Wandering Through the Dark

I’m excited that the spring equinox is getting closer, although the time change has been tough for me to adjust to this week. Green leaves of daffodils, crocuses, and tulips are showing themselves in my garden, hinting at bright colors to come. It’s easy for me to write about flowers and beauty, but before that begins again, I want to take time to acknowledge the dark we’ve come through here in the Northern Hemisphere.  

This year's solstice wheel

Every year the seasons do their circle dance, and some parts are more welcome than others. I have learned, though, that even dark winter days have their own beauty and gifts. This is mainly thanks to a meditative practice led by Carolyn Cushing called Descent and Return of the Light, where we use Tarot cards and candles to explore and learn from the long nights surrounding the winter solstice. I did this e-retreat for the third time this year, and one of the helpful phrases that came to me was that I can “keep the darkness in my heart.” The December holidays can feel like mandated, simplistic happiness that grates on me if I’m not able to also hold space for sadness and complexity.  

Card image of The Moon from The Wild Unknown by Kim Krans

For a meditation prompt about who or what can be a guide through the dark, I pulled the moon card, which signifies directionless! I was frustrated by the idea at first, but as I thought about it, I came to a more mystical sense of trusting that I can wander without being “lost.” (Like in the famous Tolkien quote.) Soon after that, I was walking by the ocean on a dark night with no moon, noticing rich layers of darkness with the deep water, the new moon, and the midnight winter cold. Here’s a poem I wrote from that experience. 

New Journal, New Form: Check out the cadralor!

I’m happy to say, dear Reader, that after a five-year hiatus, I have resumed revising and sending out poems! The first fruit of those labors is my poem We Begin at the End in the latest issue of a new journal called Gleam. This journal is completely dedicated to a new form they’re calling the cadralor. It’s an interesting and expansive form, focused on images and intuitive structure instead of meter or anything you can count, other than the required five stanzas. Last night I had the pleasure of hearing many of the poets in the issue read their work, as well as reading mine to them. 

A poetry reading on Zoom is an odd yet oddly beautiful experience. The one I attended last night included people from at least three U.S. time zones and someone from the U.K. There were no audible sighs from the audience after particularly affecting lines, like we would have heard if we were all in a room together — but instead, people quoted those lines in the chat, or made other comments about what spoke to them in each poet’s work. 

I owe thanks for the discovery of this new journal and poetic form to the poet Kris Ringman, whose gorgeous poem, When I am dead, will you make runes with my body? was in Gleam’s inaugural issue. You can also see and/or listen to her reading it on YouTube. 

In early drafts, my poem was an ekphrastic work based on the 10 cards in the Gaian Tarot. Poet and tarot reader Carolyn Cushing had shared that 10s in the tarot can symbolize what comes after a culmination, the end that slides into a beginning again. For a while, I revised and reworked it as a four-stanza poem, but to make it into a cadralor, I added another stanza based on a 10 from a different deck. This is the third stanza that comes in the middle, where the poem transitions from an act of learning and mourning to a growing sense of obligation and connection. Taking on the challenge of writing a cadralor, which pushed me to add a fifth stanza, was key to this poem finally coming together.

Inspiration in the form of Tarot art

Poem-Sketch: Dandelions

Spring for me
Is autumn for them
With their seed-hair
Bright as grandma’s halo
Then naked as a man
With no teeth
They say
Our work here is done
But you must keep on
Keep on
Don’t fight the wind
Use it

---

I wrote this poem-sketch while sitting outside in early spring, one of those days when warmth feels new and precious. Each being is on its own schedule, all of us overlapping and interlocking like a great tapestry of life and death. One of my grandmothers had a head of white, curly hair that shone like a halo when she visited me in a dream.

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Poem-Sketch: Sunlight

Today I slept late

And missed the newborn day
With its soft innocence
Its basket of knitted possibilities

The warm light of the sun
The bright light of the sun
The harsh light of the sun
Exposes a beetle on a leaf of grass
Sharpens each blade into a knife
Silences the flowers

It started before Eve
Was framed, exiled beyond
The first of many walls

Let there be light
Meant let there be
Have and have nots

No one talks now
but trucks and sparrows

---

This poem started as notes that I jotted down while drinking my tea outside one morning in the middle of May. I had slept later than I normally do, and I noticed how much stronger the sunlight was, plus how much quieter were the local animals. Instead of peaceful and warm, sitting in the sun at that point was unpleasant and hot! The experience reminded me of this little poem by Valerie Worth and also got me thinking about how power and goodness are relative and contextual. (The link to Worth’s poem is from a tribute in No Water River.) The image shows the fence shadow I was looking at. 

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Let’s Try This Again: Time's Avenue

After a 3-year hiatus due to, you know, life and death and stuff, Dragon’s Meow is back! Making time for art, writing, and contemplation never ceases to be a challenge — but I have a hopeful feeling about the coming months, friends.

This post is about an artist’s date I took with my friends Lauren Kindle and her daughter in Manhattan last December. Lauren’s a big Chagall fan, so we started out by visiting Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922 at the Jewish Museum. Then we walked down 5th Avenue and decided to visit the Guggenheim, too, because a friend of Lauren’s had heartily recommended Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future. The show was amazing! Transcendent, even.

Seeing the two shows in the order we did felt like walking through a story of unfolding consciousness. That’s what this poem is about.

Time’s Avenue

In the beginning were the lovers,
drinking wine and dancing in the village.
The houses — upside down and sideways.
The goats — in the air, everywhere.
Next, the idealists moved in.
Angular and colorless, they edged out
the old master’s dream-creations.
Finally, the realist unspooled her mind.
Her thoughts were multicolored,
geometric yet generous, so we could travel
through space and spiral into ourselves,
then out again into a library of voices.


Here are some pictures of the art and architecture that inspired the poem.

“the lovers, / drinking wine and dancing”

Marc Chagall, Double Portrait with Wine Glass, 1917-18

“Her thoughts were multicolored…”

Admiring The Ten Largest by Hilma af Klint

“we could travel / through space and spiral into ourselves”

The “library of voices”

The Aye Simon Reading Room

Winter Solstice Poem

I wrote this poem in response to the wonderful food grown at Mountain View Farm in Easthampton, MA. For this December's distribution of our "community supported agriculture" share, they made it extra special with these luminaries! 

Prayer in Winter

  

Luminous paper bags show the way

to parsnips, carrots, beets

summer radiance transformed

for sale at the farm stand.

May this food

shine through me

let my words light the path

for people trying to find

food on a cold night,

nothing but paper in their fists.

The horizon is heavy

the future is leaden

but still we push back
with our little lights.

Poetry Garden Party, or “Forever is composed of Nows...”

If there's poetry in heaven, I think it looks like the garden party I attended a few weeks ago. Walking from the sidewalk into a yard artfully scattered with sculpture, paintings, musicians, and refreshments I thought—I've come to the Elysian Fields. The sun shown gently and the hosts welcomed everyone generously.

The main attractions were three houses from "The Little White House Project: Dwell in Possibility" by Peter Krasznekewicz.

Paintings by Sandy Denis hung on the fence. Good thing it didn't rain that day! This one says, "To tell the Beauty would decrease / To state the spell demean" - Emily Dickinson

Mary Clare and Vi's granddaughter, Lily, made sure that everyone got a "happy happy stone." I snuck a blue one home for Jen, too.

They'd also paired poems by Emily Dickinson with various features in the yard, so poems about flowers stood beside flowers and poems about stones stood beside stones. This one begins, "How happy is the little Stone / That rambles in the Road alone, / And doesn't care about Careers / And Exigencies never fears—"

Here's the poem I wrote from prompts that were available on the table, culled from Emily Dickinson and other poets.

Now’s to Be a New Road 
The grass does not appear afraid

of me. It does not accuse me of anything.
Why are all these stems so generous?
Echinacea, barley, oats and tansy
sing the sun song and rain song each day.
In the gourd birdhouses, no passenger
was ever known to dissemble or dismiss.
The everyday weight and business of life
is one fact by our side.
This summer’s monotony of blooming
is another.

The party is also described in more luxurious detail by Trish Crapo in this Greenfield Recorder article. 

Thanks to Mary Clare and Violet for a beautiful and inspiring afternoon!

The Garden Man

I wrote this poem in response to the sculpture "Garden Man" by Bob Turan at Art in the Orchard. What I love about this piece is how the figure's body becomes whatever is behind him. He's solid yet transparent. He's static, but when something moves in him, he seems to move, too. He's also making an opposite gesture from Mount Tom (seen in the background), which makes him seem to me like another mountain watching over the valley.

The Garden Man

Today a dog and three people

passed through my heart.

The apples were ripe

and they’d come to pick.

They didn’t see me:

I am everything they already know

but I welcomed their motion

in my stasis of green.

I was made to shelter growing things,

not to move them.

And in the sheltering

I become them.

My arms are squash blossoms

and the apple-laden orchard.

My legs are the soil,

my shoulders the mountain.

The blue above is an opposing force

as I lean into the road, the grass.

My head is the sky.

Transparent to the valley, I breathe

green life. Yet even though

my muscles are made of air,

everything with wings

seems beyond my reach.

After sunset

I change completely,

become a bone—

starlight for marrow.

The moon crosses my mind

once in a while.

Fireflies and bats

keep their distance.

What we are made of defines us:

for me more than most.

Usually I’m a lens—a frame—a container.

But today a dog and three people

passed through my heart.

The dog ran, the people gathered fruit.

They didn’t see me

or know me

or need me

and in those moments

I was free.

Feathers from Home

In Costa Rica, we saw many birds, insects, reptiles, and mammals that were colorful, exciting, and exotic. But there was also something special about seeing species that live in New England for part of the year. This prose poem is about a few of them. The "hourglass" refers to the shape of the Central American isthmus that all migratory species funnel through if they travel between North America and South America. Since I don't have photos of any of these birds, I've included one of the boots that are so helpful for walking along muddy rainforest paths.

Migration

Seen from the air, the “rich coast” is a rough-hewn jewel. On the ground, it is a busy rainbow: thin neck of the American hourglass through which all migratory species must pass. Hello, wood thrush! I saw you last in New Hampshire. Ruby-throat, did you visit me in Hadley last year? Oriole, I have never been to Baltimore, but maybe you’ve perched in Boston? Old friend red-tail, it’s so good to see you. I will look for you in May when I am back and you have also flown home to nest.

Boots at Tirimbina Biological Reserve

Creatures and Wonder

In January, I was lucky to spend 2 weeks in Costa Rica with a biology class from Westfield State University. We visited 4 distinct ecosystems with vastly different flora and fauna, and saw an incredible amount of wildlife thanks to our fabulous guides and the immense biological diversity in Costa Rica.

This is one of a few poems that I wrote during and after the trip. It's in blank verse, my favorite form for narrative. Also, this is the first time that I've included a link in a poem before, but the lizard mentioned is so cool I think you should know about it. All the other creatures you can look up on your own to learn more if you want. Enjoy!

Red Eyes and Pink Eye

After the third day in the rainforest
your eye swells up. You have been touching frogs,
stroking smooth green or speckled backs after
your guide disappeared to the midnight pond,
then returned with a jewel. He showed you the blue
streaked sides, the red webs between tiny toes.
He knows how to hold so they won’t struggle.
That morning he caught butterflies in nets,
held them in his hands, showed you their secrets.
The curled antennae. Front legs that can taste.
The wing where a bird took a beak-shaped bite.
The next day another guide explained birds:
Iridescent hummingbirds’ hide and shine,
woodpeckers tapping trees as a message.
By the pond you heard slap slap slap as the
Jesus Christ lizard ran upright across.
At night she took you to a field, turned off
the flashlights. You saw lightning bugs and stars.
She told you about pheromone ant trails,
owls’ faces shaped like satellite dishes
for better hearing, extra eye membranes.
You went to bed full of caiman eyeshine,
tadpoles, black-and-blue-striped skippers. You woke
eager for papaya, coffee, put in
your artificial eyes without washing.
So after the river float—the howling
monkey monsters guarding trees, iguanas
sunning themselves pleased as rocks, the toucans
flapping red, yellow and black through green leaves—
your beloved eyes ached pink, oozed yellow.
At la pharmacia a young woman
tells you to apply ointment twice a day
and chamomile teabags for swelling.
You are not a creature of the forest:
you’re a creature of grace and gratitude.

Rufus-eyed stream frog

Flowers in November

This is one of the poems I wrote for the 30 Poems in 30 Days fundraiser. It's also included in the event anthology published by Center for New Americans. When I sent this poem out as a thank you to my sponsors for that event, my dad wrote back and asked if witch hazel blooming in November is a sign of climate change. Nope — there's no need to worry about this particular plant. This variety normally blooms in the fall.

Hamamelis virginiana

In November
you can still find dandelions
blooming, half buried
in dirt and gravel by the road.
In the woods, witch hazel
waves gnarled petals
every cockeyed way at the sky.
Bare, gray or brown is everywhere
you look, except for these
tiny yellow messages.

Atheism Billboard 2

Here's another poem inspired by these atheism billboards. This poem was also influenced by an article (that now I can't find) about how technology isn't inherently egalitarian. Some people like to think that more access to technology will solve all our problems, but until we work on ourselves and our society, technology will still reflect personal prejudices and societal inequality.

On the First Day Man Created God

So what? “Man” has created many things.

Tape measures, Big Macs, hula skirts ...

God, however, is still in development.

God beta was divisive and unevenly

distributed. God 2.0 was supposed to solve

everything & put love first.

Now interactive multimedia God promises

true equality, etc.

Wanna bet how that will turn out?

Atheism Billboard Pulled

I wrote this prose poem last month after seeing this post about three billboards put up in Ohio by an atheist group. They were pretty thought-provoking (and controversial, as we might expect).  The title is based on the billboard's message.

 

Reason Is a Virtue

We are as mice. Someone always wants us dead. Only in the garden can we be safe, but that place has been lost to us—if it ever existed beyond legend. The wheel turns, the hand of one who hates us cracks a whip. They tell us a story with a before and after, but the sun knows better. There is only turning.

Blueberry Memories

Here's one of the poems I wrote last month during National Poetry Month. It's part of a series I'm working on, a memoir told through plants. This prose poem combines a happy childhood memory with an adult's perspective on the oblivious selfishness we all have as children and must overcome to grow up as considerate people who will take care of our world and respect each other. The title is the scientific name for wild blueberries.


Vaccinium angustifolium

I was sent to summer camp. We made things: bracelets, a tipi. We swam and sang. Every Saturday, a yellow bus took us with our brown bag PB&Js to the foot of a mountain. Climbing separated customary clusters of friends. I saw strange trees. My feet learned about rocks. At the top, all that wind and more sunshine than we knew what to do with. Handfuls of tart little blueberries proffered themselves from short bushes with tiny leaves. Was everything in the world designed to care for us? We left our orange peels on the rocks.

Subways, Instant Oatmeal, and Poetry

Recently I heard this interview with poet Aracelis Girmay. I really liked what she had to say about how poetry helps us slow down and is in many ways completely the opposite of all that's fast-paced about our lives. I was driving on Bay Road in Hadley through beautiful foggy farmland, and this poem came to my mind.

On the Radio, a Writer Describes How Poetry Is the Opposite of Instant Oatmeal

On my morning commute

soil, puddles, corn stalks, two-hundred-year-old maples, dogs, houses, line of pine trees, yew windbreak, rutted mud, rusty wheels, fog, pink sky, a man walking a dog, a woman standing in a driveway, mailboxes

and through them I can already see

blue cubicle, computer screen, coffee maker, Coffee-mate, struggle, window, notepads, agenda items, folders, chairs, notes, lists, schedules, flip charts, the need to retreat

but the existence of poetry

smoothes my gritty alone into a silky alone, paints the man and the dog into a scene by Van Gogh, cheers the woman in the driveway onto a stage.

Writing About Work

A few days ago I heard this piece of philosophy about art and work in which author Alain de Botton states:

"We need an art that can proclaim the intelligence, peculiarity, beauty and horror of the modern workplace and, not least, its extraordinary claim to be able to provide us, along with love, despite current economic mayhem, with the principal source of life's meaning."

I've written a lot about the two years I spent working on organic farms while taking time off from college. Those years were valuable to me personally and also politically in that they made me much more aware of where food comes from and how much effort is needed to produce and consume healthy food.

I've written a lot less about the several years I've spent working in offices. Perhaps the office environment is better suited to satire than lyric? Anyway, here's a white collar poem.


The Secretary (or) A Turn Not Taken

The secretary chooses
her clothes from a palette
of khaki, charcoal, maroon.
Her job is to blend with the walls.
She tips herself forward, a cup and saucer
clinking. Ready.

Purple girl shapes walk into the water.
Girls in purple Spandex form a pyramid
on water skis.
Against the blue-green-yellow day
the cut of the wind
they don their sleek skins.

Their skis swivel—
            her chair swivels—
                        where did she go wrong?
How I wish I were a part
            of that pyramid
                        taking off into the sky.