Pernickety Lemon makes an Inauguration Day blossom

 

About 10 days ago I awoke to find Persnickety's leaves turned upside down and feeling as thin as tissue paper. We were all worn thin. So thin. Persnickety is working on a blossom now which seems all wrong for winter in Minnesota, but I'll be glad for it and see where it goes. Joe Biden really wasn't my choice for the Democratic nominee, but yeah, I'll see where it goes because I felt like blossoming when I saw our vice president sworn in this morning. 

Pernickety is quite the sensitive thing. The ups and downs of moving and open windows due to Covid and people come to fix this and that in my house have nearly done her in. I've had some ups and downs with the Someone recently, and Persnickety and I have been sisters in distress. I swear to you that while my gut was roiling this morning, I remembered my intestinal upset immediately post marriage break-up when I thought I most certainly had cancer and would be dead in weeks. I had that same terrible feeling, and I thought to myself, well...maybe the someone just responded to my email. He had. 

You might note the draft stopper thing on the windowsill in the photo above. It improved the texture of Persnickety's leaves almost immediately, and the very next morning after I put it on the sill, the leaves turned themselves right side up. I'm going to be holding one of those against my heart.

And I'll be studying Amanda Gorman's poem from this morning's festivities. I thought her reading of her truth-telling poem was flawless.

The Hill We Climb

by Amanda Gorman

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We've braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Where she used to sit, what she used to see

Remembering my mom on the anniversary of her passing. She's been gone three years, and she's always with me.

On Joy and Sorrow   Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.      And he answered:      Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.      And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.      And how else can it be?      The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.      Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?      And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?      When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.      When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.          Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”      But I say unto you, they are inseparable.      Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.      Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.      Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.      When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Solstice

It's time to memorize (again)  this poem by Yeats.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

       THE SECOND COMING
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

What to Pack for the Women's March on Washington

Part I: The Plane Ride

Books and more books. Inspiration is good.

Vitamins. Because being healthy is good.

Drink coupons. Because.

My mom's wristwatch. Because she would be over the moon in favor of this March.

Here's a poem from "When She Named Fire." This is a volume of poems subtitled "Contemporary Poetry by American Women," edited by Andrea Hollander Budy whom I had the pleasure of meeting in residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts a few years ago.

What We Need 
by Pamela Alexander

A roof over
three squares.
Warmth to wear, 
something to burn

in winter. Water
music: sheets
of rain hung out
to dry. Time, or

the habits of light,
A road that thins
in hills. Hills.
Once an image

sufficed; now I see
we must speak.

Tuesday Beach Report: Two Things

Cliffs made out of sand

Yesterday the beach was flat, thick with seaweed and flocks of wading birds, poking their beaks into the surf. Yesterday by the time I finished my walk, my feet were so black with beach tar, I looked like I was wearing shoes. Today the sand was scoured clean and big waves scooped the sand into towering cliffs. Not a speck of tar in sight. The natural world changes without any input from us.

The remains of a mermaid tail sculpted by some beachgoer.

It brings to mind this poem.

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 - 1822

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Tuesday Morning Beach Report: Found Art

There was lots of found art on the beach today. Enjoy!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Charlie the Tuna

Get Yourself a Limbo Girl 

The Colossus of Oxnard

And here's what  the ruins of the original Greek Colossus of Rhodes might have looked like after the earthquake of 226 B.C.

And while we're on the subject, here's Emma Lazarus's poem referencing the original colossus. This text is inscribed on a plaque on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

The New Colossus 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Monday Morning Beach Report

That chalky band of dark blue above the water is residual smoke from the fires.

I'm not in any danger here. It's not blistering hot, but the air-quality even in this paradise is a reminder of the suffering and peril for those battling the flames and the people whose homes and properties are at risk or have already been lost.

Pray for them. Pray for rain, or even just some humidity. Pray that the hot winds turn back to the dessert. Pray for all that and more.

Here's a poem by Ellen Bass--


Pray for Peace

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekinah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin, and open mouths worshiping that skin,
the fragile cases we are poured into.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail,
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, twirling pizzas --

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your Visa card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

Birthdays of the Dead

an old family photo of Dan that was in the slide show at his memorial

You know how Facebook is watching you? You shop for lingerie or shoes or a new blender and then the next thing you know your side bar is full of bras and shoes and kitchen appliances? I think the Poets.org website is watching me. So often a poem drops into my inbox that seems just right.

Today is Dan's birthday. I'm in Maryland picking up my mom and Dan is nowhere and everywhere. If he were still alive, I certainly wouldn't be on the east coast. I'd probably have gotten concert tickets to...well, who knows. It's odd that we think of the dead on their birthdays, I guess. But how can we not think of them?

Vestiges

A. Van Jordan, 1965

I would like to swim in the Atlantic,
to swim with someone who understood
why my fear of drowning plays less dire

than my fear of bones, walking the ocean floor.
I would like to sync my stroke with a beloved.
I’d like to stand on deck on a boat

and jump in the sea and say, follow me,
and know you would. The sea is cold
and it’s deep, too, I’d joke,

standing at the edge of the boat’s bow.
A wind breathes across the sea,
joining gently the edges of time.

With a dog paddling behind me,
I want to crawl across the water
without thinking about a future.

I have set my eyes upon the shore
and I hold you there—steady, in focus—
but let you go when, from below,

a voice breaks to the surface.

A Painting and a Poem

I could write about what a surreal day it was in Pillville today. Or about how I cried at breakfast this morning with someone I'd just met when I told her about Dan.

And I might tell you all that. Tomorrow.

But tonight I keep thinking of this painting and this poem. The poem was written a couple of decades before the painting, and probably the poet and the painter had never even heard of one another.

Here's the painting, seen on my recent visit to LACMA:

The poem, from the Poets.org website:

My Light With Yours by  Edgar Lee Masters When the sea has devoured the ships, And the spires and the towers Have gone back to the hills. And all the cities Are one with the plains again. And the beauty of bronze, And the strength of steel Are blown over silent continents, As the desert sand is blown— My dust with yours forever. II When folly and wisdom are no more, And fire is no more, Because man is no more; When the dead world slowly spinning Drifts and falls through the void— My light with yours In the Light of Lights forever!