Magic Spells

I don’t know why it happens, or how—just that it does. Maybe it’s a left-over from my poet laureate days when I wrote ‘occasional poems’ (otherwise known as ‘poems -to-order’—you know, the kind they told me I’d never have to do?) Give me an occasion or event, and I’m there with a poem, fresh off the laptop. I have poems for everything from birthdays to new houses, from weddings to funerals, from high school dedications to adoption days, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and everything in between.  Maybe I should pack it all in and write greeting cards for people who can’t find the words. It seems I am good at that. Back to the question: what and why and how. I don’t know. Maybe it’s magic. People read what I write and understand. And are sometimes moved. 

Those same people have asked how I write; how I think up my metaphors; how I choose words; how I sit down with a blank sheet of paper and put it all together. There is no true answer here. It happens. But when I think about it, it’s a little like music. I recently saw the play “Amadeus” and, if you look at the play as a meditation on creativity, you realize that Mozart’s genius was a gift. One that baffled and angered Salieri. Mozart wasn’t a person to be admired; he didn’t deserve it, but--through no fault of his own-- he had the gift. He could hear music in his head and record it on paper or perform it on the piano. Ask him how the magic worked? He couldn’t tell you. It was either right--or not. 

To a far lesser degree, that’s what poetry is for me. I’ve always been a good speller—not because I studied, but because I just knew. A word looked right, or it didn’t. In poetry, the words sound right, or they don’t. If they don’t, I have to change them around until they do. That is emphatically not a teachable skill. Particularly if you subscribe to the idea of free verse. You can force a rhyme, but it’s not going to sound right. Better to make up a word that fits, a la Ogden Nash, than to cram three syllables into a two-syllable space just to make it rhyme. How can that be explained to someone who doesn’t hear the discordant ‘CLANG!’ that produces? How do you acquire an ear for poetry, or an eye for art, or a feel for people’s emotions? If you listen to music, if you study art, if you read and recite poetry, you can appreciate it, you can approximate it, but you can’t quite get inside it, inside the seemingly effortless bubble that appears to exist around the born-to-it musician, artist, writer, or poet. Magic.

Sculptors can see the object in a block of stone. Mozart heard instinctively where the notes should be. An artist can visualize the lines and light and shadows in a composition. A poet can see, and hear, and feel the texture and emotion of the words, and arrange them for maximum effect. And can tell when they are right--or not. You can tell that a poem is good if you feel it, if it pulls an emotion out of you, or wakens an echo somewhere inside. I recite things in the car; I talk them through with myself; I read aloud and rearrange the lines on the page--sometimes months after I write them. Sometimes I throw things out.

I just received an email from a friend who had sent one of my poems to a friend whose husband had just died. She said her friend asked her to read it at the funeral service, and she wanted my permission to do so. Of course. Of course. Betsy doesn’t email; Betsy doesn’t text. Where she got my poem, I have no idea. Maybe she’s a secret Facebook stalker. But for this poem, she emailed me. It touched her and she passed it along to her friend. Another piece of magic.

And here I am, three thousand miles away, totally flummoxed.  I wrote a poem about a friend who had passed on months ago, and somehow arranged my imperfect words in a pattern that spoke to someone I’ve never met. I put words on paper and they say an inexplicable something that offers some version of comfort to a stranger. 

If that’s not magic, I’m not sure what is.

Thanksgivings 2019

We’ve had nights at the theater, 

and dinners with friends.

We’ve had family, and laughter,

some sad visits to funerals and hospitals,

in none of which we played featured roles.

We climbed our steps (without assistance),

moved our luggage and ourselves,

slung carry-on bags into overhead bins

and joked about being old

as we asked for our senior discounts.

We’ve had food and transport

(though Uber sometimes provided it)

books, and maps, and paper on which to write;

beauty has surrounded us,

(and speaking of which...)

We have daughters who called, and

grandchildren who read, and wrote (in cursive!)

We have work to do, places to go, 

and opinions to share.

We are capable of thought.

We’ve had the exuberance of the World Series—

and more importantly, a blue shift

that may be a light at the end of this four-year-long tunnel.

Thanksgivings? Not just one Thursday,

but every day of every year.

We have had, at the end, faith.

We have had, at the end, hope.

We have had, at the end, each other.

And love, thank God,

And love.

Wedding Vows

Forty-six years ago, we said the words:
"For better or worse".
I'm not sure we understood
what we said: those glib words
that had no meaning
to the people we were then--
young, irresponsible,
indestructible.

What we've found is that everything
is better...AND worse...
irrevocably twined together:
no plus without a minus,
no defeat without a victory.
The people we were then
were too black and white,
and life itself
tends toward gray.

There have been exciting times:
new experiences--chldren,
travel, moves, and adventures.
We've had firsts
and lasts
and boring in-betweens,
but there has always been us,
for better and worse, together.
as long as we both shall live.

Dog Star Days

August.
The AC’s not working, and
the washer died. The fireplace people
say there’s naught to be done
but rip it out and start again.
The garden’s on life support—
even the mint, which has a life of its own
(mostly)
which makes even making iced tea a chore.
The escalators are out at
the supermarket
and the mail is late.
My dentist wants to pull four wisdom teeth
despite my fervent “not now!”
and every meal for which I have ingredients
is one I have no taste for.
Everything in my closet is
frumpy
and my hair is an exploding dandelion.
I am reminded at the pharmacy
that I need
a shingles shot
a flu shot
a hepatitis A booster.
My laptop’s inundated with
files to delete
files to organize
files to destroy

And I am tired.
Too tired to fight the dentist.
Too tired to establish order in my disordered life.
Too worn down to see
that better days are coming.
October.
Maybe.

Cookbooks

All right. Nobody cooks anymore, it seems. But for those of us who do, there are cookbooks. Whether we follow them religiously, or use them solely as a jumping-off point, we all have favorites. It might be The Joy of Cooking, the grande dame of cookbooks. It might be the old red-and-white-checked Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, or the looseleaf Betty Crocker classic. My go-to is The Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Inside those covers, I found my beef stew, my grasshopper pie, my orange chiffon cake, and innumerable other favorites. It's easy to find the book on my shelf: the spine has been replaced by bands of white duct tape that hold the covers together. Southern Living's Best Recipes is equally ragged: think tuna casserole with cheese biscuits, or wilted lettuce salad.

If I were honest, however, I'd have to say that my tastes extend beyond one or two books. Mike Roy gave me teriyaki beef; Julia Child is my resource for chicken salad and lamb chops--and recently, for JC's grandmother's boiled custard, although Julia calls it creme anglaise. Chicken and dumplings calls for Betty Crocker--the ragged red book--and I can also find chocolate cake roll and seven-minute frosting in her collection. Erma Rombauer is the waffle lady, and the old Cooking for Two book is where I go for pancakes and stuffed peppers and meatloaf, for lemon souffles,  and the smallest scratch chocolate cake I know. I suppose that makes me eclectic, which is a 50-cent word for choosy.

Also in my collection are the multitude of "Can I have that recipe?"gleanings from family and friends. I regret to say that some of the recipes have outlived the friendships (though not all, by any means...) BUT whenever I make them, I have fond memories of the giver. I cannot make pepper relish without remembering my mother-in-law--or, for that matter, broccoli casserole, grits casserole, chocolate tarts, and many others. JC's aunt Ann has a place in my memory--and my box of recipes too: chess tarts and vegetable soup and easy chocolate mousse, and an asparagus casserole. Then, there's Ida Mae's dinner rolls, and I can still see JC's mom popping them into the oven in that little rectangular pan, blackened with the residue of years of use. (That pan is still in MY cupboard and still gets used..) Which shows that recipes feed memories as well as people. If I want to whip up my 1980 friends, there's the Wellesley Coffeecake from Marilyn Eastwood that conjures up that sewing group; my aunt Joan's funnel cakes, and Pauline Klunk's apple fritters do the same for visits to my Pennsylvania grandmother's house. Friends may come and go, but recipes are forever. Susan Hapgood, wherever you are, your strawberry pie lives on!

I have a recipe box. A gorgeous wooden box that was supposed to corral all my cards and slips of paper and be indexed properly so I could easily locate whatever I was inspired to make. I never completed the copying required to print all those neat little cards, but at least now, many of those recipes are on my computer--a few keystrokes away from a hard copy. I will always be lagging behind--every day, it seems, I see a new idea online and copy and paste it to my folder on GoogleDrive. Someday, I just may try it... if it doesn't get lost in my personal black hole of copied recipes.

I have compiled a cookbook that includes my favorites (with commentary), but having printed and distributed several to my family, I find (nearly every day) that I have omitted some. I religiously copy them into the book, in case I ever print a second edition, but it's really just to make my favorites easier to find. Also, others may not know that my waffles are from Irma Rombauer, and Betty Crocker has the ice cream cake roll, and the Dreamsicle frozen dessert came from that Better Homes & Gardens magazine that's crammed onto the shelf. And there are the little things--like I always sprinkle cinnamon sugar on my French toast before I flip it, so that it has a little crunch..maybe I should do an appendix.

Jera

Today the sun came up too early; 

I’m out of cereal, 

and cream for my tea. 

My hair is a mess, and 

I can’t find a thing in my closet 

that doesn’t make me look 

frumpy and fat.  

Traffic is terrible, 

and in the endless stop-and-go, 

I mutter and curse 

about the time I’m losing. 

I should stop myself 

with a reminder that  

all my frustrations are 

temporary,  

but today’s not the day for that. 

I skim unnoticing  

by the new green  

that decorates the trees,  

the magenta of redbuds 

blooming with abandon,  

and pink and white dogwoods 

in their annual renewal. 

There is no beauty. 

Not today. 

Last night I heard there had been a fire 

on the street where we used to live: 

someone died; a man was rescued. 

The dog and cat, too. 

It was my friend Jera who died, 

and I woke up to that 

this ugly spring morning,
filled with frustration, and anger, and tears. 

I woke up,

but Jera sleeps. 

Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Globes, teardrops, kidney shapes.

scarred, pleated, cracked with brown,

gold and green and mottled red,

striped and parti-colored

that peculiar green tomato smell

(the smell of a summer garden)

fuzzy stems

yellow flowers

sun and earth and seed:

heirlooms.

Mourning the China

I guess if you could characterize my mood today, it would be sad. I just read an article about baby-boomers and their need to dispose of their accumulated belongings, and the outlook isn’t brilliant. I am, I suppose, a permanent resident of Mudville, and mighty Casey has been dealt a deathblow.

I have—like most of my generation—a lot of stuff. I guess it would be expected: parents who survived the Depression by making do and doing without, their limited ability to indulge their children, the economic boom we experienced when we grew to adulthood…the rise of advertising and its partner, self-indulgence. We were all primed to become shoppers extraordinaire, to fill our ever-more-elaborate houses with fine things: antiques, china, crystal, collections of various types—all the things we wished for and would like to pass down to our children. In addition, some of us possess the fine things that our own parents left behind. So here we are, up to our necks in stuff, ready to hand things off to the next generation.

The kicker is: they don’t want it. No china, no silver, no crystal. No antique linens, or tables to put them on. “Brown furniture” has become a term of derision, while mid-century modern is on the ascendant. If it’s blond, if it’s low-slung and clean-lined, if it’s aluminum tubing and minimalistic, it’s okay by them. But I lived through the ‘50s and found it cold.

I like wood. It’s warm. People touched it and shaped it into being. I like my china and silver and crystal. It tells stories of holiday meals and careful washing and drying afterwards. So it sits in a cupboard most of the year. It doesn’t have to. There’s something celebratory about setting the table with grandma’s place-settings: the heft of the silver, the sparkle of the water goblets, the tracery of the dinner plates. Even if it only happens once or twice a year.

I could stand in my house and weep over the precious cut glass bowls (how pretty they are!) or my assortment of turned-wood bowls (the artistry! The hours of work!) I could marvel at the creamware I’ve acquired over the years (the teapot’s pierced design, the braided handle, the delicate curves of the sugar bowl)—to no avail. Who will keep them when I am gone? Who will treasure my collection of monsters, my books, my Ogden Nash poems? Who will love the things I’ve loved? I am haunted by estate sales I’ve attended, where lovely, cherished things are dismissed , or picked over by hordes of bargain-hunters, looking for the recent past, the chilly enamel kitchen table, the Swedish chair, the lean, the spare, the space-age relics that have captured their imaginations and their pocketbooks today.

It is, I fear, a waiting game that no one wants to play. Fashion changes, and as surely as refrigerators will change from stainless to white to avocado green or harvest gold, all these things may return. Brides may once again select china and silver patterns; grandma’s furniture may enjoy a resurgence, and someone, somewhere, may one day open an attic box and gasp at the wonder of my creamware and cut glass, my turned wood, my lovely dishes….But there are no assurances that that someone will be anyone I recognize or am related to. No one will say, “This belonged to your great-grandma…” or “I remember where it used to sit on her shelf..” The memories they hold will have worn away, and there will be nothing of me, or my predecessors, remaining. No wonder we weep.

Hospitality

The word itself is indefinable,

but, like all art, you know it when you see it:

hospitality.

It sounds old-fashioned now, 

relegated to ads for old hotels

and brand-new B&Bs

with shadings of Southern charm.

But it still exists,

exuding warmth, and care, and comfort.

Good food, chilled wine,  

the chime of ice in a glass of sweet tea, 

the soft hum of conversation,

and laughter, always laughter—

the front porch music

we make with friends and family.

Some say it’s a lost art

in today’s harried chaos—

and for most, it may be—

but we know where to find it:

your house, 

your hands, 

your heart.

Thanks for having us.

Weary

I've grown tired of being tired,
of reading the ho-hum news
without a scintilla of interest:
politics, politics, politics,
the latest scandal-in-the-making,
the newest outrage,
baseball, football, weather...
local politics, a heartwarming story,
see you at 11,
and on to Jeopardy.

Is that all there is?
Endless newsrooms with endless chatter,
solemn or cheerful,
depending on the story.
Detached, shifting focus to
various reporters in the field,
as if seeing a familiar face at
an unthinkably tragic scene
could make it all more palatable,
more real, more moving.

It's real enough.
I'm tired of being tired of reality,
of shooters and funerals and
tearful survivors and speculation
on who and why and how.
It fucking happened.
That's reality enough.
And no one seems to be
as tired as I am.
Tired enough to cut through the crap
and do something to stop it.

Friendship

Who can say what makes us friends?
Who can say what keeps us close?
There are a million reasons to drift away--but
some stay.

Despite the miles,
despite the changes,
despite the erosions of time and obligation,
we pick up where we left off
every time, against all expectation,
and somehow, it's the same conversation:
interrupted, for sure, but
still the same you, the same me,
speaking our language, our laughter,
our points of congruity.
That never seems to change.

I can't help but believe
it never will, and maybe
that's what God and eternal life are all about.
Love lives on.

I write this, thinking of you, Sandy;
of you, Jeff; of you, Doug;
of all the yous I no longer see,
living or dead--
gone from sight, but not from heart,
all of you alive in memory.
No matter how far you've gone,
no matter what dimension you inhabit,
no matter when we meet--or if we will again--
it will always be the same.
Some stay.

Preacher: Otis Moss III

Maybe it’s his OM3 version of the Bible; maybe it’s the repetition of an idea over and over again until somebody—anybody—gets it; maybe it’s the stories, or the insistence that we tell each other some key principle. Whatever it is, I am right there, because, whatever else he might be, the Reverend Dr. Otis Moss III is a teacher.

When I started teaching high school chemistry, a group of my students made fun of the fact that I told them on the first day to take their texts home and hide them under their beds until they had to return them in June. The text was boring, and was good for looking things up, but they were going to learn my way. They called it McChemistry.

In my first-year-teacher arrogance, I knew I could do better than that text, and, for many of those kids, I did. I injected some imagination into my classes; some showing, rather than constant telling. Orbitals weren’t illustrations in the book, but rotating strings that formed shapes when they were spinning. Gas atoms were superballs in a jar, crashing and bumping, speeding up and slowing down to form liquids, and, at their slowest, solids. Distribution of electrons in orbitals was reduced to a schoolbus’ seats filling up. I tried to use whatever I could to get my students to identify how things worked. I was the queen of metaphor.

That is precisely what Reverend Moss does. He reaches out and, through the wonders of his imagination, creates a bible that is accessible and identifiable to his audience—the OM3 version. His Bible stories leap off the page, shaking the dust of years of interpretation from their feet. Those people look like us, sound like us, act like us—and, in a weird type of time travel miracle that only Reverend Moss truly can accomplish, they become us. The paralytic has friends who care enough to tear off a roof to bring him to Jesus, whether he wants to go or not, and each of them holds up his corner of the mat, is responsible for his part of the job. We feel Jephtha’s pain at rejection because of his origins, and savor the validation he feels when he is asked to return to a position of command. We are the Samaritan on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, and somehow divine the difference between religion and faith. (Religion tells you when to sit and stand; faith tells you how to live!)

He teaches. He makes his subject real. He brings it to life with his enthusiasm and his focus and with every tool he has in his toolbox, not least of which is his delivery. His words tumble out, tripping over one another in their eagerness and excitement. Teachers are often the only people in the room who are excited and enthusiastic ; not here. Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm, and he has us on our feet by the end of his lesson, his sermon, his preaching. On our feet, applauding the skill with which he has guided us to where we didn’t even know we wanted to go.

And then, there is the part, every time,  that brings me to the verge of tears. At that point, where this audience stands and applauds him , tries to show him how good he really is, and how well he has delivered his message, he turns his back on us, and drops to one knee—quietly, with no words, no fanfare, acknowledging the Word he invited into the room, reminding us that it isn’t his message, but God’s, not his triumph, but that of the Holy Spirit, teaching us by example that what we do is nothing, compared to what God can do through us. 

Amen. Hallelujah.

Bottom of the Barrel

I'm running low on outrage, and I scraped the bottom of the barrel of disbelief a long time ago. I still have a bushel basket full of disdain and disgust, and a bucket-load of it-can't-happen-here that I drag along behind me as a penance. It's 2019, and we have a full one-year-plus to go before we can legitimately send Donald Trump back to New York, or wherever one sends tin-pot dictators when they've been overthrown.

He's still here, and if anyone could give Twitter a bad name, he has proven that he's the man for the job. He has been, and continues to be a graceless, lying, self-congratulating nightmare, whose biggest fan appears to be himself. He continues to prove with each rally, each positive poll, each outrageous attack that P.T. Barnum's axiom that 'there's a sucker born every minute' is indeed true. He has an innate propensity for turning facts on their heads, for weaseling his way through life blaming everyone but himself when things go awry, for casting himself as the hero in every scenario or the victim in every plot. He is a practiced and accomplished liar and con man. This is not a president of whom we can be proud.

He styles himself as the voice of the average citizen. No. I grew up in a lower middle class family, where college was not a given, where, if you wanted something, you had to pay for it. I had a scholarship, but lived at home, and worked from the time--literally the DAY--I turned 16. I bought a car; I managed grad school. I got along. But I never felt the need to step on others in my own upward climb. I was not made to feel threatened by people who didn't look like me. They were working too, trying to make their way in the world. Good for them. Good for me.

Donald Trump was rich. He was privileged. He had every advantage that money could buy. But money couldn't buy him empathy, or kindness, or honesty, or the intelligence to value those things. All that money bought was MORE. And somehow, MORE drowned out all the common virtues, all the common sensibility, all the leadership values we require in a president. The presidency simply became the next step toward MORE. More power, more vanity, more distance from real human beings. More departures from the truth. More exercise of his toddler-like tantrums.

And yet, I think the most hurtful aspect to me (and possibly, me alone) is the number of people who line up behind him and say "Yes" to his racism, his cruelty, his disregard for women, his cronyism, his extravagant waste of taxpayer money. They say "Yes" to all the lies he tells, and the embarrassment he causes our country. They say "Yes" out of ignorance, out of fear, or, perhaps, out of what has become a permanent state of American boredom and inattention: the insatiable desire for something new, for something to capture the nanosecond attention span of an over-stimulated populace. There are women out there, I am embarrassed to say, who support and believe this man. Do they not read? Do they not listen to anyone but him? Do they truly believe that the entire country is out to get him, that he is right and true, and everyone else is wrong? It is incredible.

They believe because they want to believe. They want to have someone shout out loud all the dark and despicable thoughts they keep to themselves. He is their voice, most assuredly, but he is the voice of the devil on their shoulder who urges them to ignore conscience, to ignore what is right, and give in to what feels good, whether it be immoral or illegal or horrifyingly cruel.

He is—need I say it?—not my president.

MAGA

He has lit fires in our midst
fed the blaze on the tinder
of our hidden fears
and inadequacies:
a veritable inferno
consuming pride,
hopes, accomplishments

And, without a doubt,
when all is barren,
he will watch with satisfaction.
He will build his tin palaces
on that wasteland
and will proclaim these travesties
(lacking better words)
tremendous,
awesome,
and very, very
beautiful.

Images

When I close my eyes, the movies start:
projected inside my eyelids,
against the darkness of my room.
No trailers, no previews, no censors;
just snippets of fears and catastrophes,
of mistakes and might-have-beens,
crammed into corners,
camouflaged by the everyday
till they (almost) disappear.
Yet, like submerged balloons
popping (inevitably) to the surface
insisting on their screen time.
Tonight it's the violent smack
of body on vehicle--
shattered glass left in its wake. heart
hammering at the shock.
Tomorrow,
the screams of other horrors:
guns; shooters, unhinged,
but well-supplied with ammunition;
children, lost, maltreated, murdered,
there, in my internal movie,
there, in the daily news.

Looking Ahead

I have tried--God knows, I've tried--to keep quiet about next year's election. Largely because, in the dark of night, when all my slithery, creepy, crawly thoughts have free rein, I am afraid that Donald Trump may win a second term. I cannot grasp how that could be; I never truly understood how he won the first one; but among all the things that go bump in the night, that thought is the bumpiest.

I am an admitted snob, a grammar freak, a vocabulary maven. I admire the well-spoken, and their well-turned phrases. I read, and fine writing scratches an itch that, I admit, other people may not have. I admire grace and elegance, though I lay claim to neither. I am a liberal. So shoot me. I believe that people should be treated equally, without regard to race, creed, gender, or national origin. I may not always live up to my own expectations, but I try. And I work hard to keep my own petty prejudices to myself (except where spelling and grammar are concerned, I guess...)

So, if you wonder why I am so opposed to a president who is the living antithesis of all I believe in and admire...well, you haven't been paying attention.

I am not political by nature, but when I see him turning the Constitution on its head, I find it hard to believe that he has mustered such widespread support--such a base 'base'--for the overthrow of what truly made America great, what made the US a beacon of hope for other countries, what made us a place to turn to for beleaguered populations elsewhere in the world. He has turned America's greatness upon itself, corrupting the idea of greatness, interpreting it as power, exerted in the interest of financial gain and position as a global bully. That is not the 'greatness' to which we have historically aspired. He would have us trade our moral greatness--our generosity, our all-encompassing welcome, our boundless opportunity-- for Esau's bowl of pottage: the poorest of all trades. How can anyone, raised amidst the ideals of our founding fathers, confuse 'greatness' with racism, intolerance, and the 'me first' culture that he encourages? I simply do not understand.

I am not certain of what the upcoming election will bring; there are too many candidates to focus upon, too many issues being raised, and far too much coverage of the minutiae of candidates' histories to decide or specifically recommend anyone at this juncture. I simply hope and pray (and this is sincere hope, and sincere prayer, unlike the meaningless 'thoughts and prayers' that no one acts upon) that our country will once again find itself, and will find someone we can rally behind to mend what this vicious interloper has broken, to restore the greatness with which this land was born, and with which we operated for two hundred years.

Valentine

I know
there should be a heart and an arrow
and a card and some candy--
flowers too, if that would help
convey what I feel.

I know
that most of the time, I am
cranky and impatient
and bossy and annoyed, and
let's not forget 'unreasonable'.

I know
that I am hard to love
at the best of times
and at the worst....well,
let's not go there.

And yet, I know
you have loved me,
made me laugh,
been by my side,
for all these years--

What else should a valentine be,
if not patient, if not kind,
if not faithful, and hopeful,
and enduring, and all the things
you are already?

You have always been the best of me,
my foundation, my comfort,
my home, my heart,
my Valentine.