Memoir

Dog day rhythms

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

—John Lubbock

haiku story poem

dog days of summer
triple-digit heat index
white haze cloaks the air

one can drown in it
too hot for lying in grass
even in the shade

lethargic rhythms
settle on all living things
except for insects

unrepentant sun
shimmers on dragonfly wings
iridescent darts

buzzing cicadas
in feverish frenzy sing
of love high in trees

remaining unseen
falling silent before storms
darkening the skies

as lightning’s forked tongue
snakes from the heavens to earth
(thunder, they told me

when I was a child,
is just the angels bowling;
that’s their pins, crashing)

—the heat breaks at last
like evening revival
saving weary souls

murmuring water
seeps into my dreams
ephemeral streams

summer’s lullaby
syncopated rain-fingers
tapping windowpanes

no sleep is so deep
as that borne by rhythms of
dogs days descending

summer rain. annalisa ceolin. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Ruth Ayres for the inspirational quote at SOS-Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog

There comes a time…

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

when the baby finches
on my front door wreath
have flown
and I no longer hear
the cheerful cheeping
and chattering

that particular
morningsong
is gone

although an entire
avian choir
assembles in the trees
before dawn
each day
singing the darkness
away

there comes a time
when I know
the twice-used nest
is too destroyed
and the old wreath
with faded magnolias
is battered
past all hope

there comes a time
when I must take it down
from my seasonal
bird sanctuary
to ceremonially
throw it away
as I did today

thinking about
all the life
that came into being
on this circle
of grapevine
hanging from
a single nail

but I do not grieve

I imagine
dozens of finches
alive in the trees
surrounding

I imagine
they’re a big part
of the dawn choristers
sounding

and I know,
I know
a pair of them
will return
when I put up
a new wreath
next spring

there comes a time
when I finally
clean the porch
where I can sit again
and bask
in my tiny part
of sustaining
fragile feathery life
in this world

and celebrate
being able
to open
my front door
once more

After several springs, the magnolia wreath is no more
but I have a fresh clean door
and this wreath celebrating summer

Car trouble

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

It is deafening, the sound.

I turn to my husband: “What’s the matter with the car?”

He’s driving. He looks perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“That droning sound. It’s so loud.”

“Oh, that. It’s just the road.”

This is a man who once worked at a major auto parts store. Granted, he took the job because he needed one if we were going to get married, long, LONG ago, when he was twenty-three and I was just turning twenty…he jokes that all he knew about cars at the time is you put gas in them.

Ahem. How much has he learned since?

“It’s NOT just the road! My car doesn’t make this noise on this road! We’re not on a steel drawbridge or anything.” (Anyone who’s ever driven across a metal draw on a bridge will know what I mean. It’s a loud, hollow, wiggly sound, directly related to the sensation in one’s stomach).

This droning sound changes with acceleration and deceleration.

“I think it’s your tires.”

Eventually he checks his tires, after I say the noise is so unnerving that I won’t ride with him anywhere else until he does. I am imagining blowouts, being stranded on the roadside, swerving in traffic when anything could happen… although I looked at the tires myself and thought they had okay-looking treads (confession: I am clearly not a car-ish kinda person, either).

He gets four nice new tires.

I happily climb into the passenger side to ride with him to… I forget, actually…when:

drrrrooooOOOOOOOONNNNnne

“IT’S STILL MAKING THAT SOUND!” I exclaim (shout? holler?).

“Well, it’s not AS loud,” he says, driving right along.

“YES IT IS! Something’s not right. This sounds like go-carts I rode as a kid. Only louder.”

He then informs me his friend tells him it may be a hole in the muffler.

He still does not seem to be concerned about driving this car.

I do not understand it.

At all.

And by the way, the tire-changing establishment told him, when they loaded him up with the four nice new tires, that he needed some brake work also.

I am getting suspicious.

He gets the brake work done and mentions to the establishment that he (and in particular, his wife) still hears the droning sound.

The establishment says: It’s probably something in your transmission. We don’t do that kind of work. You will have to take it to a full-service auto repair.

But they fix up his brakes quite nicely, graciously throwing in a couple of coupons, which is akin to throwing a cup of water on a raging bonfire… moving on, however…

Of course the droning continues. I ride with my husband to the grocery store. This is when we encounter two beautiful, fly-masked horses trotting along the backroads, completely unattended, but that is another story. I’ve begun to feel like imagery of potential harm and disaster is practically screaming at me with every turn. We manage to get home (apparently the horses did, too, as we would have heard otherwise from friends…in the countryside, news travels fast, especially if it’s bad).

I look up all the possible things that could be making the droning sound.

One of them is bad wheel bearings.

“Did the tire-brake people ever say anything about your wheel bearings?” I ask.

“Oh yeah, they checked ’em. Said they were fine.”

Something is definitely NOT fine…and it better NOT be a bearing.

Today my husband takes the car to a full-service repair, local, privately-owned, folks who’ve been in the area forever. Reputable and reliable.

A few hours later, a call: It’s a bearing….

Alrighty then.

As soon as the bearing is repaired and we are allowed to get that car, I will be riding with my husband straight to the former tire-and-brake establishment to have, shall we say, a discussion.

And I better NOT hear the tiniest hint of droning along the way…

Car Trouble. Jan Tik.CC BY 2.0

*******

with thanks to the Two Writing Teachers community for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge. Life is full of challenges, is it not. The writing challenge, at least, is a welcome one…

Horses on the fly

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

Sunny summer morning
driving home with groceries
along the winding backroads
past forests, clearings,
smatterings of houses

at the crossroads
where the tobacco field
gives way to pastures and pond
two horses, trotting
side-by-side

not uncommon, horses
being ridden
along these
country byways

except that these
are unsaddled
unbridled

riderless

in the left lane
headed toward us

moving in sync
at a lively pace
tossing their manes

faces covered
with fly masks

Look! cries my husband
who’s driving
immediately
slowing down
to a near stop

— no one’s with those horses!
And their eyes are covered
—they can’t see!

They can see,
I tell him
even though I know
next to nothing
about fly masks
and equine husbandry

I just know
by the certainty
of their movements
and their canter
that they can see

they are not blindfolded
to be led out of
a burning barn

but they’re here
on the road,
unattended

and drivers
who might be coming
from either direction
are unaware

and people drive
too fast
on these
winding backroads

—how, how,
I wonder,
did they get loose

these magnificent beasts
that someone
surely values
and loves

—should we call 911?
—what can they do?
—remember, we did that once
when we saw the mule
strolling up the street
in our neighborhood
—yeah but the farmer
figured it out and got to it
before it got to the highway
—should we get out and…
—and what? Try to hold ’em?
They don’t know us.
We don’t know them.
We don’t know
how to handle horses…

by now, the carefree pair
on its merry jaunt
has passed us

and I can only hope
the owners have realized
and are on the way
or that someone who lives
in the nearby houses
knows to whom they belong

or that these creatures
will use their intuitive
horse sense
to go home

I cannot think
the thousand terrible things
crowding my brain

images of beautiful beings
taking newfound liberty
headlong, headstrong
toward what they cannot know
and others
who do not see

Photo: IMG_2703. thatsavagegirl. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

We didn’t hear any news of something terrible happening to the horses; living in a small community, we would have. I am pretty sure that, a few days later, I saw these same two horses, still fly-masked, safe in the fenced pasture beside that same tobacco field where we saw them on the loose. The initial feeling of awe mixed with horror is hard to shake, however. The image of these two riderless, fly-masked horses is now an indelible one in my mind for potential harm, needless loss and destruction, and feeling utterly helpless in the face of it.

Return of the retro pet

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

My six-year-old granddaughter found the comics section from the Sunday newspaper I recently purchased (first time since I can’t say when). After poring over the funnies, she asked:

“Franna, can we do the crossword puzzle?”

Girl after my own heart…

“Sure, let me get a pen!”

On her own, she figured out ache for ‘Dull pain’ and treat for ‘Dog’s favorite word, probably’.

Then she asked: “What’s ‘Digital pet of the ’90s’?”

“Oh! Mister had one when he was little,” I replied (Mister is what she currently calls my son. This kid…). “I haven’t thought of it in years. A Tamagotchi.”

“Tamagotchi?! What is that?!”

I tried to explain.

Blank expression.

I looked it up and showed it to her on my phone.

She looked dubious.

There was only one logical thing to do….

It arrived today.

She picked it out (yes, they’re still out there; she chose one decorated like an ice cream cone).

She was, in a word, enraptured. Could hardly wait for the egg to hatch so she could figure out how to feed her Tamagotchi. And clean up after it. That was what puzzled her most when I was trying to explain how this thing….er, pet….works.

She’s a quick study in everything: “It wants my attention! Ohhhh nooo…it’s not happy! All its hearts are empty! Help! What do I do to make it happy?”

We tried to play a game with it but apparently we only made it mad.

Fortunately, Mister arrived around this time. With all the expertise of a previous Tamagotchi owner, he fed this digital pet of the ’90s a ton of snacks and filled all its hearts with happiness.

Then, with pure delight, my granddaughter cleaned up after it.

“When I am busy, you will have to Tamagotchi-sit,” she told my son, with authority.

I wonder if I am enjoying this too much…and if he remembers there’s an on/off switch…maybe I should remind him…

—Nah.

My granddaughter, waiting for the egg to hatch. By the time they left this evening, Tamagotchi had grown quite a bit and remained happy with all the attention it was getting (have fun with that, Son…).

Lingering

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

with thanks to Ruth for the inspiration at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog:
“Invite the reader to linger and feel unexpected emotions.”

There was a time, before COVID, when we lingered. Not endured, not withdrew, not withstood…lingering did not mean an unshakeable cough, unshakeable fear, unshakeable uncertainty.

We lingered because we wanted to make the moments stretch and last. With purpose, holding onto goldenness before it melted away in lengthening shadows, desiring just to be, to savor, to breathe, without words for naming the why, unaware except in the deepest part of subconscious self that everything is temporal. Everything is always imperceptibly changing. We change, the people and creatures we love change. They leave us, in one way or another. In certain moments before the leaving, be it theirs or our own, we linger, suspending the faint ticking of the clock on the wall of our existence.

Tonight, I lingered.

I discovered that winter lingers even on the cusp of July. Not like the witch’s enchanted Narnia (“Always winter but never Christmas; think of that”). My granddaughter wanted to watch a Christmas movie. Why not? And so we did. The hour was already late but in summer bedtimes do not matter as much (for her, anyway. I fight the good fight). Winter scenes rolled across the screen before us…an era long past, row houses standing dark in the evening, nightfall coming early, deserted streets coated in ice…for a few seconds, I was in that place, feeling the bitter bite of frigid air, the crunching under my feet, the barrenness settling into my bones. I remembered being a child in winter, walking outside, wondering at the stillness, the delicious desolation. Winter has a scent, a taste. A cleanness. A sharpness, unlike the crispness of fall. Both bracing and tiring. A paradox. Winter is halflight, chiaroscuro in gray, white, blue, and black. The stars shine crystal-bright in winter, nearer than ever.

—all this in a few seconds watching a Christmas movie on a lazy, balmy night, the last of June, when rabbits are sneaking from the woods into my yard to nibble their fill of fresh clover.

My granddaughter remained wide-eyed throughout the movie while I lapsed in and out of dreams. Then with the going-to-bed ritual of my reading her a story, she just so happened to choose a book in which the word lingering appears on the last page…

That is the magical way of that word.

Both beckoning and reminding.

For memories linger far longer than moments…

A winter night. Mourner. CC BY 2.0.

Eight months

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

Numbering the days
God recreated my world
with your arriving

My beloved Micah

One day I will tell you many stories, such as how you don’t like to take naps during the day and how I can manage to rock you to sleep. I like to think of it as Franna-magic. I will tell you that at eight months you suffer separation anxiety when you come to my house and your parents are out of your sight. I will tell you how you cry about that and how I take you outside and then you stop crying because it’s June, everything is so green, and the birds are always singing; you grow still, listening to their lively songs. Best of all, you heard your first cicada in my arms, one loner rattling high in the pines; you lifted your tear-streaked baby face to the sky in wonder. One day I will tell you that when I was a little girl staying with my grandparents in the summertime, the constant rising and falling of hundreds of cicada-rattles became my favorite sound. For me it is an Earth-song of belonging, comfort, hope, resurrection. It sings in my veins. In that sound, my grandmother is near. Perhaps you will love it too, my precious Micah. Maybe it will be one of many bonds we share in all the days and seasons and years to come, a tympani accompaniment to our generations, going on…just know that today and every day, your presence in this world is my new and hallowed heartsong.

XOXOXO forever & ever – Franna

Imagination

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

When you are six
and visiting your Franna
you always check the candy dish

today you would find
miniature Reese’s Cups

and when you are tired
of playing Connect Four

you and your Franna
might build a tower
out of the checkers
in an ABABAB pattern

and you might fashion
a tiny crown
out of the gold Reese’s foil
and turn the licked-clean
ridged brown candy paper
into hair
that you place on top
of the checker tower

The Tall Queen,
you would say,
just as she falls
and splatters her checker parts
across the table

The Tall Queen
has fallen in battle!
you would exclaim

(methinks that may
be the influence
of your reading
Narnia books)

but at any rate,
a Shorter Queen seems to do
especially when you ask your Franna
for eyes and a mouth
and she gives you labels
and pens
so you can make them yourself

and in answer to your question:
No, I do not think her crown looks
too much like a Viking hat
although surely the Vikings
had queens,
just saying

(to me she looks like she stepped
right out of Wonderland)

but above all
I think the whole moral
of the story here
is that everything which enters
your realm
when you are six
has a purpose
and is
never wasted

The swallows

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

In a corner
of a window
sheltered by
the carport
at my son’s home

a pair of swallows
built a nest

not well

as my son realized
one morning
when he found
a hatchling
naked, new
and dead
on the concrete
floor

the others
seemed safe
in the faulty nest

until the next day
when my boy
found all
the swallow babies
naked, new
so tiny
so dinosauresque
splayed across
the concrete
floor

some still living

and their mother
fluttering over by
the recycling bin
in the corner
crying
trying
to gather
her broken babies

they couldn’t be saved
my boy told me
with a breaking
in his voice

so I buried them
around
the oak tree

I cannot think
about the ring
of baby birds
there in the ground
among the roots
of the old live oak

instead I stand
under the carport
noting the stillness
of the air

the silence
naked, new
in the absence
of swallows

somewhere out there
a mama
knows how much
she’s lost

like a child
I wonder
if she grieves

I grieve
for her


Baby swallows singing to their mother. Brookhaven National Laboratory. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.


Patch of earth

/ Fran Haley / Leave a comment

Sunny afternoon
visiting my son

my granddaughter
walks me out
to a patch
of dusty gray soil
shadowed by
the old live oak
not far from
the swingset

here, she says,
is where
we saw the turtle
laying eggs
then she
went away
into the woods

that is the way
of turtles, I say
she will not
come back

my granddaughter nods
and I recall
that her first word
was turtle

my son has placed
fluorescent stake flags
around this patch
of incubating earth

for the benefit
of his expectant
child

Not sure how many eggs are hidden here in this patch of earth so near my granddaughter’s playground.

Empty box turtle shell discovered by my son’s basement. The turtle died some time ago. Not the mother, but apparently she was also an eastern box turtle. Under good conditions, the eastern box turtle can live over a hundred years. It’s a symbol for patience and is also the state reptile of North Carolina.