Author: Fran Haley

Backward glance

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

Today I muse about the serendipitous nature of writing.

For example: In a writing community, the same idea or topic will mysteriously come to several people at one time, without their ever having discussed it. Like a blanket settling over people’s minds. Then there’s the peculiar corollary that, the more you write, the more you can think of to write…an exponential growth kind of thing. As long as you’re not completely exhausted, that is. Then there’s a shared writing encounter, an exchange, that suddenly awakens an experience or memory that’s long lain latent.

Case in point: On Day Two of the current daily challenge with the Two Writing Teachers community, I had a lot of fun sharing a story about spelling names backward. I never expected it to resonate like it did with others…this bit of wordplay is obviously a common rite of childhood (after all, my no-nonsense dad even admitted to using his name backwards as a child, to my extreme amusement). In the midst of it all, I remembered a book I loved as a child, in which the plot hinged on a backward name. The titular character was a Siamese cat, “The Piebald Princess,” formally styled as Princess Renekrad Riah Sretsevlys. I haven’t seen it in years, but I recalled being thoroughly enchanted by the story and stunned by the revelation at the end: Princess Renekrad Riah Sretsevlys was not, in fact, a real princess OR Siamese. She was a plain cat who wanted adventure… so she disguised herself with a little help from a bottle of Sylvester’s Hair Darkener, spelled the name backward, and took it for her new royal persona.

I hadn’t even thought to read her exotic name backwards. Magic!

Upon remembering this book, I so wanted to read it again. I wanted my granddaughters to have it. An online search revealed that it’s out of print now. I was able to find a copy on Etsy, however (“vintage,” alas—how am I this old??), so I ordered it.

The story is even better than I recall. Pure delight. And I’ve learned that the author based it on stories she made up about her dolls when she was a child.

The fragile, faded dust jacket of The Piebald Princess inspired today’s post; the illustration shows Princess Renekrad Riah Sretsevlys casting a backward glance at herself in the mirror.

A perfectly serendipitous segue, if you will, because…

The time has come, the Walrus said… for a confession.

I’ve been working backward.

With my post titles.

Alphabetically.

Here’s the thing… I got the idea, two years ago, that if I thought of a title word starting with each letter of the alphabet, well, that would cover 26 posts out of 31 for the Slice of Life Story Challenge. It worked so well for the first year that I did it again for a second.

This year I almost didn’t sign up for the Challenge at all because…in a word, life. Was I actually up for Slicing it? I hadn’t been writing much of late. At the last minute, I took the plunge. First thought: I need some kind of plan if I’m going to sustain this. Second thought: I don’t feel like going in ABC title order again. Done that, twice.

But… what if I worked backward? As soon as I thought of it, the first story idea crystallized.

Seemed a sign to me.

From that point on, most days I had an idea of a story to write. What word might work for the title, with the given letter of the day? Some days, I had no idea what to write; was there a word for a title to help me frame an idea? A synonym, maybe? As ideas or titles came to mind for the next posts, I jotted them down. I worked them into order. There was always a way.

Here’s how this year’s posts played out:

Zen
You, reversed (backwards names)
XIII and XIX (cicada broods)
Wedding music
Verily
Universe of possibility
To build or not to build
Serene senryu
Rosary beads
Q: What to write now?
Poetry possum
Otters
Nature’s divine voice
Moments
Life’s a cupcake
King no more
Jewels
Interpretation of Grandmothering by AI
Huh?
Grim tale
Franna’s house
Eagles
Dream-double
Chanticleer
‘Bad things are going to happen’ poem
Angels

This, of course, leaves me with five Slices of Life to go, so, I started going “backward” again, which is actually forward, in this case: Yesterday was Awakenings; today, Backward glance. Tomorrow will be a title with C, the next day a title with D, and on the last day, E.

The last day happens to be Sunday.

Easter.

Serendipity every which way.

Princess Renekrad Riah Sretsevlys, casting a backward glance in the mirror

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Composed for Day 28 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Awakenings

/ Fran Haley / 20 Comments

Today’s post is inspired by Kim Johnson, who’s organizing a community event for National Poetry Month. Her local arts council chose the theme of “Awakenings” and in her Slice of Life Story Challenge post of March 12th, Kim sent out a call for short poems of 4-6 lines. Featured poems will be displayed on canvases in windows around the town square throughout April.

Kim: Here’s to power of awakenings, poetry, and community! Much success to you, my friend, and all involved in this exciting event.

Now…how might I play some little variations on this theme, let’s say, with snippets of my life?

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awakening (plural awakenings)

noun

  1. the point of morning coffee (may require more than one cup)
  2. a soul-spark generated by infinite possibility
  3. a heart condition caused by beautiful language
  4. (plural) the celebration of poetry at a local literacy event

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Sisters Seeing

One winter’s night, when I was ten, I dreamed of an angel.
My little sister stood by me at the window, watching it pass.
Morning brought this revelation: she had dreamed of it, too.

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First Rhythms

Love of words was born in me
upon my grandmother’s lap
reading stories in rhyme
rocking chair keeping time
with the beating of her heart.

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Cicada Rhythms

High in the oaks against the bluest of skies
the rattling swells as its season dies.
A paradox, this buzzing call
from amid the leaves, soon to fall.
This song of my childhood, lingering still
in the last of the light, before the chill.
Full force, cicada sings—don’t you know?
—summer’s gone on the wings of a song long ago.

Yet it returns, when you rise from the ground
Awaking the child I was, with that sound.

******

Lullaby for My Granddaughter

Precious darling, while you’re sleeping
I’ll be here, safe watch a’keeping
This time is such a fleeting thing
When you awaken, love, let’s sing.

My precious Micah after I sang her to sleep

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Composed for Day 27 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

with thanks to Denise Krebs for inspiring the Dictionary Entry poem

Angels

/ Fran Haley / 21 Comments

There are times in life when a theme chases you, and you find you need to write about it.

Such is the case today.

Angels.

They keep reappearing.

There’s the neighborhood rooster I wrote about on Sunday, and the ancient Muslim belief that a rooster crows because it has seen an angel.

There’s the memoir Angela’s Ashes that I returned to for my St. Patrick’s Day post, wherein author Frank McCourt’s mother keeps having babies and his father says an angel brings them, specifically the Angel of the Seventh Step, where he claims to have found Frank’s newest baby brother. Young Frank starts looking for the angel. When he wakes in the night, he goes to check the seventh step: Sometimes I’m sure there’s a light there and if everyone’s asleep I sit on the step in case the angel might be bringing another baby or just coming for visit…I’m sure the angel is there and I tell him all the things you can’t tell your mother or father for fear of being hit on the head or told to go out and play.…

There’s my husband’s sermon series over the last months, in which he mentioned times of trial, temptation, suffering, and the appearance of ministering angels, with this repeated exhortation that I scribbled down on two different Sunday order-of-worship bulletins: Look for the angels.

There’s his sermon this past Sunday, which referenced the greedy soothsayer, Balaam, and his donkey which refused, three times, to not travel down the road where the increasingly irate Balaam was trying to direct it, because the donkey could see the angel of the Lord there with a drawn sword when Balaam could not; and haven’t we all experienced, in some way or other, animals seeing what we can’t? (Remember the rooster…).

There’s another book I pulled off my shelf this week, The Art of Comforting, in which author Val Walker tells of being diagnosed with premature ovarian failure; she will never have the child she’s longed for. Shortly afterward she’s laid off from her job in a massive downsizing. As her husband goes away on a business trip, she cries for the loss of the life she thought she’d been destined to live: “My angel books and angel music could no longer comfort me. I prayed to God to send me a real angel. I was ready for a bona fide spiritual visit from heaven.” To her shock, the doorbell rings…chiding herself for thinking it could really be an angel, she answers it to find a “small, sweaty man in a filthy T-shirt and muddy shoes. He must have been one of the laborers working on my neighbor’s lawn…” and with him is a golden retriever, staring at her, wagging its tail.

Turns out the man has come to ask, in broken English, if this is her dog (it’s not). He then asks for water for the animal; it’s a terribly hot day. Walker gives a bowl of water to the dog. She offers a glass to the man. The visitors leave together, and she reflects: Just ten minutes earlier, desperate enough to go begging to God, I had prayed for a brilliant, glowing angel to come to me…was this stranger my angel? I don’t know. But I do know that in witnessing his beautiful kindness toward that dog I was reassured that comforting still existed on earth…always remember, comfort is all around us. We are never alone.

I’m not sure the man was the angel, either.

I’m pretty sure the dog was.

Then there are experiences much closer to home, some of which I shared in yesterday’s post with my “Bad things are going to happen” poem.

There was my husband’s diagnosis of ocular melanoma…shortly after which, while driving and contemplating having his eye removed, he stopped at a traffic light and saw, he says, the brightest flash of white light before him. Nothing was there to cause such a flash. He’d never experienced anything like it before. Optical illusion? Maybe. Stress? Possibly. But he said he was instantly flooded with comfort and knew everything would be okay.

And it was.

Then there was his cardiac arrest on a Sunday afternoon, driving home from the gym. He lost control of his truck; it veered into coming traffic, then crossed back over and ran off the road into a grove of trees…without striking anything. The last thing he remembers, as all went dark and peaceful, are voices saying He’s in trouble. We have to get him off the road.

Angels?

You decide.

As for me, I realize the words were written on my heart long before I scribbled them in the Sunday bulletins. I know, whatever the days may bring, or how long the darkest night may seem, in times of my greatest need, I’ll heed my preacher’s advice:

Look for the angels.

They’re all around us.

“backlit Golden Retriever“. theilr. CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Composed for Day 26 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Works cited:

McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir. New York, Scribner, 1996. (Pages 102-107)
Walker, Val. The Art of Comforting: What to Say and Do for People in Distress. New York, Penguin, 2010. (Pages 241-244)

‘Bad things are going to happen’ poem

/ Fran Haley / 30 Comments

On the last day of the March Open Write at Ethical ELA, host Shelly Martin-Young invited participants to write a poem modeled after “Relax” by Ellen Bass. Shelley said: “Think about all of the things that are happening in your life right now, good or bad. Make a list and write your ‘relax’ poem. When my students write their Relax poems, I have them start with Ellen’s first line: Bad things are going to happen. So start there and just write. Maybe by the end of the poem, you will be able to relax, let it go, and taste the sweet fruit.”

So I took the first line, and wrote…

Carrying On

Bad things are going to happen.
Your husband will break the handle
off your favorite coffee mug
(the one with Shakespeare’s signature,
that you’ve had since your freshman year
of college). Your young son will lose
the basketball pendant that belonged
to his grandfather in the 1930s. 
It will never be found. Your car dashboard
will burst into flames midway through
a long trip in the mountains and you will discover 
there’s not enough Dr. Pepper 
in that bottle you’re holding 
to douse them. People will disappoint you
and confuse you with their chameleon loyalties
—“fickle,” your mother will tell you, 
while you are still a child.
And the time will come when you no longer
have a relationship with your mother.
You’ll learn, to your astonishment, that your
father is the family glue and everything will
fall apart when he dies. The baby finches
in the nest on your front door wreath
—so perfect, so wondrous—will also die
without warning. You’ll find all five
with their yellow beaks frozen open to the sky,
their tiny bodies quivering with maggots.
Your husband will be diagnosed with
the beginning of ocular melanoma.
He will sacrifice his left eye in order to stay alive. 
Then, one Sunday afternoon,
he’ll go into cardiac arrest
while driving home from the gym.
He’ll be resuscitated. He’ll endure two surgeries.
When he’s over all that, it will be time for 
his spinal fusion. He will depend on you
more and more…you’ll break your left foot twice
and still keep pace with the days as they unfold…
for the days become years 
and the years will bring you 
two little granddaughters.
This, this will be the richest time
of your entire existence,
as rich as the red on the breast of 
the reddest male finch you’ve ever seen,
singing so beautifully there on your porch
that your heart will be filled to bursting with the sound
of life, carrying on.  

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Composed for Day 25 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Chanticleer

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

He comes a-strolling with dignity and purpose, bobbing majestically, robed in royal red, as fiery as embers in the grate on a winter’s night. He’s huge, he’s beautiful, and he knows it, the neighborhood rooster leading his ladies on a foraging expedition though all the front yards.

Sometimes he brings three ladies. Today, it’s four.

He doesn’t partake of the ground-feast himself. He leads the way, strutting to and fro, keeping watch while the hens scratch and peck.

Naturalist Sy Montgomery writes in Birdology:

Most roosters are very solicitous of their hens. When he’s not patrolling for predators, he’s often searching for food his flock might enjoy. When he finds it, uttering his food call…he stands aside while his women enjoy the treat, and only after they’ve had their fill will he sample the snack. The Talmud praises the rooster, and its writers advise the Jews to learn from him courtesy toward their mates.

I watch from the kitchen window as the chickens work their way over to my yard. The rooster crows. Montgomery calls it “the soundtrack of rural life.” In my mind, it’s the quintessence of rustic. And something more. The rooster’s crow calls to something deep in the human spirit (long before and long after the Apostle Peter wept in contrition).

Montgomery, again:

In the sacred book, the Hadith, the prophet Muhammad tells us why roosters crow: they do so because they have seen an angel. The moment a cock crows, the holy man advises, is a good time to ask for God’s blessing.

I remember the story-name given to roosters in fables: Chanticleer. From Old French, meaning “clear song.”

I slip outside through the garage to see if I can record it.

The chickens are under the crape myrtle at the old dog’s grave, scritching about in the mulch, flinging it every which way. The rooster is immediately aware of my presence. He turns to face homeward, in case.

Here’s my recording…wait for it…

At the end of a required re-interview for a job I’ve had for years (another story in itself, involving all staff) I was asked if I had anything else to add. I said yes. “I’ve learned a lot by watching birds. There’s nothing random in their actions.”

I likely left the interviewers scratching their heads, but I held my position.

Chanticleer crows. God, please bless me, my family, the work of my hands, my heart. Give me strength.

In the words of Montgomery: At the end of my prayers…birds teach me how to listen.

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Composed for Day 24 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Dream-double

/ Fran Haley / 22 Comments

Have you ever seen yourself in a dream?

I have. Long ago.

I remembered it last Saturday during Ethical ELA’s Open Write when the host, James Coats, invited participants to write a poem that’s “ultimately a reflective piece – a moment to examine who we were, who we are, and who we might want to be.” He called this “Looking Back to Look Forward.”

Something in this language sparked the memory…as vivid as if it happened yesterday…

Me Seeing Me in a Dream

When I was nine
I dreamed
that I was watching myself
sitting at a desk
in the classroom

I could see myself
so clearly

writing something
on paper

then looking up
in contemplation

I knew there was some
urgent message
I needed to tell myself

but I couldn’t get
my attention

I couldn’t get me
to look my way

The me in my dream
sat completely unaware
that I stood before me,
invisible,
unable to break through
some forbidding
force field

I stood before me
as if I were
my own ghost

Five decades later
I remember this dream
and the despair
of being unable to
communicate with me

and I wonder:

What could that message
of such urgency even be
from child-me
to child-me?

Other than
dear me
pay attention
please save yourself
so much trouble

in life

keep learning
keep dreaming
keep writing

these will
navigate you through
all the unseen things
ahead

including
you.

“Reflection“. toddwendy .CC BY 2.0.

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Composed for Day 23 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Eagles

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments

I grew up in the city, a child of sidewalks, stoplights, bridges, and clattering trains. I could walk to church, to the 7-Eleven for Slurpees or candy, to Woolco buy the latest hit song on a 45 RPM record, and to all three public schools I attended from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

The memories of nature from my neighborhood, other than the maple tree which dropped its leaves in the front yard every fall, are the gray roly-polies I played with on the concrete steps at the back door, the slugs I salted to watch them dissolve (sorry, slugs), ants, and eastern tent caterpillars with their beautiful rainbow patterning. I caught them put and them into recycled butter tubs with lids, to be disappointed when they turned into such plain moths. Oh, and the random mouse that got in the house to startle my mother, who screamed. And the ditch rat that got into my bedroom… another story for another day, that.

I know there were birds. There had to be birds.

I can’t remember them.

I longed to live in the country, with my grandparents. Even though the mosquitoes, yellow flies, and ticks might eat me alive, I could find tiny gray toads the size of my thumbnail. I would marvel at the dazzling colors of dragonflies, once I got over my terror of them. Hummingbirds zoomed past me for my grandmother’s flowers, never minding my presence, their emerald and ruby feathers gleaming like jewel-fire. Cicadas rattled the earth and my heart with their rhythms. There were deer, rabbits, snakes (alas!), and birds, always birds, chattering and singing incessantly in the dense woods…

The longing never left me, so when my husband and I settled in the countryside, I knew I was home. I rejoiced that our boys would grow up treasuring a closeness to nature…

So I thought.

The oldest always wanted to live in the city (is this always the way? Wishing for the exact opposite of what we have?).

He grew up. He went to the city.

He was miserable.

He came back…got married, became a father…

He texted me a photo recently, with tremendous excitement: Look what I just saw!

A barren field along a deserted country road…

Where stood two bald eagles.

His eyes sparkled when he saw me later: They were huge! So beautiful…

It is better than I ever dreamed, this life, here in the country.

Isn’t it, Son.

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Composed for Day 22 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Franna’s house

/ Fran Haley / 24 Comments

Last Saturday morning my son texted:

Micah put her shoes and jacket on and now she’s standing here saying “I want to go to Franna’s house.”

My response?

“BRING HER!”

And so Micah and her big sister Scout came over for yet more adventures.

I feel a celebratory pantoum coming on…

At Franna’s house
We play all day
Singing a hundred songs
Wearing Franna’s jewelry

We play all day
We hide in our bedspread fort
Wearing Franna’s jewelry
While building our castles

We hide in our bedspread fort
We eat up all the ice cream
While building our castles
It’s always a magical time

We eat up all the ice cream
Singing a hundred songs
It’s always a magical time
At Franna’s house

— as magical for Franna as for her girls. ❤

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Composed for Day 21 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Grim tale

/ Fran Haley / 15 Comments

Over at Ethical ELA for the Monday Open Write, host Wendy Everard challenged participants with this thing called the double dactyl.

It’s deadly. Don’t even think of trying it.

Ok, not really deadly. You just kind of wish for grim death.

Ok, not really…but…it’s danged hard to write this “simple” poetry (or is it just me?).

Wendy shared the process:

  • The first line must be nonsense, often higgledy-piggledy or jiggery-pokery. 
  • The second line must be someone’s name. (Again, it has to be a double dactyl, so not every six-syllable name works. Matthew McConaughey does; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar doesn’t.)
  • The last line of the first stanza must rhyme with the last line of the second.
  • One of the six-syllable lines must be one word. This can be anywhere in the poem, but Hecht [one of the form’s creators] preferred it as the sixth line.

Ummmmmmmmmm….

So, here’s an example by John Hollander, another of the form’s creators:

Higgledy piggledy,
Benjamin Harrison,
Twenty-third president
Was, and, as such,

Served between Clevelands and
Save for this trivial
Idiosyncrasy,
Didn’t do much.

…and here are more good examples.

—All right. I gave it a shot. No one can call me a coward. I used one of my favorite Harry Potter characters: Professor Snape.

I know what you’re thinking: This post is getting grimmer by the line.

Yeah, well, so does my poem; even with ongoing revisions I still can’t get the dactyls right.

But I am letting my double-trouble terri-dactyl fly (get it? get it?).

Stand back!—[stretching arms, cracking fingers]—

A Spell of Redemption

Grim-diddy-grim-grib-roo
Snape the Professor, there
Greasy hair, face a-glare,
Stares holes in you.

Adaptability?
Impossibility.
Snape can never forget
The love he knew.

‘Tis misfortune indeed
For you, The-Boy-Who-Lived,
Always reminding him,
Turning the screw.

Wizard-child, unwitting
He’ll give his life for you
All due to your mother…
Snape’s love, still true.

—welp. I tried to do it, and him, at least a little justice.

P.S. I know the double dactyl is supposed to be humorous…like I said, I was feeling grim.

“younger sev snape“. Snape’s True Love. CC BY 2.0.

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Composed for Day 20 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

—and allow me to celebrate a milestone: This is my 1000th post on Lit Bits and Pieces.

Huh?

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

For Sunday’s Open Write at Ethical ELA, host Katrina Morrison invited participants to craft poems about their mondegreens.

What, pray tell, is a mondegreen?

In short: mishearing and misinterpreting song lyrics or lines of poetry read aloud. Katrina gave several of her own examples from the Eagles’ song “Hotel California.”

Our pattern-seeking brains are forever trying to make sense of things… I’m sure each of you out there has some hilarious lyric “mishearings” (hint: these make for fun writing, fellow Slicers-of-Life).

While there have been many mondegreen moments in my life, one of my favorites comes from my son when he was little.

My poem tells the story…

Why Would the Lord Look at THOSE?

Music is his thing.
Even as a little kid
he counted the beats,

making untallied
tally marks on his whiteboard.
At five, he joined me

at choir practice,
singing the hymns and medleys
with greatest gusto

and remarkable
musicality for one
so young and solemn.

Around Eastertime
he looked perplexed.
He finally asked:

“What does it mean, Mom?
This part: He looked beyond my
fault and saw my knees?“

When I stopped laughing
enough to breathe, tears streaming,
I told him, “That’s NEED.”

“Skinned knees“. QT1p. CC BY 2.0.

One does have to admit little knees are precious…

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Composed for Day 19 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers