slips of paper

2009-10-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

Reading

Sunday, October 11, 2009
People's Church, Kalamazoo, MI
10:oo am Forum

Anne Hutchinson and friends
(Elaine Seaman, Lynn Pattison, Marion Boyer)

Poetry on themes of: Family, Loss Persona, and Nature.

Join us.

2009-08-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Summer has been a swirl of activity: family reunion, children visiting, a great writing class with Di Seuss, time at the river, a wonderful group reading in honor of Marion Boyer's new book (biggest crowd for poetry in a long time). We've been driving up and down I-75 more times than I care to recall--the schedule hasn't been easy. I am spending the week here alone, trying, among other things, to produce a clean, finished copy of my new mss. So far the rickety printer has been cooperating.
Anne-Marie arrived in less than two weeks!

2009-04-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

During our visit to Seattle we took the opportunity to go for a walk in a local, Sound-side park. Heading down a trail to our car, after giving Anne's dog, Archie, a grand outing, we saw something glittering around and beneath a car in the parking lot below. A closer look revealed a huge accumulation of pop/beer cans on the tarmac, being run over by an old Dodge Dart, or something like...

Back and forth, back and forth, flattening the cans. It was not efficient, it looked like it would take forever. We agreed the object must be selling scrap. But the most perplexing question was how did all those cans get there---it certainly didn't look like they could have all fit in the Dart. I mean there was a small lake of them. All day we argued about whether the cans had got there in the Dart. My (minority) opinion was that they had, that only the ones in the front, by the driver, were in bags, and that the others were loose, under the seats, snugged in layers on the deck of the back window, tucked into the spaces between door latch and door, crimped and pushed into glove box and console, stacked carefully, seat-high, all the way round, just enough room for the driver to work his pedals. And the trunk, of course. I knew it would have to be done skillfully, the modern day version of building the load on the hay wagon. No one agreed.
Mainly, though it was just that we couldn't get that momentary image, of the driver rolling over the carpet of cans, out of our minds. We told everyone we saw.

2009-03-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

2009-03-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

Mt. lion in the morning through one-way window. Desert Museum. We photographed early, before the animals got sick of people and tucked in for naps. I took coyote, wolves, and a couple of great raptor shots.

A display of beads at the giant international gem show---Tucson.

door to our room in Tubac. Great little porch. Rich so wanted to sit out there and drink his morning coffee. But it wasn't gonna happen, temps hovered around 35- 40 all the time we were there. his consolation, building fires in the chiminea(?) out in the garden and watching the stars. Big sky--no street lights.

Great American Train Adventure

2009-03-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

Rich and I are just back from our version of the GATA, having spent 6 weeks "on the rails." Well, really, we only spent 10 or so days on the actual rails, the rest of the time was spent visiting friends and relatives in the SW & PNW. We had a grand time, both at our various destinations and in our tiny Deluxe Room on the train. (Deluxe refers to the tiny self-contained potty and shower chamber that sticks out into the small bedroom. There was also a mini-sink, where washing of faces and brushing of teeth proved to be both challenging and hilarious.) I became quite adept at showering while rocking and swaying inside a phonebooth sized compartment.

We traveled from Chicago to Tucson,(where we stayed with friends, then moved to Tubac for a week in a B&B, and on to Green Valley for a couple of days). Boarded the train at 4 in the morning (we owe Ione and Rob much, and many thanks, for driving us to the RR station in the middle of the night) for stays in Los Angeles, Oakland, Bodega Bay, and finally, Seattle. We enjoyed a variety of great hikes, readings, parties, beaches, cave explorations, botanical gardens, zoos, and even, one night, a hockey game.

Now to rest up. More to follow.

Catching up

2008-12-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

It's been many months since I added anything here. Summer and fall flew by, and now, in December, I can hardly believe I haven't added anything since May. I intended to do better.

The photos are of a tree at the river. I am sure it is home to the spirit of a deer, reincarnate. How else to explain? My friend Vicki says that 8 & 10 pt. deer wanderup to nibble bushes under her windows at night and she watches them, only inches away.

Our experiences this summer related to wildlife (at the river)included a bear, some snakes and frogs, and a skunk who liked our shed. For some reason, no deer. I have a theory about that I will share another day.

Astromaniacal

2008-05-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

there are some who say that there is a right
and a left in (the) heaven... – Aristotle

Times when the world
is most spherical, casting
its curved shadow

on the moon, water
and light follow
rules, there's a grid

you can count on, but
now, in this alley of slant-
time when an iron hand

draws a latitude/longitude
of shattered glass, a chaos
geography turning,

in the heat, to dogma,
we're caught in an old vise,
pressed narrow, almost flat.

New neighbors

2008-05-01T10:17:00.001-07:00

The eagles are back, and we are able to get a clear view---till the surrounding trees leaf out...we love watching from a distance. Shot these about an hour before sundown. Momma and Poppa were switching places on the nest.

2008-05-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

2008-05-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Cherry Pie

2008-03-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

For Bonnie Jo, and anyone else who hasn't read "Cherry Pie", From Con Hilberry's chapbook, The Fingernail of Luck:

...between/ two buttered crusts.../flesh so deeply sugared it/ astounds the mouth./ To coax it all to bed, a downy// pillow of whipped cream./...

Salivate, salivate...

2008-02-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

2008-02-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

Quite the contrast in pics, eh? What a difference a day's flight can make:
sun, surf, fresh seafood, and angels loking out for us through the night...

2008-01-24T15:13:00.000-08:00

new link

2008-01-14T07:01:00.000-08:00

I'm adding a link to Tracy's blog. She spends many months in Thailand and its bordering countries, and Japan, and her accounts of people she knows/meets, her lovely photos, and the her accounts of cultural info. make for good reading. Tracy teaches language some of the time, and travels/sightsees. You may enjoy following her travels over the coming months (she has just arrived there from Kalamazoo) or, reading her accounts from last year. The photos alone are worth a visit. A nice taste of warmth in the middle of winter. I followed her link to a guest house where she stays. The unbelievably low rates for accomodations made me rethink our winter get-away plans.

ambiguity-resolving machine"

2008-01-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

Researchers say our brains aren't like cameras, or siesmic recorders. They don't directly input raw data and and faithfully reproduce it. The brain "analyzes and deconstructs" input, then reorganizes it, constructing its own reality based on the weft & woof of our experience, the associations and parameters the brain has acquired/developed. One writer calls the brain the "hypothesis generator" and cautions, "Sensation is an abstraction not a replication of the real world." Which explains a lot. Why we can never entirely understand each others' experiences. Why it's so impossibly difficult to get our sense of something down on the page. It's why we hunt around for some way to show on another what's going on in our brains for even a few moments. If our every sensation is, in fact abstract, it's no wonder we tumble ideas and images around and around in our brains, hunting for the combination, the order, the rhythms, that can paint that sensation in a way that is justours. A way that represents our hypothesis---our resolution or lack of it.
Here I am full circle, trying to wrap my brain around what I've read, trying to tell you how the information weaves itself into what I already think I know. And prose isn't doing it. I need a poem, for lack of anything better...

2007-12-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

Snow storm predicted, and big wind. Rich and I just inherited two pair of gorgeous snowshoes from neighbors (the old-fashioned kind) and are happy at the prospect of trying them out. A good ol' blizzard is overdue in this part of the state. Winter has seemed rather stingy and crotchety. We get the cold, and patches of ice, but not the big-hearted, lavish munificence of a week's worth of fallen snow, that pure abundance.

travels, travels...

2007-12-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

I'm off tomorrow to see Ben & Holly, who just got back from Hawaii where, snorkeling, they got up close and personal with several whales--and lived to tell the tale. Not looking forward to passing thru airports and waiting in lines. Hope the storms in the NW don't move here and stop up flight schedules.
Daughter, Anne, visited last week, and got back to Seattle in time for the wild weather there, we took her to Chicago to catch her flight, and stayed a couple of nights. Saw a play, The Sparrow. Sloshed through ice and sleet to make our way there---were glad we made the effort. Great production (Apollo Theatre), very moving. Talented troupe. I'd see it again this week, if I could.
Here, the classic midwest darkness and fog. The air, dirty wet. Sunshine and gleaming snow is in order---maybe when I get back.

2007-11-20T14:37:00.000-08:00

Simple

Salt is the opposite of ice

mix of acid and base we launch with gunpowder
to rocket into the new July night: sunburst and pandemonium.
A sunbeam though is old mail---over 4 billion years–
no cause to crane our necks, cry out.

A stone is for carrying under your tongue
or filling your pockets on your way into the river.
If it's soft carve eyes and ears holes. Grief

is the long fish
with gauzy filagree of scales
that moonlight paints on the bedroom wall. The one
that swims toward you, or away,
on your saltwater tears.

Love is nothing

you ever saw— and satisfaction's just a hole
you fill that you dug and dug
tearing your nails raising blisters.

Dance
a while in night's back alley
and loneliness lumbers out

a wall-eyed beast

wraps you in his arms, his stink,
and maybe hands you your pen:
your last straw, your slice
of life, your wafer of transubstantiation,

your third eye with its psychic powers
and little clocks, your courage, your rising tide,
your price, your poison, your prize,
duty, modus operandi, your hocus-pocus.

Your Barium salts burning wicked
green, your Strontium-red
your Copper Oxide
blue cascade,
your blinding
white
titanium blast.

First appeared in Notre Dame Review

essayist

2007-11-15T07:31:00.000-08:00

If you've checked my profile, you know I've been reading essays with renewed interest. I heard essayist, poet, Lia Purpura (On Looking) read at Western Michigan University a few weeks back. Gorgeous stuff. Whether she's describing the experience of watching an autopsy, or the nuances of the view from a certain window, her language pulses with vitality and poetry. I don't know if the autopsy account is difficult reading for some. I took Anatomy & Physiology at U of M when I was enrolled (briefly) in their nursing program. We studied cadavers in an old lab—horror movie potential, with it's marble slab tables you tilted with the big iron wheels at one end. Though not as shocking as dealing with the just-dead, the experience lends a slight advantage. Even the most squeamish reader, though, is bound to be caught up in the author's wonder and respect, her effort to understand what is in front of her. I enjoy her ability, like Goldbarth, to weave associations, questions, ruminations, through tangential paths, to establish her circuitous connections with ease and logic. They both leap topic at stunning angles, then find the perfect curve that brings them back to it.

2007-11-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

Photograph

Legs
knees
a boy
ankle deep
in cold lake water
and nearly submerged beside him
crooked in the silt, a white bird cage. Lake reflections
show sky empty of cloud or bird, no freed parakeet
circling. Makeshift fish trap, salvaged
toy? Look close: caged rocks,
a rope. Pray
he's bound
for
shore.

2007-11-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

Drastic Angles

Angle of slope, corner, turn. Having to do with the setting of the ladder, whether the walls are plumb, and the attitude of the mirror propped against the wall. But also, motive: What's his angle? His perspective on the situation, point of view---which depends, we know, on the angle from which he sees. The photographer freezes a specific moment, coloring future interpretations and memories depending, in large part, on his camera angle. Detectives, forensic scientists, & therapists must look at things from every conceivable angle, of course, and reporters continually angle for a scoop. (If they get it, they'll need a fresh angle for writing the story.) The angler on the northern lake drops his line and sees it bend beneath the surface, though he knows it's just in his eye. Say he works for the road commision, say giant mounds of salt and sand, delivered this week, shifted---angle of repose changing for no apparent reason---just as he passed between the piles on his way to clock out. If no one sees in time, he doesn't get to the fishing lake, instead, ends up at the mortuary, where the table pitches toward the drain (I typed grave here, instead of "drain," which also works.), technicians reset his neck at a natural angle. All this is just to say that life is all rays and tangets. We don't anticipate the angle at which one act or choice reflects, refracts, intersects---we absorb the bounce, then see what's next: straight on till morning, off on a tangent, at an unexpected crook in the road, vertex... For instance, I started out intending to type angel up there at the start.

2007-10-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

Astronomaniacal

there are some who say
that there is a right and a left
in (the) heaven... – Aristotle

Times when the world
is most spherical, casting
its curved shadow
on the moon, water
and light follow
rules, there's a grid
you can count on, but
now, in this alley of slant-
time when an iron hand
draws a latitude/longitude
of shattered glass, a chaos
geography turning,
in the heat, to dogma,
we're caught in an old vise,
pressed narrow, almost flat.