March 30, 2014 We Write Poems/Wordle #12

We Wordle #12

I read over the words

I don’t see my name

I remember the feelings

Of being ‘left out’

Children’s games

Game of life

Run away into the woods

Follow rabbit

Down the rabbit hole

Into the sky

Knead the bread

Listen to mockingbird

The wind blows cold

In morning

I smile

Tease myself

Not ‘left out’

Just 'overlooked'

Note:  Interesting to me, that I felt old feelings of being 'left out', but told myself, yes, you did write something, but maybe you were just 'overlooked.'  Which is worse, left out or overlooked?  Perhaps they feel the same.  (The image taken from the internet.) 

March 30, 2014 The Sunday Whirl/Running From Snakes

root, plan, pack, heaven, growl, heal, 
burst, rows, shivering, mending, why, time

Running From Snakes

It is time

Make a plan

Pack a bag

I return to

The place I began

My roots

Shivering

Mending

Growling

Never heaven

The place I grew up

The coastal tidelands

Of Texas

When I was a little girl

Maybe three or four

I remember the rows

Of my Aunt Maggie’s garden

One day I lifted a bean leaf

Coiled beneath was a snake

He so surprised me

I burst from the garden

Into the arms of my Aunt

Why I remember many times

Running away from snakes

March 27, 2014 We Write Poems #206/ My Childhood

My Childhood

In memory it seems

Such a pleasant summer day

A path without much danger

The church we attended

Seemed so normal

There are some events which

Lie on top of my pile of memories

One time at the school

Probably not the first 

Probably not the last

The school put on

A ‘blackface’ performance

I remember the students singing

“Mammy” made famous by Al Jolson

Who preformed on television in ‘blackface’

Steven Foster’s “The Swanny River”

Children singing about the old folks at home

The doors of the school auditorium

Open to the hot summer night

The sounds of the songs floated out

To join the stars that sparkled

Down on our little town

Only recently I noticed the ‘blackface’

Our schools were segregated then

It seemed perfectly normal that

The black children had to get up early

Before the sun came up

To be were bused to the next town

The black children couldn’t drink from the

Public fountains

Couldn’t sit at the counter at the drugstore
Didn't attend our church

I wonder did the adults think of this

Or were they mostly as innocent at the children…

Or as guilty

What did the black citizens of our town think
I didn't know any black people
Didn't see them, they lived on the otherside of town
A mystery unexplained

I don't think I really thought about it until the '60s

During that performance a man snuck behind the curtain
On the stage and exposed himself to a little girl
Suzy who went to my church

The whole town was up in arms

All the men ran out into the night looking for him
(I imagine a scene from 'Frankenstine' the villagers
Running into the night with torches
And pitchforks)

It was said, he was a man passing through

Our town….

It always seemed a strange happening to me

I imagined the man driving through our town
Saw the lights and heard the music

And just stopped at the school performance

To go behind the curtain to expose himself

To an little girl…

Then ran away to jump in his car and speed away
Who was that man
Where did he come from
What would make him want to do such a thing

There were probably a lot of things I didn't understand

March 24, 2014 We Write Poems #11/That Spring

That Spring

That spring in your

Garage apartment

My house had sold

I was alone

Adrift

The frogs were leaping

In the little pond in

The back yard

Or during the day
Cuddled under the shade

We would sunbath

Lying on the wicker

You asked if

I minded if you

Didn’t wear a suit

We were alive

Midlife

Southern bells ringing

The air was thick

And hot and it wasn’t

Even summer yet

I had pulled up

The old roots

Left my old life

Behind...

Soon I would be

Headed West

You would soon leave

Our bones ached

To be on the move

The sprinklers kept

The yard wet

Tropical

The pond an oasis

For all the frogs

In Harris County

At night their loud calls

A cacophony of sound

Made sleep impossible

I shifted position

On the damp bed sheets

The sound of the 

Air conditioner's motor 

Combined with their calls

A noisy night in the

Neighborhood

The frogs never whispered

Only yelled at the top

Of their lungs

After all they

Had no cellphones

And they were calling

All possible mates

On the planet

The hot wind

Moved the banana leaves

A gentle rustle

In the night

On another night

At a local bar 

We ate crawfish

You loved them

Could eat more 

Than anyone

Time stood still

Another place

Another time

Little piece of

History

Buried in my memory

Gentle transition

Long hours stare into space

Wait for answers

Scribble notes to myself

Time has passed...20 years

I’m OK...hope you are too

Process notes:  I only stayed a few months.  After I left, I heard the woman left her husband, returned to Europe.  I haven’t heard about her in years, I hope she found what she was looking for.

March 23, 2014 The Sunday Whirl/ A Mended Heart/ Poets United, Poetry Pantry #194/ The Tradition of the Painter

sting, grind, natural, addition, plenty, warning,
rival, course, quartet, broken, response, blunt

A Mended Heart

Hearts can be broken

Like a favorite teacup

Sometimes in response

To blunt trauma

No warning

It will take more than string

To hold it together

Maybe super-glue

Perhaps grind up the pieces

Mix with an adhesive

Cast another in a mold

As natural as the original

It can happen in an instant

But the sting felt a lifetime

A mended heart

Nice addition to any collection

No longer perfect

Like Rick Dillingham’s pottery

Broken

Mended

Put back together

It wears its' history

On the outside for all to see

Traces of the cracks visible

Each broken piece retrieved

Treasured

Some smooth

Some repainted

Often fired again

In it you can see

Greys of the morning

Greys of a feather

Greys of a tiny mouse

Note:  The Harwood Museum here in Taos has the most beautiful piece of Rick Dillinhgam's pottery, so interesting in its' reconstruction, one could look at it forever.  The piece of pottery shown is not the piece in the Harwood, but you can see his process. 

Rick Dillingham

Also Known as: James Richard Dillingham II

Born:
Lake Forest, Illinois 1952

Died:
Santa Fe, New Mexico 1994

Biography

Working in New Mexico, Rick Dillingham found a source of inspiration for his ceramics in the ancient Mimbres culture. Excavations of Mimbres sites in southern New Mexico have produced beautifully painted low-fired pottery punctured with holes; archaeologists believe these pieces were ritually "killed" in order to release the inherent life force that would otherwise have been trapped in the clay or decoration. In his mature work, Dillingham would break and reassemble his ceramic forms, creating objects with a patchwork appearance. Dillingham found beauty in the commonplace and the ugly, as we see in his appropriation of the form of a gas can for this piece [Gas Can, SAAM, 1991.19.3].

Kenneth Trapp The Renwick at Twenty-Five(Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1997).http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/renwick25/index.html

___________________________
Poets United  Poetry Pantry #194

The Tradition of the Painter

I carry an idea as precious as

A monarch’s jewel   

Wrought by a member of the Guild                           

I wasn’t the first to find it                                              

Another carried it as long as she could

                             

I follow in the tradition of the painter

The first ones who painted

On walls of caves and canyons               

On skins                                           

I came to the Southwest

Right to the foot of Taos Mountain

Because of Georgia

Agnes

Doris

Lady Brett

And Mabel

I dreamed I would be embraced

Would find my home

The place where I could work

Where I belonged

I follow in their footsteps

I place my foot

Next to their trace

To measure my worth

Boldly

I hold up my

Shiny truth

For you to observe

With brush in hand

I sign my name

Note:  I included Mabel Dodge, though she wasn’t a painter, but she brought others. She wanted them to tell the story of New Mexico.  I also had in mind the tradition of  artists linking themselves with inspiring predecessors.