Category Archives: inspiration

Night Photography

Even without a camera, humans are always drawing

With light: every two hundred feet across the bridge

Street lamps hold out hope in pools of grey light

Across the tar. From a distance the bridge is almost

Perforated, an embroidery picked out in stars.

 

Holidays bring out our artistry. Look at the building,

Its roof, eaves and colonnade shining like a geometry

Problem written with a magic wand. And over there,

Across the river, fir trees like pointed wizard hats

Shimmer in gold, red, green and blue, silently.

 

But summer is best, when we let the colors fly

Into the black silk sky, an explosion of fire flowers:

Ice blue chrysanthemums, connect-the-dot

Scarlet tiger lilies, and the flash and flare of white

Snowbells that fall in a flurry into the river.

 

The river reflects on the sizzling stamens

As they disintegrate into its depths. It thinks

We are making offerings and perhaps we are.

Take these scattered petals of fire.

Grant us, in return, a year full of light.

Heliotrope

 

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Ode to Apollo

 

Too often the sky goes white all the way

To the edges, as if all the blue we had drained

Into the river and washed away. Too often

 

It seems like the world is void of blue or even

The grey that people call the sky when it rains.

And it’s not just color that leaks from the sky:

 

Light also loses its luster, as do the faces

Of the buildings, the people, the flowers.

There’s nothing the buildings can do about it.

 

They sit there facing the four directions

Equally. The people face downward, even

While walking, their noses inches away

 

From their phone screens; only a sickly light

Emanates without illuminating, and they

Never notice the sky, even when the sun

 

Reappears, finally, Apollo’s horses riding out

Of the cloud-cover to reassert the god’s sheer

Radiance. Only the flowers pay such close

 

Attention to the sky that they look up, basking

In the sudden warmth, and follow his blazing,

Glorious trail across the sky, transfixed and

 

Unable to look away, unwilling to think

Too soon about the inevitable fall of indigo

Dusk, purple evening and charcoal night.

 

But even then, the warmth stays with them

Nesting among their petals until chill midnight

Finds them facing East once more and hopeful.

Purple Poem

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A while back I read something Georgia O’Keeffe said about how she stopped using color for a while and that it was a month before she found herself needing blue. I have written several poems about green for some reason, possibly because trees do this thing where all the leaves are a slightly different green. But I interacted with a purple flower recently and it made me think about that. So here we are.

 

There is a purple in the world–

Long ago only emperors

Were allowed to adorn themselves

With the rich, dark end

Of the rainbow–night coming on

With a light dew on the fields,

The stars blinking, the long yawn

Of the first full moon of spring:

That purple. Now even I could pluck such

A delicate flower, an emperor’s gift

And offer it to a perfect stranger.

When I Am Seventy-Plus

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It took a year-plus to relieve the trauma we recall

From last winter that pounded us with seventy-plus

Inches of snow. It took an unseasonably mild winter

 

To counter the instant dismay caused by a sky greying

Over like ice over broken tar. We paused, tensed,

Refused to panic. We checked our shovels. We relaxed

 

When we realized that the 36-inch forecast meant

An inch or two, though wet. We still shudder to think

Of the wall of snow on every sidewalk, the wall that made

 

Parking almost impossible. We still shudder to think

How cold we were. We still shiver. Last July, I heard a man

Talk about how he still couldn’t believe the snow had melted.

 

Last July, the last of the snow finally melted. Last July,

When the summer was mild and I was not melting

In the 70-plus-plus but not yet 90-degree heat,

 

I shivered, but not as much as I am shivering this winter,

This mild, mild winter, when Christmas is 70 degrees

And it’s snowing at Easter, and no one really knows

 

How to forecast the future, how to predict weather:

I shiver in fear that the extra 20 or 30 degrees added

To our winter will also be added not just to this summer

 

But to all the summers to come, both those now

When I squander my forties and those later when I, 70-plus,

Look around at the 120 degree heat, and learn despair.

Psycho Sunday: Badass Women in Combat Gear #3

Aung San Suu Kyi.

Once again, I am interpreting “combat gear” as loosely as I interpret “poetry.” Here is a Badass Woman I have admired since I first learned about her in the 1990s.

Aung San Suu Kyi is a politician in Burma/Myanmar. Because of her disagreement with the military government that took over in 1989, she spent 15 of the 21 years between 1989 and 2010 under house arrest. She had the opportunity to go into exile with her family, who were living in Europe at the time, but she chose house arrest to stand with the Burmese people instead. She wrote, “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” [3] ― Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom from Fear

Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. The decision of the Nobel Committee mentions:

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights….Suu Kyi’s struggle is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades. She has become an important symbol in the struggle against oppression….In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means.”— Oslo, 14 October 1991

The World Arranging Itself

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“It is not everyday that the world arranges itself into a poem.” –Wallace Stevens

 

Yes, yes, it does, this spinning marble of a rock, watery

Outside, fiery inside, hurtling through ice-cold space

As if nothing could stop it. And somehow the oceans,

Waxing blue as the sky, waning green as an emerald,

Flashing in the sun, foaming–fiercely, furiously—

Never peel off and sail away into the dark and sparkling

Blanket of space. Why not? Beauty holds together

The way life, once it has ended, keeps on beginning,

Day after day, century after century, aeon after aeon,

And if that’s not poetry, Mr. Stevens, I don’t know what is.

St. Patrick’s Day Concerns

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That moment when you look in your closet

For the only green shirt you own and even

Consider wearing all red and hoping to run into someone

Colorblind. That daft hope that someone, anyone

Will say, “Top of the morning to you!” just

So you can reply, “And the rest of the day to you!”

That memory of being able to wear a green sweater

To school instead of the uniform cranberry, because

Irish Americans are exactly that weird and yes, we did

Go to Catholic school. That craving for corned beef,

With or without the cabbage and Guinness. That dread

Of someone spelling it St. Patty’s as if the bishop was

Named Patricia. That memory of the one single time

You ever drank green beer, and that quizzical look

People give you when you have a Polish last name.

 

Illustration by Sandra Boynton.

That Poem about the Quokka

A friend in need, Mike Allegra, heylookawriterfellow, recently gave me a writing topic when I was sore in need of ideas. He wrote, “Aw! Blockage stinks. But I’m here to help; write about quokkas. You’re welcome.” I had never heard of these, but when I Googled it, here is the picture that looked back at me.

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The kangaroo’s cousin, cute little quokka

With teddy bear eyes and a winning small smile,

Nicely nocturnal you feed on the seedpods,

Leaves and soft bark by the light of the moon.

 

Quick! Make a wish! A big steaming mocha

Or peppermint muffins stacked up in a pile:

Some sign that you haven’t been mocked by the food gods.

The Nightblooming Rainbow will bring it right soon.

Squirrel Revolution

Girl on the Contrary is predicting that the squirrels in her neighborhood may be plotting a revolution. Until I read this, I did not understand the Sandy Skoglund installation/photo entitled “Squirrels.” Now, however, I am beginning to get it…

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They are in fact everywhere, probably

Watching us through our windows, looking

Innocent and fuzzy as they scamper up and down

Trees in the park. Only the big black dog knows

What they are up to and chases them at top speed

Leaping easily over the fence and trying to follow

Them up the tree. But paws like his were not made

For vertical climbing. So the ides of March comes

Closer every day, the revolution comes disguised

In soft greys and browns, with beady black eyes and

Fluffy tails twitching in Morse code: Soon. Very soon.