2023 CAC Artist Fellowship application

Of course I didn’t get a fellowship. I didn’t recognize any names on any of the three categories.

The CAC Fellowship will support my ongoing creative art practice by giving me time to develop more writing and to publish a backlog of work. I have several book-length poetry manuscripts, and material from ongoing projects including travel journals and memoir—including meeting with poets and artists in the USSR, and Latin America when I traveled with mentor poet/translator, John Oliver Simon. 

I am also a photographer with a large archive of photos of notable poets and writers that spans 40 years. I’m in the process of scanning thousands of negatives that I plan to make available with my writing via print and web before I die. I‘m 71. COVID taught me that time is finite. Some of my B&W photography is online here My historic photos of poets and notable people have recently appeared in The Weed Museum traveling exhibit, and the soon-to-be-released Julia Vinograd documentary, Between Spirit & Stone.
During COVID isolation, I joined several Zoom writing groups which led my writing in new directions. One writing group I belong to has generated enough new material for several full length books, one of which I've submitted to Gunpowder Press. 

In the previous narrative boxes, I've discussed my teaching career—and about passing on the baton. I discovered it's important to train other artists in order to facilitate change through the poetic process. Then there is the next generation of students to carry on the tradition. Teaching has been at the epicenter of my creative process, and inspiring others also informs my own work. I discovered I do not work in a vacuum, I need interaction with community, whether it's protesting against the government or social injustice, or reflecting upon the environment. But now it's time to pull back, and make my own work available to larger audiences.

JUMPSTARTING THE HEART

Nels and Seretta talked of that moment 

when their hearts stopped beating,

that moment when they were technically dead.

A-fib, D-fib—when the machines took over, 

delivering another chance at life.

When her heart was restarted, Seretta said

you cannot go back to who you were. 

You get another chance, like a cat with nine lives,

growing wings of made of sunlight and breath.

But you have to reinhabit your life.

In spring, Jay visits the parents of his donor heart, 

in this way they celebrate the life of their dead son.

They place their hands upon his chest 

to feel the miracle of the beating heart, 

still alive in its new cage of sinew and bone.

I want to ask: Do they fall love again anew

with all that passion of the first flush of love.

Or does the heart pick up where it left off, 

perhaps indifferent to the vagaries of love 

that settles into the ventricles over time?

9/27/23 Write On! with Susie Terence

California condors return to the Bay Area

Today, in the news headlines, rare photos of six California condors circling the updrafts of Mount Diablo for the first time in over 100 years. It seems these condors drifted north from the Pinnacles National Monument. Slowly they have been re-populating California. They haven’t quite hit the 500-bird mark but it’s a miracle compared to the last statistic, which was the virtual death knell for the species, when the last 22 free wild condors captured in the 1980s in order to save the species from extinction.

In the 1950s, the ranchers were hellbent on exterminating all the bobcats and cougars, foxes and coyotes, the golden, and the bald eagles, and all the hawks from the landscape—it was considered a necessity for taking care of the livestock. I remember their stories of eagles dropping lambs and calves on rock outcrops to kill them. I watched these wild creatures disappear from my childhood landscape. Their presence was noted by their absence. But I had a vast memory bank.

When the ranchers ran out of eagles and redtail hawks to shoot down, it seems they began in on the bluejays and vultures, perhaps for an excuse for something to shoot at, leaving behind a plethora of lead bullets in the landscape. Ten years ago, California was the first state in the nation to successfully ban lead bullets and lead sinkers for good, the wildlife has been making a slow comeback.

The native bluejays were replaced by Stellar’s jays who moved in en masse to fill the empty niche. And no, they were not drab scrub jays that you see today, these bluejays had black striped blue and white wing and tail feathers that I loved to collect.  I remember the first time I saw a Stellar’s jay hopping up Barranca Road by the Bianchi‘s field. Dark head and a crest. I had never seen one like it before, so I stored it away in my memory banks. 

A frumpy bluebird shoved out of the nest too soon so I put him back.

By this time, the western bluebirds had also disappeared from the landscape, because of DDT poisoning. This was about the time Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring came out. I used to think that bluebirds were male robins because they were blue and orange. You know, blue for boys? I was a strange child of the outdoors and was constantly making mental connections between things. Call it similitude if you must. 

The redtail hawks never returned to their home range, but were replaced with striped red-shouldered hawks from Sonoma County. I can’t stand their piercing cry. I prefer the song of the red tail hawk any day. I used to practice saying Tcheer! And they’d answer back. Collecting their red tail feathers was considered a big coup.

I once took care of a friend, Christian Djorziak’s injured redtail hawk. When I tossed her a chicken neck, she would lean back on her massive wings as if they were elbows and grab it with her feet. I marveled at her beauty, how big she was up close. Those sharp eyes, those talons, that beak. Respect and awe.

A dark morph redtail hawk checks out free range chickens, LaFranchi Ranch, Nicasio.

In the late 1950s we sometimes saw condors in West Marin, but it was very rare. Compared to turkey vultures they were massive in the sky—much bigger than vultures or eagles. I only saw one, never a flock. The condors had large white patches on their underwings—one reason why it stuck out in my mind. It was a placeholder for the future, a time for when I could properly identify them. But by then, they were long gone from the wild. Facing mass extinction from DDT and lead bullets, like the peregrine falcon.

In the early 1970s we used to drive up a steep fire road out to the Big Sur garbage dump just to see the last of the wild California condors circling in the updrafts over the desolate valleys and ridges. And you could definitely see their distinctive white underwing patches, or chevrons pointing the way out.

And outside of Cusco, Peru, I watched massive Andean vultures circling over the ruins of Sacsayhuamán. They too had white patches on their underwings. And elegantly dressed in fluffy white neck ruffs, like Elizabethan courtiers, or cartoon vultures.

A friend writes how she once saw black vultures with their distinctive white under wing patches, near Wildcat Beach on the coast in the 1990s—their range does not typically overlap with our CA redheaded turkey vultures—the black-headed vultures’ westernmost winter range includes AZ, and the southern states. But I guess one could’ve been blown a bit off course. Or maybe he was slumming it in CA. Admit it, we have way better beaches and way better carcasses too.

The other day I saw a massive turkey vulture flock funneling in an updraft over the pastures west of Petaluma. Always love seeing them swirling like WB Yeats’ Pern in a Gyre during the fall migration. It’s more like a congregation or perhaps a reunion as they don’t ever leave the Northbay. We used to lie down in the middle of the field and play dead to see if they would come closer. They never did, even if we didn’t bathe for a couple of weeks, we just weren’t stinky enough.

For the the record, our red-headed turkey vultures will also eat live meat. They are opportunists, not pacifist garbage-men. I once witnessed them descend upon a wounded fawn that some asshole hit with his fancyass Porsche right in front of Rancho Nicasio—and he drove off without a backward glance. Vultures have way better table manners than he did—even if they did tear out the fawn’s still beating heart. He was a goner, and we all knew it. I sure didn’t want to do the coup de grace.

A little known fact, baby red-headed turkey vultures have dark colored heads. Check out my photo of Junior perched between both his parents munching on a carcass in San Antonio Creek. Very different than black vultures. Sleeker heads and necks. They are very loving and doting parents. You can see from the photo that our turkey vultures are not really black. I love the blue black iridescent breast and neck feathers juxtaposed against the two-tone brown wing feathers.

Black vultures are definitely smaller and strange looking with their wrinkled cowls like Anubis escaped from the underworld. Check out this link for their range, and also how they look so different in the sky. I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly seen a black-headed vulture. Apparently they will hang out with turkey vultures, because turkey vultures have an acute sense of smell. Better than theirs. So I guess they’re carrion opportunists.

Check out this photo of the white underwing of the condor I was mentioning earlier. And this is why they significantly stood out in my childish memory banks. They were so unlike turkey vultures, and they were massive in the sky. You could actually hear them soaring in the wind.

A turkey vulture with a massive wingspan.

AN OCCASIONAL POEM FOR JACK

Dear Jack, on the day of your birth, 

your book arrived in the post. 

Last night, the edges of rain graced this valley, 

and cleared the air of all that wildfire smoke 

from the Klamath River Basin.

Today is the first day in weeks

we can see the outline of the coastal hills.

Mt. St. Helena, a dark sentinel.

The air is like a knife’s edge on the horizon.

As I read your poems, I asked myself

what did you hope to find 

before you were born? 

There is an old Irish saying, 

what was the color of the wind 

on the day of your birth?

Spirit birds, perhaps yellow 

with a touch of grey.

9/26/23

I AM OF CALIFORNIA

I am of Ireland, the holy land of Ireland, 

the green land of myth and mystery. 

I have seen my grandfather bent over his books, 

as if they could restore the myriad atrocities 

dealt by the hands of the enemy. 

I did not know why he left his homeland 

to continue insurrection from this land of the free. 

So I sat on his lap and blew out wooden matches 

as he sucked on another stogie, 

that would eventually kill him 

as surely as those British bullets. 

Rubber ones hadn't yet been invented. 

That particular atrocity would come later.

I am of Ireland, that fabled land 

of verdant song & story. 

I watched my grandmother as she pinched pennies,

and hunkered down over potato beds in the garden,

raking & weeding, cajoling them into the stewpot 

where cabbage sang arias to bacon & ham hocks 

or tongue when we were lucky enough to get them. 

I never knew the poverty belt was cinched tight 

around our necks until I left home, 

the idea of perspective was always trapped 

in the green depths of the rearview mirror.

I am of California, the golden rolling hills 

where hawks argue over turf in a blue vaulted sky.

I need to quit using the word vaulted. 

It's just that the sky is a cathedral, 

a star of the sea shining in the distance 

where I was once baptized in pickled brine. 

But I gave it up, not for God, nor the vigilant nuns,

but when the women were ordered to give up 

their bodies, to spread their legs wide & cowp, 

then bend a supplicant's knee at the altar of prosperity. 

There was no melting pot, we were condemned 

by the fabric of our customs & names & religion.

The hidden wealth of the immigrant pushed aside 

made superfluous by insidious inquality 

of this WASPish nation wanting to break us all.

9/20/23 Write On! with Susie Terence

Hurricane Charley, Mile Zero, Highway One (photos)

Take One.

We moved inter-island weaving down the chain of atolls and sandbars, following the signs to the end of the Highway One, to the striped cement buoy marking the southernmost point of the United States, painted yellow and black, like a hornet, with red for danger, or for communism. The howling wind whipped the sea into a froth as the tentacles of the hurricane approached land, having already hit landfall somewhere in Cuba. We could almost stand into the wind at 75° angles, as we defied gravity. I was oblivious to the danger, my first hurricane. Palm fronds, sharp as glass, like weapons flying through the air as if thrown by a carnival knife thrower with the scantily clad lady rotating on the roulette wheel. Always a gamble. The wind eddied and curled as if to strip us down to the bone. A green coconut landed at my feet, I scooped it up and gleefully thought of how I would use it at. At the end of Whitehead St., the liquor store was still open for business, so we bought some rum and made coconut water drinks and wended our way back to our Key West hotel room fighting the gale force winds. I fixed salmon with jellied coconut, not quite formed into nut meat, and I drained off the water for drinks. It was brackish, a bit disappointing, tasting of sea, brine and vaguely perfumed. More like drinking a musty dog. The rum helped hide the disappointment. Though we were still far from the epicenter, the wind howled like a banshee and passed us by. Morning broke with clear skies, and you could see almost all the way to Cuba, the hurricane having devastated Havana yet again. No refugees on the horizon. Businesses reopened hoping to catch a stray tourist or two in their nets. I bought a damaged Mile Zero T-shirt and cut off the sleeves, like a black muscle shirt with a big green Zero on it. Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville was doing a brisk trade on Duval Street, the bar was lined three deep, even though the sun was barely up. Living on the edge of the continent, exposed to the vagaries of weather, you live in the moment, the calm before the storm drove home the temporal quality of life as we imagined it. 

MILE ZERO

In the distance, a small open boat 

struggles to stay afloat in the following sea—

hopefully not a raft of refugees, not in this storm. 

On the edge of the continent, 

we are small specks of coral sand juxtaposed 

between the Gulf Stream and the Florida Straits.

Lightning lashes out, strikes with a vengeance. 

The cement buoy marking the edge of the US, 

says 90 miles to Cuba. It’s 94 miles, but it’s less poetic.

The line of sight is 3 miles to the meniscus of the ocean.

We are connected by distance and allegiance. 

A sign says Begin Highway One North at Mile Zero. 

The alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, 

freedom and communism trading places 

where the Atlantic meets the Gulf of Mexico. 

A memorial to the thousands of Cubans

who lost their lives at sea, seeking freedom 

and asylum from the storm.

9/13/23 Write On! with Susie Terence (this is from a collage—see below).

We are caught between the juxtaposition of empty space and the edge of the sea, as lightning lashed the surface of the water with a vengeance. In the distance, a small open boat struggled to stay afloat—hopefully not a raft of refugees in this storm. Each of us is connected by distance and allegiance. The rippling sea as it stretches from island to island, is a molten cloak. We stood on the edge of the continent, so small in our insignificance. The street corner, bisecting Whitehead and South Street, where the cement buoy that marks the edge of the continent informs us that it’s 70 miles to Cuba. Begin Highway One N. at Mile Zero. The alpha and the omega, the beginning, and the end, freedom and communism trading places where the Atlantic meets the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a memorial to the thousands of Cubans, who lost their lives at sea, seeking freedom from the storm.

Old Florida blogposts.

• Hurricane Charley, Mile Zero, Highway One (photos)
• Confessions of an iPod Roadie
• Letter from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal
• Missive from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal

Ziggy Stardust, cat chronicles

Newsweek ran an article on documenting kitty love. Or rather trying to prove that our aloof cats really do love us after all. They’re not just assholes, and we are not their servant-savants. Now, most quasi-scientific articles on cat behavior are beyond ridiculous—especially the ones that try to (dis)prove the cognitive abilities of cats. Markers of feline affection are even harder to map. Especially if you are prone to  use the behavior of sycophantic dogs as a reference point.

I was always interested in cat behavior, having had cats all my life. Our first cat was a Siamese, who decided that I need a protection and slept with me in the crib. My father was convinced she would smother me, my mother said no, leave her alone. She’s protecting the baby. And so she did. Much later, I also wanted to become a veterinarian, so I was always observing animal behavior. 

When it came to choosing my own kitten from my friend’s litter, this time I let the kitten choose me, not the other way around. The previous kitten I chose on looks alone. Luckily Frosty, a seal-point Saimese with white markings was a good cat. I was sold on Siamese-alley cat mix. You got the best of both worlds, blue-eyed beauty and street-smarts. And hopefully you didn’t get a crossbreed that sang the song of the Siamese cat’s tribe.

There were at least five kittens to choose from the clowder as the purebred Siamese mother proudly surveyed her mongrel litter. Luckily they mostly took after her with Siamese markings and tabby stripes. It was a hard decision, I wanted them all. 

My friend’s stepmother would not let us take our chosen kittens right away, she said they were too young at six weeks, so we interacted with them for two weeks when they came of age to leave the nest. Wise decision. Less trauma for them. My kitten was one well-adjusted cat. He was both adventuresome and trusting.

Most people choose their cats based on quirks and vagaries of beauty, not realizing that the cat too would like to make a choice as to whom he trusts and wants to interact with. Though it took me a while to find his name, Ziggy Stardust chose me. He fell asleep in my lap on his back with paws splayed. My heart melted.

At College of Marin I did a social experiment with my Siamese-tabby mix kitten for a psychology class, we were studying animal behavior. Konrad Lorenz’s imprinted ducklings was my inspiration.

I taught my beautiful blue-eyed kitten to come when I whistled, to lay down, roll over, and to fetch a piece of crumpled paper and return it to me. He performed brilliantly for the class and was unafraid of strangers. We all sat in a circle on the carpet,, and he wended his way in an out of all of us, curious to the end. It was interesting to watch him work the crowd and you could see my fellow students falling in love.

When I brought Ziggy back to school a few months later, he was terrified, and would not do anything at all, except for to hide and yowl. It was a long  miserable day at school for both of us. This was in the days before cat carriers were invented, so I carried him on the bus to and from school. No leash. No harness. He stuck to me like glue. I was his only hope. We were a bonded pair. I never put them in a stressful position like that again.

I trained that cat to do many other things as well. Perhaps the most unusual feat was to convince him to hop into a picnic basket so that I could lower him from the second story window to the ground so he could go potty. Then, after he did his duty, he would hop back inside the basket and ride the elevator back up to my window for his morning snuggle. 

Figby & Ziggy adored my grandmother, much to her chagrin, & she let them inside.

• See Figby & Pishkin a story about two brother cats, and a good example of nature versus nurture.

Letter to Robert Reich

Dear Robert Reich,

Since we’re near neighbors, may I call you Uncle Bob? Maybe not. Bob was the name of my first boyfriend whom I’m still trying to forget some 50 years later. However, if one is to discuss one’s bowel function with relative strangers, we should at least be on first name, if not a nickname basis. My nickname was Baba, which means baby in Irish, and then it was changed to Mo—as in the mighty Mo. 

Besides, that would give me a chance to say Bob’s your uncle— which is infinitely better than Sweet Old Bob, an acronym my Irish grandmother was inordinately fond of when it came to cursing Oliver Cromwell and American politicians—I had to wait until I was an adult before I discovered Cromwell was 400 years dead. Imagine my surprise. Some of our sitting (no, not shitting) congressman have seemingly joined ranks with Cromwell.

However, your latest missive on aging is a keeper. And it had me giggling in fits and spurts. Thank God no leakage was implicated. Nor were any Pampers harmed in the process. And my back is fine, thank you very much for asking. As are my kidneys and bowels. However, my left leg is not doing so well, my having sprained it two months ago. So I have to stick it up in the air at every opportune moment that comes up. Even while driving. And I drive a clutch.

The incredible shrinking height aspect and aging has me worried as I almost hit 5 foot 3” in my 20s, no, make that my 30s—that is, after extensive chiropractics. I am afraid that at age 70 moseying on up to 71, I have probably lost more than an inch and I am no longer even 5 foot 2.” Chiropractics will not yield me any more attenuated height. Like you, I was mercilessly teased for being skinny and for my short stature, but girls were not expected to be taller than boys. I made up for it with bravado, a profound sense of justice and a feisty ability to use my words in order to sway people.

As for flipping people off while driving down the road, that’s a tough one. I still do it, even though I know I should not. Especially those weekend idiots driving through Nicasio and on the Point Reyes-Red Hill Road. Don’t even get me started on the spandex bicycle warriors, riding in clots two and three abreast on country roads they have no business riding bicycles on.

With that, I too worry about the relative age of our political leaders. Personally, I think the 80s should be the cut off date for Congress. Let’s face it, Di Fi is definitely doddering, and if she is somewhat incapacitated by age, that makes McConnell mouldering away with one foot practically in the grave. 

Speaking of bowels, I am reminded that the word senator is related to the word senex, which basically means senile old farts vs. the wet-behind-the-ears puer aeternus. The medieval Irish Agallamh Na Seanórach explores the dichotomy of mindsets. The old and the new. We have a minimum age for politicians, why not an age-cap as a well? It should be included for all members of public office, including judges.

At least Barbara Boxer, whom I worked for when she was running for Marin County supervisor in the way back days, had the good sense to retire while she was ahead. I wish Nancy Pelosi would take notice of that. Of course, this particular line of reasoning would be considered ageist. We won’t mention the politicians nobody wants at the helm—Kevin McCarthy who ran for Speaker of the House and it took 15 attempts to get enough votes to vote him in? And now he’s trying to impeach Biden? That’s rich, considering our last president was brain dead.

Maybe a saner approach that one should not run for political office, that is, Congress, for more than two or three terms. Capping term limits would help enormously and eliminating those long-in-tooth career politicians caught sleeping on the job—but not with the presidency. For that there is no fix.

And by the way, speaking of the trickle down theory and going out on those sonorous high notes, you forgot to mention the greatest napper of all, that erstwhile actor-President Ronald Reagan, who unfortunately should’ve quit politics when he was Governor of  California. He created homelessness on a grand scale when he closed all the mental institutions, my mother among them.

Bob’s your uncle,
Maureen Hurley,
Forest Knolls

THE WAY BACK

Finding the way back is never easy. 

Those undefined obstacles

the divide of the self from the other, 

becoming monologue, or is it soliloquy? 

All those things we’ve left unsaid, 

when you wake up in the middle of the night, 

and wished you had phrased it better. 

Those waves tucking into the shore of sleep, 

are packed with remorse and regret. 

Inexplicably at 3 AM, you remember 

how you tortured the poor sensitive plant 

until it died of exhaustion, 

watching its leaves rise and fall. 

And what about the kitten’s whiskers?

So what if you were six, you knew better.

There were were other transgressions.

The moon caught in the web of powerlines, 

is a full note held on a celestial scale. 

An old worry, like those lost trailheads of memory,

a tarantella of dead leaves, small layers of the past. 

Whatever we cannot fix comes back to haunt us.

SCION CALL

I am not a footlocker for odd clothes, cookies, and drinks. 

I am not a go-bag even though evacuation came in threes. 

I’m no knight in shining armor, recusing you from yourself,

though you’ve slept on the backseat, took cramped refuge

when there was nowhere else left to go. No late-night couches.

I am most certainly not not your pet cage—

that little deermouse who came in from the cold 

who built nests in my wiring, plumbed my secret places. 

Someday there will be hell to pay it, but not just yet. 

Remember how you drenched air filters with peppermint oil 

to discourage the wayward beast, but the volatile oils 

burned your eyes, so you couldn’t see where you were going, 

it was midwinter, an exceptionally cold one at that. 

Remember how we drove around with all the windows open. 

The wind finally stung those repressed tears from your eyes.

My floor was generous, the mouse could’ve dined for months. 

We couldn’t go on like this. Something had to be done, but what? 

And when snap traps caught only fingers, you resorted to glue traps 

with little almond eyes, they caught flack, but no wayward mouse. 

Finally someone took pity, gave you a rat-sized glue board 

that finally did the trick, but the interior smelled grassy and pissy, 

there was no easy fix. The mouse lived on, but it was doomed, 

so when it was caught, it was end of an odd migration story. 

No time for remorse. All that tasty rubber made with soy, 

a siren call for small woodland creatures with no travel guides.

It’s a good thing the packrats didn’t squeeze through the ducts. 

That would’ve been a three-ring circus. They ate their way 

through my landlady’s semi-new Camry, right down to the bone. 

The damage was more than the value of the car.

And then, they moved onto my flat mate’s snazzy sports car. 

The spark plug caps and firewall was tastier than acorns.

The packrats circled my old Scion, saved by the manufacture date.

See, all the newer cars are made with soy-based rubber. 

Rodents are flocking to this new Japanese food source.

But packrats also like to do a brisque trade with trinkets.

All those shiny treasures snoozing on the dashboard.

Like so much money in the bank.

9/6/23 Write On! with Susie Terence