Revising the Survey Map of Grief

***




You are looking at a picture of an asset: a shorewell. This one is located on my property on Barracks Lane in Cape Vincent, the place we used to call Rainbow's End that, as of today, is up for sale, flaws and all. Some items will be repaired, some we'll leave for the next owners, but, by all means, the worst will be cleaned up well before it changes hands..

So, at this juncture in my life, what I find I'm doing is preparing to part with a huge chunk of my life, one that dates back to 1981, when my brother and I bought the parcel together. Egad, thirty years of history there between my brother and me! I say farewell to this stretch along Lake Ontario just as I’m saying goodbye to Jimmy: sadly.

You can gather from the photograph that it's a rocky landscape. Literally, figuratively. My brother's death in March still leaves me, heading into late May, with more clean-up work -- a considerable amount.

That's why I need a break. My beloved husband Roger (whose born a great burden too) and I are skipping town, leaving the country for seven days, six nights. On Sunday morning after seven weeks of what feels like constant "estate caca," we're going camping in Ontario, along the northern, provincial Lake Erie shoreline.

Beach walks, woodsy hikes, a lighthouse or two, campsite chats and "library hour," poems—and sleep. No computer. No Internet. No cell phone. I'm aiming to be blissfully disconnected from that sorrowful world we've been contending with.

This morning before I got going on the details of carpenters and carpeters, I fingered through old files in search of an old poem, one that's never been keyboarded into my laptop. I found it.

It concerns the erstwhile Rainbow’s End. It's from a happier time at the waterfront land my brother and I once owned together. It’s proof: Once there was magic there.

***


Rainbow’s End


Come to this land for moonrising
Come when leaves in their first week of life
and birds on their first day of flight
listen to dusk then last light of day
Behold! Witches’ hair floats in the misty cove
Herb-Roberts and silverweed grow at shoreline
They shall be as omens
portending unto Ontario this hour
You will heal me, Sisater Water
You will hear me, Mother Earth
and I too will listen to darkness
Now I speak night hawk
I speak snowy owl.
I am the voice wavelapping
for now is the time for answering
now when thoughts follow the Milky Way
and ideas with the Northern Lights glimmer
our tellings in the stars

Out there is the Universe where I am here


***

Let there be some joy this rainy spring.

Karla

Goodbye Caloosahatchee River, Hello Lake Ontario

Our days in Florida wind down as we prepare to depart on Sunday for our home in the north. I'm reluctant to pack up and head out, but know it's part of our cycle as it is the flocks of birds we see heading north, including a flock of sandhill cranes yesterday we heard but could not see upriver just a short stretch. Spring, of course, has long come to Florida. It did not take the Vernal Equinox this week to make its presence known.


Springtime along the Caloosahatchee


Two male cardinals call out
from adjacent territories in the palmettos
earnest, persistently cheering.
The subtropical forests sirs
with the crimson song of Floridian dawn.
Their scarlet duet summons
the sun into my eyes.
I see red; I blush.

***

In an hour or so, Roger and I will head out on the river in our kayaks for a final paddle into the oxbow among the mangroves. As always, it will be interesting to see what birds appear along the edges and milling about in the shallow, quiet waters.

That sleepy neck of the river -- too shallow for speed boats, but ideal for kayaks -- reminds me, as if I needed any reminder, that my brother, James Karl Merrifield, is at peace.

I flew home to the Rochester area earlier this month, word having come from Jimmy's ex-girlfriend who was his health-care proxy, that my brother was literally on his death bed and I'd better come quickly. I did. And was with him alongside faithful Patti when my brother died...and went on to the great Whatever. The peace like a river he could not find in his shortish life (he was 63) surely he has now. And that thought helps me maintain my own peace.

***

Wishing all of you the joys of spring. The sprouting daffodils, the raucous voices of Canada geese plying the skies in wavering vees over the fields, the hint of warmth in the air.... All are reason for hope.

Springing to Life

Unrest in the Middle East. Unrest in the Midwest. And even some unrest on the family front that reminds me of what poet Robert Bly said several years ago at a reading in Brockport, "All families are dysfunctional." I sigh deeply.

Yet I'm buoyed by signs of spring.

Days are getting perceptibly longer. This morning twilight arrived at 6:15 a.m., easily a half-hour earlier than in January.

Everywhere the bald cypress trees, a deciduous conifer, are beginning to sport a fringe of fine green needles.

In the Everglades, where Roger and I camped for a couple days last week, anhinga chicks were preparing to fledge (above).

But to me the most dramatic sign of spring was one I'd never witnessed before. I was sitting on the shores of the small lake that flanks Long Pine Key campground in Everglades National Park. I had just settled in for a spell of writing when a swarm of barn swallows shadowed my page as they swept over the lake to feed. The birds swirled in the pellucid afternoon air in ever-shifting fractals of hungry birds numbering in the thousands. Then it dawned on me: The swallows were strategically joining ranks -- safety in numbers -- to begin their migration north into their breeding grounds where I will see them in late April or early May, albeit in far fewer numbers, nesting beneath Ontario Parkway bridges near our home in Western New York. I watched the great swarm in wonder at the spectacle: One species among so many are answering the spring call of Nature.

As has happened to me so often in the past when in the Everglades, my favorite place on the planet, my Holy Land, I became one with the Universe. And it is a Universe of Hope.

***


Happenstance: The Swallowing


On the day of the Everglades dew,
which is every day,
I awake to realize I’ve been
swallowed alive.
The Universe, having chased down
half-moon shadows,
consumes me whole
like a python swallows his prey:
entire.
This is the same Universe,
the Everywhere, which my husband
reminds me – this day
of dew swallowed by crows –

is expanding. We swallow hard.
Then a minion of alligators,
a court of vultures in their black
robes, featherless gray wigs,
cloud swallow,
sun bitterns,
gallinules of the dew
swallow the sky.
And the Universe as it is
in the Everglades bedewed
swallows me with the morning stars.
I am the turtle taken by surprise,
plastron, carapace, soul and all.

for Roger

***

Another uplifting note: The Urn, my chapbook chronicling the power of love to conquer cancer, is arriving in mailboxes as I write. I'm thrilled, as is Roger to whom the book is dedicated and whose photograph graces the book's cover. I congratulate Finishing Line Press for the fine production; it's also a joy to behold and to hold.

For those of you interested in ordering a copy (or a second copy), it's now available either from me directly (just write klmerrifield@yahoo.com) or through Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1599247011

If you've read the book and would like to comment, please post a review on Amazon! I'd really, really appreciate it!

Thank you again to all who have purchased a copy. May you find hope in its pages.

Happiest of springs!

Winter Reflections

The stillness of this great egret poised for fishing in Big Cypress National Preserve about 70 miles south of our condo has proven good medicine for this snowbird...who happens to be a news junkie and rather overwhelmed lately from the reports and commentaries still being published about the horrific massacre in Tuscon over a week ago by a young man unhinged in mind and spirit.

Do egrets go mad? Wonder off course of their migration route into strange habitats? Forsake eggs in the nest to incubate a heron's brood instead? Not likely.

Do they hate their fellow birds, shunning the white ibis for having long bills and pink eyes? Or are wood storks with their "bald" black heads much like a vultures the targets of egret bigotry? Not likely.

Although the Arizona shooting has been on my mind often in days past,I think about all this again on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And then I focus on the serenity of Aldea alba and think instead of Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo,,,Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi...Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina...her fellow Russian Nikolai Alekseev, prominent gay rights activist...Denis Mugwege, Congolese physician has treated hundreds of women subjected to gang rapes... Afghan women's rights activist Sima Samar...Aminatou Haidar and Ali Salem Tamek, leading activists for the independence of Western Sahara...Isabel Miranda de Wallace, Mexico's National Human Rights Award 2010 recipient...Viktoria Mohacsi, a Hungarian woman who has fought passionately to abolish discrimination and hate crimes against Roma "Gypsy" communities... and Julius Kaggwa, best known for his devotion to defeating the proposed Anti-Homosexual Bill in Uganda.

Those humanitarians -- and birds of all feathers -- give me hope.

I hope they will you too.

Love,

Karla

***

P.S. My new book, The Urn, will be arriving any day now from the publisher and those of you who ordered copies (THANK YOU!) should soon be receiving your copies. In the meantime, five of the poems therein have just appeared in the literary journal miller's pond. To read them, just click on http://www.millerspondpoetry.com/index.php/issues/index.php?page=vol-14-1web#Karla%20Linn%20Merrifield

A Solstice in the Sun

Hanukkah is past and Christmas a few days away, but at the new Merrifield & Weir household in North Fort Myers, Florida, we’re poised to celebrate the Winter Solstice and watch the sun wheel toward New Year’s, bringing more light into our lives day by day as it rises over the Caloosahatchee River flowing past our condo.

It is two weeks today since we arrived for our first winter in our new home. Though we’ve been Florida snowbirds for 10 years, itinerant campers in the state’s marvelous parks, now we’re nesting. What was bare just 14 days ago is now handsomely furnished, comfortable, homey. We are delighted; it was the right decision, the right place and time to settle down.

That doesn’t mean we won’t be exploring, following vagabond trails into the neotropical forests and along white-sand beaches, neither of which are far away. In fact, a few days ago, I took a break from shopping the rounds of consignment shops for “recycled” furniture to explore Caloosahatchee Regional Park, just 9.4 miles upstream from the condo.

With dozens of miles of trails, a quiet campground for tenters only and the most amiable park hosts, this Lee County park – one of several dozen – is a gem. And an inspiration. I put up my new tent, “Bukowski,” and settled under the warm sun into my poetry safari (as we call them) for “a good write” with hours upon hours to myself to hear myself think…and noodle in my journal those sorted thoughts. Except for an armadillo foraging noisily outside Bukowski later in the evening, I was undisturbed to write, write, write. There was peace on Earth. And, the next morning when I Roger welcomed me home, I had drafted six new poems and felt restored, rebalanced. My Florida muse had returned.

The following are three of a sequence of 13 scherzi (13-syllable poems) called “Homecoming Scherzi” I wrote to honor my newly-discovered, nearby retreat center.

I may have become a Sunshine State homebody, but my vagabond spirit continues to roam among the natural wonders of Florida, my Florida.



I salute you, hardwood hammock,
bow to palmettos.

Epiphytes and live oaks fringe
my bower, shade my way.

Lo and behold! Spanish moss!
I’m draped in the South.


***

My very best to all who visit these pages as the sun regains its strength and the days grow longer.

Eternal Egypt

It's hard to believe we are back from our Egyptian odyssey, even have our bodies back on Eastern Daylight Savings time, although it took awhile. And we've managed to get over "Pharaoh's revenge." However, the colds we caught linger, no doubt due to the pollution and dust we breathed in our two weeks in the desert. I can still see grains of that dust of the ancients caught in the weaving of my wristwatch band! A souvenir I didn't realize I brought home with me.

More than 2000 photos still await sorting and editing, but all in good time. And we're still sorting out what our adventure meant to us, which we're working on in leisurely conversation between ourselves and with friends who ask about the trip.

One thing was clear: All civilizations are fleeting. Even ours.

Most memorable for me were A) I "met" Sheshat, the ancient goddess of writing; the old Egyptians believed she invented writing. So seeing the reliefs on the sides of two temples of her image was quite moving. (She's pictured in the photo above.)

And we saw the broken colossal statue of Ramses II that inspired Shelley to write "Ozymandias." One of our guides read part of the poem aloud as we stood looked at the tumbled behemoth of carved granite. Chilling. Choked me up.

As for Roger, being an atheist, all the visits to old mosques, old Coptic churches and the babble about a pantheon of old god/desses was a bit much so he's decided the best part were the donkeys! Farming is still almost totally manual there and the donkeys are the main beast of burden -- everywhere, even on the busy city streets of Cairo!

Before we left I wrote the following poem. And now, upon our return, I can still say Roger has made my dreams come true (and is willing to play a Nubian slave!). He's MY pharaoh!

I hope you enjoy.

***


Self-Portrait on the Nile


I joke about cavorting
as pharaah’s consort.
Tut would do.
I tease about kissing
a nimble Nubian slave
beneath plume fans.
If Nefertiti reddens,
if Isis casts her holy blush
upon us, don’t be shocked.
Osiris rises, Horus rallies, Thoth flies.
But I turn my back on Anubis.
Tomorrow we’ll frolic in Egyptian tombs.
We’ve earned eternity.
The mythical has already come true.

***

Passion from Prison

In the past two years or so, my life has been greatly enriched by corresponding with poet Michael Rhynes, author of Guerillas in the Mist and Other Poems, which I reviewed for The Centrifugal Eye (www.centrifugaleye.com; search archives).

Michael is incarcerated in Auburn Correctional Facility in New York, about 2.5 hours from where I live. We've never met, except through the U.S. Mail. He recently sent me a new poem, asking if I would somehow get it onto the Internet.

With this posting, I'm honoring his request. Michael's body may be imprisoned, but his spirit burns with passion. Thus:



Burn Man, Burn Man, Burn


We all gather without Abraham for self-sacrifice. On Nevada’s
Black Rock Desert. In our beautiful nudity, we lay spread-eagled
where Isaac laid.

We offer up our tender, most sensitive parts to this world
without shame, hatred, inhibitions, regret, or censorship.

We burn our Victoria Secrets bras and Jordan underwear because we
no longer belong in the killing fields of the Middle East.

We burn our Nikes, Jordans and Adidas
because we will no longer run in political races we can’t win.

We will not run for pink elephants, jack asses, or tea totalers who
sip at parties funded by the Mad Hatter.

We burn our credit cards, mortgages, car notes, tax forms,
and the letter of democracy.

We will no long be indentured servants behind a Walled-in
Street in the land of the free.

Burn men, burn women, burn children, in the spirit of democracy.
Burn man, burn man.

Written by Michael Rhynes
October 2, 2010