Month: March 2023

Vagabond

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

a memoir poem

Driving along 
a deserted road
in a deluge
in the dark
my hands gripping 
the steering wheel
for dear life

I see him
in the headlights
there, ahead
on the right

standing, bent,
in the sheeting rain
thumb held out

—how can I
not stop?

Rain beats
the car roof
like a drum
as he flings open
the door and
slides into the
passenger seat.

“Thanks,” he says.

He’s wearing 
layers of clothes

a sodden cap
over straw-like hair

sporting
a scraggly beard.

“Sure,” I say.
“Where are you going?”

He looks at me
for a peculiar moment:
“The better question is
where are YOU going?”

His eyes
(maybe it’s just my 
overactive imagination)
are silvery
in the darkness.

“H-h-home,” I stammer.

“Then I’ll ride as far
as you’re able to
take me,”
says the stranger.
“How old are you,
anyway?”

What does it matter?
“Eighteen,” I say.

“You mean
that you have lived
to be eighteen
and no one
has told you
not to pick up
strangers?”

I blink.

“It’s raining…it’s
such a bad night…”
I start

but as I speak
I can hear
Grandma’s voice
reading a favorite 
book to me
when I was small
(Never Talk to Strangers!)
and what 
she always says
at our parting:
Take care of your
precious self…

he finishes:
“It could be
an even worse night.
You don’t know
what some people
might do.
There are a lot
mean people
in the world.
It isn’t safe
for you to
stop alone
like this.
If you let me off at
the next intersection,
it will be enough.”

I blink.

I drive on
to the next 
intersection,
a well-lit place
where he opens
the door:

“Thanks for
the ride.
But don’t 
pick up 
any more
strangers,”
he admonishes.

The lights change
a horn blares
I’m only dimly aware
for watching
open-mouthed
as the vagabond
absconds
into the
rain-cloaked
night.

I blink.

Now I see him
now I don’t

as I take
the last turn
for home.

Lonely Highway. Colby Stopa.  CC BY 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Katrina Morrison for the invitation to write a “Seeing the stranger” poem on Day Four of the Ethical ELA OpenWrite

and to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to the vagabond hitchhiker
whose advice I have heeded
ever since

Unfare

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

a slice of memoir

I am standing with Aggie Ray at the bus stop. I don’t know why we are here or where we are going. Aggie Ray, big as a mountain with black hair parted in the middle and a face like a storm cloud, has brought me here. We had to walk a ways and I’m tired but one thing I know: don’t whine to Aggie Ray. She’s my babysitter and, somehow, my relative, but I am not sure how. She is keeping me while my parents paint the house they just bought, near the school where I will go to kindergarten in September.

I do not know when is September. I know it is summer now. The sidewalk is hot and Aggie Ray’s face is red like a rose, and sweaty. Still. Storm cloud. Warning.

I am not the only kid she keeps. There are others but they’re all bigger and they run around and sometimes knock me over. I try not to cry any more because Aggie Ray just calls me a crybaby. She shames me in front of the others for not being able to tie my shoes. And for other things…

Daddy says she sometimes eats a stick of Blue Bonnet margarine for snack and I have tried to watch to see if that’s true but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t want to get in more trouble.

But today it’s just Aggie Ray and me when the bus pulls up with its loud WHOOSH and nasty exhaust. I gag and cover my nose; I am funny about smells but I remember Aggie Ray and pull my hand down.

It’s a good thing, too, because just then she grabs hold of my hand, bends low, and looks at me with them dark eyes that feel like knives although they aren’t even touching me. She growls: “When we get on this bus, you tell them you’re four years old.”

She’s made a mistake. I had a birthday not too long ago.

“I’m not four. I’m five now,” I tell her, but she squeezes my hand, hard.

“I don’t care. You tell them you’re four, hear me?” she hisses, as the bus door folds open.

I can’t help it.

I start to cry.

She hauls me up the steps and drops her fare in the box, as the bus driver says:”Well, now, what’s the matter with you, little girl?”

Oh, I can feel the steam coming from Aggie Ray’s big body and the power of her big, hard hand.

I am just so proud to be five. I don’t want to say I’m four.

It’s a lie.

And so I blurt it out to the friendly-faced driver…

“I AM FIVE.”

Gimpo bus fare box. Wikipedia Commons. CC BY SA 3.0

Suffice it to say I survived.

I realize now that Aggie Ray didn’t want to pay my fare; riding was free for four and under. And I wasn’t much past four.

I still don’t recall where we were going, or why, only that I was being told to lie. Usually kids have to be taught to tell the truth. I really was so proud to be five. To have to say I was four seemed more shameful than not being able to tie my shoes, or the other things…

I have no remembrance of a consequence. It is best. Aggie Ray is long gone now. She did have redeeming qualities, as well as a difficult life. Last time I saw her, she was ill and frail, but she came to hug me with a big smile.

Perhaps it’s unfair that this is my clearest childhood memory of her.

But it was unfair to me, and I knew it even then.

Perhaps I should say “unfare.”

Be that as it may… fare-thee-well, Aggie Ray, in your final destination.

I didn’t use your real name.

I didn’t think it was fair.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Taking stock: my pile of good things

/ Fran Haley / 25 Comments

*******

With thanks to Stef Boutelier for the “pile-poem” form and Canva template on Day Two of Ethical ELA’s Open Write.

Thanks also to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge.

Life IS a challenge. The greatest. For writing inspiration, Stef quotes author Rainbow Rowell:

So, what if, instead of thinking about solving our whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow. 

What might your “pile of good things” be?

Sleep experiment poem

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

This is not what you think.

The poem you’re about to read is not about a sleep experiment.

It is an experiment in writing a poem about sleep, using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

On Day One of Ethical ELA’s OpenWrite, host Stef Boutelier invited participants to try AI for creating or modifying a poem, stating that “AI is here to stay. We might as well learn alongside and make sure our humanity isn’t disposed of too quickly.”

She shared these sites with the directive to “explore ways you might use, learn, or negate AI within the lens of poetry”:

So, as a test of AI vs. human creativity, I used the poem generator to write a villanelle.

My topic was sleep (I am coveting it in the throes of getting over a lengthy cold, going into week three) and as I was prompted to choose two characters, who better than Somnus and his son Morpheus, gods of sleep?

Confession: I did alter a few of the rhyming words but that is all…

Without further ado, the experiment results:

Somnus’s Torment: The Villanelle of the Sleep

Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep
It was just so elusive and desired
But he could never forget the sheep

That morning, Somnus was shocked by the upkeep
He found himself feeling rather wired
Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep

Later, he realized that the sleep was deep
He thought the situation had become rather uninspired
But he could never forget the sheep

Morpheus tried to distract him with a leap.
Said his mind had become too misfired
Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep

Somnus took action like a veep
The sleep was becoming required
But he could never forget the sheep

Somnus’s demise was cheap
His mind became dangerously tired
Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep
But he could never forget the sheep

And there you have it.

Give me “Do not go gentle into that good night” any day.

This is not to say that AI can’t inspire or help with learning form and composition. In fact, its greatest offering might be a lesson in the power of revision.

And while it can actually generate some alarmingly wonderful things, I don’t think AI can ever out-poet the human mind.

I shall have to write my own villanelle now…but I won’t be using AI.

Has it ever seen or heard the birds? Has it ever smelled cut grass or felt the heartbeat of a living creature? Can it experience anything?

No.

Here’s to using the senses and the soul to capture the experience of being alive. Is this not the whole purpose of writing?

Meanwhile, sleep is still calling me…

*******

with thanks to Stef Boutelier on Ethical ELA
and to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Remember these days

/ Fran Haley / 29 Comments

Remember these days
write them on your hearts always
little beloveds

Sunday Friends, painted by my daughter-in-law, on display at the local art gallery.
My husband purchased it for his study at church.
Our granddaughter is on the right.

******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Writing Challenge

Quotable Patrick

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

And so this festive feast day rolls ’round again, leaving me pondering my (supposed) green roots.

I grew up wearing green on this day just so I wouldn’t get pinched at school.

We weren’t Catholic, so for a long time I didn’t understand the history of saints and feasts.

I did understand leprechauns, however, because I loved books of legends, lore, and mysterious creatures.

The generations before me were Protestants hailing from rural eastern North Carolina, and despite my ancestry of Rileys on one side and Mayos on the other, our Irishness wasn’t discussed.

Except.

I write about this every year: My Granddaddy’s middle name was St. Patrick.

For real.

He didn’t love it at all (being a Methodist, or… because that’s really odd?) He had it legally changed to the initial S. in my lifetime.

But my aunt Pat was already named for him.

When I was a young adult, my dad tried to trace the Irish family line, maybe in search of a reason for this peculiar name choice borne by his father (whose brothers mostly had Biblical names like James, Hosea, Job Enoch, Asa…). And Granddaddy’s rustic accent bore traces of Elizabethan English: His brothers Hosea and Asa were Hosey and Acey; a neighbor, Etta, was Etter. Listen to Brits pronouncing Diana today and you may catch it: Dianer.

In short: All I can recall from my dad’s research is a convoluted story without a clear end.

But.

I did hear Granddaddy mention his grandfather speaking of Dublin. Just once, long, long ago.

Nowadays, with all of them gone, I am left to wonder, except that my DNA report says my ancestry is 92% British and Irish. As for strongest Irish evidence, County Dublin is listed second; County Mayo, fourth.

I do know that Saint Patrick’s Day wasn’t an official public holiday in Ireland until 1903…Granddaddy was born in 1906, so…hmmm…

All in all, despite the mysteries, I feel an affinity for the ancient Apostle of Ireland and his Christian ministry. My grandparents were devout salt-of-the-earth people. I am who I am largely because of their faith, their prayers. My husband and oldest son—with a surname tied to an ancient Irish family seat—are ministers.

That’s enough green threads for me to honor the day with a few favorite quotes attributed to the saint. There are prayers that I find profoundly beautiful and worth meditating upon, every day.

But I’ll leave you with these little pearls that make me smile:

Never trust a dog to watch your food.

May the light always find you on a dreary day.

We cannot share this sorrow if we haven’t grieved a while. Nor can we feel another’s joy until we’ve learned to smile (#WhyIWrite).

And from one of my life’s verses, Psalm 46:10:

Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be.

I shall, Saint Patrick.

I shall.

Honestly, Granddaddy did resemble this a bit, sans beard.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Pursuing knowledge

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

During the sermon she bends over her notepad, writing down unfamiliar words so she can look up their meanings later:

These are my oldest granddaughter’s notes while listening to my son preaching.

She is seven years old.

In a word: awe.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to my daughter-in-law
for sharing the photo and the story behind it

Ode to menthol

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

In the season
of sickness,
of a rattling
in the chest
that lingers
and lingers
and lingers
I seek
your healing power
O my elixir

none other will do
as well as you

your name
is not always recorded
on cryptic inscriptions

but I know
it’s you

nothing else
has that
distinctive
burn

Alas, you have become
such an elusive elixir

I search high and low
(on the shelves)
just to find
you’ve vanished

leaving no trace

it befits you,
vaporous thing
that you are

I cannot entertain
the notion
of orange
or honey
—fie!

These cannot
open passages
like you.

I wonder
what on Earth
I shall do

but wait…

memory stirs
like ghosts
like tendrils
like vapors, yes…

my own father
pouring your
precious substance
into a little silver tray
and plugging in
the vaporizer

there I was
suffering child
surrounded
by a steamy cloud
tinged with your
cool fragrance

sputtering
sizzling
on through the
long, long night

(you’re no cure-all
for childhood asthma, btw
but I’m not dealing
with that
anymore)

and speaking
of clouds…

back there
in the shroud
of Time
where sits
my father
and
my mother
puffing
puffing
puffing
on Salem cigarettes
there, the
telltale green carton
indicates your presence

I can still smell you
on the foil
of those packs
and in the
smoke ribbons
curling in the air
(aside: salem means
peaceful
complete
safe
perfect)

—what a cool operator
you are,
alternately healing
and stealing
breath

but then…

far back
so far back
I find you
at your purest,
perhaps

sick child
that I was
struggling
to breathe
(yeah, it’s a theme)

my grandfather
going to
his medicine cabinet
for a little
cobalt-blue tub
my grandmother
unscrewing the
aqua lid
and with one finger
slathering a good dollop
under my nose

(which now
no one is
ever
ever
ever
supposed to do
although clearly
I am alive)

and it is this memory
these moments
that are salve to my soul.
balm to my spirit

and so I come
to find you
like a miracle
in my own
medicine cabinet

whereupon I slather
my own self
up good

relishing your
mint-oil fire

your vapors
like a blanket
of love
enveloping me

breathing
breathing
Yea, with
a little
more ease

until this
lingering
lingering
rattle

evaporates
at last…

O, my elixir.



Fun facts: Vick’s VapoRub was invented in 1894 in the North Carolina county next to where I live now. It was originally called Vick’s Magic Croup Salve. From the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: “The salve in the blue jar is made of menthol, camphor, oil of eucalyptus and several other oils, blended in a base of petroleum jelly.” The creator invented it to cure his son of severe croup…which it did. Spanish flu killed the inventor in 1919 but, paradoxically, that pandemic drastically increased demand for his product. Oh…and guess who worked at the inventor’s drugstore as a teenager? O. Henry.

My ode, however is to menthol, not just Vick’s, seeing as I had to include my parents’ Salem menthols in the mix. I was an asthmatic child, my first attack occurring at age three months. As I grew, I often begged to stay with my grandparents when I was sick; they slathered me with this old remedy, hence my great affinity for VapoRub. Accordingly, my grandparents are ever-present in the healing power of that clean menthol burn…nowadays I am not troubled with asthma but when I feel a cold coming on, or, as in the present moment, trying to shake the rattling cough after a cold, Vick’s DayQuil with VapoCool is my go-to. It works, to which widely empty shelves attest. I finally had some delivered by Instacart (had to show ID, of course) so I can continue burning the rattle out of my chest…it’s the best thing I know of, outside of a certain homemade “recipe” made by one of my old-time church members from the country…not exactly sure what was in THAT jar, but it would’ve surely burned this stuff out long before now… that, however, is another story for another day.

Here’s to the healing power of menthol.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge
and to Kim Johnson,
whose series on Epsom salts convinced me that I really, really should write about menthol
(which, yes, can occasionally be dangerous, so use with care)

Nestlings

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

And so it came to pass

that the little blue eggs

in the perfect wee nest

atop the grapevine wreath

hanging on my front door

while it is yet winter

hatched.

My early brood of house finch nestlings, a day or two old.
It’s possible some were hatching during Sunday’s snow.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

March snow

/ Fran Haley / 18 Comments

haiku story

gray Sunday morning
in spite of springing forward
it begins to snow

first time all winter
big white flakes now descending
on riotous blooms

purple-pink redbuds
bright yellow forsythia
pollen-laden pines

suspend certainty
while birds rush in, unafraid
of crystallized grass

momentarily
melting away in soft earth
—seems a sheer delight

to countless robins
hopping with newfound vigor
and the cardinal

on a blood-red blaze
toward the bare crape myrtle
where his mate awaits

and dark-eyed juncos
living up to their nickname
ground-flitting snowbirds

while papa house finch
forages in the clover
on the old dog’s grave

for seeds he’ll carry
to mama finch on the nest
incubating eggs

bluebird on the gate
ruffles his blue-flame feathers
in exultation

two crows come and go
strangely silent, for they know
the benediction

Carolina wren
hidden somewhere in the pines
sings Holy Holy

the earth’s aflutter
with myriad wings and things
returning blessing

in spite of the snow
life springs forward, brightening
gray Sunday morning

2020-0417_CentreCoPA_WestMain_Eastern Bluebird in the snow -01. amOBX. CC BY-NC 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge