlight on the Southern Plains. I see the black trees in the north, where the river runs and my father has set out poles on the bank, When he goes before daylight with the lantern to take them up there will be catfishes on the lines, their heads flat and green and shining, and there wide mouths grinning under their whiskers.<br />
There is a whole silence on the earth--only here and there are surfaces made of sound, frogs purring at 'the water's edge, a rooster crowing across the distance, the river running and lapping. And the plain rolls like water in the low light; the light is like chalk on the ripples of the land; the slow, warm wind seems to ruffle the soft light, to stir up like dust. Oklahoma shines like the moon.<br />
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Your assignment. Write a paragraph or two about your father. I am hoping to resume this blog...</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-57047120901643085532018-11-03T20:28:00.004-07:002018-11-03T20:29:48.220-07:00You who are a bird suddenly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>This is a picture of my grandson, who is all grown up now. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I just happened to run across it </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>when I was paying for my <b>Flickr</b> account, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>which now belongs (weirdly) to <b>Smugmug</b>, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>and where I have </i></span><i style="font-size: x-large;">about 30,000 photographs. </i></div>
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<i style="font-size: x-large;"><b>I fell in love with his innocent expression </b></i><br />
<i style="font-size: x-large;"><b>all over again.</b></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Aracelis Girmay</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>SECOND ESTRANGEMENT</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Please raise your hand,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">whomever else else of you</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">has been a child,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">lost, in a </span><span style="font-size: large;">market</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">or a mall, without</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">knowing it at first, following</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">a stranger, accidentally</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">thinking he is yours,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">your family or parent, even</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">grabbing for his hands, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">even calling the word</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">you said then for "Father,"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">only to see the face</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">look strangely down, utterly</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">foreign, utterly not the one</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">who loves you, you </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">who are a bird suddenly</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">stunned by the glass partition</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">of rooms.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> How far</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the world you knew, & tall,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">& filled, finally, with strangers.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is the first poem in a new anthology assembled by the current US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith, entitled <i><b>American Journal: fifty poems for our time. </b>I will be writing more about her soon; </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I have been very impressed by her work as Poet Laureate </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>and by her recent autobiographical work, <b>Ordinary Light.</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Both the this poet and the Poet Laureate have good information posted on the <b>Poetry Foundation </b>website.</i></span><br />
<i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i>
<i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Your task for tonight </span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">is to write a poem beginning: </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">"Please raise your hand..."</span></i></div>
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Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-36452925727924683792018-11-02T12:32:00.000-07:002018-11-02T12:32:04.231-07:00Not Nothing To The Crows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>This is a picture of my father, Jack Hicks Hopper, </i><br />
<i>and his older sister, Mary Lillian Hopper taken, </i><br />
<i>I think, at the time of their train journey from Portales, New Mexico </i><br />
<i>back to Arkansas where their parents had met and married. </i><br />
<i>They went to visit relatives. Just before I died, </i><br />
<i>Dad told me a memory of this train journey. </i><br />
<i>The porter locked the doors of the restrooms when the train was in a station </i><br />
<i>so freeloaders couldn't hide and avoid being asked for a ticket. </i><br />
<i>isOnce, the little boy in the picture above happened to be inside </i><br />
<i>when the door got locked and he was very frightened! </i><br />
<i>More than seventy years later, he told me this story, </i><br />
<i>just a few months before he died. </i><br />
<i>I heard only a few stories of his early life from my father. </i></div>
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<i>My mother took up most of the air time...</i></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A new issue of POETRY MAGAZINE came this week. I opened the first page to see if I had heard of any of the poets. The Table of Contents is in the order of the magazine which follows. And the very first poem is by my friend, Lucia Perillo. I met her in the early 1980s in Bob Hass's poetry seminar at San Jose State. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Afterwards, she went to Syracuse for a graduate degree</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> in writing. I went to her wedding in Olympia, Washington,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Her books are terrific!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">She has been dead now for just a little more than two years. She left us October 16, 2016. At that time I had two <i>unfinished</i> letters to her on my desktop. They are still there. Unfinished, never sent or read. Consider this your wake-up call to finish any unfinished letters-in-progress! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There is a good article in Wikipedia, which lists her publications and awards, which are plentiful. It is worth your while to get any of her eight books, which are all still available. Mostly books of poems, but also a book of stories and an autobiographical work, much of it concerning her life as a person with multiple sclerosis.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here is Lucia's poem from Poetry, November, 2018 97, page 97.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b> Say This</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I live a small life, barely bigger than a speck,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">barely more than a blip on the radar sweep</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">through it is not nothing, as the garter snake</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">climbs the rock rose shrub and the squirrel creeps</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">on bramble thorns. Not nothing to the crows</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">who heckle from the crowns of the last light's trees</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">winterstripped of green, except for the boles</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">that ivy winds each hour round. See, the world is busy</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and the world is quick, barely time for a spider</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">to suck the juice from w hawk moth's head</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">so it can use the moth a a spindle that it wraps in fiber</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">while the moth constricts until it's thin as a stick</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">you might think was nothing, a random bit</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">caught in a web coming loose from the window frame, in wind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Lucia Perillo</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Finding this poem has triggered me to start blogging again.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I hope to post something every day. See you later!!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-21438476957486236892018-02-05T15:03:00.002-08:002018-02-05T15:03:27.899-08:00House at the edge of the woods<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>At the right edge of the open snow in his drone photo taken by my grandson, Trey, is out beloved house at the edge of the woods outside Petoskey, Michigan. It has been more than three years since we were able to visit. But my heart is still living there, looking out at whitetail deer, coyotes., wild turkeys, and an occasional sandhill crane or two, or even three.</i></div>
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I have been throwing away magazines. The January, 2015 issue of Harper's magazine was folded open at an article about Pablo Neruda's grave, which I had planned to read. So I read it. and liked it. I thought I would tear it out and put it with the book of Neruda's selected poems. The book opened to this poem, Spanish and English on facing pages:</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">HOUSE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps this is the house in which I lived</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">when neither I, nor earth, existed,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">when everything was moon, or stone, or shadow,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">with the still light unborn.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This stone could then have been</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">my house, my windows, or my eyes.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This granite rose recalls</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">something that lives in me, or I in it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">a cave, a universe of dreams inside the skull:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">cup or castle, boat or birth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I touch the rock's tenacious thrust,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">its bulwark pounded in the brine</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">and I know that flaws of mine subsisted here,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">wrinkled substances that surfaced</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">from the depths into my soul,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">and stone I was, stone shall be, </span><span style="font-size: large;">and for this </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">caress this stone which has nor died for me:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">it's what I was, and shall be -- the tranquillity</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">of struggle stretched beyond the brink of time.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Pablo Neruda, translation by Nathaniel Tarn.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Neruda, Selected Poems, Houghton Mifflin, 1970, page 411.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Your task: write about your place on the earth. jhhymas</i></span></div>
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Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-34693705131590981252018-01-26T20:42:00.003-08:002018-01-26T20:42:39.117-08:00Marija Says<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today at the YMCA gym, E. introduced himself to us on the basis of the White Beard Connection. We had a long talk about life, and Hungary where he spent half his life, coming here with little English and getting a job as wheelchair/gurney pusher in a hospital. His brother was a high-wire acrobat and went back to Hungary where his line of work was more plentiful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thinking about this part of Europe and thus about wars, which have been so plentiful there (<i>wars of which we are now more conscious again in these very peculiar times</i>) reminded me of this powerful poem by Jean Pedrick, one of the founding women of Alice James Books (<i><b>look it up!</b></i>) If she were still among us, I think she would have been marching last week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Marija Says</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Grandmother said, they come from the east.oday</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">on horses. Watch the plain there</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">for the long cloud, thicker than smoke.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Hide what you can, potatoes, turnips,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">anything that will keep, nothing to call</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the bees. Then filthen and uglify yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Roll with the swine until you retch, I beg you.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Mother said, they come from the north</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">like giant insects, beetlebacks on the feet</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">of millipedes. Whatever obstructs, they mount</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and topple.When the ground shakes, when the crows</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">scatter, do everything she said. The food. The pigs.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">They came from the sky. The pig exploded.<br />I was pasted with it. Even so, grew up, grew old.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Jean Pedrick</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Mitteleuropa; poems</i></b>, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Small Poetry Press, Pleasant Hill, CA,</span><span style="font-size: large;">1992, page 9.</span></div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-51521740771392771042018-01-16T16:10:00.001-08:002018-01-16T16:14:19.717-08:00One Foot Forward; honey and onion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">Just went out for the mail, which was a note from my baby sister</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">and a book of writing prompts written by Peter Murphy.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"> above are last year's ducks, but I hope they are still among</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">the ones that are here this year. The life of a duck</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">often takes place in groups of ducks </span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">that look very much like each other.<b> </b></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>jhhymasfoto</b></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In yesterday's mail, the book I had ordered by Chana Bloch,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>The Moon is Almost Full, </b>Autumn House Press, 2017.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>And the first poem in the book reminded me of my blog</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>and my hopes for this year.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Yom Asal, Yom Basal</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i> One day honey, one day onion. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i> --Arabic saying</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In every maybe, the fear of yes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In every promise, a shattered glass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For every portion a cutting edge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For every rift a slippery bridge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In every hope some pickling salt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In every bungle a touch of guilt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unto every plan God's ringing laughter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unto every death a morning after.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b> Chana Bloch</b></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">The design of this is simply stunning to me! As I examine the structure, I see more and more design. Two line rhyming stanzas, each line </span><span style="font-size: large;">in two parts, as is the epigraph. <b>Try to make a structure for your own poem!</b></span></i></div>
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Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-64233381766158236782017-12-30T17:07:00.000-08:002017-12-30T17:07:03.254-08:00Cracking the Corn<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Actually, the corn is already cracked; I buy it that way! Since it snowed on Christmas Eve and the following two nights we have some snow cover. But today it is melting fast. You can see the greedy and overpopulated mallards in the foreground, and wood ducks toward the back, with a of American Wigeon in the upper left and one below them cut off by the edge. This picture was taken on Christmas Day.<i> jjhymasfoto</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And here we are in the Neglected Blog Zone, working on the fifth post of this year, with one more day to reach my year-end goal of doubling the three posts made earlier. I have missed doing these short essays, and thinking about poetry and the feedback. But it has been quite a nutty year, with a lot of changes. Here comes 2018!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Boise is getting ready for the <b>Big Potato Drop</b> again at midnight tomorrow. But this year, I might not stay up for it. . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am now reading the new biography of Henry David Thoreau in paper by Laura Dassow Walls. It is from the University of Chicago and thus a mighty tome to hold. 500 pages of actual text and all the usual notes and equipage besides. It has been a long time since I have worked on such a heavy book. I read many things on Kindle and this year again have been reading much poetry, in lighter volumes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I came back to Thoreau because of one of the most unexpectadly delightful books I have encountered this year, John McPhee's <i><b>Survival of the Bark Canoe</b></i>, which came out in 1982 and has finally answered my question: Which side of the bark is out on a birchbark canoe. I'll write about this book tomorrow, but it led me back to Thoreau and <b>The Maine Woods</b>.</span></div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-54380181210179097832017-12-09T20:36:00.002-08:002017-12-09T20:36:19.722-08:00He has been to Alaska! And back!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vx1Vy4U6NcI/WiyxPhr0sAI/AAAAAAABKpw/dDdVJQsi2WwRVKJ5oxktPZLLB8ZVqvZ_QCLcBGAs/s1600/Widgeonlight.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vx1Vy4U6NcI/WiyxPhr0sAI/AAAAAAABKpw/dDdVJQsi2WwRVKJ5oxktPZLLB8ZVqvZ_QCLcBGAs/s640/Widgeonlight.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>I have been thinking about the American Widgeons, like this one, that spend every winter here at our creek outside Boise, Idaho. In spring and summer they go north to breed. Today was the first day they were back! This photo from last year,shows the characteristic "bald pate" or the male's white forehead. In earlier America they were hunted for food and sometimes referred to as "Bald Pates!" </i><br />
<i>Now, they come for cracked corn when I open the door!</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This week's mail brought me Holiday greetings from my</span><span style="font-size: large;"> best friend in High School, whose first name is the same as mine: June.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once again, she has won the Holiday Sweepstakes Award of Honor (no cash prize) for the first holiday greeting to hit my mailbox. I should mention that she also reads this blog. She has noticed that I haven't been posting. I have hardly posted at all this year and I admit that I have missed it. I can easily double the number of posts for 2017 (the two of us graduated in 1953!) before the end of the year and that is my new goal. This one will be Number 5 in 2017! It is funny how easily I was able to fall away. There have been some changes in my life, which I will be mentioning as we go along.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Both my husband any my nephew commented on June's neat, regular, and even handwriting that addressed the envelope. Her script is small, very neat and even and rounded. Although my handwriting has changed since then, hers seems to me to be very like it was when we were making those notebooks for the best Science Teacher ever, Mr. Eugene Van Vranken!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have been enjoying Dave Bonta's Morning Porch posts on Facebook. I would like to try something similar here. Stay tuned; if I go away, I usually come back. Blogging here since 2006...</span></div>
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Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-31853405757833437632017-08-08T17:09:00.000-07:002017-08-08T17:09:09.866-07:00Watching Pat Conroy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ducks don't need to watch TV. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Most of the time, I don't either.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is from a recent winter near the Little Union Canal.</span></div>
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We had our roof re-shingled a couple of weeks ago. When they took off the Direct TV antenna, we decided to cancel the service, which is expensive and unthrilling. While we are exploring our options I bought an antenna from Amazon for $28. We plugged it in to the TV and can now get a lot of stations. We haven't found Jeopardy yet. but we can watch sort of randomly odd things and some PBS stations. My husband fell asleep in his chair to the soothing voice of Bob Ross yesterday on a channel called CREATE, which has some nice things from the past on it, including old Sara Moulton cooking shows that we used to enjoy. Once we have learned how to use this, we might not get another paid $ervice.<br />
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Noodling around yesterday we found something<i><b> fantastic</b></i> to watch. About the time Pat Conroy's book <i><b>The Death of Santini</b></i>., was published, he was being interviewed (in front of an appreciative audience) by another Irish-American, Maureen Corrigan of the New York Times.This was aired as part of the PBS series Great Conversations. I am writing this post to <i><b>insist</b></i> that you watch it if you have any interest in writing, Irish and Southern characteristics or any of the the books by Pat Conroy or the movies that have been made from them. Or even just if none of these apply to you...<br />
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Here's the link:<a href="http://www.pbs.org/video/great-conversations-pat-conroy-and-maureen-corrigan/"> http://www.pbs.org/video/great-conversations-pat-conroy-and-maureen-corrigan/</a><br />
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Pat Conroy has been <i>very special</i> to me ever since I read his early book <i><b>The Water is Wide</b></i> about his year teaching children on an island off the coast of South Carolina. Descended from slaves, these children were part of a society that had virtually no contact with the mainland or educated society. Because of his efforts to help them, he was fired after the first year and the school board participated in a conspiracy to get him drafted for service in Vietnam. I bought a copy for the Gilroy Library that I supervised in 1972, and devoured it as soon as it came in.<br />
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I had worked during Library School at the Arlington Branch of the Cleveland Public Library, I was an assistant to the children's librarian, Joyce Johnson. Our clientele there was also largely descended from slaves, but not in isolation from the rest of us. This was at the very beginning of publishing works on African American history, especially for children. To meet the demand, we bought the few items in multiple copies. We also pasted photos and articles from Ebony and other publications onto sheets of gray cardboard, which were labeled, kept in steel filing cabinets and available for check-out in large envelopes. As a result of knowing these children (who often asked to touch MY hair, which was long and straight) I developed a lifelong interest in them and followed and supported attempts tp better the conditions in which they lived. Thus my interest in reading The Water is Wide as soon as it was published. (They made a movie of it called Conrack.)<br />
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After watching the interview, I got The Death of Santini on Kindle and read about a third of it last night. I am loving it! But it is really the interview (link above!) that I want you to watch. The level of honest communication is thrilling! Do it. Maybe tonight!<br />
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Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-57549088921495458782017-07-05T13:56:00.001-07:002017-07-05T13:56:30.486-07:00Tanka: a poetic form<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Blue Iris by the Little Union Canal. jhhymas</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am just now reading a Christmas gift of the book of tanka by Mariko Kitakubo. The title is INDIGO, published by Shabda Press in Pasadena, California. No date.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is a wonderful book, full of intelligent and deep musings in this short five-line form. It also includes the Japanese in both characters and<i> romaji, </i>as well as images by the author and an introduction by Donald Keene.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is hard to pick just one, but here is one of my favorites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">who is</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">counting fireflies </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">by the Nile?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">after the dream</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">of civilization?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>Mariko Kitakubo</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">page 46.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I am hoping to resume blogging now. </i>jhhymas</span></div>
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Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-76517304427171875862017-05-11T20:22:00.000-07:002017-05-11T20:26:20.012-07:00Releasing the Vine Sphinx Moth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><i>I've been neglecting this blog and I quite miss this way of talking to people,</i></i></div>
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<i> Just back now from a later-than-usual dog walk, I find a little time to start again, </i></div>
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<i>A week ago, the moth above turned up indoors perched</i></div>
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<i>where the wall turns the corner into the hall. </i></div>
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<i>I took some photos, but left it alone there; next morning, it was gone. </i></div>
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<i>Two days later I found it, still inside, near the window, where it soon began </i></div>
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<i>to desperately attempt flying through the glass. </i></div>
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<i>I knew I would damage it by trying to grab it. </i></div>
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<i>So I found a small clear plastic glass (like the ones provided by a motel) </i></div>
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<i>and an index card. </i><i>When the creature paused briefly, </i></div>
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<i>I placed the glass carefully over it against the pane. </i></div>
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<i>Then I slid the card beneath him over the mouth of the cup. </i></div>
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<i>I had already opened the back door </i></div>
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<i>and I went out at once and released him over the lawn. </i></div>
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<i>He flew strongly </i><i>and without hesitation up and away toward the creek. </i></div>
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<i>As he flew, he dropped a bit of himself, which I think </i></div>
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<i>must have been the crooked thing at the top left of the photo,</i></div>
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<i>like a malformed antenna or limb. His flight was strong and even without it,</i></div>
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<i>He lifted my whole self toward freedom!</i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I have been looking at a book of selected poems </span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">by Henri Cole. </span></b></i><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">The second poem is about </span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Monarch butterflies, but I have decided </span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">instead to give you the first poem, </span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">a winter poem about gulls.</span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><br /></b></i></div>
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<i><b><br /></b></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">V-winged and Hoary</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">All our pink and gold and blue</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">birds have gone to Panama and Peru,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The willow flycatcher with its sneezy "fitzbew,"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">the ruby-throated hummingbird with jewel-</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">like gorgets and the blue-rumped finch,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">its song a warble with a guttural "chink."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Far, far across the ghostly frozen lake,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">above the great drifts of snow swaying</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">like dunes, the frosty Iceland gulls,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">pallid as beach fleas, make great loops and catfall</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">into the wind, They are all that is left.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Throngs of children tiptoe deftly</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">across the lake to watch the robust birds</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">plunge headlong into kamikaze dives, lured</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">by fledgling trout nosed against the shallow ice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Despite the precarious ice,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">the children huddle bundled at the edge:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">mittened, scarved, and starry-eyed,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">their teeth chattering in the frosty air.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">They watch the tireless birds, over and over,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">fall from the speckled sky, their downy underwings</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">and pink, taloned leggings</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">foam soaked as they grapple with their catch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The children are in love with the miraculous</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">oval-lipped trout swimming upward for air.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Snowflakes fall against their</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">cracked lips as they wait, their mouths agape</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">in little Os at the spectacle of gulls.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Henri Cole</b>, <b><i>Pierce the Skin, </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2010, pages 3-4.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>This is a clear and beautiful poem in fourteen two-line stanzas,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>making it about twice the length of a sonnet. If you were to write </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>a poem (<b>your task!</b>) about a natural outdoor event that you had witnessed (I might write about the Sphinx moth!) you would want </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>to use specific and lovely descriptive words such as the ones </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>in this poem. You could let your writing flow across the lines </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>and stanza breaks the way this poet does.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I identified this moth from pictures on the Internet, but it is not a common resident here and is more common in South and Central America. I might make that part of the poem. jhh</span></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-9952004066153499002016-12-24T21:34:00.001-08:002016-12-24T21:35:54.023-08:00Feeding Cracked Corn<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4TzzZGn_brQ/WF9WjSUBxMI/AAAAAAAA_nc/Yk0nEqDmZ6YigvKM9o9AVyuiw-vv5Fy2gCLcB/s1600/20161223_232801wigeons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4TzzZGn_brQ/WF9WjSUBxMI/AAAAAAAA_nc/Yk0nEqDmZ6YigvKM9o9AVyuiw-vv5Fy2gCLcB/s400/20161223_232801wigeons.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>More snow overnight, of the kind that sticks to the trunks of trees.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>My American Wigeons are back and this morning (feed me!)</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I had three pairs! Too many mallards to count and </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>this years record group of </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>American Wood Duck.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>TEN PAIRS!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I just looked up wigeons and found that 80% </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>of their diet is grass leaves. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>But as grass is now covered in snow, they will</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>eagerly gobble my cracked corn.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The males have a white stripe on the head</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>that runs back from the bill. You can see part of it</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>on the two males in this photo,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>but it would show more clearly if they were facing you.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>As a result of this stripe, they used to be called</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Bald Pates, and some hunters still use this term.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Christmas Eve morning</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">in the fresh snow</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">ducks wait to be fed</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">jhh</span></i></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-4534918179559869802016-12-23T20:45:00.001-08:002016-12-23T20:45:52.527-08:00The Fragile Edge of a Leaf<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9iMAtdGosCk/WF3wwuKd1lI/AAAAAAAA_UY/VKGQVvfgvn8YhqjahqHu7lJZVMcwo_Y2gCLcB/s1600/10355956774_1c618d11e2_oleafscrew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9iMAtdGosCk/WF3wwuKd1lI/AAAAAAAA_UY/VKGQVvfgvn8YhqjahqHu7lJZVMcwo_Y2gCLcB/s640/10355956774_1c618d11e2_oleafscrew.jpg" width="582" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>When we were building the place at the edge of the wood</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>near the Tip of the Mitt in Michigan, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I was the person who did</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>most of the interfacing with the architect/contractor,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Dick Kappler. </i><i>This picture, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">which I took of a blown leaf there, </span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>reminds me of him in two ways. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>When he was building the porches</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>(which are a very special part of living there--</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>the </i><i>bridge to the woods.)</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>he made a big point of using cedar wood. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>He also pointed out to me that he used screws,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>rather than nails, because of their superior holding power</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>over time. When I took this photo, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>it was the blown leaf--the hole, the tattered edge--</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I noticed. Only later, did I think of the experience</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>of building that house. jhh</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>Harvesting the Attic</b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>3. Made things</b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's the hula dancer I made.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's Santa Claus.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's May-baskets. Here's</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">new crepe paper, and a spool</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">thing that one runs it through to make</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">the rushes of the hula skirt.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here are parts of linen pin-wheels</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Grandma made, sitting</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">in the bay window in the sun,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">the sun on her shoulder,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">and the heating pad, to help</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">the sun, and the small hooded hook</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">darting from the fat pads of strictured</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">huge-jointed finger and thumb.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The hook flashes, winks sunbursts,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">filigrees venomous pain.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Jean Pedrick (1922-2006)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Wolf Moon; a book of hours</i></b> by Jean Pedrick</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Alice James Books, 1974, page 50.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Jean Pedrick is another gift from my poet/librarian friend, Pat Shelley (1911-1997) who I have mentioned frequently in this blog-- and whom </i><i>I have thought of even more often. Another friend and I acquired Pat's poetry books, and a brown envelope with three Pedrick chapbooks was part of my share. It was only last year that I read these small books and was stunned by their power. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;">Then </i><i><span style="font-size: large;">I got others, including this one, through the used book market.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Jean Pedrick was a founding member of Alice James books, an important group that was formed to publish books by women. I knew about this group, but hadn't know her work. I'll be putting other poems by her into this Memory Thread.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>This poem is a section of a longer one about the attic, including the mouse life that was part of that space. I chose this section partly because of the Santa Claus, and partly for the grandmother. My brother Robert talked to me about our father's mother--he got to know </i><i>her on a long visit after I had left home--and the small braided rugs she made.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>And all of this is an example of why I call this blog <b>The Memory Thread</b>. It was that same brother who wrote me--as he was dying from cancer--that the memories he was writing came to him easily--he got hold of a little piece of "string" and kept pulling and the memories came easily. jhh</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-1771021216640740852016-12-22T19:48:00.000-08:002016-12-22T19:48:02.476-08:00Christmas comes on a sleigh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s-eA_A4dcZE/WFyVlLfl86I/AAAAAAAA_UA/B6UxlnaBJdscbWp5IL9TK4Tz_PVP8SYkgCLcB/s1600/8432270306_dc8cae629d_oblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s-eA_A4dcZE/WFyVlLfl86I/AAAAAAAA_UA/B6UxlnaBJdscbWp5IL9TK4Tz_PVP8SYkgCLcB/s640/8432270306_dc8cae629d_oblog.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Snow on the bank where the Great Blue Heron stood in summer, searching, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>like Ungerer's <b>Three Robbers</b>, for victims.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>It is cold again this year, as it was during this earlier winter,</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>on the backs of the Little Union Canal..</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Yesterday there were many more ducks in the water than this;</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>how do they stay warm??? jhh</i></div>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Snowflakes</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In my country, there is no one </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">who had never been photographed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Being shot in the face is a way of life.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Frying is not so bad as losing</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">a photograph of the fried one.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If you spot an egg dying on the sidewalk</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">you are free to take its picture.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Some prefer to place a friend next to it</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">but who that might be is up to you.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">No two people are alike, although they look</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">exactly the same. Like snowflakes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">My country is a country of snowflakes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">people just pile up to your wonderment</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">or disgust (whatever you think is OK).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">People take a lot of pictures at Christmas.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">People place tiny decorated trees on graves.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Snow country, like the novel by Kawabata.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Everyone wants to live here because we have</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">invisible fences so if a dog leaves the yard</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">he's snapped right back in.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You can buy garbage bags with the scent of lemons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">or wildflowers. Everyone has a choice.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A man was hired to see if spice scented bags</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">sold well, if the people liked them, and they</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">did not, so they took them away.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Don't worry if you are thinking</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">you'd like something different for your children,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">for your own unique little snowflakes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">because we have wonderful schooling in privacy</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">where a child must stare at a glass of milk</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">three hours, or until its surroundings grow dark,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">whichever comes first.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And children are encouraged to draw, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">always to draw. Christmas comes on a sleigh.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">They get their first camera in a pouch.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The wet polaroid slips into their hand,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">a memory from the moment of birth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Another face is born.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">My country grows on the deep freeze door</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and my country grows in the snowy night.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But no two countries are alike.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mary Ruefle</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Post Meridian</i></b>, Carnegie Mellon University Press, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Pittsburgh, PA, 2000, pages 56-57.</span><br />
<br />
<b><i><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I find nothing in my life that I can’t find more of in books. </span></i></b><div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>With the exception of walking on the beach, in the snowy woods, and swimming underwater. That is one of the saddest journal entries I ever made when I was young. --Mary Ruefle</i></b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/mary-ruefle">https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/mary-ruefle</a></i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Someone Reading a Book</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Is a Sign of Order in the World: </div>
</span></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mary Ruefle</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Someone writing a poem that just moves along</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>and moves along, and moves along,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>is a sign of the magic of language,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>and of the discovery of interesting sound and meaning</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>in unlikely juxtapositions. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>June Hopper Hymas</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-56240758174766297862016-12-21T22:08:00.001-08:002016-12-22T15:22:49.089-08:00Loud music, not yours<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_FHqcajAJs/WFtk9swtJ2I/AAAAAAAA_Rg/SxAgizYWAvQfyP83Ka6sILS81yEIo5oxQCLcB/s1600/IMG_5586blog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_FHqcajAJs/WFtk9swtJ2I/AAAAAAAA_Rg/SxAgizYWAvQfyP83Ka6sILS81yEIo5oxQCLcB/s400/IMG_5586blog.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Quick! The sun's going down </span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">at 5:04 p.m. </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">this very day!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Turn the porch light on</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">for our return.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Noise</b></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Solitude unchosen, the drone of it rising to a buzz. That poet</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">you hate, his dead tune on a bad instrument. Hungover, the</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">terrible fork glancing the excruciating plate and--that same</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">morning--the frisson of corduroy, your own, as you walk.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Loud music, not yours; somebody else's good time. the or-</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">atory of an enemy. The cacophony of someone asking for </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">love. Another remark after the argument's been conceded, or</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">the story's over. Your stupid, habitual politeness when the</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">telemarketer calls. The restrained ha-ha when only a belly</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">laugh will honor the moment. Any complaint, even the gen-</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">tlest, from a person incapable of praise. Someone you know</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">you'll not see again---the dull click of an unslammed door.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Stephen Dunn</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Riffs and Reciprocities; prose poems</i></b>, Stephen Dunn,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">W. W. Norton, 1998, page 61.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">These poems are paired on facing pages. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The companion of this one is titled Music. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> It would be fun to start to work in pairs like this, another task. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Some of his other pairings: Bedroom/Kitchen, <br />Money/Indulgence, Reflection/Shadow. <br /></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">There arre many more types of pairings </span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">than just opposites; </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">one could make almost anything work. . . </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> jhh</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-18400978559952361232016-12-20T21:47:00.001-08:002016-12-20T21:47:43.765-08:00How soon the night falls<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R5RFTvAsWgE/WFoQu_NzT5I/AAAAAAAA_N0/NKbnm3HkPfgskqZXQUQwfXxC7Qt7z2RYQCLcB/s1600/IMG_5444.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R5RFTvAsWgE/WFoQu_NzT5I/AAAAAAAA_N0/NKbnm3HkPfgskqZXQUQwfXxC7Qt7z2RYQCLcB/s400/IMG_5444.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Before the snow came, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>there was this tender rim of cloud </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>along the horizon.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Just the other day.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>World's End</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">At the world's end</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">on worn-out ground</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">the one talks of the flowers</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">adorning Argonne china</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">in their red pigment is mixed</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">the gold of old Dutch ducats</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">dissolved in aqua regia.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">How soon the night falls</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">the other answers</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">time goes so fast</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">in this empty country.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Jean Follain</b> (1903-1971)<br /> Translated from the French by W.S. Merwin<br /><br /><b><i>Transparency of the World</i></b>; Jean Follain<br />selected and translated by W. S. Merwin, <br />Copper Canyon Press, 2003, page 81.</span><div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>In this uncertain time, when so many of the things </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I have cared about seem under threat, I find </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>that the work of this poet, </i></span><i style="font-size: x-large;">who lived </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;">in other uncertain times, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;">captures a feeling-tone </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;">very similar to the one </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;">I have today. jhh</i></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-4790028287823944782016-12-19T20:32:00.001-08:002016-12-19T20:39:21.183-08:00Where the bird sang<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-si8_qRNZWvM/WFitnqgW01I/AAAAAAAA_KQ/fF982Z2EHrkZSAttNjx9CDXYHRoU_O1IgCLcB/s1600/31754507115_5cbdc959af_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-si8_qRNZWvM/WFitnqgW01I/AAAAAAAA_KQ/fF982Z2EHrkZSAttNjx9CDXYHRoU_O1IgCLcB/s400/31754507115_5cbdc959af_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Last night's early sunset. Only a glimpse, 5:32 p.m.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Life</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">A child is born</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">in a vast landscape</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">half a century later</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">he is simply a dead soldier</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">and that was the man </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">whom one saw appear</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">and set down on the ground </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">a whole</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">heavy sack of apples</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">two or three of which rolled</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">a sound among the sounds of a world</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">where the bird sang</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">on the stone of the door-sill.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Jean Follain </b> (1903-1971)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Translated from the French by W.S. Merwin</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Transparency of the World;</i></b> Jean Follain</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">selected and translated by W. S. Merwin, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Copper Canyon Press, 2003, page 81.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">W. S. Merwin has made a number of splendid translations </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">from several languages, They are very worth seeking out.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>***</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The recent election, which now threatens </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>most of what I have believed in and worked for </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>since I became a thinking person,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>has made me see more clearly </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>the value of these apples and birds. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>jhh</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-68025084779889207952016-12-18T20:47:00.004-08:002016-12-18T20:51:53.359-08:00Nothing that is not there...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9M0vEXjuGc0/WFdeZDvgUuI/AAAAAAAA_Hs/AuFMo-D78zUOccWWunMbjwytW1uXtT2oACLcB/s1600/20161214_030340%2B%25281RoseHips.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9M0vEXjuGc0/WFdeZDvgUuI/AAAAAAAA_Hs/AuFMo-D78zUOccWWunMbjwytW1uXtT2oACLcB/s640/20161214_030340%2B%25281RoseHips.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>The hips on this Rugosa rose at the fence line are most beautiful </i><br />
<i>tipped with the recent snows.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Tonight the temperature here is supposed to go down to 5 degrees F.</i></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Snow Man</b> was one of Pat Shelley's favorite poems. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Pat was my poetry and librarian friend </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">who died in late 1997. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm still missing her and remembering things </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">we talked about, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">and many things she said.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>THE SNOW MAN</b><br /><br />One must have a mind of winter<br />To regard the frost and the boughs<br />Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;<br /><br />And have been cold a long time<br />To behold the junipers shagged with ice,<br />The spruces rough in the distant glitter<br /><br />Of the January sun; and not to think <br />Of any misery in the sound of the wind,<br />In the sound of a few leaves,<br /><br />Which is the sound of the land<br />Full of the same wind<br />That is blowing in the same bare place<br />For the listener, who listens in the snow,<br />And, nothing himself, beholds<br />Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. <br /><br /><b>Wallace Stevens</b></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Stevens: Collected Poetry & Prose,</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Library of America, 1997, page 8.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>When Lee-Young Lee gave a poetry reading in San Jose </i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">many years ago, he was carrying only </span><span style="font-size: large;">some papers </span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">and a well-worn copy of Wallace Stevens' poems. </span></i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Since Lee's poems </span><span style="font-size: large;">are so good, it's a good hint </span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">for what you might spend some time on.</span></i></span><br />
<br /></div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-43987302252689929982016-12-17T20:23:00.003-08:002016-12-17T20:23:43.161-08:00The glamour of childish days<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zvCxiNbOiAk/WFYKqJmcLiI/AAAAAAAA_FY/7UiR99NwNvggs6faw5j7DG91g_64sw3LwCLcB/s1600/9290206328_d023eb482b_oBLOG2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="528" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zvCxiNbOiAk/WFYKqJmcLiI/AAAAAAAA_FY/7UiR99NwNvggs6faw5j7DG91g_64sw3LwCLcB/s640/9290206328_d023eb482b_oBLOG2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<i>I was able to see this Christmas Past image better by lightening it. </i><br />
<i>Because of the plaid wallpaper, I think it was taken </i><br />
<i>at our traditional Kaestle's Christmas Eve party.</i><br />
<i>Probably around 1955, after I had left home.</i><br />
<i>My Sister Susan, who died this past year,</i><br />
<i>is holding her flute, and that might be Richard at the piano.</i><br />
<i>Marjory is ar right front. Then my brothers are, front to back,</i><br />
<i>David, Robert and John. </i><br />
<i>I can't place the youngsters on the left margin.</i><br />
<i>Over the years, many of our Hopper family group photos </i><br />
<i>were taken at this <b>Christmas Eve Party</b>.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>PIANO</b></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; <br />Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see <br />A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings <br />And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. <br /><br />In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song <br />Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong <br />To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside <br />And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. <br /><br />So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour <br />With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour <br />Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast <br />Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>D. H. Lawrence </i></b> (1885-1930)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Source: the poetryfoundation.org</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>This has been one of my favorite poems for a long time.</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pSiHYIHsUsM/WFYLB1-i4SI/AAAAAAAA_Fc/YStwJXVK_-cc5N0lhy3PM9ZxeKbPAsmYwCLcB/s1600/9290206328_d023eb482b_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pSiHYIHsUsM/WFYLB1-i4SI/AAAAAAAA_Fc/YStwJXVK_-cc5N0lhy3PM9ZxeKbPAsmYwCLcB/s400/9290206328_d023eb482b_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Here is the original professional scan </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>of the very underexposed glimpse of the past</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>also shown above. </i></span><i>I cropped </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>the large dark raised lid of the piano at right</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i> for the final version.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Maybe I should have left it in for the poem, , , </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>jhh</i></div>
</div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-6999884773205758112016-12-16T21:03:00.000-08:002016-12-16T21:11:45.393-08:00The Weather is the Weather<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9lFJ16Ms3OQ/WFS9S7CNzcI/AAAAAAAA_EI/d8LQKPqItYM4EM0RV-Il4RvpzdeglwO_ACLcB/s1600/30850471134_116e2a9f3f_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9lFJ16Ms3OQ/WFS9S7CNzcI/AAAAAAAA_EI/d8LQKPqItYM4EM0RV-Il4RvpzdeglwO_ACLcB/s400/30850471134_116e2a9f3f_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Through the front window today, the snow gave everything a fairy-tale quality,</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>which in this Prisma app enhancement is as plain as Tortola to see.</i></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>POSTCARD FROM TORTOLA</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've never been to Tortola,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">though many times I've drifted</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">to the vast principality of elsewhere</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">where, no doubt, a Tortola must be,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">so I can attest the weather is the weather</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I've brought with me, overcast</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">with periods of sun, always a low</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">following a high, and the natives</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">impoverished and gay. You wouldn't</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">like it here. Go elsewhere. One person's</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Tortola is another's Sadness-by-the-Sea.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The duty from which you're absolved</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">in the duty-free shops comes with a price.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">On the other hand, it's beautiful---</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the water turquoise, the breeze a constant</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">caress. Some people actually love</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">that there's singing in the streets.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Stephen Dunn</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD; POEMS,</i></b> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Stephen Dunn, </span><span style="font-size: large;">W. W. Norton, 2006, page 45.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i></i></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Stephen Dunn has many poetry honors, </i></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">including the Pulitzer Prize. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">He is the author of many terrific </span><span style="font-size: large;">books of poems.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>This poem made me think about what it might be like </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>to have lived in many different places. My second cousin, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">a U.S. </span><span style="font-size: large;">diplomat, has lived in many different places; </span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>it gives him a different outlook. I have lived </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>in only a few places in the US and have visited </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>other countries for one, two or three weeks. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Count them: </span><span style="font-size: large;">Colombia, Japan, Bali and Greece! </span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">jhh</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-41878428150516733872016-12-15T20:07:00.002-08:002016-12-15T20:07:36.060-08:00Definite Shadows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3Hpie3eSa7E/WFNk6zHLL7I/AAAAAAAA-60/Ru81v4AL_iMUcyCaS52bB-gINwvu_yO3ACLcB/s1600/3796711517_20a676f551_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3Hpie3eSa7E/WFNk6zHLL7I/AAAAAAAA-60/Ru81v4AL_iMUcyCaS52bB-gINwvu_yO3ACLcB/s400/3796711517_20a676f551_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>This Northern Michigan structure has been torn down now, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>but I often used to wonder about its uses and history</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>as I rounded the corner towards our home in the woods. jhh</i></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Itinerary<br /><br />by Adrienne Rich<br /><br />i.<br /><br />Burnt by lightning nevertheless<br />she’ll walk this <i>terra infinita</i><br /><br />lashes singed on her third eye<br />searching definite shadows for an indefinite future<br /><br />Old shed-boards beaten silvery hang<br />askew as sheltering<br />some delicate indefensible existence<br /><br />Long grasses shiver in a vanished doorway’s draft<br />a place of origins as yet unclosured and unclaimed<br /><br />Writing cursive instructions on abounding air<br /><br />If you arrive with ripe pears, bring a sharpened knife</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Bring cyanide with the honeycomb<br />call before you come</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>The Paris Review</i></b>, Issue 200, Spring 2012.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>(This is just the astonishing first section of a four-section poem.)</i></span></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-22485843093627752482016-12-14T20:33:00.002-08:002016-12-14T20:33:26.043-08:00I don't know what kind of bird I am.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0DhGmolD-Jc/WFIOsaX1tHI/AAAAAAAA-5Y/mBnB_7EDntAFNTDMDVlXAzpdiV_HVQ3ygCLcB/s1600/IMG_5438.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0DhGmolD-Jc/WFIOsaX1tHI/AAAAAAAA-5Y/mBnB_7EDntAFNTDMDVlXAzpdiV_HVQ3ygCLcB/s400/IMG_5438.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It snowed again today; and since the flakes came down so slowly,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
it was strangely unsatisfying. This is another version of the squirrel nest</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
photo from the other day, as modified by the Mondrian filter in Prisma.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Race With the Wind</i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Blue day! Blue day! ah! ah!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">What a strange thing to say.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Ho can anyone understand?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I love the queer birds,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">standing under a tree</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">with my head stuck up inside.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I thought you could read my mind</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">but I see you see leaves.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">When a bird flies from a tree</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">something happens.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">That is how you know</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">something is going to happen.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">What the thrush said was</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know what kind of bird I am.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Put your bird on my shoulder.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">You have to catch it first.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Gently! The breast is soft</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">like the center of a baby's head</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">before it learns to count.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Poor bird, out of his wits:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">his heart is racing with the wind.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">One to a zillion.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">You'd think there was a bird inside!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This doesn't imply another and another.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It implies only one. Just one.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mary Ruefle</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Post Meridian;</b> poems by Mary Ruefle</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2000, page 55.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The amount of punctuation in this poem is very interesting,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>In a work of your own that is of medium length, try varied line lengths and plenty of punctuation. jhh</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-89682992779259037842016-12-13T21:11:00.003-08:002016-12-13T21:11:52.417-08:00Young tufts of spring<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dJ4y42HEJ_U/WFDRFUFGVXI/AAAAAAAA-1E/n5ijqDjgnpY6hhqTAKtNTG6aoy3o_G9vwCLcB/s1600/9481107459_0839933464_oCindysqu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dJ4y42HEJ_U/WFDRFUFGVXI/AAAAAAAA-1E/n5ijqDjgnpY6hhqTAKtNTG6aoy3o_G9vwCLcB/s400/9481107459_0839933464_oCindysqu.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>My horse, Cindy, and her foal, with Sis grazing in the distance.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Scanned from a slide probably taken by my other in the mid 1950s. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>This foal is the child of the borrowed</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Palomino stallion, who had one enlarged and stiffened hind leg. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>This fellow lived in our pasture </i><i>all one summer, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>and used to mount the mares frequently </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>to the delight </i><i>of children who sat atop the wreck</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>of an old springhouse in the pasture, cheering him on.</i></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>A BLESSING</b><br /><br />Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, <br />Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. <br />And the eyes of those two Indian ponies <br />Darken with kindness. <br />They have come gladly out of the willows <br />To welcome my friend and me. <br />We step over the barbed wire into the pasture <br />Where they have been grazing all day, alone. <br />They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness <br />That we have come. <br />They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. <br />There is no loneliness like theirs. <br />At home once more, <br />They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. <br />I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, <br />For she has walked over to me <br />And nuzzled my left hand. <br />She is black and white, <br />Her mane falls wild on her forehead, <br />And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear <br />That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. <br />Suddenly I realize <br />That if I stepped out of my body I would break <br />Into blossom.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">JAMES WRIGHT</span><br />
<br />
<b><i>Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. </i></b><br />
Wesleyan University Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">This has been one of my favorite poems for many, many years.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">I can't think of anything useful to say about it. I was surprised to search this blog and not find any other poems by James Wright.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Read it over again, aloud!</span></i><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-71091131925595024162016-12-12T22:17:00.001-08:002016-12-12T22:17:32.935-08:00Circular Ideas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Someone I love likes to decorate! I've been fond of her</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Christmas smirker!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Intermittence</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The anxiety of spring will come</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">and the birds build nests</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">out of circular ideas.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Slender of means, </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">sparing of words,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">the rain will fall.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The sun will shine and make things certain.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">These things will remain a mystery.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Next no contra from anywhere</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">and the air be seriously entangled.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Mary Ruefle </b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><i>Tristimania,</i></b> Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2004, page 29. </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">(Ruefle's eighth book of poems.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>I was reminded today of one of my favorites, Mary Ruefle, when the Paris Review posted a link to their interview of her on Facebook. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><a href="http://junehymas.blogspot.com/search?q=ruefle">I have posted many of her short pieces on this blog.</a> Click the link above to see them.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Your task: write a poem of nine lines in one,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>two and three-line stanzas. Express a philosophy based on ruminations about the natural world and its interface with our world. Or something. . .</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Go ahead, try!</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29776607.post-27448500525346870562016-12-11T20:32:00.003-08:002016-12-11T20:33:50.560-08:00The Unfooted Dusk<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hlpIhdZY8a0/WE4cF0VyTAI/AAAAAAAA-tg/lzQCgRVew2YNK-vgcC7DvIeePehmCKB1gCLcB/s1600/IMG_5403.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hlpIhdZY8a0/WE4cF0VyTAI/AAAAAAAA-tg/lzQCgRVew2YNK-vgcC7DvIeePehmCKB1gCLcB/s400/IMG_5403.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This afternoon I liked the way the two squirrel nests<br />
on the same branch show against the sky;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I ran the photo through the Prisma app on my iPhone for the neat effect.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It was Sally Stebbins of the Petoskey Regional Audubon Society</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
who showed me how squirrels' nests are covered with leaves.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Since then, whenever I spot a nest, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I remember Sally, who died too young.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I haven't seen any squirrel babies yet, but </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I do have plenty of squirrels scrounging </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
for sunflower seeds in my seed feeder<br />
and bird seen mix. <i> jhh</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>In a Small Town on the West Coast</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The seagulls' tapestry of fish gut and last light,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">the ripe blackberries splotching the unfooted dusk,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">the ogre's sacks of human shadows heavy with hearts</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">and dragged over dykes, that low-tide-in-the-mouth taste:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">rivertowns are always nostalgic for the days they've lost.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">See how the current and the falling night flow together</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">on the same tracks, the ones walked on by dogs and girls</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">and old men wedding their dusks in the briney air.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A garter snake twists into a question-mark on the rails.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A girls body pauses long enough for her blood to answer.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The sun is always going home; with people, who can tell?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">There's something harsh and honest in a screaming gull</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">that makes us wince, something lovely, direct and awful.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the girl, hearing it, can cause the snake to fall.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Every myth begins where the ogre's sack is full.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tim Bowling</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Thin Smoke of the Heart</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000, page 19</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Tim Bowling is another of the fine Canadian poets I have discovered recently. Here are 15 long lines </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>divided into 3 stanzas. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>There is some end-rhyme and close-to-rhyme, </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>especially in the third stanza. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>There are some nice surprises:</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>tivertowns, unfooted,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>low-tide-in-the-mouth-taste!</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>And there is a nice fairytale flavor.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>So the task might be to write a poem in </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>three long-line stanzas--</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>paying special attention to the natural world--</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>with some allusions to folklore,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>and if you can, some fresh compound words. jhh</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Junehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05496522330198900998noreply@blogger.com0