A Tidings of Magpies

with many thanks to Debra Heller Bures from whence I reallocated these bits of wisdom!! and I'll add one more of my own... Love. All ways.

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

Dewey's pizza and a movie with hubby and the girls. 'Cause nothing says Christmas like watching a hot mess ruin a perfectly lovely family occasion, or as we say in my family, "Merry Damn Christmas!!" (apologies to those of you who did not grow up with alcoholics)

A woman in the Playhouse audience last night asked the sound check man if the lead, Carter Calvert, had an understudy and he said no, ma'am I don't believe she does. I'd been thinking I didn't know how she could given the actress's voice and her seamless fit into the role, but as I Googled for a video or a photo I found different productions and actresses. Amazing that there are so many talented people in the world and bless them all. If I could just sing on-key for the length of a song I'd be happy. If this show ever comes to your town or close by it's worth the dressing up and stepping out. Beware though, Patsy makes today's radio pop music sound a bit tarnished and thin. A Wife Explains Why She Likes Country by Barbara Ras Because those cows in the bottomland are black and white, colors anyone can understand, even against the green of the grass, where they glide like yes and no, nothing in between, because in country, heartache h...

then and now...

Lilac Sunday by Diana Der-Hovanessian Let us agree to meet here some winter when the park gates are locked, and the arches thinned of their vaulting green to climb the wall, thaw the icicles and watch the rain like flowering cherry and lilacs that kissed your hair; some winter when the fog is heavy,— to return to this light. Neither I nor CinCity have fallen off the edge of the world, though I can't say with certainty what I've been doing. I'm sure that driving aimlessly around the town was involved.                                                                           ...

Those visits home, the way the young by Marianne Boruch   Those visits home, the way the young come back and still follow you around or find you on the bed reading or writing, to lie down at an angle or sit cross-legged. No secret between you, not even trouble quite though it isn't ordinary, the way the world unravels through them: what he said, what she never, who traveled where, that things— how exactly—splinter and break and cut. It trails off then. Both of you, which one to speak but thinking better of it. And the book is just a prop, what you were writing perfectly weightless in this silence. Child, oh fully no longer, out there tangling, untangling.

by Julie Kane What luck—an open bookstore up ahead as rain lashed awnings over Royal Street, and then to find the books were secondhand, with one whole wall assigned to poetry; and then, as if that wasn't luck enough, to find, between Jarrell and Weldon Kees, the blue-on-cream, familiar backbone of my chapbook, out of print since '83— its cover very slightly coffee-stained, but aging (all in all) no worse than flesh though all those cycles of the seasons since its publication by a London press. Then, out of luck, I read the name inside: The man I thought would love me till I died.

I don't know if anyone else out there has become obsessed with been watching the new ABC show, Once Upon a Time , but I cannot wait for it to come on every week  have found it interesting and entertaining. Full disclosure, still a fan of LOST. And, huge fan of fairy tales. Although, it does make me wonder a bit about Jungian archetypes and Joseph Campbell's work on The Myth of the Hero and how in our rather disjointed, but more globally connected world do we unearth ancient sources of meaning and guidance? Mostly though, I like a good fairy tale, especially the old-fashioned Grimm ones that didn't pull any punches or bedazzle-up their messages. I like my trolls to look like trolls. The sun is shining here and it's not raining; big change from the last couple of days. I've got the hospital's biannual ACLS to study for so that means I'll find some more things around the house that must be dealt with today--old magazines? Must be skimmed through and...

The White by Patricia Hampl These are the moments before snow, whole weeks before. The rehearsals of milky November, cloud constructions when a warm day lowers a drift of light through the leafless angles of the trees lining the streets. Green is gone, gold is gone. The blue sky is the clairvoyance of snow. There is night and a moon but these facts force the hand of the season: from that black sky the real and cold white will begin to emerge. please note: photo by Drew Sanborn

Counting Sheep by Linda Pastan Counting sheep, the scientists suggested, may simply be too boring to do for very long, while images of a soothing shoreline ... are engrossing enough to concentrate on. —The New York Times When I reach a thousand I start to notice how the eyes of one ewe are wide, as if with worry about her lamb or how cold the flock will be after the shearing. At a thousand fifty I notice a ram pushing up against a soft and curly female, and for a moment I'm distracted by errant images of sex. It is difficult to keep so many sheep in line for counting— they are not a parade but more like a roiling sea of whitecaps, which makes me think of the shore— of all those boring grains of sand to keep track of as they slip through the fingers, of all the dangers of sunstroke, riptide, jellyfish. The scientists fall asleep lulled by equations, by dreams of experiments, and I ...

Must have been a slow news day in CinCity today, verrrrry slow since they actually came to interview us this afternoon. If you happen to watch the video I'm in the background--the woman in red. Red scrubs before I got peed on and changed. Hey, just one of those days :>) Working on Thanksgiving? Who's complaining?

Sundown by Jorie Graham (St. Laurent Sur Mer, June 5, 2009) Sometimes the day light winces behind you and it is a great treasure in this case today a man on a horse in calm full gallop on Omaha over my left shoulder coming on fast but calm not audible to me at all until I turned back my head for no reason as if what lies behind one had whispered what can I do for you today and I had just turned to answer and the answer to my answer flooded from the front with the late sun he/they were driving into—gleaming— wet chest and upraised knees and light-struck hooves and thrust-out even breathing of the great beast—from just behind me, passing me—the rider looking straight ahead and yet smiling without looking at me as I smiled as we both smiled for the young animal, my feet in the breaking wave-edge, his hooves returning, as they begin to pass by, to the edge of the furling break, each tossed-up flake of ocean offered into...

by Mary Mackey One November a week before Thanksgiving the Ohio river froze and my great uncles put on their coats and drove the turkeys across the ice to Rosiclare where they sold them for enough to buy my grandmother a Christmas doll with blue china eyes I like to think of the sound of two hundred turkey feet running across to Illinois on their way to the platter the scrape of their nails and my great uncles in their homespun leggings calling out gee and haw and git to them as if they were mules I like to think of the Ohio at that moment the clear cold sky the green river sleeping under the ice before the land got stripped and the farm got sold and the water turned the color of whiskey and all the uncles lay down and never got up again I like to think of the world before some genius invented turkeys with pop-up plastic thermometers in their breasts idiot birds with no wildness left in them...

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Amendment One of the Constitution of the United States of America Excerpt from January 28, 2011, Remarks by President Obama on the Situation in Egypt: "The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere." 1894 1932 1965 1969 with a thanks to Debra & From Skilled Hands for President Obama's quote

by Walt McDonald Pulling our Stetsons low, we whispered songs to sweethearts who clung so close we danced in slow motion, heartache of steel guitars, vows we swore with our bones. Their hair was the air for an hour. We breathed and held them close, ignoring the war for the night, voices on jukebox wax winding around like a rope. One week we kissed them hard and rode off, swearing we'd bring back silk and souvenirs. Long after a war no one we cared for survived without scars, Earl and I are here with wives as old as country songs and guitars, our children older than all of us that fall. Don's a name on the wall in Washington. I hear his name sometimes in questions at class reunions. I haven't heard from Carl.

by Patricia Hampl These are the moments before snow, whole weeks before. The rehearsals of milky November, cloud constructions when a warm day lowers a drift of light through the leafless angles of the trees lining the streets. Green is gone, gold is gone. The blue sky is the clairvoyance of snow. There is night and a moon but these facts force the hand of the season: from that black sky the real and cold white will begin to emerge.

It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat at the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground. The house shook. excerpt from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle please note: photo by StrawberryFields1967

by Ben Jonson The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain, The ant and the mole sit both in a hole, And the frog peeps out o' the fountain; The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play, The spindle is now a turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled, But all the sky is a-burning: The ditch is made, and our nails the spade, With pictures full, of wax and of wool; Their livers I stick, with needles quick; There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood. Quickly, Dame, then bring your part in, Spur, spur upon little Martin, Merrily, merrily, make him fail, A worm in his mouth, and a thorn in his tail, Fire above, and fire below, With a whip in your hand, to make him go. please note : photo by Gigi De Carlo

Many, many years ago when I was a young nurse we had a patient who was admitted frequently after being picked up by the police for sleeping in the park. His name, which we will agree on as James, could begin an avalanche of moaning and itching among the ICU staff as he almost always came in with lice and was definitely always very determined to get his own way. I loved James. I don't know why. But, I did and we got along. He made me laugh. It floored me that he would come in as the poster child for A Hot Damn Mess and we would work hard to clean him and patch him up only for him to leave AMA and refuse to leave until we gave him clothes. We had "stolen"his. The man still had moxie. I met his brother once, towards the end--a dentist from one of the suburbs where they had both grown up. James "had some kind of break" and left the circle of his family to become one of the faceless and homeless men who wander through our city. It was because of James that I met...

When the War is Over by W. S. Merwin When the war is over We will be proud of course the air will be Good for breathing at last The water will have been improved the salmon And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly The dead will think the living are worth it we will know Who we are And we will all enlist again please note: photo of  a team of C-STARS( The Air Force's Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills) and a heartfelt thank you to all our veterans.

by Linda Pastan How separate we are under our black umbrellas—dark planets in our own small orbits, hiding from this wet assault of weather as if water would violate the skin, as if these raised silk canopies could protect us from whatever is coming next— December with its white enamel surfaces; the numbing silences of winter. From above we must look like a family of bats— ribbed wings spread against the rain, swooping towards any makeshift shelter.

Reusing Words by Hal Sirowitz Don't think you know everything, Father said, just because you're good with words. They aren't everything. I try to say the smallest amount possible. Instead of using them indiscriminately I try to conserve them. I'm the only one in this household who recycles them. I say the same thing over & over again, like "Who forgot to turn out the lights? Who forgot to clean up after themselves in the bathroom?" Since you don't listen I never have to think of other things to say.

  In Praise of the Great Bull Walrus by Alden Nowlan I wouldn't like to be one of the walrus people for the rest of my life but I wish I could spend one sunny afternoon lying on the rocks with them. I suspect it would be similar to drinking beer in a tavern that caters to longshoremen and won't admit women. We'd exchange no cosmic secrets. I'd merely say, "How yuh doin' you big old walrus?" and the nearest of the walrus people would answer, "Me? I'm doin' great. How yuh doin' yourself, you big old human being, you?" How good it is to share the earth with such creatures and how unthinkable it would have been to have missed all this by not being born: a happy thought, that, for not being born is the only tragedy that we can imagine but need never fear.

excerpt from Dracula by Bram Stoker Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back. And with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protruberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything. But as I list...

Giselle ... "...cause sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead." Poor Giselle, if only she'd had an IPod to listen to the wisdom of Adele or read some poetry. Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself by Barbara Crooker like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking, flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek across the sky made me think about my life, the places of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling, the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place. Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold for a brief while, then lose it all each November. Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields, land on the pond with its sedges and reeds. You do not have to be wise. Eve...

by David R. Slavitt Her repertoire is limited but fulfilling, with two preoccupations, or three, perhaps, if you include the taking of many naps: otherwise she is snuggling or killing.

by Rafael Campo I pass you in a hurry, on my way to where another woman who I know is dying of a stroke that in the end is nothing worse than what is killing you. Same gurney, same bruised arms and mute IV— you wait for what might be a final test. It's something in the way you look at me that makes me realize you have your own mistakes you think you're paying for, your own ungrateful kids, your own unspeakable pain. Yet you look at me, still desperate for just another human being to look kindly back at you, to recognize in you the end is not far off, is not so unimaginable. Years ago I watched a patient of mine say goodbye to life. She was alone like you, alone like me, she was in agony. She looked at me, and I, afraid to be the last thing here on Earth she saw, twisted my head to look away. I almost do the same to you, afraid you might imagine me as later you lay dying, but I don't. Instead, I look at you remorselessly, ...

A Lover by Amy Lowell If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly I could see to write you a letter.

Letter from a Mental Hospital by Kim Lozano From the heart of an old box of letters I lift a small water-stained envelope. Inside, a note card as thin and brittle as a frozen leaf bears a message written fifty years ago by a woman who shares my name. She delivers no greeting, no sorry to have been away so long. She leaves no record of visitors, rationed cigarettes, group art, or the barren iceberg of treatment. I imagine her listening to the ping of the radiator on a snowy morning, seated in her nightgown and socks by an open window. A bell rings in the hallway but she doesn't move toward her robe or her slippers or her brush. I see myself sitting beside her, reaching toward her dull pencil to place my fingers over hers, hand on hand, gliding over the words, moving like two skaters on a lake tracing the solitary line— Please come get me.

It was a grrrl's weekend at the lake. Pizza, beer, thrift store shopping, farmers' markets and girltalk. A nice break for all of us and a new way to reconfigure ourselves with 2 girls growing up, up, and away. CollegeGrrrl shadowed at BigFatTeaching Hospital, first in the Burns unit, then with me. That was fun to have her there and explain some of the details about nursing that can't be learned till you're in the thick of it and equipment that makes much more sense in person than in a lecture. HoneyHaired--our new collegegrrrl--made up for lost sleep. You'd think there was a magical sleeping potion in the backseat of the car. But, they're off and running again. Hubby is off working at winterizing the place before the season passes. I'm here on a day off with the remaining animal boys who could also sleep all day and night and then some. Must pull myself away quickly. I'm convinced they release some pherome that entices all humans around them to nap...

by Anne Porter Our poems Are like the wart-hogs In the zoo It's hard to say Why there should be such creatures But once our life gets into them As sometimes happens Our poems Turn into living things And there's no arguing With living things They are The way they are Our poems May be rough Or delicate Little Or great But always They have inside them A confluence of cries And secret languages And always They are improvident And free They keep A kind of Sabbath They play On sooty fire escapes And window ledges They wander in and out Of jails and gardens They sparkle In the deep mines They sing In breaking waves And rock like wooden cradles.

by Jane Piirto the 3-year-old, wanting to know what day it is asks everyday what day it is we tell her Tuesday or Saturday etcetera then she asks what day it will be tomorrow and we go through the naming of tomorrows in order chanting the future like a litany tomorrow is when she wakes up in the morning and when we tell her we'll go shopping tomorrow she remembers yesterday and informs us that it is tomorrow that today is yesterday that therefore the time is always now to do what we plan to do tomorrow please note: photo by Donncha O Caoimh

by David Budbill I'm glad to see our friends come: talk, laughter, food, wine. I'm glad to see our friends go: solitude, emptiness, gardens, autumn wind. please note: art by Claude Monet

Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right I have been one acquainted with the night.

by Mary Szybist Are you sure this blue is the same as the blue over there? This wall's like the bottom of a pool, its color I mean. I need a darker two-piece this summer, the kind with elastic at the waist so it actually fits. I can't find her hands. Where does this gold go? It's like the angel's giving her a little piece of honeycomb to eat. I don't see why God doesn't just come down and kiss her himself. This is the red of that lipstick we saw at the mall. This piece of her neck could fit into the light part of the sky. I think this is a piece of water. What kind of queen? You mean right here? And are we supposed to believe she can suddenly talk angel? Who thought this stuff up? I wish I had a velvet bikini. That flower's the color of the veins in my grandmother's hands. I wish we could walk into that garden and pick an X-ray to float on. Yeah. I do too. I'd say a zillion yeses to anyo...

by Hayden Carruth North people known for silence. Long dark of winter. Norrland families go months without talking, Eskimos also, except bursts of sporadic eerie song. South people different. Right and wrong all crystal there and they squabble, no fears, though they praise north silence. "Ho," they say, "look at them deep thinkers, them strong philosophical types, men of peace." But take notice please of what happens. Winter on the brain. You're literate, so words are what you feel. Then you're struck dumb. To which love can you speak the words that mean dying and going insane and the relentless futility of the real?

A lot's gone on this summer and I haven't much felt like reading poetry or posting it. It's one of the many things I just can't seem to wrap my head around. Much like my To-Do list which I normally love as I can check things off and use different colored markers . I don't have much attention for reading. Don't want to go out and listen to music. Don't feel like pilates. I cook. I work. I could walk and walk and walk and walk and walk some more. Thinking about starting back to a dance class. Could happen. I separate piles of clothes and books to go into various baskets and out of the house. I realize this will pass. There is a season for grief. It doesn't last forever. I would like a stop date to mark on the calendar, but I know it will come. Until then, I am grateful for small pleasures. Bridesmaids came out on DVD yesterday. Modern Family starts again tonight. Funny helps.

kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.” ― Stephen King, Salem's Lot

by Linda Pastan When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park, I kept waiting for the thud of your crash as I sprinted to catch up, while you grew smaller, more breakable with distance, pumping, pumping for your life, screaming with laughter, the hair flapping behind you like a handkerchief waving goodbye.