real toads

Sarcophagus . . . how has it come to this?

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PROMPT FROM TOADS FOR April 30: The final day of National Poetry Month 2020
“A few minutes from now, you will lose all means of communication with humanity.  You will not die, but will no longer be able to interact with the world. Whats the last thing you say?”

Entombed in silence,
solitudinously cocooned
in diaphanous gauze,
but nothing to see.
Nor can I hear.
Senses extraneous
when it is only me.
No exit,
only an aperture to my mind.
And so I choose to hum
not aloud, but in my mind.
Hesitantly, quietly,
internally.
Until my head is screaming
screaming that song.
What the world needs now
is love, sweet love.
But alas.
It is too late.

And shared with dVerse, the virtual put for poets, where it’s OLN Thursday.

Take a moment – the newcaster is on for just a moment…then comes the video at about 26 or 28 seconds in…..it is incredibly uplifting!  I PROMISE you will love it! A wonderful piece to listen to as we end NAPOWRIMO 2020!

. . . and he became a man

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One last moment,
I just needed one.

My son,
your wedding so beautiful.
You pledged a lifetime of love
to this wonderful woman at your side
and I watched, tears in my eyes.

My son,
I looked on, so very proud of you.
Your compassion, caring,
your talent, accomplishments.
All things good.

My son,
I knew you must leave
cleave unto your love.
I knew that
and I looked on lovingly.

And when the ceremony was done
suddenly, in that crowded room,
just before the photos began
you came to me
overcome by emotion.

You were in my arms
sobbing
and I flashed back.
Holding infant-you to my chest
comforting, nurturing.

And then you pushed back
asked for a tissue,
turned and walked to your wife.
And just like that,
you became a man.

But you’d given me,
that one last moment.

Day 29 in National Poetry Writing Month. Today Toads asks us to write about something that signaled almost the end. This was an amazing moment in my life….one that I remember distinctly and that my son, to this day, has no recollection of. For me, I am still grateful I had this one last moment with him as my young son. And by the way, he is a very happily married man with his bride/wonderful woman by his side and three delightful children.

I See Now

lillian5 Comments

It must be the masks.
Most people wear one now.
Not to avoid recognition
while performing some illegal act
like robbery or kidnapping.
Rather to avoid being robbed
or being kidnapped
by Covid-19.

I used to walk down streets
see people but not see them,
hear sounds but not listen to them.
Intent on getting to work
or the store
or the whatever.
I plowed on, looking straight ahead.
No mask. No gloves.

I could have stopped to listen,
hear the blue jay in a nearby tree.
Cracked a smile at passersby.
But I didn’t.
I just plowed ahead
to get to that place,
to that thing I was scheduled to do.
No mask. Just oblivious.

Today I walked to feel fresh air.
Gloved, masked, gasping a bit.
Breathing through a piece of cloth
rubber-banded behind my ears,
only my eyes exposed.
I have nowhere special to go
but I crave being outside.
I need to see people. . .

. . . but not coming too close to me.
In their masks. Worse yet, without them.
I gesture SINGLE FILE
as they come toward me.
I listen for footsteps from behind.
Could be someone coming too close.
Round-trip walk from home,
I decide to stop on the bridge.

Leaning over I take a long look.
See a scene I’ve seen so many times
but not really seen.
Trees along the Charles River.
Water rippling from geese swimming.
And then I see her.
Mama goose upon her nest
staring warily at me.

She moves a bit and hisses.
I see new meaning to an old phrase,
one overused today. Shelter in place.
Cracked eggs beside her,
feathers in her beak,
she shifts her body and just for a moment
I see tiny wriggling masses of yellow
trying to escape from beneath her .

Does my mask make me the interloper?
And still I stare and listen and watch.
It must be these masks affecting me.
Seeing what has always been there,
season after season.
People and nature along my way.
I notice the mundane more
and finally I understand.

It never really was mundane.

April 28 in National Poetry Writing Month where the challenge is to write at least one poem per day. This is my second for today.

This one is written for Toads where we are to choose a quotation or an impression from Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird as the motivation for our poem. I’ve chosen the quotation “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”

Video is from our walk this morning. 

You may want to see my other poem, written for dVerse today. It will take you to the Norwegian fjords!

In Celebration of Matsuo Basho

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When we travel, we most especially enjoy immersing ourselves in new cultures. Last April we toured the Asakusa area of Tokyo. Many people strolled these special grounds, photographing the iconic 5-tiered pagoda and praying before the Shinto and Buddhist shrines. We saw a good number of people in formal kimonos, rented from nearby shops to mark a celebratory visit, perhaps a birthday, engagement or anniversary. We stood quietly in front of a temple, in awe of its gold and rich reds. Walking a bit away from the crowds, we discovered a memorial to the poet Matsuo Basho. He lived from 1644 to 1694, during Japan’s Edo period. His haiku are considered the ultimate example of this poetic form. I touched his memorial stone in awe and appreciation.

As we ended our time at Asakusa, I talked with Kaz, our guide. I learned his mother wrote and published poetry in her youth and he told me more about the continued honor that Basho is paid in his country. He gifted me with the special pen he’d been using to jot down notes, in Japanese characters. He also gave me a beautiful writing pad with cherry blossoms etched on it. I was so very touched.

Later, back at our hotel, I did a bit of research and discovered Basho’s haiku about this place:

A cloud of cherry blossoms
the chime of a temple bell
is it Asakusa, is it Ueno?

花の雲    鐘は上野か   浅草か

see with your eyes wide ~
bees visit many gardens
all have sweet nectar

Day 27 of National Poetry Writing Month. Today’s post is written for both Toads and dVerse’sHaibun Monday. ¯¯

Toads asks us to consider the ancient tea ceremony and The Way of Tea which includes a good number of suggestions on how to share tea meaningfully. One, that I used to motivate this prompt is: “See with your eyes! Listen with your ears! And if you wish to smell the fragrance, press for an explanation of every unresolved matter until your understanding is complete.”
My haiku at the end moves beyond humans appreciating other cultures and explains that even the bee appreciates nectar from many gardens. 

Frank hosts dVerse and asks us to consider how similar Basho and Shakespeare were to their cultures, in their own time and for many generations to come. He asks us to write a haibun related to one of these famous literary geniuses.

A New Me

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Reboot. Rejuvenate.
Retired? Poor phrase.
Never intended to tire again.
Released from to-dos and alarm clocks.
I revel in the autumn of my life.

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Photo from a Boston 4th of July celebration with the Boston Pops on the Esplanade, soon after my rejuvenatement.

Day 25, National Poetry Writing Month. Prompt from Toads, where we are asked to write about a reboot, a renewal, that is meaningful to our lives.

What Really Happened . . .

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Best friends, we met secretly.
Listened in awe to Tituba’s tales.
Barbados voodoo, fortune telling.
So exotic to our young minds.

Betty’s father ranted,
not just pulpit preaching.
Everyday damnation,
spirit squelching abuse.

We craved attention, excitement.
Anything but embroidery
peeling potatoes, praying,
tending garden and the hearth.

Betty and Abigail started it.
Twitching, talking in tongues.
Rolling on the ground,
petticoats be damned.

STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
I joined them and we ramped it up.
Rolled and spit and drooled,
hiked our skirts over our heads.

Center of attention were we.
Eyes on us, tongues wagging,
STOP! THE DEVIL BE GONE!
What? What was he talking about?

Too late. We’d gone too far.
He demanded, WHO?
WHO HAS COMMANDEERED YOUR SOULS?
CONFESS NOW. TELL US WHO!

Scapegoat. We didn’t know that word.
But forced by his shaking
we had to pick.
God forgive them. Betty and Abigail did.

Tituba!
They had the limelight as they screamed her name.
Jealous I was. I craved their fame.
Sarah Good! I screamed.
God forgive me my pride.

Now, two hundred people accused
Thirty found guilty. Nineteen hanged.
Oh my God, what have we done?
Young girls turned miscreants
in a Puritanical world.

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Day 25: National Poetry Writing Month. Toads asks us to write a poem in which we “take on the persona of someone from history; and we write in the first person – as if we are that person.”

I’ve chosen to write in the voice of Ann Putnam who was 12 years old at the time of the Salem Witch Trials. She was good friends with Elizabeth Parris (Betty) and Abigail Williams, the first two girls (ages 9 and 12 respectively) who accused Tituba of witchcraft, thus lighting the spark of the Salem witch trials of 1692. Betty’s father was Reverend Samuel Parris, Putitan minister in Salem and central figure in the witch trials. Tituba was his slave from Barabados who, it is known, shared many stories of her culture and voodoo practices with Betty and her young friends. This is, obviously, a fictional narrative, told in the voice of Ann, as to the origins of the paranoia that filled Salem, Massachusetts in these Puritan times.

…and who are we, if not similar to

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. . . those hands, those fingers, that face.
Those eyes,
seeing me as I see you.

Genetic relatives
mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda
lowland gorillas in western Africa

and me. Visiting you.
Those hands, those fingers, that face.
We are so alike. Akin.

And in this new Corona world
I feel more akin,
stumbling in my own shrinking habitat.

Have we plundered too far?
Been too sure of our advanced selves?
Has our arrogance been revealed

by a novel virus
that recognizes humans
only as we truly are?

Too smug beings
who caged others
and now it’s payback time.

Photos taken in Washington DC, May 2019: my husband’s hands (in black and white); and the hands and face of a gorilla at the National Zoo.

Poem written for day 24 in National Poetry Writing Month. Toads  asks us to write about “nature’s wonders . . . how everything is connected.” 

Lest someone be offended by this post, please know I do not take this virus lightly. It is a horrific disease that is affecting so many people globally. My heart goes out to all those affected, including those who work so others might live a daily life. Stay safe everyone. I pray daily for a vaccine that this scourge may never happen again.

From the Bard’s Words

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He grew up a laughing stock
across from the river Avon,
son of a poor tailor.

Clothes make the man.
His father coined the phrase
but shared it not with his son.

The lad had but scraps of cloth
ne’er enough for a pound of flesh,
certainly lacking as he grew.

His mother’s eldest child
cold comfort she gave him,
too busy suckling the youngest ones.

His job, to tend the fire
through cold of winter’s nights,
not easy at that bleak stone hearth.

Stolen bits and scraps of wool
cradled beneath his head at night,
such stuff as dreams are made on.

And each night she came to him
he with heart upon his sleeve,
she in garments weaved of gold.

Her plea to him, always the same.
Steal your father’s coins.
Come what may and flee with me.

Weakened by his love for her,
coins in hand, he fled to nearby woods
expecting to meet beneath the stars.

But all that glitters is not gold
and caught was he within her snare
as she revealed her true self. Devil incarnate.

She took his coins and claimed his soul.
Then, after one kiss upon his anxious lips,
struck him dead.

As good luck would have it,
his body never discovered
decayed within the region’s soil.

And thus it is each spring
he lives again within the greening,
all along the Avon’s shores.

william-shakespeare-62936_1920Day 23 in National Poetry Writing month and the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

At Toads today, we are asked to write a poem inspired by the Bard. All of the bold words/phrases in this post, were first coined by Shakespeare and are now in common use. And of course, Stratford-upon-Avon is the town where Shakespeare was born and buried. 

 

Never to be the same . . .

lillian5 Comments

In 2005, we rented a vacation home on the Big Island. Our back yard included an ocean inlet to Champagne Pond where at low tide, we swam with glorious sea turtles.

Our most amazing adventure was a lava hike, climbing over fields of hardened basalt. Eventually we came upon fissures where hot lava pooled, spit, hissed, bubbled and oozed ever so slowly. Using flashlights on the return walk, lava glowed red-orange in the distance, as if a jack-o-lantern was lit across the horizon. We also hiked across a caldera, over “waves” of Pele’s hair. We found a small delicate fern peeking out of a crevice. Hawaiian breezes deposit plant life in nooks and crannies. Life reappears in the midst of desolation.

Pele’s anger erupted violently in 2018. Kilauea spewed plumes 12,000 to 30,000 feet high. Fissures burst open. Lava flows destroyed over 700 homes. Lagoon House: A Piece of Paradise, the vacation home so many people enjoyed over the years, was entombed in thirty feet of boiling lava, which eventually cooled to impenetrable basalt. As the owner wrote, the coastline is forever changed. I wonder, how long it will be before a single fern, and then a tree, and then a grove of trees take root. Will the memory of Pele’s reckoning disappear? Will humans be enticed to rebuild what was once called Leilani Estates – and is that even possible?

I look at photos
housebound during Covid spring ~
Pele sleeps again

* Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes.

Day 22: National Poetry Writing Month. Toads asks us to choose one of four given quotations to motivate our poem of any form.  I wrote a a haibun.

Photos from June 2005 trip with our children to Hawaii’s Big Island. Our guided lava hike across Kilauea, at the time, the longest continuously active volcano in the world, now seems ridiculously dangerous and foolish – given the horrific occurrence in December 2019 at New Zealand’s White Island.

In the first photo, I’m waving goodbye to the incredibly beautiful back yard at our vacation rental, the night before we returned home. Little did I know that 13+ years later, this scene would be nonexistent.

QUOTATION USED TO MOTIVATE POST:  “A fresh and vigorous weed, always renewed and renewing, it will cut its wondrous way through rubbish and rubble.” William Jay Smith

Birch Tree Lane

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This place spoke to her
and she said yes.
Her party would be waiting
her bridegroom, her love.
All standing patiently
in windswept open field.

Her dress of white ethereal silk
flowed as she walked alone
oh so slowly down the path.
She held a small bouquet,
delicate white freesia
hyacinth and sweet peas.

Birch trees lined the trail,
leaning in as sentinels would
protective and quietly calm
seeming to guide her steps.
Lush greenery everywhere
leading to her new life.

This stretch of spackled white bark
delicate in its strength.
This birch tree lane
seemed an extended bridal veil
approving her decision,
her love for him.

Their lush branches
whisper-rustled encouragement.
Trees on either side,
embracing her in calm serenity
as she took step after step forward,
until at last, they were all at her back.

She turned and looked once more
these birch trees, their beauty,
leaning in to line this walkway.
They seemed now to be
her wedding gown’s bridal train
bidding her adieu . . .

and she smiled . . .
turned . . .
and stepped into the open field

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April 21: day 21 of National Poetry Writing Month. Today Kim at Toads asks us to write about trees. Photo taken some years ago when we visited our niece in Ohio.