One Poet’s Perspective -
2013 and 2012 Columns
December, 2013 The Tutelege of Trees
Some of my best friends are trees. All of my life they have been. We lived in a rural area outside of New Haven, Indiana for most of my first thirteen years. It was a tall apple tree in my back yard that first whispered to me, Look again. I'm not only an apple tree. I'm a pirate ship. Climb aboard. I did.
November, 2013 The Tao of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
The grace of twig and tree
is in the garment of green.
The benediction of the bulb
is in the blossom.
The psalm of the seedling
is in the flower.
October, 2013 Masks
It lives in every voice behind a mask
the static of speaking through paste
of being muzzled by fuller's earth
the strains of strangers we don't want to meet
a carnival of selves chanting charms
a child now playing hide 'n seek
Setpember, 2013 Aging: The Far Country
She is not sure.
when she first became conscious
how foreign this unfolding origami,
her life, has become.
But as the forest of aging
around and within her
grows thicker
more shadowed
strange experiences occur:
August, 2013 Memories
Writing a poem can be for adult or child what playing in the sand is to a child and
adults with a child-
July, 2013 In Search of a New Mythology
My awareness of the need for a new mythology was initially stirred most notably in
the late eighties when Joseph Campbell's compelling series appeared on PBS. It was
in the early nineties when I met Beverly Ensing, an expert Rolfer and a self-
June, 2013 Dunite Days by Jane Elsdon
It was in 1965 that I made my first trip to Central California and experienced my own personal adventures in the Oceano dunes, along with a good friend whose family owned a tiny cottage just off the Strand then. It was there we met Bert Schievink, well known as the hermit of the dunes. He and I hit it off right away and we exchanged letters after I returned to my southern California home in Riverside. Whenever we made a trip northward we hiked out to see Bert. In 1971 we moved to Atascadero.
May, 2013 National Poetry Month
April was full of applause for poetry as we celebrated National Poetry Month in our
county's libraries. At the Atascadero Library I was privileged to share some of my
own children's poetry with a group of three-
April, 2013 Spring Sings
It does. It does. It absolutely does. Spring sings. It sings songs of whole orchards of popcorn trees appearing. It sings songs of bird trills, mating calls, songs of daffodils, magnolias, poppies, sweet peas, and wild mustard. It sings green hills into being. It sings nursling leaves into emergence on formerly bare boughs.
March, 2013 Road Trip Reminescence
Sometime in the crystalline sunlight of March, spring begins to hum in our ears.
So does freedom. Exploration. Kick-
January, 2013 Pauses on the Path
Pauses on the path too often seem like trouble. At best a brass ring, a booby prize, or something disgusting that I just stepped in that stops me cold. Or yes, even a traffic or log jam. But when I stop to consider for a moment, I must finally admit that in my life many a miracle has unfolded from just such beginnings. What I think of as being "stuck," may well turn out to be more like being "supplied."
December, 2012 Haven
We are told that thirty thousand years ago tribal poets entrusted local history and experience to memory. Memory soon translated into the oral word and was shared with other tribes. Perhaps through long evolution this is how the healing affects of poetry became apparent. What we do know is that such a keeper of oral history eventually became known as shaman. Was it sham? Was it magic? I'll leave that to you to determine. What I share with you this month is my own personal experience.
November, 2012 Collectibles
If I can say anything with great assurance, it is that our daughters know their way around antique stores, yard, and garage sales. They are both artists and crafters, therefore, they are also in love with collectibles. Collectibles — in all their forms — lend themselves well to the formation of family myths. One of our family myths revolves around a Jewel Tea percolator coffeepot. One day many years ago our family gathered to help my husband's mother, Opal, with a yard sale. Opal was affixing a $3 sticker on an autumn leaf embellished coffee pot. Our daughter, Kathy, took one look at it and shrieked, "Gr'ma, you're NOT going to sell that coffeepot for three dollars!"
October, 2012 For Love of Los Osos
How many of the treasures in my memory vault originated in Los Osos? I daresay it's a significant sum. My first are from family camping trips to Montana de Oro while we still lived in Riverside. What a discovery. My second and most cherished memories were of a writers' group I discovered in the late seventies after we moved from Southern California. Every month I drove from Atascadero to Los Osos to meet with Los Osos Writers Group, eager aspiring writers who critiqued each other's work. Many of them to this day remain among my dearest friends. Now that's what I call true treasures.
September, 2012 Smoke Signals
Bubbling mud pots – with their pungent steam spiraling into the air – are a distinctive feature of one of our favorite spots on earth, America's first national park, Yellowstone. Yellowstone in autumn during the rutting season, bears lumbering along with their young, and buffalo grazing on grass remnants before the onslaught of winter.
August, 2012 Summertime and the Livin' is Lovely
We're missing those long Eastern Sierra hikes we used to take almost any summer month
from the fifties through the turn of the century, when Gene fished for Rainbows,
Browns, or Golden trout while I wandered along looking for natural wonders and poems
along the way. Once a chuckle of a verse walked right up to us on legs above South
Lake and we still laugh over the way it came. And the way it went, too. 'Twas a
sign of the times, all right. Those long hikes are a thing of the past for us now.
And video is almost a thing of the past, as well. How quick it is to come and with
what speed it goes. Now it would be on You-
July, 2012 The Language of Flowers
My love of flowers began at an early age. Back in the thirties and forties of another century in New Haven, a small rural town outside Fort Wayne, Indiana, both money and toys were scarce. So one of my earliest recollections of toys was hollyhock blossoms, a flower that grew with great abandon in fertile Hoosier soil. Put a bud and a full blossom together with only a dab of imagination and you had a fairy queen or a tiny doll dressed in a ballgown. Orchids or fuchsias were nowhere to be found in my lexicon in those days. Nor would I have ever thought hollyhocks were associated with ambition.
June, 2012 Honoring "Someone Special"
Things I had to do. The day was packed with them. And there were a few I couldn't
wait to do. A friend, Betty, was bringing her daughter, Lidia, and her four-
May, 2012 Out of the Mouths of Babes
There is a certain attachment and alchemy involved in creating my poems, short stories, and novels (even the unpublished ones) that turns them into "my children." Like poems, stories, and novels, no two human children are alike. Each has its own individual disposition and traits, endearing or exasperating as those may be.
April, 2012 Prescription for Spring
When the days grow longer, the skies shine blue and gold, the buds break open and show us their hearts. It's no wonder that plants and poetry come together in a mutual admiration society of spring. As soon as these things begin to happen, those eternal internal itches to weed, plant, and create claim our attention and time.
March, 2012 What Does Civility Look Like?
Once again it's the season of separating the gold from fool's gold as political parties look for their most promising leader to offer to the country to be president of the American people. If there is a season for asking what truth and integrity look like, as well as civility, those questions are surely being asked right now. One thing is certain — it's the season for having your brain boggled by what political aficionados attempt to pass off as all of the above.
February, 2012 A Few Faces of Love
Girl's Night
With excitement
exuberance
joy and laughter
her granddaughters
decreed the evening
Girls Night
dedicated it
to fun and frivolity
for girls of all ages
January, 2012 Yesterday 2000, Today 2012
About three months ago a sudden surge of determination took possession of me to go through all my old files and release the outdated and obsolete, and to simplify, simplify, simplify. You wouldn't believe what I've unearthed, dislodged, and rediscovered. No. That's not true. I'm sure you would. Who hasn't had this experience? But what is true is that you might not believe how many papers and files a writer can accumulate.
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