Past and Present

This must be my month for remembering. In the past month, I've reconnected with cousins I had not seen in 50+ years, touched base (and scheduled a lunch) with a friend who I've missed for about five years, and received a phone call from a friend from elementary school (and college) who was calling to drum up support for our 50th reunion. What is this--connect-with-Mary month?

I am not one for backward looks--which probably explains these gaps in the first place. If I don't hear from someone, I may make a few efforts--but if none bear fruit, I move on. And sometimes forget to try again later.

I have already written about my cousins. The second encounter is a little fraught, and I will wait to write about that reunion, but--my college reunion is fair game.

I've known Liz since fifth grade. We both went to St. Anthony's School, endured the same scary nuns, knew a lot of the same kids, remember embarrassing facts about them (did I ever tell anyone about John Frankenberger in first grade?) and probably both hope that we've forgotten the ones about each other. We knew who the bad kids were, and who the good kids were, and how to be counted among the latter (for we both were good little Catholic girls..) We missed each other's high school years, attending rival girls' high schools, but met up again in college at Mt. St. Agnes. In fact, she rode to school with me several days a week because it helped with the gas money for my poor Rambler American, which needed all the help it could get.

She called me today out of the blue; I suppose it was to recruit me for the reunion in April (for which she was hosting the pre-party), but I don't think we ever got around to why she called.  It wasn't really necessary, since my reservations were already made, and I'd spoken to others on the committee. But call she did, saying she'd called me first because she knew me the longest. Absolutely true. I count our connection at about 62 years, give or take. You can only imagine how much catching up we had to do: the what-ever-happened-tos and where-are-they-nows and have-you-heard-abouts. Not to mention the old stories about third grade teachers and much-loved college professors. We talked for over an hour about families and what we were doing and had done and how our experiences had intersected over the years...or didn't. We ranged from lacrosse (a boy we knew who played lacrosse before anyone even knew what the sport was in Baltimore) to those friends who had passed on or disappeared from view,  to teachers we'd shared (and feared), to her family's business (the much-beloved Woodlea Bakery, where everyone went for their doughnuts on Sunday morning after church--and their cheesecake whenever they were lucky enough to get it), to my sojourn in California, to hers in Pennsylvania, to brothers and sisters and their adventures...To say we traveled far and wide was an understatement. Two-thirds of a lifetime to reconstruct: a daunting morning's work.

It was great fun, and a great reminder of our own good fortune, in spite of a few blips along the way. It really is a good life. Thanks, Lizzie, for making me remember.

Claire's Dragon

When Claire was just a little tot,

when Christmas came, she was asked (a lot!)

“Now what do you wish for Santa to bring?”

Time and again, she said not a thing,

for Claire was quite shy and reluctant to speak.

But the questions continued for week upon week.

Finally, tired of the long inquisition,

she screwed up her courage,

and took a position.

She whispered to Santa in a soft, quiet voice

finally, finally, her toy of choice.

She said, “If you could, sir, a little red wagon..”

But Santa misheard, and thought she said “dragon”!

Now Claire had forever wanted a pet,

but somehow or other, had found none quite yet:

dogs were too common, gerbils too scurry-ing,

giraffes were too tall, and mice were too hurry-ing.

Fish weren’t too snuggly, and rabbits too shy,

hedgehogs were prickly, and bears? Well, oh, my!

There just didn’t seem to be anywhere

a pet who would be oh-so-perfect for Claire.

  

So, on Christmas morning, it was quite a surprise

when Claire grabbed her stocking (quite small for her size)

and found in the toe, almost too small to note,

an egg and, attached, from Santa, a quote:

“Keep this egg warm, and soon it will hatch

a pet, just for you, that will be up-to-scratch.”

Said Claire, “I think Santa must not have been listening.

A pet would be nice, but was not of my wishing.”

But like the dutiful child that she was,

she found it a pillow and blanket because

no one –says Santa—should be out in the cold;

one takes what one gets, and does what one’s told.

The egg, for a week, did nothing but sit,

and Claire, now discouraged, forgot about it.

But, one morning, she heard just the tiniest sound:

a tap, then a crack, then a crunch, and she found

a tiny red lizard: her egg, newly-hatched.

He grumbled, he wiggled, he stretched and he scratched.

Claire’s wide eyes grew wider as suddenly, he

breathed faster and faster until finally,

like a candle, he sputtered and shot forth a flame

that died quick as lightning, as fast as it came.

He looked all around him with curious stare;

the dragon was puzzled, and so, too, was Claire.

Where did it come from, this fire, this spark?

And while it was handy to have in the dark,

breathing fire and flame could bring nothing but trouble—

for Claire and her dragon, the trouble was double!

But she bundled him up and said to herself,

“He must be quite hungry. Now, what’s on the shelf?”

She found him some fruit and a cracker or four,

then some cheese, and some hot dogs—and then she got more!

This dragon was actually smaller than small,

but he ate just as if he were fifteen feet tall!

He ate and he grew, and he grew and he ate.

He grew into the yard and out through the gate,

What’s worse is that while he got bigger and bigger

his fire-breath also was growing—with vigor!

He snuffed and he snorted, but, oh! when he sneezed,

Claire ran for cover, and Mom was not pleased!

In fact, she was ready to show him the door,

but he’d burned it to cinders

when he started to snore.

 All that to one side, he’d become rather tame

and Claire had decided to give him a name.

Sparky? or Blaze? or Fireball? Red?

The names were all spinning around in her head.

She tried them all out and finally said,

“What about ‘Rufus’?”, and he turned his head.

I swear that he smiled, and looked deep in her eyes

and nodded approval, much to her surprise.

“Then, Rufus it is! And Rufus you’ll be!”

she shouted out loud, as happy as he.

Rufus now measured near 10 feet (or more)

and Claire even could ride him when she went to the store.

She clambered on up to his red wing-ed shoulder

And hung on his neck as he flew high and told her:

“Watch out when we land! It just might be rough!”

But Claire curled up tight and stayed safe enough.

He waited outside, and he carried her bag

gripped tight in his claw, and his tail even wagged!

She took him to school, and the kids were all jealous;

They took him to recess, and he toasted marshmallows

for s’mores on the schoolyard—of course he brought chocolate!

and graham crackers too, in a small dragon-pocket.

Claire loved him dearly, but, as you might surmise,

he was hard to manage in a house of this size.

So, when Christmas-time came, and Santa grew near,

Claire crept up quite close and, right in his ear,

she whispered quite sadly, “Santa, please, could you find

a nice home for Rufus? He’s friendly, he’s kind—

He’s just far too big for one child to care for..”

And Santa leapt up and said, “That’s what I’m here for!!

It seems the North Pole is so terribly cold,

that we need extra heat—or so I am told.

Instead of depending on weak North Pole sun,

we need an auxiliary furnace of one."

So Rufus flew off with the reindeer that year

to live at the North Pole, but, every year,

when Santa comes ‘round, and Christmas is nigh,

Rufus comes to see Claire, and they fly through the sky...

because they are friends, and friends always stay,

as do Rufus and Claire, to this very day.

The End.

Love and Cinnamon

I was making a cobbler..

apple, of course.

There are always apples;

an everyday fruit, made wonderful

by combination

with other everyday stuff:

flour, butter, love, and cinnamon—

I was peeling apples...

stroking peel into the sink:

red coins of apple skin,

piled in the white enamel sink.

A snapshot, a moment, a vignette—

enough to make me pause, to take note of 

the quotidian art in an apple peel, blending

the common with the commonplace.

Love and cinnamon, love and anything,

creating something wonderful. 

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.