Miscellaneous Missives

Enter the Void By Juan Felipe Herrara I enter the void, it has the shape of a viola: Israel, Jenin, West ank, Nablus-- a rubble boy shifts his scapula as if it was his continent, underground Gazaground, I want to say-- his only bone, the rubble boy is a girl, I think her hair tossed, knotted and torn under the green shank of fibers, tubes and shells. She digs for her rubble father,  I say rubble because it is indistinguishable from ice, fire, dust, clay, flesh, tears, concrete, bread, lungs, pubis, god, say rubble, say water-- the rubble girl digs for her rubble mother, occupation-- disinheritance-- once again, I had written this somewhere, in a workshop, I think, yes, it was an afternoon of dark poets with leaves, coffee and music in the liquor light room... Enter .  I linked the poem because I think it's worth reading the entire poem.  It's also the site I used for most of my poems I used during this Lenten experience.  Today is the last...

Like the Small Hole by the Path-Side Something Lives In by Jane Hirshfield Like the small hole by the path-side something lives in, in me are lives I do not know the names of, not the fates of, nor the hungers of or what they eat. The eat of me. Of small and blemished apples in low fields of me whose rocky streams and droughts I do not drink. and in my streets-- the narrow one, unlabeled on the self-map-- they follow stairs down music ears can't follow, and in my tongue borrowed darkness, in hours uncounted by the self-clock, they speak in restless syllables of others losses, other loves. There too have been the hard extinctions, missing birds once feasted on and feasting. There too must be machines like loud ideas with tungsten bits that grind the day. A few escape.  A mercy. They leave behind small holes that something unweighed by the self-scale lives  in. Path .  I'm lost in the see-through/ Pane always needs a bath/ between a want a...

The robins need spring... more than a calendar date. The Spirit Likes to Dress Up by Mary Oliver The spirit  likes to dress up like this:    ten fingers     ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest  at night   in the black branches,    in the morning in the blue branches  of the world.   It could float, of course,    but would rather plumb rough matter.  Airy and shapeless thing,   it NEEDS    the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite  the oceanic fluids;   it needs the body's world,    instinct and imagination  and the dark hug of time,   sweetness    and tangibility, to be understood,  to be more than pure light   that burns    where no one is-- so it enters us--  in the morning   shines from brute comfort    like a stitch of lightning; ...

Getty Images A Pretty Woman by Robert Browning XII ...Is the creature too imperfect, Would you mend it And so end it? Since not all addition perfects aye! XIII Or is it of its kind, perhaps, Just perfection-- When REJECTION Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps... Rejected .  It seems there's actually a rejection song which is obviously different then the redemption song.  We're in tournament time, so I can't think of the word rejection without thinking of blocked shots.  I've been listening to a lot of interviews with players and coaches and talking to some Iowa State fan peeps.  Everyone is nervous and excited for Friday's game.  Although I'm glad the players have a break, I would like it to be played today.  Play it, and get it over.  I have painted my nails red and yellow (alternating fingers) in celebration of being in the Sweet 16.  Rejection... I don't know... Today I'm thankful for... 1) Snow... I know this sounds wei...

No Coward Soul is Mine by Emily Bronte No coward soul is mine No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere I see Heaven's glories shine And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear O god within my breast Almighty ever-present Deity Life, that in my hast rest, As I undying Life, have power in Thee Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain, Worthless as withered weeds Or idlest froth amid the boundless main To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by thy infinity, So surely anchored on The STEADFAST rock of Immortality... Steadfast .   All my life I'll spend it with you/ All of my days will be for loving you/ each and every night for the rest of my life/ I'd be STEADFAST, unmovable, unshakable/ ...  I'd like to admit that I'm not a fan of the poem today, but I had to give up trying to find a poem with the word steadfast. Yesterday and today I did short rides outside on my bike.  It's obvious to me that...

Thanks By W. S. Merwin Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing by the windows looking out in our directions... Thanks!  I give thanks for the Lenten Photo Challenge.  It's given me a focus for each day.  Some days are obviously more difficult than others, but I've enjoyed finding a poem and song for each day.  Today's songs were fun since they're all by great female artists.  As part of my Lenten practice, I've also tried to add three things I'm thankful for (gratitude list) at the bottom of my post.  My life is full of positives, and this should be easier than it seems to be. I'm giving thanks today for the first day of spring break.  It's 9:30, and I've done nothing but drink coffee which has been delightfu...

Song by Muriel Rukeyser Make and be eaten, the poet says, Lie in the arms of nightlong fire, To CELEBRATE the waking, wake. Burn in the daylong light; and praise Even the mother unappeased Even the fathers of desire. Blind go the days, but joy will see Agreements of music; they will wind The shaking of your dance: no more Will the ambiguous arm-waves spell Confusion of the blessing given... Celebrate .  Today is the official first day of spring.  This is a reason to celebrate.  The Cyclones won last night and are on their way to the Sweet 16.  This, too is a reason to celebrate.  Cookie monster has a new commercial.  This is yet one more reason to celebrate. Celebrate = Gratitude list.

If You Have Seen by Thomas Moore Good reader!  if you e'er have seen, When Phoebus hastens to his pillow The mermaids, with their tresses green, Dancing upon the western billow: If you have ever seen, at twilight dim, When the lone spirit's vesper hymn Floats wild along the winding shore; If you have seen, through mist of eve, The fairy train their ringlets weave, Glancing along the spangled green;-- God bless me!  what a deal you've seen Have .  I made a quick trip to God's country to hang out with my peeps.  One of these fine friends went to UNI at the same time I was getting my M. ed. from UNI.  Maybe you've seen the s hot .  I'm a bigger ISU fan than UNI, but it's dang exciting.  In all reality 3 of the 32 teams left in the March Madness tourney are from Iowa although I up the University of Iowa is the first out... not a fan. I have a loaner car while my car is getting a new sensor since mice ate the wires.  The loaner car ...

Sonnets from the Portuguese 20: Beloved, my beloved when I think by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Beloved, my Beloved, when I think that thou wast in the world a year ago, What time I sate alone here in the snow And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink No moment at thy voice... but, link by link, Went counting all of my chains, as if that so They never could fall off at any blow Struck by they possible hand... why, thus I drink Of life's great cup of wonder!  Wonderful, Never to feel thee thrill the day or night With personal act or speech, -- nor ever cull Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white Thou sawest growing!  Atheists are as dull, Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight. Beloved .  How can anyone hear/see the word beloved without thinking of Prince's song Let's Go Crazy?  Am I the only one that still knows all of the words?   Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this think called life.  An e...

We are Broken by Paramore ...tell me why We live like this Keep me safe inside Your arms like towers Tower over me, yeah Cause we are broken What must we do to RESTORE Our innocence... Restore is an interesting word.  It makes me think of my laundry detergent which needs to be refilled.  Although I like this product, I need to go to the coop to get it filled, and well, I need to get to the coop.  My guess is they weren't thinking about my laundry detergent when they put the word restore in the Lenten photo challenge.  The verb restore makes me think of spring.  It restores our faith in the world and the beauty of nature.  My faith in eighth graders was restored last night in the after school reading program.  One girl sent a lovely apology email for missing the last couple nights, and the entire group read quietly and did quick writes as we tried out (ten minute read/one minute quick write for each) four novels.  F...

I am the People, the Mob by Carl Sandburg I am the people-- the mob-- the crowd-- the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history.  The Napoleons come from me and the      Lincolns.  They die.  And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. I am the seed ground.  I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.  Terrible storms      pass over me.  I forget.  The best of me is sucked out and wasted.  I forget.  Everything.        but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.  And I forget.   Sometimes I growl, shake myself and splatter a few red drops for history to remember.        Then -- I forget. When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of ...

President Obama 2008 Remember by Langston Hughes Remember The days of bandage-- And remembering-- Do not stand still. Go to the highest hill And look down upon the town Where you are yet a slave. Look down upon any town in Caroline Or any town in Maine, for that matter, Or Africa, your homeland-- And you will see what I mean for you to see--           The white hand;           The thieving hand.           The white face.           The white power;           The unscrupulous power That makes of you The hungry wretched thing you are today. Remember .  It's interesting what I remember and how I remember it.  When I was looking for a picture, I immediately went to my 2009 photos since I knew I was looking for the inauguration photos.  The entire weekend was memorable.  Walking the National Mall my first day looking at the...

The Road not Taken by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in undergrowth... Path.   When I tried to find a poem for path, it kept bringing me to the Robert Frost poem which does not actually contain the word path, but I used it anyway.  Last night I watched the selection show for March Madness.  Folks around the country will check their brackets and choose the path they think each team will take through the tournament.  I typically fill out a bracket, but I tend to do it with my heart and not my head, so it never works out well.  Once again this year, the state of Iowa has three teams in the tournament.  I never cheer for the University of Iowa, but I will always cheer for Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.  As always, I'll also be cheering for the Big XII teams. Today I give tha...

Sunbeam by Anna Akhmatova I pray to the sunbeam from the window- It is pale, thin, straight. Since morning I have been silent, And my heart -- is split. The coper on my washstand Has turned green But the sunbeam plays on it So charmingly. How innnocent it is, and simple, In the evening calm, But to me in this deserted temple It's like a golden CELEBRATION, And a consolation Another Sunday in Lent also means another celebrate .  It's a good time to reflect on the positive aspects of my life.  RAGBRAI is 132 Days, 22 hours, 28 minutes, and 10 seconds away as I post this morning.  This handy countdown clock makes me realize I have time to prepare for this year's hilly ride.  Friends have already started posting their training pictures because the weather has been lovely.  Another reason to celebrate is that next week is going to be colder.  Although this doesn't seem like a reason to celebrate, miserable weather the week leading up to sp...

Listening to Townes Van Zandt by Christine Gosnay We are of one mind and too much has not been said about all the quiet afternoons childhood offered us, lit gray like a cat, or blue, and cursed with an early moon. When father wore an apron  or crept like a bear, we screamed. Nothing is so gone. Where is his record player or the channel that forked a distant year toward us, kind, slow magnet? There was a song we shared without listening you widowed soul crawling away on your elbows. I sing it to my child, with a full hand I flick its rapeseeds everywhere, clear, and slow, with all the sincerity its author indeed felt in his ten-gallon hat and his thin, whisky-soaked shirt. Listen .  It seems like today I will be listening to more pounding and scraping as the upstairs's neighbors continue to gut their condo.  What I really should do is learn to listen to my body.  Instead of going to a baby shower last night, I chose happy hour.  After...

I Look at the World by Langston Hughes I look at the world From awakening eyes in a black face-- And this is what I see: This fenced-off narrow space Assigned to me. I look then at the silly walls Through dark eyes in a dark face-- And this is what I know: That all these walls oppression builds Will have to go! I look at my own body With eyes no longer blind-- And I see that my own hands can make The world that's in my mind. Then let us hurry, comrades, The road to find. World  is a big word that encompasses, well, everything.  During this election season, I wonder what the world thinks of the United States.  Actually, I fear that I know.  I made the students in my after school class choose one of the four candidates and do research.  They had to research the candidates background, education, jobs/careers, and campaign promises.  In the end, they needed to write down five positives and five negatives about the candidate.  A stu...

"Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you."  Russell Simmons Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness SURROUND that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and a port in air. It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird and bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee. "When the visions around you/ Bring tears to your eyes/And all that SURROUND s you/ are secrets and lies..."  NSYNC I most certainly surround myself with people who are smarter than I am.  In fact, I typically surround myself with smart, kind, and positive people.  Sometimes, I question how this even happens, but I have wonderful people in my life which makes my life pretty darn good.  It seems fairly obvious that the people in one's life control one's outlook on l...

Faith by Michael Schmidt When I cannot believe, The brown herds still move across green fields Into the tufty hills, and I was born Higher, where I could watch them as a bird might. When even memory seems imagined, what Can I bring to prayer?  A pair of knees. The great faith that built a stair to heaven As now my memory tries to climb a hill, Becomes an old stone building, a deaf priest Whose hand is in the pockets of his parish, Who longs to buy a bell he'll never hear. The water in the font is cold, I trace A circle on my brow and not a cross. Faithful .  I don't necessarily appreciate today's poem, but it's the best I could find.  Some days these words are difficult.  What kind of picture goes with faithful?  Pets, friends, family...  I've been going to my spin classes fairly faithfully during winter mainly because I need the exercise and really like the instructor who works my ass off and seems to understand cycling.  Tonight's...

Such Silence Blue Horses:  Poems  by Mary Oliver As deep as I ever went into the forest I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old, and around it a clearing, and beyond that trees taller and older than I had ever seen. Such silence! It really wasn't so far from a town, but it seemed all the clocks in the world had stopped counting. So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied. Sometimes there's only a hint, a possibility. What's magical, sometimes, has deeper roots than reason. I hope everyone knows that. I sat on the bench, waiting for something. An angel, perhaps. Or dancers with the legs of goats. No, I didn't see either.   But only, I think, because I didn't stay long enough. Silence.  Yesterday, I spent most of the day in silence.  This is unusual for me.  The new owners of the upstairs unit have been gutting the inside which has permeated my living space with too much noise, but yesterday there was quiet.  ...

A Slumber did my Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears; She seemed a thing that could not feel  The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees. Spirit. Yesterday while I was watching people bike by on the Greenway, the spirit moved me to make a cycling playlist for 2016.  It contains seventy-three songs and is four hours and twenty-seven minutes long.  It's a little bit shorter than last year's cycling playlist, but I think it's good. Gratitude List  (It's difficult to write when I'm sick and not leaving the house). 1.  It looks like they'll be three Iowa division one basketball teams in "The Big Dance." 2.  J brought me Clorox wipes, spiced jelly beans, and egg drop soup. 3.  I finished another book, Salvage the Bones .  It was beautifully writt...

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you... Endure and help were easier than today's celebrate .  It's day three of this flu stuff, and it is rocking my world.  I really have slept most of the time.  Today I'm celebrating with a " pity party ."  Why am I so weak?  Why am I so tired?  Why can't I do anything?  Time for a pity party or perhaps I need to go lie down.  I'm sure tomorrow will be better. My gratitude list... 1) friend check ins 2) a friend that assured me today there's not way The Donald could be president. 3) soup and other food in the freezer so I don't need to go outside

Endure by Nasir Kazmi O wayfarer of the waste of sorrow, endure! The caravans separated will meet tomorrow.  Endure! No sign guides the journey.  Yet, there is the whole night to go. A voice flows in every moment... Endure! Your cry will resound through the Earth and the Sky. Suffer through the wrongs... for some more time... endure! Your feet will rouse the musk-cities of ruined hearts. O broken gazelle in shelter, endure! The cities have been ravaged but the land of God is open. We will make a new home yet.  Endure! These imperial palaces are waiting for destruction. Their flags will eventually fall.  Endure! Line after line, the leaves and the trees will play their tambourines. This dry earth will yield moist.  Endure! For caravan to caravan fields will be blossoming. Gracious clouds will rain tremendously.  Endure! Why strike your head upon the rock?  Grieve with manner. Let your heart tra...

Helping Poem by Shel Silverstein Agatha Fry, she made a pie And Christopher John helped bake it Christopher John, he mowed the lawn And Agatha Fry helped rake it Now Zachary Zugg took out the rug And Jennifer Joy helped shake it Then Jennifer Joy, she made a toy And Zachary Zugg, helped break it And some kind of help is the kind of help That helping's all about And some kind of help is the kind of help  We all can do without. "Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.  And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them."  ~Dalai Lama Help!    Last night and today I needed help which is fitting for the word of the day.  I'm sick, really sick, and I'm not sure I've ever seen my temperature this high as an adult.  Yep, that's it.   I'm grateful for... 1) Colleagues helping me today prepare for sub. 2) Youtube video to email students, so they will hopefully work. 3) Having enough s...

The Day is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The day is done and the darkness  Falls from the wings of Night As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me That my soul cannot resist... ...Wo through long days of labor And nights devoid of ease Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have POWER to quiet  The restless pulse of care And come like the benediction That follows after prayer... "Power is of two kinds.  One is obtained by fear of punishment and the other by acts of love.  Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment."  Mahatma Gandhi Power.    At first I thought about power as strength.  These last days of February and first days of March leave me weak and seemingly without power.  As I lo...

I Found a Four-Leaf Clover by Jack Prelutsky I found a four-leaf clover and was happy with my find, but with time to think it over, I've entirely changed my mind. I concealed it in my pocket, safe inside a paper pad, soon, much swifter than a rocket, my good fortune turned to bad... Found.  It seems like one needs to be lost in order to be found which means someone lost this kite in the tree.  Last night I found myself at my caucus location after I found myself searching for my keys which were eventually found in my door.  I didn't caucus for Trump as I had planned because I knew I wouldn't make it out without saying something horrible and condescending.  Besides, I felt the need to support Bernie because he seems to hold the same beliefs I hold.  I also found myself as a delegate to the district convention in April.  Perhaps it's time to do my civic duty. Today I'm grateful for... 1) participating in the democratic system as a Democrat ...

In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing About the dark times. ~Bertolt Brecht Witness.  It seems finding a poem about witness is challenging.  I'm not going to blog about the word this morning since I've already spent too long trying to find a poem.  Let me be the witness to the difficulty of finding a poem with the word witness.  It doesn't mean I didn't find good stuff.  First, I found a poetry lesson plan in which students write their own witness poems after looking at examples (all too long to add to my blog).  Then, Bertolt Brecht's quote kept appearing as I googled witness poems.  I couldn't find the poem "Singing about the Dark Times" although I did find the quote (above).  Trying to find this poem, did lead me to some of his poetry which is interesting. Oh, a little about witness.  As a human, I hope I am witness to amazing things that happen in the world and appear as small, everyday ...