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.
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
Sunlight
still bright
takes on an amber tinge
the sky
day by day
almost imperceptibly
deepens its blue
still hot
in Carolina
but now she’s rolling up
her blanket of humidity
to put it away at last
there’s the first
tiny delicious trace
of coolness in the breeze
cicada choruses fade
day by day
a vintage time of year
I think to myself
remembering
how September stands
as a paradise paradox
regal in earth’s greatest finery
stitched with threads
of her greatest losses
Sweeping summer storm
erases the sky
Evening draws
her pink silken bed curtains
with a sigh
View from my front porch last night, after the storm
an acrostic
First glimmerings
In the gloaming
Rekindle ancient
Enchantments:
Fairies freewriting with
Lazy punctuation
Inkglow illuminating individual
Evening essays containing
Secret spells, summoning summer
Firefly. Mr.k_Taiwan. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Firefly symbolism is also enchanting. In China, fireflies are associated with scholars studying at night.
a poem which began as I was driving to work through the darkness and fog that appeared on the first day of October…
October awakens
in the night.
She rises in silence,
stirring white veils of fog
within the world’s
darkened bedchamber.
She knows
I am awake, too,
watching,
and that I am aware
it was not as dark
yesterday morning
at this same time
when September
was still here.
October gathers
her black satin robes
shimmering silver
in the moonlight.
She whispers of magic
and I shiver
just before the sun bursts forth
like a famous artist
with palette in tow-
“There is no blue without yellow
and without orange,
and if you put in the blue,
then you must put in the yellow
and orange too,
mustn’t you?”
and suddenly everything is
yellow and orange and blinding blue
with flecks of scarlet and brown
against the still-green canvas.
For all her dark mystery
and the death-shroud she carries,
October doesn’t speak
of endings.
She points instead
-see that golden thread glittering
there in her sleeve?-
to celebrations just ahead.
Ah, October.
I see you
disguising your smile
as you creak open
nature’s ancient alchemical doors,
reverently ushering in
the leaf-bejeweled holiness
that I shall henceforth call
the ‘fallidays’.
“Female ghost”. WhiteAnGeL ❤.CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
How would you personify early October?
It is difficult to find a photo of a veiled figure comparable to the dark morning bands of fog.
“Figure In The Fog”. paulmcdee. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The quote, “There is no blue without yellow and without orange…” comes from Van Gogh, written in a letter to his brother. I have used it several times in poems. Seems especially fitting here for the colors of October, illuminated by the artist-sun.
“Symphony of autumn colors”. PeterThoeny. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Writing Challenge
(even when my small-moment story morphs into poetry)
after Denise Krebs on the Ethical ELA Open Write today. Denise wrote after Langston Hughes’s poem “I Dream A World.”
—What world do YOU dream?
I dream a world
where Wisdom walks the thoroughfares
holding her lantern high
where Mercy kneels in lamplit paths
unfastening her cloak to enshroud
the transgressed
and the transgressor
where Comfort seeks out the lonely, the broken
to offer a cup of cheer, leaning in
with her elbows on the table
and her palm outstretched
where Truth looks up from the old rocker
in the corner by the bookcase
pushing his spectacles back up on his nose
as he turns the page of an ancient volume
but not before smiling at the twins
Mystery and Miracles
playing at his feet
in the flickering circle of lamplight
while Love closes the curtains
humming, always humming
her beautiful song
tears glistening like diamonds
on her cheeks
and where Judgment pauses at the door
listening, one skeletal hand raised to knock
but reconsiders
and chooses to leave
giving a curt nod to Wisdom and Mercy
and stepping aside as they pass by
—I dream a world.
Photo: “Do not be afraid…” Fan D. CC BY
with thanks to Gayle and Annie in today’s #VerseLove at Ethical ELA, at this invitation: “The goal is to select a character trait or an emotion and give it a back story. How did they get to be who they are now? Fill in the details–what they wear, where they travel, who they hang out with. Have fun with the creature you meet and get to know them a little better. Take it past the formal definition of personification into something bigger (or smaller…) than that. Make them into a living, breathing, quirky individual.”
It just so happens that my “one little word” for the year is awe. How can I resist the chance to personify her? She is leaning in even now, to see what I will write…and waiting to be revealed.
At the beginning of the year I wrote a little poem that remains one of my favorites: Awe (The Blue Hour). If you click on that link you can scroll past the intro to find the poem. Today I attempt to rework it for Awe personified. With her help, of course.
For Day Seventeen of National Poetry Month
Awe
She slips into the world quietly
born on the blue hour
at the falling away of day
and the coming of the night
unexpected but longed-for child
of Reverend Reverence and his indigenous wife
Waking Beauty
she takes their breath away
at first sight
they weep as they embrace
their tiny perfect child
Awe grows up studying the stars
under Waking Beauty’s tutelage
At her father’s knee, she listens
to stories of dreams and their interpretations
loving the sound of his rich, resonant voice
and the rustling of his fingers turning fragile pages
She thinks, When I grow up, I want to weave blankets
of stars and dreams and give them away
free for the taking
She thinks it, but Awe doesn’t speak it aloud
in fact, her parents grow worried
that she may never speak
until she startles them one gray, misty morning
by bursting forth in song at the breakfast table
her voice so high and pure
that Waking Beauty spills the juice
and Reverend Reverence nearly falls of his chair
instead he kneels in thanksgiving
while her mother dabs her eyes with a napkin
Awe sings for a moment
crystal notes hanging in the air
before dissolving into giggles
just as a shaft of sunlight
spills through the window
She decides she’ll be an artist
In smock and beret, palette poised
she considers the blank canvas
envisioning
at last determining
that there is no blue
without yellow and orange
and dips her brush
It is not enough for her to recreate nature
however
Awe must live and breathe it
and through it
So she walks in every season
through the countryside
through city streets
often wearing her cloak
of invisibility
undetected until
someone brushes against her
and realizes she’s there
she picks her moments
for revealing her presence
a peek at a time
of herself behind the cloak
smiling at transfigured faces
yes, full revelation
would be entirely too much
Awe is tireless in her weaving
of experiences
swimming the oceans
undaunted by depths and mysteries
scaling the mountains
unperturbed by heights and ice
she goes on through the storms
in the lightning, in the havoc
even in the horror
she is there
especially in
the aftermath
when people band together
to begin healing
one another
She stops by the house of worship
and lingers in the stillness
just waiting
the bird on the rooftop
understands
and sings
for all he is worth
Awe walks on
through shadowed back alleys
warming her hands
over the crackling fires
in our souls
at her whisper, we
beckon one another
to stop, come and be warm
instead of passing by
in blue wisps of smoke
curling upward and outward
in tendrils of wrongs
yes, even in the deepest darkness
Awe slips in quietly
carrying her candle
illuminating faces
and nodding at her reflection
in the eyes of those who see
silently offering her free blanket woven
of stars and dreams
and the color of forgiveness
in the blue hour
My drawing- the landscape spells AWE. Enhanced with Cartoona.
*******
also shared with with the Poetry Friday community, with gratitude to all and especially to Jama today for hosting
First, the light.
More of it each day. Driving the darkness away with its gentle appearing, rousing bright-eyed birds earlier and earlier, which respond in uninhibited chirps, songs, chatter. New day new day new day day day …
It’s a beautiful time to be alive. To be reborn. To mark having been born.
“What do you want for your birthday?” asked my husband.
“New rocking chairs.”
I’d been thinking on it.
The old chairs on the front porch are cracked, broken, portions held in place with wood glue. Time for them to go. Time for new ones. I want to sit outside in the light, in the breeze, even though it remains oddly chilly, to hear the birds, to see Papa Finch alight on the roof. I hear him before I see him; I wonder what his loud twitter means but I always answer, “Hi Finch!” Then there he is, tiny brown creature with his chest faintly dusted red, sitting high above the garage against the cloudless blue sky, looking directly at me. The porch is part of his domain. Sometimes from inside the house I hear his loud chirp; looking through the window, I find him sitting on the white porch rail. I suspect he’s eyeing the front door wreath for his bride’s nest. Although I took the wreath down for the winter, I’d left the old nest from last year attached. With the coming of March, and with great care, I put the faded, bird-loved wreath back in hopes that the nest would be reused. It hasn’t. So I removed it to make way for new.
Like my rocking chairs.
When my granddaughter visits now, it’s only on the front steps for a while, until the coronavirus social distancing expires. She comes with eyes full of spring light, as blue as the sky above my finch, who never fails to join our gathering and to add his voice to the conversation.
“That’s a loud bird!” says my granddaughter, age four.
“He is. Look, there he is, on the roof. Hi, Finch!”
And in these bright little moments, I revel in the poetry of life, that this bird (I wonder if he was one of the previous hatchlings from my wreath? ) should be a mainstay. Especially as my granddaughter’s name is Scout. Yes, from To Kill a Mockingbird. Whose last name was … Finch.
I want sturdy chairs on the porch, for resting. As a place to quiet my mind with the greenness of the grass in the yard and over where the path leads round the pond through greener trees. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul … To share with my granddaughter as she grows, to have coffee with my husband who almost didn’t live to see another spring. To celebrate living, being, enduring. To converse with generations of finches who’ve chosen to make my home theirs. To know, as evening falls, and I must go in, that I savored the gifts of that day to their fullest, their deepest.
My husband bought the chairs.
“We’ll put the old ones on the back deck,” he told me.
I wanted to say Why, they’re held together with glue, they’ll last maybe three days out there with no shelter, let’s just throw them away. But I didn’t. He wants to keep them, for some reason …
Truth is, the old chairs look kind of nice on the back deck by the flowerpots. For ever how long they last out there.
It was the rocker nearest the kitchen that made me realize.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
Dennis the dachshund woke from his sleep in a patch of sun-stripes at the back door. Ears perked.
“What is that?” I asked him from my chair at the kitchen table, where I was typing on the laptop.
Rising, looking through the window.
The rocker, rocking all by itself.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
The other rocker opposite sat motionless.
The wind, I thought.
Second thought: Why this rocker and not the other?
Third thought: Is the wind — or something — IN that chair?
It reminded me that I’ve always wanted to write a collection of ghost stories. An incongruous thought on such a bright, gold-green day.
Then.
How have I missed it?
For all the weeks—months—of the wind’s extended gusting and moaning under the eaves, unlike I’ve ever heard it before, I failed to notice it had stopped. All through the COVID crisis it’s been a grieved entity, swirling around my house in desperation, haunting my spirit with its voice, agitating the tall pines.
It’s still here, as my rocking chair can attest. But subdued.
Perhaps the wind has decided to sit a spell and rest. Perhaps the rocker was an invitation.
I am not sure we are friendly, yet, the wind and I, but I will offer it hospitality as long as it’s a benevolent guest. Is it taking up residence here, like the finches?
Perhaps I will take my coffee out there one afternoon and ask—begging the wind’s pardon, of course—why it cried so long and so hard.
But as I have no wish to stir anything up, maybe I’ll just let the wind rock to its heart’s content, in peace.
As a participant in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers, I will be posting each day for the month of March.
What better way to start than by expressing my love for writing? Or, to be exact, by expressing my love TO writing for the profound impact it’s had on my life.
Inspired in part by Kobe Bryant’s retirement love letter, “Dear Basketball.”
*******
Dear Writing,
It occurs to me that I’ve never told you how much you mean to me.
It is time, for you mean more now than ever before.
I remember when you first materialized. I was, what, about six years old? I wonder now whether I discovered you or you discovered me, sitting there at the coffee table in the living room, wide-ruled paper in front of me and a fat pencil in my hand. All I know is that it began with story. A pull, a beckoning, a desire to get what was swirling inside me onto pages. By some great alchemy, my blocky letters, erratic spelling, rudimentary sentences ceased to be merely themselves; combined, they became something distinctly Other.
And there you were. Almost a living, breathing presence.
I didn’t know then that you’d come to stay. That as I grew, you would grow with me. That you would, in fact, grow me, always pulling me to more. To think more, explore more, discover more, strive more, play more. To be more.
Do you remember the diary Grandma gave me for Christmas when I was ten or eleven? Trimmed in pink, little girl on the front, with a brass lock and tiny key. Do you remember this entry: “I wrote a story that I hope will be published”? Whatever happened to that diary—? To that story? They’re lost in time. No matter. I can see that page in my mind to this day; is it you that keeps this memory alive?
People began to notice our relationship early on, didn’t they. Teachers who said it was a good thing, who gave tips on how we could be stronger. Friends and family who told me to stick with you: Please keep writing. I owe them all for how they shaped you and me.
Where would I have been without you in my teenage years? In the early days of my marriage? Those were the poetry years, the journal years, when you let me glimpse the beautiful inside the uncertain, when you compelled me to pour out my heart. You were bigger than my anguish, my anger, my fear. You channeled it all, absorbed it all. Ever how circuitous the path, how violent the storm, how steep the mountain, how dark the night, how deep the pain, you were there, leading me to safety, to calm. Even now, I reach for you and you are there. Like the ocean, you bring forth unexpected treasures. And healing. When my emotions and energy are spent, washed clean away, you reveal over and over one thing that always remains: Hope.
For there’s always more to the story, to the ones that I create, to the ones that I live. I think that’s one of the most important lessons you’ve taught me: This chapter of life is ending, but a new one is about to begin. Embrace it. It’s one of your most extraordinary powers. As amazing as your ability to mine my memory. With you I am any age I ever was. I sit on my grandfather’s lap once more; he walks with me, holds my hand. I hear his voice. I am in Grandma’s kitchen while steam fogs the windows, in her arms as she rocks me and sings: Jesus loves me, this I know . . . I see my father’s blue eyes, hear my mother’s laughter and the whir of her sewing machine late into the night. With you my children are still little, my husband is young, black-haired, healthy, whole, and out on the court shooting hoops. And every dog I ever loved comes bounding back to me in absolute joy, all my shortcomings forgiven.
With you, I relive it all. The parts I am proud of and the parts I’m not; the moments I cherish and the ones I survived. With you, they all become a celebration of living, of learning.
I learned long ago that I can harness your power to attack but you showed me that it doesn’t bring me peace; you taught me, instead, to defend. Not as a warrior with drawn sword but as a careful guardian of my own mind and heart. Not by destroying, but by edifying. You enable me to walk in another’s shoes and see through another’s eyes, to understand that fighting doesn’t move the hearts of others, but story does.
There’s something of the divine about you as well. Marvel of marvels, how a spark in the human brain becomes a thought and a thought becomes substance because of you. Like something from nothing. Ex nihilo. It’s how God created, speaking the world into existence. With words. Without limits. Anything is possible. Believe. To me there’s a sacredness behind the human spirit’s desperate craving to create, to express, to be heard . . .
Which brings me back to being six years old, at the table, pencil in my hand.
And you will outlive me. You are my record, what I leave behind.
Let it be the best of me.
Know that you’re an inextricable part of who I am, one of my life’s greatest gifts. Meant to be given. And so I give you away.
I am grateful beyond words.
I love you.
Fran
A poem written at age sixteen
lit bits and pieces 