Friday night, I am stirring
German chocolate cake frosting
for cupcakes
for the baby shower tomorrow
for the woman who
carries my grand daughter
That fact, by itself, is far too
cosmic
to
contain.
Thirty years ago from today
was the last month of my pregnancy with
this future baby's father,
born the day after Christmas while the grand parents,
and all the aunts and uncles
were still around.
We had a party
He was forever then my baby of the world,
the little chief
born on the Elwha Indian Reservation
caught by his father
blessed by Grama Sampson
held by all, his sturdy, agreeable baby self.
In January he will become a father
And so I bring hand rolled cigars from Mexico
to the shower
as well as the favorite cake for his wife
German chocolate
And I have bought, on a whim, little plastic
baby theme ornaments for the cakes
pink baby shoes (yes, she is a girl, there are fewer mysteries these days)
and little teething bracelets
I see the shoes have space, so
I will write a hoped for quality on a bit of paper
like a fortune,
and slip one in each little pink shoe..
what do I wish for this little girl child?
Strength and courage,
Radiant health,
Curiosity and wonderment,
A kind heart,
A deep love of family,
And plain old good luck.
and for me I wish she will have
many days hiking in the wilderness with her Grammy...
my own special wish-
Given up to the same unviverse which gave me
Her father, her mother, and now...
My own grand daughter, my own little love.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Shani Waves Goodbye
Shani Waves Goodbye
Hay una nina pequena - there is a little girl - se nombre es Shannara - her name is Shannara, Shani for short.
I see her still, standing in the doorway of her Grama's house in Patzcuarto, Michoacan, Mexico. Her young Mom, Gaby, holds Shani while she waves goodbye to us. She waves like young children do, opening and closing her little brown hand, her eyes focused in a serious tone, as though she realizes now that she will miss us. These 2 guests leaving, who speak oddly, whose skin is not the same lovely warm brown as hers, who like to smile and play with her and her boisterous brood of little cousins, who eat her Mama's beans and soups at the family table when her Papa comes home. Her beautiful, funny Papa, el dentiste, the dentist, full Perhepecha Indian, with a smile and a sense of humor as long as the day he puts in at his office in town, and the other small pueblas he visits in the week.
Shani's Papa is our dentist now. We travel 2000 miles to have him work on our teeth because he is a wonderful man, and we have no U.S. insurance. His family takes us in, gives us a place to stay and keeps inviting us to eat. We sit with the whole family on a Sunday and eat 'impossible' cake Gaby baked especially for one of the children's birthdays. We talk about food, family, language, music, work - everything.
On the last day Gaby makes us lunch, calda y frijoles - soup and beans. Shani sits on her lap eating frijoles entero - cooked beans whole. I watch her small fingers take one bean at a time from her bowl, as she looks out with her deep brown Perhepecha eyes. She looks like her father I think, she has the indigenous features like those on etched into ancient artworks. With the small earring in her tiny ear, she takes on a wizened countenance. I take a photo, and she will not smile, but that is OK, she has a gorgeous face for a child of 14 months. Something about her stare goes beyond the place, the day, the time. I long to come back and talk to her, years from now. She will have something to say to me.
Shani, the descendant of those peoples of the lake who drew designs of trout - trucha - into their pottery. Those peoples who were so difficult for the Spanish. They ran off into the woods and hid, or hung themselves rather than be enslaved by Cortez's brutal machine.
I step into the little white rental car w/my boyfriend, whom they call "Ella espoza" her husband. It is almost inconceivable to them that people of our age are not married, so we go along.
I think of our destination (Mexico City) and say to Gaby, "Yikes! La Ciudad!" and she smiles knowingly from the cobblestone street in her Puebla. She laughs her soft Mama laugh, much older than her 22 years, and smiles her blessing upon these 2 wayfarers she has fed for 5 days. She is the new matriarch, the one who is always in the kitchen, who watches everyone's children in the family, who never raises her voice, and looks so forward to her Baking classes in the evenings.
We drive away and they wave. I follow them until the final turn as they disappear from us, and we from them. Shani stays long in my heart, a little ache, a small light. Someday I hope she will meet my grand daughter, who will be less than 2 years younger. Someday we might all sit in the warm Mexico sun and talk a Spanish/English mixture, laughing hard because words will fail us.
Hay una nina pequena - there is a little girl - se nombre es Shannara - her name is Shannara, Shani for short.
I see her still, standing in the doorway of her Grama's house in Patzcuarto, Michoacan, Mexico. Her young Mom, Gaby, holds Shani while she waves goodbye to us. She waves like young children do, opening and closing her little brown hand, her eyes focused in a serious tone, as though she realizes now that she will miss us. These 2 guests leaving, who speak oddly, whose skin is not the same lovely warm brown as hers, who like to smile and play with her and her boisterous brood of little cousins, who eat her Mama's beans and soups at the family table when her Papa comes home. Her beautiful, funny Papa, el dentiste, the dentist, full Perhepecha Indian, with a smile and a sense of humor as long as the day he puts in at his office in town, and the other small pueblas he visits in the week.
Shani's Papa is our dentist now. We travel 2000 miles to have him work on our teeth because he is a wonderful man, and we have no U.S. insurance. His family takes us in, gives us a place to stay and keeps inviting us to eat. We sit with the whole family on a Sunday and eat 'impossible' cake Gaby baked especially for one of the children's birthdays. We talk about food, family, language, music, work - everything.
On the last day Gaby makes us lunch, calda y frijoles - soup and beans. Shani sits on her lap eating frijoles entero - cooked beans whole. I watch her small fingers take one bean at a time from her bowl, as she looks out with her deep brown Perhepecha eyes. She looks like her father I think, she has the indigenous features like those on etched into ancient artworks. With the small earring in her tiny ear, she takes on a wizened countenance. I take a photo, and she will not smile, but that is OK, she has a gorgeous face for a child of 14 months. Something about her stare goes beyond the place, the day, the time. I long to come back and talk to her, years from now. She will have something to say to me.
Shani, the descendant of those peoples of the lake who drew designs of trout - trucha - into their pottery. Those peoples who were so difficult for the Spanish. They ran off into the woods and hid, or hung themselves rather than be enslaved by Cortez's brutal machine.
I step into the little white rental car w/my boyfriend, whom they call "Ella espoza" her husband. It is almost inconceivable to them that people of our age are not married, so we go along.
I think of our destination (Mexico City) and say to Gaby, "Yikes! La Ciudad!" and she smiles knowingly from the cobblestone street in her Puebla. She laughs her soft Mama laugh, much older than her 22 years, and smiles her blessing upon these 2 wayfarers she has fed for 5 days. She is the new matriarch, the one who is always in the kitchen, who watches everyone's children in the family, who never raises her voice, and looks so forward to her Baking classes in the evenings.
We drive away and they wave. I follow them until the final turn as they disappear from us, and we from them. Shani stays long in my heart, a little ache, a small light. Someday I hope she will meet my grand daughter, who will be less than 2 years younger. Someday we might all sit in the warm Mexico sun and talk a Spanish/English mixture, laughing hard because words will fail us.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Dia de los Muertos, Cuetzalan, Puebla, MX
This humid evening
I hear the church bells continuous toll,
metal to metal, for all the dead.
The laundry hangs on rooftop lines
the children play and run in the street below.
Shedding clothes wet from
famous waterfall pools, I luxuriate in an evening where
I am not required to be anything or anywhere
I Light this candle to James, his brother and
all the grandparents.
To the good leaders who advocated peace and justice
and to
the innocent.
My offered candle is small here, 3 pesos
My heart however is, I hope, expanding into
jungle hillsides, viney damp
to little kids asking for money in the streets,
To all the vendors and food preparers, to all those walking slowly
carrying a heavy load up these steep hills
My spirit and my heart I am inside
before and after I arrive and then leave,
closing into winter at my own house.
This humid evening
I hear the church bells continuous toll,
metal to metal, for all the dead.
The laundry hangs on rooftop lines
the children play and run in the street below.
Shedding clothes wet from
famous waterfall pools, I luxuriate in an evening where
I am not required to be anything or anywhere
I Light this candle to James, his brother and
all the grandparents.
To the good leaders who advocated peace and justice
and to
the innocent.
My offered candle is small here, 3 pesos
My heart however is, I hope, expanding into
jungle hillsides, viney damp
to little kids asking for money in the streets,
To all the vendors and food preparers, to all those walking slowly
carrying a heavy load up these steep hills
My spirit and my heart I am inside
before and after I arrive and then leave,
closing into winter at my own house.
Friday, September 27, 2013
We have just passed the autumnal equinox, and the weather has quickly changed to cool and wet. Tonight as I cook dinner, a downpour falls and I worry for all my neighbors, the grape growers. This heavy wet will wash off the natural yeast, and water down the fruit. It will, most likely, not be a good vintage because of the last month. Tomorrow we go to pick at the Schaad family vineyard, a tradition now since living on Chehalem Mt. I hope the rain waits a bit.
I haven't posted anything in months now. I've been working at emptying my parent's home of 46 years and all the stuff accumulated in their married life. The experience is so often surreal - cleaning the dust from a piece of furniture, turning to pick up a wrapped pack of envelopes containing letters my parents exchanged before they were married. Correspondence exchanged over the many miles while a world war was raging on. They waited to marry until things settled down, my Dad in the Air Force, my Mom studying classical piano at Mills College in Oakland, CA.
A few years after the end of the war they married at last. I can only imagine their young selves, full of hope for the future as they embarked upon raising a big family. For 23 years my mom was open to becoming pregnant, what she told me God meant for her. This news was the way I was introduced to the 'facts of life".
Nine children and 5 miscarriages seems hard for anyone to fathom. It was always a strange struggle my educated and idealistic parents waged in the daily life of our household. Cleaning now I encounter years of dust mites and the allergy inducing mold accumulated on and in boxes of old baby clothes, their parents things, our baptismel candles, papers and programs from concerts, school materials, books from their college years, papers and papers never ending. The sum total of a family's life and not much was ever thrown away, not by them anyway.
This experience causes my siblings and I to evaluate our own lives. After a long days work my sisters and I drink chocolate wine I found at the bottom of a dusty pile. We burn my Dad's tax returns from 15 years past, and talk about the family. Which one had the power, which one had the passive aggressive fears which translate into power. We ready ourselves for the next day of haggling with the folks who show up to our sale, who want take away our parents cherished things for 10 cents on the dollar, or less. At moments I just have to say a blunt "no" to some of them. No you cannot take away this chipped hand painted dish with my great Aunt's name painted on the back 100 years ago for a mere $5. How can they not understand what being cheap with our things means? I'm sure this is a metaphor for what divides humans in politics, religion, relationships... all of what our current political and economic struggles embody.
George Carlin's words ring more true than ever, and I paraphrase: "We've got stuff and shit. Why does it always seem like my stuff is "stuff" and your stuff is shit?" Thank you George, that comic refrain comforts me when some bitter person glares at me because I won't let them walk away with some perfectly nice item already a $5 bargain, for $3 instead so they can feel that victorious sense of getting something really cheaply.
Give me, instead of stuff, fresh herbs from my front yard gracing tomato sauce from my friend's gardens simmering on the stove. Hearty soup, red and thick, packed with thyme, basil, bay, garlic and oregano I had to brave the rain to pick. Give me even this dense cloud hovering over the mountain and the sound of dripping over the greenhouse roof. Give me the children with whom I read and discuss stories, their eyes lighting up at the words "train trip". Thank heavens for stories. A story is a much easier thing to store, to share, to lend and then to pass along when one must finally downsize. A story is the true treasure of a life, lived to the last moment with no more than a fading sigh.
I haven't posted anything in months now. I've been working at emptying my parent's home of 46 years and all the stuff accumulated in their married life. The experience is so often surreal - cleaning the dust from a piece of furniture, turning to pick up a wrapped pack of envelopes containing letters my parents exchanged before they were married. Correspondence exchanged over the many miles while a world war was raging on. They waited to marry until things settled down, my Dad in the Air Force, my Mom studying classical piano at Mills College in Oakland, CA.
A few years after the end of the war they married at last. I can only imagine their young selves, full of hope for the future as they embarked upon raising a big family. For 23 years my mom was open to becoming pregnant, what she told me God meant for her. This news was the way I was introduced to the 'facts of life".
Nine children and 5 miscarriages seems hard for anyone to fathom. It was always a strange struggle my educated and idealistic parents waged in the daily life of our household. Cleaning now I encounter years of dust mites and the allergy inducing mold accumulated on and in boxes of old baby clothes, their parents things, our baptismel candles, papers and programs from concerts, school materials, books from their college years, papers and papers never ending. The sum total of a family's life and not much was ever thrown away, not by them anyway.
This experience causes my siblings and I to evaluate our own lives. After a long days work my sisters and I drink chocolate wine I found at the bottom of a dusty pile. We burn my Dad's tax returns from 15 years past, and talk about the family. Which one had the power, which one had the passive aggressive fears which translate into power. We ready ourselves for the next day of haggling with the folks who show up to our sale, who want take away our parents cherished things for 10 cents on the dollar, or less. At moments I just have to say a blunt "no" to some of them. No you cannot take away this chipped hand painted dish with my great Aunt's name painted on the back 100 years ago for a mere $5. How can they not understand what being cheap with our things means? I'm sure this is a metaphor for what divides humans in politics, religion, relationships... all of what our current political and economic struggles embody.
George Carlin's words ring more true than ever, and I paraphrase: "We've got stuff and shit. Why does it always seem like my stuff is "stuff" and your stuff is shit?" Thank you George, that comic refrain comforts me when some bitter person glares at me because I won't let them walk away with some perfectly nice item already a $5 bargain, for $3 instead so they can feel that victorious sense of getting something really cheaply.
Give me, instead of stuff, fresh herbs from my front yard gracing tomato sauce from my friend's gardens simmering on the stove. Hearty soup, red and thick, packed with thyme, basil, bay, garlic and oregano I had to brave the rain to pick. Give me even this dense cloud hovering over the mountain and the sound of dripping over the greenhouse roof. Give me the children with whom I read and discuss stories, their eyes lighting up at the words "train trip". Thank heavens for stories. A story is a much easier thing to store, to share, to lend and then to pass along when one must finally downsize. A story is the true treasure of a life, lived to the last moment with no more than a fading sigh.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Grandmother Moon
Tonight Grandmother Moon is a little over half full, and waxing. As I walk up my driveway carrying my mail in the warm dark, she shines her light at me. I think, next year I can be walking up this hill holding my almost 6 month old grandchild. We can be looking at the moon together, entranced by the white lit ball in the night sky just as the child's daddy was 30 years ago when he couldn't sleep.
I will be a grandmother, I tell the moon. We will be grandmothers together. You can teach me what you know, and I can show your light to a child who will be in awe of the universe before ever entering a science classroom.
I will be a grandmother, I tell the moon. We will be grandmothers together. You can teach me what you know, and I can show your light to a child who will be in awe of the universe before ever entering a science classroom.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Many shades of green, water logged
From my window there is the sky finally open to blue after a deluge of water all day. The various hues of green could function as a color wheel for an art class. Cut green of the lawns, lemon green tops of the laurel bushes, dusty sea green of the wheat field, dots of evergreen, dots of deciduous green and all heavily laden with rain. Heavy is the only word for the sodden red volcanic earth which stretchs out to the east of my visage.
In the distance glows a round rainbow of color, changing shape as I write. Rain, spring, my land in late May with iris blooming in the foreground. I wish you were here to sip wine with me and watch the colors move with the light. Evening comes on, and soon it will be time to eat spaghetti made the old way as I did for my kids years ago. Sauce simmering full of garden thyme, oregano, bay and garlic.
I eat my pasta, heavy with red herb fragrant sauce, and watch the rainbow build itself higher into the air, going from a circle to a rectangle rising up into the sky. There is a title for something, "building a rainbow".
Every day we are building the bridge to the unknown, to our future, to our final transformance. I would like mine to be colored, like this dinner guest in my evening cloud show.
In the distance glows a round rainbow of color, changing shape as I write. Rain, spring, my land in late May with iris blooming in the foreground. I wish you were here to sip wine with me and watch the colors move with the light. Evening comes on, and soon it will be time to eat spaghetti made the old way as I did for my kids years ago. Sauce simmering full of garden thyme, oregano, bay and garlic.
I eat my pasta, heavy with red herb fragrant sauce, and watch the rainbow build itself higher into the air, going from a circle to a rectangle rising up into the sky. There is a title for something, "building a rainbow".
Every day we are building the bridge to the unknown, to our future, to our final transformance. I would like mine to be colored, like this dinner guest in my evening cloud show.
Monday, April 22, 2013
What the Children Know
The squirrelly boy in Art class argues with the teacher, order maker, that his loud talking and laughing with the boys behind him is the most important part of school - socializing. He tells her he is practicing "relating to my peers". She observes him closely, slight and maybe 13. He has his spiel down, that she must allow.
" So, what will you do after school is done? What will your work be in life?' She asks, as she asks many cheeky kids who see no reason to follow the lesson of the day, to focus on the work, to listen.
" I plan to be a minister with the Assembly of God Church. I will bring the message of Jesus to people, and help them be saved."
The teacher is somewhat speechless. Memory flash, the little church across the road from their house next to the Rez, with black letters against white, "Assembly of God". A modest white building in the middle of the farm fields, with a pastor's house next to it. Her son once caught head lice from staying over night with the Pastor's boys. It was a small nightmare to rid the whole family of it once they realized they had lice.
She cannot help herself, pursuing the boy's line of thought.
"Well, it is interesting that Jesus didn't own anything, he went about in sandals, almost like a homeless person now. People in churches seem to have lots of money, which isn't the way Jesus actually lived."
The kid is not phased.
"Well if I had lots of money I would buy a whole bunch of Bibles so I could give poor people a Bible."
"What", she asks carefully, "If the people you want to help are hungry?"
With a surprising amount of bluster from a slightly built 13 year old kid he answers without missing a beat.
"They need to be saved more than eat."
"Have you ever been hungry?"
"Yes."
"I mean really hungry, with nothing in the cupboards. No money to go to the store."
Honest for the first time he answers, "No. But they will be happy if they have a Bible because it is the word of God, and they'll forget about being hungry." He is deadpan serious.
The teacher is rendered speechless. There is no conversation here. This boy will go about being this, and god help us if he does become a minister. The teacher can only think this of course. Teachers have to be very, very circumspect about what they say. It is the challenge to appear not to have an opinion.
Later in the day the last class is making coil clay pots. She sits with the students at the ceramics table, fashioning a small vase as the others work, and chat. This is a calm class, they are absorbed in creating from the elements. As the boys talk, the girls remain silent and the teacher listens as she works on making her own vase. This vase has curves, curves like a woman she realizes. Most of the students coil pots are straight up and down, awkward lines.
The girl across the table finally looks at her and asks, after half an hour without speaking, "How did you get your pot to curve like that?"
The teacher is ecstatic, that she has taught, in silence and in modeling. She makes an example for the girl of how the coils can be graduated or reduced in their circle. The girl watches carefully, and then tries to make a curve in her own vase.
The school day ends with all the pots on the drying shelf, and the students off onto their yellow buses. The building is a different place, suddenly calm and tranquil. The teacher cleans the room in this quiet atmosphere, taking the opportunity to converse in Spanish with the janitor when he arrives to empty waste baskets and sweep.
The sky opens on the way home, across the fields of the Willamette Valley where thousands of the Mexican peoples have come to work. The day of school is over now. One child off to propagate his dogma, another to think about the curves of life, of women and mothers. The teacher is overcome with the rolling hills of verdant earth which feeds each and everyone.
" So, what will you do after school is done? What will your work be in life?' She asks, as she asks many cheeky kids who see no reason to follow the lesson of the day, to focus on the work, to listen.
" I plan to be a minister with the Assembly of God Church. I will bring the message of Jesus to people, and help them be saved."
The teacher is somewhat speechless. Memory flash, the little church across the road from their house next to the Rez, with black letters against white, "Assembly of God". A modest white building in the middle of the farm fields, with a pastor's house next to it. Her son once caught head lice from staying over night with the Pastor's boys. It was a small nightmare to rid the whole family of it once they realized they had lice.
She cannot help herself, pursuing the boy's line of thought.
"Well, it is interesting that Jesus didn't own anything, he went about in sandals, almost like a homeless person now. People in churches seem to have lots of money, which isn't the way Jesus actually lived."
The kid is not phased.
"Well if I had lots of money I would buy a whole bunch of Bibles so I could give poor people a Bible."
"What", she asks carefully, "If the people you want to help are hungry?"
With a surprising amount of bluster from a slightly built 13 year old kid he answers without missing a beat.
"They need to be saved more than eat."
"Have you ever been hungry?"
"Yes."
"I mean really hungry, with nothing in the cupboards. No money to go to the store."
Honest for the first time he answers, "No. But they will be happy if they have a Bible because it is the word of God, and they'll forget about being hungry." He is deadpan serious.
The teacher is rendered speechless. There is no conversation here. This boy will go about being this, and god help us if he does become a minister. The teacher can only think this of course. Teachers have to be very, very circumspect about what they say. It is the challenge to appear not to have an opinion.
Later in the day the last class is making coil clay pots. She sits with the students at the ceramics table, fashioning a small vase as the others work, and chat. This is a calm class, they are absorbed in creating from the elements. As the boys talk, the girls remain silent and the teacher listens as she works on making her own vase. This vase has curves, curves like a woman she realizes. Most of the students coil pots are straight up and down, awkward lines.
The girl across the table finally looks at her and asks, after half an hour without speaking, "How did you get your pot to curve like that?"
The teacher is ecstatic, that she has taught, in silence and in modeling. She makes an example for the girl of how the coils can be graduated or reduced in their circle. The girl watches carefully, and then tries to make a curve in her own vase.
The school day ends with all the pots on the drying shelf, and the students off onto their yellow buses. The building is a different place, suddenly calm and tranquil. The teacher cleans the room in this quiet atmosphere, taking the opportunity to converse in Spanish with the janitor when he arrives to empty waste baskets and sweep.
The sky opens on the way home, across the fields of the Willamette Valley where thousands of the Mexican peoples have come to work. The day of school is over now. One child off to propagate his dogma, another to think about the curves of life, of women and mothers. The teacher is overcome with the rolling hills of verdant earth which feeds each and everyone.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Twilight on St. Patrick's Day
The rain has abated, now at dusk. The weekend of green revelry closes to Sunday night thoughts of Monday's reality.
St. Patrick, the long dead son of the Roman occupation of Britain, still remains a legend, even though research clearly shows there were no snakes In Ireland. The only snake type thing is a 'slow worm', actually a small reptile which, over time, lost its legs and now resembles a tiny garter snake, hardly in need of the power of a Bishop with his holy miter.
St. Patrick died a little over 1500 years ago today, a period of time long enough to cause his green legend to be left alone. The pictures of him driving snakes into the sea, in our children's book " The Stories of the Saints", stands iconic in artistic depictions even now. Another example of the necessity of Mythology in the course of the mundanity of the human experiment, because a good image is almost impossible to shake.
When I was small, and I drew shamrocks on construction paper, and we had special mass in the morning before school, it was not mentioned that this bishop opposed the Druids. Those Pagan people who did things like build Stonehenge to chart the movement of the stars. The word 'Pagan' was synonymous with ignorance, immorality, and a kind of dirty savageness. When the Catholics went around slandering other civilizations to puff up their own story, it is no wonder why people of other persuasions didn't always like them. Another case of a religion pouting myopic and defensive like an adolescent caught in a love triangle.
I attended the Orchard Society spring grafting fair today, and I really think I must be a Pagan. Being in that fairgrounds building with hundreds of people, all ages, gathering scions to graft to roots, talking to each other about plants and hundreds of different types of apples, or pears, or cherries, or grapes felt like a mass. Holy people who can get excited by what otherwise appear as buckets of twigs gave off a bright spirit, undeniable. This felt like the religion I might belong to.
St. Patrick, what will be left of you? Irish car bomb hangovers and discarded green mardi gras beads.
The house smelling like corned beef and cabbage. The green hurts-the-eyes grass of spring, taunting the lawn mower. The snow over the daffodils, and the luck of the Irish, the ones who escaped the potato famine from which the church did not protect them.
St. Patrick, the long dead son of the Roman occupation of Britain, still remains a legend, even though research clearly shows there were no snakes In Ireland. The only snake type thing is a 'slow worm', actually a small reptile which, over time, lost its legs and now resembles a tiny garter snake, hardly in need of the power of a Bishop with his holy miter.
St. Patrick died a little over 1500 years ago today, a period of time long enough to cause his green legend to be left alone. The pictures of him driving snakes into the sea, in our children's book " The Stories of the Saints", stands iconic in artistic depictions even now. Another example of the necessity of Mythology in the course of the mundanity of the human experiment, because a good image is almost impossible to shake.
When I was small, and I drew shamrocks on construction paper, and we had special mass in the morning before school, it was not mentioned that this bishop opposed the Druids. Those Pagan people who did things like build Stonehenge to chart the movement of the stars. The word 'Pagan' was synonymous with ignorance, immorality, and a kind of dirty savageness. When the Catholics went around slandering other civilizations to puff up their own story, it is no wonder why people of other persuasions didn't always like them. Another case of a religion pouting myopic and defensive like an adolescent caught in a love triangle.
I attended the Orchard Society spring grafting fair today, and I really think I must be a Pagan. Being in that fairgrounds building with hundreds of people, all ages, gathering scions to graft to roots, talking to each other about plants and hundreds of different types of apples, or pears, or cherries, or grapes felt like a mass. Holy people who can get excited by what otherwise appear as buckets of twigs gave off a bright spirit, undeniable. This felt like the religion I might belong to.
St. Patrick, what will be left of you? Irish car bomb hangovers and discarded green mardi gras beads.
The house smelling like corned beef and cabbage. The green hurts-the-eyes grass of spring, taunting the lawn mower. The snow over the daffodils, and the luck of the Irish, the ones who escaped the potato famine from which the church did not protect them.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
The Heart Consists of Four Chambers
The Heart Consists of Four Chambers:
An atrium and a ventricle on the right
and an atrium and a ventricle on the left.
Blood returning to the heart from
veins all over the body flows
into the right atrium.
From there the blood flows
into the right ventricle.
The right ventricle then pumps it
to the lungs for oxygenation.
The oxygen rich blood returns to
the left atrium,
from there the blood flows into the left ventricle,
which pumps it at high pressure
into the arteries.
This entire process constitutes one
heart beat.
This in not a poem, and it is a poem. I think the body,
This human body is
a poem.
An atrium and a ventricle on the right
and an atrium and a ventricle on the left.
Blood returning to the heart from
veins all over the body flows
into the right atrium.
From there the blood flows
into the right ventricle.
The right ventricle then pumps it
to the lungs for oxygenation.
The oxygen rich blood returns to
the left atrium,
from there the blood flows into the left ventricle,
which pumps it at high pressure
into the arteries.
This entire process constitutes one
heart beat.
This in not a poem, and it is a poem. I think the body,
This human body is
a poem.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
What the Flower?
Ideas for bringing peace into the classroom:
This, quoted from the National Peace Institute course, "Teachers Without Borders":
"What the flower? One teacher spoke of how, in her work with high school students, their use of profanity, (the f-bomb) was getting on her nerves. She asked them if they would substitute the f-bomb with the word flower. Thus, instead of saying "What the f.....?!" They would say "What the flower?
She said that, much to her surprise, they really took to this practice. Not only did it solve the issue of profanity, but it also made them smile every time they said it, and it brought more joy into the classroom."
Small, simple, inexpensive ways to change the paradigm. I think this is flowering cool!
This, quoted from the National Peace Institute course, "Teachers Without Borders":
"What the flower? One teacher spoke of how, in her work with high school students, their use of profanity, (the f-bomb) was getting on her nerves. She asked them if they would substitute the f-bomb with the word flower. Thus, instead of saying "What the f.....?!" They would say "What the flower?
She said that, much to her surprise, they really took to this practice. Not only did it solve the issue of profanity, but it also made them smile every time they said it, and it brought more joy into the classroom."
Small, simple, inexpensive ways to change the paradigm. I think this is flowering cool!
Monday, February 18, 2013
Louis
Louis I Miss You
My grandfather, Louis, he's been gone
38 years ago this month
Tall and quiet, his angular face lined and serious
I still wonder if
he would be less serious
had his life been different.
Last time I saw him he bought me pancakes,
at his regular breakfast place.
"A short stack," always the same order.
Later, saying goodbye
Grama told him,
"Louie, give her some dollars."
(She called him Louie and gave him orders)
He fished in his pockets and
handed me four dollars in earnest
I had to take them, guiltily
Being a grandchild even at 19.
The last gesture I would ever know
from him
it broke my heart
and still does.
His oldest son, my Dad, has survived to live much longer
At the dinner table I say,
"Tell me about Grandad"
"He went around to the bars
In Milwaukie and as far as Sellwood
Selling his father's cheese. Grandpa made
Cheese in his basement."
I wonder what that cheese tasted like,
and what my Grandad looked like in 1910,
A kid of 12
Driving a horse cart around town
They wrapped cheese in cloth then
I wish I could have been there.
What a trick of fate that life does not let
the children know the elders
except in memory and story
Grandad, this is your story,
Us sitting in the pancake house
I'm telling you about college.
You are telling me about the railroad,
The Southern Pacific, because I asked.
What a fine man you are,
able to drive horse carts and fix
trains.
My grandfather, Louis, he's been gone
38 years ago this month
Tall and quiet, his angular face lined and serious
I still wonder if
he would be less serious
had his life been different.
Last time I saw him he bought me pancakes,
at his regular breakfast place.
"A short stack," always the same order.
Later, saying goodbye
Grama told him,
"Louie, give her some dollars."
(She called him Louie and gave him orders)
He fished in his pockets and
handed me four dollars in earnest
I had to take them, guiltily
Being a grandchild even at 19.
The last gesture I would ever know
from him
it broke my heart
and still does.
His oldest son, my Dad, has survived to live much longer
At the dinner table I say,
"Tell me about Grandad"
"He went around to the bars
In Milwaukie and as far as Sellwood
Selling his father's cheese. Grandpa made
Cheese in his basement."
I wonder what that cheese tasted like,
and what my Grandad looked like in 1910,
A kid of 12
Driving a horse cart around town
They wrapped cheese in cloth then
I wish I could have been there.
What a trick of fate that life does not let
the children know the elders
except in memory and story
Grandad, this is your story,
Us sitting in the pancake house
I'm telling you about college.
You are telling me about the railroad,
The Southern Pacific, because I asked.
What a fine man you are,
able to drive horse carts and fix
trains.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Passing Sugar Tree Road: A Valentine
I want to live on Sugar Tree Road,
even though it is only a green highway sign passed in a blur
from I-70, Missouri -
Before the thunderstorm that dumps
sudden waters from a featureless sky.
Lincoln campground, Illinois,
we pitch the small tent.
Eat 3 bean salad and deli meatloaf with
wine from styrofoam cups.
Fireflies zip through the trees between
our campground and the endless cornfields.
How dear the night, your certain breathing,
miles from home in this
wet mid-western air
Lightening flash in rhythm
with the fireflies like a show.
I've never been here, I've always been here,
You are my heart's home.
even though it is only a green highway sign passed in a blur
from I-70, Missouri -
Before the thunderstorm that dumps
sudden waters from a featureless sky.
Lincoln campground, Illinois,
we pitch the small tent.
Eat 3 bean salad and deli meatloaf with
wine from styrofoam cups.
Fireflies zip through the trees between
our campground and the endless cornfields.
How dear the night, your certain breathing,
miles from home in this
wet mid-western air
Lightening flash in rhythm
with the fireflies like a show.
I've never been here, I've always been here,
You are my heart's home.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Quinceanera Para Todas las Muchachas ~ una fantasia
The Mexican tradition of quinceanera is a little girl's dream. On or near a girl's 15th birthday she is given a party which includes a very fancy Cinderella dress, several handsome young male attendants who can dance plus a gala for all the relatives and friends. The party lasts for hours, giving the guests lots of time to offer recognition and applause.
A few days ago in Zehuatenejo I watched this kind of party from a restaurant next door. The D.J had turned the loud speakers up to '11' if you get my reference here to off the charts loud. I know this party was for a young woman named Stefani Vargas. It was an extravaganza held at a beach front restaurant which I figured must have cost over 2500.00 dollars U.S. Lucky Stefani, her parents had to be part of the upper middle class in Mexico.
After watching the dancing and adorations from a distance, I went up to the cashier desk and began a conversation with the young woman who was working there. In the course of our talk (her English was very good) I learned that her name was Isabel, and that she was going to school during the week, and working at the beach on the weekends. She was eager to practice her English, so I was bold and asked her if she had had a quinceanera. She shook her head with a sad little smile.
"My family could not afford it." Our eyes met. It opened a conversation about life. We talked about our childhoods, and we shared that neither of us got parties like this one.
Her deep brown eyes radiated positive and kind energy. She, of all girls, deserved to be celebrated. The unfairness of the world intruded into my beach day.
In my own childhood there were financial limitations, and of course a grand party on this order was never even in the cards. It is not a Germanic trait to spend money on frivolous parties, which last for a day and then are just a memory. It is not practical, especially when there are nine children who would all have to get one.
A few days later in the park in Mexico City my friend Liliana and I were just about to start our yoga practice together. She pointed to a group near us, some boys and one girl who were dancing. She told me "They are practicing for a quinceanera dance."
"Ah", I said, "Yes, I just saw this."
I asked her if she had one of those parties.
"No." she said, with a shy little tip of the head. " My family could not pay for it."
As I write, my thought tonight is this: if I were queen of the world, I would give a giant party for all the girls who never got a quinceanera. We would all wear whatever fantasy dress we wanted and there would be lots of handsome dancing men. We could have crowns, corsages, giant cakes each with our own names. We would dance for days, while every name was spoken, every woman given the greatest attention for a moment, even for one moment. Una fantasia - a fantasy, my fantasy.
In the small dusty town of Kapula, known for its pottery, a little girl about age 5 smiled at me while I sat in the sun waiting for my friends. She wore a shirt which read: 'I believe in Fairies'. I pointed to her shirt and read the words in Spanish, except I didn't know the word for 'fairy'. (It is 'hada'). She didn't know English, and seemed not the understand that I was telling her what her shirt said. Maybe that does not matter. Little girls must believe in things one cannot see, in other worlds and magic. How else can we exist in this messy place which, at best, minimizes the feminine, and at worst denigrates it?
So, tonight my fantasy is to lift all the women up, all the poor, all the vulnerable everywhere. You all have been invited to my fantasy party where we are princesses and queens, where we dance as the belle of the ball, where we smile our beautiful faces from our lovely selves, where we know we are special because we are women with the power to nurture life and the world.
Good night all sweet princesses who never got your shining party. You have been invited to my fantasy. It is yours too, amigas mias. In every step we take into the future, we can take it with the thought that we are royal, important, gorgeous and strong.
A few days ago in Zehuatenejo I watched this kind of party from a restaurant next door. The D.J had turned the loud speakers up to '11' if you get my reference here to off the charts loud. I know this party was for a young woman named Stefani Vargas. It was an extravaganza held at a beach front restaurant which I figured must have cost over 2500.00 dollars U.S. Lucky Stefani, her parents had to be part of the upper middle class in Mexico.
After watching the dancing and adorations from a distance, I went up to the cashier desk and began a conversation with the young woman who was working there. In the course of our talk (her English was very good) I learned that her name was Isabel, and that she was going to school during the week, and working at the beach on the weekends. She was eager to practice her English, so I was bold and asked her if she had had a quinceanera. She shook her head with a sad little smile.
"My family could not afford it." Our eyes met. It opened a conversation about life. We talked about our childhoods, and we shared that neither of us got parties like this one.
Her deep brown eyes radiated positive and kind energy. She, of all girls, deserved to be celebrated. The unfairness of the world intruded into my beach day.
In my own childhood there were financial limitations, and of course a grand party on this order was never even in the cards. It is not a Germanic trait to spend money on frivolous parties, which last for a day and then are just a memory. It is not practical, especially when there are nine children who would all have to get one.
A few days later in the park in Mexico City my friend Liliana and I were just about to start our yoga practice together. She pointed to a group near us, some boys and one girl who were dancing. She told me "They are practicing for a quinceanera dance."
"Ah", I said, "Yes, I just saw this."
I asked her if she had one of those parties.
"No." she said, with a shy little tip of the head. " My family could not pay for it."
As I write, my thought tonight is this: if I were queen of the world, I would give a giant party for all the girls who never got a quinceanera. We would all wear whatever fantasy dress we wanted and there would be lots of handsome dancing men. We could have crowns, corsages, giant cakes each with our own names. We would dance for days, while every name was spoken, every woman given the greatest attention for a moment, even for one moment. Una fantasia - a fantasy, my fantasy.
In the small dusty town of Kapula, known for its pottery, a little girl about age 5 smiled at me while I sat in the sun waiting for my friends. She wore a shirt which read: 'I believe in Fairies'. I pointed to her shirt and read the words in Spanish, except I didn't know the word for 'fairy'. (It is 'hada'). She didn't know English, and seemed not the understand that I was telling her what her shirt said. Maybe that does not matter. Little girls must believe in things one cannot see, in other worlds and magic. How else can we exist in this messy place which, at best, minimizes the feminine, and at worst denigrates it?
So, tonight my fantasy is to lift all the women up, all the poor, all the vulnerable everywhere. You all have been invited to my fantasy party where we are princesses and queens, where we dance as the belle of the ball, where we smile our beautiful faces from our lovely selves, where we know we are special because we are women with the power to nurture life and the world.
Good night all sweet princesses who never got your shining party. You have been invited to my fantasy. It is yours too, amigas mias. In every step we take into the future, we can take it with the thought that we are royal, important, gorgeous and strong.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Yellow Butterfly
Yellow butterfly, touching
touching down, rise, touch, rise,
over the hot sand.
This body I inhabit longs to follow
look closely into yellow wings for shapes like
conversation with a stranger
This body, she knows
if she follows you will be fast gone
and so
she sits, she waits with longing.
Night terrors, she lays, quiet and still
asking
Divine mother, the butterfly of the mind
flying cosmos flight for certain, to touch this mind reeling
She knows - I know you are there
We call out, llame', rock me, find me,
tell me I am all fine, just as I am.
Then the night comes to cover the mind in sweet sleep
and the dawn brings better thoughts
and yellow butterflies as bright as the clear sun.
touching down, rise, touch, rise,
over the hot sand.
This body I inhabit longs to follow
look closely into yellow wings for shapes like
conversation with a stranger
This body, she knows
if she follows you will be fast gone
and so
she sits, she waits with longing.
Night terrors, she lays, quiet and still
asking
Divine mother, the butterfly of the mind
flying cosmos flight for certain, to touch this mind reeling
She knows - I know you are there
We call out, llame', rock me, find me,
tell me I am all fine, just as I am.
Then the night comes to cover the mind in sweet sleep
and the dawn brings better thoughts
and yellow butterflies as bright as the clear sun.
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