Memoir

Ghost-memory poem

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

with thanks to Glenda Funk for the Open Write prompt on Ethical ELA today: “I invite you to think about the ghosts who appear to you and the ways you learn from and celebrate the lives of those who have passed on, those who now visit us in our memories.”

In the Night

When I crawl into bed
to rest my weary bones at last
I have a sense of her

the way she tucked me in
heard my prayers
kissed my forehead 
in successive repetition 
soft as wing-flutters

I hear her voice
when the lights go out
and darkness first envelops:
Don’t worry, Honey
in a minute
your eyes will adjust
you’ll be able to see

and I see her
in the night
a drifting wraith
in her thin pale gown
bathed in silver moonlight
floating into Granddaddy’s room
where I sleep 
on the little cot by his bed
listening to the rhythms of 
his mighty snores

for she always rises
in the darkest part
to check my coverings
sometimes caressing my head
or patting my leg
before drifting back out
to her own room
where snoring 
cannot reach

she is never far
even now
and for all the brightness
she brought to my days
she is near, so near,
in the night.

Pedagogy poem

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

with thanks to Glenda Funk on Ethical ELA’s Open Write today: “What do you owe to pedagogy? Today I’d like us to consider this question and compose a poem in which we explore an idea related to pedagogy, the methods by which we teach, the methods by which we learn. The poem does not necessarily have to be about school. Simply think about teaching and learning as a global phenomenon.”

This is the poem that came today, in reflecting on what I owe to pedagogy… of course, it’s a story-poem…

The Heart of Pedagogy

Little boy in the shop
at Christmastime
spends his money
on a gift for his mom

a matted illustration
of a bird holding a primer
encircled by a flowery heart
and these words:

A teacher
in wisdom and kindness
helps children learn to do
exactly what they thought
could not be done

-Honey, it’s beautiful!
I love it, says his mom,
even though
I am not a teacher

Little boy grins
in his snaggletoothed way:
Yes you are, Mama

She sees the bright belief
there in his face

she cannot bring herself
to diminish it

for maybe she would be a teacher
if only she had finished college

which she does, many years later.

The boy can’t attend
to see her walk across the stage
because he’s taking final exams
at the university
where he’s a history major

-What are you going to do
with that degree?
everyone asks him
-are you going to teach?

No
He’s emphatic:
I do not want to be
a teacher
No

which is, of course,
the path that immediately opens
leading him right back
to the very classroom
where he was a student
where he finds
his old AP history exams
stashed in the cabinet.

The summation of the matter:
we’ve both done
exactly what we thought
could not be done
haven’t we, Boy

for in the end
as in the beginning
teaching is about believing

then in finding
a way.

The Boy’s gift has remained on my bookcase for over two decades. He was in high school when I returned to college. The verse became the foundation of my teaching philosophy as I obtained my degree and additional certifications. It applies even now to the coaching work I do with teachers. As for the Boy: he was a beloved high school history teacher and soccer coach for several years before entering the seminary for divinity degrees and the pastorate. In awe, I watch him teaching his young daughters…and remember.

I want to be the kind of writer…

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments

with thanks to SOS-Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog for the inspiration

I want to be the kind of writer who seizes every moment, carpe momentum, for the meaning it contains, for the uniqueness it brings, for the virtue of its existence and my existence within it, for these are fleeting: my presence of mind and my presence here. I want to the the kind of writer who lets the tap of memory flow full force, who drinks long, deep drafts in thirsty gratitude for every image that lives in the sea of my brain, inside the little seahorse itself. Precious hippocampus, my writer-symbol. I want to be the kind of writer who feeds it, keeps it strong, leaves floodgates open for all that rides the currents of memory, all that rises to the surface, all that washes up like flotsam and jetsam from long ago, even if but random bits of objects or recalled treasure like moments with those I loved and who loved me, still very much alive and real in the iridescent foam bubbling at the edges. I want to be the kind of writer who doesn’t attempt to pin a fragile new idea to the page but who stops to acknowledge it when it appears, makes note of it, gives it room to breathe, to unfurl its wings, for the thing has something to reveal. Yes, I will write to it, write around it, capture it; but softly, without force. Ideas are living things. They are to be nurtured and examined, not hammered and dissected (even in the name of research). I want to be the kind of writer who honors the organic and spiritual nature of the craft and the transcendent power of story in the human heart. It is a matter of mattering. I want to be the kind of writer who spins crystals of my memory, thought, sensation, perception, emotion, and imagination into stories of substance that matter to readers, that maybe add layers of meaning to their moments, too…the way that writers have done, still do, for me. I hear the echo of their words daily as I go about the moments of my living; the writers, the writing, the words, ever-present, tickling the hippocampus, anchoring in my soul, forever bubbling, forming and reforming, spawning yet more ideas. I want to be the kind of writer always reaching for what’s beyond my grasp, always discovering, always inviting awe, always listening, always and infinitely grateful to have been alive.

Carpe momentum.

I am working on it.

The seahorse is a favorite writer-symbol for me, sharing the same name with the part of the brain regulating memory and emotion: hippocampus. Photo: E. Johnson

The field

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

The field at the end of my street
where cotton used to grow
where morning glories of purple and pink
bloomed in tangled profusion
where the autumn sun
burnished the treetops
where myriad insects would chorus
all summer long

is cleared
is being bulldozed
for houses

I will never again see the cotton
stretching out like snow
or the morning glories
rioting in the grass

the trees will be obscured
if they are allowed to remain

and the great insect choir
of quivering magic-sounds
is forever silenced

I cannot imagine how the field
is feeling

but I
am forlorn

Cotton from my lost field

For love of Narnia

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

Discovering people who love Narnia is the closest thing there is to actually waking up and discovering you’re in Narnia. From the time I was ten I felt the same longing of those fictional English schoolchildren who found their way in though several different portals between that magical world and this one, that constant desire to return, to see Aslan again…

So when my children were born, I set about imparting a love of Narnia (and books) in their hearts.

My oldest loves books to this day. Narnia, however, never seemed to hold the same Deeper Magic for him that it does for me.`

Until recently.

He began reading the series to his five-year-old daughter last year and Narnia pulled him in. All the way in.

That is what Narnia does.

He would text me at different points on his adventure, the same adventures I’ve had over and over all my life. The snow. The lamppost. The thaw. Talking Beasts. Dr. Cornelius. Bree the Horse. Boarding the Dawn Treader. Meeting Reepicheep. The royal line of kings. Falling in love with Aslan, over and over and over again…

At the beginning of The Last Battle, this text: It’s heartbreaking.

Later: I got to the part where Cair Paravel has fallen and Tirian says Narnia is no more…am weeping…

Later still: Just finished The Last Battle. It broke me.

I learned from my little granddaughter, who whispered in my ear: “He cried so much that I told Mama we should be really nice to him. His eyes were all red.”

My boy, my boy. Once Narnia gets a hold of you, it never lets go. It’s in your blood, forever and ever.

Trust me.

It is but the beginning.

For Christmas he gave me this necklace with Lucy and Mr. Tumnus
in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Relationships are the fabric

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

In my planner for February is this quote:

Relationships are the fabric of our lives. They should be treasured every day, but sometimes we get caught up in the stresses of life and forget to express gratitude to those we love most. How can you show more appreciation and kindness this month?

This notion of relationships as fabric captivates me. Fabric is made of woven or knitted fiber. Some fabrics are delicate. Some are strong. Fabric can tear. I remember a skirt I bought as a teenager when I started making some steady money of my own. High-waisted, flared, houndstooth, almost ankle length. Tons of fabric. It hung in rippling folds, fabulous in its 1980s way. I adored it. I was wearing the skirt, and hadn’t had it long, on the day I knelt in the floor to pick something up and inadvertently stepped on it with my high heel, which tore right through the fabric when I stood up…rrriiiiiip.

A six-inch tear in the lovely houndstooth, to my horror. I might have cried (I cannot recall) but I wasn’t ready to pitch the glorious skirt.

I brought it to my mother.

She was a seamstress who worked for a major department store. She tailored men’s suits, fitted bridal gowns (“these girls want the dresses completely remade”), and took in sewing at home. Many a night she spread fabric across the kitchen table, pinned patterns, marked and cut the cloth with sharp scissors, a rhythmic snip-snip-snip. She made several stuffed animals, like mice and precious long-eared bunnies with a wardrobe of changeable clothes. Her work was stellar; everyone said so…

“Mom, can you fix this?”

I handed her my voluminous, mutilated skirt.

She considered the rip, held it closed with her fingers, puffed on the cigarette clamped in her lips.

“I can try.”

She fixed it. Not like I’d imagined. The stitching was bulky and obvious. “I had to go over it more than once,” she explained. It looked as big as a train track to me. Like the garish stitching on the Frankenstein monster’s brow.

I loved that skirt. I’d paid too much money for it to just throw it away. Maybe I was expecting magic…

I wore it anyway, hoping the long folds in the natural draping of all that fabric would hide the ugly scar. Most people never noticed, but I knew it was there.

Relationships are the fabric of our lives.

Fabric can tear. It can be mended, but it won’t be exactly as it was before the ripping.

So it is with relationships. We wear the scars in hidden places. How much could be avoided by careful attention and mindfulness in the first place…especially if we value a relationship…

Sometimes we get caught up in the stresses of life and forget to express gratitude to those we love most. Show more appreciation and kindness…

This goes a long way in preventing the ripping, the unraveling.

In every relationship, great or small.

The thing about relationships:
they never really end. They are
with us, always within us, inextricable as the
silkworm’s thread to silk fabric,
forming the infinite intricacies of our
days, our stories, our lives.

Photo: A Symbiotic Relationship. Fouquier ॐ. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

*******

with thanks to the Slice of Life community at Two Writing Teachers
and the relationships forged by sharing our stories

Bookends of winter days

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

Winter mornings
dawn in gray monochrome
before the sun bursts on the scene
like a passionate artist
with its gilded palette

Driving to work
in this gray in-betweenness
I note the doves
always sitting on the power lines
like heralds
their plump bodies
of soft sandy colors
framed by the oyster sky

reminding me:
look for the peace this day
live as peacefully as possible
this day

Then, in the strange way
of life
as I drive home
weary and worn
the golden part of the day
nearly spent
what should I see
on other power lines?

Hawks
big and breathtaking
still as statues
painted in shades of rust

They might remind some people
of raw bloodthirstiness
or predatory fierceness
but their beauty
fills me with such awe
that it’s all I can do
to keep my eyes on the road
driving home

as I think about how my winter days
are bookended by birds
and how there’s something
inherently sacred
and profoundly satisfying
in that.


Dove. Jim, the Photographer. CC BY 2.0

Red-Shouldered Hawk. goingslo. CC BY 2.0

(One of these days, when I can stop the car safely, I am going to get my own photos of my hawks…)

*******
with thanks to Ruth at SOS-Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog
for today’s inspiration to write:
“You are invited to linger in your winter memories, reach deep and pick a golden moment to share.”

Putting on awe

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

Funny how I ordered “awe”
and when it finally came and I put it on,
that very night
I dreamed

of finding my grandparents’ old car
the ’64 Ford Galaxie 500.
It was restored
shining, fire engine red, beautiful
and I drove it home

(of course I’d just been
writing poems about this car, so…)

but in this same dream
on the night I first wore “awe”
I left the Galaxie in the parking lot
and the light turned gray
like it does right before dawn
and I heard one lone cicada rattle
one of my favorite sounds in all the world
again connected to my grandparents
and summers at their country home
except in the dream, I knew it was January
and it is a miracle, isn’t it,
to hear a cicada in winter…

don’t ask how I ended up in the backyard
-this part of the dream is erased, alas-
but I found myself standing in the grayness,
facing the woods,
watching a bright red cardinal
feeding in the grass
maybe because I’d actually seen one doing that
earlier in the day
of course, this was Grandma’s favorite bird

-I am sensing a theme-

then, then, a little bird was flying
zigzagging overhead
so I called to it,
held out my hand,
and it LANDED THERE,
right in my outstretched palm.
I could feel its tiny feet,
its tiny beating heart…
I spoke to it, and it flew off…
but I was not sad,
just amazed
and filled with joy

all this I dreamed,
the very I night
the awe I ordered arrived
and I put it on.

Sunday is a stillness

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

Sunday is a stillness
in my week
not restful
for a pastor’s family
but restorative
and right
the church standing tall
like a father
doors like open arms
welcoming the penitent child
wrapping me
in belonging

Sunday is a stillness
in my spirit
ever how fierce or frayed
ever how dismayed
like a calming infusion
like a healing balm
the stillness seeps
so deep, so deep
for in all the unholiness
the holy remains

Sunday is a stillness
in my life
for the living
for the forgiving
for the remembering
for the mattering
for my walking in the footsteps
of those who walked before me
in the rhythms of grace
singing old songs of belief
through all our yesterdays
until our eternal Sunday
comes at last.

A game played long ago

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

This morning I woke to the sounds of wind gusts and snowflakes striking the window…brought back the memory of my oldest boy and a game we played long ago. A pantoum:

A game played long ago:
Little boy crawling into bed, whispering
“The North Wind will blow,
we will have snow!”

Little boy crawling into bed, whispering
“It’s so cold—I can’t get warm.
We will have snow!
Let me sleep here in your arms.”

“It’s so cold—I can’t get warm.
Until I am grown and gone,
let me sleep here in your arms”
—the memory of these moments!

Until I am dead and gone
the North Wind will blow
the memory of these moments,
a game played long ago.