I
want to open this blog posting with a poem, a new one, one written tis winter.
So,
please excuse me for a moment, I have to paw through 41 pages to make my
pick. Hmmm, what poem will I select to
share with you?!
***
By Some Mistake,
my
new coiff’s punked out,
spikey
like a snowy egret’s pate
but
mine’s silver, mind you, not yet white
and
definitely not your old broad’s
mating
plumage (How does that damn bird
keep
her headfeathers so brazenly clean?);
I
gotta do hair goo for this do—
gunk
equals must— otherwise you get me
going
on vulture-ugly and screaming
Buzzard shit! ’cause avian
envy’s hard stuff.
***
There.
That didn’t take too long. I chose this
poem for a few good reasons. First, I wrote it for my beloved friend Colleen
Powderly, a poet of power who’ll be visiting us come Friday. (Yay!). That makes
this poem a poem of friendship, so is impeccably suitable to share with you. (It
also spares you the politics, erotica, etc. in my Winter 2014-2015 collection.)
Three: The poem is light. Puh-leese, no downers for my first posting of the new
year. Four: It feels good to sweat the small stuff when the heavies (name yours—cancer?
senility? grief? despair?) have got you in rocky, hard places. Life calls on
you to make like moss: Be soft. Sit still. Listen. Breathe.
***
I
give you another story written in the photograph, one I took last summer on the
Isle of Iona in Scotland. Here it is February already and I’ve only today finished
Volume I of the Highland adventures photo/poetry book. (See below.) The wall is one at a 13th-century
nunnery, continuing to fall into ruins. I gaze at the stone and can almost hear
one of the novices humming a prayer to St. Brigit, for me.
***
Methinks
another poem is in order, and another photograph, that is two more tales of a
poet.
***
Florida Lullaby to
Self
Lately
I’ve been having the most satisfying
yawns
after afternoon daydreams
and
satisfying stretches of mind
(Cohen,
Scafidi, Longenbaugh)
and
stretches of muscle (water aerobics);
I
bathe in warm pools of solitude,
as
often as I dare, dance
with
coyote and owl by the stars,
and
by the moon sing to armadillo
of
the raccoon’s thieving envy.
I
inhale in concert with tree frog and cricket;
I
exhale spells cast on the feral boars of life.
Wildness,
this darkness, do comfort me;
I
shall sleep the sleep of lichen and moss.
***
That,
folks, is how the winter is going most of the time. Roger and I keep perhaps too busy socially, though
certainly have a good time. Roger’s working hard to keep fit; I get to the pool
often for my own exercise. And, we will
soon be packing our bags for an expedition to Costa Rica and the Panama Canal.
The Vagabond Duet are going to give another trip a try.
Meanwhile,
I hope you have the same sweet sleep.
Drift
off to sleep, perhaps contemplating the life of lichen as in the photo below.
This lichen lives quietly, stubbornly, enduringly bonded to granite on a hand-worked
stone the size of a breadbox painstakingly set into the walls of a ceremonial
mound dating to Neolithic times in the Scottish Highlands just east of
Inverness. I can almost hear the clan priestess chant her ancient song to the
Moon, for me.
***
***
For
further reading, viewing, discovering:
·
Travel
with me! See my new Shutterfly photo book at: https://karlasphotobooks.shutterfly.com/
. At long last, the first of two photobook
volumes of Roger's and my expedition in the Scottish Highlands. Join us aboard
the Lord of the Glen as we explore the islands of the Inner Hebrides and motor
along the Caledonian Canal bisecting the Highlands from Oban in the far west to
Inverness in the far east. Look for
Volume II of the adventure soon!
·
Two
poetry events are in the offing. In case you’re in the neighborhood here in
Florida, see: http://www.copperfishbooks.com/events.php
- Reading on Feb. 12th with beloved friend and fellow writer Catherine
Underhill Fitzpatrick, along with writer Kris Radish.
·
Coming
up on Feb. 22, I will join my beloved friend and fellow poet William Heyen for
a duet reading at Bookstore1Sarasota. My third reading there! http://www.sarasotabooks.com/#!february-events/c1c1s
·
And
please visit The Centrifugal Eye at http://centrifugaleye.com/ -- my Her
“Wealth of Souvenirs” is out (or just about out) in the Winter 2015 issue, “Story,”
along with “a solitary, endless /
infinitive”, mys book review of Julie Bruck’s Monkey Ranch, along with my photograph “Slave Art.”
· Do you love coffee or hate it? Share it or
drink it alone? Prefer regular or decaf? Flavored or plain? At home or at a
coffee shop? See the sample poems by Jo Balistreri, Wilda Morris and me. (Mine is “Since today is the first full day of
summer I envision:”.) Check it out at http://wildamorris.blogspot.com/. I’ve very
honored to be judging this month’s challenge, especially to be partnered with
Jo. Thank you, Wilda!
·
Also my poem
“Herpetologically Yours” won Wilda Morris’s Poetry Challenge in January
and was published there in January. Scroll down her site to read it. ,
And, should be lucky enough to have copies of these journals
(or decide you’d like to order a copy on Amazon), you can read:
·
My
poem “Florida Nocturnal Sutra,” which appeared in Avocet: A Journal of Nature
Poetry, Winter 2015, and “Visit
to the Magic Kingdom of Everglades Trees” rand in The Weekly Avocet in late January. Also, “When I Wish upon a Tree” out on New Year’s
Eve in The Weekly Avocet.
·
Another
poem: “Final Tally: Mosquito Netting: 0, Wife: 9” was published in We
Are Poetry: An Anthology of Love Poems (Stacy Savage) in February.
·
And
another: “Among the ***s” in Petals in the Pan, an anthology
from Kind of a Hurricane Press.
·
Another, also from
Kind of a Hurricane Press: “Ménage à Trois,” Pyrokinection, Fall 2014, and s reprinted in Storm
Cycle: 2014 Best-of Anthology,
out this month. Click on: http://www.pyrokinection.com/
… scroll down to “Older Posts” and scroll further.
·
Lastly, “Following Leonard Cohen’s Lead” will
be out soon in Poeming Pigeons, an anthology from The Poetry Box.
Thank you
for reading.
