Dec.
13
2024
The Calendula Review: A Journal of Narrative Medicine published two of my poems in their Fall 2024 issue. The theme was “Inhale/Exhale.” You can read the whole journal at Http://www.thecalendulareview.com. Then look under ‘issues.’ Here are the poems:
Whale Watching
I know the black-and-white
of being alive when I hear
the explosive breach of breath:
Orcas rear
from sea-living into the glorious
necessity of air.
Breathing is a choice. Different
from the automatic heartbeat.
The winds teach us to believe
in the power of the invisible.
We point and cheer as the tour boat
idles the required distance
from the carousel pod
performing its dance
of living in two worlds.
At the rail, we don’t realize
we are holding our breath
until we let it go as they rise
again, open
the tops of their heads
in a waterfall of spectrums
before they again inhale clouds, stars,
a random feather
and dive deep, deeper, leaving us
a souvenir of air,
the moment of our collective Aaahhhh….
Looking Glass
There is life only silver can see. Aunt Sophie
had stories of accompanying a country doctor.
In those long-ago days, a nurse
carried three things in her pocket:
a thermometer, a scissors and a small, round
mirror. Once, she told me, after a difficult
birth while the doc attended to the mother,
she turned to the infant, blue and silent,
left in a basin on a window ledge.
For some reason, she slipped out her mirror,
held it under the tiny nose. Watched,
unbelieving at first, as the flat surface blurred
with the faintest hint of fog.
Immediately she pressed her thumbs against
the tiny chest. Gently parted the still lips
and whispered in her own breath
until the body found its rhythm.
To this day, as a nurse, besides my stethoscope
and blood pressure cuff. In addition
to my computer. I carry a small mirror.
At the beginning and in the final hours,
there are souls only silver sees.
Dec.
11
2024
The 2024 edition of Peregrine, the journal of Amherst Writers, is focused on caregivers and caregiving. I am so proud to have 2 poems included in this beautiful, moving anthology. Both my poems are about difficult situations I experienced as a Hospice RN. The first one titled, “The Necessary Piece,” is about a broken washing machine. Often it is one seemingly small thing that matters extraordinarily. The wife of the patient had worked so hard through his illness and decline to keep her husband comfortable, clean and dignified. This included a lot of washing. One day when I visited, I saw her in tears for the first time. A repairman had come to repair her washer and told her it would take a week to get the part to fix it. We only had a week or so left. I got on the phone to Sears immediately and requested, if not the part, then a loaner washer. It took me four managers until I found someone sympathetic to the situation. Then, miraculously, a second repairman appeared in an hour with the exact piece we needed!
The second poem, “Emergency Number,” is about a dialog I had with a caregiver who had totally lost it with her demented and uncooperative husband, as I raced to her home. This was a heartbreaking situation, but one that did finally resolve. I hope the message in the poem is how very, very difficult caregiving can be, especially over time.
Peregrine hosted a Zoom reading for us to share our work. I loved connecting with the other writers this way, many of them caregivers. This volume is a must-read for anyone dealing with a sick loved one or somehow involved in such care. Thank you, Amherst Writers, for recognizing the ones who stand and serve.
Oct.
28
2024
My poem “The Ghosts of Beautiful Selves,” about how our dead loved ones come back to us, is up now in the Fall 2024 issue of the journal Months to Years. You can read the whole edition at http://monthstoyears.org/Fall-2024. This beautiful publication is full of moving stories, poems and artwork dealing with grief and loss. I am so honored to have my work included. It is sometimes difficult to picture those who have crossed over. And how they do come back within our visions and dreams is not always how we expected. Here is my poem:
The Ghosts of Beautiful Selves
I can no longer picture my mother,
last memory of a face
erased. I can study her fading photos.
I can bring back the timbre
of her voice, her common sayings
but her expression flickers, quick
sequencing too fast to capture.
How many years has it been?
How many false apparitions?
I once heard a Seer say
ghosts always come back
as their most beautiful selves.
Healed of both wounds and aging.
Retro-fitting their youth with touch-ups
as if mirrors hold forever
a stash of fashions
and every shade of blush.
My grandmother described
her daughter as the prettiest girl
in a time before she ever dreamed of me.
My mother was never the person
in the sickbed. She rejected such a body
decades ago. I press my eye against
a kaleidoscope of old circumstance.
Grief reforms into crystal beads
the way, at a distance, colors coalesce
into a landscape, a village,
one new yet familiar face.
Oct.
14
2024
My poem about seeing Sputnik when I was a little girl is up now on the Cider Press Review website. This is a very vivid memory for me even after all these years. We had a close-knit neighborhood where all the moms were also my mom and the other children seemed like my brothers and sisters. But as I grew, as all of us mature beyond childhood, events in my life and the world intervened. My friend lost his life even as mankind explored the universe beyond.
1957
Later than bedtime, we stand
in the unpaved road looking up.
Neighbors not sure what to believe
as we search fixed constellations
for a single traveling light. Satellite.
Sputnik. The men of war
know the truth of bombs
masquerading as a field,
a field of moonlight. Mothers
count children in the dark
as we play hiding games
when suddenly, a red-headed girl
squeals and points toward
a slow moving star. A feeling
unfolds beyond fear and at seven
I already know I will remember
this night. How Bryan Flynn
found me and raced me back to base.
Bryan whose draft number
would be low. Who loved his old dog
and could pitch faster
than any of the other boys.
He would lose his life
while men walked on the moon.
Have you seen Star Link?
Low and slow, a satellite train.
Using my cell phone I can know
anything. I type in Bryan Flynn
and get thousands of hits. None
of them him except the power
of name. I remember
my mother rubbing her bare arms
that October, telling me how this night
would outlive us. How everything
we need to know is written in the sky.
Oct.
01
2024
My poem “Velvet” about my first memory of the feel of fabric is in the current issue of Thimble Journal. You can read it and the whole issue at http://thimblelitmag.com.
My grandmother sewed many of my clothes when I was a child. She once made me a red of red velvet. I loved that coat so much for its rich color but mostly, I think, for its blissful softness.
I still love beautiful fabric. Here is the poem:
Velvet
The earliest pleasure I remember
is velvet. My grandmother
sewed a little red coat for me.
Softness unlike plush or cotton
or even the robe my morning
mother wore.
I was too young to know age
has a number or that the coat
was something I could outgrow.
Since, I have stroked the fur of a puppy’s
ear. Smoothed warm, fine
beach sand. Thumbed
a polished stone. I have cupped
the burn of snow and run my open hand
through the sundown wind
but have never quite found the same
harmony of nerve endings.
I came closest with a lover’s skin.
And have learned that if you stroke the nap
of woven silk backwards
it ruins everything.
Fingertips erode with age, touch
roughened into a crude braille.
I find feelings now mostly in a word:
the name of the fabric
of a little red coat.
Oct.
01
2024
I am so proud to have my poem, “Custody,” in the annual print edition of Santa Fe Literary Review 2024. The theme was about journeys, inspired by Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” When I saw the announcement early this year, I thought this theme was especially inspiring. The journal is beautifully produced and includes lots of artwork to accompany the poems, stories and non-fiction pieces.
The poem the journal accepted had to do with the plight of many children, those whose parents are divorced. These kids go back and forth and this is not an easy situation. I wrote the poem from the point of view of these:
Custody
The worst parts of the divorce
were Friday and Sunday evenings,
the drive back and forth. Anger
like tires spinning on gravel.
The little sentences of guilt
trying to pry out testimonies
of neglect and betrayal
while I sat in silence clutching
the newest cheap toy
that I always said was exactly
what I wanted. About that time,
in my fifth grade reader, I encountered
the myth of Persephone. The teacher
told us it was about the seasons,
but I knew it told the story
of a car ride where I was forced
to make my way among boulders
and roots, feeling torn
between the house and an apartment.
Someone always saying goodbye
in that voice. Journey I could not
escape that I had no say in,
as if I had choked on some seed
and had no idea of the consequences.
Jul.
10
2024
“Snapdragon” has published my poem, “Cumulus,” in their online summer 2024 issue about climate change. You can read all the powerful work by going to Http://snapdragonjournal.com. I don’t write about issues of importance as often as I should. This spring I have been focusing on social concerns more seriously and have crafted several poems I am proud of including this one. I am thankful to the editors of Snapdragon for bringing the needs of our beautiful world forward for both writers and readers to take to heart.
Cumulus
When I first learned clouds move,
I was three years old. Lesson
in the terror of change. The villain
was wind who pushed and shredded,
the same ghost who chafed my skin.
Over the years I developed affection
for breezes, the way all love involves
a tinge of fear. The way I forgave
my own visible breath, leaving.
Throughout my life, the winds have risen
until now I see the atmosphere unraveling,
clouds and leaves and dust all one earth-shift.
Some say the sunsets are more brilliant
these days. I see them with the same
wariness I glimpse the false rainbow
in an oil slick, poison mistaken
for pearl. Clouds outside my window
do not hold the same rain I knew
as a child. Less river, more smoke. Vapor
I imagined into animals now their slow
erasure. Unless we envision a fresh wind.
Until we change the shape of our fear.
Jun.
13
2024
My poem, “Omens and Totems,” is in the current (Spring 2024) online issue of Slant. You can read the whole beautiful journal at: www.uca.edu/sll/slant/. This poem originated in a dream. Dreams are fertile fields for inspiration. I keep a notebook in the bathroom so if I see a powerful image or hear a word while I am sleeping, I can write it down immediately when I awake without disturbing Jim! Here is my poem:
Omens and Totems
I have this nightmare
where I am asked by the storm
within the wind to name
the birds. Each of them.
And I am shamed by my meager
attempt at sparrow and
wren. There are too many
and in my sleep crows shift
into a handful of starling
shadow. It is as if a species
became each individual feature,
none of them true. Each
beloved relationship shattered
since my heart studied
the wrong wing.
My friend makes dream catchers
from chicken feathers. And twine
and seeds the colors of rain.
At night pilgrims fly through them.
I hang one from my head board
reach for my childhood robins.
Drift into the time when I was
so new to this world
I thought I was tasked
with giving the birds their names.