POEM FO A SYRIAN BOY

Yeah, I'm sitting in a writing workshop in Santa Barbara, 

having written myself into a tight corner, no right words,

nowhere left to go, and of course, the weight of the iconic date.

All I can think of is how far we've come, how we've regressed, 

repeating the names of lost cities: Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra. 

That boy in the surf, what we've lost. Irreparable.

stations of the mind, no longer functional.

The aftermath of refugees in the Budapest train station.

To arrive, to leave again with nowhere to go.

Shoes, toys, blankets. Entire lives left behind.

I cannot fathom the loss, crusades, Isis, this anniversary.

We are more haunted by images of small children.

The small boy rocked in the cradle of the surf

Incunabula. The sea comforted them.

They returned to the amniotic brine, breathed it in.

Tiny starfish hands fluttering in that last dance in the surf

Summer closing in on autumn with a vengeance

The winter yet to come, nowhere left to go.

With only a passport of the mind.

Found in a Pages document 

A MAN’S SOUL Mango grandmothers, papayas y nopales

A man’s soul is worth different weights  

depending upon his remembered homeland

The disappeared are always against forgetting

The salsa of the volcano in remembered countries

Is both the flower and the trigger points of politics, 

the blind road of the revolution

Is that which separates us, cleaving us

in the name of religion, politics and gender

We are undressing the day minute by minute

But the relentless sea churns and devours the cliffs

And we are left with nothing but tenuous handholds

Saving everything for the warriors of the sun

Singing at the edge of the tides.

Found in a Pages doc dated 9/15/15

CPITS Symposium Colors of the Future poems with Marsha de la O, etc.

(Raw notes from Marsha de la O's writing intensive)
Mango grandmothers, papaya and nopales.

Having written myself into a tight corner,
no right words surface, nowhere left to go, 
but the page, and of course,
 the weight of the iconic date haunts me.
I am unwilling to write of it, give it energy.

All I can think of is how far we've come,

and how much we've regressed.

I'm repeating the names of lost cities:

Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra.

That nameless boy in the surf, what we've lost. 
Irreparable stations of the mind, no longer functional.

Burned into the retina, also,
the aftermath of refugees in the Budapest train station.

To arrive in a strange place, and to leave again 
with nowhere to go. Like the Albanians of Bari.

Photographs of shoes, toys, blankets. 
Entire lives left behind.

I cannot fathom the loss, the crusades, Isis, 
this sullen anniversary.

We are haunted by images of small children.

That small boy rocked in the cradle of the surf.

Incunabula. The sea comforted them.

They returned to the amniotic brine, breathed it in.

Tiny starfish hands fluttering 
in that final dance of the surf,

summer closing in on autumn with a vengeance.

And the winter yet to come, nowhere left to go

with only a passport for the wind.

———————

Oh the praties they grow small

Over here, over here.

My grandmother used to sing this dirge to me.

Every night we ate potatoes

with their jackets on.
We ate them boiled, baked, mashed,
in potato salad, and in soup.

Their blind eyes were pale ghosts

still wandering this earth

searching for food.
An Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger
still haunts us 150 years later.
Residual, cellular memory.

When I crossed the Andes
I ate bitter black potatoes.
When the potatoes turned black,

my ancestors survived the famine,

without giving up their religion,
without turning turncoat, which was

the British alternative. For food, give it up.

It only made my ancestors more stubborn.

They ate cattle feed, mangles, turnips,
they ate grass, their mouths stained green.

I am allergic to solincea, tomatoes,
eggplant, and raw potato juice.

Phototrophic stains turn dark on my skin

A picture developing, perhaps ghosts, or tears.

She roasted potatoes with their jackets on.

The eyes of the peat glowed like dragons.

———————
first draft

Oh the praties they go small

Blind eyes, pale ghosts, an Gort Mor

The great hunger

When I crossed the Andes, 

I ate bitter black potatoes

When the potatoes failed

My ancestors ate grass

They survived

But I am allergic to tomatoes, potato juice

Photo tropic stains turn dark in the sun

She roasted potatoes with their jackets on

The eyes of the peat glowed like dragons

———————

My grandmother was late and missed the boat
Out of Cork Harbour. It sank. The next boat 

was between munition runs,
so she made it to Ellis Island with her brother.
The Lusitania, the Titanic—names passed down.
Journeys undertaken. Almost never begun.
Her brother Joe had five pounds in his pocket,
it was enough to put Jenny on a train to Battle Mountain,
but not enough to get him to Home Ranch
where Uncle Paddy waited 
for the rest of his family to arrive.
Joe got a job on a tramp steamer
and worked his way to Galveston 
by way of New Orleans, he earned
enough to catch a train to Nevada 
and he left the high seas
to herd cattle and buck hay
in the dry desert heat 
of the Reese River Valley.
A long way from Bantry Bay.

———————

She pulled at the thread on the seam of her skirt
So much effort went into making that gabardine suit.
The painstaking hand stitches,
and knotting the threads so they wouldn't unravel.
It was different sewing the suit for herself
instead of for the customers at the shop.
She flicked imaginary lint from her skirt,
brushed smooth her lap. New beginnings.
There was never any question of staying.
She would miss the glass mirror of the harbor
but not the stench of fish. Catch of the day.
She didn't care if she ever ate another fish again,
Friday, or no.
She'd do without, that's what she'd do.
She fretted the edges of her lace collar,
the nuns drumming in the catechism 
of thread and homily,
all was God's work. All 
was God's work.

The cart was late. The horse snorted, 
and impatiently pawed the cobblestones.
She boarded with a cardboard suitcase 
filled with all her earthly possessions
destined for the New World.
The horse's breath hung on the chilly morning air
as they trotted towards Cork City.
She could hear the lonesome call of the ship's horn
as it pulled out from the harbor. Reprieve.
She wasn't yet ready to say goodbye.

THESE ARE FREEWRTES scribbled while Marsha de la O was reading many poems from Latin America. Unfortunately Marsha didn't really give us time to write, she was reading too many poems, perhaps assuming we didn't have the background, and all I wanted to do was write, and so, when I saw the writing on the wall, or, rather, the lack of it, I began to randomly write, in order to keep my sanity. Words become a skeleton to wrest into meaning, not necessarily having anything to do with the original poems. So, they are collage poems, where I wrestle meaning into the randomness of juxtaposed words.

César Vallejo talked of hope 

and the shuffling feet of despair
as if they were blossoms of bright light.
In a Trujillo prison, he dreamed of words,
like stone islands, interrupting the current.
He longed for a new language scoured clean of artifice
with words, sharp enough to feed the hungry man.
The inarticulate night, a evil cup of darkness.
No matter how many times he turned, 
the four witewashed walls entombed him.
In his cell, he dreamed of trees, 
they would lead the way to the moon.

Neruda, have you forgotten us?
All that is fire will be repeated.
Nothing will be extinguished.
No, not lost. Forgotten. Little by little.
A slow moon dallies on a red branch
like a lobe of shining fruit, cradled 
in the arms of another homeland.
Ah, love, nothing is extinguished, 
or forgotten. These words.

I can't write of all the sadness.
My voice tried to find the source of the wind
but it was lost in the darkness.
On this earth we are all born without a name.
If you are the darkness, I am the rising sun. 
if I am the sun, you are the spaces 
between the stars. Then I am the void.
Without you.

I would like to ask Claribel Alegría,
when she invoked the rain, 
did its drumming pierce her temples, 
did the river speak to her in thin reedy voices, 
dank with eddies and fetid mud?
Did it polish river stones into comet?
Did it feed those lost volcanic flowers,
the children, the names of flowers, 
buried in ash, foliage and stone,
 did she dream of lost horizons
teaming with birds? Sentinel herons.
Chacmool's hard-on, another offering
to Tlaloc's thirst that is never slaked,
The Lord of the third sun will always feed
on the dying pulse of her remembered country,
for Tlaloc never sleeps.

And what of Ernesto Cardinal?
Those tropical lights and moonlit lagoons 
of the zero hour on palaces 
Another beach, another time.

Was it Octavio Paz who said no one listens to the rain?
You must listen to the water that is true.

If I am the darkness, you are the rising Sun

What of Lorca , and the kingdom of Harlem
Repeat the airs lost curves. Baila conmigo.

Like Pessoa, my gaze is clear as a sunflower.
What is seen when the window is left open
to a life we seldom use?
It has little color, the sky is an impoverished
river of blue feathers.

Once I found a red stone in the middle of the road
as divine as love, as heart's blood 
blossoming in the alkali dust.

Say a word now that can't be invented.
What now, José? 
You, without a name, who mocks the others?

My heart bleeds for Carlos,

oranges under a full moon.

Our children are the colors of the future.
Mangoes in a grandmothers backyard
Say these words: olive, avocado,
canyon, arroyo, barrio, camino.
Words we know, but are indifferent to:
papaya, piraña, pachuco, prostitute, 
pecadillo, politico, peon, 
renegade, vigilante, desperado.
Those small sins that come to haunt us in our sleep.

DREAM SUITCASE

I dream with a suitcase
of words: guayaberas
the color of snowflakes.

Parsley goes to the devil seven, 

no, nine times.
I walk on stone, on sand
Every last step is always in front of me.
Ah, to walk on the sky
or on a sacred parcel of earth
hidden beneath the pavement.

———————

Define the notes of a foreign land
I remembers the scent anchored in dreams
Guyana tenements. Trumpets
caressed the overtones of summer
other planets of time ran like oiled clocks.
Concrete sky, and streets made of sand.
I found small pieces of earth at the bottom of a cup
The basement of letters and tapestries made of love. 

We have deceived language in a foreign land.
'T'was mercy brought me to my pagan land 

to negotiate my identity, on sea and sand.
Compositions of lynchings 

and who was named after a ship?
Whose teeth mastered the spoken word?

Gazing at the night sky, and writing of the stars

Wy aren't we genuflecting to the sun?
You too will come and go.

'T'was the colonies that brought me here

from my first winter to pay, to owe you your life
Racing to port the tradewinds whispering

freeing the harbor's dark trade.

Systems of the sky
Write, always write, 
always keep paper at your bed
Then the prodigal darkness won't devour your psyche.
Sitting rooms of generals come and go
like a drowned tree in winter.

———————

TRAIN TO LVOV

To go to Lvov, which train, which station?
The metro, the tracks, a green thread of copper
Which station, which metro, the train.
 a green thread along the copper tracks
 and the stench of coal

The sweet tea of the babushka 
the glass cups in their picket fence 
metal prisons
The amber eyes of tea
the murmur of stones.
He sucked tea through sugar cubes
hissing like a snake.
The forked tongues of bells peeling from the church
The Antichrist is inside the houses 
Writing overflowed into the lake of regret
Carpati. Woven rugs 
boundless fields of summer
Shearing the length of memory
Voluptuous dresses 
cathedrals of tears
 just pack it all in a satchel
and pass it on.

To go to Lvov
so many train stations 
where fate has whisked me off
or left me stranded
The aftermath of Syrian refugees in Budapest 
abandoned shoes, toys, blankets – 
entire lives left behind, discarded, 
leaving literally with only the shirts on their backs
I cannot fathom this tragedy, this grief.
We are haunted by images of small children 
rocked in the cradle of the surf
Incunabula. This scene comforted them, 
they return to the amniotic brine 
tiny starfish hands fluttering that last dance,
summer closing in on autumn.
They will not see the winter
Leaving Aleppo, leaving Damascus
a tide of refugees, like ants 
pouring out of the country being bombed 
back into parched earth 
leaving Palmyra in ash, smoke, and dust 
on this anniversary of 911
I am heartsick of this world, 
no place to get off, no train station left,
I want to bury my head in the sand, 
emigrate to another planet, maybe Mars. 
No history to destroy there, yet.

———————

I am trying hard not to hate, 
but I hate hate hate
I hate the loss of Palmyra, 
the bullshit of false idols
How are stone pillars that have stood 
2000 years in the desert sands, idolatrous?
No god no false gods no idols, just architecture
Blow it all up, and then what?
To what purpose? 
But this is not the stuff of poetry, 
it is raw anger. They want us to hate them 
it makes it easier 
the objectification of lines 
traded for an ideal 
justifies their actions.

And what the Syrian boy 
lying on that last sure before his life has begun, 
have they no heart no soul at all?

Yes, I hate

Knowing that hatred is part of the problem. 
They want me to hate them 
I cannot get beyond it. 
This unseen enemy we have come 
retribution upon retribution? 
Are we paying for the sins of the Crusaders 
leaving Damascus so long ago 
the city of roses where no rose grows, 
only the rows of hatred, the rows of death 
the rows of bloodshed 
I throw red roses into the sea 
on the other side of the world 
for that Syrian boy. I do not understand 
I can make no poetry from it 
because it is not art 
we are all too close to it 
to render into art.

———————

A man's soul is worth different weights

depending upon his remembered homeland.

The disappeared are always against forgetting.

The salsa of the volcano in remembered countries

Is both the flower and the trigger points of politics,

The blind road of the revolution

Is that which separates us, cleaving us

in the name of religion, politics and gender.

We are undressing the day, minute by minute.

But the relentless sea churns and devours the cliffs

and we are left with nothing but tenuous handholds,

saving everything for the warriors of the sun

Singing at the edge of the tides.

———————

Michael McLaughlin's class
first draft

In the republic of poetry
the day undresses, hour by hour
in extremis, mountains to ocean
counting the stones, shells
singing at the edge of the tide

Spirals, plant mind
saving everything
for the warrior in the sun

A man's soul is worth different weights
depending upon his homeland
The disappeared are against forgetting
The salsa of the volcano in remembered countries
Or the trigger points of politics
That which separates us
in the name of religion and politics
and gender

We are undressing the day
minute by minute
As we observe the minutiae
But the relentless tide
churns and devours he cliffs
We are left with tenuous handholds
saving everything for the warriors of the sun

———————

transliteration with John Oliver Simon

Last of the bird singers
Dedicated to the men of the selva

The Pleiades, messengers of the day
Nights fall down to their knees with yearning
The golden ego of the morning butterfly

After Wang Wei
transliteration with John Oliver Simon

In the bamboo pavilion

I sit alone in a bamboo glade
And pluck the lute string
That sings alone


In a bamboo glade
I sit plucking at lute strings
Only the wind sings


Deep in the forest
Where no people go
A skinny bright moon dances
With secret shadows


A house made of trees
Blossoms on the bridge
Young shoots in the field beyond


A horse in a barn
A woman in the house
So many warriors asleep
In distant mountains


Waterfalls, forests
A place of beauty, a tree
Gateway to the soul


Sun and moon, a gate
A tree of ships and wooden keels
Sails on moonlit skies


Warrior fields blossom
I remember how water
Plashed between rocks and foam

Storm, Buenaventura (photos)

I awoke to the unfamiliar sound of rain, in the poet's house. Around noon, the sky cleared, the sea calmed, and into the drink I dove. Small waves, seductive. Ah, Buenaventura, so aptly named. The water was so warm, I haven't bodysurfed since I was a kid. The Channel Islands arose, dreamlike in the mist. Clouds reflected on the shore. Sea and sky are one thing.

On my bucket list: to go to the Channel Islands.

I spent a fabulous weekend at La Casa de Maria with my poet tribe: California Poets in the Schools. So many of us are getting long in tooth and claw. I never imagined this. These are my people, this tribe of poets. But there are new poets joining our tribe, in its 51st year.

Seeing that I'm a Sagge and not a Gemini, there was no way I could attend both the CPITS symposium in Santa Barbara, and also be in San Anselmo at the same time for my 45th high school reunion. I couldn't pull it off, not even with a Gemini rising. I hope that we're all still alive in five years hence. And that we can still remember the past.

I chose time present over the nostalgia of the past. My Piscean moon made me all weepy and left me with an unreasonable longing for the sea. And for the past. Crocodile tears, easily shed.

At the poet's house, coyotes gathered beneath our window and howled, the pups didn't quite have their howling skills down. We joined in with the parents teaching them how to howl properly. I was struck with the revelation that this is what we do with kids in the classroom, we help them to get their howl on. We give them voice.

As I was bodysurfing, I remembered a childhood event, at Venice Beach, when I was counting waves. And a poem I wrote, 13th Wave. Where I nearly drowned. This poem saved my life. I am drowning now in memories of the past, forging words in time present, to be read later during someone else's visit to time past. 

The flooded beach is a mirror of pale blue sky, and reflected clouds, except where I stand, there is no overglaze of water, so the sand is the color of rust.

© Maureen Hurley 2015

Photo and prose poem published in Memories of Southern California: Poetic Recollections, Four Feathers Press, Don Campbell, Editor, 2022

Enroute to the CPITS Symposium

Buttermilk skies over Santa Barbara, another hot one. It was 108 degrees in Salinas and hot enough to fry eggs in to Camp Roberts yesterday. Two traffic jams. One roadside fire, and a car caught fire on Highway 101 just past Camp Roberts. Hot. 84 in Atascadero. And then 98 in Santa Barbara. Nothing like a 25 degree drop in temperature all at once. Yoyo temperatures. Coyotes are too hot to howl properly. All that fur. Hope it'll be cooler today for our California Poets in the Schools symposium which promises to be hot in a good way.

So many skeletons of recent fires all the way down hwy 101. At least ten. Luckily they were all extinguished. Pale ash ghosts.

It rained in Ventura, Santa Barbara and near Salinas...I wasn’t expecting that. Hard to believe that I woke to the sound of rain in Ventura, Petrichor! Then I swam in the ocean.

Bathing the Cats

In deep summer it became an annual tradition to toss the cats into the creek. I don't know when it started. Or whose idea it was to toss them in the creek. Sure, they'd get upset when I chucked them into the pool below our house. They'd grumble and yodel all the way down to the creek, they knew what was coming, but they never clawed me. After I tossed them in, they'd dog-paddle to the nearest shore and then streak back up to the house shaking their paws in disgust. But then they'd flop down for an earnest wash, as if the creek bath wasn't enough. When they were all clean and fluffy, they were proud of their coats. They'd purp and preen and purr. I was forgiven until next summer. They were durty barnyard tomcats. Not like indoor cats. They were slovenly and stank like old dust and stale morning breath. They kicked up their bathing habits a notch for a few months, but by the time summer rolled around again, they slid back into their slovenly ways. But I loved every one of them fiercely. I dressed them in dolly clothes. And I named them all.

Party Line

I can't abide the telephone and will do almost anything to avoid talking on it. Especially answering it.

I'm not sure when this dislike of phones crystalized. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up in the phone generation. No long teenage schmoozes on princess phones in our house. No extension lines snaking in the bedroom. Just the standard black rotary phone on its rickety stand straddling the liminal boundary between the dining room and the living room.

When my grannie (who was old school, as in Victorian) finally got a telephone, it was solely for emergencies. So when we were allowed to use the phone, we were taught to get off the line as quickly as possible as it was a party line.

The entire end of our road was dependent upon that one line. Mrs. Decker who trained guide dogs.  Her shepherd was named Lorna and barked incessantly. Old Man Latindorf, who spoke German.  He never used his phone. It was for emergencies only. The Vinciliones and Ratios. You could recognize everybody's voices. And their breathing too when they snuck on the line to have a listen. There was another disembodied voice on the line, a woman, I never figured out who it was.

When someone did call, which was pretty rare, you had to listen to the ring pattern to figure out who the call was for, two close rings was for us. Receiving a phone call was terribly exciting. We'd stampede to the phone. And wait for the ring pattern. The anticipation, guessing who it was on the other end. The news to come.

When answering machines were invented, my phone stress levels dropped. Screening calls became the norm. I tended to hyperventilate while on the phone, but wearing a paper bag over my head became problematic. So I just quit answering the phone long before it became fashionable to screen calls.

I prefer to talk to people either in person, or in writing. My cellphone's only used for emergencies & texting (if I'm running late, or stuck in traffic, etc.) But that old jingle jangle still has that same knee-jerk reaction. Pavlovian response, at best.

WIKI IS THE NEW OED

The poem's lovely conversational tones sucked me in
and those tight visual descriptions had me flopping
on the proverbial floor for a nice tummy rub.
And maybe I was peckish for some proverbial kibble.
A thousand-year-old lake bed got me to Googling.
I lost an hour there, eons-old? (last Ice Age)
it was part of the Pleistocene Lake Lahontan—
once the largest lake in N. America (900 ft.deep),
Wow. And Lake Tahoe drained into it. Imagine.
I fingered and fondled words I never knew existed:
endorheic lake, pluvial, ephemeral lake, salar, sabkha.
And I learned the difference between playas and hardpans.
Wikipedia is the new OED. I've lost hours hunting words.
OK, now I've gone completely ADD and around the bend:
Did you know Black Rock Desert has fairy shrimp?
Yeah, and on the playa, Anostraca are swimming
among the mammoth bones in the Quinn River sink.
I think your poem's spawned a poem in me....
Talk about a dry period. A desert. This breath ending.
And what about poem #241, inquiring minds need to know.

9/2/15?

Yet another headache...

How long is time enough to wait for a headache to just go away? Begone! I held out for three hours, it's not following directions. Sigh. Hello Advil for breakfast. Ugh.

When my head hurts, the last thing I want is food so that I can take the blasted Advil. Maybe take it with some choco-milk, instead. If only I had some more milk....

Update: Advil is not working. Perhaps some wine. Is it 5 PM somewhere yet?

I slept wrong, usual culprit. My old whiplash is paying me back. I couldn't get my head/neck comfortable last night. I thrashed so hard that the pillowcases slid right off the pillows! It was probably some odd movement I did yesterday to set it off. I've also been thirsty lately, I drank lots of water last night.

Sneezing and swigging my tea with milk and sugar but nada. So Advil, it is. Either that, or I'll gnaw on somebody's ankle. Gotta go shopping before the thundering hoardes arise. Hoards? LOL. I need MILK (said the kitten.) Hordes. You just can't hoard milk. It doesn't work that way.

What exacerbates this, is that I'm drug intolerant. Especially when it comes to pain medications. I can't abide Tylenol. My body thinks it's poisonous. I am le barfoquean, I am. Can't take Excedrin, either. Tunnel vision and general weird out of body experiences are not complimentary to a full-on headache.

Friends suggest caffeine, Coke, chocolate, cannabis, and chamomile. But I can take chocolate. If only I had some chocolate. At this point maybe some hash brownies might offer relief. Rage, rage against the light, and the noise, and the heat, and the light. I can't read, I can't watch TV, I can't surf the internet...

Still no luck. Round three for Advil. what kind of baseball game is this anyway?

POSTSCRIPT: That was a three-day headache. Finallly, some relief. I broke the back of that sucker with a lethal combo of Advil, chocolate and wine, plus gallons of tea.

Revised from a Facebook post: added 8/17

THE BEST REVENGE, RIGHT?

THE BEST REVENGE, RIGHT?

When I question my motives
as to why I lean so heavily upon memoir,
Pat Conroy's dark family secrets,
posing as fiction, came to mind.
He said you need to know
"...how to differentiate
between getting even
and getting it right,
telling off, and telling the truth,
and why we sometimes choose 

fiction over memoir."
That last one is where
I struggle the most,
the compulsion to tell
the truth as I perceive it,
is so enduring, so obdurate,
why it's hard to ameliorate
something as hard as stone.
Who might or might not be hurt
by my words, or if they would ever
even bother to read it.
It's always a gamble.
The dark truth over beauty.
I envy those fiction writers,
how they transcend those secrets.
But then there's always the unsaid:
Getting it right is the best revenge.
Funny, how Pat's father didn't think so.
As Pat's stories, like shining swords,
severed darkness from the past,
and yet still drew fresh blood,
he became a pugnacious apologist,
saying, That wasn't me. He said,
That wasn't me. That
wasn't me.... rubbing
salt into the wounds
of the past.

8/26/2015

Longing/Saudade/Hiraeth

Someone asks about saudade. Yes, I answer, it's longing, yearning (melancholia/nostalgia). He is yearning for home = tá cumha air i ndiaidh a bhaile (literally, "there is loneliness on him after his home"). There are at least five words for that ephemeral state of being in Scots Gaelic.

In Welsh, it's hiraeth, a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.

The Breton for the French nostalgie is hiraezh. This could be a cognate, or borrowed from the Welsh. Hiraeth (first recorded in 1499) corresponds with Cornish hyreth, and Irish sireacht." Someone said it appears in the Book of Aneirin 'Blwydyn hiraeth er gwyr catraeth' ('a year's longing for the men of Catraeth'), which dates it to the late 13th c. Unfortunately I did not keep my reference.

The Welsh and Breton come from the Celtic root siros, from Proto-Celtic *sīr-axto-, akin to Gaulish siraxta (“longing”). I thought it was related to Latin serus. But someone astutely pointed out that the Latinate cognate is solitas.

Regardless, it’s still a full circle to Saudade.

Hiraeth

Ukrainian Independence Day

A friend writes: Today, Aug 24, Ukrainian Independence Day! Слава Україні! Героям слава! синій і жовтий! He posts a Ukrainian flag.

I was transfixed by the image, then was deluged by memory. The trident and its hidden sword—I remember the day the Ukrainian flag was raised in Cherkassy. One hot August afternoon, in 1989, we attended a special cultural event, my translator explained, thinking I might find it interesting.

The old Soviet style wood-paneled hall, decorated with sheaves of wheat surrounding hammer and sickle, was oppressively hot, no air conditioning. People, dressed in their Sunday best, circa 1950, were packed in like sardines. It looked as if the entire town had turned out for the event. For us, it was standing room only. Our clothing stuck to our backs as if we'd been working in the fields. We were a rather damp cultural conspiracy.

How I got to the USSR, in particular, the heartland of the Ukraine was through a Sister City cultural exchange with Santa Rosa in California, and Cherkassy. (See my blog links below for that story).

The cultural event turned out to be a variety show. Performers dressed in embroidered peasant garb, sang ancient folksongs accompanied by banduras and balalaikas. Floral-wreathed maidens sang sweetly, and Cossacks exuberantly squatted and danced.

There were classical piano recitals, and kids reciting the poetry of Cherkassy Oblast's own native son, Taras Shevchenko. We all applauded heartily during their final bows. But something more was afoot. 

At the end the event, a grizzled actor still dressed in his cossack attire, came on stage and began to sing "Ще не вмерла Україна," the Ukrainian National Anthem. The audience hesitantly began to join in. As they found their way, remembering the old melody and words, they soon sang with vigor. It was positively electrifying. The walls resounded like the inside of a drum.

Then the actor unrolled an old Ukrainian flag made of silk, bordered with a golden fringe. A flag of blue sky and yellow wheat from 1917. The audience became still as death.

My translator was transfixed—caught up in the moment—he forgot to translate. I was lost between worlds. Something momentous was happening and I couldn't understand a word of it. He said: This is something that has never happened in my lifetime. I never thought I would live to see a day like this. I could only dream of such a day.

The actor gave an impassioned speech and said: Героям слава! Glory to the Ukraine. The crowd exploded. A cultural event suddenly turned into a political rally, my excited Ukrainian host explaining the significance of the song. Ukraine has not perished. 

People were prosecuted as criminals and arrested for merely owning the Ukrainian flag, let alone, raising it, he said. It had survived, hidden all these years. I remember shivering that hot August day—wondering if we were all going to be disappeared to the gulag.

This was before the fall of the USSR, during the heady days of Glasnost, but revolution and the idea of freedom was well on its way during the summer of 1989. The stifling heat along the vast Dnipr River Valley no longer oppressed us. 

And Neptune's trident (some say it was a hovering falcon and a cross), held aloft against a cerulean sky and endless golden wheatfields, so far from the sea, offered promise of a cool breeze at the back of our necks.

 As we walked home, the leaves of the linden trees whispered secrets, then as the breeze picked up, they applauded the sky.

A forerunner of things to come.

SWAN HAIKU

FLOTILLA

Dawn on the Black Sea
White swans emerge from the fog
riddled with streetlight.

(From this video)

Cracked my lower #31 molar

Cracked my lower #31 molar all the way down to the gumline. Owwww. I've been in incredible pain—beyond belief—enveloped the entire side of my head, since Friday afternoon. I thought it was a migraine or a stellar earache at first. Pain finally declared itself and localized on Monday, a toothache, but no abscess.

I've been to a dentist and an endodontist, next up is the oral surgeon. Everyone is very urgent. They say the tooth can't be saved—crack is too deep. I haven't been able to eat since Friday—other than swallow food whole. Not recommended. Any wisdom (or jokes) to share about getting a tooth extracted? 

I do have all my wisdom teeth, TG...they were all so sure it was a wisdom tooth issue. I said Step away from my wisdom teeth. They're mine and I plan to keep them. They laughed. I'll still have two molars in a row to grind up my food. I go in at 11AM today (cancelled yesterday, I wasn't ready...) I'm terrified. Never had a tooth pulled before. Never had a toothache either.

I'm in that slender boat. Can't take pain meds. I barf them across the room. I can't believe I can tolerate Advil this long *since Fri). but so far, so good. Oil of clove and Scotch as a mouthrinse seems to help. I've been a TMJ gnasher, I've snapped at the air, bitten my tongue, all in my sleep. Fractures occur, and the tremendous amount of pressure on our lower jaws finishes them off when you bite down wrong on a tiny little seed, etc.

It's done, I'm toothless in Gaza. Well, I'm minus one tooth, packed in gauze, but I still have more teeth than the average bear as I still have all my wisdom teeth. SO was a not very smart tooth pulled? Some silly putty.

I had to pay the dentist, the endodontist and the oral surgeon. Wisdom tooth is pretty well rooted in my jaw, so it's not going to move much, says the oral surgeon. The other molar might move but apparently teeth tend to move forward, not backward in the mouth. Who knew? In three months I can get a titanium bolt shot into my jaw and a fake tooth added. Need to price them out.

Swishing with saltwater after every time I eat. At least I can now eat soft food. It was pretty surreal getting a tooth pulled. Eating is still tricky business. I was using whisky as a swish gargle to numb the pain, followed by oil of clove, then waited for the Advil to kick in. A good thing about a whisky gargle, is that you can drink it when you're done. I whipped out my flask every time it became unbearable. It got so that I began to like the taste of whisky as it killed the pain...LOL

Cracked tooth

So I cracked a lower molar all the way down to the gumline—chewing some tough Frenchbread. I've been in incredible pain since Friday afternoon, which enveloped the entire side of my head. At first, I thought it was a migraine, or a stellar earache. Pain finally declared itself on Monday, and localized, a toothache. Yowza.

I've been to a dentist, an endodontist, an oral surgeon. Everyone is very urgent and efficient. They all cluck like chickens and say that the tooth can't be saved—the crack is too deep. I haven't been able to eat since Friday—other than swallow my food whole. Not recommended.

They were all so sure it was a wisdom tooth issue. I said, Step away from my wisdom teeth. They're mine, and I plan to keep them. Thank you very much. They laughed. I'll still have two molars in a row to grind up my food. what is it about dentists and their classic hatred of wisdom teeth, anyway?

I got a new appointment at 11AM today (I cancelled yesterday, I just wasn't ready). I stalled when I realized that I'd made it through the worst part of the pain and didn't need to go in stressed to the max, and be bilious to boot. I am researching the process now to see if there's a chance to save a split tooth. Also I resented the fact that everybody was rushing me about, trying to help, because I was in so much pain. Advil is working. I know my tooth is not going to get infected in the next few hours, etc. So, chillax, already.

The truth is, I'm secretly terrified. I've never had a big tooth pulled before. Never had a toothache either. To further complicate things, I'm in that slender boat where I can't take the usual opiate pain medications. I tend to barf them across the room. I can't believe I have tolerated Advil this long, but so far, so good. Oil of clove and Scotch as a mouthrinse seems to help.

Fairfax dentist, Thos. J. Snead, D.D.S., was a a bit of a sadist, his oral regime did not include pain relief. He's the reason why I abhor dentists. He wanted to yank my wisdom teeth, but I had a gum infection, so he couldn't have at them. I am so glad I have them now.

I've been a TMJ gnasher all my life, I've snapped at the air, bitten my tongue, grated my teeth, all in my sleep. Fractures occur, and the tremendous amount of pressure on our lower jaws finishes them off when you bite down wrong on a tiny little raspberry seed, a corn nut, granola, etc. The sheer shear factor.

The past few nights, I've had such wild dreams about my teeth. I realized that I need to say goodbye to my tooth. It sounds silly, I know. But I also want you to know that I was using whisky as a swish gargle to numb the pain, followed by oil of clove, then I waited for the Advil to kick in. So there were mitigating circumstances, in that I was pleasantly pickled these past few days. 

One good thing about a good whisky gargle, is that you can drink it all up when you're done with the gargling part. Very efficient, if I don't say so myself. Every time the pain became unbearable, I whipped out my flask, pronto. And gargled on, much to the dismay of my cousins. I began to like the taste of whisky as it efficiently killed the pain, LOL.

It's done, I'm toothless in Gaza. Well, I'm minus one tooth, packed in gauze, but I still have more teeth than the average bear as I still have all my wisdom teeth. So, inquiring minds wanna know, was a not so very smart tooth pulled? Black teabags are my go-to gum packing devices. The caffeine brings some relief too.

My wisdom tooth is pretty well rooted in my jaw, so it's not going to move much, so says the oral surgeon. He said the other molar might move a bit, but apparently teeth tend to migrate forward, not backward in the mouth. Who knew?

I approach the concept of eating with trepidation. A good thing I don't like Tootsie Rolls. I have an earache right now. I'm swishing with saltwater after I eat. At least I can gum soft food. It was pretty surreal getting a tooth pulled. I can see that eating is will continue to be a tricky business.

added 8/19, rev.
I used most of this in my next post. Need to combine and delete. I was too out of it to edit.

Temblor

A 4.1+. So that's what woke me!
Shaken, not stirred in Nicasio.
Hayward Fault is shaking its mantle.
And here I thought it was my cracked tooth.

Wildfires

On the day of my aunt's memorial, it is hotter than Hades, and the sky is burning. We head to the coast. Everyone else is thinking the same. It's a parking lot in Pacifica. But at least there was less smoke along the ocean. We're hours late for the memorial.

There was a fire in Terra Linda last night. Probably the fresh smoke I was smelling. This current wave of smoke is from more than the Lake County Jerusalem fire, northeast of Clearlake. I couldn't even see Mt. Tam from the East Bay. Huge roils of smoke are seething all up and down the coast—to at least Santa Cruz and beyond.

"Smoke from a series of Northern California wildfires on Saturday set a thick haze over Sonoma County and reached south to much of the Bay Area. The air around Santa Rosa smelled of smoke Saturday and visibility was greatly  diminished. Local fire officials said the smoke wasn’t due to fire activity in the county. Northern California wildfires blamed for hazy skies over Bay Area

The air is contaminated by huge fires in Northern California and beyond. There are reports that it's hazy in Santa Rosa, and you can can smell the fires burning. In Modesto there was so much smoke, it was as if the fire were burning right on Hwy 99. All that smoke slowly being pushed south by gentle winds. The wind has shifted and we're getting the brunt of it now. The smoke is supposed to be even worse tomorrow.

Fire officials said the blazes responsible for the smoke weren’t in Lake County, where nearly 150 square miles of grass and woodland have been on fire in recent weeks. Instead, the shift in winds overnight Friday pushed the heavy smoke from several fires in far northern Trinity County into the area.

When I came down from Canada, I saw how bad it was all the way down, especially in Oregon and on the California borders. Wildfires from British Columbia to Napa are raging through the night. Weird to think that we are breathing in the carbon residue from trees dying in the Trinity Alps. 

Today, the gentle wind currents brought more smoke down from Lake County. It was smoky in SF all day, and also in Oakland once I got home. Even Monterey and Santa Cruz are blanketed in thick smoke.There is that orange alpenglow in the sky, casting purple shadows on the landscape as the sun sinks lower on the horizon. Surrealistic landscape. On the day we said goodbye to my aunt Jane.

8/15/2015

added & revised 8/17

California burning (fire journal)

Does anybody know where it's burning in the North Bay? This morning, I couldn't even see Mt. Tam from East Bay. Huge sausage rolls of smoke all up and down the coast to at least Santa Cruz and beyond. This is more than just the Lake County fire. There was a fire in Terra Linda last night, probably the fresh smoke I was smelling. Fire officials said the blazes responsible for the smoke wasn’t just in Lake County, where nearly 150 square miles of grass and woodland have been on fire in recent weeks. Instead, the shift in winds overnight Friday pushed the heavy smoke from several fires in far northern Trinity County into the greater Bay Area.. Looks like it went coastal, even Monterey and Santa Cruz is thick smoke.

Finbar Furey at UICC

I can’t believe that I never wrote a post about seeing Finbar Furey at the United Irish cultural center. Here’s hoping I wrote something in one of my journals. If not, then this is a placeholder. 

I’m sure we did not pay for those tickets as Neil was part of the pre-party ceilidh with the Gasmen. My cousin, Pat D’Arcy was there with her family, and when Finbar saw her, he went up and gave her a hug. Turns out he remembered her from decades past. She was positively shocked. 

That was the last time I saw her son, my second cousin Pat, who died soon after. It was a hell of a week as my aunt Jane had died, also, and there were tremendous wildfires in the north bay. Not only that, I was in dire pain, because I cracked a molar all the way down to the gum line, which necessitated its pulling and nothing worked to kill the pain.Eventually, I was swigging and gargling with scotch and I don’t even drink it.

Midgies vs Mosquitoes

Are you a midge or a mosquito? Inquiring minds need to know.

In Vancouver people kept warning us: Beware the midges! —like it was the Ides of March come to visit us all toga-ed up during the dog daze of August. Et me, you brutal midgie? Take that!  Talkin' smack, here. Fkn bloodsuckers.

I asked: Did you mean small mosquitoes? (In the Sierras, Alaska, and upper BC, mosquitoes the size of small helicopters, bloodthirsty packs have been known to drain a caribou dry in a single night). No? What were they referring to?

On the other end of the biting insect spectrum are the no-see-ums. They do bite. But not all small flies suck blood or bite. Most of them just don't. Well, it turns out that it's a case of generic mistaken identity. I always assumed midge stood for midget mosquitos, mosquitoes being a Spanish word, and we all know how the British like to masticate and mangle foreign words. (That's masticate, you durty bird).

Some of those small UFO clouds of hovering flies that try and crash-land in our nostrils, mistaking them for hangars, are also sometimes called midges too. (We called them gnats and mayflies in Marin). Nothing quite like breathing in a fresh cloud of gnats.

It also seems that folks in the UK have a pathological fear of all one thousand and one varieties of mosquitoes—especially she-who-shall-not-be-named. And they erroneously assume that all mosquitoes are tropical poseurs, and they carry all manner of deadly diseases (so not true). We'd all be dead in North America if that were so. (Well, there is the West Nile Virus.)

I found conflicting information that midges do (or do not) bite—at least in Scotland they do. Apparently all Highland midges carry small bagpipes and a big proboscis. It's not just a case of Scottish DTs in progress as no unidentified flying pink elephants were involved. 

Mosquitoes, on the other hand, are all about the meeeeeeeeeee generation. You can hear them coming in for a soft landing at 3 AM. And of course you do know that the word "mosquito" (mosca and diminutive -ito) is Spanish for little itty-bitty fly. Make that bite-y fly. All thousand and one-two-three species of them.

But do we have midges in Western North America? I think they do have midges on the East Coast. They're called no-see-ums or punkies. Punkies! Or is it merely a case of mistaken identity, or a case of mistaken similarity, in the case of our Vancouver midgie friends—like old and new world robins?

Have you ever seen a British robin, he's the size of a midge, er, minute, compared to our American robin red breasts. I had one boldly hop up to me on Callendar Bridge, and I was dumbfounded as to what he was, until the Robin Red Breast rhyme came to mind. A tiny bit of orange fluff on twig legs, not at all like our pigeon-sized robins.

In any case, back to the story of True Blood. Those blasted broody female midges and mosquitoes are ardent Dracula fans. I vant you for your blood! The bhoys midges and mosquitoes, on the other hand, are content with supping and sipping on flower nectar all day long, not feasting on our necks. Better bless those bats who are the first line of defense against the bloodthirsty mosquitos and midges.

DETRITUS OF THE PAST

DETRITUS OF THE PAST

An abrupt move forced my hand.
As I packed my bags to go,
this time I thought, for good,

I assumed if I stayed still as a stone,
it would be a figment of my imagination,

perhaps a bad dream on a clement shore.

What was revealed
was the forgotten detritus of the past.
This galvanized me into verb.

I am only just now surfacing,
madly documenting whatever I can,
in a haphazard manner, scanning
my life, such as it was.

Then unpacking my bags

again. Clemency granted.

Such as it is.

8/15/2015

Jane B. Reilly obituary, Marin IJ

Jane B. Reilly

August 9, 2015 |Marin Independent Journal (San Rafael, CA) 

Santa Cruz CA United States

Jane B. Reilly June 26, 1929 ~ July 26, 2015 Resident of Santa Cruz Jane Bernadette Reilly of Santa Cruz, CA. passed away peacefully in Santa Cruz at the age of 86 surrounded by her loved ones on 7/26/2015. Jane was born in San Francisco on 6/26/1929 to Jennie and Bernard Reilly and was the oldest sister of 8 children. Jane lived most of her life in Lagunitas, CA until she moved to Santa Cruz to be with her sister in 2009. Proceeded in death by her parents Jennie and Bernard Reilly, brothers William, Myles and Felim Reilly, sisters Maureen Hurley and Canice Santos. Jane is survived by her brother John Reilly of Santa Clara and sister Kathleen Ritter of Santa Cruz. Jane had no children but was the proud loving aunt and great aunt to her many nieces and nephews related biologically as well as an extended family in Santa Cruz that loved her very much. Jane always had a hug and a kiss ready for the little ones whenever she saw them. She also was very patient in sharing her love of gardening and cooking. She was also a model in her day for Gallo wines. It was very exciting for her to see herself on a billboard posted in Time Square in New York City. Jane was very active in the Republican Party elections in San Francisco in the 1960's and 70'and had many stories about her experiences. Jane also enjoyed skiing, golf and swimming throughout her life. A service will be held in Santa Cruz, CA, August 15th 2:00pm. at Oakwood Crystal Chapel, 3301 Paul Sweet Road, Santa Cruz, CA 95065 She will be interred at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Coloma, CA in the Reilly family plot at a later date. If you would like to send your condolences to Jane's family or share a photo or memory please visit www.scmemorial.com