New Year, New Opportunities
By Jane Elsdon
Five of SLO Coast Journal's regular columnists happen to be current members of Atascadero Writers Group. They are Richard Hannibal (Beyond the Badge), John Bullaro (The Human Condition), George Zidbeck (Observations of a Country Squire), Rose Marie Zurkan (Frustrated Local Writer) and Jane Elsdon (One Poet's Perspective). Founder, editor, and publisher of the Journal, Judy Sullivan, recently made the group an offer they couldn't refuse. She invited members to submit their work on a monthly basis. Delighted by the prospect, in the midst of holidays and all, they scurried about and sent the following pieces.
Bowing to the practice of choosing an animal icon for the group's column, Jane and visual artist and poet, George Asdel, brainstormed a bit without the input of the rest of the group (it was the heart of the holiday season, for goodness sake), extended their vulnerable necks, and came up with the raccoon. We know it's true. Writers are always searching for new ideas. In their dreams or their own experiences, in their artwork, newspapers, magazines, books, movies, TV, online, in groups, or on the street. Like raccoons, they wouldn't even stop at looking under rocks, in their garden, garbage, on their deck, or . . . but you get the idea. Anywhere, short of roadkill.
Among their members you will find essayists, fiction writers from short stories to novels of all genres, memoir writers, and poets. They each possess their own distinctive voice and vision.
This month's first offering is a poem and a photograph, from Dianne Gross-Giese, a poet, photographer, blogger, and a hand physical therapist. Our second piece comes from Betty Finocchiaro (she and Jane cofounded the group). It comes in the form of a series of letters to her alter ego, Roxie. Betty is also a poet. Our third is a poem from Curt Hinkle, poet and short story writer, as well as electrician. The fourth is a poem by retired nurse practitioner, Connie Shephard, who is also a fine writer of middle-grade fiction and a talented photographer.
Enjoy. May this new year bring new opportunities to you, as well.
Cairn Navigation
by Dianne Gross-Giese
Nov 19, 2012
May you always mark
your trail with cairns
to follow your path home.
May the rubble
be easy to lift aside
to set your footholds.
May you mark your milestones
with the heaviest stones
for lasting foundations.
May you find plenty
of delicately fit connections
to elevate your goals into view.
May you know your handiwork
by where you've chosen to
turn your attention.
May you see the light faceted,
magnified, reflected, or refracted
from miles away
to find
your way
home. |
"Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self."
B. R. Ambedkar |
LETTER to Roxie
by Betty Finocchiaro
My Dear Roxie,
How you doing? I thought I got a glimpse of you coming out of Von's last Saturday. If it wasn't you, it was a dead-ringer. Got me thinking that I'd write as soon as I reached home. Of course I love to write you because you're such a great listener.
In my last letter, I wrote and told you that I didn't want to dwell on the bad memories of my childhood because truthfully, I had a lot of nice times too. Life isn't made up of good or bad times. Its really a series of experiences we have and how we deal with them. Don't you agree? Sometime I really get nostalgic though and filter what I think are the really happy moments. Like cream, I let them rise to the top. That's when I put everything on “hold” in my head.
I've been thinking about the Block Parties we had at the end of the Second World War. That's what they were called because literally street after street in all of New York City partied every night for about two weeks. The news about Japan surrendering came with a bang, an eruption of joy like no other. Europe had ended its dark days months before, but for us, it was necessary that our boys stopped fighting in the Pacific as well. Nineteen hundred and forty five and it was all over. World War II had ended.
Neighborhoods blocked off streets. Balloons and colored streamers hung from lamp posts and dangled out of apartment windows. The air burst with a pandemonium of happiness and goodwill. Tables were set up and neighbors became family with international foods placed on every table. The Germans brought out the beers and sausages, the Italians, their pastas, the Irish their wit. Radios blasted the air with music and excited disc jockeys shouted the good news bringing tears to the eyes of those truly listening. One had to wonder why countries went to war.
I had a crush on one of the returning G I's. He was a kid I had grown up with and whom I saw only occasionally while we were growing up. I think you met him once. His name was Roy. Anyway every evening when all of the commotion began in the streets, I would go looking for him. I knew he had returned from Germany only a few weeks earlier and in my teenage mind I saw him as a hero and then, a victim. After all, he was a Gunner in the plane that was dropping bombs on a village in Germany. When he bailed out of his plane, he landed in the midst of an angry population who promptly beat him up. Poor fellow. It wasn't his fault he had been commanded to bomb the town. I was going to soothe his bruised soul.
So each evening I fought the crowds of happy noisy people looking for my love interest until I finally spotted him! My heart leapt with joy and anxiety. He looked straight at me and in all that confusion he saw me. He saw me and then looked right through me. Insult of insults, he had a pretty girl by the hand running past me, laughing as they skipped by, her long silky blond hair blowing in the wind. Kid, I thought I would die. I ran home crying my heart out. Of course he never knew of my undying love for him. They went on to marry but later I heard it wasn't a very happy marriage. You know, I've never really had any blonde girlfriends.
Then things quieted down. People again looked toward a peaceful world. The guys came back with jobs waiting for them or they enrolled in college courses. After I graduated High School, I applied at a local college, and was told that I had to defer to the G. I.'s returning from the wars, and that was two years later! I was disappointed, but you know it just seemed right. The government really took care of the returning servicemen. Not like today. Its a darn shame how someone is treated after they've put themselves in the line of fire and for wars that I don't understand or justify in my mind. But who am I? Nobody will listen to me. This is just how I feel.
Roxie, I think about that time and It's so long ago. After the war, life went back to how it always was. I daydreamed like I always did, and suddenly time speeded up casting me, you, everybody into a cataclysmic illusion of something called life. And it's all happened in the blink of an eye. I am a woman caught up in the thousands of days and nights since she was a young girl. Some dreams realized, others not. But why should I wonder if somewhere in time I may have missed the boat? After all, we can't prove that this life is not an illusion.
Take care and know that I love ya,
Betty |
In the Arch
by Curt Hinkle 12-11-2012
I have too many doors
in my central hall
Five in all
Three swing out, two in
Four were absolutely necessary
Making it three out and one in
The fifth doorway
Would simply have no door
I decided to make it an arch
The only one in the house
And after framing it up
Just before cutting and nailing the drywall
I put my folded poems in zip-loc bags
Inside each side of the top of the arch
Someday, when my house is remodeled, or bulldozed
I like to think they will be found. . . and read
I've forgotten which poems
But I can feel them
Sometimes, in that arch
When I pass through |
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The Promise
by Connie Shepard
A full moon shone tonight
on the flagstones below.
Stones you wrestled into place
in your garden with such love
A garden where you planted
your beloved native plants in place of the water-thirsty lawn.
With pride, you accepted a prize for it
for water conservation, but it was more than a garden to you.
It was a work of love.
Often you ushered visitors through the garden
as you named each plant for them
as if they were your children.
Tonight, while drinking in the beauty from the balcony
I turned to beckon you to join me in the moonlight
yet again forgetting that you’re no longer here.
Your last request of me was,
Please take care of my garden
I promised |
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