Passion Week

artwork by bobby janz

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I am visiting in the Shire so my blob this week can be found at http://christineintheshire.blogspot.com

Resting in the Light

On a chilly September night of '07 in Eureka, California, a moment came that was the kind which can only be called transformational. I had been looking casually for a Rumi poem I had read in Roanoke in a book I had borrowed from Susan--something about a "guest in the house." After several attempts with no results, I clicked on a website which threw the whole idea of Rumi out of my mind and drew me into an entirely different world, a world I was perfectly attuned to. It was Sondra Ball's and Mario Cavallini's Autumn Leaves, an online poetry zine with a Native American/Quaker slant. It appeared the couple lived near the Delaware River. The combination of their outlook, heritage, and a wonderful togetherness marriage was irresistible to me and I started reading the poems dating back to '99 and continued late into the wee hours. Every issue had several of Sondra's poems and children's budding writings. I liked her haiku and winter poems best and became enamoured with the Delaware River. I could imagine her dancing in the firelight to maybe the music of Robert Mirabal. I saw I could submit a poem by e-mail. I rarely submit poems as I am picky about the company I keep. However, this was a place and person so on my wavelength that I immediately started typing. The response was prompt and cheerful. I suggested to my cousin Karen and Randy Walker, a Roanoke poet, that they also submit. They did. I began writing more poetry with Sondra's inspiration in mind and sending favorites of hers to friends. I had often used Native American images in Christmas poems, a natural consequence of my beliefs but I wrote my first truly Great Spirit/peacemaker poem the next month, Who Will Mend the Heart of the Heartmender?, and for my Christmas poem a haiku drifted in about the "cloud children." I felt I had come into my own, my home territory. I loved Sondra's "cover letters" for her twice a month poetry fest. They were full of the natural world where she and Mario lived and hiked. I looked forward to sending her something once in awhile. When I read of her death, so courageous, too sudden, I thought of how briefly I had known her. Surely, though, she was one of my oldest friends.

for Sondra

The Dayflower blooms,

its gentle life soon over.

But oh! the beauty

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from Mario's site:

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Fund for Sufferings, a resource of Mickleton Friends Meeting to assist individuals in temporary difficulty. If you choose to make a contribution, write the check to "Mickleton Monthly Meeting" with "Fund for Sufferings" on the memo line, and send it to:

Mickleton Monthly Meeting
P.O. Box 231
Mickleton, NJ 08056-0231

...may the blessings of the river passages be yours...

Erinsong

A songbook was handed down to me upon the celebration of my birth by the British consul who happened to be Roman Catholic. I think at one time I might have known his name. He became a family legend with that moniker, The British Consul, as if there were no others. The songs were a collection of Irish favorites from long ago. Every St. Patrick's Day after I learned to play the piano, I would sit at whatever piano was available in our travels and sing the entire book. My mother particularly liked, "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen." I wondered if she missed Ireland, the post my dad was assigned to for six years, where my older brother was born and she had what would turn out to be her favorite friend, Cassie Main. In 1986, with no piano at hand, I taped singing to a Casio keyboard and sent it to Arizona where my folks had settled, such a distance from the mists of the mountains of Mourne. Since I cannot sing for you here, I will post a couple of poems. Perhaps you can hum to yourselves some Irish ditty as you read.

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A Tour of the West Country

My father pedals every day

along the roads of Connemara.

He recites Yeats as he goes

and adjusts the muffler

my mother wove to protect him from the damp.

My father is blind which makes his

other senses keen, I understand.

I sit in a chair close by him

as he describes what he finds on his ride:

he talks fondly of the abbey ruins

and the sparse farm left to the Widow Ray;

he laughs heartily when remembering

his wild friend Seann Tom Finn.

Imagination unleashed, my father

pushes his Schwinn to its

most arduous setting.

"It's getting late! Fog's setting in!"

Three times a day he leaves his bed

to "have a go at" his exercise bike.

I tell him to say hello for me

to all along his tour

and wouldn't he like to go somewhere

else today, China?

Sweden? The Yucatan?

No. No. He says he's sure there is no place

like the West Country,

the fair, the enduring, the beauteous.

the emerald West Country,

a place he's never actually been to but that makes no difference to him.

Ceid mile failte, Dad, the tea will be

waiting for you, mind,

when you get back.

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Shamrock, Texas

My mother's roots are near here--

in Norman, in Oklahoma City,

in this dry, dusty land that stretches

wide and white under the winter sky.

"The Indian Territory" she likes to call it

which conjures up terrors she may never have exorcised.

I prefer to think of her happier times when,

with walnuts in her apron pocket,

she walked steadfastly behind her sister's lead to school.

Or of the time she woke up to find snow

was their snug blanket, let in by a chink

in the cabin wall.

Some places change so unheedingly

that nothing is left to be recognized.

All is gone.

But here, the land stays the same;

its expansive beauty, its dogged endurance

keeps on.

The little girl of those long ago years

walks cheerfully by

walnuts jostling,careening, well-polished.

~~~~~~~~~~~

...may shamrocks from the land where snakes disappeared

and weathered crones changed into wondrous winged mermaids

bring you blessings...

Cast of Characters

Stripey

Photo Credit: Henry Hobbs

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I've just finished reading an Alice Hoffman novel with a compelling cast of characters. The most compelling didn't enter until three quarters of the way through but instantly stole the story out from under the others. "George led her into the back room, where there was a makeshift kitchen and a lunch table. On a perch in the corner there was a parrot. The bird was green with ultramarine and red and orange streaks." From this understated introduction comes a surprise literature favorite of mine. He remained nameless. However, he made a name for himself by a two word vocabulary, "GET OUT!!!!" The memorable phrase appeared infrequently but always at a "spot on" occasion. This reminded me that perhaps, although not an Irish poem which I had intended, it was the right moment to post my poem about the hurricane cat, Ivan.

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Waiting for Stravinsky

Ivan spurns the disco tracks,

the health care news.

He sleeps, his catnaps longer these days,

with his paws double-jointed

tucked under like small never melting snowballs.

Despite appearances he has not

lost interest; he simply waits for what

will rouse him. Stravinsky.

The Rite of Spring is recognized from the

first note.

The young ancestral tiger muscles position themselves

for leaping. Up in the air he goes,

stripes undulating

rapidly, contorting, frolicking.

Is there an imaginary partner? Nureyev?

Or a member of the Jellicoe Cats?

From room to room the prancing frenzy

continues, like a rabbit unsnared.

The piece finishes. Ivan stops.

Alas, it's Chopin now. Ivan sleeps.

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...may the gentle, winsome characters in your life dance with you...

String Theory

More hand-me-down fortunes:

"Long life is in store for you."

"Share your joys and sorrows with your family."

"Golden hours are coming to you."

I strung them together and came up with a novel. Just kidding. It was a coincidence, though, that I had just finished reading Shanghai Girls which follows the string precisely. The book opens in 1937 with two sisters, Pearl and May. The story of their escape from China, the detention at Angel Island, their attempts to make a life in Los Angeles, was in turn horrifying and joyful. May was born in the Year of the Sheep and Pearl, the elder, in the Year of the Dragon. Intentionally or not, the manner they coped was reflected in these personality traits. They shared terrors but the Sheep did not confide in the Dragon out of fear of fire and the Dragon dismissed the Sheep's goodheartedness as frivolous. Eventually, May's heartbreaking secret forces Pearl to reevaluate her reactions and seek forgiveness for her entire past. The part of the book most stirring for me was the Angel Island account. I went to Angel Island as a sort of pilgrimage in 2003. Looking out over the bay to the skyline of San Francisco, so out or reach for Pearl and May and an easy ferry ride for me, and seeing the view from their perspective, changed how I think of the island. Before it was a place where Gertrude Janz, who would have been my dad's older sister had she lived, died and was buried at the age of two. But now, I see Angel Island like sorrowing saint statue--the tears falling into the chilly water. There is something noble about the land rising in the mist where many endured and moved on, either back to China or new lives on the road to citizenship in a foreign county. We do not have to experience such trials personally to gain from them. A stunning, well-written book provides soul-searing lessons.

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...as Spring approaches, the blessings of renewal be yours...