Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Thanks Gwenn

The need to write is bubbling under the surface. I go about my housework trying to ignore the new voice that has entered my head. “I must get my work done first.” I insist, as I load the dishwasher.

I find myself reaching for the phone as it rings. It is my friend, Gwenn, who I consider a writer. Not a famous writer, mind you, but she writes with dark humor that is honest and fresh. She’s the type of writer where the entire family stops what they are doing to read her Christmas card, even though she lives next door and comes to visit on a daily basis. We are not so interested in finding out what is new in her life, but excited to see how she chooses to tell the whole world of it. So I sat down, phone in hand to update her on my new adventures. The first thing I had to share is my crazy attempt to take a creative writing class. No one but Gwenn could understand what type of undertaking this is for me. Gwenn really knows me. She understands that even though she sends me a Christmas card every year that she will never get one from me. Not because I don’t care, but because trying to sit down to write at Christmas could conceivably get me committed to the state asylum. The actual thought of writing such a card produces an anxiety deep within my skin that begins to swell like a tsunami, distorting my face until my forehead appears to have been the victim of a terrible facelift. My skin above my eyebrows over-stretches and the angry exclamation point between my eyes deepens. So every year Gwenn sends me a card, and I call to tell her everything I love about it. Only Gwenn could appreciate the brave act I took walking into the classroom. She laughed and exclaimed, “It is high time you learn to write woman, you are too passionate to not have an outlet.” In this she is right. Already the writing has been cathartic. My internal critic is losing control. The first week of poem writing was so out of my safety zone that “Critic” didn’t even have the vocabulary to yell at me. I don’t know how my writing turned out, but I had a quiet mind for an entire week—without medication.

Anyway, I wondered aloud if I was mad because I was dreaming of poems and even more fearfully, my mind has been taken over by a character. I have never had such symptoms and they are a little nerve racking. Gwenn taught, “I hate it when I have to write something I haven’t dreamt.” She explained that she dreams of every good thing she creates. She dreams of the dress she will sew before she sews it, and the poem she will write before she writes it. She has learned to always keep a pad of paper by the bed and write the impression or dream immediately when it comes—no matter what the time.
This is all new to me. “Will I always have strangers invading my mind?” I ask. “Of course, why do you think so many writers, songwriters and artists go mad? It will always be there.” She replies.
Suddenly I don’t know if attempting the creative writing class is a good idea or not. But even as I think it I know I am glad. Already I can’t bear to abandon the character in my head. Who would give her a voice if I were to give up now. Somehow telling Gwenn has made it alright. If she thinks I can do it, then maybe I can. I go back to my pad of paper ready to try again.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Snow

This evening’s forecast:

Snow!
Frothy façade—
Hovers, frosts, and conceals—
Flying fluff, floating—
Mystical comfort, quiet solace . . .
Fleeting joy.

Tomorrow ‘s forecast:

Inversion!
Steals color, smell and form.
Absolves hue,
creates an intense
monochromatic gloom.
Replaces joy with bleakness,
sallow intensity.
Obliterates focal points
covered and disguised.
Dissolves the horizon
undistinguishable gray.
Destroys the senses.

Day after tomorrow the winter sun will shine again:

Blind again—
Stabbing migraine white again—
Intense, severe, cold.
Blinding freeze, forbidding sterility.
Enduring grief.
Snow!

Sharpy Feather


Sharpy Feather

You crept in my bed
this morning, light and
 full of love.

Snuggled under
around and in
the rumpled downy fluff.

You startled,
and giggled, and
pulled from your head
soft poky stuff.

"Look mommy,
a sharpy feather,"
you held out your hand
in awe.

Gently, you breathed
life into the down . . .
up, up, it swirled,
and all around

it floated, hung . . .
and hovered in our fondness . . .
slowly turning and
twisting toward the ground.

Attempting to
seize the downy gift,
Your quickness
launched it 
up and around again.

Up it swirled . . .
and then . . .
gently down . . . 
the upward gift
settled slowly and
nestled in between our love. 

"Sharpy Feather"

Saturday, January 10, 2009

My Garden Is a Graveyard

My Garden is a Graveyard


Last Summer I drove to Eden,
Bought boxes to grow my green.
Filled containers with hope,
So one day I may thrust my hands
         in rich fertile blackness.

Last Summer my son built boxes
Combined them in loving rows
Carried burdens of soil to mix and turn
         Creating the rich fertile blackness.

Last summer's bounteous hope:
Vain dreams of fruits and herbs to fill my family.
Unfulfilled Joy in reaping together
            from the rich fertile blackness.

 Hope died 'mid blooms of blazing cosmos.
Prometheus' gift, our curse.
White hot flames devoured our hopes
and whiteness blanketed my child.
My black empty richness abandoned
to the cries of my boy's despair. 
No herbs bloomed last summer
For billowing fire blasted there
          in the rich fertile blackness.

I soothed my boy's blooming sores
in billowing white Silvadene,
white bandages of arms and legs.
Lathered foaming white on his hopes
and assuaged his pain
while the white winds stole 
                my rich fertile blackness
midair.


Now whiteness falls like ashes
concealing the billowing blaze of blooms
Whiteness silences the mocking rose and encases
                my rich fertile blackness
Like a tomb.

Now rows of unfulfilled desire
stretch like graves through my garden.
My pain entombed alone,
under snowy masses. Buried deep
             in my rich fertile blackness. 


Thursday, January 8, 2009

Me Too


I was reading my cousins' blog today and I was thrust back a quarter of a century to the same location she wrote about. She took a picture of where she fell on ice outside her old apartment. A generation before, in this same location, I experienced the most embarrassing moment of my life. Thankfully, no one ever admitted having seen my wretchedness.

I chose to go to BYU for all the wrong reasons. A boy with gorgeous brown eyes, who I barely knew, whispered of possibilities. With visions of a Hollywood style romance I moved to Provo in between Christmas and New Years so we could be twogether. The man of my dreams took me skiing, where I promptly fell and broke my knee cap. I realize, that many will say you can't break your knee cap, but that is how it was explained to me by the emergency room doctors, after the nice ride down the slope in the toboggan.

Well, two days later a romantic evening turned into a scene from C.O.P.S. After a screaming match,he slammed the door and suddenly, I was alone in a town that would not be peopled for another week. I had no food except oranges from the trees back home and I was on crutches. Hunger bade me to walk to the store. I put on my only boots--they had slick leather bottoms and soft leather going up to my shins. I felt fashionably ready to brave the elements.

I walked down the stairs of the apartment complex confident that I could take care of myself. But when my crutches made contact with the icy slope, my world turned upside down. Slowly, slowly I descended the decline. I had visions of being hit by a car, but thankfully there was a three foot pile of black snow separating me from the street. I landed in the dirty snow and couldn't dislodge the crutches. I tried to stand up, but continued to fall back down. Eventually, the crutches were free, but my shoes were so slick, that I fell again. After several more failed attempts, I realized I couldn't wear those boots anywhere. I finally got back on my feet and decided I better go back to the apartment and change my shoes.

I headed up the slope, only to slide back down (backwards this time) and land back in the dirty snow. After several attempts I improved on getting out of the snow pack, but I was still no closer to my apartment. Panic seized me as I envisioned the newspaper reporting a girl frozen to death on her front doorstep, unable to climb the incline. I worried of winning the Darwin Award. I finally laid on my stomach, threw my crutches ahead of me and commando crawled (with only one leg) up the ramp. I would move forward 6 inches only to slide back down two. I finally made it up the few feet to my door. I am certain no olympic champion has felt more joy at their feat than I felt that day when I finally reached the safety of my own front door. I have often wondered if anyone was looking out the window that day--I am not sure if I would be glad or horrified.
I am sorry cousin if that darn ramp got the best of you too.