Working out the Words, April / May 2007

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May 30, 2007

Walking in Windham Woods

I walked across the farmer's field;
it reminded me of England
the way he doesn't mind the kindly trespass
of ramblers heading for the marked trail.

I passed beneath a hullabaloo of birdsong
to gaze at a new plowed field
watched bugs like dust motes darting all above
a dragonfly with wings like ice
the ditditdit-dah of a woodpecker announcing
his rightful place above us all.

Steady above me jutted the bare, brown anemones
of pine branches, stark
in the perpetual dusk of these lower woods,
while too far above to elucidate
their heads and shoulders surfaced through the forest canopy
in a billowing of green.

I have walked these woods fifty times and still
here is a path I have never tried.
It takes me by one of many ponds
and up into a clearing where I am surprised
by a redundancy of ferns pushing up
through the soft mulch

and across the little paved path I know well
into a field that once was cleared
and now speaks of silver birch and honeysuckle
long grasses and the anxious proliferation
of gypsy moth nests.
I circumnavigate this young glade
dipping here and there into woods and out
always wary of the rash of poison ivy creeping
into the overgrown places,

pause by ladyslippers
nodding on the path
and squint down a steep hill to mark
the unmoving giant finger of a dead tree,
its story written in the surrounding pool.


I leave its broken spire
and all the other small tragedies of the woods
to make my way back
in this gentle, magic hour.
I am almost to my car when, following a hunch

to the left, I come upon the nearly buried foundation
of what was once a house;
thick vines snake over the cement steps
and a tree grows in the living room.
I can hardly get close, and mosquitos
feather around me like the hungry poor

but I must stop here a while, and sigh
over the lost history of this place
once home to someone
now invisible to the world and forgotten
forgotten
like all the villages gone back to Earth
their citizens long since fled
against the inevitability
of kings
and the steady, slow rush
of time.


May 23, 2007

The mosquitos are starting to proliferate in the woods now, but otherwise the hiking is wonderful and healing.  I just wish it would heal my chronically stiff neck and shoulders.  It must be nearly a year that I've been dealing with it.  I'm afraid it might be from the configuration of my car seat and steering wheel, which cannot be altered (unless I get a different car, with someone else's money).  Anyway the trails are places to think about poetry, and to store phrases in my memory by making sentences out of the first letters of all the words.  I can't remember now what that's called.  I wanted to remember: bird song, boughs, ferns, poison ivy, ladyslippers.  I kept repeating, Be someone bold.  Find purpose in light & shadow. This week I'm working on metaphors.  A hullabaloo of birdsong.  A redundancy of ferns -- when you come upon a little clearing with thousands of them suddenly springing up.  A rash of poison ivy growing by the path!  Har. 

Today I walked far around to get to the other side of the river; there was a grassy acre there that I longed to walk through, and it was worth it: blankets of wild violets, bluets, buttercups.  Someone's house was right there up the ridge; what must it be like to live immediately on the edge of the state forest?  They had built a little gazebo in their wooded backyard, overlooking the river, the violets, the pines.  I envied them.  Not wanting to go all the way back to the grist mill to get across the river again, I found a shallow place and waded across in my soft, white man's bare feet.   A mosquito sucked me without my knowing; inadvertently I squashed it on my pants and left a fire-bright spot of blood.  It washed out when I got home; fine pants.   I'll wear them to England.

The band is going to hear Fairport on Sunday.  I'm excited.  Then I found out Bert Jansch is playing in Boston next month.  Might as well get saturated.

And tonight somehow I got really morose.  I was playing guitar a little, and realizing that I never just pick up the guitar any more.  I have nothing to write a song about, nothing bursting through the turnstile.  There are poems coming but no music.  I'm disconnected from that process and it's making me sad.  And I can't seem to find something I really like to eat this week, odd as it sounds.  Everything I've cooked has been bland or uninteresting.  I got Indian food from my favorite place tonight, thinking that would turn things around -- and it wasn't as good as it has been in the past.  I never know how they're going to spice it; "mild" or "medium" on any given day will mean something different.  The only thing that has been sending me into ecstasy is some cantaloupes that have been perfect.   Maybe I should stick to those.

Meanwhile my woods poem from yesterday's walk turned out really nicely; maybe I'll post it later.


May 14, 2007

I awoke at 4:15am, from a dream in which someone was helping me out with some small thing; instead of just saying "Thank you," I had said, "Undying thanks!"  As I padded, half-asleep, to the bathroom, I suddenly wondered about the meaning of "undying" in this case.  I scribbled then a few notes, which today became this poem:

Perpetuity

When someone gives you their undying thanks,
are they really just long-lived
or are they actually in the process
of becoming undead?

Because that would be a whole other story,
someone's gratitude walking around
like a zombie,
coming after you at all hours
mooing, "thank yoooo.... thank yoooooooo..."
"no, really, thaaaaaanks..."
and you running away shouting,
"Just take the gift! TAKE IT!!
I don't want any thanks!"
fleeing in the night in a panic
(probably tripping over a tree root)
and no matter how fast you run
or how slowly the thanks lurch on
you never seem to shake them.

Worse, a few of the grateful undead
could infect a whole society
and how would you like to be endlessly scraping
your soles through the suburbs
mewling your appreciation for some unforgettable favor
hitching along with all your neighbors
in a perpetual bowing contest
straight out of The Mikado?

Better, I think, to give thanks in the moment,
watching their brief, sweet dispersion
as they rise to heaven and disappear

leaving us free, once again, to choose
whether the next moment will inspire our gratitude
or just another chance to confront
the immortal temptation to complain.



May 11, 2007

Fell asleep on the loveseat tonight after watching Hitchcock's 39 Steps.  I realized partway through that I'd seen it before, a long time ago, during another solo movie night in.  That was okay -- I tend to forget movies if I've only seen them once, so much of it was a surprise again.  After the movie I went to a special documentary on Hitchcock films under the Special Features section, and that was when I fell asleep.  The voice of the narrator, and the snippets of dialogue, melded into the voice of a guy on the street talking bravado in a Hispanic accent.  When I awoke I wasn't sure where I was, or who I was listening to.   I got up and closed the window almost all the way, turned off the tv, and came in here.

I had such a funny day; woke up all right, and even left on time.  By the time I got to rehearsal -- no, by the time I got to Starbucks just prior to rehearsal -- I was in a foul mood, impatient and sad.  Then sleepy all day, tired, neck achy.  On the way home, same thing.  Don't know why; I'm antsy or something about our gig this weekend.  I think having more time off allows me to catch up on my life, but lately it also gives me time to really actively dream about the future, planning my latter years, and it's so hard to get back into a work head afterwards.  I just want to think about the farm.

Our fundraising campaign has begun and in just two days we've been overwhelmed with donors at all levels.  Oh, I hope it keeps up.  It's touching, and brings the awareness of responsibility even closer.  I said to Margo last night, "We're in it now!  We have to do it!"  She confessed to me this week that she has a real fear of being in front of a camera.  Great!  Let's make a movie and give it to our donors!  I told her she'd get more used to it if we kept filming ourselves all summer.  Mark is so funny, though.  He can just turn it on and do something goofy and it's very entertaining.

We were also talking about how, this time last year, we felt like we were winding down.  Everyone was tired, and emotionally weary.  Margo was burned out from the booking.  And then England happened, and then the school show raised its earthy head, and suddenly we had a couple of causes to work for.  Now we have so much to do we're running into ourselves coming and going.  And so what do they do then?  They say, "Hey, let's buy a new HOUSE!"  So all that is going on, too.  Our rehearsal Sunday (after coming back from PA) has turned into just a recording session instead, so we can get this Planet-Saving Super Heroes demo done.  And we really have to come up with a special song for England, our signature song.  Hey.  No wonder I'm tired.

One good thing is that I've been getting out into the state forest recently, for hikes and running, and that has been so good for my soul.  I didn't know how much I needed the woods until I got back out there.  Though I had to charge it, I sprang for an iPod this month -- yes, me, in the 21st century at last -- and I LOVE it.   Sometimes I turn it off and listen to the woods; sometimes it provides me a soundtrack which, as Billy Collins says so adroitly, makes me the center of the universe.

I am perhaps one fifth done with the next poetry book.


April 29, 2007

Birds

I think about birds sometimes
and where all the nests are.
My friend says most of the birds live in tree holes
drilled by woodpeckers
or carved by bugs
or left gaping after a dead branch falls.
But surely so many hundreds of birds can't all live
in holes?
My guess is, those nests we see in our yards
or at forest edges
are just a ruse, Spring rentals for those
who drew the short straws this year,
to make us think they live among us.
I believe there is some secret, other place the rest gather,
hidden from human eyes, and predators, of course
where they can tuck themselves safely in at night
and emerge, ready for the big jest,
each dawn.

I wonder also about mice.
There must be so many mice
but we never see them,
unless our basements have holes
or if we have a cat.
Whence, for example,
came the little gray mouse I saw in the parking lot
at CVS one winter night, just at the curb,
as I emerged from my car, bent on acquiring
some much-needed personal care product?
How far had he come, to hug
the rough cement step in the shadows,
invisible to all but me?

I stood perfectly still then
and delicately pulled out my phone
to call a fellow mouse-lover.
While I was leaving a message
the sleek little fellow emerged from his nook
and trundled right up between my shoes.
All under my disbelieving eyes he leaned right against my heel
and commenced cleaning his face.
One hardly thinks of a mouse as casual
but, clearly, here was one
at ease in his backyard
and assured of his place in some nearby burrow
safe from enemies and cold
and, probably, filled with a tidy stash
of nuts and seeds and granola
dropped by careless, overfed teens
on their way to some popular hang.

I wonder, too, then, about moments of clarity.
Where do they go, once I've glimpsed them
perched briefly on a branch
in the tangled woods of my mind?
Where does the straight bit of path go
that, in a moment, is overrun with brambles?
Has it holed up somewhere
or is it just there, in the shadow of a curb,
perhaps near my car?
Or are those moments of insight
just red herrings for the real seat of truth and understanding
that dwells farther in
where I can almost hear the sweet, terrible cacophony
of many foreign voices, piping?



April 28, 2007

I lie doggo this weekend.  That means hunkered down, incommunicado.  Almost everything I attempt right now gets hindered or downright obstructed -- I don't know what that means celestially, but I get the hint.  I'm grateful to have a few days to lie low and wait it out.  Every so often I have to turn off the phone, give up, not plan a day, leave the list undone.  I did work on a couple of poems today, with satisfaction.  This was despite losing one draft in a failed Hot Sync between my palm and my computer.  I was able to recreate it from scratch because I'd read it several times before it was snatched away by gremlins.  (Okay, maybe I forgot to save it.)   That, and taking the last of the clothes to the Salvation Army, was as close to productive as I came today.

Part of my funk is due to a side of myself I haven't seen in a long time, which reared its pathetic head yesterday.  I went with a friend to a concert of someone I've wanted to meet for a long time.  Afterwards my friend and I were out on the sidewalk, and I was three feet from this guy and the moment was golden for me to just step over and smile and introduce myself.  And what happened?  Nothing.   I couldn't do it.  I was just overcome with shyness and couldn't think of one way to open a conversation that wouldn't be stammering and lame, so I didn't.  We left and went to the gym instead, and later I kicked myself and felt I'd missed a lovely opportunity.  I just hate that.  I realized that I've spent so much of my social time with my band next to me, that without them I don't feel I have any identity, or maybe that I don't have any credentials.  My Adrienne-ness is so defined by my Mad Agnes-ness.  Who am I when I just go to a concert, as a civilian?  I had a CD to give him and everything.  But would he think I was just trying to get attention, by foisting this CD on him?  Well, maybe.  Maybe that's what I was doing.  Or maybe it's just a cool calling-card, and my self-consciousness told me otherwise.

So I moped the rest of the day, and decided to take the weekend off and only do what I can manage in between taking care of myself and being quiet.  It's only been this evening, in the last hour or so, that I've begun to ease up, allowing for the option of going to another concert sometime and giving myself another chance.  How we love to dream.  With life being all work and no romance right now, there is a distinct possibility this could become a fixation.  That bodes well for the writing, but does not keep me rooted in reality.  I'm trying to think of ways to stay real.   Boredom is a problem; that's when I make up stories, to keep life interesting.   My closest friends understand this and I am grateful for them.

Meanwhile I am immersed in a Robertson Davies book, Billy Collins poetry, and breathing the new Spring air, which is so welcome in my upper garret.  If the weather is nice tomorrow I'd like to walk outside and see the horses.


April 12, 2007

I have this first line in my head that I don't know what to do with:  If this were a hypothetical poem...

We did not get the northeaster (the Farmer's Almanac insists there is no such word as "Nor'easter," although everyone I know says it) but had a smattering of rain.   I stayed mostly in, but went to the library to get more Robertson Davies.   This after spending several hours yesterday finally cleaning out the kitchen closet.  Back at the computer, I clicked on my Google desktop icon that has the pictures of the cosmos.  Yesterday's image was of Galaxy NGC 4258, which has a second set of spiral arms, out at right angles to the regular ones, which can only be seen by x-ray or radio waves.  That became a poem I deemed worthy of submitting to The Sun.   It and another recent one will go out tomorrow.

I also searched for poetry reading venues in Connecticut, and there were enough to make me dizzy.  My sister Hilarie has said she'd like to go to one with me.  I don't have much interest in a slam; poetry is not a competitive sport.

In addition to having a really organized closet, I now also know the secret of the mysterious wedding band I've felt compelled to wear for the last few weeks.   It was among my mothers jewelry, left to me when she died four and a half years ago, and there are some initials inscribed along the inside: "SCMW to FMcC."   I had no idea who these people were, but it was obviously a family heirloom.   Some brittle, handwritten documents I found, among a pile of family photos in the closet, taught me the names behind the initials:  Samuel Miller Wilson and Florence McCormick.  It turns out they were my great-grandparents on my father's maternal side.  They were born in 1861 and 1862.  The ring fits my left middle finger.  On the ring finger I wear another gold ring, looks like a school ring.  The origins of this one I have not been able to trace.

The band's impending trip to England makes me think deeply about my ancestry and I want to know more.


April 10, 2007

My writings are proliferating, and I can't keep them in one place.  I'm still looking for the definitive spot, the one where I'll crack open and tell the whole truth.   I have an anonymous online diary, a Roadnotes page on the band website (which, admittedly, I've neglected for many months), a dream journal at home, a poetry journal, a computer full of writings, and now this.  Maybe it'll happen here, whatever it is.

I've been writing for years; all my life.  Last year I began Talking River Books, a home for my own work and that of others.  This year that continues, plus I want to undertake a real study of writing -- not the pure, autodydactic, intuitive kind of work I've always been most comfortable with, but a real delving into the heart of the matter.   Paying attention to how others write, picking it apart and fitting it back together, letting myself be influenced.  For once.  Developing a writing consciousness as opposed to entertaining a writing whim.

I'm forty-eight.  I'm coming to terms with a lot of things.  I've let go of many expectations, but I will hold onto and nurture my creative fire.  It has tended to sleep while I've been on the road, trying to stick to an arduous and sometimes debilitating schedule.  No more; the fire comes with me now.

Today I stopped by the blog of an author I knew many years ago, in high school.   We weren't close friends then, but I rediscovered her a few months ago.  She publishes often in a magazine I have come to read avidly, and is always in the business of getting down to her story.  I admired that to the point of envy.  I am still scared someone won't like me if I tell the whole truth.  Still protected by some layer of silence, some temptation to say, "Yes, all this happened, but it's all right, really."  But it was her rawness that drew me in, offered me a sense of connection, of common human experience.  I shouldn't be afraid of that.  I want my poetry to be not just beautiful to read, but real.

I've been in the doldrums for a few days.  Feeling lethargic, and fat, and oldish, a stranger to myself.  Today I pulled out Walt Whitman and started reading Leaves of Grass out loud.  That helped; sadness can hardly stand up to such determined affirmation.  It doesn't mean I'll feel like cleaning out the closet tomorrow, though I should do it anyway.

And my old schoolmate -- she's prolific as hell.  What is with that, having so much to say?  Did I once have that much to say?  A play, a book, more poems, essays, teaching workshops... once I thought I'd be a writer.  I became an actress and, finally, a musician.  But now, this year, the writer in me wants to just write, unattached to music.  It wants to go to school and learn a craft.

There's a weekend writing workshop in September I'd love to go to.  This woman is on the panel.  But it's in California for one thing, and it's very expensive for another even if you don't have to buy a plane ticket.  I guess I'll let it go.  Maybe there's something more local I can get involved with.

So I'm working on a third poetry book, but this one has a very different approach from the others.  Maybe I'll post something here later.  I wonder who will read this.