Category Archives: Humanities

Enough

Isn’t It Enough?

To feel a chill as you rise from a warm
bed, stumble to the bath and with
nimble fingers tend to your body’s
needs, button your shirt, balance
as you put pants on one leg at a time?

To hear the morning news, the coffee
maker gurgling as you eat your
Wheaties with skim milk, to listen in
the comfort and illuminated safety of
your kitchen as rain rattles the roof?

To inhale the earth’s perfume of wet
dirt, worms, roses and jasmine blooms,
to smell even the faint fumes of the
world’s morning commute as you join
with humanity for the day’s business?

To taste the fresh tender day and
savor the strong bitter brew from
your steaming paper cup as
you wait for the train under the shelter
with the others, huddled like pigeons?

To observe the blur of cinderblock
fortresses adorned with graffiti, the
lonely artifacts of life strewn across
anonymous backyards, to notice the
window cat watching the morning?
—
Poem #5 for NaPoWriMo

Missing Central New York

Missing Central New York

Where I come from the
sky’s gravity weighs like
a jury bringing verdict,

earth sings arpeggios
of green,

apple trees wave blossom
scarves to woo suitors,

and Hades’ breath
strips trees of
their russet ochre shawls.

Where I come from it is
possible to walk
away from

this concrete madhouse,
to encounter a heron
startled into flight.

—
Poem #3 (or the beginning of one) for NaPoWriMo.

For Diana

For Diana

At sunset at the edge of the world
in San Francisco the fog crawls in,
a pillow for the sun.
The day drowses in diaphanous
light, a lullaby light dressed in
the caress of silk tucks in.

At dawn the sun sneaks back,
ambushes the hills with sharp,
vanquishing droplets. Clarity
wears a uniform, scrubbing cobwebbed
corners clean. The city stretches awake.

—
Poem #2 for NaPoWriMo.

At Bedside

At Bedside

The leather diary, the abandoned crosswords,
the clock aglow with red digits,
tarot decks nested together,
the magazine pile, blue plastic earplugs,
scattered coins mingling by a dusty tissue box,
one lone domino, a low-lit lamp, the
small spiral notebook with a black-capped pen,
like admission tickets for an underworld ride
or runes rich with portent.

—
Poem #1 for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month).

Alas

My brain churns with thoughts, but time and energy are limited. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness example of what’s on my mind these days (in no particular order):

  • The history of the Black Panther movement and the 60s culture (I went to an exhibition at the Yerba Buena galleries today).
  • Community and social capital, i.e., how technology reduces this in-person but presents new opportunities for community via the Internet.
  • Musing whether these changes in community signify the doom of humanity and wondering if I’m a cynical idealist or just a realist or if there’s a difference.
  • Netsquared and their mission to support non-profits in adopting new web technologies to further their missions.
  • Life and it’s meaning; death and what comes after (if anything).
  • What truth is.
  • The first anniversary of my father-in-law’s death on April 2.
  • How I’m ready for rain to stop and warm spring to arrive.
  • Exercises that grab me by the lapels from a book I recently bought called The Practice of Poetry.
  • Cursing the fact that dust bunnies reproduce and wondering if there’s a simpler form of birth control than housecleaning.
  • Thinking about some essays my father wrote and sent me about his life experiences, and how I’m learning tidbits I’d yearned to know for years.
  • Percolating an idea for a project I’m to make to give to my Artella Spring Sprite recipient.
  • Saturday’s HOBA TeamWorks project at RAFT.
  • How pleased I am that my cholesterol levels are really low and that my doctor wrote a personal note, “Good!!” on the results that were mailed to me.
  • Wishing I’d read the book Jarhead before watching the movie Jarhead, which I’ve rented and will watch this weekend.
  • Creativity and personality and what type of mini-workshop I want to design regarding this.
  • What I want for dinner.

What’s on your mind?

Wafer Thin

I’ve written another poem, One Thin Line. It’s good practice.

This post title is an obscure reference to a Monty Python skit in which an overfed man is offered “one thin mint,” and he gives in to temptation with dire consequences. There’s no connection between this weirdness and the poem, except in the words “one” and “thin” and the fact this is all a product my thinking. (Scary! It’s how I amuse myself.)

One Thin Line

One Thin Line

I knelt on the damp soil, my knees
dimpling black loam made tender
by winter rain. Lacy green hemlock

waved on the dunes, red stems alluding
to a lethal power. This day it was my
foe to banish. Gloved fingers burrowed,

sought unseeing, with gentle tugs I
eased the pale taproots out. Hours
passed. Piles of conquered plants

multiplied. One lone ladybug hiked
across a tangle of stems, a cheerful
red button contrasting the gunmetal

sky. A pause. Resting, I observed
her journey, noting that she traipsed,
tumbled on her back, legs waving,

for every completed step forward.
Chill wind scoured my mind. I
looked up. A red kite strained

against a taut and quivering tether.
The soul, connected by one thin
line to the body. A gust of wind

strong enough can snap it. Where it
lands I cannot guess. Where do
snowy plover feathers end their

journey after dancing across the
ocean? Sighing, I turned my mind
back to the truth of the earth.

Another Saved Poem…From 1983

Still Life

My father is sitting on a duck
In the middle of a field
On our kitchen table.
A still life in fading black and white
Curling at the edges
The Kodak print holds a past
That belongs partly to me.
My father is no longer
Just a soldier’s face on the mantle
Or a brass plaque in the attic.
Now I am the daughter of a little boy
Who sits on the back of a duck
And squints into afternoon sunlight.
He knew me only as a photograph
Enclosed in an air mail envelope.
I know him only as a photograph
Curling on the formica table
And gazing endlessly from the mantle
Behind a sheet of glass
Which my mother won’t dust.

–Gretchen Hill

Despite

Despite

Under stacked magazines,
A floor made of wood
Echoes faintly
The breath of ancient trees.
Man, the despoiler,
Cleaves and plunders the earth.

Under the dim canopy
Of towering redwood,
Seeds germinate
Daily, cell by cell.
Nature, objective,
Regenerates life.
A miracle of chaos
Flows forth
Despite human machinations.

This incredibly trite poem is built off of Under the Harvest Moon. For whatever reason, even though I love Sandburg, this poem inspired me least of the three I’ve used as scaffold. It could be the raging headache that hindered me. It could be I’m tired of the exercise, taking the form too literally as I build. However, it’s all good practice (I suppose). Time for something else (and to stop comparing myself negatively to all the poets whose works I’m reading of late).

Bookmarking a Poem Saved Since 1989

I’ve had this poem shuffling around my file cabinet for many years. It’s time to put it somewhere more or less permanent.

The Graves of Cats

The graves of cats are not like
those of dogs or parakeets.
They have been slipped out of

a day or maybe two
after you packed the dark dirt
with the long-handled shovel.

Now as you play with the child
or drink a beer beside the stream
while the swallows skim the wheat,

the cats as though from under the table
stretch and slide past roots
and fallen leaves, and not a blade

of grass disturbed, not a worm,
except at the corner of your eye
there’s a small shift of direction

in the alfalfa, and for a moment
the evening preens and stares
in a way you almost call by name.

–Harry Humes

Poetry & Buddhism

Meditation is when you sit down, let’s say that, and don’t do anything. Poetry is when you get up and do something. Somewhere we’ve developed the misconception that poetry is self-expression, and that meditation is going inward. Actually, poetry has nothing to do with self-expression, it is the way to be free, finally, of self-expression, to go much deeper than that. And meditation is not a form of thought or reflection, it is a looking at or an awareness of what is there, equally inside and outside, and then it doesn’t make sense anymore to mention inside or outside.

–Norman Fischer, Beneath a Single Moon: Buddhism in Contemporary American Poetry

[via Whiskey River]