in honor of the tenth month: an etheree is a poem of ten lines, ascending or descending from one to ten syllables
Soon
the scent
of woodsmoke
will spike the soul
against a backdrop
of iron-gray spattered
with bright orange, yellow, red
but for now, October whispers
sweet green nothings as if we can’t sense
her chill unlacing cloak about to fall
Alphonse Mucha – PagP50 Automne/Autumn, c.1903. Public domain.
the hurricane roars
yet the hummingbird adores
a furtive rest stop
A lovely dove-colored female hummer feeding during Hurricane Ian
If the writer
observes the world
then the artist
recreates it
and the poet
preserves it all
Knowing yesterday was a milestone anniversary of my father’s death, a friend created this digital image as a gift. She took lines from one of my blog posts, Fresh-cut grass, written in his memory: Grass, though cut, always heals itself and grows again, and you are always present in that sweet scent. She used pictures in my posts to make the grass…here in these blades are slices of my first Christmas, the cross necklace my father gave me, a portion of his Air Force uniform, and a lamppost like the one that stood in the yard of my childhood home; my father used say that when he turned onto the street he could see the light of home shining straight ahead.
I’m in awe of the gift and its artistry.
A metaphor for life itself.
My father’s presence remains in the scent of fresh-cut grass. Here is Sunday’s poem, marking the twentieth year of his passing: September, When Grass Was Green.
*******
with thanks to E. Johnson for the digital masterpiece and to Two Writing Teachers for the original impetus to start a blog for capturing Slices of Life. I began by writing each Tuesday in April 2016, then every day each March, then for Spiritual Journeys on the first Thursday of each month, and on occasion for other writing communities like SOS— Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog…and every day thus far in the year 2022.
If you are reading…thank you.
We are our stories. Let us write them and live them well. And bring healing to one another.
September, When Grass Was Green
Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow…
(T. Jones/H. Schmidt, 1960)
I remember
our last conversation
in September
twenty years ago
you said you’d
been cutting the grass
and that maybe
you’d overdone it
going back and forth
with your mower
making a pretty pattern
—you thought your chest muscles
were sore from the turning
it worried me
—you were worried
about other things
but happy to be retiring
in two weeks
the thing about last things
is that you don’t know
they’re the last
I remember promising
to come celebrate your retirement
and how we spoke of you
having more time to spend with
your grandchildren
I remember getting the news
a week later
as soon as I walked in from shopping
with the retirement card I just bought
still in my hand
I remember that September day:
so glorious, cloudless
sky so blue it hurt
all the trees still green, sharp-edged,
clinging hard to the light
never again will September
be as bright
or kind
I remember coming home
for the last time
to speak at your funeral
to thank you,
my duty-minded, dedicated
father
twenty years
come this twenty-fifth day
of September
don’t you know
the grass is still oh so green
and Daddy, you are still
in the scent
of its cutting
Yesterday’s sunrise
with thanks to Susan Ahlbrand for the Do You Remember prompt with musical inspiration on Ethical ELA’s Open Write earlier this week. Susan remembered her own father’s passing with Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September”. I chose “Try To Remember” as a frame instead. The song predates me; I recall hearing it on my father’s radio when I was very small.
I still have the retirement card I bought for my father on the day that he died, with three workdays left to go. The card mentions that it’s a great time to be alive.
Twenty years, and that remains the great dichotomy of late September.
Evening settles early
streetlights flicker
air stands still, breathless,
expectant…
finger to her lips,
Autumn enters
trailing her twilight-sky kimono
in the fluttering, silhouettes
a skittering of little dark birds
or maybe
bats
My dear hummingbirds:
I just refilled your feeders.
In case you’re still here.
Summer ends today.
Right on cue, without fanfare
you have gone away.
with thanks to Susan Ahlbrand for the invitation to write a “this but not that” poem based on an abstract noun over at Ethical ELA’s Open Write today
Memory is a blanket
of new-falling snow
over barren ground
where nothing would grow
Memory is not static
it is ever-changing
reinventing itself day by day
ever so slightly
around the edges
Memory is sparks
crackling and popping
from the inner fire
in the grate
Memory is not reliable—
it goes its own way,
its own consummation
and consumption,
ashes stirred to life
rolling in the breeze
Memory is a river
life-giving, sustaining, sacred
flowing free until obstructed
necessary and nourishing
yet potential danger for drowning
—you cannot live there, submerged
Memory is not tomorrow
or yesterday
Memory is now
Memory is not a book,
a record carefully preserved
Memory is written in disappearing ink
with thanks to Wendy Everard for the Open Write invitation today on Ethical ELA. A traditional sestina has six stanzas and a three-line envoi; the initial six ending words rotate through remaining stanzas in a prescribed order. Today’s process begins with brainstorming six words. For a semi-sestina, one can alter stanzas and lines, exercising creative freedom…
Here are my six words and opening stanza at present. It will take some time to see where they lead…
fabric
scissors
fall
damage
pieces
pattern
Childhood Memory
She spreads the pattern across the fabric
placing the pins. Wielding her sharpest scissors,
she cuts along the grain. The scraps fall
to the floor, haphazard collateral damage.
She will not save the pieces
or remember their wholeness, before her pattern.
Cobbler cutting fabric with scissors. Ivan Radic. CC BY 2.0.
with thanks to Denise Krebs for encouraging “multiple languaged” poems for today’s Ethical ELA Open Write and NCpedia for shedding a little more light on name origins…
In the Place of the Sweet Trees
Long ago, the first People knew the river.
They named it for the trees growing there
where spice-bark and great white flowers
perfume the air.
In this place of the sweet trees
along the riverbank
a vine began to grow.
It bore fruit in the shape
of spheres
of the Earth itself
as yet unknown.
Thick-hulled green-gold
pearls of the vine
that the People named
for the blackwater river
in the place of the askupo,
those heavy, fragrant trees
rooted in swampy soil.
The People, standing in the cool shadows
of the sweet trees by the river,
tasted the askuponong,
the scuppernong,
and understood
the Divine.
lit bits and pieces 