Spring arrives

The wildflowers were late in arriving, all that rain, deluge after deluge nearly had us building arks or doing glacial prepping. The trees, too long without adequate water, are cautious, having shed most of their leaves during the long drought, including the coast live oak, and redwood. It’s hard for me to witness the miracle of spring when all the backroads are aligned with dead and dying trees. Still, spring arrives all out of breath, the distant hills are losing their first blush of yellow against green, and the sky lupines seep into the crevices to fill the void. It’s as if small bits of the sky have fallen and landed on the steep hillsides. Of course the poppy gangs are shouting like cheerleaders on their thin rock outcrops, they are unable to compete with the foreign grasses that the cattle dote on. This year, the sun too was slow on the scene and the grass was a pale shadow of itself which kept the cattle working overtime. But now the sun has returned, and they graze contentedly, none of winter's sparsity nipping at their heels. First up are the spring calves snoozing in small hollows, their ears like small sails luffing in the breeze, while red shouldered hawks circle and careen with the vultures, looking for an easy meal. The light is still low on the horizon and you can see in the way it drapes itself over the hills, as if dressing the curves in a shawl of chiaroscuro light.

4/26/23 Write On! prompt Terri Glass

Sleeping on it

When I was troubled, my grandmother always told me to sleep on it, as a solution would come, and invariably she was right. I only needed faith that a solution would arrive, as it often did. Even though I didn't believe her, a solution would often come while I was sleeping. I think of the scientist Kekule and the inventor Singer who both slept on it as well, when faced with a conundrum and no obvious answers in sight. Kekule dreamed of benzine carbon rings opening and closing, as if they were linked arm in arm like girl gangs. And Singer dreamed of a sword fight when he was trying to resolve how to get the thread to loop through the needle and to link a stitch. They were stitching together memory and dream with practicum. Sleeping on my math book before a test did not yield any tangible results.

TheNarrativeMethod.com prompt

MORNING COFFEE

Before a thought could penetrate her consciousness, 

the odor of coffee robbed her of all free will. 

She followed its siren call to the kitchen. 

It kicked her in the teeth and she arose to the calling. 

Her grandmother often looked skyward like that 

as she stirred her morning coffee, 

the spoon clanging against the side of a mug,

purloined from the San Francisco jail, 

the spoon ringing in the morning with victory. 

The brown towhees answered with a one note song,

hopped over the lintel to peck the toast crumbs 

scattered at her feet.

4/23. (my extra free write from the NarrativeMethod.com prompt).

Our bodies, ourselves

In the photo, a woman, perhaps she is a dancer, is looking up, she's looking skyward for answers, so, perhaps she is seeking a higher power. Once it was called searching for an answer via the God conduit. But that process has fallen out of favor, thank God, I said laughing. I certainly had an uneasy relationship with the idea of God at an early age. 

Even as a small child I had an unusually strong sense of self, call it freewill. I questioned everything, much to the chagrin of my teachers, and the nuns. That time the nuns said the reason why it was raining was because we were naughty in church and God was crying. 

Well, that did it, I was indignant and asked what if he was peeing on us? Chaos ensued. I flunked First Communion, perhaps the only child in history to do so. I was six.

There was an Irish saint, Pelagius, who was excommunicated twice. Once during his lifetime, which was rescinded, and then again after his death, he was tried again in absentia for promulgating the idea of free will. We can't have anyone thinking for themselves, the church said. 

A battle this nation is facing today in spades. I don't know what the answer is, but here we are trying to find our way back to that wonderment we once felt as children. We are trying to get back to the garden.

Most mornings begin with my spam box, all my political emails and petitions are rerouted to the spam box because there are no graphics, I have dyslexia, so flashing bits and color distract and befuddle me, making me not only anxiety-ridden, but also angry. 

So, I begin my morning by signing petitions. During this day and age, the least I can do is to object to the myriad laws designed to suppress our civil rights, especially those of women, and those who are otherly-abled. 

See, when I was still going to church, it was the era of ERA, the beginning of women's rights, our bodies were being politicized. It began with the introduction of The Pill. Meanwhile, organized religion was trying to suppress us all. Something snapped, I was 17, how dare the church dictate what I could and couldn't do with my body? 

At least in those days there was still somewhat of a separation between church and state. We took up the banner the Suffragists had held aloft. Our bodies, ourselves, we chanted. We had the vote and we used it. And now it's the government suppressing the vote, pissing on us, telling us what we can and can't do with our bodies, ourselves. 

4/23/ TheNarrativeMethod.com prompt

My 2023 CAC artist panel application

I’ve worked 2 decades in Bay Area schools, teaching poetry & art to historically underserved students in Oakland & Hunters’s Point, developing culturally relevant arts programming. I implemented school arts programming, and trained poets & artists in both rural Sonoma County and urban Alameda County. I’ve worked with all demographics, including inmates at Napa State Hospital, elders, preschoolers.

I’ve taught artist-in-schools residencies in rural & urban schools in California since 1979. I’ve had 7 individual CACAIR grants in Sonoma & Napa counties; & a grant from the Montana Arts Council. I’ve administered/taught in CAC multi-artist residencies including Poetry Flash (current), received a PBS/KQED AIR grant, & two Oakland Cultural Arts Council grants. I’ve led arts workshops in the Western US & Florida, as well as the Bahamas, Netherlands & the former USSR. I’ve mentored/ trained artists, writers and teachers through several arts organizations including California Poets in the Schools, Young Audiences, Artists in Schools of Sonoma County, and Rural Arts Services. 

I’m widely published and I’ve won prizes, fellowships and awards for my writing, art, photography—and teaching residencies—including a Golden Bell award. I’ve worked for alternative newspapers, writing news & arts feature stories & photojournalism. From 1980 to 1997, I produced literary events in Sonoma County, including Russian River Writers’ Guild, Sonoma State University, Cotati Cabaret, Johnny Otis Club, and other venues. I was staff photographer and workshop leader for the Napa Valley Poetry conferences..

I’ve taught clients in a diverse range of communities of all ages/abilities throughout California. The schools where I teach are historically underrepresented in all the arts—I utilize poetry and language from their respective cultures. I also invite in guest artists from the community. Needs were determined by meeting with host clients before the residency and creating an arts program to meet specific ideals and goals. For example, at Malcolm X ES in Berkeley, we developed, and are expanding a long-term poetry and art project that celebrates racial equity, diversity and inclusion. 

I’ve worked with many cultural demographics with a diverse language base & cultural focus, including training Middle Eastern and African health care providers to teach creative writing to their clients in the Netherlands. Though not fully bilingual, I speak Spanish & can converse in several languages. I also volunteer at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center working with elders. I am a coordinator & current  coordinator and emcee for the annual Poetry Flash Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, as well as administrator of the Poetry Flash CAC AIS John Oliver Simon Legacy Poetry Project grant.

DEAR POEM, THE POINT OF NO RETURN, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 12

NaPoWriMo write a poem that addresses itself. Dear Poem…interrogate it.

DEAR POEM

Dear Poem, why did you leave me in the lurch like that, 

surrounded by mundane words, second class ideas 

and turns of phrase so trite, they made me wince?

We had a good thing going, you left me standing,

you walked out the door like an irate lover.

What on earth were you thinking? It’s been said before.

Didn’t you learn anything at all after all this time, 

that metaphor and simile must always be served fresh 

and piping hot out of the smithy’s forge?

There is no way to resurrect or to save a stale poem, 

no matter how precious the subject matter,

without undergoing a linguistic blood transfusion.

They say poems need to be retranslated every generation 

as language takes a powder, words change nuance 

and meaning dissolves into cliché 

whenever you least expect it.

4/12/23

2023 April PAD Challenge write a sound poem

THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Lonely cars on the tarmac late at night, 

remind me of wind soughing in the pines, 

or the restless surcease of the ocean’s roar 

and I want to follow the vagaries of that road 

leading back to the point of no return.

4/12/23

THE BLUE VAULTED SKY

1. My grandmother hauls an oak sapling to the sawhorse, 

tumps it in to place, wields the bow saw like a violin, 

orchestrating the sonorous wood, as it plays the air 

like bees droning in the acacia trees. A sawdust pile rises up, 

and the cats, ever curious, watch it for signs of life. 

Our breath hangs in the air like half-formed ghosts. 

The winter reminds us there is only the wood stove for heat.

She never says anything much. Only later will I understand 

she is missing her husband, my grandfather, 

who died at the turn of the new year. She is alone now.

2. When he said he was going away, with suitcase in hand, 

I looked at the sky and asked to go with him. 

I couldn’t understand why he would say no, 

or why he’d leave without us. There was our shared birthday, 

I blew out his matches as I sat on his lap. Was he mad at us?

The aunts and uncles laughed uncomfortably 

when he said he was going up to heaven to be with the angels. 

I asked the practical questions of a four-year-old:

How would he get there, who was driving? Was there a bridge?

Would he stay in the clouds? And where was the road?

3. The following summer, I was obsessed with angels, 

as I struck wooden matches, thinking they were toothpicks, 

against the rusted seat of the teeter-totter lying on the dry grass,

when out of the blue, a disembodied voice said, don’t do that!

Startled, I dropped the matches, looked around.

But there was no one there, only the curious cats, 

and the merciless blue vault of the sky overhead.

4/12/23 Terri Glass prompt, Write On!

Early morning trail ride

Some Saturdays I rose before dawn for early morning trail rides with my friend Stephanie. Everyone else was asleep. Her father never knew of our morning escapades, and my grandmother didn’t seem to mind. But I also didn’t tell her where we were going, as it was too far from home for a child on her own. I was on my horse, somewhere deep in the hills, and therefore, safe. At least she never said anything to me. My own parents were in absentia, my father deep in a bottle, my mother in one asylum or other. Steph‘s dad was a little more controlling. See, her mother, who was a Russian translator for the UN, blacklisted by McCarthy, knew all about silence. She drank in silence, and because of that silence, she died in the fire. A short in the dryer. Because Les couldn’t protect his wife, he was over-protective of Steph. The boys, her two younger brothers, not so much. Bucky was close to our age but Gooby was still in diapers. We’d simultaneously sneak out of the house just as the sky was beginning to lighten, and meet up at the county road. The morning fog was like a tight glove protecting us from the mid-20th century. We could’ve been anywhere in time. Sometimes we’d sneak through her upper pasture, past Old Grandad, the Hereford bull, to get to the fire road that led up to Mt. Barnabe. But the stiff barbed wire gate gave our small hands pause. The top of the mountain facing due west was our goal. It was always a spectacular view from the crest of the ridge, the morning mist parting to reveal the sheathed silver sword of Tomales Bay, tracing the trench of the San Andreas Fault, and the clenched bare fist of Elephant Mountain. It restored my equilibrium to see the word from a raptor’s viewpoint. These refuges, these steep hills and valleys were the coping weapons of my youth.

4/12/23 

TheNarrativeMethod.com prompt

GHOST SHIPS

A toxic desert with abandoned fleets of ghost ships

A herd of white camels, like displaced whitecaps, 
seeking refuge from the grueling desert heat,
slumber in the shadows of rusted ghosts freighters
resting on the bottom of what once was the Aral Sea,
a sea so vast, that Alexander the Great couldn’t cross it,
disappeared within a generation. For Soviet cotton.

3/11/23

BLUE LAZARUS

I once loved an old blue truck 

the color of deep mountain skies

that always rose from the dead, 

like Krishna, or a phoenix from its own ashes, 

overcoming great mechanical odds, 

from a stuck starter, to cranky carburetors 

to broken ball joints & missing catalytic converters.

It kept me on my mechanical toes, 

praying it would not die in traffic, 

and cursing it whenever it did, 

until a runaway dumpster took it out. 

That was the final insult. 

I needed a crowbar to open the door. 

Damned if the truck didn’t fire up, raring to go. 

But I had to let it go. Its wings were clipped for good. 

No rising up from the grave this time. 

3/9 &11/23 this came from a prose piece,

• Easter Sunday

THE BEGINNING OF TRUTH

There is always an infinite supply of uncertainty and fear, 

which is far easier to mine than following your dreams. 

I took instructions from the sky to talk less,

not allowing love in. I was accustomed to abandonment, 

and I continued on, in love with my own darkness,

until the path disappeared. No lantern to light the way.

I convinced myself that the shining beauty pouring in

was merely an algorithm of the soul. I didn’t know 

my silence too was a form of armor, shielding me

from myself, that celestial light shining upon us, 

was bearing witness, only I couldn’t see 

that armor is no longer needed to let amor in.

This is where the truth begins to let the light in.

4/9/23

Easter Sunday

1. Easter Sunday. The question was what wisdom did he impart just before he passed? Are we talking about Jesus here? He is risen, and all that. Don’t know if I want to even go there, if you know what I mean. The aftermath of all those so-called Christians using God to justify their bigotry is just too much to bear. I sidestepped it all for the gathering of meadows and the mountain cathedrals. The blue secrets of the sky.

2. What was it about his last statement that turned on the light for his witness? I once had an old blue truck named Lazarus the color of a deep sky that always rose from the dead, like Krishna, or a phoenix from its ashes, overcoming great mechanical odds, from cranky carburetors to broken ball joints, until a runaway dumpster, took it out. That was the final straw. 

Days earlier, a runaway van crashed into it as well. Poor truck, its days were numbered, and I just couldn’t let it go. By that time, the side of the truck and the driver door was so bashed in, I needed a crowbar to get inside. But damned if the truck didn’t start up, raring to go. But I had to let it go. Its wings were clipped for good this time. No rising up from the grave this time.

3. There is always that moment of epiphany, when everything coalesces, and comes together in such a way that you are dumbstruck, at a loss for words. You realize this was the moment you were waiting for, but didn’t know it. Call it synchronicity if you must name it, that split second when everything aligns to create a cohesive moment in time that stays with you, keeps you wondering who or what is in charge anyway.

Sure, Diogenes was always looking for an honest man, but I don’t think he was looking for truth in a cave. He is risen…

4/9/23 

TheNarrativeMethod.com prompt

NUMBERS, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 9

NaPoWriMo write a contemporary love sonnet.

I didn’t feel it.

2023 April PAD Challenge write a numbers poem

NUMBERS

Yeah, I didn’t have much of a dad. 

Not much of a mother either. 

It all came down to numbers. 

No child support was the biggest number.

My mother, who was part alley cat,

dropped me off at my grandmother’s doorstep 

when I was four. Followed by my brother 

who arrived one Sunday morning in a bassinet 

on our doorstep some four years later.

My father came to see me a few times 

during those growing up years. 

And then he ditched me when I was 18. 

He loved a bottle of Seagrams 7 on ice 

more than he loved me. That was his number.

At least my mother tried to love me

as she descended into the depths of depression 

but her good days were a finite number. 

But I adored my grandmother, whose number 

was marred by a widow’s half pension,

so I grew up in the country, dirt poor,

but somehow made whole by the algorithms

of landscape, despite everything.

5/31/23

Nothing rhymes with…

City Hall. Used with permission, Donald Kinney photo c. 2023

Last night, City Hall was lit up with orange lights to support the SF Giants, but street photographer, Donald Kinny noted that it looked more red than orange. Well, technically, if this were the early Renaissance, then he would be right—it is red, scarlet or cadmium red. Not orange.

Before 1510, the term yellow-red was used (geoluread in Old English—say it aloud with a swallowed g = y) or red-yellow to describe orange. Or the color orange was referred to as tawny (probably a Celtic loan-word). Saffron and green were the most favored colors for Medieval Irish clothing. I imagine that gold was also used to describe orange. It got me asking, why did the English language suddenly have the need to distinguish the colors red from yellow with a new word?

Weirdly the English word orange is a relative linguistic newcomer. It’s a “new” color name, meaning it wasn’t recognized as a separate color name in English until the 1500s….so, yes, some reds border on orange. Especially the light cadmium reds.  

I didn’t understand that when I was taking painting classes at College of Marin why cadmium orange and red were so close in color. I dislike orange. I was pretty relieved when I discovered that color newcomer, alizarin crimson as I favor the blue reds versus the yellow reds. Also alizarin crimson was way less toxic than the cadmiums. Poor mad Vincent. Was it the cadmium yellows and reds he used responsible for his affliction?

Letting my fingers do the walking through the Google pages, I found this: “The first recorded use of "orange" as a colour name in English was in 1502, in a description of clothing purchased for Margaret Tudor.” Curious as to where the term came from, I discovered that it probably came from the Old French, pomme d'orenge. 

Curiouser yet, the color term took 600 years after oranges arrived in Europe, for the color to be named in English by way of those Normans. Perhaps politics and the Reformation played into it? As in the House of Orange? The word orange, or flan bhui is flag-yellow, as there is no word for orange in Irish (oráiste is the fruit) is a politically charged color in Ireland, signifying oppression and the division of Ireland. 

And of course, as you know, in English, nothing rhymes with orange. Unless it’s a Giants home game. Then all bets are on. Then City Hall and Coit Tower are bathed in a victorious orange afterglow. But here is the clincher, early oranges that came all the way from China, or India, weren’t necessarily orange-colored. They were green! They were bitter as well. I read that Florida farmers dye those green oranges orange.

Valencia oranges marked Christmas season for my grandmother who was raised in Bantry, Ireland. Each year her Christmas gift was one Valencia orange wrapped in foil.

AS YOU SETTLE INTO THE LIGHT, Burning a path towards the sun, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 6

NaPoWriMo make a transliteration from Poetry International tricky for me, because I can sort of read Dutch, so I extrapolated and stretched it.

AS YOU SETTLE INTO THE LIGHT

Note the steps of the ladder, not the stories of the lost children.
Note the house, not the starry night. Go ahead, drink the wine.

Remember the house is dark. The windows with their eyes shut
doubt the light, they are learning to sing the ways of the wind.

The house speaks of memory and there is no stopping it, 
with its hard wounds and proud flesh and angst it wants…

It wants you to climb into the attic of the psyche and dream
behind closed doors and dwell in the sunlight plaited in gold.

It will make everything seem like new again.
Stand there with the door open wide, your hands trembling,

greet the wind as you settle into the light.

4/11/23

2023 April PAD Challenge write a poem about odor. I misread an earlier prompt, wrote this, wrong piece.

Burning a path towards the sun

The odor of acacia reminds us that spring arrived. But the cold air severs us from beauty. Chilblains become a real thing as cruel April rolls up its trousers. The coastal mountains are still holding onto last week’s unseasonable snow, Cobb Mountain, dressed in a lace gown, is draped in a shawl of clouds and darkness like a grande dame waiting for the opera to begin. Mustard and chamomile brave the elements as if last week’s snow laid down in the deep ravines, was waiting to sleep it off until the morning comes. I admire the bravery of daffodils and tulips, they harbor no grudge against the vagaries of spring, yet rise up from the darkness like phoenixes, burning a path towards the sun. 

4/3/23

As you can see, I wrote this earlier, but it fits.

The idea of strangers

1. What misconception is the host planning to clear up for once and for all? I wrote: who is the host? What is the misconception? We are all imperfect receivers, each interpreting, and navigating reality as best we can. There’s so much to choose from. Where do you even begin? Racial injustice?

But on this day of Passover, it’s clear that every single group of people and cultures has been oppressed by, or has oppressed another. Take the idea of naming people by their nationalities. The Welsh, for example, an exogamic name given by outsiders. Why would anyone want to self-identify as strangers or foreigners? That’s what the word means.

The name tells us that the Welsh were named by outsiders in their own land, and the land they lost to outsiders and they were being oppressed, denied their own name for themselves, Cymru. This holds true for native tribes of the Americas as well. The word Anasazi, meaning stranger in Navajo or enemy and so on.

2. What does the host admit was hard to overcome? We live in an us versus them culture, where every stranger represents danger from the outside. No one single culture is exempt from this practice. Sure, we can sing, all we are saying is give peace, a chance, but, bottom line, when threatened, we close our doors quickly at the first sign of danger.

Look at what happened during the pandemic. It was worldwide free for all. Everyone was out for themselves. And look where that got us. Hoarding toilet paper and massive shortages of disinfectants and other oddities as people locked down and hunkered in, and not their neighbors. In a just world this should never have happened, but it did. And no one is willing to admit that no one is in charge, and we’re all at fault. We’re all to blame, for a moment we let go of our humanity.

3. Every group, every culture has been subjugated with pressure from the outside, whether by war, or assignation. Every group has put labels on strangers defining them as enemies. This is the way of things. It’s hard to admit, but there you have it in a nutshell.

The prefix, wall, as in walnut, wall, and even the name Walsh means, foreigner or stranger. The Welsh would not have named themselves, thusly.

We need to begin by not holding onto the past, or our heritage. There is always one grudge or another to bury us unto the next century. Look at Nagasaki. Something is always at the ready to distract us and derail us.

If only we all knew that, then the world would be a much better place. But even the pandemic didn’t help, we witnessed that from the ground up.

4/6/23

TheNarrativeMethod.com prompt

LAMENT FOR LAKE TULARE, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 5

NaPoWriMo write a poem based on Simic’s Melon.

LAMENT FOR LAKE TULARE

In the Central Valley there once was a lake so vast,
So chock full of fish that it fed entire cities.
As it dreamed of clouds mirroring the Sierra Range,
The rivermelt sang its praises of spring song,
And painted its shores with wildflowers and tule reeds
While steamships huffed and chugged into port.

No one even remembers when the lake died.
The last farmers to whisper its name, all gone now.
The story persisted, and the mad language of water
Returns to haunt the memory buried in that lakebed.
Soon it will reclaim its long-lost shores
As the spring melt rises to reclaim what was lost.

3/11

I merely replaced Simic’s words with my own. See Day 3, CURSE THE FLOODWATERS. Check out this NASA image of the lake now. I never start each line with a capital letter anymore. So it was odd and I kept trying to erase those capital letters but that’s how Chuck wrote his poem. And so it stays.

2023 April PAD Challenge take the phrase "(noun) in (location)," replace the (noun) with a noun, replace the (location) with a location, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "Dinosaurs in Jamaica," "Popsicle in Cairo,"

The above poem could count for double, I suppose. The PAD prompt didn’t move me. On the other hand,
SUNRISE OVER MT. HOOD, which I wrote before I saw the prompt, fills the niche. Oddly, I uncharacteristically came up with the title first, as I was driving to work. So I think I will let it go. Besides, it’s all a springboard, as long as I wind up with 30 poems.

SUNRISE OVER MT. HOOD

     —for Rick Coyston 1963 - 2023

The sun rises over Mt. Hood, a golden cowl 

of mist and fog painted in crimson hues 

and delicate lavender pastels to greet the dawn.

I can’t help but think of Rick on his motorcycle, 

the old woman who foolishly pulled out in front of him

has to live with the aftermath of her choice.

I can just hear him saying in his broad Essex accent 

Oh my God, before his life ended on the old Bolinas road.

I’m obsessed with the moment he left us 

and that sublime beauty he left behind.

4/5/23 one of the few times that the title led the poem.

AT THE VERNAL POOLS, and INNER DIALOGUE NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 4

NaPoWriMo write a triolet, an eight-line poem in iambic tetramenter, lines  1, 4,7 are identical, as are the 2nd and last lines—the poem begins and ends with the same couplet, within a tight rhyme scheme  — ABaAabAB. I don’t think I like writing in forms.

AT THE VERNAL POOLS

Across the pond the herons glide,
And the egrets seek higher ground
From prying eyes and compromise.
Across the pond the herons glide,
Hunting for froglings and newts’ eyes.
We used to watch them soar around.
Across the pond the herons glide,
And now egrets seek higher ground.

4/9/23

2023 April PAD Challenge

Write a dream poem, and/or Write a reality poem.

INNER DIALOGUE

Some say that in a dream, 

the idea that we carry a dialogue with us, 

wherever we go, day and night, 

it accompanies us, is like a familiar, 

watching over us, waiting for the news, 

hidden behind a veil of symbolism 

and random metaphor.

4/9

Uncurated poems versus unpublished poems, Rattle Magazine

Timothy Green, of Rattle Magazine, is proposing a new category for unpublished poems, dismissing poems published on social media or in blogs as being unpublished. I am all for the uncurated poem idea, because I use my blog as my notebook. Yet I can hardly consider my poems published because I post them in my blog. I have a readership of 12 people and I think all of those are web crawlers. Somebody could easily say, well why not just take your blog off-line and use it that way? Good question, but, what’s the point? Knowing that my blog is online, and knowing that somebody might read them, makes me tighten up my chops. No time for slovenliness. No time for cliché. At this advanced stage everything I write is all or nothing. I think a 40 year apprenticeship is long enough. Besides, I can’t find my poems anymore. I have far too many children to commit them all to paper. And Google’s Blogger search engine sucks at retrieving them. But at least, if they’re online, I stand a chance of finding my poems again.

SPRING, AND ALL short poems, not quite haiku

Spring arrives with convicts
dressed in orange jumpsuits,
picking up the detritus of our lives
abandoned by the side of the road.

The hawk hunkers down on the powerline,
waiting for the foolish optimism of mice.

Two days of sunlight after weeks of rain,
the spine of the drought is broken,
and the pale hills flash their family jewels.

The wind laughs at the years
as if he were listening for something
from the great beyond.

Mornings, the words take their own time coming in. 

You have to be ready to rearrange the parts. 

     —With thanks to David Melzer. 

4/3/23

CURSE THE FLOODWATERS, Obscure Facts, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 3

CURSE THE FLOODWATERS 

After Lucille Clifton’s blessing the boats.

curse the rising floodwaters
leaving us bereft
on the rocky shores of grief without a raft
dragging us down
below the murky depths of memory
curse its laughter and gurgle
that stifling heat of scorn     then embrace it
know that the uncertainty
won’t ever have your back   so curse it too
and remember to keep your mouth shut
the sun burning incandescent    too is cruel
and so curse it for the dark knowledge it harbors
as you founder in the quicksand 

seeking solace on an ephemeral shore

4/3/23
NaPoWriMo pick a poem, any poem, change the words to their opposite meaning. Revise.


2023 April PAD Challenge write a connection poem (I accidentally used the wrong prompt for this one, so this is a placeholder.

Obscure facts

Someone said to write about an obscure fact, something that no one else would know about. I couldn’t think of anything. And I thought of how stop lights are not green, but turquoise, reminding us of tropical seas and of our own origins.

After the rain, the drowned wildflowers can’t poke their head above the sludge. After the floodwaters have dropped a foot at a time, the meadows carry a permanent high tide line.

I can’t get over that image of the Tibetan woman with her trio of marmots begging for food like small children. Since winter lives year round in Tibet, I think of those marmots begging at the hem of her skirts hoping for the arrival of spring. Does she sing to them? Her marmot children?

4/3/23

Two poems forthcoming in Spectrum 34/35

I have two really old poems that date back to the very beginning of my apprenticeship as a poet appearing in the latest double issue of Spectrum 34/35. One poem in each issue, p. 25, and p. 16. The operative word is noir. A SENSE OF TASTE, and SALMON DANCE. well, I guess the poem is not forthcoming. After all it is the editor, Dan Campbell took down the blog, so now it is once again unpublished.

Her 100th birthday

They were running late as usual, no place to park, the streets were rimed with white SUVs and oversized white trucks. They found a doghole down the street to squeeze their rusted brown sedan into a parking spot with a little elbow grease, and some discreet bumper kissing. 

The woman’s heels clicked a rapid staccato on the sidewalk as they hurried toward the house. The kids dragged their shoes on the cement, slowing her down. Late again, she thought. Late, she hated the abrupt accusatory bark of the word. Her mother said that she will be late for her own funeral.

The front door was open wide, the party was in full swing. Folks wandered in, carrying tinfoil covered dishes, and the womenfolk headed toward the kitchen to ease their burden. The menfolk made a beeline for the coolers lining the porch to ease their discomfort, taking solace in the chilled brown necks of the bottles nestled in their hands. Their empty hands sought simple comfort as they gazed out, talking of the weather.

In the living room center stage was a shimmering bouquet of black and gold helium balloons proclaiming a hundred years of living. They squealed and chattered amongst themselves like young girls as they swayed on the air currents. Two clear balloons had gold starfish printed on their bellies. A backdrop curtain of black kelp undulated and swayed like cabaret dancers. The fat 100 was minted in gold. 

People gathered in tight clumps, or drifted into other constellations, moving like the tides from conversation to conversation. The air conditioner hummed a monotone song, the chink of glasses, and orphaned fragments of conversation mingled and tangled into a pastiche.

The old woman, whose birthday they were honoring, sat in the wheelchair, her claw-like hands, gripping the steel arms, as if she were about to rise, but they all knew that would never happen. She had been confined to her metal chariot ever since the fall. She didn’t want presents. She said she had enough, she didn’t need anything more.

A broken hip at that age was a death sentence. You could see how the tumble took its toll. A precursor of things to come. But nobody wanted to look that closely. She thought how the monotonous days rolled on and on like an endless soap opera. But today was different, her hair was freshly styled, her nearly new clothes unstained, and she smiled radiantly, glad to see her clan gathered around her on this momentous occasion of her hundredth birth.

SURREAL QUESTIONS after Celan, VERNAL PATROL, FINAL CURTAIN CALL, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 2

SURREAL QUESTIONS after Celan

1. What is fog?

     The hills hiding from the sun because they forgot their origins.

What is salt?

     That old mill grinding its eye teeth at the bottom of the ocean.

What is a river?

     A sob story that begins deep in the mountains where the ouzel lives.

What is longing? 

     A immeasurable distance of abandoned grief dressed in twilight.

What is a song? 

     The sun, by any other name, dressing the horizon in silk.

(Now throw away the questions.)

2. The hills hid from the sun because they forgot their deep origins.

Neptune’s old mill is gnashing its eye teeth at the bottom of the ocean.

The river begins as a painting deep in the mountains 

   where Wu Wei’s water ouzels seek the mysteries of the gorge.    

An immeasurable distance of grief is dressed in twilight.

Meanwhile the sun is dressing the horizon in flaming raiments of silk 

   to remind it of its intangible beauty.

4/2-3 (playing catch-up. I read the prompts, and let them perk.)

NaPoWriMo make 5-10 impossible questions after Celan or Neruda, you choose. Toss the questions and revise the answers.

VERNAL PATROL

The wild geese were arguing in the meadow again 

as they swarmed the vernal pool searching for frogs. 

Meanwhile, the egrets patrolled the pools 

with the relentless concentration of prison guards.

The fairy shrimp and tadpoles didn’t stand a chance.

4/3

FINAL CURTAIN CALL

Our love affair was a torrid B-movie with a bad plot twist.
It lasted far too long, and had too little reward in the end,
and all that was left were the broken seats in an empty theater.
The curtains were drawn, the limelight snuffed out.  

Popcorn and spilled coke on the floor took mint hostages.
The director had long since fled after the bad reviews came in.
And then you say you want to be friends
like some Frankenstein monster seeking redemption
or perhaps Saturn waiting to devour its young.
But my name still means bitter herbs.

Nothing will ameliorate that fact.

4/3
2023 April PAD Challenge Write a B movie poem.

GREAT WHITE HUNTER, FOOLISH HEART, NaPoWriMo Day 1 haiku

GREAT WHITE HUNTER

Oliver the cat
tiptoes over the wet grass 

then sits on the bug.

He slinks down the path 

flat-eared and round-eyed, he chatters, 

but the birds are no fools.

Foolish cat lays low 

thinking he’s invisible. 

The birds know better.

………….

Last night’s storm damage 

is measured in increments 

by the sheer number 

of utility trucks 

parked by the side of the road

hoisting up cables.

………

Driving any old way to work

So much depends on

the SUV in front of me, 

which way it turns, 

thus mapping my path 

leaving the day’s route to chance.

The road least taken.

………..

Unlucky rabbit 

by the side of the road, split 

like a BBQ chicken.

………..

The marmot was right

Winter didn’t let go 

its hold until April arrived 

rolling up its trousers, 

ready for business.

4/1-3 (I counted syllables all day, but didn’t commit to print)

NaPoWriMo. Haiku & American looons.

FOOLISH HEART

Foolishly, I thought you’d love me forever.
Foolishly, I put all my eggs in one basket.
Foolishly I waited 21 years to seal the bargain
before I had enough of all this foolishness with you.
Foolishly you thought it would all blow over.
Foolishly you hedged your bets. And assumed much.
But when the promissory note came due,
there was nothing left, but your foolish pride.
Foolishly, I believed everything you said.
Foolishly, I believed that forever would last
at least for a half-life of forever and a day.
Foolishly, I believed in the fairytales.
I believed that love was forever today.
But my moth-eaten pride was in tatters,
my heart was dressed in Cinderella rags.
My heart harbored pestilence, rotted from the inside,
because foolishly, I took it all in and blamed myself
gaslighted by your foolish pride.

2023 April PAD Challenge Write a foolish poem.

Here are all 30 of 2022 poem a day prompts. Knock yourself out.

THE MAD OLD COW DAYS

These last three days of March are roaring 

their way out like a pride of hungry lions. 

The chilblains of the borrowed days of the brindled cow,

what the Irish monks called Laethanta na Bó Riabhai, 

are among us, making ancestors of our ancient ones. 

Complaining about the second childhood of cattle,

groundhog shadows, or the vagaries of weather is pointless. 

The almanac of winter love, dressed in sleet and snow, 

aquamarine and bloodstone, gets final say—

despite rolling out the new year’s equinox pledge.

It’s a portmanteau payback for those three stolen days 

in February, a false spring Jezebel that showered us 

with a swale of narcissus and blackthorn blossoms,

So, mad March stole a day from April, and the old cow died.

Cruelest April also promises a compound interest plan,

it rolls up its cuffs, trading taxable per deum days

with the war god, Mars, despite a shepherd’s wild vow 

of a sacrifice of a firstborn suckling lamb to slake 

the insatiable hunger that is the madness of March.

3/29/23

Extensively revised 3/31

To be fair, it was barely more than a line, ok so, the first two lines.  

See duchas, The Riabhach days, An unpleasant sting in the tail of March

March borrowed from April

Three days and they were ill

The first was snow and sleet

The next was cold and wet

The third was such a freeze

The birds's nests stuck to trees

Retro clothing

I read an article, Adventures in my Wardrobe, about how we all have gobs of clothes hiding out in our closet as if they were in a witness protection program (or is it a witless protection program)—clothes that we never wear, and yet we hold onto for dear life. Because, memory. 

The author, Anne-Marie Hoeve, decided go on an archaeological dig in the back of her closet, and daylight all those old clothes she never wears. Her experience with her old clothes was like opening up a time capsule. The paradigm shift of memory and nostalgia head-butting with time present, made for a lively tale. 

The memories Hoeve experienced while wearing old clothing made for an intriguing anthropological study, as the association of clothes and memory is profound, if not downright irrational at times.

Like the odor of violets, old clothes can invoke the memories of the dead. It’s like hearing old music again. Loving Spoonful’s Happy Together telescopes me back to my 2nd corridor locker at Drake High School. Every time. I like my men young and and my clothing old—I used to joke that I only wore clothing of the dead, so as to keep their memories alive. There’s more than a little truth to that.

Every few years I go through my really old clothes and wear them again, after an extended sabbatical, they seem like new again, so I’m hesitant to toss the old stuff out. I hate to part with my retro clothes. OK, so call them antique clothing. But they give me joy. That crazy OCD minimalist organizer and delclutterist guru who arranges books by color, Marie Kondo, would not approve.

Something I haven’t worn in five or ten years, is dragged out of the giveaway bag, and becomes a new favorite again. Especially with summer clothes. That old mirrored rayon top with the over-dyed embroidery from the $5 box at Tienda Ho on Telegraph Avenue in 1999 that hasn’t seen daylight in decades, suddenly became a new favorite during the heat wave, despite my cousin‘s dismissive sniffing.

Or a recent score of string pants from Savers totally matches that sparkly plaid Victoria’s Secret nightshirt dress and completes it—as if it’s been waiting all these years for the stars to align to this particular moment in time. Ok, so they’re too big. Maybe the black leggings are a better match. I look less like a plaid oversized Easter bunny terrorizing the neighborhood.

And the sea foam green cashmere poncho, a street find (some dead lady’s stuff), perfectly matches the new GV jeans I bought during an impulsive pre-COVID-19 moment after I had finally left my abusive partner of 20 years. I had stuffed them into the giveaway bag because the memory association was too painful. But the sweet cashmere poncho reclaimed them for me. You bet I will wear them now, come sweet May again.

Retro Russian River Poison Oak Festival photo redux

Some of my retro 1980s Russian River Poison Oak Festival photos from The Paper were published in the Press Democrat. Daylighting these old negatives is always good. Thank you Maci Martell.

STROMATOLITES, BAHÍA CONCEPCIÓN

One Easter during the late 1980s, I was standing on a boulder, 

on Playa Santispac, overlooking the Sea of Cortez, 

when I realized the rock I was standing on, was strange,

then, that sudden flash of insight, it was no boulder, 

but a stromatolite colony—a city of bluegreen algae, 

the first I Am the earth uttered. Words failed me, 

I yelled a primal scream, startling campers and shore birds.

The colony was surrounded by strange commas in the sand, 

small carcasses of dried baby hammerhead sharks, 

the size of pencils, as if trying to swim away.

3/18/23

Black Sabbath, or why I don’t drink much

I was born with red hair, bright as a new, copper penny, but it darkened to a shade of auburn when I was 12, and then it faded to a mousy brown when I was 16. I felt betrayed by my changing hair color, but I emulated all the clichés of being a redhead.

I carried all the markers including packing a fierce temper, pale freckled skin that easily burned, and I have an unusually high tolerance to pain. The pain threshold is an interesting quirk, I remember coming to during all my operations— when I had my tonsils removed, I remember my doctor’s face with the convex mirror on his forehead. He said it wasn’t possible.

My oral surgery, my first knee operation, I remember them all. During one operation, I was struck with inconsolable grief and began sobbing, my anesthesiologist had to tell me to stop crying for what, I don’t remember. But I bore witness to all my operations, much to the dismay of my anesthesiologists.

I took to warning my doctors that I carried the redhead gene, but they didn’t listen, or didn’t believe me—until after my last knee operation, when I began to recant the playlist, as if it was a profane litany. It surprised me that my knee surgeon, who owned a race horse, was into the Scorpions and Black Sabbath.

During flood season

During the flood, herons and egrets dine on amphibians, crustaceans, and rodents. A whole new smorgasbord of surf and turf. Colonies of egrets line the temporary shores of the vernal pools. At some of the pools, the stately great egrets gather as if Congress were in session, and at others, small egrets bicker and dine on leftovers. The seagulls do their worm dance in the mud to hunt for earthworms. Fording a seasonal stream crossing Todd Road, the underbelly of my car has never been so clean.

3/13

Never build a house in a floodplain

During the decades of long drought, suburbs grew like weeds. Now the floodland reclaims its ancestral homeland. All those houses built on the hundred-year flood plains, and in those old riverbeds and washes, during a time when it was easy to bribe the planning commissioners, are now vast inland lakes. Water coming home to roost, takes all hostage in its wake. Thoughts and prayers won’t stem the tide.

3/13

RUSH HOUR and other short poems

RUSH HOUR

Friday night at the dispensary. 

Boomers wait patiently in line. 

Not one of us is under 50.

3/13

GAME CHANGER

After the storm, potholes bloom 

on the back roads 

like a giant game of Chinese checkers 

where the scoreboard tracks our tires.

3/13

ONE STORM TOO MANY

The ancient patriarchs of the field 

gave up the ghost and sloughed off 

into the earth for that final nap. 

No saplings to replace them.

3/13

BACKROADS

A drunken uncle once said, 

alcoholics know all the back roads. 

Decades later, out of habit, 

we still drive all the back roads, 

our relatives, long since dead. 

3/13

Random synchronicity in blue#

While looking for an old poem of mine, unfortunately kitted up with a generic title, Out of the Blue, which I never found using Blogger’s internal search engine (seems like I like the word blue), I decided to hunt for my poem using the Google search engines. The next thing I knew I was on a Wikipedia page where I discovered in the footnotes, that one of my blog posts had been quoted as source reference. Whoa!

Now the irony is that I was watching a YouTube video on musical theory, listening to Celine Dion belt that E flat finale, All by Myself, that killer note, and then the musician Adam Neely lifted up a heavy tome and quoted W. A. Matthau. Wait? What? I know that person. This was beginning to be a case of random synchronicity in b(lue)#.

Well, I was in the middle of correcting a couple of typos in an old essay I wrote to W. A. Matthau, who goes by Aloudin, also called Out of the Blue. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Do you see where this is going? 

There’s nothing worse than a circular file in blue, which I seem to be caught up in. I still haven’t found the blasted poem. I think maybe my blog has Alzheimer’s. Or, at least the search engine does. On the other hand, it’s somewhat understandable that I have 4500 blog entries.

I know the poem is in my blog, and hopefully Google didn’t destroy it, (it’s done that before), because everyone keeps mistaking my poem for the Simon Armitage 9/11 poem also called Out of the Blue, Well, now, I was on a roll, so I decided to search for my Out of the Blue poem using my blog’s name, Literrata, instead of using my name.

I discovered that not only have I been used as a reference four times within Wikipedia, another blogger had used my photo of William Everson as well. I was less happy to discover that some dude ripped off my rather unique blog name (a Latin word), and used it for his own blog name on Tumblr. Grrrrr! It’s bad enough that Google decided to name one of its fonts literata. And to make matters worse, some of my blog posts have been Pinterested too. Ouch!

It looks like I finally made it into Wikipedia after all, but not quite in the way I had envisioned. But I’ll take it. Four Wikipedia entries have cited me. I’ve become an open source. Better than being an open sore. I still can’t find the blasted poem I was looking for. 

Ironic in that I created this blog in 2007 in order to keep track of my poems as the manuscript binders were impossible—especially when I couldn’t remember the names of my poems. Looks like I’m back to square one. Still no poem in blue in sight.

All backroads flooded, 3.5” of rain, hail

 

Who am I on this international day of women?

March 8, 2023. Who am I on this international day of women? I am of Ireland where every place has a name and every name has a meaning. I am of four generations of strong Irish women: my great-grandmother, Jane/Sineád Rose Sullivan/Ó Súilleabháin (dark/hawk-eyed) (Walsh/Breathnach-from Wales), from Gortnascreena/GortnaScríne (place of the standing stone), Drimoleague (Droim Dhá Liag, ridge of two stones), near Skibbereen (An Sciobairín, a place of small skiffs). 

I am of Ireland. Her daughter, my grandmother, Jenny/Sineád Walsh (Reilly/Ó Raghallaigh-valiant), from Coom-anOre/Com an Óir (hollow or Valley of gold-as in a goldmine), really another place of standing stones between the River Bandon (Abhainn na Bandan, ban-dea, as in Tuatha Dé, the goddess), near Dunmanway (Dúnmaonmhuí, Dún Mánmha, the fort of yellow haired? women) and Bantry (Beanntraí, place of Beann's people (ban/ben = peak, point, prong, horn or top), Co. Cork (Corcaí/corcach, marsh). 

I am of Ireland. My grandmother, who begat Maureen/Máirín Reilly (Hurley/O hUirthile-descendants of some warrior dude, ok, it means sea-tide), San Francisco, and my mother who begat me, Maureen Hurley, Máirín ni hUirthile of San Francisco. 

Ich am of Irlonde,
Ant of the holy londe
Of Irlonde.

Goode sire, praye ich thee,
For of sainte charitee,
Com ant daunce wyt me
In Irlonde.

Medieval Irish Lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD)

I am of Ireland. Come and dance with me. What’s in a name? I can trace my mothers back to six generations of strong Irish women. My great-grandmother’s mother was Kate Connolly/O'Conghaile (descendant of Conghal, fierce wolf/hound), also born in Gortnascreena, whose mother was Julia Downey, or Devney (no v or w in Irish, O'Dunadhaigh- keeper /defender of the fort), from Esk, Kerry (an Eisc-the Fish? Or uisce?) Esk (a place of waterfalls) is a mountain near Glengarriff, overlooking Dingle, on the Beara Peninsula. 

Kerry is Ciarraí, or Ciarraighe, meaning the people of Ciar (the dark ones), the name of a pre-Celtic? tribe. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich, the son of great stallion. That takes us back into the mythological cycle. And there the trail ends. 

Who am I? I am all these women The entire maternal side of my family is 100% Irish, a rarity, despite the Walsh name. I guess you could say my ancestors came from between a few rocks and quite a few hard places. Then there’s my father’s side, also from near the River Bandon. But from there, the trail leads across the sea to Antigonish, and becomes murky, from Boston to SF, where Viola Mae Heaney, my other grandmother was born of a dysfunctional family, and so the generational trail of mental abuse ends with me.

The cultivated history of daffodils as we know it

A daffodil admiring itself in the mirror, ca. 2008. I forgot to date it.

Note bene: This blogpost began as an excerpt from a letter I wrote to novelist Gregg Dunnett who emigrated to Spain from Britain and was missing his daffodils. I never did get around to reshaping my notes into a blogpost, until a year later, so these notes are convoluted. 

Lechyd da! Those daffodils that everybody bashes over their neighbors’ heads in Wales on March 1 may not be native to Britain because daffodils, as we know them, along with rabbits, originally hailed from Iberia! So get your repatriation papers in order. 

In Wales, the daffodil is known as cenhinen Bedr or ceninn Pedr in Welsh—that which is like St. Peter’s leeks. It’s a complicated simile. The daffodil leaves resembled a leek that rules out daffodils as being native in Wales as they didn’t even know its name. According to a 1630 broadside ballad, the Welsh wore leeks in their hats to recognize friend from foe before the battle won on St David's Day. And ate them afterwards. Crossing leeks and daffodils, the national flower of Wales, could be dangerous as they are, like all lilies, extremely toxic. Don’t tell Saint Dewi.

Sant Dewi stained glass window at St Non's Chapel; note the flowers—daffodils. Wiki

To be fair, there might also have been a “native” plant that resembled the narcissus/daffodil/jonquil in the British Isles. However, I don’t trust the sources (since they’ve all copied each other, warts, and all) though I’ve included the links below. People often confuse the concept of native wildflowers with escaped naturalized cultivar flowers. Like with mustard, forget-me-nots, and Scottish bluebells…. the word “wild” can swing both ways.

But I did find this: “ The only species of narcissus native to Britain is the rather demur Lent Lily…” However, The National Records of Scotland misidentified the daffodil, or narcissus as a member of the Primulaceae family. Ak! Nope. Strike the word, “native,” add “naturalized.” (Unless it is a primrose —not a daffodil.) At least Wikipedia got that part right—they came from Iberia. I should’ve just begun my quest with Wikipedia, and saved myself a lot of grief, but I wanted original sources.

That classification error by The National Records of Scotland led me on a merry Google chase—because despite Easter being movable feast, the idea of a flower named after Lent certainly suggests a long-term cultivation. For the record, the narcissus or daffodil is a member of the Amaryllidaceae family, a lily with six tepals, and not a four-petaled primrose (oxlip looks a bit like a narcissus). And narcissi are not native to the British Isles.

In the middle ages, narcotic cowslips were called St. Peter’s herb. Wiki

And it doesn’t help that the origin and symbology of the daffodil is muddied by the strife between Catholicism and Protestantism. I suppose we could blame Martin Luther who never saw it coming when he nailed his theses on the church door at Wittenberg in 1517.

The folklore surrounding the daffodil is diverse. During the middle ages, narcissus was associated with the Virgin Mary and resurrection. Its leaves were compared to a spear, its sap was a gateway drug to the undiscovered country from which no one returns. Elysian Fields and all that. I can see the leaves of daffodils compared to spears, and Dame Edna (yes, I met him too) said that gladiolus refers to the Celtic Claymore sword. (See Narcissus in Culture.)

Etymology Online revealed that the word daffodil possibly arrived by way of Middle English affodill " (ca. 1590s) by way of the Dutch affodyle), via medieval Latin, via Ancient Greek—to make numb. Narcissi, like all lilies, are extremely toxic. But despite the added-on article, “d,” an accretion from the Dutch “de affodyle,” references cite the word (d)affodil itself as from an unknown source. Another source stated that affodyle means 'that which comes early.’

I tried another approach. First reference in English. Terminus post quem (TPC—that is, the first ever literary mention I could find…) During the “late 16th and early 17th century botanists and herbalists John Gerard and John Parkinson described them as "Pseudonarcissus Anglicus pleno", "Gerrards double Daffodill".

Ok, that reference suggests that cultivated daffodils were introduced before 1629, as there were notices concerning the introduction of daffodils to the British Isles. This may be one of the earliest citations. (And don’t forget the 1630 Welsh reference to daffodils as Saint David’s leeks). When I looked up the original source, the gardener-monk Gerard wrote that “The common yellow Daffodilly or Daftodowndilly is fo well knowne to all, that it needeth no deicription.” He also noted with almost a nod that they originally came from Spain.

“The double yellow Daffodill hath fmalf finooth narrow leaues of a darke greene colour: among which rifeth up a naked hollow ftalke, of two hands high: bearing at the top a faire and beautifull double yellow flower…The common yellow Daffodilly or Daftodowndilly is fo well knowne to all, that it needeth no deicription. We haue in our London gardens another fort of this common kinde, which naturallic groweth in Spaine, very like vnto our beft knowne Daffodil in fhape and proportion…” —Gerard’s Herbal 1597

Gerard’s Herbal may be a TPQ for the term, daftodowndilly/ daffodowndilly, not A.A. Milne. Move over Winnie the Pooh! But Milne got it right, when the daffodil arrives, it’s a sure sign of spring. Winter is dead. 

Garden historian, Dr. Twigs Way, who is associated with the Cambridge University, gets it wrong too as she too repeats that Britain also has wild daffodils. She goes on to say “Daffodils… have been seen in England since the 17th century; Shakespeare celebrated them as the flower that “comes before the swallow dares”, and bunches of wild blooms were sold by flower girls on the streets of London.” 

The full Shakespeare quote: “Daffodils/ that comes before the swallow dares, and takes /the winds of March with beauty…”, (Winter’s Tale, Act IV Scene 3), which makes the reference date ca. 1609-11. Too late. Not TPQ.

Dr. Twig’s 17th century reference is too late on the cultural horizon, as by the Elizabethan era, daffodils and asphodels were firmly ensconced, if not entrenched in English literature. Somehow the dubious connection with the asphodel and daffodil ca. the 15th c. isn’t exactly a TPQ either. By the time the Daffodil Society was founded in 1898, the greeny asphodel dominated the decorative arts—especially William Morris’s wallpaper. No, not the wallpaper Oscar Wilde morbidly objected to. (And yes, like Winston, I ended that sentence on a preposition.)

I was reminded that William Carlos Williams wrote: "Asphodel, that greeny flower." I always wondered what the greeny asphodel was. (I was lazy and went to school before internet!) You know how the poets are overfond of death as muse. But Milton said it earlier: “To embathe in nectared lavers strewed with asphodel.” (Comus, 1634). And Tennyson wrote: "Others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel." 

And somewhere along the way, the similar sounding asphodel and daffodil and their death mythology were conflated with each other. cross colonization. Deep botany as we know it hadn't yet been invented. Asphodelaceae (which includes the red hot poker plant) wasn’t identified by Carl Linnaeus until 1753. Let that sink in.

So here’s the rub, asphodel is a completely separate family that got kicked out of the lily family along with aloe and asparagus by the way. DNA never lies. Allo? Who’s your daddy? And they do look like our New World Oenothera, aka evening-primrose. And there were no less than 10 different species of asphodel on the Iberian peninsula. The yellow ones do look a bit like daffodils if you have a good imagination, or need glasses and hearing aid.

Cleric Robert Herrick, in To Daffodils (1648), described narcissi as portents of death: Fair Daffodils, we weep to see/ You haste away so soon…And of course, By the time Wordsworth wrote his famous 1804 poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, When all at once I saw a crowd/A host, of golden daffodils;/Beside the lake…daffodils were thoroughly naturalized and canonized ad nauseam in English literature.

A teacher asked me for a drawing to go with Wordsworth. I got an epic sunburn in Feb.

Digging deeper, I found a vague reference: “Daffodils were introduced into gardens in about 300 BC. The Greek botanist and philosopher Theophrastus listed and described many of the earliest known kinds of narcissus in his nine-volume 'Enquiry into Plants'. Daffodils were brought to Britain by the Romans who thought that the sap from daffodils had healing powers.” (What? 300 BC? Asphodel or daffodil? Whose gardens? Where?)

I found another plagiarized source: “Narcissi were introduced to the UK in about 300 BC by the Romans who later inexplicably abandoned these blooms.” What? Somebody lifted and condensed  the sentence out of context, replete with the arrival date typo. Now, I’m fairly certain that the Romans had not settled in Britain circa 300 BC. That quote should probably read that in Greece and also in Rome people were cultivating daffodils circa 300 BC. In the Mediterranean, not Britain.

Trying to find out the truth about daffodils from the internet is like trying to sort out whether or not rabbits were brought to southern Britain by the Romans, or if they were introduced later during the Norman Conquest. See, that inexplicable line of logic suggests that daffodils were not introduced to Britain at all by the Romans, but much later. Like the rabbits. It always amazes me that people post nonsense and don’t even verify the basics—like a timeline.

A close-up, Mr. deMille, stabilo, pencil, ca. 1994; original drawing was destroyed.

I tried another approach. DNA. Yep, genetics definitively rules out the possibility of there being any endemic narcissi in Britain (see excerpts from a paper, below). Genetics can measure what is lost in the process of cultivation, and defines Iberia as the homeland of British “wild” daffodils. Iberian narcissi have the most genetic diversity whereas the daffodil cultivars of Britain have a truncated genetic pool. And the answer is daffodils were not introduced by the Romans. Certainly not in 300 BC! 

Also, narcissi weren’t even cultivated until Muslim era ca. the 10th -12th centuries. Etymology Online, footnotes daffodil with: “First reference to the yellow, early spring flower we know by this name (Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus) is from 1590s.” So, I didn’t get my TPQ closure as to when daffodils were introduced to the British Isles, but I can surmise they arrived from Holland somewhere around the 15th to the 16th century, and, as they say, the rest is history. at least the Welsh had enough common sense to not conflate the daffodil with the asphodel and made a leeky simile instead. Ceninn Ped. Happy St. David’s Day.

I was playing with backlighting. These daffodils were miniatures from the supermarket.

GRAUPEL

At the summit of Wilson Hill, 

a pale wing of snow slurried over Chileno Valley, 

turned to graupel, painted my windshield & the road white, 

then melted back into darkness.

And then a stray rainbow 

pointed an accusing finger

at Mt. St. Helena and Sonoma Mountain 

blanketed in snow.

3/1/23

READY OR NOT

         In the name of the bee, the butterfly, the breeze. Amen  

                                                              —Emily Dickinson

Let the wind sough through the tall pines on the crest of the ridge, where if you were to climb their heights, you’d see the ocean rising and falling like a great beast nestled beneath silvered quilts.

Let the sky be filled with storm clouds, may they offer you billowing thunderheads, and cumulus towers painted in pastel hues approaching sunset, so that you can see the tender colors are also part of the process.

Let the seagulls and vultures scavenge on the wind, turn and drift like flotsam. They too are fugitives of the storm, let them bathe your eye in the soft comfort of memory. 

This is their promise so that the birds playing hide-and-seek, will know that there is more to this darkness than indigo seeking the endlessness of imploded stars.

Maybe the dawn will find you seated among the clouds, or even on the shoulders of time. Remember they are always seeking new forms of expression. It too is a form or prayer. 

Watch the snow falling on clement shores, notice it dance with the surf and sea foam—those frothy herds—the horses of the sea god Manannán, my grandmother said. Charon, she said, mind the penny.

Let the amphorae of grief collected under duress, wedged into cold cellars of the heart, or maybe even dark corners of the soul, be catalogued, emptied and scoured clean. Let them be daylighted.

Think of them as cold storage, containment devices, so necessary at the time. But it’s time to break those jars and let it all loose. It is not a case of Pandora’s box. You will survive it.

No need to curate the past, the outcome is the same. It is a vessel, something you collected, then moved on from. It served a purpose and gave you tools. A hammer, a shovel, and a bell.

However flawed, grief is no longer a question waiting to be answered. Notice how the morning sun strikes the distant ridges dressed in snow light, blinding you with beauty.

Remember, whether you’re ready or not, transformation is at hand.

1/3/23 Write On! Susie Terence

Pádraig Ó Tuama developed a writing exercise called a Collect poem, where the poem becomes a homily or credo. See hymns to swear by. This poem prompt was from a David Whyte poem, Winter Grief.

• OH, WIND

Oh, Wind published in Fly Like the Clouds of Time, 2022 California Poets in the Schools Statewide Anthology

Oh, Wind published in Fly Like the Clouds of Time, 2022 California Poets in the Schools Statewide Anthology. Available from CaliforniaPoets.org and Amazon. I was late submitting and didn’t realize it was selected until today’s Zoom reading. I had never read it aloud before. Until today.

And one of my student’s poems was selected for the CPITS newsletter and book announcement. I had ten student poems from four school, selected.

Write invoice for a life past due

1. In the morning my voice feels like a lost horizon, a longshoreman headed for home at daybreak. The sun warming the edges of the ridges to the west. The stars weren’t quite ready to let go of all that indigo serenity. Perhaps the moon is setting, the lump in my throat reminds me to stay in the present tense, this day, this new beginning, is all that there is. Beginning now.

When I was a child, my voice was soft as warbling birds and singing was a second nature. My voice was a thin, reedy wind coming down from the ridgetops, its sighing having emanated deep in the pines. Those sighs followed me, my voice took on the stubbornness of stone, like the layers of ribbon chert laid down long ago beneath the seafloor. All the detritus of living transformed into metamorphic rock, into these mountains I call home.

My voice is closest to the earth, when I dream, because in dreams, my voice becomes the wings of small birds, escaping on the wind as I traverse the landscape of my psyche.

My mother, tired of hearing a child’s monotonous sing-song, told me to either sing or shut up. I love to sing, my voice was like the blackbirds in the cattails lining the pond. So I put it away in a box never letting it out of sight. But my voice wanted to scry on the updrafts and thermals, circling the valley of memory and the past.