Book of Fours by Joyce Ellen Davis

My friend and writer/poet/blogger/nature-lover/people-lover-especially-grandchildren-lover, Joyce Ellen Davis, has recently published her (at least) 3rd book of poetry, A Book of Fours.

I love the cover, but I might be biased -- it's my artwork -- :-} and after I read her poems (which I know I will love because I always do appreciate Joyce's language and insight and flowingness) I will write an update to this post.

It's an honor, Joyce, to have my collage with your poetry. Thank you.

Off to buy Joyce's book!

Wild Geese (after Mary Oliver)

Copyright© 2007 by Maureen Shaughnessy

I have posted the poem, Wild Geese before, on Raven's Nest and Land of Little Rain. It's worth posting again (and again.) Everytime I read this poem, I come at it from a different angle, as a different person.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-- © by Mary Oliver.

Oliver's latest collection of poems, Our World, is a collaboration between Mary and her late partner, Molly Malone Cook, who made the photographs accompanying the poems. Molly died in 2005.

Another exquisite book of Oliver's poems, Thirst, touches her experiences with grief and spiritual growth after Molly's death. I read these poems often -- Mary Oliver's sense of faith and connection have helped me personally through times of great sorrow.

I made the digital painting above, using my own images and two from Liz Saunders, of Alberta.

Her photos:

Snow Geese flying up from a lake

Canada Geese, blue sky

Trees in Poetry & Prose

photo by Maureen Shaughnessy © Native Trees Neither my father nor my mother knew the names of the trees where I was born what is that I asked and my father and mother did not hear they did not look where I pointed surfaces of furniture held the attention of their fingers and across the room they could watch walls they had forgotten where there were no questions no voices and no shade Were there trees where they were children where I had not been I asked were there trees in those places where my father and mother were born and in that time did my father and mother see them and when they said yes it meant they did not remember What were they I asked what were they but both my father and my mother said they never knew -W.S. Merwin©

photo by Mika Hiironniemi © Breath Tree, gather up my thoughts like the clouds in your branches. Draw up my soul like the waters in your root. In the arteries of your trunk bring me together. Through your leaves breathe out the sky. - J. Daniel Beaudry © published in Nature in Legend and Story

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness. -Kahlil Gibran, from Sand and Foam

photo by courambel on flickr © Under the Walnut Tree When I face what has left my life, I bow. I walk outside into the cold, rain nesting in my hair. All the houses near me have their lights on. Somewhere, there is a deep listening. I stand in the dark for a long time under the walnut tree, unable to tell anyone, not even the night, what I know. I feel the darkness rush towards me, and I open my arms – Lynn Martin © From Blue Bowl (Blue Begonia Press)

Alone with myself The trees bend to carress me The shade hugs my heart. - by Candy Polgar © Woods I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent there is singing around me. Though I am dark there is vision around me. Though I am heavy there is flight around me. - Wendell Berry © from Collected Poems (North Point Press)

photo by Ric McArthur © Fern-Leafed Beech This tree listened when my husband died. I leaned my head against its trunk and cried. No words passed, but I took its strength and knew that life at last secretly transforms until what is seen becomes unseen, and what has been is still to be. -Moyra Caldecott©

a few other links:
Solitary Trees
find other poets' work at Gratefulness.org
Trees in Myth and Legend
Spirit of Trees

Poetry Thursday: Love the Place You're With

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night, just moments before the sun went behind the ridge, I stopped along Prickly Pear Creek just a little south of East Helena. There, the creek runs between two ridges and has been used and abused for years, by locals who toss beer cans and garbage in the gulch,and by hunters who discard elk and deer carcasses after taking what meat and trophy parts they want to keep.

I had driven by this creek numerous times, though I hadn't stopped until now. I had Sam with me and we both wanted to get out someplace new. So, this is where we ended up. I had to keep Sam on a leash for this walk - if I hadn't, he would have availed himself of the opportunity to douse with that special fragrance loved by dogs -- "Eau de Carcasse." There were at least 30 carcasses along the stretch of water we walked. Eeeuwww!

I had my camera with me, of course. The light was fading fast and I knew I had to hurry to catch it before nightfall. As I looked around for something that appealed to me -- a scene or detail I might want to shoot, I thought about what many people have told me when they see my photographs of Montana -- that I must live in Paradise, that Montana is so beautiful, pristine, that they want to visit here, to see what (I) see.

Yet here I was, scanning this trashed-out, dumping place for some little detail to photograph. It was worse than a garbage dump. This creek with its sad parking spots, its lovers' lane, its game carcasses strewn in the bushes ... this damaged wetland was a stark testimonial of how little we humans care for the earth.

In anger, I almost turned right around to leave. But something in the water caught my eye. A beaver dam, breached in the middle, icy willow branches bravely stacked against the winter, against the beavers' predators. The little dam was something I needed to see last night - it was a glimmer of optimism, of hope, in this trashed out riverbottom.

I sat for a few minutes, just feet from the large ribcage of an elk. I scolded Sam for being too interested in the bones. He put his head on his paws and watched me shoot -- quickly -- as the light changed and the water shape-shifted.

I wanted to redeem my species somehow, to reach back in time, find the memory of who this little dancing creek had once been, before the cement plant started polluting the waters, before people started using the valley as an unofficial dump and drinking place ... I wanted to catch the narrow slice of sky reflected in Prickly Pear Creek. I wanted to remember, with my mind's eye and my camera, the way graceful branches danced with the current.





I tossed a stone just upstream of the beaver dam. I clicked and clicked the camera shutter until I could see only the beauty of water, of evening, of a beaver's industry and natural design ...

until I could see
only the deep
blue sky and black
branches and golden
light swimming in
blue night
rippling


This is how to see the place
where you belong.
This is how to love
the places you spend your days
and nights.
Look under the surface
love the beauty you find there
no matter where you are.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

Singing Land
Your burning skies are never-ending
Across your red brush plains
Out where the dingo still is king and eternity remains
There between the old and ancient there's an oasis bright
Your gentle children who have gone are close to me tonight

In your singing land, in your singing land
Shine on, oh shine on over me

There's a feeling still and eerie, there's a feeling strong
The path humanity has come and the path that he has gone
Me I am I am just passing three score years and ten
And I'm just a stranger who may never come this way again

In your singing land, in your singing land
Shine on, oh shine on over me

Under the spell of caterpillar dreaming
New life shapes its form
Along the river's naked banks
That are straining for the storm
Oh sacred rock, in thunder ocean
The tree of man grows clear
The woodlarks sing, the brolgas dance and
Dawn is slipping near
-- song by Dougie MacLean

I have put together an audio/visual experience for you in this little slideshow with Dougie Maclean's song (above) To listen and watch the slideshow, click the arrow in the center of the screen below:




Posted for Poetry Thursday's totally optional prompt for this week, which I am totally ignoring. As usual. ;-D or check out the other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button:




I posted the first bunch of photos in this set, Love the Place You're with, last winter ... this winter I went back to the same place to see if I had a similar response to the place and I did. It has imprinted itself in me. It has become a numinous thing for me. It has become the kind of place that shows up in my dreams.

How to Age Gracefully

How to Age Gracefully
originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

How to Age Gracefully

keep smelling, stay
interested in all the
messages that come alive
like signs,
there are sighs and songs
in every blade of grass and
breath of wind

keep moving, even
if only your eyes
look everywhere,
there is beauty and
movement to watch
like leaves that lift
and fly like birds

~ ~ ~

Maureen Shaughnessy

Gabe introduced me to Ben Harper

I have my son, Gabe, to thank for introducing me to Ben Harper's music. I have heard it said about Ben that when he performs in concert, his chair is always set left of center on the stage ... because he leaves "room" for the spirits of the people who inspired, influenced and taught his what he knows. That is so cool. It's like in many traditions, leaving an empty chair at the table or in the circle, to honor and acknowledge those who have come before us, who have nurtured and led us to where we are.

Gabe & Brent playing at the Harbingerous Happening,
originally uploaded by skuz.(photo by Aaron Rogosin)

Well, thanks, Gabe for leading me to Ben Harper (along with all the many other musicians you've turned me on to over the years)

Ben Harper's raspy voice sometimes whispers sweetly sometimes stretches out to a tremulous wail. Tender or strong. Always powerful. I love his acoustic pieces best -- especially when he slows down, almost stops or does stop, punctuating and emphasizing the heartfulness of his lyrics. He is proficient on a number of instruments. I particularly like his acoustic guitar.

Though Harper often plays alone, when he plays with his band, Innocent Criminals, they combine a variety of musical styles into a style that's almost impossible to pin down. Blues, funk, Latin, hip hop, folk, rock, African beat, jazz -- so versatile! I could listen to Ben Harper all day and not get tired of hearing his voice. his stories. the feelings.

Waiting on an Angel

Waiting on an angel
One to carry me home
Hope you come to see me soon
Cause I don't want to go alone
I don't want to go alone

Now angel won't you come by me
Angel hear my plea
Take my hand lift me up
So that I can fly with thee
So that I can fly with thee

And I'm waiting on an angel
And I know it wont be long
To find myself a resting place
In my angels arms
In my angels arms

So speak kind to a stranger
Cause you never know
It just might be an angel come
Knockin' at your door
Knockin' at your door

And I'm waiting on an angel
And I know it won't be long
To find myself a resting place
In my angels arms
In my angels arms

Waiting on an angel
One to carry me home
Hope you come to see me soon
Cause I don't want to go alone
I dont want to go alone
Don't want to go
I don't want to go alone
Copyright by Ben Harper, included on the album, "Welcome to the Cruel World'

Harper also recorded with The Blind Boys. Check out I Shall Not Walk Alone

Or listen to There Will Be a Light on my Martin Luther King Day post earlier today.

To play any of these clips, click the left arrow inside the button. Volume control is a slider near the right side of the button.

For Thanksgiving a prose poem of gratitude

giving thanks
for my life for my health that my legs work, that my heart and lungs and mind and hands and eyes are whole that all my parts of me work as they are supposed to, for my body, that i can dance and ride my bike, and get down on my knees or lie on the floor of the forest, that i can walk to the top of a mountain to offer my prayers for my spiritual path, that i feel such love for our Mother, the Earth, for all of Creation, for every living thing i am giving thanks that i am alive another year that i have what i need that i am a whole being that i am part of something much larger than just one woman


giving thanks
for another chance at love for true friendship, for my husband for the deep soul-love we share for his understanding his touch his unconditional loving his knowledge and kindness his companionship on our path his courage his perseverance his eyes that see me and know who i am and mostly for the way he says my name


giving thanks
for our children, for their beauty inside and out, for the young men my sons have become for their kindness their intelligence and spirit and enthusiasm for their lives for their health and goodness i give thanks, that they have taught me that they have stretched my heart and made me grow into more than i was before they were born for the beauty and love i know they bring to the table

giving thanks
for my family my parents and grandparents for brothers sisters and all who share my eyes and heart and lips and name for love for acceptance for honesty for connection memory and a hand given without thought of return

for my mother's courage and growth for the look in her eyes for the wisdom of her years and her experience for her folding and enfolding arms that she has never given up


giving thanks
for my friends, who know the core of me who know my darkness and still point to the light in me for lifetime friends and new friends for inspiration and tears and laughter and knowledge ... for the mirror they are to me for their faith and understanding


giving thanks
for our four-legged companions for their teachings their animal-wisdom gentle ways especially Sam who has saved my life more than once in his old-soul way


giving thanks
for our home Earth for this planet this jewel that is ours only to care for and the winged ones and swimming ones for insects and worms lions meadowlarks eagles and deer for the growing green things flower root leaf grain fruit tree fern for everything green


giving thanks
for clean water for rivers and rain mist for lightning for darkness and moonlight for snow and snowmelt glaciers ponds marsh ocean and bay for dancing aurora borealis for clouds for stars to remind us how small and how precious each of us -- each living being -- is ....

Calendar for October: happy birthday to my mom

happy birthday, mom, originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

even though i didn't write this poem, it conveys what i feel in my heart:


there are times in life when one does the right thing
the thing one will not regret,
when the child wakes crying "mama," late
as you are about to close your book and sleep
and she will not be comforted back to her crib,
she points you out of her room, into yours,
you tell her, "I was just reading here in bed,"
she says, "read a book," you explain it's not a children's book
but you sit with her anyway, she lays her head on your breast,
one-handed, you hold your small book, silently read,
resting it on the bed to turn pages
and she, thumb in mouth, closes her eyes, drifts,
not asleep -- when you look down at her, her lids open,
and once you try to carry her back
but she cries, so you return to your bed again and book,
and the way a warmer air will replace a cooler with a slight
shift of wind, or swimming, entering a mild current, you
enter this pleasure, the quiet book, your daughter in your lap,
an articulate person now, able to converse, yet still
her cry is for you, her comfort in you,
it is your breast she lays her head upon,
you are lovers, asking nothing but this bodily presence.
She hovers between sleep, you read your book,
you give yourself this hour, sweet and quiet beyond flowers
beyond lilies of the valley and lilacs even, the smell of her breath,
the warm damp between her head and your breast. Past midnight
she blinks her eyes, wiggles toward a familiar position,
utters one word, "sleeping." You carry her swiftly into her crib,
cover her, close the door halfway, and it is this sense of rightness,
that something has been healed, something
you will never know, will never have to know.

-- by Ellen Bass, 1985 from Our Stunning Harvest

I said I like my life

A simple illustration for Marge Piercy's poem
Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

I said I like my life. If I have to give it back, if they take it from me,
let me only not feel I wasted any, let me not feel I forgot
to love anyone I meant to love, that I forgot to give
what I held in my hands, that I forgot
to do some little piece of the work that
wanted to come through.

An excerpt of "If They Come in the Night," by Marge Piercy


This handwritten piece is framed and hanging above my kitchen sink. I have had Marge Piercy's powerful words hanging over the kitchen sink in whatever house I have lived in, since I was in my twenties -- hmm, somewhere around 28 years or so. I read it almost every single time I rinse veggies or fruit, or wash the dishes after a meal.

There have been times I really needed to see these words, to take them into my heart, when I felt darkness threatening to take over. There have been times just reading these words that have become so familiar to me -- from the daily sight of them -- buoyed my spirit and helped me remember what is important. About life. About love. About gratitude.

I hope someone who needs to take these words to heart will see this ... and find their own power.

Poetry Thursday: Leonard Cohen, W.S.Merwin & Linda McCarriston

Poetry Thursday ... today, Thursday, has been so busy for me with work that I haven't had time to really sit down and make a proper poetry post. Instead I am linking to my sunday post (with an awesome poem by Linda McCarriston) and to my photoblog, where I posted another wonderful poem by W.S.Merwin that I love) ... so please click the link to Sunday's post, Healing the Mare or my photoblog post at Land of Little Rain, for my Poetry Thursday contributions.



Ah, and as an extra bonus, I also wanted to tell you about a wonderful interview of another master of song, lyric and poetry, Leonard Cohen.

A friend sent me a note telling me about the PBS News broadcast tonight -- Leonard Cohen was being interviewed. He has been in my , oh, top three singer/songwriter/poets/lyricists forever ... as long as I can remember. so of course, I wanted to watch the interview. We missed it on tv (not being tuned into tv the way I am) but I am listening to the interview online. Here's the link


I have been thinking off and on, about the Poetry Thursday prompt a couple of weeks ago, to read a poem aloud, or consider the spoken word when writing a poem and how that might or might not change how we understand a poem, or write.... and when I heard Leonard Cohen talking about how a poem's mood can be entirely different depending on who is reading it aloud, and how that person is feeling just before reading, or during the reading .... I thought I'd like to share what he said with the other Poetry thursday contributors.

When asked, "What's the difference between writing a poem and a song?" Cohen replied:

A poem has a different time. For instance, a poem is a very private experience and it doesn't have a driving tempo - in other words, you can go back and forward, you can come back, you can linger. it's a completely different time reference. Whereas a song, you've got a tempo - you've got something that is moving swiftly, you can't stop it. And it's designed to move swiftly from mouth to mouth, heart to heart where a poem really speaks to something that has not itme, and that is a completely different perception.

He also said, "The tempo of a poem "migrates" depending on the mood of the reader."


I wrote this blog post for Poetry Thursday. Check out other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button:

Poetry Thursday: This time it’s personal

Today I have found a companion in my journey as a poet, as an artist, as someone who is healing from her wounds. I have found the poet, Linda McCarriston, through Bill Moyers, who, if I had a list of my favorite 10 men in the world, would most definitely be on that list.

As I read poem after poem by McCarriston, I thought immediately of Lynn's poem and the many responses left in the comments on that blog post, by readers of Poetry Thursday. I wrote her a letter, copied to Liz as well, which I am posting here:

Dear Liz and Lynn,
It's Saturday morning, around 9:00 am. I got up at sunrise this morning and spent two hours kneeling on the ground in my garden, pulling weeds, hoeing just-warming earth into mounds, then transplanting my small tomato and basil seedlings. It's finally warm enough in Montana to put these tender starts outside, so they can grow accustomed to the harsh elements where I live. Sunrise was early today, since we're just three days past Solstice. With soil under my fingernails and dirt-rounds on my knees, I ate a delicious breakfast -- in the sun -- made by my husband, Tim: waffles from freshly ground spelt and oat grains ... strawberries grown in our hanging baskets, maple syrup and a small cup of thick espresso. Tim has gone to work in his furniture shop, after bathing our old dog, Sam and leaving him to dry in the sun.

I tell you this (how my Saturday morning has been) because in a roundabout way, my morning today is connected to something I have gained from and learned from both of you.

I feel so lucky to have the companionship of a man who truly loves me, whose hands are gentle and kind, who cooks meals for me occasionally, who kneels down on a wet bathroom floor to lovingly bathe a 17-year old (around 104 equivalent human years) dog ....

Feeling this lucky made me think about your recent poem, Lynn -- the one inspired by words you love/words you hate .... and the upwelling of feeling I had when I read it -- it reminded me so much of experiences I had as a very young pre-teen and teenager. I have sat with those feelings and memories for the last two days, since reading your poem.

I wrote a comment on that blog post, Lynn, but I just wanted to say again that I believe your courage in sharing that poem (no matter what degree to which it is autobiographical or not ...) affected me strongly -- not just the poem itself, but the fact that you posted it! that you wrote it and shared it and didn't just let the poem sit between two journal-covers ... and I believe your courage probably affected alot of people who read that poem, judging from the comments.

For a break from my garden "chores", I thought I would go online to read your poem again, along with more of the amazing, heartfelt and diverse poetry contributed this week by the many Poetry Thursday members. I'm sure you know how browsing around blogs and the internet in general can be a round-about and sometimes incredibly synchronous experience!

Well, in the course of the last hour I have read six Poetry Thursday blog posts and commented, looked at a whole bunch of Flickr photos posted with poetry .... (from the Literary Reference in Pictures group on flickr) plus come across an amazing interview by Bill Moyers with poet, Linda McCarriston. You may be familiar with her work, Liz and Lynn. If you aren't I encourage you to read her poetry, maybe starting with this very good interview.

The interview is an archive of Moyer's PBS show, NOW, which is now unfortunately, hosted by David Brancaccio (he's not nearly as radical as Moyers thus the show has become kind of tame, imho) -- anyway, I get sidetracked. Back to the point: Moyers and McCarriston were discussing intense, personal uncomfortable writing -- very similar to yours. At least, the discussion between Linda and Moyers reminded me of some of the questions and issues brought up here in these comments, by readers who have responded to your powerful poem.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

The material was hard to handle, but in some ways a more difficult problem was that many people actively tried to discourage me from writing these poems. They felt that if I were to write them, the poems would be shrill or I might be identifying myself as a feminist or a radical. Because I knew that these experiences told in the first person woman's voice of outrage were not supposed to be poetry, I tried to write these poems in a way that was veiled. But when I veiled the voice or the experiences I put the fire out in them.

I tried again and again and again to write these poems, and I was really driven a little bit wild by the necessity to write them. I didn't know why I felt so compelled to write them, but when I finally found that I was beginning to write poems about these experiences that were standing on their own, that were good poems, I realized that I simply had to speak back to the culture that I saw as creating and sustaining the ideas that led to this violent situation in the first place. I really don't feel I had a choice. That was my material, and the difficulty was simply in waiting and leaning on the material long enough until a way came to me by which I could speak.

Those who argue that poetry says the unsayable generally mean the unsayably beautiful or the unsayably profound, but the unsayable can also mean what people simply don't want said, ever. That's why poetry is extremely radical—poetry allows the individual experience to strike like lightning through the collective institutional consciousness and to plumb the depths of actual communal experience so that what people don't want said in fact gets said, and in a way that is unignorable. Poetry does this through the stature of utterance which characterizes it.

MOYERS: Some of your poems are suffused with healing— just the sound of your voice when you read it is a healing experience.

MCCARRISTON: I think that's what people respond to, that it is possible for the people who are damaged to deal. Many, many people suffer cruelly tragic childhoods, and many others who don't suffer cruelly tragic childhoods suffer painful childhoods, but they're all encouraged by the future just to grow up and get over it. So they have all this experience which they can't get over very easily, and it continues to be painful. At times when they begin to confront it, they feel that they're going to be stuck in it forever, and they don't want to be stuck in it forever. Then they begin to ask: Is there a way out? Can one heal? How does one heal? I think it's the possibility of healing in that poem that people have responded to.

If you are interested in reading the entire interview, it's here. And here is a poem by Linda McCarriston, which strikes me as very much like the type of poem we Poetry Thursday participants have been discussing in this comment thread.

I was wondering if maybe this would be something you would want to post on Poetry Thursday, maybe in the sidebar under special links, or I don't know ...l maybe somehow we could have this be a topic, without getting too much into the "confessional" type of poetry -- maybe just putting some thought into how this kind of poem might fall flat, or on the other hand, might be so powerful and universal that it changes someone's life, truly changes someone's response to pain and circumstances.

I'll leave it up to you how to present this, if at all. I love Poetry Thursday and congratulate you both on a successful idea that seems to be drawing more and more people to be open to writing, reading and sharing poetry in community.

Warmly,
Maureen



Here are a few more links and excerpts by or about Linda McCarriston:

From McCarriston's article about her poem "On Horseback" article published in Sojourner's Magazine: When the artist goes into the "dark place," she goes with her materials, her commitment (which is the habit of her presence there), and her humility (a willingness to be surprised and even undone by what finds her there). What discovers her is usually neither what she expected nor what her society wants particularly to hear, but it is a truth, something she didn't know she knew or knew but had forgotten.


Here is an interview of Linda McCarriston by Bill Moyers on his now tame PBS show, Now. (I say it's tame now because Moyers has retired from the show leaving his replacement, David Brancaccio, to continue. Brancaccio's style and subject choices are anything but interesting to me after the brilloiance, courage and genious Moyers demonstrated week after week when he hosted NOW. )

And McCarriston's poem:

On Horseback

We are only walking.
This is not the romance
of horseback riding:
your mane, which is short
and scraggly, sticks out
like a hedge of cowlicks
or merely flops off to the side.
Nothing is flying, trans-
porting, transcendent.

Then we aren't a metaphor
for anything, Shawnee James,
little borrowed horse I learn on.
Your body is bent and dented
as the first car I owned,
the '52 Plymouth, brush-painted,
one walleye headlight
held in with masking tape.
And I am a comparable model.

But, cast off the road,
our shadow is travelling
across the cut stubble of October.
My hands have forgotten themselves,
as the shadow has forgotten them,
does not require them.
With your four legs, our two heads
find a balance.

A single thing in gray,
its many muscles flush and flexing
in everyday grace,
we move over the grass, as whole
as the shape anything makes, passing.
We are something going somewhere,
handsome and practical and proud.
We shake out our tail.

LINDA McCARRISTON teaches poetry at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. Her most recent collection of poetry is Eva-Mary (Northwestern Press, 1993). Talking Soft Dutch was published by Texas Tech Press (1984). Reprinted here by permission of the author/poet.


Today's post is part of a growing circle of blog posts written for Poetry Thursday, begun by poets, Liz and Lynn. Click on their names to see their blogs, or check out the other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button:

Poetry Thursday: this week’s (completely and totally optional) idea — this time it’s personal

Healing the Mare ... an echo

Healing the Mare
Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

I made this to illustrate my response to this poignant poem written by Linda McCarriston:

Healing The Mare

Just days after the vet came,
after the steroids that took
the fire out of the festering
sores--out of the flesh that in
the heat took the stings too
seriously and swelled into great
welts, wore thin and wept, calling
more loudly out to the green-
headed flies - I bathe you
and see your coat returning,
your deep force surfacing in a
new layer of hide: black wax
alive against weather and flies.

But this morning, misshapen
still, you look like an effigy,
something rudely made, something
made to be buffeted, or like
an old comforter - are they both
one in the end? So both a child

and a mother, with my sponge and
my bucket, I come to anoint, to
anneal the still weeping, to croon
to you baby poor baby for the sake
of the song, to polish you up,
for the sake of the touch, to a shine.

As I soothe you I surprise wounds
of my own this long time unmothered.

As you stand, scathed and scabbed,
with your head up, I swab. As you
press, I lean into my own loving
touch, for which no wound
is too ugly.

-- copyright by Linda McCarriston
Posted with the author's permission

For more poetry and articles written by Linda McCarriston, please read the interview by Bill Moyers with Linda McCarriston or read her article in Sojourners Magazine

For Poetry Thursday: Wild Parsley

Reverie under Wild Parsley Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

Wild Parsley

I lay my cheek down on
cool green blades
and watch flickering sunlight move
through disks of wild parsley

inhale spring sap perfume -- the
scent hangs sweet and redolent from
cottonwood buds -- heavy
like a cloud of old memories

I listen to a swishing
crinoline gesture in the distance
branch-dancers rise beneath
the always-flow of water music

my thoughts float
on the surface of years ago ...
carried over and over through the repeated questions
of some bird's one-note-song

each repeated stanza rises at the end
like a bedspring in the forest,
creaking under the weight of
so much life

insects float and twirl,
their translucent wings
are dust motes
beckoning wild unstructured

the way memory sometimes
starts
and stops -- in fits --
and broken soundings and
comes back to the light

copyright 2006 by Maureen Shaughnessy

Today's post is part of a growing circle of blog posts written for Poetry Thursday, begun by poets, Liz and Lynn. Click on their names to see their blogs, or check out the other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button:

Poetry Thursday: Jumping Off Point

Jumping Off Point
Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

Jumping Off Point

I did not write about you or
draw your gesture there
with graphite and brushes
dipped in ink
this fire hue and this and this blue
I did not take your picture
with me when i jumped

only here and over here
I see the shadow
you left behind, a wisp
of fog or maybe steam
milk black tea and honey and cardomon
and sip the hot sweet smell
of you -- I remember only that

I know how to say
I love you in a letter
oh I know how to leap
into memory or ocean or twilight
with map an almanac a calendar of days
I dream of jumping off the point
where love swims blind

-- Copyright 2006 Maureen Shaughnessy

I wrote this blog post for Poetry Thursday. Check out other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button:

Poetry Thursday: Solace

Solace Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

Solace

June first, not yet summer
in Montana, more than spring
today I do not have Sam with me
when I come to our meadow
today I am practicing
not having him.

Can I slide into the future,
without making a ripple
or sucking in my breath,
the way some people ease themselves
into icy water
one toe at a time?

It's not any easier this way.

In this copse of twisted trees
most are garbed in green while
others wear the pall of winter:
bone-wrapped branches,
bleached blades.
Looking forward, glancing back
Inhale ... exhale ...

My solace is silken bunchgrass
on a cheek, or dancing
aspen leaves ...
like whispered prayers moving
on a breath of air
they remind me to breathe.

--- Maureen Shaughnessy

I wrote this blog post for Poetry Thursday. Check out other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button:

This is also something I did for the Utata Thursday Walk project:

I left a rather loooonnng comment on Liz's Poetry Thursday post. Thought I'd share what I wrote here, since some people don't read the comments and might be interested:

I'm smiling and chuckling as I read your post, Liz ... along with all the the comments about reading in the bathtub. We live in a tiny (900 sf) house (well, tiny by North American standards...) with one bathroom, no shower -- just a big old tub. Before all of our kids left home, it was the only place in the house to get any real privacy, so it became not only the evening reading-place for every one of us ... but also for our boys, their story-spinning place and imaginary-world-action-figure-play-place. I never really worried about ruining books by reading them in the tub. Every well-loved book on our library shelves truly looks well-read, some of them have that tell-tale puffy look books get when they have absorbed a certain amount of steam.

oh well.

So I still read in the tub. Anyway, I loved your whole post, Liz. Of course, you know Stafford is one of my favorite poets -- in my top 3. And Kathleen Norris - she's up there too.

I love this line, from Mark Mitchell's dedication on The Sleep of Grass, where he is writing about the many poems written and dedicated to William Stafford, to his memory and legacy: What you have now is a piece of lost mail pursuing an elusive address. One that is nowhere and, as Dorothy Stafford says, "is everywhere now."

The idea of reading poetry aloud ... is coming back into it's own, is being revived from the days of the staid, serious poetry reading ... in the performances of more recent poetry slams. Slams have their drawbacks and aren't for everybody, but one thing I'll say about poetry slams: they encourage poets -- both seasoned and new poets -- to write with the spoken word in mind. For me, saying my poems and thoughts as I write is the best way to establish the right rhythmn, line breaks, word-juiciness and alliteration. Saying a poem while I'm writing it makes it more like a song, connects me with its' emotion and heart.

Poetry Thursday: Spontaneity of Childhood

I remember being 7 or 8 years old ... not wanting to come in from playing outside (except for dinner, which was always welcome because we'd worked off so many calories playing hard that we'd be "starving" by the time 6 o'clock rolled around)

Even after we ate, we'd pile outside in the humid dusk, calling to our friends "all-ie all-ie --- in-come-free ...." to pick up the kickball game where we'd left off. In mid-summer, when the sun set as late as 9 or 10 o'clock, when lightning bugs floated and glowed in the growing dark, when just throwing yourself down next to your best friend on the cool, damp grass was the very best thing you could think of in a million years ... I hate to sound like one of those old people who talk about the good old days (gasp - am I one of those now???) but I'm just gonna say it: those were really good times.

We'd come straight home from school and run out to play outside until it got too dark to see and our mothers would have to insist on bath and bedtimes. We played -- physically -- all afternoon during the school year, or all day in summer.

We rode bikes, roller-skated (before inline skates -- we used the kind of skates you attached to your sneakers and they had a little "key" to tighten them) played freeze tag, kick-the-can, or dodgeball, twisted each other round and round on a tire/rope swing until the swinger was begging for mercy from dizziness. Romped in the blackberry patch, playing "fort" or waged neighborhood "wars." Picked wild strawberries or blackberries until our hands and clothes were vermillion -stained and our stomachs ached from the sweetness. We told each other ghost stories, or related word-for-word, the plots of Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits. Traded comic books back and forth and read them lying on blankets in the shade of a spirea bush by the back door ... munched on popsicles or licked powdered jello mix out of our palms.



One of the best feelings was walking with my best friends towards "stickerland," "the haunted forest" or the big creek where we had a pretend pirate ship in the roots of huge old oak tree ... We'd be heading towards one of our favorite hangouts when somebody in the group would spontaneously shout, "Race Ya!"

Race ya!
someone shouts and
there's this instant spurt,
a pure joyful hilarious
burst
of energy, our
inner accelerators
jammed
on
high.

we hurtle and charge
in a rush of
flailing limbs and
adrenaline, scrambling across
the vacant lot, bare
legs scratched
by weeds -- oh,
we don't care ...

Race 'ya!
that shouted magic
word-potion
launches our giggling
and
we fall
piled on top of each other
gasping
for breath and
laughing

I am amazed, remembering my growing-up summers, at the incredible amount of energy I had as a child. All of us were bursting with life-force and energy and fun. We'd run and play tag and kick balls and zoom around until we dropped from exhaustion. Playing was what life was all about at that age.

I don't play enough anymore. I used to play with my kids when they were little -- I mean physical play and "pretend" play. Hanging around the playground (that's where I shot this latest series of photos) reminds me to stop the mind-stuff and the work sometimes -- to get out and play more often.

This blog post was written for Poetry Thursday. Check out other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button:

Visions of Clarity or Vision Gone Bad?

Visions of Clarity or Vision Gone Bad?
Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

This is a followup post to my description and photo-image of "Slowly Going Blind" that I posted for Poetry Thursday last week.

I have had so many frustrations trying to obtain the correct prescriptive lenses and/or bifocals to help me see better. I depend utterly on my visual sense and have trouble imagining how I will or would get along without being able to see clearly.

I shot these photos at my eye doctor's just before we left on our trip, so I could play around with them and come up with something like how I see things without glasses. The folks at his office thought I was a bit weird coming in for my third eye exam with my digital camera. I tried to reassure them I am not spying for another eye doctor and I will not identify the doctor in my artwork.

So .... I still don't have the right glasses. If this last go-round doesn't produce some glasses that help me see, plus don't make me nauseous or dizzy, I'm goin somewhere else!

Poetry Thursday ... a poem by Jorie Graham

Slowly Going Blind Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

I fell in love with Jorie Graham's poetry several years ago and I suppose I had her poem, For a Friend Going Blind, in my unconscious as I shaped this photo collage after a really frustrating experience at my eye doctor's (I'm on the third lens prescription in less than a week - they're having trouble getting it right!)

Since I depend so much on my sense of sight, it weighs heavy on me that I am losing my vision ... slowly but surely ... I am not actually going totally blind, and I don't intend to trivialize blindness ... but it sure feels that way sometimes. I do have empathy for people with macular degeneration and other progressive eye/vision problems who eventually have to rely much more heavily on their other senses. This experience is forcing me to explore other ways of seeing -- to explore the senses that are beyond the usual 5 senses. And Jorie's poem is a stepping stone towards that goal. I hope you find it as powerful and moving as I do.

To a Friend Going Blind

Today, because I couldn’t find the shortcut through,
I had to walk this town’s entire inner
perimeter to find
where the medieval walls break open
in an eighteenth century
arch. The yellow valley flickered on and off
through cracks and the gaps
for guns. Bruna is teaching me
to cut a pattern.
Saturdays we buy the cloth.
She takes it in her hands
like a good idea, feeling
for texture, grain, the built-in
limits. It’s only as an afterthought she asks
and do you think it’s beautiful?
Her measuring tapes hang down, corn-blond and endless,
from her neck.
When I look at her
I think Rapunzel,
how one could climb that measuring,
that love. But I was saying,
I wandered all along the street that hugs the walls,
a needle floating
on its cloth. Once
I shut my eyes and felt my way
along the stone. Outside
is the cashcrop, sunflowers, as far as one can see. Listen,
the wind rattles in them,
a loose worship
seeking an object,
an interruption. Sara,
the walls are beautiful. They block the view.
And it feels rich to be
inside their grasp.
When Bruna finishes her dress
it is the shape of what has come
to rescue her. She puts it on.

poem by Jorie Graham
from her book, Erosion, published by Princeton Univ Press

Poetry Thursday folks, I found a couple of very useful and inspiring websites I wanted to share with you. One is the Favorite Poem Project. Check out the archive of poems that are favorites of ordinary people and writers, both. And the videos are really inspiring to watch!

And Voices from the Prairie for a slice of the midwestern USA and a poet's viewpoint.

Lastly, an inspiration to me ... is this artist's book by Susan Angebranndt illustrating Jorie Graham's "For a Friend ..." poem. Too bad it's out of print. It's absolutely gorgeous!

Thanks to Liz Elayne in Seattle for starting the Poetry Thursday project. It's probably my favorite ongoing online art/writing project ever.

Poetry Thursday

You do not have to be good ...


Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

I know this poem has possibly been repeated near to death with all the people who love it and want to share it with everyone they know. I heard this for the first time in the early 80s ... (hmmm, I wonder when she wrote it?) during a body massage. The massage therapist had made a tape of her wooden flute music mixed with readings of her favorite poems. I listened to these words of acceptance and felt Mary Oliver was talking directly to me ...

Over the years I have come back to this poem again and again. I never tire of reading it, writing it down, typing the words, hearing other people say this. I hope there is someone reading this who needs to hear these exact words right now. Take it in and know that you don't have to do anything. You are precious just the way you are.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers,
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things

-- written by poet, Mary Oliver

Poetry Thursday

This is from one of my most favorite poets, whom I've quoted many times, May Swenson. Seems lots of people are discovering her these days.

Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven

Night Practice

I
will
remember
with my breath
to make a mountain,
with my sucked-in breath
a valley, with my pushed-out
breath a mountain. I will make
a valley wider than the whisper, I
will make a higher mountain than the cry,
will with my will breathe a mountain. I will
with my will breathe a valley. I will push out
a mountain, suck in a valley, deeper than the shout,
YOU MUST DIE, harder, heavier, sharper a mountain than
the truth, YOU MUST DIE. I will remember. My breath will
make a mountain. My will will remember to will. I, suck-
ing, pushing, I will breathe a valley, I will breathe a mountain

--- May Swenson 1913 - 1989

to enjoy more poetry from other poetry fanatics like me ,,,, go to Liz's blog.