March 27, 2011

We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage- almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence. And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description.

But history is also the narrative of grace, the recountings of those blessed inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance.

-Thomas Cahill

as printed in Sun Magazine

Back from the fields

Until nightfall my son ran in the fields,

looking for God knows what.

Flowers, perhaps. Odd birds on the wing.

Something to fill an empty spot.

Maybe a luminous angel

or a country girl with a secret dark.

He came back empty-handed,

or so I thought.

Now I find them:

thistles, goatheads,

the barbed weeds

all those with hooks or horns

the snaggle-toothed, the grinning ones

those wearing lantern jaws,

old ones in beards, leapers

in silk leggings, the multiple

pocked moons and spiny satellites, all those

with juices and saps

like the fingers of thieves

nation after nation of grasses

that dig in, that burrow, that hug winds

and grab handholds

in whatever lean place.

It’s been a good day.

-Peter Everwine

A map

Posted at the base lodge for the Appalachian Mountain Club, is a list of ten things to be sure you take when hiking in the White Mountains. I can remember a few of the items: extra layers of clothing, food, a headlamp, a whistle, a hat, a lighter. I can’t recall the other three things but last on the list is a map. We always seem to forget to bring one. When we visited Eliza at one of the high mountain huts where she once worked, she would advise us on the best trail to take; The Gale River Trail got us to Galehead Hut, the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail to Lakes of the Clouds, the Valley Way to Madison Spring Hut. We would pull our car into the parking lot as directed, park, strap on our packs, find the trailhead and just start walking knowing that Eliza was at the top of the mountain waiting for us.

Even when you know where you are going, it is still good to have a map. Questions arise; what if the trail is washed out, what if you want to go back down the mountain a different way, what if there is a fork in the trail that you didn’t expect? You may wonder, how much further until I have reached the top? A map will give you the answer. How many false summits must I climb before getting to the real thing? (sometimes it’s better not to know this). “We should have brought a map,” we say at times like this, looking accusingly at one another. Whose responsiblity was it to bring one?

A map can be a comfort in this uncharted world we live in. I often longed for a map when my children were young and were facing some kind of normal but at the time hard problem. Hasn’t someone figured this out, I’d wonder and can’t they just tell me what to do? How to proceed when the trail is washed out or when we want to deviate from the well worn path?

Books are my maps. Good writing can shed a light on the things I struggle with. I like to know how others have navigated their lives. What choices have they made? How have they dealt with the transitions that have faced them all along the way. We have so much to learn from each other but in the end, even after gathering lots of information, the decisions are up to us. A buddhist saying: a long journey begins with a single step. On a trail, the map is useful. In life, the map of our lives forms after us, recording the steps we have taken.

Signs of spring

You know spring is coming to Lincoln when these posters miraculously appear on roads next to wetlands. The sap buckets are up along Baker Bridge Road, the red winged blackbirds are making their familiar call and the salamanders are stirring in their vernal pools. All had a day to rest today as snow fell quietly and the temperature headed back down to the familiar 30's. But it won't stay there. The sap will resume moving, birds resume mating, salamanders will stir in the primordial ooze and cars will take the long way around on the next warm rainy night. Happy Spring everyone.

mom

Martha Lamb McLean

July 1916-March 1989

in just

and its spring

puddle-wonderful

mud-luscious

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

poem

I think that I shall never see

A billboard lovely as a tree.

Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,

I'll never see a tree at all.

-Ogden Nash

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Grandest Nephews in Portland!

the power of the pen

Poetry as an Insurgent Art

(I am signaling you through the flames)

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am signaling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self destructs

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age?

What is the use of poetry?

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.

If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the

challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.

You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and

Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an

American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words.

---------------------------- --------------------------- ---------------- ------------------- -----------

HI All,

National Poetry Month approaches (April) time to start getting ready.

I have never had a good grasp of poetry. Of course Mary Oliver strikes a chord every time

but what of others? I studied Ferlinghetti in college. He wrote in the 1960's and his words

resonate today.

I think I will instruct my students to take a stab at it with their pens. But first I have to learn a little more.

In Ashland, Oregon in April there is an event called Poets On the Loose. Poets roam the streets,

schools, libraries and cafes offering to read a poem by a well known poet and then hand a written

copy to the listener to take home. I love this idea.

(and if you don't want to hear a poem you can say no!)

It was on their web site that I found the above poem. Thought I'd share it with all of you.

I may be one of those Poets on the Loose, but reaching my audience on the blog.

Look out! More are coming!

B

California Dreamin'

An update from David and Barbara's visit to California!

View from our ferry facing towards the Bay Bridge and San Francisco on a foggy, rainy afternoon

David and Barbara outside of Ghiradelli Square

Boats! Smells like Maine...

On the ferry from Oakland to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco

A lovely walk in Redwood Park, just minutes from Eliza's house

Next stop: Big Sur, Monterey, and Carmel. Hoping for fewer clouds down south! More to come...

Place #2

Warning: these photos are misleading. Massachusetts is under a thick layer of snow and ice at the moment. Photos taken at a kinder and gentler time.

Whatever chaos I may feel in my own life....the lists with nothing crossed off, plans to be made, phone calls unanswered, dog woes, ice under foot, computer with color whirl spinning all night, it all drops away when I step into the Concord Public Library.

Order reigns here. Everything works. Books are checked in and checked out. I overhear that someone has a fine of 25 cents for an overdue book. The librarian is apologetic as if it was her fault. The climate is controlled, it is a relief to walk through the door and get away from winter's stabbing cold. The bathroom is clean and well lit. The handicap stall has room for the bags I carry around full of books to return and notebooks for the writing class I teach here. There is even a hook for my coat. I could live here. I wash my hands as I leave. In the hall are two water fountains. Two! One for small people and one for tall people.

Why is this building here? Largely to hold tales of love, murder, death, jealousy, war, suicide, gunshots, travel, raising children, a barn fire that kills horses, a good night story as gentle as a mother's voice. Wild imaginings, gods bursting out of the heads of other gods. A one eyed monster. Odysseus who longs to go home.

The drama of my own life is contained and tamed here as I walk into the building that manages to hold everything.

Back to the "dog woes." Calley is fine but she has an incessant itch all over her body and is pretty uncomfortable. We have tried everything! Finally the person at the pet supply store said that allergies to wheat and chicken are very common in dogs. The dried food she eats is just that, so are her "treats!" So we're on a new regime of wheat free non chicken food. She loves it luckily. Hoping for the best.

Place #1

I am already missing solid ground as I step into the dinghy and sit down with a canvas bag wedged between my knees. The bag is filled with my treasures; pens, books, journal, notebook, camera. My luck they'll all fall overboard when I heave the bag up on deck.

David rows efficiently, he's good at it, looking over his shoulder occasionally to keep us on course heading straight for his beloved sailboat, Labrador. When I row this little boat, it goes zig zagging one way and then the other, oars splash water as one skims the surface and the other goes too deep. Too many things to think about at once.

Which is another problem. Being an early riser, I like a morning walk. Once on the boat, it is hard to get away. To row ashore alone means untying the dinghy, stepping gingerly into it, putting oars in oar locks, and looking over my shoulder, heading to shore. If we are in a harbor, I aim for the dock. If we are in a cove I aim for the rocks which are slippery with sea weed or covered with razor sharp barnacles. And then there is the tide. Better tie the boat up well or it could float away on the rising tide. Busy riding horses, I never mastered knot tying at summer camp.

So I stay put. In the morning, I climb the steep ladder and arrive on deck groggy from lack of sleep. I pride myself for my ability to sleep anywhere. In a tent, on the ground I can eventually get comfortable stretching in one direction and then the other. Not so on the hard bench, which doubles as the seat at the table (boats are so efficient, many uses for everything.) I lie awake listening to the fog horn. The seagulls.

As for the books, they go unread. Queasy from the gentle rocking of the boat, I am unable to read. I tried taking drugs. Bonine is said to work wonders. I didn't really take to being drugged. Blurry and for once, quiet, I stared into the distance. Not until we were well on our way home did my brain kick in. As we passed Moody's Diner on Rt. 1 heading south, I started talking non-stop, giddy to be on land.