Earth Day and Effort

Like many people, I'm tired of plastic bags that fly into the tree tops, clutter the streams, and pollute the ocean. It's the everyday things that add up over time. A plastic bag to carry home the gallon of milk, the carrots, the apples. A plastic bag to carry home the book from the bookstore. To carry home the pair of socks, the bottle of wine, these all add up to an enormous amount of waste. It just takes a little more effort, to find alternatives. I've been using the "store" bags for awhile (but they can't be washed), the bulky canvas bag (take up a lot of room when not in use), but recently I found these bags at a small shop in Leavenworth. It rolls up into a little pouch that is easy to carry around with me, it's comfortable to carry over the shoulder even when it's full. All in all, a great little bag to prevent more plastic bag spawn in the world. You can have one too: EnVbags. They come in different colors if truffle isn't your flavor.

Sure, it takes a bit of effort to buy and plan to have your bags with you when you shop. But do you know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch where plastic is taking over the ocean, swirling together in a vast mire of tangles? The Smithsonian magazine awhile back had a photograph of a sea bird's dissected body that was stuffed with plastic that it had mistook for sea life. The bird had starved to death because the digestive track was blocked with our wastefulness, because we use up and throw away and don't look back. If you don't want to buy a bag, specially, then reuse the next bag that you're handed. Every time we reuse one bag, we reduce the demand for them. Think of it this way:

1. It's easy to say "no thank you" to a bag at the counter. In the long run, it's good for the stores too to not have to pay as much for your shopping bag. Even if it's a fraction of a cent, they'll keep more profit on the sale, which should make stores happy too.
2. Even if you return your bags to a recycle center, every extra use of a bag saves energy on the cost of transporting the recycled material and saves the environmental impact of the re-creation of a new bag.
3. If you know you're going to the store, grab the bags. No room in the house? That's great. Store the bags in the trunk of your car. Then even if you're just dropping in for an after work snack, you still have a bag at hand.
4. The more people who make an effort, the more people will make an effort. The normal thing should be for us to provide our own, reusable, cartons and boxes for our purchases.
5. Why not try? So we can't all be perfect, we might sometimes still end up at the end of the day with an extra plastic bag, but if everyone tries, it will start to add up. One step at a time.

There are many poets who write about the environment. Try this essay from Gary Snyder or read some of his poems. I hope that we have a reason to write nature poetry for generations to come. Hopefully the image of the plastic bag in the treetop will be an image of our lifetime alone.

Drafts & "How To"

For National Poetry Month, it's been a good April. I've been participating in a poem-a-day project which has produced several drafts I'm really pleased with, plus several more that might have productive strands to work with as revision time swings round. Here's a sample from a longer draft:


Write from the square space of your office,
of the way the paper clips
can only think of tangling together
how these become us
boxed in the days outlined on the calendars:
blank squares marching across the page

And several more poems from the circus, a theme I've been working on for some time now. What I haven't written, surprisingly to me, are more poems for the manuscript-in-progress. I don't know what that means, really. I'm starting to feel like I've finished that narrative and now need to begin the slow tedious process of actually putting the poems in their best order so that I can send it out into the world. This may have to wait until summer, or at least for a long, uninterrupted weekend.


***

Just a few days ago, I was able to go hear Sandra Cisneros speak at the public library in Kansas City. Now, this public library isn't like the libraries I grew up with. The library is a beautiful venue for a reading, the evening light was flowing in through the upper story windows, fluted pillars stood guard around the neat rows of wooden folding chairs. By the time she rose to speak, the room was overflowing with people.

Sandra Cisneros read and spoke mostly about being a writer, developing into a writer. She read "buttons"- the small essays that string together to form her books-- from her new book-in-progress to be called "Writing in Your Pajamas." She spoke about thinking in two different languages, creating space for one's self, things she's learned about finding her voice (the voice of a person completely comfortable, in her pajamas)

The audience was very receptive to her and asked many questions in a mix of Spanish and English. She shared with us her "top ten" things to do to develop into a writer. (You'll have to buy her book; I'm not telling!) And she also shared that writing requires both humility and courage, and that we should ask for these things each time we sit down to write. There were several other ideas that resonated with me "You don't know what you're writing about until you finish" "You don't always like what you find out about yourself" and best, perhaps "Write about your community with love, because someone else will write about it without love" (These are from my faulty notes, so not really direct quotes)

She also defined her vison of feminism as "human rights based with a compassionate outlook towards women." She also reiterated the need for writers to write and shared that she struggled with "what good is my writing; should I be doing something more practical?" when writing The House on Mango Street. But it was evident just from the crowd's reaction to her that she has done good work with her writing, showing as one person put it "that voices from the barrio could be heard."

She also encouraged us that we could change the world through small acts, through changing ourselves. I think that's another point on which we agree. I am reminded of Mother Teresa's words:

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

It's nice to hear that writing counts as one of those small things.


***

Thoughtful Gifts, Long Remembered.

Looking back over my childhood a few gifts truly changed how I envision life: a pair of Appalachian clothespin dolls and a book of Willa Cather's short stories from my aunt, and a theatre experience planned by my grandmother. Other holidays came and went, in a blur of Christmas trees, the angel-hair drench tree of my grandfather's house, the children's tree downstairs at an aunt and uncle's home, the white tree displayed in the front window, the year my brother and sister and I decorated a real spruce tree with toys and while my parents were away only for it to crash down in the middle of the night. Now, I think of gifts for others and remember, too.

Something about the plain, tiny-featured dolls that evokes my childhood, beyond that particular year Christmas. I recall autumn weekends at Spring Mill, gathering sticks for a fire to roast marshmallows, the visits to the pioneer village, the cold water from the spring trickling by mossy banks. The pioneer apothecary shop with jars full of herbs and remedies, the bonnet-topped ladies in long dresses strolling in and out with their baskets, the stonewalled garden with the vegetables laid out in neat rectangles. The tidy utility of rooms meant for living, cooking, around a stone fireplace. The smell of woodsmoke on a clear night always made me imagine that pioneer life, those wooden cabins, and the damp chill of morning seeping in through the chinks as the fire burns low. Making do. My aunt had lived in such a cabin, north in Canada, to me a land of mystery and bears. The clothespin dolls now stand guard over my collection of antique books; they still make me smile.

The book of Cather stories too, brings to mind the pioneer days and the juxtaposition with urban society. The heartbreak and pride of working the land, the apparent ease of city life, and the squalor and hardship which was too often the true experience of the immigrant, the pioneer, the fool-hardy soul who hoped for more than the earth or the city was willing to give. Just south of where I grew up, there is a historical marker for Pigeon's Roost, where settlers were massacred men, women and children all. I grew up with a sense of being connected to this history, to the sense of adventure and possibility inherent in moving on and trying a new life elsewhere.

The practical side of me knew that pioneer life was hell on women, the old graveyards are full of babies, and women who died bearing them, the tin-types show women worn to a nubbin, aged beyond their years with sickly children peering out from behind their skirts. In Kansas and elsewhere on the prairie , they made lives out of the dirt, living in sod houses, trying to break the hills before the flint in the hills broke their will to try. It was cold in Kansas last year after the ice-storm, without electricity, in a modern home equipped with a fireplace--bone cold. Imagine an entire winter, with no light, little heat, tucked like a mole in the side of the hill. Imagine the damp, the heat escaping each time someone passes in or out, the impossibility of clean. The practical side understands why Paul, of "Paul's Case" made the fateful decision to run to the city, to the lights, the theatre, the warmth and abundance.

Tickets to the theatre,too, were a good gift: the lights and the wonder. The memories of dressing up, of occasion. That particular Christmas I was four, with a red long dress trimmed in white lace holding my grandmother's hand, following along, mesmerized by the width and the breadth of theatre, by the people gathered there to wait in the dark, for the storybook brought to life on the stage. There, then, anything was possible.

How it happened

Much of the contents of the box were no longer treasure,
maps and diner placemats from long forgotten journeys by car
pamphlets and sights to see and contests by mail.
In her diary, the days marked mostly by weather, warm today,
much cooler this week, in a hurried hand. Thomas
MIA since June, the war department notified Elizabeth
on July 8th, no word since, the first entry for the year 1945
and in August in so few words, we've offered terms to Japan
and then a few days later, Papa's home early and off tomorrow
to celebrate the signing of the treaty--VJ day,-- the boys
will be home soon,and Papa's finishing the glass front cabinet
before he must go back to work. Then fall, with telegraphs
and holiday wishes, and the year ends, as it must, with snow.

Even a sparrow

In the bright afternoon light a sparrow mistook the reflected sky for sky. The thud of the impact drew our attention away from our books. How could we read with a sparrow stunned and trembling on the other side of the glass? The eyes blink, the chest rises and falls, the claws clench as if holding onto a branch we can not see. Will it die? my son asks. I don't know, I don't know. The sparrow breathes faster now.

I hold my son close to me and we watch this spark of life burn. Except his breath and his blinking pupil-less eyes, the bird lays perfectly still staring up. We dare not touch it; other birds raise a cry from the branches, entreating. We look at the patterns of the legs, the way the feathers lie close to the chest. God knows when even a sparrow falls. I can't bear to think of it dying, splayed on our deck. I pray aloud, for healing, for peace if the injury is too great. How many similar prayers have others said for me?

When I open my eyes, the sparrow's breath has slowed. Let's let it be. As I stand, the bird flutters then rises into flight. He'll have a headache, my son laughs. The sparrow becomes once again just one of the flock, chattering noisily in the backyard. Thank you. For the sparrow, for this day, for life.

Market Day

The summer's long, humid days stretch on. Children in the street putter about on their bicycles, even their shouts have lost vigor. Paper and pencils, bright colored folders and lunchboxes fill the aisles at the stores. Days without routine blend into weeks, punctuated only by rain.

Today, we visited the local farmer's market: several vegetable stalls covered with canopies, a table of honey, and one of goat milk fudge. We bring our bag to carry our produce home, turning away the ubiquitous plastic sacks. The young man at the eggplant stall comments that it gives him hope to see more and more people with "green bags." I wish for a market basket, with a comfortable handle. We purchase a dollar's worth of roma tomatoes, an eggplant to fit my cupped hands, local honey for toast with butter, and a basket of okra pods. One feels hopeful at a farmer's market, however small, for the earth's bounty, for those who plant and reap, and for the long market tradition continued for yet another season.

Our routines begin to fall into place: Wednesday afternoon to market and library. In colored ink, the words march across the calendar.

Smoke & Light

For the last three nights, the firecrackers and roman candles have filled the air with a film of smoke and set the dogs' nerves on edge. Even tonight, after the town's display over the park, the noise continues, and will continue for hours.

Early in the week, the days are punctuated with short bursts of explosions, growing to tonight's peak: every street and cul-de-sac filled with children and laughter. The water hose and buckets at hand, we light our corner of the world, with sons grown tall. Five years in this place, a place one could call Home.

We say goodbye with sparks and smoke. We learn to sleep with the commotion.

***

***

Sweet Tea and Summer Time

Although I was born and (mostly) raised in Indiana, which many people wouldn't consider "The South," I know that summer has arrived when there are fireflies over the garden and sweet tea in the 'fridge. It took me awhile to realize, when we lived in Georgia, that you could actually order sweet tea at dinner out on the town. And no matter how lovely that might be, it's still not as good as homemade sweet tea, made with Lipton's, diluted with ice, and served in a tall glass. I've changed to de-cafe, otherwise I don't know that I'd sleep all summer long.

Fill a medium sauce pan with cold water, bring to boil, tie 12 tea bags together. When the water boils, take the pan off the burner and add the tea bags. Cover. Wait for 5 mins. while the tea steeps. Take out the tea bags, add 1c. sugar to the hot tea, stir until the sugar disolves. Pour in 1 gallon pitcher. Add a bit of cold water, espcially if you're using a glass jar, to fill about 1/2 of a gallon. Top the rest of the gallon with ice. Stir well. Enjoy on your front porch while watching robins, the neighbors, or whatever happens to lurk on your street.

Ah. Summer.

Multiple Intelligences & Poetry

I was digging around a bit today trying to find out more creative approaches for homeschooling my sixth grader and one of the suggestions was to pay attention to a child's "multiple intelligences" so that they have a greater chance of success (and also to make sure that the child is getting the support they need to balance out their "weaker" intelligences.)

Out of curiosity, I took one of the web's tests to identify my strengths, and the results were a bit surprising--I actually scored highest in Musical rather than Linguistic ability although the actual difference was rather small. It would be intriguing to find out if other poets (as a group) scored in a similar manner. (I also scored surprisingly high in Naturalist--but I attribute this to gardening and a grandmother who insisted I learn the names of the birds and trees around us.)

I'm not sure that the questions are terribly accurate-- and perhaps this would be a good tool to help an adult bring more "roundedness" to his or her life--knowing for instance that I am poor at spatial ability --might be a good prompt to work to develop this skill more fully in my life. (In case I decide to take up sewing or quilting in the future, this would come in handy.)

On the last trip to my local library, I found an interesting little book, Wisdom of the Plain Folk, on the Mennonites and Amish life --beautiful photography paired with hymns and sayings. I've been working my way through some theology recently, I began with Bonhoffer's Life Together, and now I've picked up The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis in a translation by William Griffin. The wily introduction is by Richard J. Foster and contains those little comments in Latin that used to annoy me, but now pique my interest.

Latin has been showing up everywhere--in my son's book on Shakespeare, for example--and of course in my older son's vocabulary course. I have often thought if I just looked at Latin long enough it would begin to make sense. I am thrilled to know that there is always another subject to try, another project to undertake, and more books, and books!

In garden news, the pot holding last year's stalks of basil has suddenly sprouted a few young plants, long after I'd ceased to hope. But two leaves become four, become eight and so forth.
The thought of fresh pesto tempts. And many years after I first made pesto at home and after quite a few years of frustrated searching, pine-nuts are easy enough to acquire at the local grocery. Perhaps this summer, I'll try making the pasta myself. Small as a marble: the season's first tomato, and like a small furry caterpillar the zucchini inch into the world.

This Too: Rock & Water

Yesterday, as requested, a man and his two assistants created a new sidewalk for our house.

First a frame: the particular angles marked with lines and string, and wood. Then a base of crushed limestone leveled and waiting. The practical done with attention, too, is art.
As they worked, a robin landed between them to pull worms from the turned soil, heedless of her proximity to man, hopping closer, then closer again.

And his son, visiting, complained my boots are missing: four years old and eager to be there, in the frame, doing his Father's work, waiting eagerly for the rumble of the tumbler truck.

With the mud pouring in, with rubber boots and concrete rakes, the rush began to pull and press the raw ingredients into each section of the frame. A moment or two's pause as they waited for the right texture and consistency before smoothing each inch: the delicate business of pressing, cleaning each tool between passes, until the surface lay smooth, then brushing & cutting in narrow grooves to allow the give and take of the earth, and ice, and heat.

And the end of the day, he stood back and smiled, pleased.

Something solid, something reliable: a day's work, well done.

Morning & Evening Sun

The birds begin early their warning, warming songs. A pair of robins supervise as I water the tomatoes and peppers, and sprinkle the morning's coffee grounds on the compost. The nest is still hidden, or is yet to be built. I cannot remember when the cedar sprouts twigs and strings and the mouths of baby birds. Now and then, a grub in the soil: fat and soft and luminescent in the light. A curl of possibility, a mouthful for the featherlings, a brown June beetle, wrapped in April's cloak.

***

Spring is creeping in, the burn-downs are mostly finished, the green sprouts across the prairie, the rocks are small islands, anchorings in the green and black bottomed seas. Woody stalks rise, masts from sunken ships, no leaves to catch in the evening breeze. We come home smudged with soot, the windows rolled down, music and laughter pouring out into the dusk.

Hands in the Dirt

Off to the nursery twice this week, once to replace the lavender plants and add pale purple bacoba to the mix by the driveway. Once for veggies and marigolds plus strawberries and red nasturtiums, an unexpected selection by my 11 year old son.

I am Mini Muscle-Man, he said, as he attempted to carry the 50lbs of potting mix from the store. He wants to paint pots, or add stickers, and next, grow pumpkins. Moving, halfway through the summer, there would be heartache of leaving behind the promise of such autumn pleasure. I convince him to choose zucchinis with a harvest date well within our stay: stir-fry, zucchini bread, zucchini casserole with tomatoes and cheese, and a special trip in October to pick pumpkins from a farm field. This is fine work, compromise, to find accord, to trade one dream for another, to promise together to be happy with the choices made.

Early in the year, we spread the compost on the bed for my small garden. As we turned it again yesterday, the dirt was dark and crumbly with much worm-sign. Room for roots to spread, however short the season. Tucked into the damp soil, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini planted to feed us, and festive orange and red marigolds to repel unwanted invaders. No matter how small, a garden is a commitment to water, to weed, to taking better care of ourselves and our earth. What grows here? Hope.

Last Frost Date

.


There and Back:

According to the plant nurseries, this weekend was the last expected chance of frost for Kansas. The flowers, in small pots and 6-packs, smiled beside the roadways. Grocery stores, hardware stores, and random gravel lots all sported spring's glad colors. Spicy marigolds, pale petunias, leggy vinca, and the promise of many backyard gardens' bounty: peppers, tomatoes, summer squash.

Also along the roadside, winter's damage to the trees: broken crowns, downed limbs, and log piles. Evidence of saws and sledges and splitting wedges, even as some plant in anticipation, others remember and prepare for the wind, cold, and ice that seemed ever present for many long months.


Home Again:

Raking back the leaves reveals lemon balm along the slope and new plants in profusion. Where little else deigns to grow, the lemon balm spreads fragrant leaves. Even though I live well within the city limits, a small grove of trees graces my life. The birds are chipper this morning; a mockingbird sang his serenade this morning through my bathroom window. I am grateful for open windows in the morning, for small green leaves, for another day of to be alive.

Small Pleasures

• clean sheets, warm blankets, cozy Italian greyhounds, and the sounds of my husband rustling about in the kitchen
• the tempting smell of morning coffee and the feel of a perfect pot-bellied mug's warmth against my palms
  
• watching Pride & Prejudice with a friend: five hours of dancing, costumes, and fine horseflesh
  
• the particular way that lemon and poppyseed drop-cookies form tidy circles in the heat of the oven
• the lovely contrast of pale yellow of the dough with blue-grey poppy seeds
• the process of cutting circles of parchment paper with pinking sheers to layer in a tin with the freshly baked cookies.
• the promise of home-made cookies for an after school snack later this week.
  
• the windowsill parsley pressing its leaves against the sun-lit glass as against a lover
• the click of mahjong tiles on the kitchen table and my teen-aged sons' patter
  
• a steaming bowl of mushroom soup
• evening sun on my face as I wash up after dinner
• piling onto the bed with my youngest son and two dogs to watch a movie all cuddled up.
  
• the tactile pleasure of reading a library book in an edition published in 1950 with soft, rounded, edges of the worn paper (and enjoying the book, too)
  
• monolith (what a word!)

May you, too, be so blessed.

Thank you Blog!

for giving me a space to speak about literature and poetry. And remember the blessings of everyday life. And more especially for giving back to me friends that I thought were lost.

***

The dogs went wild with joy when our two older sons returned from their weekend ski trip.
I am happy too, that they survived the slopes with minimum physical consequences.

When they came back I noticed: the older has had a growth spurt & is starting to look down on me. The other's shoulders are wider, the fuzz on his chin coarser. Yet they still laugh.
This is not what I expected teen years to be like. Oh, and I am grateful. Every moment.

Me-Me : Visual DNA

http://friends.imagini.net/@2096328-c867/profile/9


I can't get that code to work.

argh.

but there's the link.

I hope you have better luck

Happy ( Belated) Birthday Blog!

Three years have zipped right by & I still love the view from here.
I'm always grateful to have you, my friends, dropping by to visit.
Thanks for being a part of it all!

Literature & Lather

I've just finished unmolding a batch of handmade (my hands) honey-almond-oat soap. I'm trying to keep my hands busy recently as well as my head. I've recently made candles, too. I love the tactile experience of working with wax & soap. But I think it's the connectedness to the past of gardening, making bread, candles, and soap that makes me enjoy these tasks so much. I find more and more that I appreciate tradition and carrying on traditional skills. My boys help some days too-and I find pleasure in watching them learn, too.

Not that my brain hasn't been busy; I've been writing poems, and doing some editing work. I think I've been "under-pressured" for the last year with what I was requiring of myself. I do acknowledge that time out was necessary and the distance from the most difficult parts of my treatment means that I am now able to "recollect in [something closer to] tranquility." I think I'm going to end up with a collection of these poems as well, but I'll honestly say that I'll be happy when they're written and the covers closed. It's a chapter of my life that I hope remains in the past tense.

Wearing out Welcome

Last Monday night the ice storm rolled through Manhattan Kansas. At 11:24 pm our power went out. Luckily we have a fireplace and the proper cast iron cookware so that we can stay warm and still have warm food to eat. It's now 1:30 on Monday afternoon, and still no power at my house. I've retreated to the local (wonderful) library for warmth and distraction.

I didn't miss winter THAT much. :)

Happy Holidays!

The ice-glazed trees were beautiful in the next day's sunlight.