Who Will Listen?

music by Deanna Edwards

9th & 9th Street Festival, Sept. 19

Adopt me

Any toy tank made out of a helmet and scrap metal

that destroys gnomes

is OK by me.

I bought a felted crocheted flower pin.

Great folk-rock band, Highway 6

causes spontaneous dancing to erupt.

Sept. 12, Sundance

'Hay' you? Want to go on a hike?

Hey, there's a rusty old swing set over there in the woods...

Hey, those gossamer-like dried flowers look pretty...

Hey man, you can't stop beauty, don't even try...

Hey, there's the horses my friend, Richard Murray painted in the Foundry Grill

(more at bottom of blog)

Hey dude, that's a pretty cool haircut you've got there...

Hey, that's a pretty flower over there. Looks like a Begian Lily or Cosmos...

Hey, there's some Sunflowers right here in the parking lot.

Hey, what did you say?... What?... You're tired of me saying 'hey' and you won't ever hike with me again if I don't simma downa? Hey, OK. I'll quit.

Green Lake

Bark beetles derange the Elms,

Thickening the path with leaf rot.

Naked limbs of Ash, stripped by downy mildew,

tap coded insults

on the cottage roof.

Inside, albino spiders

sentry the walls

with mazes of webs.

Here, miles from Wayzata,

we make love on the bed you have loved on before.

We sleep

and in your dream

she walks the beach,

tempting the tide to take her.

billowing with a passion

that is not her own,

she becomes the wave,

surging

through the engorged channel

toward the cabin,

teasing,

licking the edges,

nipping the trusses.

When we wake,

the air is dank

with her name.

It seeps between the eaves,

through the floorboards,

driving us outside.

It is too cold to swim

and every direction we walk,

the wind is against us.

In another place,

the day will be warm

and the evening full.

We will have cool drinks

and sit on a porch

listening to crickets, who,

only when the heat

is most intense,

sing of love.
© 2009 by Kathryn Feigal. All rights reserved. 

I studied poetry with Mark Strand at the University of Utah. This is one of the poems I wrote in his workshop.
(see some of his poetry here)

Mark Strand was born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada. His collections of poems include: Dark Harbor (1993), The Continuous Life (1990), Selected Poems (1980), The Late Hour (1978), The Story of our Lives (1973), The Sargentville Notebook (1973), Darker (1970), Reasons For Moving (1968), and Sleeping With One Eye Open (1964). He has also published a book of prose, entitled The Monument (1978). His books on artists include William Bailey (1987) and Hopper (1994). His translations include two volumes of the poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade. He has also published three books for children. He has been the recipient of Fellowships from the Ingram Merrill, Rockefeller, and Guggenheim Foundations and from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been awarded the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (1979), a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (1987), the Bollingen Prize (1993), and has served as Poet Laureate of the United States (1990). He is currently the Elliott Coleman Professor of Poetry in the Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins.

(translation into German from an earlier draft)

Grün See

Du bringst mir zu Grün See,

wo du in frührern Sommern

mit eine andern Frau gewohnt hast.

Der dunkele Himmel liegt schwer auf uns

wie eine muffige Wolldecke

bedeckt mit Hülse vergangenen Lebens.

Borkekäferen zerrütten die Ulme

und Netzen von Blattfäulnis,

den Weg verdickend.

Auf dem Hüttendach, klopfen Nackte Lindenäste

ihre Beleidigungen heraus.

Drinnen, albino Spinnen mit labyrinthischen Geweben,

bewachen die Wände.

Hier, Meilen von der Welt entfernt,

erfüllten wir die gegenseitige Sehnsucht

an dem selben Bett,

wo du mit ihr gelegen hattest.

In deinem Schlaf,

schlendert sie den Strand entlang,

und fordernt die Wellen,

sie hinunter zu ziehen.

Mit fremder wogender Leidenschaft

verwandelte sie sich

in eine Mächtige Welle.

Die Welle Wälzt ihre Fluten dir zu,

wo du liegst, voller Sehnsuchts

um ein Überfluss Wasser.

Die kursierte durch deinen Leib

erreichte die Hütte beleckend

die Klinke versuchend.

Als wir aufwachen hat sich

der Himmel seine Enttäuschung entladen,

und der See murmelt seufzend.

Zum Schwimmen ist's zu kalt

und in jeder Richtung ist

der Wind gagen uns.

Ich verlange von der Luft,

sich zu verzehren

verbrannt zu werden.

Ich will, dass die Liebesperlen meine Wunde heilen.

In noch einem Ort, zu noch einer Zeit 

wird der Tag bequem sein

und der Abend befriedigend.

Wir werden kühle Getränke schlürfen

und an die Veranda sitzen,

die Grille zu hören

als sie in der wärmende Luft

von Liebe singen.
© 2009 by Kathryn Feigal. All rights reserved. 

Dance With Me

I have always loved to dance

but I never had a dancer's body.

I'm short and chunky.

When I was in High School

I was in Dance Club.

I wanted to be one of the dancers

in the flowing, romantic dance number

at the year's end program,

so I went to a blind "Doctor?" on the Avenues

who put me on 500 calories a day

and injected me with urine from a pregnant horse.

I lost weight, but I got a heart arythmia

and worse yet, I was put in

the comedy dance!

I like to say I have danced on Broadway.

Because I have.

If I have one very definite prejudice in life, it is this:

I think EVERYONE should dance.

Happy 31st, Mary Ann

I had a Birthday Party for Mary Ann yesterday. Mary Ann's friends and family always make a special point of confirming she will be at gatherings because she has the greatest laugh and makes everyone feel so good.

I know a lot of experts say we need to be parents and not friends with our children, but that's hard to accomplish when our children turn out to be such great 'friend material.' Mary Ann and I are so close that we finish each other's sentences and reference our own special language ("Hoser beedy in der sneevy." - don't ask).

Mary Ann has always had a certain wisdom and maturity beyond her years. As an enthusiastic massage therapist who believes in the energetic component to healing, I have shared a lot of techniques with Mary Ann, beginning in her childhood. Her child-like simplicity and faith have proved more effective than all of my studied maneuvers.

Mary Ann worked as a Nanny for years and has tremendous patience and concern. As the co-caregiver to my 95-year-old mother, she is so sweet and patient, it brings tears to my eyes.

What a privilege to know this great woman!

("I Could Have Told You Anything," by son, David - sung by Mary Ann; David; guitar & background vocals)

Pencil Sketches

David


"I sung that song with all my soul
and everybody were emotionated"
Enrico Caruso

Anna Akhmatova

I love the sadness in this poet's face and I love her poems.

Memories have three epochs.

And the first is like yesterday.

The soul is under their blessed vault,

and the body is in the bliss of their shadow.

Laughter has not died down and the tears stream,

the ink stain is unwiped on the table,

the kiss is imprinted on the heart,

unique, parting, unforgettable...

But this does not last for long...

The firmament is no longer overhead, and somewhere

in a dull suburb there is a lonely house,

where it's cold in winter and hot in summer,

where a spider lives and dust lies on everything,

where passionate letters burn to ash,

portraits change stealthily,

and people come to it as though to a grave,

and wash their hands when they get home,

and shake off a quick tear

from their tired lids, and sigh heavily...

But the clocks tick, one spring

replaces another, the sky turns pink,

names of towns change,

and eye-witnesses of events die,

and there is no one to cry with, no one to reminisce with.

Those shadows pass from us slowly

which we no longer call upon,

whose return would be terrible to us.

And once awake, we see that we have forgotten

the very road that led to the lonely house,

and choking with shame and anger,

we run to it, but (as in a dream)

everything is different there: people, things, walls,

and nobody knows us; we are strangers.

We got to the wrong place...Oh God!

Now comes the most bitter moment:

we realize that we could not contain

this past in the frontiers of our life,

and it is almost as alien to us

as to our neighbor in the flat,

and that we would not recognize those who have died,

and those whom God parted from us

got on splendidly without us -

even better...

Mary Oliver's Spirit

In Oliver's book, Thirst, there are 43 new poems. You'd expect to find poems about nature and spirituality. In this volume, she also explores grief and faith.

Some of the poems sound like prayers-

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice can speak.

Patching a few words together into a prayer, or into a poem is, as she writes early in the book, her doing her life's work - "loving the world."

As she spends a "Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond," Oliver writes:

Every day I walk out into the world

to be dazzled, then to be reflective

These poems are a kind of natural praying. They are natural in the sense of nature, full of wonder and awe for the beauty of what surrounds us, and they are natural in their inherent sense of right and wrong and their higher qualities of human nature.

Belief isn't always easy.

But this much I have learned—

if not enough else—

to live with my eyes open.

I know what everyone wants

is a miracle.

This wasn't a miracle.

Unless, of course, kindness—

as now and again

some rare person has suggested—

is a miracle.

As surely it is.

Celan said: "Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul."

I am going to try to write a natural prayer like Oliver's.

online poems by Mary Oliver here

Truth Is Truth; When You Are Standing In The Center Of It, Nothing Can Touch You

Half the harm that is done in this world

Is due to people who want to feel important.

They don't mean to do harm

But the harm does not interest them

Or they do not see it, or they justify it

Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle

To think well of themselves.

T. S. Eliot

Narcissists

There are things more important in this world than adjusting to a sick person’s reality - your spirit, your health, your dignity. All are more important. Narcissists get their power from people who don't understand that: people who are willing to be held hostage and that's the ultimate lesson narcissists have to teach. You need to embrace all that you are and learn to not apologize for being a flawed, but essentially loving and good human being. This person is in your life to teach you that. There is nothing more important than protecting and loving YOU.

Healthy people accept the things they cannot change, take responsibility for their own stuff and let go of the rest. They recognize unhealthy and they turn and walk away from it, at all costs. When you choose fear over love, you can only draw negative, toxic things into your life. Love is all powerful. Toxic people have no power in the face of love. Truth is truth. When you are truly standing in the center of it, nothing can touch you. And people who are also standing in truth will be drawn to you.

Beautiful light is born of darkness,

so the faith that springs from conflict

is the strongest and the best.

Light is the symbol of truth.

Give light, & the darkness will disappear of itself.