leaving the dwarf orchard

also... it's not all about me

Today is the last day of my first year in second grade.  It brought some surprises, and then other surprises came from without and within. Small tumults.

Tonight it's storming; the sky dogs are baying.

Now summer drifts up like a watermelon boat, a banana hammock hung from broccoli trees, and I will get in.

After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard || Charles Wright

East of me, west of me, full summer.

How deeper than elsewhere the dusk is in your own yard.

Birds fly back and forth across the lawn

                                                                                           looking for home

As night drifts up like a little boat.

Day after day, I become of less use to myself.

Like this mockingbird,

                                                     I flit from one thing to the next.

What do I have to look forward to at fifty-four?

Tomorrow is dark.

                                           Day-after-tomorrow is darker still.

The sky dogs are whimpering.

Fireflies are dragging the hush of evening

                                                                                              up from the damp grass.

Into the world’s tumult, into the chaos of every day,

Go quietly, quietly.

 
***********************************
It's good to be back among you.  I read miles and miles of poetry last night to find this one, and it was like eating again after a long fast.  Thanks to Carol for hosting over at Carol's Corner, and I'm looking forward to a summer of reading and writing with this Poetry Friday community!

poetry friday the 14th

not that I would ever carve a tree...

Welcome one and all!  I suspect we may be a small group this week--last summer flings and all--but I also know that many of us Poetry Friday faithfuls are educators who are beginning to gear up for a new year.  This should be true for me too, but I'm holding on tooth-and-nail to "empty" summer days during which I decide what and when!  Here's a NoNotYet poem to fit that feeling....

No! Not Yet

Bare still feeting, not done yet;

peach still sweeting, not done yet!

Fan still ceiling, not done yet;

rod still reeling, not done yet!

Button snoozing,

Bug bites oozing,

Ball still foozing--

No! not yet…

Cone still snowing, not done yet;

kart still going, not done yet!

Corn still cobbing, not done yet;

odd still jobbing, not done yet.

Summer camping,

skateboard ramping,

swimsuit damping--

No! not yet…

Board still diving, not done yet;

bees still hiving, not done yet.

Beach still waving, not done yet;

Heart still braving, not done yet.

Rock band forming,

early warming,

thunder storming--

No! not yet…

Burn still sunning, not done yet;

Nerf still gunning, not done yet!

Fair still wheeling, not done yet;

bases stealing, not done yet!

Firepit smoking,

knock-knock joking,

cousin poking--

No! not yet…

Cards still warring, not done yet;

night still starring, not done yet.

Fireworks booming, not done yet;

Moon still blooming, not done yet!

It can’t be over--

                   No, not yet!

(My summer

homework’s

     not 

            done

                      yet.)


-Heidi Mordhorst 2015
  all rights reserved

Where are you in the wheel of the year?  Clicking slowly and deliciously up-up-up to the first day of school, ready to ride that roller coaster, or noticing already the drawing in of the evening light, the scatter of yellow leaves on the still-green lawn?  Or perhaps you are good at being smack in the middle of the moment...your post should give us a clue!

Thanks for joining in this week, the last week of the Summer Poem Swap--I look forward to sharing the riches I received next Friday.  Now then, click below to leave your link for all to follow!

An InLinkz Link-up

summer sounds or summer silence?

 

May the long light of the sun shine on us all this Summer Solstice day!  It's been a whole month since my last lame post--an unintended hiatus brought on by my first taste of the Sandwich Generation.

 

In the last four weeks, with one hand I juggled the usual teacher's end-of-year obligations (including a program for parents at which my kiddos explained, announced and sang nine songs both enthusiastically and beautifully--very gratifying for all the adults);  with the other I scheduled and propped and permitted and prepared and attended the projects, plays, trips, tryouts, presentations and promotions of my own children; and with the occasional free left foot or right hip, helped my parents (rather fit at 73 but under duress) sort and pack 28 years' worth of important stuff from their Baltimore house during a move that was achieved, between "Maybe we should put the house on the market" and "We're on the road with the moving van right behind us," in 5 weeks flat.

Meanwhile, my adult partner in all this was as helpful and supportive as possible given that she was logging hours and miles in preparation for a successful 545-mile AIDS Lifecycle from San Francisco to L.A. This left only my right big toe free to think about and write poetry--and since my right big toe is not a skilled typist, I didn't log a single poetic thought between May 24 and this Wednesday morning, when I prepared to catch up with three (count 'em, THREE!) poetry meetings in one day.  It is perhaps no surprise that what I found in my files to work on was a blank page with nothing but a title:  "Experiment in the Silence Lab."

It's not ready to share yet, so instead I offer you this rumination from Billy Collins.  The round-up today is with Carol at Carol's Corner.


Silence | Billy Collins

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a player not moving on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the floor,

the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,

the silence of the moon

and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,

the silence of the window above us,

and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning

which I have broken with my pen...

Read the rest here, or listen to Billy read it.

old salts and sea froth

Despite the unseasonable winter's morn and stormy day, this learish nonsense goes well with a beach vacation. Go on, stand up and declaim it out loud!


The Jumblies (excerpt)
by Edward Lear

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!'
They called aloud, 'Our Sieve ain't big,
But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig!
In a Sieve we'll go to sea!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

You can enjoy all six stanzas and a lot of other Lear here. For more Poetry Friday froth go to Carol's Corner.

one, two, three juicy grasshoppers

Some coincidences cannot be ignored. A coupla weeks ago I enjoyed a gripping performance of the poem below by Joy Acey, a fellow participant in that Highlights Foundation workshop I keep mentioning. It's one of the poems Joy uses in her workshops with children. Despite my fondness for Mary Oliver's work, it was new to me, and striking.

Then I found the same celebration of ordinary miracles (go here for the start of this thread) posted on Mary Lee Hahn's Year of Reading blog, with a whole different 84th birthday spin on it.

Today I notice that the actual title of this poem is not "The Grasshopper," or "A Prayer," or even "At last, and too soon." Instead it is "The Summer Day"--not "A Summer Day," but "THE Summer Day," and here it comes. Tomorrow our family will host our 10th Annual Summer Solstice Picnic, a loose affair involving a Ritual Unveiling of Foil and Plastic, watermelon, lightning bugs, mosquitoes, public consumption of alcohol, and quite often a thunderstorm.

Maybe this year, as we drag the picnic tables up the hill to the gazebo, there will be a grasshopper. I'll take sugar just in case.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day....

Read the rest at http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

P.S. More juice: my son is right now telling me that "this pineapple has two kinds of energy, even though it's not moving: heat energy, and citrus energy: the burning acid parts....It's true."