VOCATION

 

     With National Poetry Month in mind, as well as the start tomorrow to a poetry workshop, and an upcoming poem a day challenge, I pulled out some of my favorite poets.  This poem by Alice Ostriker struck me because it captures the fire that burns inside at the same time it shines a wide angle lens across a life halfway spent.  Writing is my vocation and called me when I was six.  Now I am sixty and have finally answered the call.  I try not to look back, but reading this, I saw the child, the teenager, the young adult and woman I have been. How small I was, in my own thin coat:


VOCATION

To play among the words like one of them,
Lit from within—others can see it,
Never oneself—


She slips like a cat through traffic,
A girl alone downtown
For the first time, subway fare in her purse,

Fear of losing it
Clamping her chest,
Wind whipping tears from her eyes,

Fried grease and gasoline in her nose, shoes and
Jewelry in shopwindows. a spike
Of freedom stitching her scalp—

Though she dreads the allergy shot at the clinic
She feels herself getting brave.
Now it begins to snow on Central Park South

And a flight of pigeons
Whim up from a small pile of junk in the gutter
Grey, violet, green, a predatory shimmer.

The marquee of the Paris Theater
Looks at the rapturous child
Through downcast lashes, condescendingly.

I watch her over a distance of fifty years.
I see how small she is in her thin coat.
I offer a necklace of tears, orgasms, words

                                                      ~ Alice Ostriker

- See more at: http://www.persimmontree.org/v2/summer-2010/poems/#sthash.rJUUllho.dpuf

Seven Poems

 

 

                            for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life

                                                                    ~Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 
     Oh craziness become me.  I feel like an abstract painting, perhaps a Picasso, struggling to pull my displaced parts together.  My writing is not going well but my writing is going well. 
     Something has stopped me in the writing of the book.  In the meantime, it's National Poetry Month and I've written seven poems, one for each day of the month thus far.  I've tweeted stanzas daily.  Like this (from a poem entitled "Selfie"):



I would cut one of those apples, slice it

Wide open before carving my ear

Off completely, just to tell you

I am here.

 

     Writing is my dream life.  And because it is the heart of me, my deepest desire manifest, it is making me crazy.  Following my passion, my bliss, my heart of hearts, has brought my deepest fears, inadequacies, and insecurities out of the closet. 

     I wake up from a dream, to a volcano within, find myself sobbing.

     "I am a failure.  I have always been a failure.  And now I will fail at writing," I say when my husband asks why am I crying? 

     Woah!  Where did THAT come from? I am grateful that Wayne is my best friend, that I can show myself so starkly and raw, that he can just sit there and hold me.

     Wherever it came from was dark and deep, at the very core of me and felt true, seemed so real.  It is not a belief I can brush aside, not my usual delusion. 

     For days, I puzzle over it, the dark ring of truth.  "I am a failure."

     I have failed at many things.  And, dear reader, I know, you have too.

     Synchronicity. A link to an Ann Pachett essay from her book "This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage" appears on my news feed.  I read:

 "I believe, more than anything, that this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers.  Forgiveness, therefore, is key.  I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.  Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself." 

     Thank you, Ann. 

     I may fail. No.  I will fail.  However, life has taught me that it is not the failure that matters.  What matters, is that I do it.  I show up.  I keep writing. 

     I keep writing. 

     I write.  I write against time.  I write against hope.  I can do this.

    

  

Hades Moon, Demeter's Daughter

Unable to die, (no sharp instruments lie by)
When the moon is full and I have fallen, weak, upon my knees,
Painted upon myself Grief, orange, red, black, instead,
Torn at my hair, and madly rubbed charcoal about my staring eyes,
Down my cheeks; I gather the Objects,
Sacred only to me, to beat the drum of my despair,
I draw ancient symbols on my face, my hands, my skin,
A forgotten language decipherable
Only to the guardians at some ancient gate, then
As the Gods allow, or the Moon, or Pluto himself ordain,
I take another step down,
down the stone and winding stair.

A sister priestess, Her purple cloak about her hidden keening face,
Beckons me come, Lifts up her slender hands and pours into my opened breast,
That deeply drinks, bottomless thirst, of a holy water that knows,
A holy water that reaches, flows, finds the wounded, wordless place,
Dances fire, baptizes the heavy knotted roots,
Holding up its diamond-true, still mirror .

The purpled dark reflection contains All Power,
Collapses stars into black holes,
Births worlds,
Splits atoms, the mother's heart in two,
Like a pomegranate cracked; its marbled veins full,
Thick grief revealed, congealed and
Tracing a sluggish path through the quicksand circle of loss,
The caverns of the heart exposed, labyrinths of sorrow.

A glimpse of gold flashes, the thin thread grasped, and
Death's hand opens. The high priestess,
Embodied robe of poetry, breathes
Water-fire-earth-air verse, softly blows the healing tinder,
Flames the broken mother-heart with Spirit until it burns
The solid matter.

Kelly O'Neal Thompson
copyright February 2009

Linda & Dickers: Undergoing Cancer

Linda, my sister, oldest of we five siblings, sent me a heartbreaking poem yesterday. Dickers, her husband, and my brother-in-law, father to Laurie, stepfather to Julie and David, grandfather to four children, was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. At the same time, an aneurysm about to burst in his stomach was discovered and he underwent surgery for that. He has been a good soldier through it all and he has an amazing spirit. I know that he stays strong for his family and he has taught me a great lesson about love.

Remember Me

It’s cancer and it’s advanced
I don’t think we heard that right
It’s cancer and it’s advanced
This can’t be right.

Why our brain is screaming
Why us, what did we do
We must be dreaming.

A voice whispers in our ear,
Remember me, I’m here
No…you aren’t here
All we feel is fear.

How could this happen?
What did we do?
Nothing, he says, but
Remember me, I’m here.

Taking one day at a time
Putting one foot in front of another
Our minds are leaden
Our feet are frozen.

A voice whispers in our ear,
Remember me, I’m here
No, you aren’t here
All we feel is fear.

What will tomorrow bring?
We don’t know he says, just love one another,
Remember, I am here.
Oh…as our hearts begin to listen to that still calm voice.

Each day passes, time moves on,
Isn’t this a beautiful day, he says.
Yes, she says…so glad we are here together
Joining our hands as we live each day to the fullest

Did you see the sunrise this morning?
It was beautiful
Did you hear the birds singing?
Causing our spirits to soar.

A voice whispers in our ear,
Remember me, I’m here
Hello, we hear your voice
And feel your presence near and are comforted.

I love you forever he says,
She says me more than you,
It feels good to be together
To share our lives each day

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring,
But, we take each day as a gift
We now hear that voice clearly whisper in our ear,
Remember me; I’m here to help you in your journey

We remember you, we remember you
We are glad you are here with us
As we make this journey together
Safe in you, safe in you.

Thank you for remembering me.

Written by: Linda Carlson
February 9, 2009

Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander: Brief Explication

I ran across Mark Doty's posting of the inaugural poem, "Praise Song for the Day" by Elizabeth Alexander and was inspired to comment:

In the poet's reading, I heard common sense, a down to earth presence in the words and voice, a simple (but not simplistic) note without pretension. I heard a call to love that echoed the essence of a particular place in history, a crossroads in which America stands, and I heard not religion, but a voice that reached past the noise of all our individual affiliations or leanings, the noise of difference and said, "We are here together."

Seeing her words on paper with its line breaks and stanzas gave me the opportunity to go even further into the experience of yesterday.

Below is a copy of the poem as it reads on msn.com:

Praise For The Day

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

---

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Alexander. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. A chapbook edition of Praise Song for the Day will be published on February 6, 2009.

January 1, 2009: The View From My Window

Consider this: Multiple shades of blue marble the watered landscape, the barest hint of fuschia, like spilled paint, spreads outward over the sky, the alders trace a cold outline of deep maroon in the foreground. Traces of the New Year sun backlights the mountains across the bay, an ocher glow. Grewingk glacier makes a nonchalant retreat, holding the land like water cupped in a palm and spilling.
I am blessed.

Grief or Landscape

In Alaska, I do not think of it anymore. Vast
Space can hold a broken heart,
A hundred thousand rivers, lush with lupine,
The reaching fingers of tributaries, pebble-heavy,
The small prayers making their way up creeks,
To rest in pools, bathe in a mother’s still cry
Wet in the water’s glint, lost in the flash of white
Hard current, prayers hurtling themselves to the sky-
Carpe diem! Before they die, holy and red
Drinking in their last breath one cup of air, or of tears.

The 10,000 Smokes
Take their sweet time
Spitting lava and ash
Spreading their lazy legs down over the Aleutians
Prehistoric and true– Living five billion years in a second.

People are either born to the Great Land,
Or come to it running from the wolves at their door
The wolves, those ghosts, grow heavy silver coats,
Begin to like the arctic cold, their nose in the snow,
The small ptarmigan, a moose, now and again,
They join packs, cut a cub off from its mother…
Howl at the night, forget whom they came here to chase–
The tundra is boundless and wolves have other things to do
The Great Land swallows them up.

The cold and arctic glaciers move like tides-
A mile in a thousand years, or less.
The past, scrawled on tattered pages, turns fluid
Before massive mountains of turquoise lit by pink,
Prussian blue fills the night.
Here, stars fall like fireflies on my face,
Northern lights visit, rarely
Enough, ink or spilled paint sketching fire against the night,
Far beyond my myriad concerns, the minutia of a life,
The coldness of knowing things
That never let go.

The sky offers no end, nor horizontal line, no
Trace of past - its black dinosaur bone, its fossil element-
But melds in shades of gray that fold to the very edges of blue, no
Evidence of it in the rooted alders, barely holding on as they make
Their way down to the bay, no indication in the burning
Devil's Club I am careful not to touch.
No one here who can say
They knew me when...

...The wind whipping and certain,
Brings its cold news, its threshing brush
And it is a big wind, says cut some firewood,
Get ready for winter and a kindness of raven swoop
In at the birch trees and perch, hundreds
Or more of them; In Alaska, I do not think of it anymore
Except just now, hearing the owl flee
Reaching for one last bloom of fireweed, before
Summer blows away.

-Kelly O'Neal Thompson

Copywrite 2008. Please do not reprint without express permission of the author.
(starrynight3@mac.com)

A Meditation on Being

Think of the parallel universe, of the many selves, of the eternal now moment that offers up
an eternally new past, a possible future,
Think of yourself as you might exist ubiquitous or only microscopically - but both at once-the particle in the wave.
Decide.
Decide to exist wherever it feels best - don't get caught in the moment when there are so many to choose from.
Climb the board of alternate states of consciousness; ride the great One you are; talk to yourself magnanimously, happily, eternally, with pleasure.
Follow the breath as it moves, with everything, in and out in the ever-widening, ever-tightening circle.
Do not take it, but let it take you into the dance of being, into the dance of I/Thou
You, into the holy of holiest instant, simply
Breathe and exit the vehicle of time and its travails, the hundred thousand million billion stories.
They are all yours. So be them.

Kelly O'Neal Thompson

photograph by journeysendphotography.com
Copywrite 2008. Please do not reprint without express permission of the author.
(starrynight3@mac.com)

Just returned from a long, wonderful trip to Southern California
where I soaked up a big, fat dose of sunshine, friendship, and family. The malls, rush-hour traffic, and the general, all-around sense of everywhere people-ness more than gratified me.
The first few days, I felt like someone beamed up warp-speed to an alternate universe - popping eye candy. I come home with five senses overflowing -
brain brimming with color - the orange and blue of California in its' multiple shades -
from peach tan to faded cerulean, Sunkist orange to blue man blue- red light/green light/yellow - on and off ramp - Mini-Cooper and Hummer, black beamer, white Jeep, then silver, Toyota 4runner, Lexus, Mercedes, F150 and gas prices falling like Humpty Dumpty...diesel smell of gas and rubber, the low, slow brown of pollution hovering sun heavy on the horizon, the blonds bleached natural and spray booth tan -
the ten, the fifteen, the six-oh-five, the J. Paul Getty
a favorite Van Gogh painting, discovering Fernand Khnopff's "Portrait of Jeanne Kefer"... girl-child bonneted in soft charcoal, an entire world behind a pale blue door she leans against...
then homeward - the familiar trudge through airport security, an aisle seat,
disembarking -just enough time for a Hudson News stop and another magazine in Seattle before the long darkening ride over the Pacific and the jostle down fast approach to
Anchorage where it is cold and gray-lit night- where we stand waiting for the shuttle -
home still five hours by car and a hotel bed away-home still there standing square
against the bay, home a gray box lit the color of fireweed lingered into violet...
the mountains smudged ink among pink dribbled sky... the tides and glaciers, all their coming and going....how twilight and soft they will be.