A Tidings of Magpies

Journey by Train by May Sarton Stretched across counties, countries, the train Rushes faster than memory through the rain. The rise of each hill is a musical phrase. Listen to the rhythm of space, how it lies, How it rolls, how it reaches, what unwinding relays Of wood and meadow where the red cows graze Come back again and again to closed eyes— That garden, that pink farm, that village steeple, And here and there the solitary people Who stand arrested when express trains pass, That stillness of an orchard in deep grass. Yet landscapes flow like this toward a place, A point in time and memory's own face. So when the clamor stops, we really climb Down to the earth, closing the curve of time, Meeting those we have left, to those we meet Bringing our whole life that has moved so fast, And now is gathered up and here at last, To unroll like a ribbon at their feet. HoneyedHaired Grrrl should be making her way back home tomorrow, air tr...

Might I recommend a movie to you all? Diana Vreeland. If you are "of a certain age," male or female, this movie brings our past back to kaleidescopic life through an entirely different lens. The quotidian wrappings of our day have, more likely than not, become icons. The Twiggys, the Rolling Stones, the Jean Shrimptons, the Veruschkas. Pages and pages of magazine photos that filled our minds and eyes in the travels of our every days now fill in the gaps of our history of events of that time. I'd seen the previews at our neighborhood movie theater and thought it looked interesting enough, though easy enough to keep putting off. Yesterday I put it on the To-Do List for 5:05pm and to quote another great icon, "I'm mad about it!! Simply mad!" Goodbye, New York (song from the wrong side of the Hudson) by Deborah Garrison You were the big fat city we called hometown You were the lyrics I sang but never wrote down You were the live...

                             Well, it's January and it must be done. Yoga pants must be dug out of the bottom of a pile of clothes in the bedroom, a short sleeved T shirt must be wriggled into, and I must sweat amongst strangers. Hubby and I have never quite recovered from our last visit to New Orleans and let me simply say two words. Creole. Rabbit. We believe we were placed on earth to eat and drink every two hours while wandering around listening to fabulous music. Alas, that is not meant to be and January is here and my jeans are not as comfy as my work scrubs, so sweat it shall be today. Turn it up and burn it up, my friends!    Flowers by Linda Pastan The deep strangeness of flowers in winter— the orange of clivia, or this creamy white rose in its stoneware vase, while outside anoth...

Happiness by Joyce Sutphen This was when my daughters were just children playing on the rocky shore of the lake, their hair in braids, their bright-colored jackets tied around their waists. It was afternoon, the shadows falling away, their faces glowing with light. Whatever we said then (and it must have been happy; it must have been hopeful) is lost as I am now lost from that life I lived. This was when nothing that I wanted mattered, though all I wanted was happiness, pure happiness, simple as strawberries and cream in a saucer, as curtains floating from a window sill, as small pairs of shoes arranged in a row.

Looking for The Gulf Motel by Richard Blanco Marco Island, Florida There should be nothing here I don't remember . . . The Gulf Motel with mermaid lampposts and ship's wheel in the lobby should still be rising out of the sand like a cake decoration. My brother and I should still be pretending we don't know our parents, embarrassing us as they roll the luggage cart past the front desk loaded with our scruffy suitcases, two-dozen loaves of Cuban bread, brown bags bulging with enough mangos to last the entire week, our espresso pot, the pressure cooker—and a pork roast reeking garlic through the lobby. All because we can't afford to eat out, not even on vacation, only two hours from our home in Miami, but far enough away to be thrilled by whiter sands on the west coast of Florida, where I should still be for the first time watching the sun set instead of rise over the ocean. There should be nothing here I don't r...

My Dead Friends by Marie Howe I have begun, when I'm weary and can't decide an answer to a bewildering question to ask my dead friends for their opinion and the answer is often immediate and clear. Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child in my middle age? They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads to joy, they always answer, to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy's ashes were — it's green in there, a green vase, and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes. Billy's already gone through the frightening door, whatever he says I'll do.

   Getting Through by Maxine Kumin I want to apologize for all the snow falling in this poem so early in the season. Falling on the calendar of bad news. Already we have had snow lucid, snow surprising, snow bees and lambswool snow. Already snows of exaltation have covered some scars. Larks and the likes of paisleys went up. But lately the sky is letting down large-print flakes of old age. Loving this poor place, wanting to stay on, we have endured an elegiac snow of whitest jade, subdued biographical snows and public storms, official and profuse. Even if the world is ending you can tell it's February by the architecture of the pastures. Snow falls on the pregnant mares, is followed by a thaw, and then refreezes so that everywhere their hill upheaves into a glass mountain. The horses skid, stiff-legged, correct position, break through the crust and stand around disconsolate lipping wisps of hay. Animals are said ...

please note: photo by Ray Yeager

Ice by Gail Mazur In the warming house, children lace their skates, bending, choked over their thick jackets. A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy it's hard to imagine why anyone would leave, clumping across the frozen beach to the river. December's always the same at Ware's Cove, the first sheer ice, black, then white and deep until the city sends trucks of men with wooden barriers to put up the boys' hockey rink. An hour of skating after school, of trying wobbly figure-8's, an hour of distances moved backwards without falling, then—twilight, the warming house steamy with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs aching. Outside, the hockey players keep playing, slamming the round black puck until it's dark, until supper. At night, a shy girl comes to the cove with her father. Although there isn't music, they glide arm in arm onto the blurred surface together, braced like dancers....

I was very much hoping to go to the above cafe tonight and listen to a little music and eat a little cafe food. Hubby, however, is still recovering from a horrible gastrointestinal virus that he picked up in his ER which I'm crossing my fingers and hoping is only passed on in his ER. Don't want it. And would like to be away from sick people for a night. Ahhh, well, next weekend is another two days. It's cold here. Maybe feels colder because we've had such a mild time of it so far, but that wind is piercing. Good time to computer shop for a down parka on sale especially since we're saving money by not going out. I do love a win-win :>) Fishing in the Keep of Silence by Linda Gregg There is a hush now while the hills rise up and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully as He lies dreaming in the lap of the world. He knows the owls will guard the sweetness of the soul in their massive ...

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...

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.

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.

I have been a bit lost after the death of my friend. The topography of my life has been altered. C.S.Lewis called it the Shadowlands; I view it as the MiddleLands. Robin's deep, abiding love for her family is in one direction and the action to leave her children that was undeniably made is in the other. We are traveling through the middle land where the geography is unmapped, and where I have to believe God and His Spirit walks with us. One has to just keep walking in the stillness. But, the earth keeps moving at a thousand miles/hour and dinners require cooking, cars need repairing, and daughters are preparing to go off to college. HoneyHaired moves into the dorm on Thursday and today we are going to the opening of the ballet season. New Works, where the choreography loosens up a little and some non-classical performances can take place. Gotta keep stepping.

We spent the first three days of this week driving up and back to the lake. Drank beer with our neighbors, bought a wasp catcher, rode bikes around Kelly's Island, got sunburnt, ate fish, worked jigsaw puzzles, and HoneyHaired and I watched That Touch of Mink . Hubby fell asleep probably at the first scene. The muffler did not fall off my car, though I worry that will happen any day now before we can get it to the dealer, so while you can hear us coming up the street, you don't actually feel it in your bones. Yet. Passed many a church and bank along the way up I-75 and in front of one of them was a sign reading, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.--Helen Keller." I imagine there were many inspiring messages we passed, but this one resonated with me and kept me centered my last two days at work. Thank you all for your warm thoughts and comments in my last posting. I called this morning around 5am and my patient's h...

Phone Therapy by Ellen Bass I was relief, once, for a doctor on vacation and got a call from a man on a window sill. This was New York, a dozen stories up. He was going to kill himself, he said. I said everything I could think of. And when nothing worked, when the guy was still determined to slide out that window and smash his delicate skull on the indifferent sidewalk, "Do you think," I asked, "you could just postpone it until Monday, when Dr. Lewis gets back?" The cord that connected us—strung under the dirty streets, the pizza parlors, taxis, women in sneakers carrying their high heels, drunks lying in piss—that thick coiled wire waited for the waves of sound. In the silence I could feel the air slip in and out of his lungs and the moment when the motion reversed, like a goldfish making the turn at the glass end of its tank. I matched my breath to his, slid into the water and swam with him. "Okay," ...

Tempest, Act V, Scene I [Where the bee sucks, there suck I] by William Shakespeare Ariel sings Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

Suspend reality and basic common sense as I invite you to Eastern StandardTime Hospital...   Many of you have shown interest in my job as a Mental Health Associate. This is probably due to the serious life-saving work that my fellow co-workers and I accomplish. Hey, coffee doesn't drink itself! However, many of you have only heard half of the story. The truth is, there is a very serious contest conducted every month at ESH. The winner of said contest gets their very own picture taken which is placed in the monthly newsletter along with their answers to 16 hard hitting questions. I've never been let in on the secret details of how such employees are chosen. I have often questioned the validity of this award due to the fact that I have never been nominated. Ludicrous, I know. I imagine that there must be some sort of electoral college establishment involved in the selection process. This would explain how I could have possibly lost 47 months in a row. Like Al Gore, I'm...

Above is the courtyard of BigFatUniversity Rehab Center where my mother is currently being housed after suffering a stroke. I'm off to visit this morning. The care has been good and now discussions and plans are underway for where to go next. She's had a right sided stroke and, while it generally saves the speech center, it takes out the portions of the brain involved with judgement, memory,  problem solving, insight, etc...kind of a "six to one, half dozen the other" situation. As I'm sure you can imagine, safety becomes a big, big problem. Ma would desperately like return to her home and that may or may not work. We'll have to see with a little further cognitive evaluation and another look/see from the psychologist. There's a thought that she might be "sundowning," and for those unfamiliar with that picturesque phrase, it's when an elderly person is perfectly normal and cooperative all day long goes bat-shit crazy around 4...