Quitting Time

(The final poem for NaPoWriMo 2014 was inspired to write a poem on calling it a day. I wondered if, when, how one actually can do that anymore.)

A bellow through a conch shell,
the blowing of the factory whistle,
the ringing of a bell --
once signified an end of work, a time for home, a time for play.

The warming seas have eroded lands where conch shells once held such a role.
The factories have closed,
and while the school bells still ring, the meaning of the sound has diminished
as working parents tell their kids to stay behind
for after school.

With the end of the assembly line came the start of 24/7.
The work can start anytime, and end anytime.
Security is unassured,
even as we think we live more freely.
We work long into the night on devices of our choice,
marveling at the ease of Internet
while our family lives erode.
We fall asleep on sofas, or during films,
with our laptops in our laps, and our smartphones whispering into our ears.
Without the old bellow, it seems that quitting time is no more.

Where Is The Calm In Your Life?

(This poem emerged out of a workshop that I did with three colleagues today on Sustainability in Mentoring, one of the most important -- and sometimes challenging -- aspects of our jobs.)

The calm in life rests in the spaces in between clutter.
The calm is the sun lifting the horizon each morning,
taking my memory back to the tropics and Hawai'i,
where each morning began with a bellow,
a bellow summoning us awake,
signifying the calm
as illusion
because the day ahead would be full of noise.

The meow of the peacocks,
the flitter of the java sparrows
scrambling amid fallen petals of plumeria
to seek the dew-damp grass.
The jockeying for space in traffic,
for seats on TheBus,
for time for coffee, toast, a piece of fruit
before the frantic pace of the day took hold.

The bellow signified the soft touch and fragrance
of the plumeria's daily breath,
the withering of petals crushed
through the day by feet,
the flute playing softly at the beach
as the sun fell into the ocean
with its brief glittering green flash.

The seed

A small body,
a speck in soil,
it lifts its tendril tentatively to the sun,
welcoming its furious heat and light.

Settled

I spoke with someone living in Lebanon today.
We talked through the static of a faulty Internet connection.
I strained to glimpse behind the yellow opaque walls that framed her desk
a feeling of the Beirut I encountered in 1973.

At the airport, only. I was ten, flying on a Pan American jet to New Delhi.
They put us in the smoking section by accident.
Yes, they used to allow smoking on flights.
We stopped in London, Frankfurt, Rome, Istanbul, and then Beirut.
Then Cairo, Karachi, and finally New Delhi.
From there, the plane was going to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Hawai'i,
before returning to the U.S. continent in San Francisco.

I thought I would travel like that,
and for awhile I did somewhat:
London, New Delhi, Tokyo, Hong Kong,
Bangkok, Santiago, Chile; London again.
Mexico, Costa Rica, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid
Hawai'i, and back to India again.
Pakistan, Nepal, Mexico.
One more time in India.

And, then, it was the Year 2000, and it all stopped.

I grew up, inherited adult responsibilities.
Money dried up, work piled up.
Old relationships dried up.
New ones flowered.
Years passed.
I went to Canada once, or twice.
But nowhere else.

I wonder how people can afford to fly
when airfare to Hawai'i alone is more than the monthly mortgage.
I wonder if I will travel ever again,
outside the U.S.

I mentioned my memory of Beirut today.
The Internet crackled as the woman at the other end cackled.
"You're coming here," she said.

Monsters

Memory is our biggest monster.
What we imagine our stories to be like
is rarely real.

We take one small shard of reality
and turn it into glass.
Before we know it,
we've cut ourselves on the pain
of mis-remembering the past.

Spring planting

Today, I planted the fast-growing root veggies:
Radishes, carrots, and Hakurei turnips.
They went into soil that resides over a creek.
Each winter the soil accumulates new rocks from the creek.
The rocks hold moisture in place and help the soil.
They also create unusual little dents in our turnips and cause our carrots to grow askew.
The creek fills into the ditch as the snow melts.
After heavy rains, the ditch is like a lake.
And then after two days of hot sunshine,
the water is gone.
The soil is dry, and thirsts for water once more.

Pecking orders

(This poem was inspired by a prompt to write "a final straw" poem. It serves as a real-life metaphor for a particular incident for me. Perhaps it will do the same for others, too.)

The crumbs fly carelessly from the giver's hand
catching the wind and drifting
before tumbling to the ground.
The birds see the crumbs
and scramble for them,
knocking over, pecking each other
in the lust for more than one morsel.
The birds who get the most are the fattest,
and perhaps the least healthiest.
They knew -- but failed to remember -- in their greed
that the crumbs were not real sustenance
but junk discarded from a human hand that cared little
of their fates.

One bird failed to make it to the fest in time.
She nibbled plaintively at a single crumb,
and then turned back to her regular diet
of grubs, worms, ants, bugs, and grass.
As her companions grew fat and complacent,
she found herself feeling refreshed
by her own sense of peace. She continued to live
       her bird-like life, finding joy in her ritual
       of foraging, daily baths, travels to new sights,
       and leisurely fluffings of her feathers in the sun.

        She was among the birds
that survived her first year,
a year when eight out of ten birds perish,
and lived a long and prosperous life.
For her, the fight for crumbs was the final straw.
She was not going to struggle anymore.

Tell It To The Sourdough

Your bubbles tell us you're alive,
revived,
awakened,
ready to deliver
leavening
for bread.

We'll plump you up with flour and water
and let you rise,
slowly.
For several hours you will grow
big and bulbous.

Then, we'll heat the oven to 500,
and let you bake.
You will rise, tan golden brown
and begin to smell quite
overwhelmingly
delicious.

When you cool,
we will slice you
and you will be our sustenance,
our daily bread.

Laundering

Clogs in a discharge pump shut down the home washing machine for eight months.
We went to the laundromat.
Every week, four washing machines and three dryers.
I wrote, knitted, graded papers, and shelled beans.

Finally, we cleared the clog.
The ecstasy lasted from late October through mid-January
when the pipes froze, and something broke.
Our warranty expired. We too were broke.
We went to the laundromat again.

Every week, three washing machines and three dryers.
Why we're washing fewer clothes is puzzling, but life at the laundromat is not.
For thirty-five minutes, the washers run.
I read an essay, grade two papers (sometimes three), or write some words.
The dryers run for 16 to 40 minutes, depending on
the weight of the fabrics,
the heaviness of the load,
the humidity of the day.
I read a little more, grade a little more, write.

A student Beyonce has the same number of hours in her day as you and me.
But does Beyonce measure productivity in wash and dry cycles?

Possibilities in pessimism

(Inspired by a prompt to write an optimistic poem or a pessimistic one.)

A glass half-empty opens up a world of options:
Do we fill the glass with fresh poisons,
or allow the old to drain away,
leaving emptiness -- a serene space
that new life can fill.

Basic writing

(Inspired by a prompt to write a Back to Basics poem.)

Morning pages need
pen, notebook, coffee, and you
for thirty minutes.

Easter 2014

It didn't feel like a holiday.
I kept wondering if I should expect something --
a bunny visit?
a revelation?
a miracle?
Instead, the day began like most others --
cats meowing for their breakfast,
me complying with their calls
and then going back to bed for another hour.
Coffee, morning pages, meds, a light breakfast.
The routine.
But then it was time to move the babes out
and into their new home.
From there, pancakes, bacon, a fresh apple.
Hours of allium planting.
I did squeeze in a bike ride
but no phone calls.

Blue

(Inspired by a prompt to write about a color.)

A primary shade,
a mood, in the plural.
The fifth chakra,
the throat,
speaking your truth.

Blends with red to create purple,
with yellow for green,
complements orange as a partner
but clashes when it comes to intermingling.

Ocean and sky,
air and water,
blue makes melancholy
a melody of our time.

Waiting for the storm

(Inspired by a prompt to write about the weather)

The air today: thick with tension,
as if the world knew
pain from a past historic experience
etched into Scriptures so that, like the Holocaust,
we will always remember.

The sun is edgy,
peeking in and out of clouds,
unsure whether it is safe to face the world
without fear of repercussion.

The air felt warm, with a chill --
foreboding, perhaps. I sat in the laundromat,
feeling impoverished for not having my own
functioning washing machine and dryer,
forgetting for the moment,
that usually I like the laundromat
with its multiple washers and dryers,
plastic chairs and benches
creating an opportunity in a busy life
for meditation,
for reflection,
for a time out.

Hello Kitty

(Today's prompt was to write a popular culture poem.)

Arm raised, grin bared,
she greets us
on refrigerator magnets, placards, postcards, napkins
and in plastic bins.
The real feline power
is not in Hello Kitty.
She is too fake to be ferocious.
Yet she has softened the claws,
muted the teeth,
and made the two-eared, tailed
sleek counterparts to dogs
friends of choice.

Winter's warriors

(Today's prompt was to write an elegy, described as a love poem to the dead. I chose to look out at my garden once again, where in the early spring death and life co-mingle.)

For the bean and brussels sprout stalks that stand in the back,
withered yet stalwart like soldiers,
we salute you.

Your spent legs held our soil in check,
building new life with minerals and nutrients,
saddling in the old soil
to alleviate erosion.

Soon you will find a home beneath the earth,
where you will become agents of the decay
into which new stalks will root in their quest
for life.

For now, after the snow,
yet before the shovel and plow,
stand tall and greet the sun.
Experience the warm kiss
of spring's warmth,
then go, quietly, to rest.

When you're ready to retire

(A two-for-Tuesday prompt combines a love poem and an anti-love poem.)

You know when you're ready to retire
if you do not dislike your job
but cannot make time
to do the things you want to do.
So says a colleague,
citing something read over the Internet.

If you hate your job, you cannot retire
because you have not yet come to love it.
Yet if you love your job, you cannot retire
because you would have no life without it.

A fine line between love and hate
rests in the word work.
Most of us love work but hate to have too much of it.
Most of us crave leisure but feel anxious when it time for it exists.

Work equals money -- sometimes.
Money gives us something to love,
and something to hate.

If I were 22

(Today's prompt was to write an "If I were ..." poem. Here's what emerged.)

I would go abroad
instead of racing right into a job.
I would consider marriage by arrangement
and would put more trust in faith and stars to align.

I would learn all the languages I still don't know,
read the books I haven't read,
score 100 percent on the classic films quiz
and know every song within hip-hop like the back of my hand.

I would bicycle across Europe,
and trek the Annapurna Circuit.
I would walk the Pacific Crest and Appalachian trails,
and island hop through Oceania.

I would move all over the world
and thumb my nose at the idea of settling down.
I would live out of suitcases, hotel rooms,
and cars. And, at the same time, I would plant
seeds and dream of living on a farm,
where I could live out retirement
writing books, cooking, and shucking beans
for winter soups.

Animals of the Adirondacks

(Today's prompt was to write an animal poem. Living where I live, one animal could not possibly suffice.)

After winter, the night noises rise
as windows break free of weather-proof seals
and soar open.
Frogs chirp.
Owls screech.
And the coyotes that run along the riverbank laugh.

The hens in the coop tuck themselves into balls of feather and silk,
and curl their toes around roosting poles,
their bodies only partially asleep.
The pullets and cockerels nestle indoors in balls of fuzz,
awaiting the feathers that will make them bold, bright, and resilient.

The skunks prowl harmlessly through the last traces of snow,
searching for friends, whom they greet
with their odiferous perfume.

The cats claim talents as hunters at the top of the feline food chain,
but in reality they prefer to be fed in a bowl.
A soft bed of blankets or towels
beats the alley life
by a long shot.
But then the skunk prowls over the deck
and the cat's midnight vision goes on high alert.

New York moments

(Prompt today was to write a city poem. Having lived in New York -- rural New York -- for four years now, I find myself referring to The City a lot. So this is about The City and the place where I live, and how they each love speed, in different ways.)

People from the city won't drive fast
on the country roads, where the speed limit says 45
but everyone goes about 60
until you hit the curve and have to brake

People from the city will walk fast
on moving stairwells, where there is no well marked sign
but everyone knows you're supposed
to stay right when standing, and left when walking.

The revolution will not be televised

(Today's prompt was to write a poem with a "statement title." I had a better idea for a poem and went with it but couldn't come up with a title. Hence, the statement.)

Small bodies, seemingly frail
and bound to the earth
shake off the shackles of snow
and rise from the thawing ground
ready to burst forth with new life anew.
They remind us that slight is not light,
that they, too, are resilient.

Telos

(Inspired by a prompt to write a future poem)

After poverty,
greed grows redundant,
hunger non-existent.
Theft, beggary, sacrifice
cease to be words
of our language.
We simply live to create
and give without need for return.

Shelters

(Today's poem was inspired by a prompt to write about shelters.)

The therapy horse whinnies as we approach
     the no-kill shelter
     on Russell Road.

There, cats that are HIV-positive and afflicted
      with feline leukemia live alongside a crowing rooster,
      a bull, and a couple of goats.

Stardust presides quiet-faced in her field
as people walk past
her peaceable kingdom.

There, she shares space with dogs
   who may have been abused or mistreated co-mingle with hens
   and volunteers who are short of all resources but love.

White-maned and graying at the sides,
she is thirty-nine,
a horse with a spirit.

There, she walks a public road
   unattended, with poise and no fear through her home
   that accepts all creatures, no questions asked.

Bricks

(Written in response to a prompt on violence or peace)

Bricks
In homes, they are mud, dried hard to build.
Difficult to destroy.
On paths, one finds them trapped in grass,
paving walkways to success.
In triathlons, call them a multiple workout.
Swim, bike, run.
Run, swim.
Bike, run.
Run, bike.
Whatever works. You got it.

The world is on the verge of collapse.
Famines abound.
Natural disasters multiply.
The financial crisis keeps spreading,
as checks bounce all over town.
In these times, bricks built out of mud, remain dry, too hard to be destroyed.
Can they pave a path to peace, to health, to new wealth?

Chicks chirps and kittens meow.
The elder hen bellows as she lays an egg in the coop.
Bunny fluffs her feathers coquettishly,
and the rooster looks away with a yawn.
Soon the melting snow will dissolve into mud, mud that is soft and pliable.
Mud that will allow fingers to poke holes into earth,
to drop in the seeds of new growth.
From the richness of muck emerges new wealth:
carrots, turnips, and beets.
Radishes, kale, collards,
and rhubarb.
Asparagus spears shoot up.
And that is only the beginning.

Head over heels

(Today's prompt was to write a self-portrait. The title, which suggests a sense of love, came after the words, which hardly feel like love. But perhaps in this draft there lurks some kind of love.)

Something's bothering me, getting under my skin.
Not sure what.
I've been bitten by a need for perfection,
when all I want to do is create.

Sunrises promise a chance to re-start,
to be rebirthed,
to begin all over again,
to renew.
Days start with a space of rest, with sunshine, with coffee,
a resolve to make every minute matter.

The grind withers the resolve.
Time is frittered away.
Bright-eyes grow dim,
bushy tails wilt.
And suddenly it's sunset,
and dark, and time to get dinner together
and then too late again.

I look back with a sense of failure.
What went wrong?
Why couldn't I do what I said I would?
I feel myself wondering when the sun will come out,
if the next will be better.

Night Poem

(Today's Writer's Digest prompt was to write a night poem. I chose to consider what's usually my last 40 minutes of the awake day.)

Pages are written.
Dishes are scrubbed.
Cats have eaten.
So has my husband.
So have I.
I sit and let the fire warm my feet
and lull me to sleep.

Mundane discoveries

Today's Writer's Digest prompt was to write a discovery poem. I found myself focusing on mundane discoveries of the day about cat food, plantar's warts, the protein content of plant-based foods. Reflection on the mundane led to the real discovery: life seems to be in a holding phase so that certain projects get done, certain milestones are accomplish before jumping forward.

Tonight, I discovered that duct tape might be able to cure plantar's warts.
Cut off a piece.
Place over afflicted area.
Wait six days.
Rinse, lather, repeat.

Apparently, it's no more effective than a placebo.
But it probably costs a lot less than the over-the-counter remedy,
or the physician's treatment.
The warts hurt, especially when you're a runner.
For the most part, however, they go away eventually.

I discovered that cat food should contain meats
as the first five ingredients.
It should be real meat, no animal by-products.
Protein and fat will help an overweight cat
more than carbs.
Which seems odd that the vet recommended a diet food that is low in fat and does contain carbs.
Still, the heavy cat loses weight when he eats it.

Is there more to discovery than these simple finds?
I seem focused less on the ethereal and more on the mundane.
It's as if I just want to get through this phase.
I'm waiting for news:
for things to get better,
for debts to get paid off,
for poorness to pass.
What I discovered is that I'm less worried about being broke this year than I was last year.
Everything becomes habitual in time.

Rootedness

(This poem came out of a practice run for a sustainability workshop that I am doing with a couple of Empire State College colleagues on Friday, April 11, at the college's Student Wellness Retreat. It was inspired by Mary Oliver's poem "Sunrise.")

Each morning --
climbing the familiar hills,
I think of life when I'm ninety.
More familiar yet
still climbing.
Slower but still surely moving
to stretch the most out of each minute.
My lungs fill with air.
My heart pumps with blood.
Sweat beads my forehead.
I think of the day
as a chance to start over,
to be new.

Luna

(Today's prompt comes from my longtime junior high and high school friend, Bailea Jenkins, with whom I just reconnected recently on Facebook. It is to write a lune, which she describes as a 3-5-3 poems: words, not syllables.)

Once a month
cats yowl and run wildly
the full moon

Was it real?

(Today's prompt from Writer's Digest was to write a message poem. Among the examples proposed was Jumbotron. My main experience with a Jumbotron comes from attending President Obama's inauguration -- twice.)


Flashback: January 21, 2009, Washington, DC.
The grounds of the Capitol, frozen below and swollen above with the bodies of hundreds of thousands.
Somewhere between 1.8 million and 3 million people traveled to DC to witness the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's first African American president.
I was part of that crowd.
How I got there and why I was there was:
* about teaching and learning
* about grassroots democracy
* about the power of social media to connect students and others to a larger historic event.
But that's another story.
Flash forward four years.
January 20, 2013, Washington, DC.
The grounds of the Capitol, frozen below and swollen above with the bodies of hundreds of thousands.
About six hundred thousand people traveled to DC to witness the second swearing-in of Obama.
I was part of that crowd.
How and why I went back has to do with teaching and learning.
But that's another story.
Here's the message:
Snagged a gold ticket and a seat on a 6 a.m. train in-bound from Fairfax County, VA, where I was staying with my aunt .
Emerged from the ground,
Saw the dome of the Capitol glowing against a dawn-lightening sky.
Walked through security, taking pictures and posting them to Facebook,
(something that my privacy, freedom, and security friends admonished me for later).
Walked out of security and started striding as fast as I could toward those glowing domes.
The goal: get as close to the president as possible, even though I knew I wouldn't see a thing.
I found a spot, below a Jumbotron.
I would be eye-to-eye with Obama, live on the screen.

Routes to roots

(Today's prompt from Writer's Digest was to write a voyage poem. It came on the heels of me putting in funding requests for three trips -- all work-related -- and updating my calendar with travel and work commitments through October. It seemed ironic that I no longer consider myself a traveler.)

A voyage poem.
It should be easy, only I don't do much voyaging anymore.
I moved three times in the first ten months of my life,
lived in thirteen different states to date.
By age 50 I had had forty different addresses, and several new area codes.
Then, the moving stopped.
I put down roots, and watched as my husband planted seeds that created crops we would eat.
Together we created a household with cats and chickens.
We began eating eggs fresh from the coop.
I started writing every morning and every night.
If I travel now, it is for work.
Yet in work comes excitement and energy.
The chance to drink coffee in an unfamiliar place,
to sleep in a bed in a room I didn't help clean,
to live on three changes of clothing for three months,
to walk all over the place like a nomad
looking for a place to put down roots.

Taken in

(Following the practice of last year's National Poetry Writing Month event, I am working with prompts posted to the Writer's Digest website. Today's prompt was to write a beginnings poem or an endings poem, or both. Writers were invited to mix, match, and combine as they pleased. Using a technique of writing a poem from beginning to end and then rewriting it from end to beginning, I discovered -- as I often do -- that I liked the end to beginning better. But the flow was a little off, so I mixed and matched and edited and revised, and ultimately broke the ending and beginning into two, reversed the flow, and came up with this. The prompt is here: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2014-april-pad-challenge-day-1)

Taken in
Last night, I couldn't decide if I still trusted the spirit.
"Show me the way."
Nine years ago, I had put my fate in the hands of a holy spirit and simply surrendered.
The result ...
A life that is richly rewarding
and financially harder.
That was a beginning.
Sadness, fatigue. Aching head all day at work.
I kept hunting for a rationale for the pain and couldn't locate it so I slept.

Finally ....
around three minutes, I started to laugh.
M&Ms are not seeds. They will melt in the soil.
I was drawn in, mesmerized, seduced by faith.
My questioning voice was screaming, but intrigued ...
I clicked on the link and proceeded to watch a five-minute video on growing your own chocolate by planting M&Ms.
A joke. April 1.