WHAT THE MIND WANTS

My mind wants hot buttered scones, 

not too sweet, and best dripping with salted butter. 

It wants that fat that delivers flavor, 

those omega fatty 3 acids, you know, like salmon. 

It wants payload, it wants soothing. 

It is always raging against something—

including the dying of the light. 

Sometimes I can’t control all that anger and angst. 

It doesn’t want burnt toast, it wants new ideas, 

new horizons, not the dregs of the past, regurgitated. 

That’s all it asks for. Nothing more.

2/24 Write the mind open with Patrice Veccione

Maureen Hurley Guest Poet @Claremont Branch

 

— Clearly Meant presents -

Maureen Hurley

Guest Poet @Claremont

2:00 to 3:00pm

Saturday

February 17, 2024

Claremont Branch

2940 Benvenue @ Ashby

hosted by Glenn Ingersoll

Maureen Hurley reads her poems, followed by an interview and discussion

A West Marin native, Maureen Hurley has taught poetry for many years in Bay Area schools, including here in Berkeley at Alexander Valley and Malcolm X. Her writing appears in a variety of venues, in print and online, including in the anthologies Atomic Ghost, House on Via Gambito, and a forthcoming anthology of poems on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Catching the Last Light. Also a visual artist, Hurley's photos of Julia Vinograd will be featured in a documentary on the Berkeley Street Poet.

A free chapbook is available at Berkeley Public Library branches. Please pick one up!

For directions or other information call the Claremont Branch 510 981-6820

BERKELEY PUBLIC LIBRARY

www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org

510-548-1240

MAYDAY, MAYDAY

I do love a good parade and a procession.
There’s a lamplit parade down by the harbor, 

Victorian women and children all dressed in white 

circle the lake carrying Chinese paper lanterns lit with candles,

the trail snakes on for miles. What are they celebrating? 

A Mayday parade? Suffragettes? A ghost army on the move? 

From the wrought iron balcony two men look on,

they flex their biceps with their sleeves rolled up,

as if the muggy evening were asking for trouble. 

2/14/24 Molly Fisk PaD

Since when does posting a recipe go against “community standards” on Facebook

Was it the word “Wensleydale…” i tried to add that triggered the Facebook AI bots? I tried to fix a typo on a Facebook post I had written. I added the word, Wensleydale, which I used to stuff my crêpes with, and to add the circumflex on crêpes. And then I got shut down by Facebook for six days for “going against community standards.” Surely that can’t be right. 

Besides, Facebook tends to change whatever I write deciding that I couldn’t possibly want to use that particular word, and changes it into something really ridiculous—leaving me feeling like an idiot. So of course I’m constantly correcting my comments.

So now I am banned from making comments on anyone’s post, including my own—for six days. each in fraction expands exponentially. What I am specifically being punished for, I’m not exactly sure. Hell’s bells, I’m not even vaguely sure. However, I discovered that I could edit my Mardi Gras status update notice to alert my friends. Sweet revenge.

I actually went back and looked at all my Facebook activity for the day to see if that would shed some light. Was it the Robert Reich quote and link on Gaza? But the opinion piece is also posted on his Facebook page.

Or was it my rather pedantic comment on the Oregon plague case, when I said it probably wasn’t the cat to blame. I explained how plague fleas come from rats, not cats. They are completely different species, the fleas, the rats, the cats. And I posted a link to my blogpost on the plague as I had done extensive research on it.

But the only other comment I could find that might be considered vaguely upsetting to those stinker Facebook bots, was a comment I had left under the new Midsomer Murders season ad, “I’m really surprised that anyone is still left alive in Midsomer.” It’s an insider joke—25 seasons of murder and mayhem in a small fictitious English village is a lot of bodies. Must be the bawdy count.

Update: my dear friend, Claudia Siefer just had her profile picture, a Cease Fire in Gaza peace sign removed by FB—after being up for three weeks. So I think the mention of Gaza is the culprit. Talk about body count.

Post hip blues

I re-injured my hip from my August mishap. My left leg fell asleep while I was writing. I was too impatient to wake it up. So I charged down the stairs, like a rhino, and got a colossal Charley-horse for my troubles. 

I pulled my psoas and hip flexor muscles, along with my thigh and calf muscles. my leg turned magenta, I thought I was going to die. I did myself in good this time. Then I thought I was going to die from the pain. My impatience and my urge to work through the pain laid me up for more than two months during the summer.

Fast forward, various minor abuses, mainly from moving all my stuff into storage In December because I had to move all my stuff from Donna Champion’s house, resulted in a re-injury of my hip flexor muscles two weeks ago, Wednesday. 

Week one was excruciating pain. I thought I was going to die. But I knew the drill. Week two, I was able to hobble about a bit. Tomorrow is week three. I can walk, but it hurts and threatens worse to come. There is no cure except rest and time—and the biggest punishment, not standing up. I have to teach tomorrow. How will I do it? Horizontally? Here’s hoping it’s not too soon to be up and about.

All this to say I am not in my Wednesday zoom writing group because I teach Wednesdays and I’ve been in far too much pain to write in Molly‘s February poem day group. Playing catch up. You think with all this downtime, I’d have some good writing bits. Nope. You can’t write when you’re in pain.

CABARET

Vanity, thy name is Peacock standing on a vanity. 

Well, actually the peacock is preening himself 

in front of the mirror in a public restroom, 

possibly at a park, but at least he chose the men’s room. 

It could be worse. Maybe he was avoiding the long loo lines.

He admires himself and his tres chic body double,

never taking on his reflection like some birds I know. 

No head-banging against the glass like that chickadee 

I finally had to capture to give him a time out 

before he broke his beak in a testosterone-induced rage.

The peacock’s long tail is like a ballgown train, 

perhaps he is planning to attend the Oscars for best of show. 

Or he’s an exotic dancer escaped from the Folies Bergère. 

He’s got the long legs perfect for the role. But this is not Paris.

Why he chose that place to admire himself and preen, 

I suspect it is something we will never know.

2/13/24 Molly Fisk PaD

Wardrobe malfunctions and butt capes

 I hope Amal remembers to pick up the front of her gorgeous long dress before she begins her ascent up those stairs. That’s a whole lot of train to drag uphill. Even Handsome George won’t be able to help her out of her predicament if she walks up her skirt.

When I used to usher for the plays at College of Marin, we would dress up in Elizabethan attire for Shakespeare. Robin Williams was running so far off script with Malvolio that director Jim Dunn was having apoplexy. We thought he was going to stroke out. James Harper was playing…awk, some head honcho, can’t remember…. 

During another performance, he magnanimously slammed the door on his voluminous cloak, and kept on walking until he hit the end of his, er, cape… well…. Unfortunately, I shrieked out laughing because it was so unintentionally funny. Then it was payback time.

And besides, cross-gartered Malvolio had totally broken the fourth wall with his ad-lib antics between scenes, sticking up his legs—encased in yellow hose and cris-crossed in scarlet ribbons—in the up in the air to do aerobic scissor kicks as if he were in a water ballet class. Talk about hosing the audience. I nearly wet my knickers.

Anyway, imagine if you will, I was leading some folks who were late, to their seats, with flashlight and tickets in hand, but I didn’t lift up the front of my dress. I trod right up the inside of my velvet empire dress a few step until my dress literally brought me to my knees. Luckily, the neckline was made of elastic, and I proceeded to bare my entire chest to the navel to everyone coming down the stairs. Luckily the lights were dimmed.

Luckily, too, that I was wearing a bra. At least I think I was. In those days I didn’t often wear a bra. It was the 1970s. Besides, there wasn’t a whole lot going on upstairs to begin with. But I had to back down off my dress, therefore running over the poor people behind me….backwards. In the dark. They were not happy. I was not happy. No one was happy. I was still half dressed.

Moral of the story is if you’re wearing a long dress, remember to pick up the front so you don’t walk up at. Especially if you’re wearing a heavy train.

But someone else posted a photo of her turning around. The reveal. No wonder she’s not picking up her dress, it’s not even a dress with a long train, it’s a voluminous butt cape or a half-assed overly inflated tutu. Unfortunately, that look makes it look like she stole someone’s flouncy floral curtains from the living room. The bustier is a nice touch though, with the yoga pants. Does this mean she is cross-dressing? or is it curtains?

WORK HORSE, DAWN RUN

Seagulls frantically circle the trawler at dawn, 

hoping for a handout while the dark sky broods, 

threatening rain, but the morning sun 

ignites the surface of the sea with an amber fire. 

The Sea Farmer chugs south towards the open sea, 

or perhaps he’s headed to Tomales Bay or Bodega Harbor 

while the landfolk sleep sound in the coastal hills, 

recumbent as a woman tangled up in sheets, 

and no one in the houses is awake. 

All the dark windows of the soul are closed,

dreaming of an open sea.

2/11/24 Molly Fisk PaD

FOUR STARLINGS

In the photograph, four speckled starlings 

still in their baby fuzz, congregate, 

their shadows aligned to the sun. 

This is how murmuration begins, like that. 

Soon they will take to the sky and dance on the wing, 

following an inner music only they can hear 

as they pulse and weave at dusk 

while we listen to the thrumming of feathers 

beating out a percussion in the air. 

Nothing prepares you for the sound, 

it’s something you have to witness at least once, 

to see those unpredictable sentinels queue up 

for a rave in the sky, as dressing a prayer 

for the wind.

2/10/24 Molly Fisk PaD

SELF PORTRAIT AS A SEA URCHIN

It’s all in the exoskeleton, where divergence occurs. 

Or what makes us different from the others. 

How we reshape our inner landscape to fit our vision. 

Someone posted a psychology test 

where the beginning of a maze dead-ended. 

Nowhere to go, as if offering a conundrum 

was beneficial to teach children to think different.

But I learned from that playbook the hard way 

because I can’t help but think outside the box. 

So I went in the exit and worked my way back

to the center, not knowing it was the answer. 

And I thought of how we present ourselves in our finery. 

Call it armor if you must, so as not to let anyone in,

or that urge to catch a glimpse of our fictitious selves, 

in our attempts to hide from what is in front of us.

2/9/24. Molly Fisk PaD.

Baby wood dragons

So last week, I was teaching poetry to fifth graders, some of whom I have known since kindergarten, but haven’t worked with them in a few years, at Malcolm X Elementary School in Berkeley—when I mentioned the four elements and the six Chinese elements for our I Am poetry prompt, which led circuitously to the upcoming year of the dragon. And I said, I’m a dragon, I was born in the year of the water dragon, and many of the kids raised their hands and said, We are dragons too. OK so our calculations may have been a tad off, but that’s all right. And then I thought, here I am teaching poetry, kindling the imaginations of baby wood dragons. The next generation to ignite the world.

Gratuitous sex and violence in films

Pretty-faced actor, Henry Cavill who looks like he could be related to Mel Gibson, sparked a debate when he said that he cannot stand sex scenes. I concur. I absolutely cannot stand watching gratuitous sex scenes in film and television—as they are boring—especially when the scene doesn’t drive the plot. You get 10 minutes of gratuitous grunting, or violence. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference.. Creepy enough as it is, I also dislike being put into the role of being a peeping Tom, or a voyeur. 

For starters, most of us don’t need instructions. And the sex and violence scenes go on forever. Blow by slovenly blow. Sometimes I wonder who is getting off here. The director? The producer? And who is the audience? Puerile teenage boys? Certainly not the actors. Ditto that for gratuitous violence. 

Having survived the Summer of Love, the 1960s and 70s, I am hardly a prude. Especially since I come from the hot tub capital of the world. Not to mention living in the Bay Area home of free speech and civil protest. And a few riots... I was at that Abbie Hoffman rally at UC Berkeley.

How many people saw Cyra McFadden‘s The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County? My grade school classmate, Mark Rasmussen, was the dude in the hot tub with all the peacock feathers. it’s funny that it’s become such a cliché, because, though we had hot tubs and peacock feathers, we did not to have them together. It was a figment of McFadden‘s imagination.

The imagination is much more interesting when it comes to things like that. I usually do something else while they play it out in real time, as it were. I am usually guaranteed at least 10 minutes downtime while the producers get off.

GRAZING IN STARK BEAUTY, MONTGOMERY PASS, NV

A band of mustangs grazes 

in high mountain meadows, 

ignoring the man resting against his motorcycle. 

To each his own, horsepower is horsepower, 

even when it’s twice removed from beauty. 

The granite range the continental divide 

dreams of the snow that will paint 

the alpine meadows in white.

The weary sagebrush bend their heads,

grizzled before their time, 

scud clouds portending snow.

2/8/24 Molly Fisk, poem a day

Full moon bridge

The medieval bridge built in a half circle meets itself full circle in the middle of the placid river. It could be Tibet, it could be Italy, or Scotland. Once I saw a perfect reflection of Kelvin Bridge down at the river bank. 

The shore lined with hypodermic needles tied us to this century. Go down to the river and flirt with death, seeking a path to nirvana that will take you down. The circle of Kelvin Bridge and river contemplates itself in a wilderness out of time with the mean streets of Glasgow. 

Meanwhile in Tibet, the photo is of a primitive cow and her calf follow their owner across an old bridge, still standing. He should be from another era with his bamboo hat and palm frond rain cape. He carries the harness yoke for her on his right shoulder. She needs no lead line to know that they are going home.

Once I crossed the Brig o’ Doon in Alloway, a pure arc across the river. Someone had strewn red carnations on the cobbled footpath. There is a new bridge for cars, but here time stops and lets no one pass. 

The herringbone pattern of cobbles was laid to confuse and thwart witches, a drunken Tam O’Shanter on the run. Well done, Cutty Sark.The creatures of the night cannot cross the water so they sulk and wait for the poet. While he had the DTs, Rabbie Burns taunted too many thirsty warlocks looking for the keystone. Not to mention Nannie, who caught the tail end of the horse.

2/7/24 Molly Fisk, poem a day, OK, so it’s not a poem.

storm front

After five days of back to back storms, no power, I’m getting desperate. I am housesitting at Sam’s place while he is in hospital. I am desperate for tea, or anything warm, really. An all electric kitchen sucks when the power goes out. I am freezing as well. No heat, no hot water. No showers. I ache. My hip hurts. After five days of no tea, and no coffee, I have massive headaches and am cranky as shit. 

The power has been out everywhere including at the community center. Even their generator died. Sam’s landlord, Jay has solar panels but who knew they needed Wi-Fi in order to work? No way to talk to them. Go figure. So any chance of power is nixed for the long run. 

The nights are long when I am sitting in the dark. Luckily I have books on tape, but my iPad is having trouble keeping a charge so I spend afternoons in my car charging my iPad. I can’t sign into my Zoom writing class because there’s no Wi-Fi to be had anywhere in West County.  

So I drive into Fairfax, looking for godlight and for Wi-Fi. The library was closed, but it had an outdoor outlet, so I boiled water, and paid homage to the electric kettle gods. Hot tea never tasted so good. I charge up my iPad with the car and surf like a madwoman until it’s time to go. Click. Shit. Dead battery. 

So I roll the gray guppy backwards in the parking lot pushing off with my bum hip. I’ve been laid up for a couple of weeks now, somehow I managed to strain my hip flexor muscle again so walking is agony, but apparently pushing a car one-legged is OK. Go figure. 

I push the car out of the parking spot, get it rolling down the hill backwards, and, damned if it didn’t start up. Backwards. First two times I popped the clutch, I pre-empted myself, I forgot to turn on the ignition, then popped the clutch too soon. The car juddered. Third time’s a charm. 

A momentary break in the storm before the next front arrives. Sometimes it’s good to have faith in the ordinary, trusting that things will work out in the end. Now, that’s love.

But wait! Not content with just warm tea, I took a mug of soup down to the community center Hoping to find power. PG&E was their supplying power, but no Wi-Fi, no kitchen. Dorothy and Alexa were in the office. Dorothy Cox had power in Woodacre so we drove to her house where I heated up my soup, beautiful soup, chicken Thai coconut soup. 

And now that’s heavenly, or maybe it was divine intervention. Dorothy is a lay minister. God is not a metaphor to her. And now the thunderclouds are painted in pastel hues. Now that’s God painting the sky after the storm.

FALLOW DEER, ABANDONED HOUSE

And why wouldn’t a fallow deer 

jump through the open window of a building 

with paint crazed like the melting ice sheets 

of Greenland and Antarctica?

The lower four square windows are gone.

Maybe the buck sailed through the open window 

to get to the center of things, a portal, 

his spots, so like stars guiding the way. 

Adobe walls, a skin of plaster lime 

fashioned in the style of wainscotting. 

They say a wild bird in the house portends a dream. 

Where is he going? Someone said 

it’s a Wyeth kind of window, 

a painted dream remembered in half light,

forgotten by dawn.

2/6/24 Molly Fisk, poem a day

MACY’S DAY PARADE, 1969

Two young girls dawdle at the bay window 

anticipating the big Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, 

but at the last moment, turn their backs to the window, 

to face the photographer forever trapped in black & white, 

while a 3-story Snoopy balloon photobombs the image. 

The downtown skyline, opulent as a paste necklace, 

embraces the heaving bosom of the sky. 

What did they find so interesting in the living room? 

Canvas cushions line the window bench, 

an old wooden steamer trunk, relic of a bygone era 

of steamships and luxury liners,

turned into a chic coffee table,

that will no longer sail abroad to Egypt or the Continent, 

is docked in a walk-up apartment, 

strewn with glossy books offering distant vistas 

that no one will look at. Places they’ll never go. 

Snoopy dressed as an astronaut, moons the crowd,

takes that first giant leap into the future.

2/5/24 Molly Fisk Poem a Day

FRUITING BODIES

Budding like ripening cherries on stalks, 

a colony of slime mold raises cerise orbs skyward, 

holding aloft the next generation, small suns,

while droplets of water reflect a slippery realm 

of fruiting bodies so like a family portrait 

of Chihuly sculptures in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel. 

They gamble, and grow a backbone to greet the storm.

2/4/24 Molly Fisk Poem a Day

AEOLIAN WIND

If you must yield, always yield to a whim 

because it’s a secret your heart admires. 

At the top of the ridge, it will hold you to it, 

show you your heart’s desire, even though the skies 

are laden with dark clouds, and the trees 

gossip about the upcoming storm. 

Hog wire fence tipped with strands 

of barbwire dazzled with rain

is for sheep, or horses, not for cattle 

who will push their way through it.

But the wires play an atonal melody 

with the aeolian wind.

2/3/24 Molly Fisk’s Poem a Day

Remembering Herb Caen

“Sacramenna Kid,” Herb Caen (April 3, 1916 – February 1, 1997), San Francisco’s epic satire columnist had a lifelong love affair with The City. He immortalized San Francisco with nearly 60 years’ worth of pithy columns chock full of local happenings, insider gossip, and puns. He was credited with coining the phrase, “Baghdad by the Bay,” and bestowed the term, “Beatnik” upon poet Bob Kaufman.

Caen introduced and popularized the term “hippie” (never hippy—unless you were a hippo), Summer of Love and Frisbeetarianism, and Berserkeley. But San Francisco, his real mistress, was always The City. Caen’s daily columns were paeans, "A continuous love letter to San Francisco" and a special Pulitzer Prize called him the "voice and conscience" of San Francisco.

Herb Caen loved what he dubbed "Namephreaks"‍—‌people whose names (aptronyms) were appropriate or inappropriate to their vocations including substitute teacher Mr. Fillin, piano teacher Patience Scales, orthopedic specialist Dr. Kneebone, and the Vatican's spokesman on the evils of rock 'n roll, Cardinal Rapsong.

I had a seriously uptight ramrod of a science teacher in seventh grade called Mr. Sliney. And the other science teacher who replaced him (after he broke a ruler over a student’s hands) was called Mr. Plant.

The quasily-fictional character, “Strange de Jim” was Caen’s chief informer, alter ego, and purveyor of naughty puns. Caen called him "gu-ru di tutti guruskies.” (Strange showed up to Caen’s memorial to deliver a eulogy while wearing two Sesame Street pillowcases over his head.) But soon everyone got into the informer act—he had an “army of reliable tipsters.”

If you made it into one of Herb columns either as an informer, or by (un)honorable mention, you had either arrived, or you had to live down the tale. It was an honor to be lampooned in Herb’s column. Even my father who lost his wallet to a combative squirrel in a park never quite lived down, or up to his new moniker, “Squirrely Hurley.”

*. *. *

Many of Herb Caen’s stellar columns were published in collection of essays, “Baghdad-by-the-Bay,” in 1949, and in “Don't Call It Frisco‍”—‌after a judge's rebuke to an out-of-town petitioner ("No one refers to San Francisco by that title except people from Los Angeles")‍ in 1953. In total he wrote 11 books, including children’s stories.

One reader remembered: When Herb Caen left Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner to join the San Francisco Chronicle, he took 10k subscribers with him. Our man about town was so popular he was nominated for president at the 1984 San Francisco Democratic Convention. Word has it some of those buttons are still floating around in bottomless martini glasses.

Caen received a special Pulitzer Prize (which he called his Pullet Surprise) in 1996 for "extraordinary and continuing contribution as a voice and conscience of his city."Caen was an astute collector of The City’s urban folklore.

After writing upwards of 16,000 columns, at a thousand words a day on his loyal Royal, he thought it was a joke. "Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist," he wrote. "Well, it does have a certain ring to it. And it will definitely add a touch of class to the obituary.” Then he shut his door and wrote his column.

June 14, 1996, was officially celebrated in San Francisco as Herb Caen Day replete with a parade to the Ferry Building. TV news legend Walter Cronkite even showed up and the Damnbarcadero was rechristened "Herb Caen Way…

Caen, the king of what he dubbed "three-dot journalism" was famous for his signature three-dot ellipses separating his short news snippets. And the characteristic three asterisks designating a sea change, separating the acts from the grind.

“In 1993, he told an interviewer that he declined to retire because "my name wouldn't be in the paper and I wouldn't know if I was dead or alive," adding that his obituary would be his last column: "It will trail off at the end, where I fall face down on the old Royal with my nose on the 'I' key.” —Wiki

*. *. *

In his eulogy, Robin Williams said, “A very special Herb communion will consist of dry martinis and sourdough bread. And if you don't see God then, you never will.” And “I think that I know that you wouldn't mind me making jokes up here today because that's part of what you did. You made it kind of possible for us all to gather here and appreciate this very bizarre place.” Williams owed his early career success to Caen’s promotions.

My college schoolmate Robin said, I'd like you to turn to your hymnals. This is (Caen's book) "Baghdad by the Bay." and he read from it: 

"The crowded garages and the empty old buildings above them, the half-filled nightclubs and the overfilled apartment houses, the saloons and the skies and the families huddled in the basements, the Third Street panhandlers begging for handouts in front of pawn shops filled with treasured trinkets, the great bridges and the rattle-trap street cars, the traffic that keeps moving although it has no place to go, thousands of newcomers glorying in the sights and sounds of a city they suddenly decided to love instead of leave." —Herb Caen, Baghdad by the Bay

“I'm sorry you had to leave, man, but you're still here. See ya.”

*. *. *

“If I do go to heaven, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven. He looks around and says, "It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco." —Herb Caen

*. *. *

The day Herb Caen died, it was standing room only at Grace Cathedral, and at all his local watering holes, people stood a dozen deep, the Stoli and gin ran like water and the bartenders ran out of martini glasses, so they improvised with wine and water glasses. All for six-bits as Herb would say. A few parched souls opted for this infamous Vitamin V shot - Stoli over ice in a wineglass with a twist.

People noshed on his favorite meal, meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Next day, the entire city awoke with a massive, pulsating hangover. Pass the aspirin and Alka-seltzer.

Yesterday I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes in honor of Herb Caen, but I passed on the six-bit martinis. I had adult gu…I mean wine, instead. Here’s to you, Herb, wherever you are.

ONDINE’S REALM

That painting of drowning Ophelia at the Tate 

always haunted me, even in sleep. 

As a child I had nightmares of tsunamis 

or swimming the Australian crawl 

up the back roads after school.

Yeah, most people have flying dreams. 

Mine were always couched in subliminal terms, 

stranded somewhere between air and water.

When the tsunamis engulfed me, 

I discovered I could breathe underwater. 

Sometimes my safety raft was a shoe, the flat, girly kind. 

I was too young to read symbolism into my dreams, 

but I loved merging with the elements,

in the bathtub where everything was fish-eyed,

but after I nearly drowned, my grandmother dragged me 

down the road to Barbano's salt water pool, 

at 25 cents a lesson. I was an 8-bit swimmer.

That summer, I circled neighborhood pools 

seeking a baptism between air and water.

I gawped at pools, slipping in when no one was looking.

When I took to snorkeling, in the tropics,

I couldn’t get enough of that underworld realm 

where the sky and sun were distant wavery thoughts, 

the world I inhabited was painted anew.

Did Monet think about Ondine’s slippery realm 

as he painted canvases of waterlilies 

large enough to fill the imagination?

2/2/24 Molly Fisk’s Poem a Day

VENICE BEACH

My grandmother always said,

Never turn your back on the ocean. 

I learned that it was a seething monster 

riptides whisked you away to the great beyond. 

I learned to swim late, but water was a siren call. 

I had found my element. Small water dragon.

My grandmother, who taught me to count the waves,

tried to swim at Sutro Baths. It never took.

She never trusted the water. I was fearless. 

Even at ten, riptides whisking me out didn’t scare me. 

When I visited my mother one summer in Venice Beach, 

I spent every waking hour in the water. 

She had an apartment right on the boardwalk.

She slept all day, went out by night, 

leaving me in charge of my baby brother. 

But the mornings were mine alone.

There was never any food in the house 

so I ate cream of wheat until the box was empty. 

The taste of brown sugar and butter 

still takes me back to those days. 

Lately, I’ve returned to that sweet elixir. 

Call it a second childhood, it invokes 

those sandy southern California beaches, 

misted mornings, and the ocean, whispering, 

huge outsider waves urging me onward, out to sea, 

no strangely cheerful Pikachu offering a life-raft.

Just the raw power of the waves 

and the liminal horizon urging me onward.

2/1/24 Molly Fisk’s Poem a Day

About those wild mustards

With thanks to Ellin Barret who first piqued my curiosity for this post.

Because a friend posted this meme, I was off and running. So I decided to let my fingers do the walking through Wikipedia to resolve for once, and for all, the differences between the escaped feral “wild” mustards that ravage the California landscape in spring. And yes, we do have several rather diminutive native mustard species.

What I discovered is that there was not one species, but over 30 separate species of “wild” mustard plants or brassica. And very few “wild”mustards are actually wild, they are almost all feral. Our most favored mustard species, Eurasian Brassica oleracea, that the ancient Celts and Romans were so fond of, gives us those yummy cultivars (all from the same species, like a breed), including kale, cabbage, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, etc.

Although some species of mustard plants were established crops in Hellenistic and Roman times, there are few archeological records. Wild forms of mustard and its relatives, the radish and turnip, found over Eurasia, suggests domestication took place in that region. However, Zohary and Hopf conclude: "Suggestions as to the origins of these plants are necessarily based on linguistic considerations." The Encyclopædia Britannica states that mustard was grown by the Indus Civilization of 2500–1700 BC. —Wiki

An Asian mustard species from the Hindu Kush, Brassica rapa, one of the first invasive field mustards to bloom in California, gives us bok choy, Napa cabbage (really Beijing cabbage!), rapini, turnips, canola oil, etc. More on native and invasive mustards here.

Highly invasive black mustard or Brassica nigra is the most common species found in California. The seeds were theoretically brought here by the Franciscan friars scattering mustard seeds as they walked from mission to mission—bits and seeds of B. nigra were found in adobe brick made in the 1700s. 

Also, according to the scriptures, tiny mustard seeds were held in high regard because though the seeds may be small, their potential for growth is enormous; to enter the kingdom of heaven begins with faith. Jesus was reputed to have said:

"For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20-21)

Nearly all Brassica seem to have one thing in common, a four-petaled flower shaped like a cross, hence the name cruciferous vegetables. Even the diminutive jewelflower species of California, Nevada and the Southwest have four petals, but they are so tiny, they are nearly invisible. 

No matter how you feel about invasive species, I must admit that it is pretty stunning when entire hillsides are solid yellow with mustard in spring. It’s a great cover crop, conditions the soil (and kills pests.) But it is so invasive that it also smothers all native species—including our diminutive milk maids, and vigorous California poppies.

And yes, we do have many diminutive native California brassica species according to iNaturalist. My personal favorites are a magenta wallflower, or rockcress, milk maids, desert candles, and the crazy stripped-down endemic jewelflowers—some species so rarified they only grow in one small patch in the world. It seems that each mountain range has its own species of jeweleeed—and most are endangered species.

And closely related to black mustard, and B. rapa, the Brassica napus or brown mustard species, aka rapeseed, also gives us canola oil, Siberian kale, and rutabagas. Originally from India, it spread to Asia and farmers diversified it by developing cultivars. It's a really popular cover crop in Ukraine along with those heliotropic North American sunflowers. 

Yes, North American: Helianthus annuus—though they were first domesticated and cultivated by Native Americans 4500 years ago, they were commercialized in Russia and Ukraine. Sunflowers and mustard are important sources of vegetable oil. All that oil to fuel the world. We won’t discuss the atrocities suffered by mustard gas unleashed by the Germans at Ypres during World War I.

The ancient Romans not only invented fish sauce (of the Worcestershire persuasion), they also might have invented mustard as a condiment (the Egyptians also used mustard) by mixing ground mustard seeds with grape juice (called “must"), thus giving us the word mustard!

The word "rape" came from Latin for turnip, rāpa or rāpum, Greek word ῥάφη, rhaphe. The Romans were quite crazy for their cabbages. 

Radish means root in Latin. Apparently Egyptians were noshing on radishes before the Pyramids were built. Perhaps the workers were fueled on by radishes and salt. After all, the Romans paid their workers with salt, which means salted cruciferous greens, hence the word salary.

Meanwhile, the French are still buttering and salting their radishes. Forget about that sinus cleaner, Japanese wasabi. Medieval Germans were so crazy for radishes that they grew them bigger and better. Imagine massive 100-pound radishes ravishing the countryside. Radishes, not mustard, were the first cruciferous crops introduced to the Caribbean in the 1500s.

Brassica oleracea probably came from Crete. Or it was a stowaway on Jason’s Golden Fleece. The Greeks too were so mad for radishes (which probably came from China by way of Egypt), that they made little gold radish talismans to offer up to Apollo. Why the sun god needed radishes is anyone’s guess. You’d think horses or chariots or wine would’ve been a more practical gift. Ok, I’ll stop rooting around now on Wiki.

Note bene: I never know where writing ideas will come from. It always catches me by surprise! When I was a child, I was always making equivalencies, that is relationships between things—especially plants and animals. I guess some things never change. When I finally adulted (some could clain that I am still attempting to achieve adulthood), I discovered most of my correlations were spot on. 

At one point, I thought all that wild mustard was native, and it was only one species. When I joined a California naturalist group, I learned that there were more than one invasive mustard species, and that’s probably the thing that spurred me on because I cannot tell the difference between field mustard and black mustard, it’s all mustard to me.

Bringing in the sheaves

The flashing colon on the face of the digital clock, the way afternoon light illumines the frosted windows, the demanding cat wanting breakfast early, clearly not on daylight savings time. Explain that to the horses or the dogs if you have them. Time racing ahead at breakneck speed the older you get, the faster it goes..Time was once measured by water clocks, or nails embedded into burning candles that fell on the hour. Iron clattered onto the table or the stone floor, like tiny hooves, sleep disturbed by time. The monks were obsessed by time, for the world revolved around increments of time, because the universe would not hold, because God, hungry for dogma, needed constant assuaging and reassurance in the form of prayer from his followers. They were marking time for an inevitable future that may or may not come. The Medieval Book of Hours was a guidebook of feast days, measuring the seasons. On what tombstone, what prayer was etched in stone? The laws of oscillation, the guard rails of our lives keeping us in check. Time is cyclical, or perhaps it is a sickle, Ceres bringing in the sheaves.

1/17/24 Write On! with Nancy Woo

Measuring the sun

When I was a child, my grandmother measured the seasons by where the sun rose on our hill, the long ridge served as a fulcrum. In summer, it rose over the big rock to the north, and in winter over the tall pines along the fence line. In this way, we measured the seasons using the natural world, not man-made monuments. I was fascinated by the way sunlight raced along the tiles by the front door. Ours was an old house that kept to the old way, with the house aligned to the cardinal directions. So the morning sun shone through the front door, like a portal, or one of the gates of Stonehenge. We even had a big rock, a knob of limestone, or a chert reefer, perhaps blueschist sticking out like a menhir. She carried the old ways with her, the stones circles of her childhood landscape conflated with portals of time in the new world. I was an odd child, always measuring the world by criteria I didn’t quite understand. One morning, I got the idea to measure how the fast the rising sun over the ridge rose, so with my plastic ruler, I measured the speed between sunlight on tiles versus the advancing shadow. Each line on the ruler was a two-minute marker. I had half the equation but not the other half. In that moment, I realized how the shadows of a sundial worked, and suddenly I was connected to time in a timeless manner. Past and future fell away until there was only time present.

1/17/24 Write On! with Nancy Woo

Facebook AI bots blocked my cousin Michael Collins’ memorial service video of a medieval hymn

I won the dispute with the Facebook AI censor bots. Not only has the hymn, Salve Regina been copyright-free since at least the middle ages (the 12th century) it’s also within the public domain. by a very long shot. I told the litigious Warner Music Rights Management Group in no uncertain terms that it does not own rights to Catholic church music—especially from the middle ages. Eat it WB.

The Facebook censorship AI bots have now censored one of my cousin Michael Collins’ memorial service videos that I privately posted on Jan 9, 2022—because it had a medieval Gregorian Chant in it.

My mother’s cousin, Michael was a well-known tenor and Gregorian chanter (and  also a Latin teacher), and his friends were singing him off. Michael had some mighty fine pipes. His Nessun Dorma and Ave Maria could bring you to your knees, weeping with joy. But Facebook had to destroy that sublime moment with its heavy-handed Maxwell‘s hammer.

Not only is the use of the hymn, Salve Regina, considered fair use, and no money was involved, it’s been copyright-free since at least the middle ages. Warner Music Rights Management Group does not own Catholic liturgical church music—especially from the middle ages.

I also want to add that the videos were privately posted on my page, no audience, but I had them hidden so that only I could see them—except for one post—but that wasn’t the one in question. So, it seems that you can’t even privately post anything on your page that might break copyright—even if no one else can see it.

Michael’s Gregorian chant group sang liturgy from the mass, including Alleluia, Holy, holy holy, Angus Dei, which are merely a chorus to the mass, and the hymns Panis Angelicus, and Salve Regina. 

Salve Regina was the offending hymn.

“The work was composed during the Middle Ages and originally appeared in Latin, the prevalent language of Western Christianity until modern times. Though traditionally ascribed to the eleventh-century German monk Hermann of Reichenau, it is regarded as anonymous by most musicologists.” in other words, it is copyright free. 

The video in question lasted one minute and 19 seconds. I trimmed it down to one minute and .02 seconds but it’s still over the one-minute limit that triggered the Warner Music Rights Management Group bot on copyright infringement laws. We shall see. Facebook, Game On!

This is the second time that I’ve posted a personal memorial notice of a death in my family—and have been dinged for it by Facebook AI bots. Does Facebook have something against our sharing of actual personal memorial events? 

The last epic Facebook fail was when my mother’s cousin Liam Walsh died. I literally got thrown in the slammer for six days for mentioning to a cousin, a sweet childhood deed of his. Facebook claimed that it violated  “community standards.” There was nothing pornographic, and certainly nothing untoward about it. And there was no way to dispute it. I felt violated. At least with this latest absurdity I was able to file a dispute.

I won’t mention Facebook’s censoring and removal of my botany comment on the uses of native California fan palm seeds, or the naked black and white photo of Einstein’s desk, which Facebook deemed as “depicting explicit sexual content, or pornographic.” A fecking messy desk!

What a way to begin the new year, with Facebook trolling every comment I’ve ever made during the past few years. Talk about Big Brother. Thy name is Facebook. And to think we invited you in.But we have no rights because it’s a private entity.

Just out of curiosity, do you know of anyone else who’s being harassed like this by Facebook for nearly everything they post? it’s hard not to become paranoid in the face of this ongoing absurdity. And no, my account has not been hacked, I check that early and often. It’s Facebook, folks. Epic fail.

• Yet another epic Facebook AI bot fail Liam Walsh

BETWEEN AIR AND MATTER

When words barely scratch the surface, 

like a swimmer, frog-kicking across the pond, 

when dark things call us into the shallows, 

like watercress, pondscum, or duckweed, 

not the mauve flowers of the water hyacinth 

depleting oxygen from the waterways 

until fish drown in their own element.

The quick movement before a splash, 

a frog jumps, coming up for air, gasping, 

straddling a world between air and matter.

1/10/24

DURING THE FIRST DAYS OF THE YEAR

I am in love with the way light falls 

on the transom of frosted glass, 

late afternoon, illuminating the room, 

the transient sun reminding us 

it hasn’t forgotten that spring 

will again return like so many others, 

too many to count. 

I count the days where winter’s sentence 

will give way to longer days 

and soon we will find the time 

to complain about other things. 

That is our nature, always looking ahead,

anticipating the next move 

like a game of chess where the battle 

of nights and days are played out, 

an old scenario. 

To wait like the cat for first light, 

to curl up like that in the sun, 

to absorb the warmth, 

to be fully in present tense, 

not worrying about the next move, 

for the game is constantly being played out 

over and over for the illusion of our benefit. 

That urge to impose order is divine, 

a random universe is our lot. 

Does the cat on the windowsill 

worry about such things? 

I endeavor to be more present, 

not to fall into the veil of the future, 

because it is always running 

out ahead of us like an escaped horse 

fleeing the barn, not wanting to get caught 

up in plans that we have no control over.

1/10/24 Write On! with Susie Terence

Yet another epic Facebook fail, this time for dirty botany

OMFG, FACEBOOK, REALLY? since when does the description of the seeds of a California native fan palm, Washingtonia filifera in a botany group go against community standards, violate cyberspace, or is considered malicious content? 

“It looks like you tried to gather sensitive information, or shared malicious software.” 

There is literally no way to appeal these ridiculous Facebook decisions. Also, this comment was from a year ago, February. Does the AI sensor bot have nothing better to do? What a way to begin the new year, with Facebook trolling every comment I’ve ever made during the past two years. Talk about Big Brother. Thy name is Facebook. Palm face plant.

I wrote: “The California fan palm does not produce dates, but does fruit elliptical black "berries" about 1/2 inch in diameter. These berries have a very large, brown seed surrounded by a thin, sweet pulp, which native Americans ate fresh or dried. They also ground the seeds into flour. Hooded orioles and coyotes feast on the seeds as well, aiding the palms' proliferation…” 

So, does this sound like pornography to you?

End of year writing stats 2023

Is August too soon to think of end-of-year writing stats? Especially, since, come December 31, I will be more or less homeless. I need to vacate my lovely large room at Donna’s house in Sebastopol by January. And I have nowhere to go. My cabin that I’ve been paying rent on for 40 years, is kaput, the roof fell in during an epic rainstorm. The cave-in created havoc, as I had archives stored in the cabin including all my letters and news clippings.

Luckily, I had either boxed or removed most of my stuff before the roof fell in. I lost most of my teaching archives and CPITS poetry books to water damage. But I have back-ups of most of that stuff. Not the end of the world. The cabin will be remodeled. But I doubt if the landlady will let me move back in. We had some words—she’s toxic. Besides, people are renting hovels for $1000 a month. It’s crazy out there.

My Plan B is to live in a tent on my grandmother’s property. Hopefully we won’t have another epic wet winter. And then, my cousin Dave decided to move to Missouri with the cnt-wife and sell the Nicasio house where I had the bulk of my belongings stored. Because it was an epically wet winter, most of my stuff suffered severe water damage. The metal shed leaked. 

And we were given one weekend (no warning) in April to huck everything out of Dave’s Nicasio place within 48 hours, and then we had to move what we wanted to keep over to Sinead’s storage shed in Petaluma. So, sadly, this means all my books are in bad shape, and I was hoping to give them to a library. 

We had an epic yard sale where I re-homed and got rid of most of my old tchotchkes, and the rest went to strangers, or to the dump. We put some tasty stuff out by the side of the road and people went completely nuts over all the goodies we were giving away. Sinead gave away crates of of Sean’s Legos and matchbox toys. There was a massive traffic jam out front of the house. Those who scored goodies will never see that particular bend in the road the same way again.

So though it has been an eventful year, I don’t have much to report by way of publishing record. I’m starting this dinky retrospective early, during the dog days of summer, as I’m sure I won’t have the time to deal with it later. The 2017 Tubbs fire certainly brought it all home that I need to scan and document my stuff, and move on, because nothing is permanent. Not even this blog.

Seeking relevance

Water walkers, pronouns sinking silence and sound, the slow surcease of trees, a reflecting pond, held captive by lights. The herons, rising like mist, fish and frog slap a dark designation of self ready to forge ahead. I am swallowing the year on the rock pile of regret. The trees bursting with unseasonable birds. Arrest that image. Book it, Dano. Give it a cellmate of regret, nestled along the edges of the universe. Like combing the dregs of the past, old poems from another time, are still seeking relevance in a century that got off to a rocky start, like during the middle ages, when the plague made desperate believers of us all. Wearing self-imposed ankle leashes during a time when the reflection in the mirror is always reversed. The cat cruises by for a petting. Pine trees, a thought, unseasonable leaves on the pavement, an urban escape, spinning itself into time present, then the future within its black hole of a throat and gaping maw threatening to swallow us all.

12/27/23

The age of the self disguised as an uncertain future

The cat seeks wild water,

    she doesn’t care     where 

or what     is found. 

For her,      everything 

   is in time present.

No matter what     my age 

   I am like a baby     on a runway.

I can’t walk, it seems 

        I am always

 learning to crawl,      then run. 

Then, fall     again. Again.

I scroll my name,

     a calligraphy of clouds 

across an uncertain 

    sky.         The journey 

is always running 

    up against     itself 

in a crowded elevator. 

        I am the agoraphobic 

in the marketplace 

and I steel myself 

    with florid words 

and no one notices 

    my breath     trembling 

like unseasonable leaves 

on a lone tree. The winter 

    is a demanding bitch dressed 

in fancy ribbons and bones. 

    Bless the living 

and the dying of the past 

and the future is a war 

that never ends.     The thing is, 

    the journey is always 

in front of you.     How 

    do we cope 

when the chains 

of change     attempts 

to escape the sordid

confines 

            of the past?

12/27/23 Write On! Nancy Woo

Thanksgiving

Give me those red viscous cranberries, cooked in sugar and nothing else, dripping off a silver spoon. Give me that explosion of flavor where sweet-and-sour compete, neither predominant, a palate cleanser, someone said. It was declared a winner in my book, as we slogged our way through a bargain basement of calories. Don’t add orange juice to it. Please. Mashed potatoes made with butter and sour cream, became snowcapped volcanic peaks with craters filled with pan gravy, the raft of turkey, like a tabula rasa. We suffered through the diabetes-inducing sweet potatoes, way over the top with burnt snowfields of marshmallows—that’s where my taste buds rebelled. All that over the top gilding of the lily left them in diabetic coma. The top I could at least scrape off, but I couldn’t avoid the damned canned concentrated orange juice my aunt Jane was so fond of. I grew to hate orange juice. Once the aunts got it into their heads to dress up what needed no dressing, like yams, it was all over. We were never going to go back to the simplicity of butter again. My formally favorite dish was forever ruined. At least they couldn’t do that to the stuffing. Until someone got the idea to add oysters. Just, no. And then there was the strange three layer Jell-O, salads, quivering on the table—grapefruit slices in lime Jell-O, cream cheese, with the lemon layer with filled with walnuts and celery. And then something darker at the bottom, perhaps cherry Jell-O, where the cranberries hid in their dark depths. Another aunt added raviolis to the mix, and green bean casseroles, which became a tradition I abhor. I could not stand the taste of mushroom soup and green beans. The aunts modernize the menu to fit the era, then got stuck in the 1960s, and my grandmother who was still directing, was not willing to let go of the basic plot—at least the plot itself was fixed, but the walls of her small kingdom were closing in. What I remember most are the black olives we wore on our fingers and how we shoveled celery stuffed with peanut butter and cream into our mouth as if we were starving and there was no food in sight. And that transition phase when you got to leave the kids’ table for the grownup table.

A cat called Cheetos

We drove to the back of the parking lot at TGAL where my cousin had been feeding a family of feral cats. All that was left of the colony was an orange kitten. Orphaned. His siblings and mother were long gone. Could his eyes be any bigger than they already were? Deep pools of betrayal and anguish. This was in an age where it wasn’t cool to feed the feral cats. We swooped down on him in my VW, with its valves merrily clanging like Christmas bells, and whisked him away, as if he was Cinderella in a fairytale, no glass slippers to transform him, but a bath and food. The fleas didn’t stand a chance. Cheetos knew he was saved, he knew what side of the bread was buttered. As far as he was concerned, we were his hairless tribe, his safety blanket. He groomed our eyebrows. Slept on our pillows. But when he got older, when things began to fail, when his bladder betrayed him, he moved out of the house and slept in a wine barrel planter filled with wild strawberries in front of the Nicasio house. We called him the potted kitty as he got pottier with age, all orange and aglow like a trapped sun.

list three daring things you’ve done…

A friend asked us to post three things that we did when we were young—those adventures where you look back on and say "I can't believe I did that.” Well, apparently I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I couldn’t choose just three insane moments in my life. True, I was usually with a boyfriend, but not always. And it’s probably not fair to ask me about during exploits, there were too many to list. Probably one reason why I became a writer.

My boyfriend and I hitchhiked up from Marin County to Victoria, BC in the early 70s, slept under a spruce tree in Stanley Park. Then we hitched up-island to catch the ferry from Cape Scott/Port Hardy to Prince Rupert, but we missed the boat, then had to camp on damp moss covered ledges for a few days until the next ferry came in as there was nothing there, not even a gas station, let alone, a hotel. 

The ferry ride to Prince Rupert took  more than 15 hours, we hit huge swells in the open water of the Queen Charlotte Straits. The massive swells rocked the ship around like a toy and everybody was barfing. When we got to Prince Rupert there was no place to stay so we camped in a graveyard on top of a hill and the sun absolutely refused to set, it was June.

Then we hitched over to Prince George where the mosquitos were the size of hummingbirds, the resident moose was not happy to share his boggy meadow with us. Then we hitched down to Banff, and Jasper, and slept in hotel doorways as all the campgrounds and hostels were full. It seemed that all of Canada was on the move. We camped out in day-use picnic shelters. They had wood burning stoves! 

The worst part of the journey was when we got stuck in front of the Columbia Glacier, I resorted to wearing my down sleeping bag as a coat, the ice field was so cold. I looked like a mustard colored abominable snowman in my down bag so no one would stop for us. The toe of the glacier hissed and sung. I wasn’t prepared for that. Then we went over to Calvary (why?), and headed back down through Kamloops, and down the coast to SF. An epic summer journey.

I went to the USSR several times in 1989-91, created a poetry and art exchange (it was Glasnost) and traveled from Kyiv to Leningrad on a train illegally, incognito, sans internal visa, because I was told no, I couldn’t go by the local authorities, then we couldn’t get a train ticket back to Cherkassy. In those days, Americans weren’t allowed to travel freely, without a pass, and certainly not on common trains for the ludí, the people. 

In Leningrad, on another trip, a Soviet friend thought I would like to help restore a fresco in the dome of the Church of Atheism & Religion (St. Isaac’s). To get to the outer dome, we had to climb up an iron catwalk to the top of the outside dome, the iron railing was coming off, it was midwinter, and a long way down to the ground, OSHA would not have approved, but Russia was like Mexico, everything was jerryrigged. When we circled the dome where there was a little door that let us inside the brass dome between the fresco, a tunnel to the inner dome. Wild. We had to leap down to a trapeze net stretched across the opening of the dome (I was scared shitless), then we were suited up in climbing harnesses and ropes, suspended like spiders to clean and scrape the old fresco. Getting back down to the ground was worse. I had never rappelled down a rope before, the marble floor was a long way down, my hair got caught in the cleat and I thought it was curtains. Oh, and neither my friend or his friend spoke any English—just to up the game. 

Another time we walked out on a frozen Ozirkii lake, but when we got to the middle, we heard it crack, the loudspeaker from shore was telling us to get off the lake, but I couldn’t understand Russian. We got off the lake quickly.

We hiked in to Machu Picchu in 1989 the long way, 42 km, through milpia forest fires, and so couldn’t see the Andes, we went through a cloud forest, saw many fantastic Inca ruins over Dead Woman Pass. I rode a pack horse that had never been ridden before, I was stuck with him because we dawdled and missed out on all the good horses. He had no bridle, so I made a hackamore from an old stiff leather lariat. 

We were cantering along a stream when he veered left up a narrow trail and ran full speed to a chicha hut. I had his head in my lap and still he wouldn’t stop. We slammed into that adobe chicha hut sideways, so hard, that dust rose from the roof like smoke. I lifted my leg over the pack frame and let the horse take the brunt. He slammed sideways onto the wall. All the Incan men sitting outside at the bar, scattered like the wind, drinks in hand. The horse got the message, he wasn’t going to lose me. He was much better behaved for the rest of the trip. So when we went up an incline so steep, I fell off his back trying to avoid a tree limb, because my backpack had made me top heavy. I fell under the horse. Luckily he froze and I crawled out from under him. 

Then the train to Arequipa and Lake Titicaca was stopped by the army in the altiplano, and they searched everyone, they bayonetted the natives luggage (looking for smuggled people) because of the Sendero Luminoso uprising. We had just seen the corpse of the defense lawyer of Manuel Febres Flores, outside the Chorillos Tunnel near Lima. It was a hairy time to be in Peru. Tanks in Lima. Car bombs.

Then there was the time the US invaded Tegucigalpa right as we were headed there, oops! We were stuck in the Guatemala Airport for days with no flights out. We had just come from the highlands, had met the Guatemalan army there and in Tikal too. They were not the good guys. Neither were the guerllla. We learned to tell who was who by their guns: AK 47s guerrillero, Uzi, GA. People were being disappeared, including tourists. I had nightmares for years.

I never did get married, though my Soviet friend proposed to me in the lobby of the Hotel Cosmos in Moscow…

Then there was the time a young bear slept on me in Little Yosemite….before I went up Half Dome, I did it twice, why, I don’t know…. And that time in the Galapagos between islands in the open sea with too many people, in a tiny open panga, when a drifting fishnet got stuck in the propeller. Oh, but the albatrosses and flying fish and the dolphins alongside the boat made it worthwhile. 

I won’t mention the time I snorkeled alone in a volcanic crater, called the Corona del Diablo, and a sea lion mistaking me for one of his harem because I was in a black wetsuit, attacked me. Maybe he thought I was a silkie. I had to keep spinning like a top to keep him from biting me. I thought I was going to drown for sure but no one would even know because I was far from the boat. I was a super snorkeler. And I often broke the rules, never snorkel alone. I could never get enough of it. 

Then there was that time I was snorkeling alone, far from shore with a shark in the Bahamas…

I could go on….

MoSt NYPC prompt # 1, a haiku

** Prompt # 1 (for December 15):

View this email in your browser

You and a haiku
in the first throes of winter
tapping out kindness.

Greetings, Poets, and Welcome to NYPC 15! Okay, here we go… For your first poem——and in keeping with what passes for NYPC tradition: write a haiku. This year, write to the energies of kindness, mercy, grace, compassion, and/or generosity of spirit. Feel free to create a haiku series of instances of kindness, etc. if it’s difficult to touch on these themes in just 17 syllables.  —Gary Thomas

Remembering Mary Smith Taylor, & a backstory of The Birds, & Warm Springs Dam

As I was moving boxes of old papers, I stumbled upon some writing fragments in a copybook dating back to a time before I became a writer. As I added the nascent scraps, written in a naive, childish hand (though I was 22), to my blog, and as I transcribed my notes, I also uncovered writing fragments with little pockets of memory attached. 

As I followed a wild hunch, I discovered that I was indirectly related by marriage to my Native American studies teacher, Mary Taylor, who was Coast Miwok. Then, I discovered a link that also led to the Warm Springs dam project (1974-1984), thanks to the internet. The aha! I always wondered how I became involved with the rescuing of native Pomo basket sedges.

Mary Taylor was a Bodega Bay Smith of Captain Stephen Smith infamy—who at 57, married a 16-year old Peruvian, Manuela Torres, in order to claim the Rancho Bodega land grant, but Smith also had a Coast Miwok "wife," Tsupu. The story goes, there were others.

Their son, Bill Smith had 12 children with Rosalie Charles after his first Miwok wife, Walla Walla, died. The Smith clan was a massive clan, with whom I would later be related to by marriage, when Bill Smith's youngest son, Young Eagle Smith, married my widowed aunt, Mary Azalie Howard Reilly (her husband Myles was my uncle) at St. Eugene's Church in Santa Rosa. 

I remember talking to Mary Taylor at the wedding reception in Santa Rosa. And I was puzzled as to why she was at our family wedding. Thanks to the internet which most definitely wasn't around in 1975, I was able to place her as Young's older sister. Wow! So my wild hunch wasn’t off.

GIVEAWAY

For instance, my floor is covered with discarding clothing, 

of other selves, Goodwill bound. I take photos—for taxes, I say. 

The 1920s tuxedo with its silk lapels, victim of catering ventures, 

next to bright summer dresses, tropical sheaths that held promise,

the blouses and over-shirts that shielded shoulders from the sun, 

the closeted unmentionables that kept the wobbly bits in line,

old knee braces, banished to the discard heap. The things we rescue:

a dress is given a last-minute reprieve, perhaps to be repurposed. 

Yet I know I will probably never wear its next incarnation.

The urge to hoard facsimiles of texture and floral meadows 

is entwined with memory—for a future that will never come. 

None of us knowing if distant visas of summer will arrive. 

Call it Covid, call it cancer, or fate striking at any given moment. 

Call it a Thanatos approach to death lurking in every corner, 

this moment shapeshifting, perhaps severed from chronology, 

with only a handful of digital photographs surviving the tangible.

Last night’s rain on the roof is already a distant memory. 

Today arrives like a knife. As we approach the long shadows of solstice, 

winter grips our breath as we steam ahead—locomotives of a lost era. 

Meanwhile, the chains in the bilge of the coffin ships of self 

remind us the death knell of distant bells is playing a dirge for the soul.

12/13/23 Write On! with Nancy Woo

Robin redbreast

One summer evening, I was crossing the Church St. footbridge over the River Teith in Callendar, Scotland, when a small bird hopped up to me, expectantly eying my red boot. I let out a little squeal of delight when I recognized what he was. A real robin! I didn’t dare move for fear I would disturb or harm him. 

Of course I had no idea that the diminutive European robin redbreast of English literature and fairytale fame, a flycatcher, was a bird of a completely different feather than our rather robust north American robin, a large thrush built like a Sherman tank. Or a hefty bird in hand.

Both birds are more orange than red, but there, the similarity ends. The word for the color orange was a linguistic newcomer to 16th c. Britain. In those days, the color choices were either yellow or red, or both. But robin red-yellow breast doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. And as it turns out that there are many species of birds that are called robins the world over. Australia’s flame robin is similar in size to our American robin.

Callendar was home to the famous Scottish outlaw, Rob Roy McGregor, or Raibeart Ruadh MacGriogair. Rob, or Robin was a diminutive form of Robert. In this case, Roy was an Anglicized form of Ruaidh, or the red one. Rob Roy Way separates the Highlands from the Lowlands. 

And Rob Roy, a Jacobite rabble-rouser, was a cattle rustler cum folk hero. The Highland outlaw, immortalized by Sir Walter Scott, became a legend within his own lifetime. Liam Neeson made for a big braw rogue in the movie.

The lingering twilight on the footbridge spanning the Teith River was beautiful. The long golden hours of summer, were as good as it gets. As I was taking photos of the river reflections, a tiny orange-breasted bird hopped right up to me on impossibly thin legs, and promptly fell in love with one of my red Reebok boots. 

I had never seen an European robin before, I had only heard about them from my Irish grandmother, and of course the Mother Goose nursery rhyme and finger games came to mind—for species identification purposes only, of course. 

Little Robin Redbreast
Sat upon a rail;
Niddle noble went his head,
Widdle waggle went his tail.— Little Robin Redbreast

There are many apocryphal stories associated with robins, mostly to do with Jesus and purgatory. They covered the bodies of two dead children with leaves in Babes of the Wood. In Irish mythology to kill a robin is to invoke bad luck for the rest of your life. There is no cure. They’ve become a ubiquitous symbol of Christmas, featured on Christmas cards and postage stamps. And of course, they’re also associated with Robin Hood, defender of the poor.

Legend has it that when Jesus was dying on the cross, the robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the robin's breast, and thereafter all robins carry the mark of Christ's blood upon them. —Wiki

It was not the first time my red Reeboks were siren sentinels to robins. Once, while I was exploring the Crystal Lakes rift near San Francisco, an American robin, perhaps seeking a sole-mate, became equally enamored of my red boot. 

I had to stand patiently on the Callander footbridge in the gloaming until the little love affair with my boot was over. The fading of the light brought a close to this little romance. Pure magic.

 robin redbreast