On Music

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…

*******

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

Moments

/ Fran Haley / 27 Comments

Lines of an old hymn often play in my head:

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me…

I hear it while I get ready for work each morning, where, of late, there’s a heavy atmosphere of uncertainty and despair.

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me…

I hear it while having to drive through town instead of the scenic route by the pond, where the great blue heron lives, because a bridge is out, I’m told, for maybe a year or more (how can this be?).

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me…

I hear it while noticing and grieving dead animals by the roadside… beaver, groundhog, opossum, squirrel, cottontail rabbit, white-tail deer, dog, cat; a hawk that flew too low at the wrong time, its wide pale wing, patterned in distinctive dark-brown bars, angled up and over its body like a shroud; and so many skunks, their beautiful black-and-white fur rippling in the wind…sluggish from hibernation, they wandered into the road, never to wake again.

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me…

I hear it when I’m running late and traffic in the heart of town is backed up to an absurd degree (of course), making me turn off the main road for a side road, to save a few minutes…

That’s when I see the mural:


An ethereal moment calls for an etheree…

Breathe
deeply.
The moments
are soon passing
from you and from me…
let’s use them, not lose them
for every precious minute
sings unwritten song within it.
Breathe, and appreciate the moment.
Each, in itself, a sign of the divine.

Funny thing…I see the “Breathe” message on a most difficult morning; on the drive home that afternoon, just past the mural, a great blue heron passes overhead, strangely low and close. I have never seen one here before. It looks otherworldly, ancient, sailing along serenely, impossibly, with barely a beat of its wings.

great blue heron glides
on slow wingbeats of wisdom
breathing the moment

Great Blue Heron in Flight – (Ardea herodias). Milazzoyo. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

*******

Composed for Day 14 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Wedding music

/ Fran Haley / 19 Comments

Do you remember
riding around in my car
singing gospel songs

the old ones you loved
since you were a little kid?
Folks always told me

you have an old soul.
I said you were seventy
the day you were born.

Yet you’re still so young.
I wouldn’t trade anything
for hearing your voice

singing harmony
on those beautiful faith-songs
my own Granddaddy

would have known and loved.
Here’s another thing I want
you to remember:

I am forever
proud of your talent, your heart
for other people

your service to God
and the comfort you’re giving
to those suffering

their greatest losses.
You are a gift to us all.
And now, a blessing

comes to you straight from
Heaven, another of my
prayers answered.

I worried that you
wouldn’t meet anyone while
working funerals.

Me of little faith.
Never expected a girl
driving the hearse to

the crematory
would find you there and begin
a new life story.

As the families make
preparations for your day
I can’t help hearing

your voice echoing
from long ago when we rode
in my car, singing

that old-time song called
“Wedding Music” and you said
“Mom, this harmony

is so beautiful.”
It’s what I pray for you now
my beloved son

and your bride-to-be:
beautiful harmony for
your life together.

My son and his bride-to-be. Photo: Kailey B. Photography

The referenced song my musican son loves:

*******
Composed for Day 4 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers.

Tip: Try writing a story-poem in haiku syllables.

Today I dance: Spiritual Journey

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

with thanks to my Spiritual Journey writer-friends who gather on the first Thursday of each month, and to Chris Margocs for leading today with the theme of “Shall we dance?”

Today my heart dances. Even as I write these words, I am preparing to attend a chapel service in which my firstborn will be honored. He completed a Master of Divinity degree last December and the seminary faculty selects one graduate for the Pastoral Leadership award. My son was chosen.

Today, with the Spiritual Journey theme of Shall we dance, I recall Miriam, the sister of Moses. In Exodus 15:20-21 she led the women in a victory dance, echoing her brother’s song of praise to God for salvation from Pharaoh’s army in the miraculous parting of the Red Sea:

I will sing unto the Lord, for he has
triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider he has
thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
(Exodus 15:1-2)

Today I think about the journey my husband and I have made. We’d been married less than two years when we rededicated our lives to God and my husband became a pastor. I was twenty-two; he was twenty-five. So much story to tell…all these years later, I stand in awe of the sustaining hand of God and His wondrous provision, grace, and mercy.

Our son named his firstborn daughter Micah, which means Who is like God? Answer: No one. And our little Micah, age eighteen months, loves nothing better than music and dancing. Except maybe food…

Today is a day of victory and praise for all that God has done, and continues to do, in the life of my family.

Today I dance…

I offer it in the form of a pantoum.

Dance, dance, dance!
Who is like God?
No one. No one.
He is beside you, behind you, before you.

Who is like God?
In the giving and forgiving
He is beside you, behind you, before you.
None of the sacrifices

in the giving and forgiving
of all your beloveds
—none of the sacrifices
can do for you what God has done.

Of all your beloveds
no one, no one
can do for you what God has done—
dance, dance, dance!

/

I remember these

/ Fran Haley / 17 Comments

I just so happened to see it there in the store window next to the Chinese fast-food restaurant where my colleague and I were picking up lunch:

A big, round, tan-and-brown can of Charles Chips.

“Look at that! I haven’t seen those in years!” I shouted, to my colleague’s amusement.

These tins were delivered by truck to our house when I was a kid, if I recall correctly. Like Dy-Dee Diaper service…only not taking something horrifically pungent away (I remember that, too, up until I was about four; I had a sister two years younger).

Instantly I was thrown back to the 1970s, beginning with this scene:

The sewing room that is supposed to be a dining room. Mama’s Singer sewing machine, threads, pins, patterns galore. The ironing board. Daddy’s shoeshine box and bench in the corner. The distinct scent of Kiwi shoe polish in hanging in this space…the Charles Chip can, long missing its lid, heaped to the brim with socks that had lost their mates. Mama calls it the sock box. How are there so many? The washer (that lasted over twenty-five years) ate them, maybe? Mama tries to keep socks matched by sewing a knot of thread in the toe tips, a different color for each pair… me, age seven, on the day of my baptism, walking down the baptistry steps into the surprisingly warm water, looking down at my white-socked feet, seeing the coordinating navy-blue knots…

All this, triggered by mere sight of a Charles Chip can after so many years.

I was there.

The Statler Brothers had a nostalgic song about things they remembered from their youth, entitled “Do You Remember These?”

Here’s what the Charles Chips started dredging up for me…see if any of you remember these, from the late 1960s to early ’70s:

The Archies cartoon (and the song “Sugar Sugar”)
Penelope Pitstop cartoon
Josie and the Pussycats cartoon
Rocky and Bullwinkle
The Flintstones
The Jetsons
H. R. Pufnstuf show
The Banana Splits show
The Munsters
The Addams Family (our family friends had a black lab named Thing)
The Wonderful World of Disney, Sunday nights
Wild Kingdom
Family Affair and Mrs. Beasley dolls
Easy-Bake ovens
The Wizard of Oz on TV once a year
Paper dolls, such as “Mod Maude”
Squirmles, the Magical Pet (a furry worm that “moved”)
Silly Putty for placing & peeling on the Sunday comics – so fun
The Pink Panther Show
The Partridge Family (how is it I can still sing every song?)
Donny and Marie
The Monkees
sea monkeys
bellbottoms
pet rocks
mood rings
tetherball
jacks
macrame
decoupage
Tupperware parties
Beeline parties
Avon ladies calling
Choco’Lite candy bars
Count Chocula cereal (back in stores now at Halloween!)
upper elementary girls wearing wigs to school
shag haircuts
The Brady Bunch
Gilligan’s Island
Viewmasters and reels
Spirograph art
Romper Stompers
Hippity Hop (ball with handle, for sitting on and bouncing wherever you wanted to go)
Super Elastic Bubble Plastic
rabbits’ feet (I am so, so sorry now, dear Rabbits)
Popeye
Looney Tunes
Star Trek
Lassie

and last but not least
Sonny and Cher

…these are just the first ripples in my memory. There’s a story surrounding each. There are more memories just below the surface, waiting to be stirred… so many, many more.

Funny, crazy, wondrous, strange, sweet slices of life. So long ago.

Seems fitting to end with this song (imagine me singing it with gusto around age five).

*******

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

Lullaby

/ Fran Haley / Leave a comment

Once upon a time
when baby had trouble
going to sleep
we played
soothing songs
on our phones
until she drifted off

and baby grew
(that is what babies do)
so that now
when we put baby down
to sleep
she cries for a minute
and then
she sings
and sings
to her own little self
without any words
a sound purer
than songs of birds

(know that I am outside your door
beloved baby
tears in my eyes
listening
listening
to your own angelic
lullaby)

Someone’s getting sleepy…

Round yon December

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

a triolet for my grandmother

Come December, I’m remembering you
in the lights and silent night
—how years, like snow and feathers, flew—
Come December, I’m remembering you
at sight of ruby-red cardinals, too.
On the wings of the morning, all is bright…
come December, I’m remembering you
in the lights and silent night.

December is my grandmother’s month. She was born the day after Christmas, was married in the middle of the month at age 20, and died the day before Christmas Eve, at 90. She loved the season, children, cardinals, and the color red, symbolic of her name: Ruby. “Silent Night” was her favorite carol; whenever I hear it, she is near. Her home place and resting place are in the outskirts of a rural town named for the dawn… “on the wings of the morning” is borrowed from my favorite Psalm, 139, a hymn to the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God.

The cardinal ornament in the photo was a gift from a friend yesterday. I hung it on the tree last night after choir practice with the kids at church. They’re singing “Silent Night” in the worship service on Sunday.

Grandma, you would love it all.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Blithe memory

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

My grandmother loved music
all of her life.
She wanted me to love it, too.
And so she took me to
Murphy’s Mart
(if memory is correct)
to buy a child’s chord organ.
I looked at the pretty blue instrument
and chose a doll instead.
Grandma couldn’t understand.
But you love playing my organ…
don’t you want one of your own?
At the time I didn’t have words to say
I love music but it isn’t my destiny.

The doll, called Blythe,
had eyes that changed color
when I pulled a string:
blue
green
pink
orange.
I picked her instead
of the music.

Grandma, dismayed,
bought her anyway.
It was only the beginning
of my fascination
with seeing the world
through lenses
of many colors.

Maybe it was then
that a writer
instead of a musician
was born.

Neo Blythe ‘Bohemian Peace. MissBlythe. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

I have learned, in researching my Blythe doll, that Kenner only made them for a year (1972) in the U.S. A Japanese company bought them out. An original Blythe doll is now worth a couple of thousand dollars. I don’t know what became of mine, unfortunately. My grandmother’s own glossy-wood Roxy chord organ from the 60’s, however, stands in my foyer. In the end, it’s infinitely more priceless to me.

See another good example of Blythe at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=897056547546831.