April's end

Inspired by a deep desire to sleep and this prompt:

April ends a bit
different from where it began.
Warmer, wiser, wilder.

Bare trees now in bloom
creating a haze of pea green
beauty.

My mouth feels broken,
my body a month wiser,
my mind bursting into bloom.

A new month awaits,
The challenge elates.
Let May bring it on.

Running (a)way

(Today's prompt was to start a poem with a line from one of your other poems, preferably one written in this year's National Poetry Writing Month. I chose the last line from my first poem. I also found over the course of this month that occasionally I like working with structure. So, I looked up a guide to writing a Shakespearean sonnet and decided to give it a try. The theme is inspired by a colleague who joked to me that one's wisdom teeth might serve as a placeholder in the mouth that can be removed when an appropriate level of wisdom is acquired within.)

Knowing I can run but not run away
highlight life at the half century mark.
Two teeth come out to end oral decay,
leaving just one space for wisdom to spark.

I run faster when there's little pressure
to be the best I ought to be, and let
me being me to be the one measure
of which past ghosts to rest should best be set.

Yet, I run away when fear fills that space
in which wisdom might find its peaceful core.
Forgetful of the high prices that lace
grisly quests to try and settle the score.

Fearless is one who stops running away
and embarks on running only for play.



   

Planting

Today's prompt is to write a shadorma, a six-line poem with the following syllable count: 3-5-3-3-7-5)

Arms and legs
dig wells in dry soil
for seedlings
to prosper.
Fingers, nails, and hand shovel
make space for new food.

The runner

(Inspired by today's Writer's Digest prompt to write a mechanical poem. Also wanted to share the following link on revising one's poems. http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/5-ways-to-revise-poems)

The foot strikes the pavement at the mid-point,
rolling over the ball,
kicking up the heel.
The arms hang loosely
but pump lightly to propel the body forward
in a relaxed way.
Breath is brought in and released
entirely through the nostrils.
Chin tucks in,
Tailbone tucks down.
Feet strike but do not slap
the ground below.

Casting

(Inspired by the Writer's Digest prompt for the day along with the sense of peace and tranquility that knitting has brought. A bag of incomplete projects and yarn speaks to the joys and dilemmas of process.)

136 stitches for a baby blanket,

46 for a pillow,

and 28 for booties.

Yarn tied in skeins
must be wound into balls.

Patience,
discipline,

Peace.

Knit one,
purl one,
repeat
an infinite
number
of times.

Pregnancies last nine months.

Infancy a year.

Then,
toddling,
talking,

Reading,
writing,

Teen years
trouble
and
college,
hopefully.

Hope and fear knit

136 stitches and 286 rows;
46 stitches and 68 rows;

28 stitches and 35 rows.

Blanket,
pillow,
booties,
a life
to come.

Everyone thinks there's no future in history

(Inspired by what feels like an overwhelmingly tiring debate on what should be the future of a college education, and today's Writer's Digest prompt to start with Everyone and fill in the blanks.)

Everyone thinks there's no future in history.
When the reality of plastics
has been killing our planet.
Softly quieting birds,
strangling fish,
and filling fertile deposits of soil
with toxic trash.

The Graduate did not seem to heed the advice,
as he hopped a school bus
with runaway bride Elaine.
That prophecy was doom,
no future in arts and humanities.
Unless, of course, you were a girl,
going after an M.R.S.

What is the meaning of a world
of books and old parchment?
Faded photographs,
rusted horseshoes and skillets
that suddenly show up
in a future potato bed?

Is the future in plastics,
or in understanding
and repurposing
the compost of the past?

Byu and Boo

(Inspired by today's Writer's Digest prompt to write an auto poem.)

Red and blue, Boo, Byu.
Boo: rugged, almost all manual, few frills.
Byu: soft, nearly all electric, heated seats.
Both haul hens, straw, chicken feed, topsoil, and groceries.
Both play NPR, rock, and hip-hop on radios.
One travels from New York to Indiana one or two times a year.
The other acts up by springing a fuel leak.
Boo: ragged, aging.
Byu: a bit banged up.
Both were born in the early 2000s.
Boo was driven a lot,
Byu almost not at all.
Both transport bicycles, cats, and people to running events.
Byu needs a fuel pump and a new tire.
Boo a new battery and hopefully not much else.
Red and blue, Boo, Byu.
Police pulled over Byu twice for outed headlights.
Boo snickered in the garage.
Byu drives smoothly.
Boo likes it rough.
Gifts.
Byu from a father.
Boo from a friend.

What is a thesis?

(Today's prompt from Writer's Digest didn't particularly appeal to me, but the idea of a topic and anti-topic did. So I decided to try a tactic I learned in a poetry workshop, to create a poem and then to write it in reverse. Here's what emerged.)

The thesis begins and it culminates
an experience of sometimes serious strife.
It is important, and meaningless, all at once.
The writer argues a point.
If there's no argument, there's no thesis.
No start.
No finish.
Only a middle, a neutral zone.
Switzerland in the midst of a world war.

Switzerland in the midst of a world war.
Only a middle, a neutral zone.
No finish.
No start.
If there's no argument, there's no thesis.
The writer argues a point.
It is important and meaningless, all at once.
An experience of sometimes serious strife,
the thesis begins and it culminates.

Complexities

(Today's prompt from Writer's Digest is to write a complex poem, with a variety of options given for the meaning complex. The fate of a fisherman I alluded to a few poems ago seems to speak of complexities we face in the daily choices we make.)

It seems that it should be quite simple.
Downstate waters are full of fish
that upstate people crave.
Farmers markets are bursting with
local produce,
and no one sells fish.

Customers clamor:
We need fish.
Where can you get fish
fresh and local
without being an angler yourself.

I, for one, was ecstatic
when the fisherman arrived in Saratoga.
Having moved from Seattle,
fish fresh and local was a big part
of my daily diet.
I hadn't realized how big
until the only fish I could find
came from the market,
the supermarket,
origins unknown.

Lines were long for the downstate fisherman
and didn't diminish
after the novelty ended.
For weeks, we feasted on
clams, oysters, and mussels,
ling cod, haddock, flounder,
and scrod.
Porgy, tuna, monkfish,
and swordfish once in awhile.

But fresh and local has rules
that fish from downstate waters
are going to have to break.
Long Island fish isn't caught
within fifty miles of
Saratoga.

There was an understanding
and an exemption granted.
But few understood that while
all of the fish were caught in
Long Island area waters,
not all were caught
by the fisherman in question.
Where did they come from?
His sources, he said.
Trustworthy.

Questions built,
jealousies over his success perhaps grew.
Like crabs pulling the one
that climbs out of the bucket back down,
others decided his word
was not good enough.

Trustworthy.
What does it mean?
I ask it, too.
People are honest,
people are nice.
I'd like to take them for their word.
But sources which are not yours
belong to whom?
Wal-mart? A commercial catcher?
How do we know what's true?

Monsanto pollutes our food,
and even organic corn by now
might not be organic
as organic was understood
in the days before GMO.

And money.
Organic and fresh and local
are not volume items.
They cost more
as pocketbooks slim down.

Complexities caught the fisherman
in a net not of his making.
Will they snare us, as well,
if we just trust, if we don't ask?

Last frost date

(Day 21 prompt is to write a senryu, similar to a haiku.)

Before May thirteenth,
plant peas, onions, salad greens.
A freeze won't kill them.

Fish stew

(The Poem-a-Day prompt was to write a "beyond" poem. I wanted to write about fish stew, mainly to hold onto the recipe for the concoction I created tonight so I am not wasting time in the future searching the Internet for the perfect fish stew recipe that will suit my tastes for the moment. So I compose with the theme of "beyond" in the background.)

Soft on the teeth,
mild to the stomach,
low in calories,
high in protein and flavor,
receptive to spices and vegetables, too.

Got the cod,
off a Long Island boat.
Fisherman lost his license
for peddling fish
caught in his waters
but not on his boat.
Nice guy, good ethics.
But the rules of locally made
can be strict,
and acting fishy
about the source of your fish
will get in trouble,
beyond a doubt.

Health rules for the day:
No tomato, no chili,
no turmeric.
Still in recovery
so coconut milk,
rice, a sauteed onion with ginger
and sweet potato
will probably be fine,
with the hake from the fisherman
who pushed his boundaries
of local a little beyond the truth.

Oil in a heavy pan heats.
Ground fenugreek, coriander,
and whole cumin seed go in.
Thirty seconds later,
finely chopped onion, ginger, and carrot.
Peas from last summer's harvest
thaw in a colander,
their flavor outlasting their crispness
beyond nine months.

Finely chopped sweet potato
and a tablespoon or two of water
sweeten and thicken the mix.
Lower the heat,
lid the pan.
Wait thirteen minutes
for the potatoes to soften
beyond the stage of rawness.

Coconut milk flows in,
and comes to a simmer
as the heat picks up a little.
A few leaves of chard sliced into ribbons
add a bold dash of green
to the stew.
Fish cut into chunks,
with the tail end into slivers
for the cats to savor
as a treat beyond their
main course.
Lower the heat,
lid the pan.
Wait four and a half minutes.

Stir in the peas,
gently prod the fish
as it breaks
into pieces beyond resemblance
of the original fillet shape.

Lower the heat
but leave the lid off.

Rice spoons into a bowl,
coconut milk juice soaks it through.
Chunks of fish, onion, potato, chard, and carrot
decorate the top
with the peas offering a
colorful flourish.

Heart burned

(Writer's Digest Poem-a-Day prompt for Day 19 was to write a burn poem. Link is here: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2013-april-pad-challenge-day-19)

Just when I think it's over,
the discomfort creeps in again,
slamming my head with
a reminder
of foolish pasts
and prices one pays in the present;
piercing my jaw with
an incisive
on old habits
never flaming out entirely;
burning the heart with
the acridity
of wise statements
I listened to
but failed to hear.

I am the asparagus spear

(Inspired by the Writer's Digest Poem-a-Day prompt for April 18, to do an "I am" poem, as detailed here: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2013-april-pad-challenge-day-18)

Not ready to make an appearance
above earth, just yet,
I rest in still frozen soil
six, eight, ten inches below.
Above me is grass, weeds,
a volunteer onion from the past fall,
old stalks that were not cut back,
some spinach leaves,
volunteers, too.

A collection of fine green mint-shaped leaves
captivates the digger and planter, and weeder and picker's attentions.
Is it I,
the asparagus,
pre-spear,
they wonder.

Google search concludes
it is not.

He worries that I didn't survive.
She worries, too, but tries to stay
optimistic.
It wasn't her blood, sweat, and tears
that got me planted as a crown a year ago;
it was his.
It wasn't his inability to keep up with the weeds, thorns, and fears
that crowded my growing bed
from June through October;
it was hers.
He fears he killed me.
She says it's okay,
but she's sure I am alive.

Like her, I run late,
but am reliable in the long run.

Espresso

(Inspired by the Writer's Digest Poem-a-day prompt for Day 17 of National Poetry Writing Month, to write an express poem. Link to the prompt is here: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2013-april-pad-challenge-day-17)

Grind
Tamp
Leverage
and force the steam through
tamped
grounds.

Small cup
Big taste
A morning wake up
best downed
not sipped
a shot
not a mug.

Post-pain rambles

(Dedicated to the curative properties of penicillin, ibuprophen, hydrocodine, and reiki. The first three seem to be legitimizing the allopathic claim that modern medicine is good for us. The last one reminded me that bodies have structures that sometimes get bent or battered out of synch, and just need some vibration, heat, love, food, and sleep to heal. In that spirit, I wrote at 750words.com, whatever came to my mind. What follows is a distillation. My favorite word these days seems to be distillation.)


A new premise on poets

Poets are like an analogy to b-girls.
Lots of young women and men try break-dancing and the other elements of hip-hop.
Some of them do it for exercise, some for socializing, some for a love of music and art.
For some, it's a pastime; for others, a passion.
Those who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of hip-hop, its core values and its fifth element can call themselves b-girls.
Poetry is a genre of writing.
It seems mysterious because it breaks boundaries.
Sometimes there's no punctuation,
Sometimes there's no capitalization,
Sometimes there's nothing but
punctuation and capitalization.
It relies on sound, on language, on beat.
There are rules for certain poetic forms,
and people who profess an expertise with those forms.
And there are no rules.
There is this thing called free verse.
I remember J.T. Stewart, poet and poetic teacher extraordinaire.
If it has a period, call it a sentence and prose.
If it doesn't want a period, call it a line and poetry.
J.T. writes like a scholar, and sometimes not.

My other poet mentors


My other poet mentor is Anastacia Tolbert.
Just let the prose flow
seems to be her mantra.
She has no problem raising her voice
when appropriate,
belting out words in rhyme,
in time,
in orders that are fine
coarse ground
or not.
Her flow of prose
is relaxing, soothing,
and energizing.
She makes poetry
fun.

Like Susan Schultz,
queen of the prose poem
and other forms, too.
What do you do for inspiration?
I asked her once.
Watch baseball,
she blurted out.
I wanted to hear something more ethereal
from the lips of a poet.
The blunt St. Louis honest admission
of indulgence in America's great pasttime
didn't seem,
well,
poetic enough.
But the first day of class
in Susan's graduate workshop
had me laughing so hard
that I didn't care whether poetry
was ethereal or not.

That thing called voice

So at the Iowa Writers' Workshop

the poetry didn't work.

It was weird to be around people

conscious of being poets

when I was anything

but.

I ran away from poetry

into a workshop on voice

where I was told that my voice

was like a poet's,

staccato, punctuated, biting,

funny, and crass.

Which led me to voice,

and the premise that

everyone has one,

and if you find yours,

you've got a personal set 

of speakers that will amplify you

and your language

for life.

Wildness

I think I prose

better than I poeticize

but sometimes I get the urge

to wildly create breaks

and to play with language

and rhythm

and ignore the periods that make

lines a sentence

instead of a line,

prose instead of poems.

I try not to take myself seriously,

and I throw down 

big, grandiose blogs,

hoping it's true that no one will ever read them,

wondering and wishing sometimes

that someone would.

The course

Self-Promotion

for the

Chronically 

Humble 

Writer 

is supposed to be 

about all of us, 

and why we need to be

less humble.

Sometimes, I fear myself

to be too arrogant.

The nail that sticks out 

on the slab of wood,

the one that tries to hide

the fact that she can't be

hammered out, and disguised.

What if

If I weren't a writer, I would

read more books, or not.

probably watch a lot of TV.

probably eat TV dinners and processed food.

I might be overweight,

under-stimulated,

bored with life,

waiting for death. 

Because I'm a writer, I am

eccentric.

funny

dedicated

healthy

somewhat inane

sometimes insightful

often inappropriate

generally whole.

Ruminations on pain

They say that the pain is the greatest in the 48 to 72 hours following the surgery.
By all accounts, that must mean I'll start to feel better tomorrow.
The odd thing is that I feel fine right now, just in a lot of pain.

Life feels normal:
e-mail keeps flowing,
work keeps pouring down on me,
bills need to be paid,
cats need to be fed,
dishes need to be washed.

But then the wooziness and the queasiness hits, and it feels like I can't keep going.

I feel terrible for wasting a sunny day.
I feel guilty for not being excited about new hens.
I feel bad for not being able to sit outside and have a nice meal beside the grill.
I feel horrible for not sleeping upstairs with Jim.
I feel like a bad person for having bad thoughts.
In a couple of days, I know it will be just the passage of pain.
But first, gotta do taxes.


I do have a sense that I am somewhat delirious, operating in two different worlds: the world of the normal and the world of pain. The best thing to do, I think, is to unplug completely.
Whatever needs to be done can get done in a couple of days.


Poetry might be your inner anthem,
the sounds, the smells, the colors, and textures that move you.
The rhythm that makes your body move,
The music that feels like it's yours.
What is it?
How is it?
When do you know you've got it,
that you're in the flow?

I wonder what will happen as spring dawns.
It is already here.
I just feel, as usual,
running behind,
like it's still winter,
like I am still in sweats
when I should be in shorts.

I still do see snow on the ground
in patches,
reminders that we're a few hundred feet higher
and that in the foothills
winter lingers
longer.

Song of myself.
If I had the energy,
I would dig it out and read it,
or find an audio recording
to listen.
I'm sort of afraid,
though,
that I won't understand the point
that the Great Whitman made.

Pain reveals your vulnerabilities.
It lets you feel like you can conquer.
It lets you admit you are only human.
It lets you cry,
It lets you fall down.

448 words. Three hundred to go.
The fingers keep moving,
as the jaw throbs in pain.

Fourteen

(Decided to try another day with the Writer's Digest prompts. This one was to write a sonnet, which the site blog described simply as a poem with fourteen lines. See http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2013-april-pad-challenge-day-14)

They say it takes twenty-one days to create a habit.
But I like the idea of fourteen.

When I was fourteen years old,
I decided to become a writer
even though my mother dreamed of her daughter
going pre-med.
I did become a doctor,
just not the type she had in mind.

The other day she called me a genius,
which made me smile
as I remembered the signs
I made at fourteen:
"Geniuses have no time for washing dishes"
and "Creative minds are usually messy."

Scarcity consciousness

(Inspired by a prompt to write a comparison poem from the same Writer's Digest blog that inspired me yesterday. Here's the link: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2013-april-pad-challenge-day-13)

Logging into the bank account
reveals a scary scenario:
After the mortgage,
27 cents to your name.

Except for the $92 available
via credit line.
Relief.
Another bill
due next week
won't default.

There's cash in a wallet,
and a drawer,
quarters in the glove box
of the car.

And another withdrawal
possible from Schwab,
for the seeds
for spring plantings,
and for fencing
for future harvests.

Scarcity consciousness
-- what does it mean?
You're afraid to eat out?
Or you're afraid to live lean?
You're afraid to shop at Nordy's?
Or you're afraid to dress comfortably and clean?

Its opposite
is abundance
-- what does that mean?
You buy a Cadillac?
Or bike commute?
You order out at the upscale deli?
Or gather your meals from your yard?

Are you rich,
or are you poor,
when, after the bills are paid,
there's 27 cents to your name?

Broke

(Inspired by a National Poetry Writing Month prompt for April on the topic of "broke". See http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2013-april-pad-challenge-day-12)

Paycheck came Wednesday
Mortgage, taxes due.
Surgery today.
Work trip in a week.
Cash advance needed
before the trip,
or I'll have to call in sick.

Society is broke,
and so am I,
yet in the broken world
of not enough,
abounds plenty.

Scarcity, abundance
Two sides of one coin?

Growing food,
cutting wood,
writing poems,
finding happiness
in borrowed books,
free web sites,
knitting needles
is abundance.

Eating out,
buying clothes,
traveling on debt,
marketing,
corporate climbing
dooms us all
to scarcity.

Broken bodies,
broken towns,
a broken world.
From the ruins
rise
new hope,
as the mortgage
and the bills get
paid (or delayed)
for one more month.

Towels

(Inspired by the mysterious disappearance of one)

Large, small, hand, wash
rough, plush,
frayed, coiffed,
towels travel
upstairs,
downstairs,
from the bathroom
to the kitchen
to the barn,
the Y.

They lose their color
in repeated washes,
and their softness
with regular use.
The edges fray and drag
onto wet floors, into muddy tracks,
the bathtub.

The fiber acquires
suspicious sheds
of white, black, and brown-striped
hair from the felines
who consider towels
to be their empty nests.

They wipe bodies,
soap, toothpaste scum,
dishes, bike grease clean.
In the wash, they come out
looking almost new.

Three, four days a week,
a towel lands in my gym bag,
and travels with me to the Y,
where it is carried like a neglected baby
into the pool area,
toward the hot tub,
where it is hung carelessly
on a hook.

I soak in the hot tub,
softening the goosebumps
on my skin,
warming my perpetually
frozen fingers.
Then I lower myself into the cool pool,
and swim.

Tonight I swam long,
fifty-five minutes,
one mile minus ten yards.
When I returned to the hot tub,
two young women were hanging lovely striped towels
on the hooks
where my faded, worn down contribution
should have been.

I looked around, perplexed.
My husband gestured to another towel,
pink, faded to a dirty white,
ragged at the bottom,
hanging from a hook,
not mine.

I brought a purple one tonight,
I asserted.
My husband rolled his eyes
as a woman in the hot tub
chortled loudly.
Take that one, she says.
It's a Ralph Lauren,
all yours.

It's ours,
my husband said.
Faded, ragged, used.
I touched it.
Too soft, too plushy,
not ours.

If it's a Martha Stewart,
you'll know it's not yours,
the woman giggled,
enjoying the queen of drama's
ethical dilemma.

I stared at the ragged edge,
felt the chlorine drying on my skin,
and threw ethics out of the window.
It's a Ralph Lauren,
it's not mine,
but mine is missing,
so that one's mine now.

All yours now.
The lady of the jacuzzi
smiles and giggles,
wondering what new mystery
might unfold as I sink my body
into the hot tub,
wondering where, how, when
and why my towel
disappeared to.

Probing the Fifth Element

(Inspired by my students, who often teach me better than I do them.)

Hip-hop,
an art,
a culture,
a movement,
a way of life.

Building community,
Organizing politically,
Activism and art,
melded.

B-boying, b-girling,
breaking,
Bronx,
boroughs, battles
for respect, and dialogues
on truth, power, knowledge.

I came to hip-hop old,
reared on old Hindi film songs
and American rock and roll,
music often created by blacks
and made profitable for whites.

College, the second time around,
acquainted me with colonialism,
and its ways of knowing:
using arts, sciences, maths created
in the colonies
to control the colonized.

Four elements define hip-hop
breaking -- the b-boying, b-girling
rap -- emceeing
deejaying
graffiti -- writing
And then there's the fifth element
-- self actualization through knowledge.

What's that mean?
That was assignment #1
that I gave the students.
They acted like they didn't know.
I was at a loss
because I wasn't sure
I knew.

Then the papers came.
Music and self-expression of the oppressed.
A way to call attention to the plight of blacks.
Of the marginalized.
Of the silenced.
Not mainstream.
Something spiritual, and beyond commodity.
A way of knowing your place
in the world.
A dialogue.
Something that can't be bought or sold.
What hip-hop was meant to be.
Why hip-hop matters today.

Can you quote it? Cite it?
What are your sources?
How do you quote, cite, find a "source"
for what's inside you?
Probing, pushing the understanding of the fifth element
brings those questions to the forefront,
maybe, perhaps, possibly.

The dialogue continues.

Potatoes

(Inspired by Natalie Goldberg again, only potatoes, instead of mashed potatoes)

Potatoes no longer come in a bag.
They're no longer
brown, gold, and red.
They come out of the ground,
beautifully round,
brown, gold, red, blue, purple, white.
You name it,
they're there.

Potatoes sprout from the eyes
which explore the dark realms
of soil, creating new spuds
that grow bigger with time.

The key is to plant them
one to two inches deep,
one to two feet apart,
and to shovel hills of soil
over the budding leaves.

We rarely mash our potatoes
Why, when the flavor
straight from the ground
is so fresh?
We do dab them with butter,
black pepper, sometimes some
pesto, sometimes some salt.

Twenty-five pounds of seed potato
will yield about 250 to 300 fresh tubers.
They store well in a cool, dry, dark place,
where the eyes over time
will explore the darkness of the cellar
and create new sprouts.

Swimming

(Inspired by a prompt from Natalie Goldberg's Old Friend from Far Away to "Go, Ten Minutes" on Swimming)

Kids practice diving
from the starting blocks
as a coach barks instructions

One boy flops onto the water chest-first,
a girl head slams the surface.
Wrong, wrong, wrong,
the coach bellows.
Go down, not out.

I sit in the whirlpool
before my 1,500 yards
luxuriating in the hot water jets
remembering.

Coaches barking orders,
belly slaps onto waves,
head rushes when scalp scratched water's tip,
the red skin, tingling flesh,
all wrong.

I don't dive anymore.
I'm afraid to.
Watching the kids and the coach
barking orders,
I remember.

You crouch low,
curling the toes on the edge of the block.
Fingers curl beside each set of toes.
You use the joints as leverage.
Lean back, tense up, and then like a bullet,
shoot out.
A good dive from the starting block
takes you just below the surface,
two, maybe three inches.
You do not slap,
you glide,
past the ribbons,
and you surface fast
swimming hard.

The kids are small,
gregarious.
In practice, they don't mind
the belly slaps, the head slams,
the tingles, the pain.

I get out of the whirlpool
and make my way to the shallow end.
I lay my eyeglasses on a kick board,
don my goggles and jump in.
No dives for this old lady.

I swim several laps,
then feel the water undergo a sea change.
The coach has finished the diving drill,
and has dismissed the kids.
They play in the open area
as he starts his laps in the lane next to me.
I pump out 1,100 yards without a pause,
and feeling pleased,
lift my goggles,
don my eyeglasses,
and reach for the kick board.
The coach flip turns, resting in the shallow end.
He flashes a conspiratorial smile,
and gives me a thumbs up,
as if he too no longer dives.

Why I write

I write to create
change, variety in thought
and sound moves mountains.

Kitten love

Jim sings to Pascha,
as I try to compose a poem:
Love is not what's in your bowl
Love is what holds you in the soul.

Back story:
Pascha, born in Hawai'i, November 2004,
came to us weighing less than two pounds.
He couldn't walk right,
his tail was broken.
He shivered and hid
in a little cubby in an old stereo speaker.

But he found love in the form
of two other cats,
me and Jim.

He ate and ate,
and grew like a weed.

Nine years later,
he's crossed the Pacific and the continent.
In New York, he weighs
twenty-one pounds, three ounces.

At the vet, we were told -- again --
that he needs to lose some weight.
This time, the consequences looked more dire.
A bulge underneath his heart
showed up on an x-ray.
A tumor? An abcess?
Or simply fat?

He's a healthy cat,
except for the weight.
He chases birds, mice, and squirrels.
He climbs trees and windows.
He can outrun me.

On the x-ray table,
he showed no signs of pain
when he was flattened so the image
could be shot; he doesn't wheeze or
show discomfort.
He simply acts like a cat
who loves food.

I, too, act like a cat
who loves food.
And I dropped twenty-eight pounds
in two years by learning to love food
a little less.

So we're cutting back on food
for Pascha, and the other cats --
who eat what they need -- and
are normal weights.

Pascha cries. And so Jim holds him
and sings:
Love is not what's in your bowl.
Love is what holds you in the soul.

Sourdough starter

A remnant of a remnant
of flour, water, sugar, yeast
arrives from Hawai'i,
in Ziplock,
wrapped in plastic,
newspaper,
and stored in an old checkbox.

It looks and smells a bit sour.
If I didn't trust the sender,
warning bells would go off.

Squeeze it in a bowl,
add a cup of flour,
a cup of warm water,
stir, cover, and leave on the counter overnight.

Repeat the next day,
the next,
and the next.

The remnant expands and starts bubbling,
filling up a deep mixing bowl,
as dormancy ends,
like winter,
and new life begins.

The cloth cover begins to stick
to the side of the bowl.
The smell of sour diminishes,
as the bubbles intensify.

Finally, we use it.
Two cups of starter
with a little more water,
a bit more yeast,
sugar, oil, salt,
lots and lots of flour.

We mix it, and leave it to rise.
Punch it down and knead it some more.
In the oven, it bakes golden brown
and rises from a lump
to a loaf.

All that from a remnant
of flour, water, yeast, and sugar
that's twenty years old.

A series of challenges

Run ...
a marathon in a week.
Try ...
an Ironman in a month.
a Double Ironman in a month.
Write ...
a poem a day in April,
a short story a day in May,
750 words a day.

Serial challenges appeal to me.
They keep me focused,
motivated,
excited,
willing to keep moving forward.

They remind me
of the past marathons, triathlons,
efforts to write that ended
in failure.

They keep the pressure
of the piece that lurks in the air
but isn't ready for words
at bay, allowing ideas
to flitter until it is time to gel.

Dry spell

Lips so chapped it hurts to smile
Mouth so dry that my tongue sticks to my cup
Arms and legs so rough that the skin prickles
at the moment of contact
with bath water.

It's spring in Saratoga.
Snow melts, sun shines and
the wind blows all of the moisture
out of the air
leaving it bone dry.

I, too, am dry
for 112 days,
tea, not vodka
ginger ale over wine,
carrot juice and super greens
spiked with a splash
of Price Chopper seltzer.

Going dry has softened my face,
sharpened my brain,
toned my muscles and bones,
and added a spring to my step.

Still, I thirst
for something I long for
but cannot define.

Jackson Heights, NY

April 2, 2013

(Inspired by a Facebook status update I made, and quickly deleted)

The sun sets on a day that was gray
to begin with.
It strikes me that despite the crust of bodies all around me,
I am by myself
An American born Indian
with short cropped hair showing a couple splashes of grey,
in blue jeans, and a black leather jacket.
So tough.

The sounds of South Asia
and the smells of its food
surround me.
So do boys talking about science fairs,
cricket, and kabbadi,
and men preparing for prayer
at the community mosque.
No women,
except a few in burqa
and me.

I hear more Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi
than I do English.
Eight blocks earlier, while walking,
it was all Spanish.
I wonder, what do Americans --
that is, white Americans --
make of all this?

I had planned to sit down in a cheap snack shop
and eat what I can't get at home.
But I am alone,
an American born
Indian
with short hair, blue jeans, black jacket.
So tough.
But so uneasy about dining alone.

This crowd of dresses,
smells, and languages
is familiar,
but not my own.
That makes it strange
because I am ignored.

It strikes me the morning after
that the American -- the white American --
might have felt fear
from what was unfamiliar,
and might have been overwhelmed
by not being ignored.
There might have been snide remarks,
racist slurs,
fist fights,
and swear words.
That might have been dangerous,
unsafe.

I did not feel unsafe,
or out of place,
just merely alone.

Nearing Penn Station

April 2, 2013
(Inspired by Monday's ride into Penn Station for a conference at the SUNY COIL center in Manhattan the following day.)

"Next stop, Penn Station, New York City."
Anxiety, excitement.
My heart pumps up the blood a little faster,
as the street signs change between tunnels
and the train rocks over tracks that seem a bit rougher.

Twenty minutes.

Do I have all my things?
What should I do first?
Seventh Avenue or Eighth?
Uptown or down?
Walk or ride?
Hot dog, falafel, or sit-down restaurant?

Visits in my early twenties taught me the importance
of having a plan,
of keeping the vitals strapped tight to the person,
of looking straight ahead,
of walking fast,
of acting like you knew what you were doing,
where you were going.
In reality, I didn't have a clue.

Ten minutes.

Today, I don't have a plan, really.
It's raining.
I want to get to the hotel room,
dump my bags,
and write.
But it's New York City,
my head tells my pumping heart.
Live it up.

I ascend the elevator
and decide to walk to Grand Central Station,
at least.
To there, I can soak up some city,
From there, I can ride into Queens.

Check-in,
Shower,
Go to Jackson Heights.
Shop.
Eat.
Go back to the room.
Write.

I enter the gray light of April.
Horns honk,
the air feels thick.
The city has changed since the last visit, it seems,
in five months,
what can change?

Seasons,
air,
buildings,
temperament,
signs.
Change is the constant of vitality,
the hub of the place
where one acts a part of a scene
in which she hasn't a clue.

How Lucky I Have Been

April 1, 2013

How lucky I have been

(drafted from a Go, ten minutes, prompt from Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away)

I have never missed a mortgage payment,

yet.

I have been late,

never never

yet.

I bought a house for what felt like too much.

I loved it, held it, didn't take the best care of it.

It needed work, which I didn't understand,

but I loved it and held it for 16 years.

A time came to sell it,

for more than triple the amount I first spent.

I miss it.

I bought another house for what felt like too much.

I loved and hold it, and do my best to take care of it.

It pays for itself,

with the roof that shelters us, 

the gardens that feed us,

the hens in the coop who create eggs

and fertilizer for the yard, 

with the fireplace that warms up,

and the 200 years of life it lived before me

to remind us

that nothing is static.

I bake bread in the house

as friends from far away

send me calendars with pictures

with beaches

where I once frolicked,

pictures and stories of restaurants 

that once wined and dined me,

recipes,

remembrances of the past.

I blend them into the present

as the debt collector parks

on the other side of the street

even as he is looking for my house,

for me.

Hard times all around, he says.

Yes, I reply stiffly,

I'm doing my best.

Let them know that;

they just need to know that you're trying.

I snort. 

After all, debt collector is a job title, too,

with a description,

collect debt.

I make the call. 

They say they know it's hard all around,

keep trying.

I hang up the phone,

knowing I can run but not run away