Wendy Everand is our host today for the August Open Write, and she inspires us to write odes to our favorite poets. You can read her full prompt here.
This brought to mind the first poet I ever knew. We lived next door to a retired school teacher in Reynolds, Georgia, and one day I got loose and barged into her house (no one locked their doors in that town back then)…..and the rest is history. After she died, two of her granddaughters compiled a collection of her poems, and I got a copy as a gift. I still believe that she pulled my poetry strings out and brushed them…..maybe even crocheted them.
Ode to Mabel G. Byrd (December 10, 1900-1/20/1987)
Gayle Sands is our host today for the second day of the August Open Write at www.ethicalela.com. She brings us a challenge to write a nestling poem in the essence of Irene Latham. You can read her full prompt here.
I’m reading Ada Limon’s collection of books, and I chose Forgiveness from The Hurting Kind as my base poem. If I were adding to a list of the things I would hold close forever, it’s Limon's poem. Here is mine, taken from hers:
Silent Water
dumb hearts
hurting each other
shadowy places
scars
bound to the blades
bound to outrun
Our Schnoodle Ollie is not like his brothers at all. I tell him all the time: You’re the smartest dog we’ve got.
Then, just to try to prove me wrong, his hilarious antics kick in.
He naps on the coffee table. He flips upside down in a chair with his feet all quirky and takes another nap. He brings me his ball to throw, then runs off in an entirely different direction like he thinks it’s landed somewhere else. It’ll be right in front of him on the bed, yet he digs through the covers pretending it’s somehow ended up inside the middle of the mattress. His never-ending humor keeps us entertained.
He is campaigning for all he’s worth to be Dog #1. He will trick Boo into getting out of his dad’s lap so he can sit in the favored spot.
He de-thrones the other two in other ways, too. He takes the prized bed spot and then pretends to be heavily asleep when either of the other barks at him.
A colleague shared that she thought I’d enjoy visiting a bookstore she’d visited on her birthday.
The Underground Bookstore is in Carrollton, Georgia on the downtown square.
She was right. This place is charming, and the literary candles that use scents from items mentioned in their namesake books are delightful.
You step down into stairs so old they’re not built to code, and immediately the smell of books and the antiquity of bookshelves greets you like an old friend. Staff reviews line the shelves under featured titles, enticing you to read all the books.
And the poetry section……oh my! The poetry section had a few holes here and there (no Harjo, only one Limon, and only two obscure Collins) but still an amazing collection of those lesser-known poets and titles that sell the books. I came away with a couple of Sarah Kay books (one signed), one Collins, one Macfarlane/Morris (signed), and a book I needed for a book club that is already well underway – – Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
After dinner on the square, we went to the most aromatically-roasted coffee shop ever, the kind with old brick walls and people talking in comfortable chairs around a round table and folks on computers doing work, ……..and right there in the middle of it all, the two of us…….reading books.
We both worked on projects most of Saturday after visiting our own local coffee shop and Savored Sunday afternoon on the streets of another town this week, and the twist-up was a beautiful way to end the weekend and start the week ahead.
For weeks, I’ve been watching and waiting for the figs to ripen, and almost overnight the first wave is ready for the picking. I saw the purple-brown fruits last evening and ran inside to fetch a plastic bowl and summoned my husband to bring his long arms and reach the branches down for me so that I could pick them. Together, we got what we could reach. It was too late to fire up the tractor, though. Usually, he raises me up in the bucket so that I can pick from the tip-top of the tree. That’ll happen after work today.
For now, we have our first bowl full, and they are plump and heavy.
But that’s not all that happened yesterday.
I finally caught a glimpse a bird I’ve been hoping to see for the past few years. Up until yesterday, I had only heard them. They live here on this farm, and I hear them in the wee hours of the morning, when it’s still dark. Ironically, I’d conceded our long game of hide and seek in yesterday morning’s post and declared them the winners. It’s as if one of these birds actually read my blog and decided to show a little mercy.
I was in the reading room that overlooks the butterfly garden. From the window that faces southward, I saw a stirring in the trees. A large stirring – – really an extra-large stirring.
Surely not, I thought.
It wasn’t dark. Just a couple of minutes before 8 p.m. on the nose.
It couldn’t be, I told myself.
I ran for my binoculars and searched the dense tree line for the bird, hoping it was still there when I returned.
I turned the knobs to focus and zoomed in as close as I could get.
Sure enough, just as I’d thought.
There it was, sitting on a pine branch, facing the house.
I could barely contain my excitement, yelling for my husband to come quickly, but not yelling loudly enough to scare off my buddy. I handed off my binoculars to him, and counted back the trees, pointed to the limb and actually used fractions to direct him 2/3 of the way up the Loblolly Pine to the Great Horned Owl grasping the branch with both feet.
We stood in awe, watching this great nocturnal bird of prey turn his head all around, watching the ground below for movement, like the embodiment of a Mary Oliver poem with wings.
It was fantastic to see. I still have shivers just thinking about the magnificent stature of this amazing creature and its commanding but camouflaged and silent presence.
After a few moments, he dove to the ground in pursuit of something he’d spotted, and just like that he vanished into the woods to feast on his catch.
And I’m burning with owl fever now, wishing desperately that he had a little camera attached to him like a policeman wears a bodycam, so I could have his night vision and see where all he goes and what he does. I’d have to hide my eyes when it came time for him to kill the bunnies and field mice and other critters, but I’d lose sleep for weeks just watching how he lives his days and nights.
Today was a treasure – ripe figs and Great Horned Owls. Life doesn’t get much more exciting.
Today’s host for the last day of the July Open Write is Mike Dombrowski of Michigan. You can read his full prompt here, along with the poems and responses of others. Today, Mike inspires us to write a poem about a time we experienced anxiety, and to include how we overcame it if possible. I chose to write about my mother’s last breath.
Our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the third day of the July Open Write is Susan Ahlbrand of Indiana, who inspires us to write Venn Diagram poetry today. You can read her full prompt and the poems others have written here, and even try one of your own if you wish.
This is one form that I have never written before today, and honestly I’m not sure I’m coordinated enough to try again. My brain felt like Spaghetti Junction in Atlanta, where all the intersections dance and spin and twirl around and then peel off in different directions like little spinoff tornadoes.
The idea is to play with two completely different concepts or ideas and find the intersecting similarity in the middle section of the diagram, reading vertically.
I could only take a photo of my mess and post it. Other writers in my group are using Canva and making backgrounds beautiful and doing all the creative colors and designs, but I’m over here with an ink pen and an unlined piece of brown paper just trying not to be seen or heard…….
But in the spirit of having some good days of writing and some not-so-good days of writing, here is a day in the life of a writer who at least tries something new and different.
I’m putting back on my work hat after a truly wonderful summer. Today is my first day back on contract, as my district awaits the appointment of a new Superintendent.
And so these hats, as constant as they are, keep life in balance!
Mo Daley is our host at ethicalela.com today for the first day of our July Open Write. Two things came to mind when I read her poem, in addition to all the memories of previous generations’ masks: the poem A Bag of Tools by R. L. Sharpe (a favorite since high school), and a birdwatching excursion in Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas over the summer, as I sat behind a bird blind counting birds. I chose a Golden Shovel poem using one line of Sharpe’s poem today.
Blinders
behind the bird blind, watching unaware, counting each
species, observing, admiring, appreciating, pondering: is
this what would happen if people were given
the same fanfare over the wonder of our beauty? a
way to admire all our brilliant feathers, to regain childhood’s shapeless
notions of race, share the same branch, and remove the mask?
Angie Braaten is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com today for the final day of this month’s Open Write. She encourages us to write a poem about what we would like to be when we grow up. You can read her full prompt here.
Secret Badge
when I grow up I want to be a traveling food critic a descriptive writer of all things edible…. ….(or not)….. all expenses paid to go out into the world and live it up like a spy on a secret mission with an official foodie badge that I keep covered until the end of the meal…. ….(or forever)…… unless I want immediate preferential seating or my glass runs dry or I get bad service then I whip it out like some veiled threat of a viral review that might shut the place down ….(or something)……
oh and a hotel critic too I want to be one who jumps on beds to test the comfort rolls around in the sheets and fills the bathtub to overflowing with expensive bubble bath with little flecks of real gold dust and eats all the snacks that cost twelve dollars each for free in those presidential suites with corner windows on the top floor one who shows my badge at checkout
and I want an airplane badge, too so I can cut the line at security and go in my own private room where the rest of everyone all tired-legged and eyeing my complimentary plate of sugared grapes and chocolates whispers who is she?? but I play it cool never revealing my name like no one can know who I am a secret traveling critic as I take my seat in first class throw my feet up on the plush footrest whip out my review computer and write away into the clouds ….(or just dream about it all)….
then go home to the country and press wildflowers and read poetry and bask in full-face dog kisses with whole-body tail wags because I’m back where I belong …..(without a badge)…….
Common Threads 