memory

Silky string: a memory

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

For Ethical ELA’s Open Write today, host Jennifer Guyor Jowett states this purpose: “We are going to tug at your memories, perhaps even look for a way to express that which is hidden.”

Jennifer goes on to share how Emma Parker, a textile and mixed-media artist from the UK, inspired her own poem: Emma Parker’s themes are “often around the broken, the abandoned, and the forgotten.” She explains that thread and cloth hold the metaphors of mending, repairing, and connecting and becomes interested in the stories the materials hold and who has touched them before.

Before I could even finish reading the rest of Jennifer’s intro and prompt, my mind was spiraling in countless directions. First, writing about memories. My favorite kind of writing. Second, themes of “the broken, abandoned, forgotten.” So much to say about that. Then the whole bit about fabric and cloth, mending and repairing… my mother was a seamstress. An image from my earliest days immediately came to mind for a poem, but the ideas do not stop there, no, not at all.

To be honest, I’ve spent much time thinking on the broken parts of life and generations of brokenness. Some people overcome while others are never able. So many stories in my own family and in my husband’s. I keep picking up the pieces in my mind, marveling at the incredible beauty of some, mourning over the ones beyond repair. Someday, someday…I will see what written mosaic I can make of these. Perhaps.

But for now, a poem with the first image that came to mind:

Silky String

Who
gave me
the blanket
trimmed with satin?
Someone receiving
a new baby to hold.
Did this someone ever know
that my sweet blanket, white as snow,
would become my babyhood lifeline
even as it all disintegrated?

-the blanket, that is, from too much loving.
Over time the satin pulled away
and someone (who?) tied it in knots
to keep it from being lost.
Priceless, my silky string,
for rubbing across
my nose, thumb in
mouth…soothing
me to
sleep.

Note: I didn’t plan to write a double (or reverse) etheree. After the first two lines, the form took charge. Jennifer, the Open Write host, called it “an in and out etheree,” like a blanket unfolding and fading away.

AI-generated image. Took a few tries to get this. Some of the results were haunting. But so is reality, sometimes.

Birdlove legacy

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

If you’ve read my blog for a bit, you know I love birds.

It’s an inherited love.

Or maybe a contagious love.

Either way: I got it from my grandmother.

Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on her lap as she read to me, and one of the books was about birds and their nests. From shelves on her apartment walls, bird figurines looked over us like sentinels. Silent witnesses. “Ornaments,” she called them. One resembled a pair of robins. She lifted me up countless times to peer into their ceramic nest, to marvel at the baby bird inside:

This vintage 1960s figurine is exactly like Grandma’s. Her “ornament” went to someone else in the family but I found this one online a couple of weeks ago. It’s in perfect condition and now sits atop Grandma’s piano in my living room.

There’s another I hadn’t thought about in a while…until my recent sightings of bald eagles, to my great awe and consolation during a brief time of despair.

Grandma had an eagle ornament…whatever became of it?

I texted my aunt.

She has it. She told me that Grandma wrote on the underside: One of my favorites!

My aunt texted this photo. She said: The eagle is yours.

An unexpected, deeply meaningful gift. I am learning that the eagle comes out of the blue, when needed most. Even in my dreams. This past week I dreamed of taking a journey and high in the trees along the roadside were eagles’ nests; I could see white heads above the rims, peering down. Even in the dreamworld, I was awestruck. I woke feeling rested and strengthened. And watched over.

My granddaughters haven’t seen my bird nest ornament yet, and Grandma’s eagle is a way off still. But every spring, my girls stand beside me, marveling over the hummingbirds at the feeder. We watch Mama and Papa Bluebird darting in and out of the birdhouse with insects in their beaks, feeding hungry babies. I’ve held my granddaughters up to see real baby house finches in the nest on the wreath of my front door…which won’t happen this season, as the wreath has been removed. Micah learned to mimic me around age two, when I held her in my arms at the kitchen window; putting her tiny finger to her lips, she’d whisper: Shhh. Watch. Birds.

She is three now. She will remember.

Just as I do.

For a moment, I see Grandma’s smile, radiant as springtime sun. I feel her arms lifting me up for the wonder of seeing that baby bird in its ceramic nest, with its parents standing guard.

And I am quite sure I hear a faint rustling of wings, nearby.

*******

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

Dictionary poem

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

Katrina Morrison hosted the March Open write at Ethical ELA on Tuesday.

Her invitation: I am calling [this] a“Dictionary Poem.” If anything can define and expound upon the meaning of a word, it is poetry…pick a word to take apart and put back together in a poem. Begin with the dictionary definition of the word. Obviously, some words will offer multiple meanings. Craft your poem however you will. After the definition, expound upon the word’s meaning…the vicissitudes of life may direct you to write a haiku or a villanelle or free verse today.

I will NOT be attempting the villanelle again anytime soon; I wrestled that form to the ground on Saturday and haven’t recouped the stamina yet to give it another go. I went with an acrostic, because the word “shards” stays in my mind, and I keep turning it around and playing with it anyway, to find out all it wants to tell me. I love this word, so…the poem:

Defining

shard

  (shärd) also sherd (shûrd)

n.

1. A broken piece or fragment, as of pottery or glass.

2. Zoology A tough scale or covering, such as the elytron of a beetle.

—Dictionary.com

The Poet’s interpretation:

shards

plural

sharp-edged fragments of memory, or

seeking healing among remnants, despite suffering

Somewhere in the shattering
Healing awaits, disguised
As sharp points
Ready to draw yet more blood…
Dare to touch the memories. Discover
Scattered diamondlight, all around.

Image: beasternchen. Pixabay.

*******

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

Red, white, and blue reflections

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments

The words are in my head when I wake.

Memorial Day.

I should write about it, I think.

But my brain is restless.

For one thing, the weather.

I rise with the sun and patter, barefoot, to the kitchen. Pink light is spilling through the blinds before I open them. Thunder rolls in the distance. The forecast is severe. I stand in the bay window’s rosy glow as a soft rainshower begins. No birds in sight. The usual morning chorus of robins, house finches, cardinals, Carolina wrens is paused. Silence, but for the occasional caw of a crow near the woods. My neighbors’ freshly-planted roses are blinding red against the green grass, the weathered-wood fence. Stark white curtains hanging from their gazebo flutter like ghosts, like prelude…what’s past is prologue, as states the murderous Antonio in The Tempest.

That’s the second thing. Ghosts.

The imagery distracts me.

I ordered a ghost from a catalog, once. When I was a child. True story.

It was disappointing.

That was before I knew that ghosts have many manifestations. And to be careful what you wish for.

There’s always a cost. Ghosts aren’t free.

Why I’m thinking this just now, as the sun fades away into gray, as the lights in the house blink, as the skies crack open, releasing the predicted deluge, as my little dachshund curls into a ball on the kitchen rug, shivering uncontrollably…I do not know, exactly.

On the table I have a small arrangement of red, white, and blue flowers, in honor of the day and my country’s fallen soldiers. I recall learning that my first real home was once an Army hospital morgue.

It’s dim, but I can remember living in that shadowy house at age three, until my family was forced out. I wonder which WWII soldiers were brought there before their burial, before my time.

I light a candle by the flowers, against the encroaching darkness. At the window, a tiny ember-red flash. Male ruby-thoated hummingbird, undeterred by the tempest, coming for a drink of sugar-water at my feeder. Over by the wooden fence,in front of the gazebo’s billowing white veils, a fluttering of blue wings… bluebirds seeking to feed their young. Despite all. Above all.

Sustenance.

New thought: That’s what this day is about.

Sacrifice, prayer, and peace, too…in fact, the word prayer is mentioned four times in the legal language for the holiday (read it for yourself: 36 U.S. Code § 116 – Memorial Day). Peace appears twice. Contextually, in a call to pray for permanent peace, according to each individual’s faith.

That’s in the law of our land.

As the storm descends, I pick up my trembling dachshund. There’s no way to tell him it’s only temporary. I can only hold him ’til it’s over. Sustenance. The lesson of the birds. The whole purpose of prayer. Of faith.

Memory. It’s for teaching. If what’s past is prologue…it cannot be changed; but the present, the future, can. If we remember. If we do not remember the past, as the saying goes, we are condemned to repeat it.

That’s the lesson of the ghosts.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge
-sharing your writing is a true act of courage.







Poetry: keeping the channel open

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

For VerseLove on Ethical ELA this week, host Margaret Simon shared this quote from dancer Martha Graham (on The Marginalian):

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

Margaret invited poet-participants to free-write for ten minutes and “just flow.” She shared a poem she composed in her Notes app while walking, along with this encouragement to keep going: “Mary Oliver says ‘You do not have to be good’ in her poem ‘Wild Geese’…accept what comes and be open to it. We all have an energy inside us waiting to be released in some creative way… Forget the rules today and flow, flow, flow.”

In keeping the channel open…here is where my mind went first.

Gifts from the Limbic Sea

Before it is quite morning
the otherworld of dreams
begins to recede
the hippocampus
swimming in its own sea
of memory
is unable to hold onto
the waving grasses
ever how beautiful
or important these
may be 

Try, I tell my twin seahorses
before I am quite awake
I would tighten
the ethereal reins
but I know I am
only dreaming

my hands cannot grasp
anything solid
images dissolve into foam
all I can feel
is a gentle current
ebbing away

or maybe 
that strange and bright
otherworld remains
and I am what transitions
from there to here
borne away on 
mystical tides 
back to reality

and so I rise 
in the darkness
before it is quite morning
to find my journal

and write
before the hippocampus
shakes off 
the remaining residue

it’s not much
this grasping
but I do it
because
these last particles
of dream-dust
preserved on the page
mean something

and they 
are mine

Hippocampus coronal sections. Danielsabinasz. CC BY-SA 4.0

‘Hippocampus’ by The Black Apple. Halogen Gallery. CC BY-SA 2.0

Ode to menthol

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

In the season
of sickness,
of a rattling
in the chest
that lingers
and lingers
and lingers
I seek
your healing power
O my elixir

none other will do
as well as you

your name
is not always recorded
on cryptic inscriptions

but I know
it’s you

nothing else
has that
distinctive
burn

Alas, you have become
such an elusive elixir

I search high and low
(on the shelves)
just to find
you’ve vanished

leaving no trace

it befits you,
vaporous thing
that you are

I cannot entertain
the notion
of orange
or honey
—fie!

These cannot
open passages
like you.

I wonder
what on Earth
I shall do

but wait…

memory stirs
like ghosts
like tendrils
like vapors, yes…

my own father
pouring your
precious substance
into a little silver tray
and plugging in
the vaporizer

there I was
suffering child
surrounded
by a steamy cloud
tinged with your
cool fragrance

sputtering
sizzling
on through the
long, long night

(you’re no cure-all
for childhood asthma, btw
but I’m not dealing
with that
anymore)

and speaking
of clouds…

back there
in the shroud
of Time
where sits
my father
and
my mother
puffing
puffing
puffing
on Salem cigarettes
there, the
telltale green carton
indicates your presence

I can still smell you
on the foil
of those packs
and in the
smoke ribbons
curling in the air
(aside: salem means
peaceful
complete
safe
perfect)

—what a cool operator
you are,
alternately healing
and stealing
breath

but then…

far back
so far back
I find you
at your purest,
perhaps

sick child
that I was
struggling
to breathe
(yeah, it’s a theme)

my grandfather
going to
his medicine cabinet
for a little
cobalt-blue tub
my grandmother
unscrewing the
aqua lid
and with one finger
slathering a good dollop
under my nose

(which now
no one is
ever
ever
ever
supposed to do
although clearly
I am alive)

and it is this memory
these moments
that are salve to my soul.
balm to my spirit

and so I come
to find you
like a miracle
in my own
medicine cabinet

whereupon I slather
my own self
up good

relishing your
mint-oil fire

your vapors
like a blanket
of love
enveloping me

breathing
breathing
Yea, with
a little
more ease

until this
lingering
lingering
rattle

evaporates
at last…

O, my elixir.



Fun facts: Vick’s VapoRub was invented in 1894 in the North Carolina county next to where I live now. It was originally called Vick’s Magic Croup Salve. From the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: “The salve in the blue jar is made of menthol, camphor, oil of eucalyptus and several other oils, blended in a base of petroleum jelly.” The creator invented it to cure his son of severe croup…which it did. Spanish flu killed the inventor in 1919 but, paradoxically, that pandemic drastically increased demand for his product. Oh…and guess who worked at the inventor’s drugstore as a teenager? O. Henry.

My ode, however is to menthol, not just Vick’s, seeing as I had to include my parents’ Salem menthols in the mix. I was an asthmatic child, my first attack occurring at age three months. As I grew, I often begged to stay with my grandparents when I was sick; they slathered me with this old remedy, hence my great affinity for VapoRub. Accordingly, my grandparents are ever-present in the healing power of that clean menthol burn…nowadays I am not troubled with asthma but when I feel a cold coming on, or, as in the present moment, trying to shake the rattling cough after a cold, Vick’s DayQuil with VapoCool is my go-to. It works, to which widely empty shelves attest. I finally had some delivered by Instacart (had to show ID, of course) so I can continue burning the rattle out of my chest…it’s the best thing I know of, outside of a certain homemade “recipe” made by one of my old-time church members from the country…not exactly sure what was in THAT jar, but it would’ve surely burned this stuff out long before now… that, however, is another story for another day.

Here’s to the healing power of menthol.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge
and to Kim Johnson,
whose series on Epsom salts convinced me that I really, really should write about menthol
(which, yes, can occasionally be dangerous, so use with care)

Juncos

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

Winter mornings
in the half-light
I leave home for work

out on the lawn
a stirring of birds
so small
I can’t quite see
if they’re actually birds

maybe they’re
gray-cloaked fairies
performing secret rites

or the grass itself
sprouting feet for a night
and ethereal wings
for breaking away
at dawn of day

tiny tufts
of earth, unbound
with promise of
heavenward flight

For a couple of months I’ve tried to figure out what little birds are flitting in the tufts of grass each morning. Gray and ghostlike, they’re elusive as fairies. I finally got a good look at a few of them through the kitchen window. I am pretty sure they’re dark-eyed juncos, which my Merlin Bird ID app has picked up and identified by song. They are sparrows, “birds of the ground,” hopping around on lawns looking for seeds. They even nest in the ground.

To me, they give the illusion of the grass transforming into birds.

I researched them and learned that the junco is a symbol of impending winter weather, nicknamed “Snowbird”.

Merriam-Webster says the first known use of “dark-eyed junco” was in 1974—when I was a child. “Junco” itself seems to have originated from a word meaning “rush”… as in rushes, synonymous with grass.

It just so happens that grass is a personal symbol for my father. I’ve often written of sensing his presence in the scent of fresh cut grass; this is steeped in childhood memories of him mowing the lawn. He was meticulous about it. Daddy enjoyed CB radio when it became a fad born of fuel shortages in the 1970s. I can’t recall his handle, but I recall the one I made up for myself, having never heard it before:

Snowbird.

It seems to have come to me around the same time the name “dark-eyed junco” was first used...

out on the lawn
a stirring of birds
so small
I can’t quite see
if they’re actually birds

maybe they’re
gray-cloaked fairies
performing secret rites

—Maybe they are memory itself.

Dark-eyed Junco. Kurayba. CC BY-SA 2.0.

*******

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

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.

The givers

/ Fran Haley / Leave a comment


Remembering people
across the years
with a mixture
of awe, gratitude,
and humility
for often those who
gave me the most
had the least
to give

materially,
at least

I don’t recall
every gift now
only the bright joy
on the faces
of the givers

there is
no calculating
the vast riches
in their hearts
or the price
of their generosity

only that it lives on
long after them

I still hold
their greatest gold:

sacrificial love

Widow’s Mite – Ancient Roman Bronze Coins. IronRodArt – Royce Bair (‘Star Shooter’). CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.