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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Political Poem






As if to ask if I'm okay,
as if to ask aren't we the same two
on this wet December morning
as ever, as yesterday, a month ago even,
she shoots me a look as I stand by the bed,
then her sane mild brown eyes soften
when I stoop to scratch her belly.

I've just had a few minutes of cable news, sitting with my first cup of coffee out in the Florida room. Earlier (five am, again) my eyes popped open alert to vulgar men in blue suits and red ties trooping through my bedroom, my defiant bedroom— wallpapered with roses spilling from vines strewn about but vaguely climbing (dark red blousy blooms, tender buds, smallish, on an utterly comforting light brown ground, the greens tending olive) hung with photos of family, living
and dead; a cloth-covered board crammed with people I need to see and think about often; prints only I need to love; an oil my father painted for me 
(a realistic image of an imagined river town in old Europe) another oil of a seafront painted for me by a friend in England to remember my time in England; my diploma from Juilliard (fragile with age) shelves for books. The books need more shelves, their own poem, dusting. 
There's a large window in front of my desk and outside a chaos of palms, ferns, mismatched pavers, pots, the synthetic green of the garden hose looped around
a dull metal holder nailed to an enormous old stump and there's a birdbath, empty this morning, but a few mornings ago— a goldfinch!  
My bedroom holds tight. Resists.

As if the way I keep things is a worthy resistance,
as if digging my heels in like Blossom does when she wants our walk
to go another way will have weight like she can have weight
when she marshals her ten pounds to object, to refuse, believing in that moment
that she'll get her way, have her say in things, prevail.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Lavender, A Liberal


Lavender, a Liberal

Betty, batty from hormones, in a fanciful fit,
named her daughter Lavender. Husband Don winced.
Brothers Donald, John, Billy, and Tom 
were puzzled and pleased by this sister, this girl,
who was a little bit like them, yet not like them at all.

Each night and most afternoons Betty told Lavender
stories, sang her songs, opened books full of pictures
where stout hearts bamboozled evildoers that lurked,
and rags became ball gowns glowing with pink.
Poor maids, Auroras, Swan Queens and their ilk
with true lovers, often princes, used cunning and tricks
to free castles from brambles, lift spells, smote the slick.

As happens, Lavender grew grown, moved on and away
from her mother's fine songs to live songs of her own.
She searched for a prince, found several at least,
vanquished evils and weasels, fiercely scolded some trolls,
got caught in the muck, found her footing, soldiered through.
No castles came calling; never mind she made homes.

With mostly good luck, Lavender aged right up to old.
Though her body got cranky, she kept close to her heart
certain fluttery trills and persistent wisps
of fast stallions,
wise wizards,
dances, feasts,
and folks loving loud--
as dead dragons smoldered in heaps on their hills.


Monday, October 10, 2016

I wrote this the morning after the second presidential debate.

We Never Left
Pablo Picasso's Guernica

Above our bellies we are beautiful women with luscious breasts. Where there is skin, believe me, it is flawless, irresistible. Most of us have long hair, but there are some among us who keep their heads close cropped for aerodynamic considerations. Although I admire the clean strong skulls they present to the universe, I let my hair grow long—I enjoy the feeling of silk against my back when I crouch and in the air it waves behind me in a seductive banner, an inexplicable radiance your scientists cannot explain. We all have red hair.

Below we are feathered beings except, that is, for our claws. These are all bared now, sharpened and ready to do violence. Never before have we had such an army. For one thousand one hundred and sixteen years we have been gathering in caves hidden from human understanding. None of you believe in us, but we do not need your faith to manifest again. We only need our anger and it has reached full force. I confess to you that we have needed to rest. The first five thousand years or so of what you call civilization had utterly depleted our will to engage with you, but that will is this day replenished. For those of you who do not oppress, manipulate, humiliate, lie, steal, or murder, life will continue in much the same way. Even if you stand by silently and sadly, accepting abhorrent conditions as normal, (as humans in overwhelming numbers have always come to do) doing nothing useful, we will not attack you. You are not our priority.

We will rake the guilty as they sleep, night after night for as long as it takes until, finally, fear of these nightmare punishments will bend evildoers toward respect for the wisdom of the most ancient laws, known and repeatedly defied by humankind. We Harpies will torment the power-mad and the violent until they yowl in terror and give up their catastrophic hold over civilization. Once again epic poems will be written and sagas will be proclaimed by storytellers around tribal bonfires. Earth will return to glory and sated, we will return to our peaceful caves to rest, claws retracted, spirits ever watchful.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016




I can’t do this anymore and I don’t mind. I'm as old as I feel and as young as I feel. How I feel changes from moment to moment and it has always been that way for me, for you, for Blossom my dog, for the wild mustang leaping over a narrow gully or peacefully grazing next to his sweetheart. Right now, sitting at my desk, I can summon the sensual, emotional, musical experience of that jump and I’m grateful to the photographer because I also have the image to keep and look at now and then.

In the photo I was 21, a senior at Juilliard, performing Martha Graham’s “Diversion of Angels,” (music by Norman Della Joio,) at Lincoln Center. On the program I was called “The Girl in Red.” I loved dancing that part; I’m smiling now as I write about it, a newly minted 67 year-old. I had a birthday yesterday. With each birthday I feel a little like Alice peering down the rabbit hole. What is being this age like? I want to act like it, I want to be like it.

One of my earliest memories is of telling my friend, Sherry Oviatt, “I know it because I am four and you are only three.” (I don’t remember what the “it” was.) Children are hugely impressed by ages, aren’t they? Well, so are adults, (some more, some less) only they have a funny way of wanting to mask this interest, at least once they reach the middle muddle and beyond. But we do notice. Newspapers reliably give a person’s age, although whether someone accused of burglary is 36 or 38 can’t be all that important can it? If one is famous these days there is no hiding birthdates, no matter what one does to one’s cheeks.

I do have to yell at myself sometimes. Disarray happens as we age and this creepy shame about it is nonsense I say to myself. Sagging, wrinkling, slowing, fumbling, more trips to the doctor, brain farts, having to dress the peasant’s body I always knew was there in my genes are all age-appropriate for me and entirely decent. I intend to continue with dignity. Absobloodylutely.

When I was 21 I wasn’t fearful about sickness or senility, but I was fearful about failure as a dancer, as a lover, as friend, student, and oh, yes, daughter. (I never worried about being a good sister, though. I had that.) Little fears tripped me up incessantly. Cooking baffled me. Around certain people I felt incredibly stupid. I’d always been a bookworm, but there were so many books to go!

And clothes! “I all alone beweep my outcast state,” pretty much sums up how I felt about my wardrobe. I don’t fear failure (having tumbled through my share and surfaced again) and little things rarely trip me up with the kind of terror I’d sometimes experience at 21. I’ve had a wonky heart for years and my mind does befuddle itself, but what the hell? If it goes, it goes, eh? Right now, on this exquisite Wednesday at 11:03 I can think, enjoy, continue to 11:04. Ah, it’s here already…

Friday, July 15, 2016




July 15

On Monday I wrote on Facebook that I voted for a peaceful week.
Last night, along with shock, worry.
How did all those thousands of people get home?
Where were their cars? Parked on side streets?
Imagine having a baby in a stroller and an eight-year-old,
maybe your mother-in-law with you, trying to get away from the chaos.
Or worse. Trying to find out what happened to the child, parent, friend
who’s missing? Or worse. What must be done if they were hit?
Were all the children crying?
Let’s say there’s a teenage girl, let’s call her Juliette
with her first serious boyfriend, Léo,
and they need to get back to their village nine miles from Nice. 
They were on the Promenade holding hands, kissing now and then, 
until they were caught up in the surge of terrified people 
running away, any which way, as far from the truck as they could get.  
Then Juliette and Léo jumped down to the beach. But once there, 
they didn’t know what to do next. Where were the friends they’d met, 
sat with during the show and left behind because they wanted to be alone, 
as young lovers always want at some point during a special night out? 
What about today? Which person is home today caring for a fretful 
toddler, preparing supper, or on the phone trying to get news 
about parents, who, on their 25th anniversary, 
had done the thing they'd wanted to do since they were young lovers,
made the journey to the south of France to see 
the fireworks soar over the Mediterranean on le 14 juillet?




Wednesday, June 01, 2016




I never did post a blog in May, although  I intended to. So right off the June bat, here are two short fictions for the book I’m working on when I’m not working on the other book because sometimes a poetry person just wants to write prose, you know? This new one is going to be titled “Women in Cities,” and it is indeed about women in cities or at least, big towns.

Across a Cozy Room

I was staying at The Green Hollow House, not the most frugal choice I could have made, but I believe that sometimes a few extra dollars a night is worth the stretch. This guest house was splendid compared to the one I’d had the summer before, with the pipistrelles zig-zagging just over my head every time I stepped outside in the evening.  My bed was tucked under sloping eaves, from my desk I had a view of the Stratford-upon-Avon town center, and since I was there in the Royal Shakespeare Theater’s off-season and before any sunshine at all could be counted on, the house was fairly quiet.  I didn’t mind the January weather or short days and long nights because I was in Stratford to do research. The less tempting walks along the River Avon were, the more work I’d get done.

My plan was to spend my days reading original source material, wherever I found it in the region, and nights at my computer. All this eyestrain would someday lead to a Ph.D. (my thesis was on the outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1596—the one that took Will and Ann’s eleven year old, Hamnet) and then a plummy teaching job to keep me going. When I had time off I’d travel to sunny places; clown around with Italians, dance with Greeks.

As it happened, I got almost no scholarly work done whatsobloodyever, as I get a kick out of saying.  Another American, a scientist who studied bats and was taking observations and photos of their hibernation roosts, took a table at my B&B every morning. He’d turned a rented artist’s studio into his lab and his kitchen was completely repurposed. So he walked across the cobbled street to eat my hosts’ excellent English breakfasts. I don’t think my thesis had a chance. I fell for this guy immediately. No, I mean it. The first meeting of our eyes, over plates of eggs, stewed tomatoes, sausage, beans, and in his case kippers, and I was done and dusted. His eyes were neither large nor small, eyelashes as usual, one of those blues that could tend to green with the right clothes, but they radiated heart-stopping kindness, generosity, humor, and warmth.

At least, I think they did. Maybe not. Maybe I didn’t get all that from the moment we met. Could be a case of hindsight, eh? I am sure that by the time I met Andrew, I had long been aware that I was starving for more grace in my life. I’d been needing to drink from the cup of abundant love. The stereotypical history drudge who muddles along through their first decade or so of adulthood with their nose in musty tomes, brain thick with academic jargon, was, like stereotypes of all kinds, flawed, shallow, stupid and not, I knew from tip to toe, not me. This is a happy-ending story. I saw the future that cold morning in that doing-the-sixteenth-century-to-death town, whilst nibbling my fry-up.

     ***

4:45pm, Philadelphia
He stays a couple of yards behind me as we slog uphill. I try to diffuse the tension with a coy toss of head, slip on wet leaves. My ankle rolls and I splat noisily down. From my new angle his beard looks less stylish—bristles straggle all up his neck. He maintains a steely-eyed glare but handsomely offers his hand and I'm glad he's wearing leather gloves because my own hand is filthy with bits of gravel and gutter stuff. He grunts as he pulls me up. (I'm heavier than I look.) I curse in Swedish and he looks startled. My crappy orthostatic hypotension kicks in and, whooshing, I swoon into his arms. I catch his smirk and try to throw it back but I'm too dizzy. He pushes me down onto a nearby row house stoop, and forces my head between my knees. I rest, take stock. I feel better, almost crafty, and stand up, carefully. With a grim wave of his iron gray gun he points toward the bridge in the dim mist up the hill. I slink on, again ahead of him, plotting. I try again to diffuse the tension with a coy toss of head, slip on wet leaves, my ankle rolls, and I splat but less noisily. From my new angle the Russian's beard looks silly. He rolls his eyes but offers his hand. As he pulls me up I knee him, kick the gun out of his hand as he goes down on the wet, slimy, leafy, sidewalk. The gun goes off, hits nothing that I'm aware of. The bastard curses in English, (he's been deep cover) glowers up at me. I pick up the gun and gloat in Swedish.