Fran Haley

Hark: the hawk

/ Fran Haley / 31 Comments

haiku for the king of our backyard sky:

from on high: the cry
this kingdom is mine mine mine
hear ye, hear ye, all

Our resident red-shouldered hawk was staking its territorial claim on Monday morning. If you look closely at the large tree branches in the center of the video frame, you will find it perched above the “play” arrow. The cry starts at 14-15 seconds in.

I think of hawk symbolism. I will include it below, because it’s fascinating, especially since I am sharing this with a community of writers taking on a daily challenge; I marvel at how much seems especially applicable. I will say that for me the hawk’s wild cry evokes something within that I cannot quite name. A longing, I think. Maybe to rise above the world with clearer vision. Maybe to have been an ancient warrior along green woodland paths, following the king’s bird. Maybe to respond, living thing to living thing, in natural communion as apparently existed before Genesis 9, when animals began to fear people. And, I daresay, likewise. Loss unimaginable.

As I wrote in yesterday’s post: I watch birds and am awed by the way they know and “read” so much. Instinct, you say. Well, of course. And extraordinary intelligence, I must add.

Here’s what artificial intelligence has to offer on red-shouldered hawk symbolism (do a search; this comes up with links):

The red-shouldered hawk can symbolize a variety of things, including guidance, strength, and the ability to see the bigger picture.

Guidance

  • A red-shouldered hawk can be a messenger from the universe, bringing support and insight 
  • It can be a sign that you should trust yourself and your inner wisdom 
  • It can be a reminder to explore the unknown and take risks to reach your goals 

Strength 

  • Hawks can represent strength, focus, and poise
  • They can show you your hidden abilities to lead yourself and others

Seeing the bigger picture

  • Hawks can help you see the bigger picture and avoid getting caught up in small details 
  • They can help you elevate your perspective and activate your inner sight 

Connection to the spirit realm 

  • A red-shouldered hawk can signify a powerful connection to the spirit realm

Vision 

  • The Cherokee believed that red-shouldered hawks are messengers of vision
  • They believed that when you see a red-shouldered hawk, whatever you were thinking about at the time is happening around you

Across cultures, hawks have been used to convey teachings and wisdom.

—There you have it, writer-friends. Hearken unto the calling.

Meanwhile, I know that as I stand watching this magnificent bird, it is watching me, with considerably less awe. I am simply on its turf.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge.
This is my ninth year participating alongside fellow teacher-writers.

Three objects

/ Fran Haley / 23 Comments

Today’s WordPress prompt:

What are three objects you couldn’t live without?

Okay, so…I have troubles with this kind of prompt because I want to ask: Does this mean everyday stuff like my phone (!) or Ticonderoga Noir Black Wood-Cased #2 Holographic pencils (the only kind I use, my students absolutely covet them, and they have to be SHARP, as I can’t bear a dull pencil, so I guess that means I can’t live without a pencil sharpener, either) or coffee or my favorite coffee mugs or my emerald green floor-length plush hooded robe or good bedroom slippers? Clearly I cannot say my granddaughters and dogs, as they are not “objects,” but I can’t live without them, for sure…although I do not have a dog at present, so I guess I am, in fact, living without one, just with a profoundly deep and raw dog-sized hole in my soul…note to those of you who remember Dennis the dachshund: He’s fine. My youngest took him when he got married last fall. Happy for my boy, but…oh, every single day, I miss that dog. Not that I don’t miss my boy. It’s different. Just saying.

And (I should have mentioned this first) there’s my study Bible, which weighs about 20 pounds, full of notes and highlighting, plus a new notebook where I am pouring out my thoughts in response to Bible reading each day, thoughts which are written as tiny as I can make them (with my SHARP pencil) and still I run out of room to record them all…words spilling all around the margins…

So. Where does this leave me with naming “three objects I can’t live without”? So easy for characters in fantasy stories and fairy tales. The “Rule of Three.” Harry Potter: The Elder Wand, the Cloak of Invisibility, the Resurrection Stone. Three Bears: Bowls of porridge, chairs, beds.

What about essentials? Food, water, shelter…sounds like an unimaginative student response, right? These are givens. These defeat the purpose of the prompt.

All right. Enough mind-racing. Here goes.

I cannot live without:

My phone. First and foremost, for the connection to my children, then for the Internet because of my insatiable curiosity, and even for the Bible, as I can access the same study version as my printed 20-pounder, plus a wealth of cross-references, commentaries, and the meanings of words in the original languages. I can access pretty much anything I want to read on my phone, although I still love actual books best. If I have to choose just three objects I can’t live without, my phone is a pretty high-yield choice. Not to mention the camera (again, granddaughters) or the Notes app. Priceless for my compulsive list-making. I wanted to say I can’t live without my laptop, as it’s hard to do much “real” writing on my phone…but between the two, the phone wins out. And, if you hadn’t already: Please note the absence of the words “social media.”

My glasses. Not a fun choice but it’s the truth. My eyes are getting so much worse, y’all. Just got a new prescription and need to pick out frames in the next couple of days. As in ASAP. Not being able to read is a personal and professional complication of epic proportions…not being able to see is generally an isssue for ordinary daily life (-what truck? Oh-)…not to mention negating choice #1, my phone. You really do not want to know how big a font I am using to type this right now.

Birds. Is it cheating to include living things here? I mean, I didn’t say “dogs” (gasp!) and birds ARE a thing, a noun, as is an object, defined as “a material thing that can be seen and touched,” for let’s face it, birds CAN be seen and touched. They will even sit on your finger. The real truth: I couldn’t live in a world without birds. There are tons of ecological reasons, of course, but for me it’s a matter of the spirit. I am awed by birds: the power of flight, the songs, the behaviors that are anything but random, their nest-making artistry, how they know so much and observe so much…birds have often been a balm to my world-weary, aching soul. In recent weeks, when I was particularly discouraged, I saw bald eagles. Several times. This is rare. I could hardly believe it. Could hardly breathe. And then I cried. But strength flooded my veins. Soon the hummingbirds will return, looking for their feeder; they will hover at the bay window, peering in, somewhat imperiously, until I put the feeder out. The house finches have returned to the front porch but they don’t like the wreath on the door; it’s not my usual grapevine, as my husband said to NOT let the birds nest there again. He’s tired of not using the porch all spring and summer while the precious, prolific finches raise several broods. But the current pair keeps coming to check things out. They want so badly, so very badly, to nest here. They see me peeking through the blinds and return my gaze in puzzlement: Where’s the good wreath?! We shall see what they do…meanwhile, the finch song is the purest, sweetest music I have ever heard. Almost otherwordly. Ethereal. Vibrant. So full of hope and joy. How can I not welcome it? How can I not do my bit to bring more finch-song ino the world?

There you have it, friends. My three objects.

Although I still need a dog.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge.
This is my ninth year participating alongside fellow teacher-writers.

The Heroes’ Hangout

/ Fran Haley / 27 Comments

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

That’s today’s WordPress prompt.

It’s beguiling, like the sword in the stone: Dare I grasp that jewel-encrusted hilt? Even if the sword should slide free of the rock (wonder of wonders!) will I have the strength to heft its ponderous weight, to actually use it? And to what purpose?

Here is what I believe: With every challenge comes opportunity; you cannot know the outcome until you seize it (ever how cold, heavy, terrifying the opportunity may be).

And so I put my hand to the hilt here with bits of a destiny story:

When I was a child, reading and writing were practically my life’s blood. Invaluable gifts for life’s journey. When the path took terrible turns through the darkest regions, strewn with loss…I could always read and write and pray my way through. Some encouraging soul, some sage, would also appear at every critical juncture to help guide me along, before I lost my way entirely.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be a pastor’s wife (nor, most certainly, did many of my young acquaintances and their parents). But here we are, my husband and I, thirty-eight years in the ministry, standing on the the cusp of our fortieth wedding anniversary, with two grown sons and two granddaughters who are the joy of our days.

I never expected to be a teacher. I quit college at twenty and didn’t go back to finish until after my youngest started school. The way was circuitous, full of obstacles…impossibilities…even loneliness and more than a little despair…until the sword called Opportunity appeared, glittering there in the gray stone of Challenge. I put my hand to it, finally graduating from college with a teaching degree when my oldest was taking his first semester college exams. Today I work with students in the very things I loved best as a child: reading and writing.

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I see the hand of God at work in all of it…that doesn’t discount destiny, now does it?

In this, my seventeenth year of teaching (a latecomer, oh yes, but it doesn’t matter, the story begins anew every day), another opportunity presented itself: Setting up a program and a space for volunteers to come and read books to students. The challenge: Where? Every space in the building was in use, except for a recessed area at the top of the stairs, where black-draped tables once housed student “artifacts”… with a little time, imagination, and the generosity of our PTA, this has become our Heroes’ Hangout:

In this space, children fall in love with books and stories. They laugh. They learn. They experience. They ask questions. They observe. They imagine. They are at the beginning of their own hero-stories.

For, after all, are not the ideas of fate, destiny, and hero inextricably intertwined?

I have had the opportunity to guide students with writing in this space. Here’s a cento poem (cento meaning “patchwork”) composed of completely borrowed lines, my favorites from poems my second-grade heroes have written:

I worry about me and heights
I cry over the iPad because Mom said no
I understand my dreams tease me
I see a fairy in the forest
I say mermaids are real
I wonder why people think Ohio is strange
I dream of going to Ohio
I try to be kind
I worry about animals dying
I hope all the endangered animals survive
I wonder if Dodo birds are still alive
I see a baby goat getting milk from its mother
I hope people never litter again
I understand that palm trees are not trees
I want ice cream for life
I try to be a better sister
I pretend I am brave and smart
I think Heroes’ Hangout is the best
I pretend I am the fastest thing alive
I worry I am going to lose my gravity
I touch Dog Man’s hat and it feels like victory
I hear my future.

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

You tell me.

I can just tell you that if you are looking for heroes…you will find children.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge. This is my ninth year participating alongside fellow teacher-writers, as a means of continually honing the craft.

Confession: For the first time in nine years, I’d decided to not take up the Challenge.
Writing every day doesn’t seem sustainable right now. And maybe it isn’t.

But this morning, without any kind of plan, I got up and did it anyway.
Opporunity is here. WordPress provided a prompt. I reached. I pulled.

Your hand is on the hilt, my friends. You can do this!

Turning the page

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

February is nearly gone.

I flip the page in my daily planner to find this image on the March tab:

I am still, in contemplation of the message.

First thought: The Bible verse that has repeatedly reverberated throughout my life, ever since a youth minister gave me a plaque that hung on my bedroom wall during my teenage years: Psalm 46:10, Be still and know that I am God. The rest of which reads: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

A reminder that I can see so little of the big picture of events, why they unfold the way they do, and that I must trust even as life’s story takes dark and twisting turns. Even so, there’s awe to be found. Always. I am not the author of life, not even my own. Someday it will end, as it does for us all. In the meantime…living well means finding this stillness every day. Tapping into the underlying currents of perspective and meaning…here’s where writing becomes an invaluable gift. Sometimes you can’t know what you think or feel until you begin to write.

Within that stillness eventually comes gratitude for the gift of life itself, imperfect as it is. To what or whom is this gratitude directed? For me: God. Whatever sadness, mourning, grief, anger, irritation, guilt, worry that gnaws at my soul, it is stilled to submission, releases its hold, even evaporates like smoke in the wind, in my awe of God. Another verse: Luke 1:37, Nothing is impossible with God.

I know it to be true. When I was a teenager, I could never have envisioned my life now. I was an unlikely candidate for a minister’s wife. Today, my sons serve as pastor and church musician.

Awe. Awe. Awe.

I contemplate the illustration on my planner page. Living things are woven into the words Be still. The upper flowers appear to be cosmos, the Greek meaning orderly, harmonious; the opposite of chaos. These flowers attract pollinators which perpetuate life (note the butterfly). The garden cosmos is often symbolic of knowledge, beauty, and happiness. Be still and know…

The bottom bloom might be Italian leather flower, a form of clematis. A plant app tells me it was the first climbing vine introduced into the garden of Queen Elizabeth I. It has come to represent wisdom, royalty, high aspirations. I look at this bloom, with its leathery-strong petals, and think of resilience. Pereverance. Endurance. Faithfulness. Reliance.

The flower in the center, the least noticeable, seems to be sweet pea. It stands for goodbyes. And thank yous.

This journey called Life is inevitably strewn with pain, with loss, with goodbyes; yet along the path, if we will remember to stop and be still, we can find the sprouts of gratitude. The good is blossoming despite all. In the stillness, maybe only in the stillness, we can breathe that fragrance deep, and be strengthened.

Just the reminder I needed.

*******

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

To Life and Lafo

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

A haiku story poem inspired by today’s prompt over at Ethical ELA, with thanks to Amber, our host.

The snow is too cold
and powdery for packing
but it’s the first time

in her three sweet years
we’ve had enough snow to try
making a snowman.

We scrape buckets full
as her little hands turn red.
She has no mittens.

I give her my own.
They’re far too big and floppy
but she doesn’t mind.

Face aglow with glee
she lugs the snow bucket to
her big sister who

creates a snow-heap.
Shifting, slippery, shapeless…
but we still love it

our tiny snow-mound.
Red and green Hershey’s Kisses
make a shiny smile.

Green olives for eyes.
A tiny tomato nose
(I’m out of carrots).

She proudly chooses
these facial features herself,
bringing her snowman

to life. I find twigs for arms
under the pines and Sister
crafts a tuft of hair

out of pine needles.
We name our snow-dwarf Lafo
(Olaf’s name scrambled).

Lafo has few days
as temperatures go back
to the seventies.

Traces of him stay
longer than I expected.
The Kisses fall off

and I salvage them
(as wild creatures shouldn’t eat
foil and chocolate).

Each day, the remains
of Lafo remind me of
my beloved girls

and that our time here
together is brief as snow.
Let us pack it well.

Our little Lafo

*******
with thanks also to the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life community

Today

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments

Today there is snow. After a recent local record of 1077 days without measurable snowfall.

Today I participated in a poetry group writing about aspirations for the future.

Today I had a hard time composing my thoughts, let alone my words.

Today I wondered if it is time to leave some writing communities I have loved and in which I’ve grown so much as a writer.

Today I took time to savor the holy hush in my backyard:

Today I marvel at nine inches of snow in New Orleans and six on the Outer Banks of my own state…

Today I acknowledge that anything is possible.

Today I contemplate my own words (written yesterday) about finding beauty despite brokenness.

Today, this is all I could manage for a poem on my aspirations for the future, beginning with the starter This is the year:

Imagine

This is the year
that we say
I love you
anyway.

Today, let’s try.

Scavenger

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

My newlywed son and his bride are still settling into their home here in the countryside. Every day they savor the sunrise over the pond and the wildlife that takes their presence in stride. Red-shouldered hawks sail in and out of the trees. White-tailed deer creep to the edge of the yard at night, their eyes glowing in the firelight from the backyard pit.

One day, my son said: “I think we have a raccoon. Or a possum. Something is getting into our trash every night and scattering it all over the yard.”

“What will you do?” I asked.

“For now, just watch and see if we can figure out what it is.”

So it was that as my son and my daughter-in-law were sitting by the firepit one crisp evening, they heard the telletale rattle of plastic from the trashcan.

The creature had arrived.

My boy and his bride strained their eyes, trying to make it out.

Small. Not gray. Not a possum.

A bit of brown, a patch of white…not a raccoon.

They finally got a good look at the wild thing:

A dog.

A beagle, to be precise.

With a great deal of coaxing, the skittish scavenger finally crept over to them on its belly.

Covered in layers of greasy residue, wearing a monstrous shock collar that had left a bald place on its neck, the little dog slithered over and submitted himself to his new family, who loved him from that very first moment. They bathed him, fed him, cut away the collar and pitched it, took him to the vet, made every effort to find the owner (no chip). They give him meds to rid him of heartworms.

His name? Buddy. That’s what they called out to him, the night he was hiding in the brush, deciding if he could trust them or not.

“Come here, buddy,” they’d called. “It’s ok, buddy. We won’t hurt you.”

They have learned that they have to keep the dog food secured or he’ll bust into it when they’re gone…the scavenger days are too recent, plus, beagles are known to gorge themselves.

Buddy seems to have learned, though. that his days of insecurity are over.

He’s made himself at home:

He’s even made a new friend that he utterly adores:

Dennis the dachshund has been most gracious toward his new sibling…he just won’t be outdone for attention, as you can see.

I’ll say it for my husband, for my boy and his wife, for their two cats, two guinea pigs, and hammy little dachshund: There’s one more thing to love and cherish here in our neck of the woods.

*******

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

Glorious

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

Last Friday, in preparation for the advancing winter storm, our school system dismissed three hours early.

This gift, so to speak, would take an unexpected and exponential turn.

Driving along brine-dusted backroads many thoughts crowded my mind…concerns about work, about people in my life who are facing battles…all I really wanted was to get home, to rest, to feel hopeful for a little snow, as we’d gone over a thousand days without any measurable snowfall. My granddaughter Micah, age three, has only seen flurries on a mountain vacation. She’s never made a snowman.

It’s hard to remember exactly what my thoughts were as I rounded the bend where a patch of woods borders a field:

I glimpse the body of the deer by the roadside. Bright pink innards exposed, the only shock of color in the entire brown-gray landscape… when suddenly there are wings extended wide, curled at the ages…

Buzzard, says my brain. I see them all the time. But in that instant, a flash of white.

An eagle. An eagle. An eagle. Rising on its mighty wings, barely three feet away.

Oh oh oh.

I don’t know how I know, I just do: it’s not really flying away.

I’ve already passed, so I stop the car to look in the rearview mirror.

It’s still there. Plain as day, back at the carcass.

Only one thing to do…

I drive a short distance for the first safe place to turn around. Happens to be a tiny church tucked into the woods. I pull onto its driveway – broken concrete, in need of repair – and call my husband while circling round:

You won’t belive what I just saw – an eagle by the road! Eating a deer!

Wow…you better keep your eyes on the road. Be careful.

That’s just it, though. I WAS keeping my eyes on the road.

I am still keeping my eyes on the road, going back…

It’s still there.

I know I can’t get too close or it will fly again.

No other cars are coming down the road in either direction, so I get a short video:

Apologies for the erratic movement…

The video doesn’t capture the magnificence of the bird, and I wish I could have recorded it taking flight, the incredible majesty and grace of it, like some kind of winged dancer… I had to move on before someone came around the bend and found me stopped in their path.

I took the next road on the left…

The name of it, on a green street sign: Glory Road.

One more time I passed the field, slowly. One more time I saw the eagle, just as a school bus came along behind me…I had to keep going, but could see, in a quick rearview mirror check, that the bus had slowed. Not because of me; there was plenty of distance between us. Not to make a drop-off, either.

I am sure that bus was full of children who, like me, paused to see the eagle for a moment, so close, so huge, rising on its glorious wings.

Right there in sight of Glory Road.

*******

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

Note: Eagles primarily eat fish. In winter, when fish are harder to come by, eagles will eat roadkill. I almost entitled this post “Provision.”

Skittering

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments

Bleak gray morning
cold cold rain
Welcome to school, kids
how was your holiday?

Long long day
shivering in the drafts
whispers drift the halls
ruminant rumors of flu

Weariness in the bones
driving, driving home
a leaf rolls across
the gray gray road

-wait.
That’s not a leaf.

Tiny tiny legs
tiny tiny tail
gray gray mouse
infinitely frail

running, running
for all it’s worth
across the gray gray road

after all the traps
I’ve set in my house
I want to cry
for this one small mouse

make it, please make it
to a warm safe place
away from this road
and the cold cold rain

a stab in my heart
for the tiny tiny thing
in this big big world
so full of pain

yet

a teeny tiny spark
on this gray gray day
to keep me skittering on
my homeward way

Field mouse. Vincent Cornelius.

*******
Happy New Year to all
and may you find joy
every day
in the littlest things
that come your way

Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge




Firepetals

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

It would warm
any fantasy writer’s heart

this magical pillow fort

constructed in Franna’s
Spare Oom
during Christmas

Never mind the season

for in the hands of the creator
everything is made new

like the Halloween tree
guarding the inner tent entrance

a cone adorned with
black and orange ornaments
has become a pillar
of ember and ash
cascading into firepetals
(left over from a wedding)
where chunks of stars
(harvested from an old
crib mobile)
have come to rest

much like the creator herself
savoring the fruits of her labors
(having been aided by Franna
and Big Sister, definitely magical)

now stretching out on her back
little bare feet
to the firepetals

cozy and content

clutching her baby
while gazing up through the window
at the wintersky

for, as any fantasy writer knows,

worldbuilding is hard work

not to mention
most gratifying

The worldbuilder, age 3, resting in her fort with her doll “Jape” on her chest