On Poetry

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.

XIII and XIX

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

One recent early morning, I sat down at the kitchen table to write some poetry just as my husband turned on the TV. I caught the word cicadas.

I abandoned my laptop to come watch the segment:

“2024 is going to be a banner year,” announced the newscaster, “a rare co-emergence of two periodical cicadas: a seventeen-year brood and a thirteen-year brood…

A chart appeared on the screen:

Brood XIIIBrood XIX
Emerges every seventeen yearsEmerges every thirteen years

“They make the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard,” said a second newscaster.

“Said no one ever,” joked the first.

The whole news crew burst into laughter.

“But it IS a beautiful sound!” I said to their guffawing faces.

I know the sound is a harsh rattle. Loud. Discordant. Metallic. Strange.

I don’t expect everyone to like it.

I’ve loved it since I was a child.

I wasn’t aware I loved it when I spent brutally hot summers deep in the country with my grandparents, where an old dirt road and a ditch were all that kept their yard from being swallowed up by a towering deciduous forest. From those dense, mysterious depths emanated a deafening buzz, hundreds upon hundreds of cicada-songs swelling and subsiding in synchronized rhythms, the background music of my happiest childhood days.

Time passed. As my grandparents grew older and my visits rarer, I’d realize the meaning of the rhapsody. Cicadas play love songs with all their might. They know their time is short.

At nineteen I was hospitalized with a high fever. My father and mother both accompanied me, clearly concerned about my condition. They sat by my bedside while I lay shivering under layers of blankets, too tired to talk, to move, to care about anything. Afternoon melted into night. It was winter. The heater in the room kicked on with a buzz so like the cicada chorus of my childhood summers that my shivering eased almost instantly.

They’re calling me, I thought. The cicadas. They’re taking me to Granddaddy’s and Grandma’s, and I’ll be safe there.

This flooded with incomparable comfort and indescribable joy.

Then… if I’m dying, it’s okay, as long as there are cicadas.

And I fell asleep.

When I woke in the morning, my fever had broken.

I didn’t know, at nineteen, that cicadas are a symbol of resurrection and immortality. I didn’t know the many legends and lore surrounding the insects, such as the myth of Aurora, goddess of the dawn, doomed to fall in love with a mortal who inevitably grew old. She obtained immortality for him without thinking to secure eternal youth. Soon there was hardly anything left of him but his voice, continually singing his lamentation and love, so she finally turned him into a cicada.

Note: Aurora is the name of my grandparents’ hometown, where I spent those childhood summers steeped in cicada song.

Back to the present…

After that news segment, I had to do a little research.

Scientists say that these perodical broods, XIII and XIX, haven’t coincided since 1803 and won’t do so again until the year 2245.

They’re calling this a “cicadapocalypse” of maybe a trillion bugs…but not all in the same place (in case you’re thinking biblical plague). One’s called the Northern Illinois Brood (XIII) and the other, the Great Southern Brood (XIX). If my calculations are right, this brood appeared the summer that followed my sickness at nineteen (same as the brood numeral). I got married that August, when they would have been in full throttle. The time before that, I’d have been seven and hearing them at my grandparents’.

On the day the segment aired with newscasters poking fun at the sound, I happened to be taking part in an Open Write at Ethical ELA. Host Leilya Pitre introduced the Naani poem form, which orginated in India: four lines consisting of 20-25 syllables total. The poem isn’t restricted by theme, subject, or metric pattern. Leilya challenged participants to scroll through social media or the news to find four phrases to make a Naani.

My lines had just been delivered to me, before I even read the prompt.

Once again, the Magicicada were at work in the background rhythms of my life.

From This Morning’s Newcast

Brace yourself:
the cicadas are coming…
the most beautiful sound
I’ve ever heard.

—I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait for cicadapocalypse.

Cicada vunerable after metamorphose. Joi. CC BY 2.0

‘Saint Francis with cicada’ – modern bronze statue by Fiorenzo Bacci – Friary of Santa Maria degli Angeli at Assisi. Carlo Raso.

Legend has it that Saint Francis heard a cicada chirping in in a fig tree and called it to him, saying “Sing, my sister cicada, and praise the Lord thy Creator,” and it obeyed, sitting on his hand.

*******

Composed for Day 3 of the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers.
Q: What’s YOUR favorite insect? Why?

February elfchen poem

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

Today on Ethical ELA’s Open Write, my friend Margaret Simon invites fellow teacher-poets to compose elfchen, also known as “elevenies,” poems of eleven words. Margaret says that the basic elfchen rules can be found on Wikipedia; she shares these guidelines:

Line 1: One word
Line 2: Two words about what the word does.
Line 3: Location or place-based description in 3 words.
Line 4: Metaphor or deeper meaning in 4 words.
Line 5: A new word that somehow summarizes or transforms from the original word.

This is a first for me, never having attempted an elevenie before. Although I love forms with word and syllable counts, the seemingly-simple, enchanting elfchen proved deceptively difficult!

February Elfchen Chain

February
gray desolation
brightened by bluebirds
and sudden pink blossoms
overcoming

winter
gusting winds
squeak naked branches
against each other, awakening
desire

greenness
seeps imperceptibly
to the edges
Nature revels in pre-season
preparation

One of my bluebirds, February 10, 2024.

Fallow

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments

Halfway between work and home
I noticed the field.
How could I not, such vibrant green
popping against the panorama
of brown grass and tired trees
giving way to winter.

I needed this shot
of unexpected freshness
after these first days back
to full-time work
with my husband at home
in the middle of a slow recovery
from spinal surgery.

The waning afternoon light
slants gold across the green
and there, there,
clear as day, two deer
graze, gilt-edged
and peaceful
and perfect

as if it isn’t hunting season
as if carcasses of their kindred
aren’t lying mangled by the roadside
within their view
as if the long in-betweenness of
hours and days and seasons
and breaths
is no consequence

as if all that matters
is this field left fallow

for their sustenance

and now
mine.

NS-01036 – Whitetail Deer. archer10 (Dennis) CC BY-SA 2.0

Whitetail Deer.TexasEagle. CC BY-NC 2.0

Screenshot

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

Usually it’s the sound of cicadas that stirs my soul, their rattling courtship-chorus reaching a feverish crescendo in late August. Summer hits its brutal zenith just before it begins to die. Interesting how August means to increase.

On the last Sunday of August, it’s not the sound of cicadas which captivates me.

It’s the sight of one clinging to the screen in the kitchen window, early in the morning.

So still that I wonder if it’s dead.

I am tempted to go out and see, but I don’t. Let it be. If it’s dead, it will still be there after church and I’ll save its body to show the granddaughters. Cicadas are big insects that evoke terror in many people; I do not want the girls to fear them. The antidote to fear is understanding. Study. Fear not. Maybe even learn to love.

I take a photo instead.

It is a dark morning, like the one in the sermon text for this day, Mark 1:35: Jesus rises “very early in the morning, while it was still dark” to find a desolate place to pray. He’d spent the previous day healing the sick, including Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, and driving out demons.

When I return home, the cicada is gone.

Not dead.

All I have is this snapshot of it resting alone in a quiet place on the grid, with the crape myrtle by the old dog’s grave blooming in the background.

I could write an entire book, perhaps, on the symbolism and metaphor here.

I settle for a poem.

Clinging to the grid
In respite from work
Crape myrtle abloom
August’s crescendo is the last
Defying death in the wings
As love drives resurrection

The cicada and crape myrtle are symbols of life, longevity, immortality, and resurrection.
Summer is dying, but only for now.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge

If you build it…

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments

The Birdbath

We built it, we three
my sweet granddaughters and me
fountain birdbath, see

spray sparkling in sun
although birds have yet to come
awe, already won

My little bird-girl Micah, 20 months

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge

Home poem

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

For today’s Open Write on Ethical ELA, participants are invited to write poems about “places we call home”.

Nothing pulls on the heart like home… I can almost hear the Beatles’ song “In My Life” playing in the background: “There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed…” The memory of these places, and the spirit of them, really are the theme song of our lives.

Of all the places I remember and could write about…have written about…I choose my home now. I have lived here the longest. I became a grandmother here. I have learned a lot more about savoring here. Usually I try to make my poem title do more work, but today, no other will do. 

Home

In the first moments
of pale-pink light
the big brown rabbit
comes from the woods
to nibble away
at the clover

in the ever-thickening branches
of the crape myrtle
my husband and planted
years ago
I can spot hummingbirds
hiding among the leaves
always alone
never together 

they dart, one by one
to the kitchen-window feeder

silvery-green females
perfect, pure
ethereal as fairies

a male, ruby fire at his throat
(brighter than the cardinal-flame
landing over on the fence)
impossible greens and turquoise 
shimmering on his back

unaware of his utter tininess
he sometimes perches
atop the feeder
as if to say I am King
of this Water-Mountain

a pair of doves feeds
on the ground by the tree line
then takes flight on pearly wings
vanishing in the pines and sweetgums
where their nest is secreted

robins, robins everywhere
just last week
a speckled fledgling on the back deck
both parents in the grass
chirping ground-control instructions

the mockingbird in the driveway
strutting and stretching his banded wings
as if he knows how legendary he is

a trill of finch-song from a nearby tree
so plaintive I fear my heart may burst

and the bluebirds
oh the bluebirds

if only I spoke green language
I would explain that I removed their house
from the back deck 
because it is about to be torn down

that I waited
until their unexpected second brood
flew out into the world

never imagining these parents
would return to the empty rail corner
a day or two later
clearly so puzzled
to find their house gone…

if I were the hermit wizard-woman
of this semi-enchanted nook
(as I sometimes pretend to be)
I would have known what to do

but my unmagical self did my best:
placing the birdhouse atop
the old wooden arbor
built by my oldest
when he was a boy

well away
from the impending deck destruction

and to my astonishment
the bluebirds have followed
their home

I do not yet know
if more eggs have been laid
in the house relocated
to the arbor

but as evening draws
and the pine-shadows fall
across the arbor
and the crape myrtle
and the big brown rabbit
back in the clover
and the old dog’s grave
and the old deck
about to be made new

I ponder
my length of time on this Earth
and the continuous carving-out
of home
how it goes on and on

a path forever unfolding before me
that I must follow

like the doe in the little clearing
across the road
pausing for one long moment
with her two fawns
before disappearing
in the leafy green

One fawn has already been ushered across

*******

with thanks to Ethical ELA and Two Writing Teachers
for the inviolable, invaluable writing spaces
and the inspiration

Fibonacci poem: Hey, Ancestors

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

On Day Two of July’s Open Write at Ethical ELA, host Mo Daly invites us to write a poem in Fibonacci sequence: six lines with syllables of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8.

The Fibonacci sequence appears over and over in nature, from shells to flowers to trees to our own DNA.

Maybe that’s what led to this double-reverse attempt…

Hey, Ancestors

composed after a trip
to the home place

Come
sit
a spell
on the porch.
I want to know you.
Tell me the stories of your life.
I don’t mind your being a ghost.
Just (if you please) try
not to rock
your chair
too
much.

Old rockers. Poor Ole Rich. CC BY-SA 2.0

Mask poem

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

The July Open Write on Ethical ELA begins today with host Mo Daley, who invites poets to “Consider the masks you or those around you might wear. Using a format of your choosing, write a poem about a mask or masks.”

My first thought in response, with masks being linked to ancient theatrical performances, was writing around Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…”

But then a little creature appeared in my head and ran the rest of it away.

Which may be for the best…

Mask Obscura

Raccoon was named
for the way it uses
its “hands”

rubbing and rinsing
its food
in water

not for the mask
forever typecasting Raccoon
as bandit-trickster
in human lore.

Unlike humans
these creatures know one another
by their individual masks

not donned as shields
or ritual
or protocol
or festivity
or theatrics
or deeds of darkness

but serving to
absorb light
in the night

to see

to survive.

Yet like humans
Raccoon covets shiny things

and can be trapped by them.

Hunters of yore
eventually learned
to cut holes in logs
to place a bit of tin inside
to hammer in nails
around the small circumference

knowing Raccoon
would be beguiled
would reach its hand inside
for the bright thing.

Once the fist is clenched
the creature will never let go
to set itself free…

in paradoxical symmetry
so does the creature
that named itself 
for its supreme intelligence.

Might it have been better named
for its own myriad masks
and motives, ever disguised?
Or for the hubris and folly
accounting for so much of its
own demise?

If only Raccoon
had the ability
to write,
there might be annals
of Ring-Tales
read aloud in the night
at a gathering deep in the forest
by crackling firelight:

To see or not to see*…
Lord, what ultimate Tricksters
these Homo sapiens be!
 
There in that circle, perhaps
with shivery spines
and whiskers a-tremble
they name us
not for our deeds or dominion
but for the way
we wash our hands.

—
*Note: The collective noun for raccoons is a gaze.

Procyon lotor (raccoon).jpg. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Procyon lotor is derived from Latin for “washer”

Of foxes, finches, and Franna

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

Today I celebrate language.

Let me begin with the fox.

Last Friday I arrived at a hotel ballroom for a breakfast buffet in honor of educators and volunteers who had read aloud to children throughout the year. We had concluded a program built on developing positive relationships and instilling a love for reading in the kids.

There at a table, greeting folks upon arrival, sat the fox.

The Poetry Fox, to be precise.

A guy in a furry fox suit, typing away on an old-timey typewriter.

Turns out that if you gave the Poetry Fox a word, he would type a poem for you on the spot.

I nearly forgot the breakfast altogether; I had to stand in line for a poem.

Two women in front of me gave him the words daughter and twins (who are leaving the nest to go to college). Within two or three minutes, Poetry Fox tapped out each poem, stamped his “official” seal on the pages, and read them their poems.

I can hardly describe the looks on these women’s faces. Radiant. Smiling, slightly open-mouthed. Eyes wide, misting. The air about them even seemed to glow…

My turn.

“It’s National Poetry Month,” I said to the Fox.

“Indeed!” he replied with glee.

“As I love reading and writing poetry… that is the word I give you. Poetry.”

“Wow, no one’s ever asked me to write about the word poetry before,” said Poetry Fox. “I get creativity and inspiration but not poetry…okay, let’s go!”

He rolled a sheet of paper in the old typewriter and pecked away.

Here’s the poem:

In a word: awe. It’s my life-word anyway… those last lines, especially.

all language
reveals itself
as poetry
the only language
that ever
means anything

The glow of this poem, and the wonder of the Poetry Fox whipping it out on the spot, stayed with me for the remainder of the day…to be honest, it hasn’t left yet.

Early the next morning I was still thinking about poetry being the only language that ever means anything when the sound of loud, melodic chirping echoed through the house. The finches nesting in my door wreath, feeding the hungry babies. In the beginning, before their eyes are open, the babies sense a presence and open their mouths in silent cries for food. They do not yet have voices. They do now. They chorus like tiny Oliver Twists: Food, glorious food! We’re anxious to try it…three banquets a day, our favourite diet! Except that they consume more than three banquets a day; Mama and Papa work hard to keep the babies fed.

I decided to chance a photo when the parents were out fetching… when I neared, speaking quietly so they could hear me coming, the babies fell silent at once. They do not know what I am, but they know I am not Mama or Papa with food and instinct tells them don’t make a sound.

I am happy to report that all are presently doing well (you can see all five baby beaks here):

The baby finches deepen my awe of language and poetry. They are language and poetry to me, with their musical chatter and even in the cessation of it. So tiny and new, but so infinitely wise.

Which brings me to my granddaughter, age eighteen months.

She came that afternoon to stay with my husband and me. We marvel at the new words she’s acquiring every single day, how she studies our faces for responses, how she mimics actions. She now says Grampa quite clearly, to my husband’s utter delight. I’ve tried and tried to get her to say Franna, but she only grins; is she teasing?

But on this afternoon, she stopped playing with her favorite musical toy to walk over to him where he sat in the recliner. Looking up at him, she patted his hand with her tiny one.

Grampa, she said. Grampa.

It was a holy moment. I don’t know how else to say it. She was naming him, claiming him. A sacred act. My eyes welled.

And before I knew it, she was standing before me where I sat on the couch, looking at up me with gleaming brown eyes.

She patted my hand.

Franna, she said.

Pure poetry.

The only language that ever means anything.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life writing share
and Lionel Bart for the song “Food, Glorious Food” in the Broadway musical Oliver!
and Poetry Fox
and the finches
and my beautiful Micah