Las Mamás Esperan que Volemos (The Mommas Hope that We Fly)

Ah, the chamberlain (if I’m not mistaken), pathetic fellow, he is. Taken from planetirk.forumotion.com (film reference The Dark Crystal [1983])

The poor fledgling trapped in my carport looked like a Skeksis. They always do. I can’t help but feel sorry for the ugly things. First off, they’re so pitifully ugly in the midst of molting before they can fly, but after they’ve been cute and fuzzy with baby feathers.  When they get stuck in the carport, as one or two does almost every year at about this time, they always find the same perch under the bench and won’t be persuaded to move more than a hop or two. Usually within a day or so, the local street cats, the bite of starvation, or the roasting spring sun catch and break these fallen nestlings. But this guy had cojones.  All week I watched him go from hobbling the ten feet from my washer to the front gate, faling to fly and then, finally, flying short distances inside the carport and a little beyond.

Every day an army of grackle mommas that live in the tree out front kept a close eye out for any threatening movement from the cats and me.  These are serious mamasotas.  They are not to be crossed. Their presence makes clear why Hitchcock’s The Birds is such a scary movie. As I hung up the laundry last Saturday, I found myself cringing under their screechy scrutiny; there were ten or so worrying the top of the high wall around the laundry space. Even though I didn’t see the fledgling at first, I knew he had to be there somewhere; the mommas army doesn’t deign to notice me unless there’s a baby hiding out.

Sunday morning when I went out to collect the laundry, the main momma — the one with goodies in her beak — sent all the others to harangue me while she looked for the little one. Grackle mommas, aside from being vocal, are quick and wicked looking. I crept back inside, figuring the laundry could wait while the little one got fed. Monday and Tuesday I dashed in and out of the house warily, bearing glares and warning squawks with a mix of patience and trepidation.  I’ve read that crows and grackles recognize human faces and have been known to attack offensive people.  I didn’t want to accidentally do anything to offend.

Fallen Chanate / grackle, before flight

By Wednesday he had perched his ugly Skeksis-self atop the bougambilia bush. I was impressed and hopeful that he’d been able to fly high enough to get to that point four feet off the ground. Not wanting to scare him, I neglected watering the plants. I explained the situation to the airplane plant, the ivy, the rosemary and thyme – begging fotbearance — and then stealthily refilled the water bowl I’d left out for the stranded fledgling.  The next morning he was nowhere in sight, and Momma only fussed briefly as I left for work.  When I came home yesterday afternoon he had not come out of hiding, but I’d seen him fly quite high, so I decided that he had finally gotten strong enough to fly himself away. My hope was heightened to a kind of glee when my neighbor told me this morning that yesterday he had seen the bird fly from the carport all the way up to the top of the seven(ish)-foot high perimeter gate.

Today, Friday, he lay there in the fiery afternoon sun, fat, molting, and covered in soapsuds.  His little body had tipped over in a puddle, his beak pointing south, open a crack, still in wait for the day’s feeding, his feet like broken twigs flopped uselessly. The dead fledgling simmered in a soapy soup on the concrete between the hot water heater and the washer.  I hadn’t liked him hanging out in my carport all week, and even less did I appreciate his mom’s scolding each time I went in or out with trash, to water plants, wash clothes, hang clothes.  I guess I should be glad he’s gone, but I’m curiously sad.

He came so close to flying free against the high, endless blue, croaking his misanthropic “song.” Early on, I could have shoo-ed him out the big carport door onto the sparse grass below his home tree.  I could have tried to put him in a cage and feed and water him there.  But I decided to let him use my whole carport to try to find his own way.  I guess that’s why I’m sad.  Of all the options available to me as a witness to his strife, I did the best thing I knew to do: not interfere, keep an eye out (momma grackle, me), make resources available that he couldn’t have gotten on his own, and wait for him to take wing. Maybe next year. ~LD

* * *

A few process details: After a draft workshop on Tuesday with the sophomores (oh, how I love the sophomores) I almost didn’t finish this.  The earlier incarnation had great description, but was purposeless — the fledgling was still living at that point.  But today, after finding the fledgling dead during housecleaning, the REASON came into being.  I remembered being one of Momma and Daddy’s “arrows” set free to fly into an unknown distant future. No other note is needed here, I think.

Glad you dropped by.  Leave a comment if you are so inclined. ‘-) No matter what, have a great weekend.  Summer cometh. ~LD

The Last Delicious Bite — Thoughts on NaPoWriMo now that it’s over.

This scribbler’s notebook and pen.

And so poetry month ended, not with a bang but a whimper (at least at my house). I didn’t get the final two poems written, having intended to get two more up yesterday evening, but the siren song of my pillow won the night. Today, a day out of the classroom in celebration of International Labor Day, I spent alternating between student essays and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. Obviously, I made more progress on the novel than on the student essays. It’s been many years since it took me more than two weeks to grade a set of student essays, though this round looks like it may break all heretofore standing records. After two weeks, I’m merely halfway through. But I didn’t stop in to share my woes about my current student writers. (Or maybe these woes are more about me; anyway.)

In fact, this pit stop on the way to the asparagus “florentine” and salmon filet waiting in the kitchen is to close out NaPoWriMo. Honestly, I am sad to see it go. I looked forward to reading the prompt each day with my early morning coffee, and though each day I wished I could have had the prompt the night before, the prompt dutifully percolated away in my mind after breakfast while I milled around in students’ goings on, and the day’s news, and taking out the trash, and going to dance class, and all the quotidian details.

On the other hand, NaPoWriMo has been one of those guests that after thirty straight days, really could have packed it in a week earlier and been afforded a larger space for longing in my heart. The challenge of coming up with a new (albeit often bad to mediocre) set of semi-poetic looking / sounding words and phrases to post grew to be nearly tedious. Rather (I imagine) like trying to cook for guests every single day when you aren’t a chef. Sometimes, you just order take out and call it good. So I missed two days all together, and recycled two other days. Twenty-six out of thirty poems ain’t too shabby for a self-proclaimed essay scribbler.

The challenge did jerk my imagination out of routine and jangle words and syntax around on my tongue in ways that might not have happened for any other occasion. I will play again next time, though I might not cleave so closely to the prompts.

The best part of NaPoWriMo was reading the participants’ pieces each day. Early on, I had trouble getting to sleep before one or two in the morning because I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the whorl of all their lovely, troubling, powerful words. What a wonderful reason to stay up late!

So, I won’t be around everyday. Once a week of me is more than anyone should have to tolerate. Besides, you also have other things to do and think. I thank you for all your comments and well-wishes and reading over these thirty days; I got some thoughtful feedback that was both helpful and inspiring. I return now to my weekly (ish) posting format with full faith that the exercise of NaPoWriMo has loosened up my tongue and brain and pen. ‘Till next week, then! ~LD

Kids’ Play — NaPoWriMo day 29

midway between the moon and the rain,
you’ll find me: dirty barefeet, blue-jeaned,
carrying the sun over my shoulders,
eclipsing sidewalk hopscotches

~LD

Rain on Me — NaPoWriMo day 28 — color

Recent days’ sun
Flame yellow –
Hotly invisible –
Washing color out of everything
Turning trees white and grass pale grey

I’m longing for tangy pinks
And juicy greens
Heavy, hearty tangerine
Drownable, wavy blue
And painful, plaintive purple

One cloud-coated day
for yearning, earthly
Fingerling roots
to ease color back
Into sight.

~LD

Athena talks with Khaos — NaPoWriMo day 27

Zeus-sized migrane. I found this illustration from D’Aulaire’s at annieandaunt.blogspot.com

Occasionally,
while light trickles
in perfect electronic
Rivulets
across the screen horizon –
Phone
Television
Notebook
Laptop
Desktop
– the images of
Thousands of miles
of cables and wires
Strung across naive,
Naked wilderness
and garroting naughty,
thoughtless cityscapes,
sweep mirage-like
before the mind’s eye,
laying all to waste
at the feet of
Future.

~LD

* * *
Recently, the school where I work offered to finance at no interest over ten months the purchase of Ipads for interested staff. I signed up for mine yesterday. This morning, I spent three hours in a workshop on Google drive. Plus there are all the hours I spend in front of electronic devices for both work and play. Between writing, teaching, playing video games and occasionally indulging in mindless crime shows, electronics take up more of my time than I care to admit.

If you’re wondering about the title, Khaos (Chaos) was believed by the Greeks to have existed before anything else (even before Gaia) and was the goddess of air (among other things — Wikipedia is helpful if you want the basics), and though Athena is warlike, she is also the goddess of wisdom and sprang fully formed from Zeus’s forehead (mind?). “Future” here had a physical, statue-like feel to me and because that’s the way my brain turns, I thought of my old D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths and all the Greek ideas and beliefs that became so much fiction so quickly. Khaos isn’t in D’Aulaires’, but I guess I’m not six years-old anymore and may have read and thought one or two other things about Greek mythology since then. Thanks for stopping by! ~LD

Hollow — NaPoWriMo day 26 — blackout poem with apologies to T.S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form,
shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers form broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                            For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                             Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                             For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

* * *

After I read the NaPoWriMo prompt this morning, I couldn’t NOT pick Eliot. I don’t know that it was a great idea to fool about with one of my favorite poems of all time, but as I thought and worked there was the “spark” that has been missing these last days. I spent several hours thinking and then another couple of hours choosing what to “black” out.  I am happy with this result (though formatting was a pain, and added probably yet another hour of work to the task — I figure that’s tech inexperience more than anything), and I think I was able to shift the meaning of Eliot’s original. In the process, I realized (again) how precious each little word is in the overall effect of a great poem like this one. Wow.  This was a powerful prompt.  ~LD

P.S. If you look closely, you can see the ghosts of the words I “blacked out” (I only changed their font color to blend into the background of the page) — I noticed that just now (23:54) and it gave me a shiver.  How apropos. ‘-) ~LD

Accidentally — NaPoWriMo day 25 —

surrounded by broken kaleidoscope glass
lovers’ faces refracted and multiplied by six
I could play jacks among the shards, the superball rising and falling
onesies, pigs in the pen, carts before horses
the way I’ve always played
but with your face etched on the slivers
of shattered silvered glass

~LD

* * *

Not a ballad. In fact, not even new (July 2012). So here I remind myself of a couple of things my grad school mentors used to tell us: “Recycle, reuse, reuse” and “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”

Clearly, the power of failure is underrated. Enjoy the weekend! ~LD

Lab at Emu Lo — NaPoWriMo day 24 — anagrammatic

Annealed odor,
a dandelion hoer
heralded onion,
adored henna oil.
Adorn one
roan doe, inhaled.

Idler noon ahead.

A denial –
Dead Aeolian horn –
Honored a deadline.

~LD

* * *

I didn’t get a chance to read the prompt until quite late; even so, I spent a couple of hours messing around with it before I realized the point wasn’t to use the anagrams in each line, but rather to use the words of the anagrams to build something else. So I reworked it a bit with that in mind, but I will probably revisit this idea and use just the words, not whole phrases (as I did here with some adjustments). Did anyone figure out the anagram in the title? ~LD

A Birthday Greeting for the Bard — NaPoWriMo day 23

Oh, Bard! You deserve
at least a sonnet on your day
Alas!
Despite tending a reserve,
I’ve nothing profound to say.

~LD

Root Dreams — NaPoWriMo day 22 — Earth day!

The richness of spreading
stringy fingers
through star-sparkled soil
is enough for today.

The delicious ache
of reaching down
to bind myself with earth,
all the blanket I need.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow there will be sun;
a long, warm bake beneath
the arms of venerable Tree
shading my space and whispering,

“Stretch far, little sapling,
the days of sun are long,
and you will be thirsty
for water gathered far below,

but come the new season,
there will be butterflies
to settle on new blooms
and carry your dreams to places unknown.”

~LD

* * *

I planted a tree (okay, a bush) today. How about you? Sweet dreams! ~LD