On the eve of a Halley’s comet —
in the year 1835,
Mark Twain was born in Missouri,
and world truths were given life.
How fitting that the stars aligned
with fanfare for Mark Twain.
His wit and wisdom are universal,
if people tune their brains.
When Twain crossed over —
in the year 1910,
the fanfare did not stop:
as Twain lay on his death bed,
Halley’s comet flared again.
Pincushions strapped on our young wrists.
Kettlecloth fabric, irons that hissed,
Butterick patterns, and dressmakers chalk.
“Cut with the grain,” Miss Kane would squawk.
A deadline to finish my culottes loomed.
The project came home with me; I was doomed.
I would have preferred to write a poem
than take my sewing project home.
Our machine had a bobbin that constantly jammed.
It was ancient and faulty — was my project damned?
I finished the culottes — they did not fit.
No more sewing class; I resoundingly quit.
Thank You, November.
A walk in Arboretum –
a feast for the eyes.
The 1950’s, before burning raked leaves was banned.
A poem ~
Time slips under leaf piles, foliage crackles.
You roast marshmallows in the raked musk of October decay.
Time slips under frozen lakes and icy ponds.
You cut figure eight’s, sure-footed in white skates.
Time slips under daffodils, birdsong trumpets.
You study a robin feasting on a worm.
Time slips under fish bellies, tangles seaweed.
You loll on a rubber raft in the green waters of a golden day.
I just finished creating a personal art book completely by hand. It contains photos, postcards, prose & poetry. This project took more than a year of composing texts, selecting and organizing materials, and even hand-coloring pages and figuring out glues.
Freaking hard!
I was inspired by my Trainman grandfather (a dining car conductor for Canadian Rail) & amazing grandmother who was left to raise and move five children from New York to Canada and finally to Chicago.
The postcards are from Grandpa to Grandma during the early 20th century.
Four blue Adirondacks in search of an audience.
The community is a-Twitter and a-Tweet: “What are you doing?”
Facebook. YouTube. TikTok. The technocracy of buzz.
Meanwhile, in the trees, robins trill Printemps melodies.
Descendants of dinosaurs, their tiny throats flicker ancient songs.
What are you not doing?
In the garden, a chickadee pecks at you,
kisses the ground nourished by your ashes.
Whiskers,
paws, emerald eyes —
now burned to a chickadee prize.
The tangerine poppies have turned blood orange;
they sway
like lit Oriental lanterns
as we look for you
in nature’s patterns.
Is the bird’s song sharper from feeding on you?
Have you fertilized flowers to a deeper hue?
Cattails rise like questions in the morning dew.
I sometimes wonder about Emily Dickinson’s world. A recluse who wore white and eschewed publicity, a prolific writer of untitled poems — here is a verse I find especially humorous:
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish — you know!
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
What would Emily make of our world today? Who isn’t croaking their name the livelong day, including moi?
The Boomers, the Millenials, the Gen-Xers — we croak everywhere in order to keep up with our public: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter. And just when we’re current with one platform, another one pops up for distraction. It’s become a game of whack-a-mole.
But is social media turning us into hermits, albeit of a different kind? Are we becoming techno-hermits tapping into our smart phones, i-pads, as we sit across from each other at Starbucks, no eye contact?
This is different from Emily’s retreat into self — she set the bar high and literature reaped the benefits of her hermitage. Time and a lack of tools was on her side.
I realize I am privileged to have world-wide connection. I am presently learning collage techniques on YouTube — but I can’t help but ask myself — Who am I? Who is this person who feels compelled to post about Emily, who herself had her first book of poetry published posthumously in 1890?
Am I a dreary person for wanting to croak to the entire world on this blog before I croak?
Do I really want to be a Nobody?
I do not claim to be that humble.
Nor do I want to be Lady Gaga. I guess I just want to tell my tale the livelong day to an “admiring BLOG.”
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