This / Offerings, by Rebecca Weger

Note: This was the last week of writing circles for the year and in each session people brought special objects to put out on a communal altar, to serve as our writing inspiration. The Saturday morning circle fell on the Solstice.

This

Look at what it is to have our hearts laid out on the table

to be seen and touched and felt.

Look at what it is to have our memories and pangs of loss and hopes for the future jumbled up together, mine and yours.

This is what it is, each week, me and you.

Offerings

empathy

joy

wisdom

power

creation

memory

hope

love

change

tears

beauty

promises

celebrations

grief

birth

death

kindness

fragility

strength

stability

outpouring

loss

family

words

light

flow

Once, by Phoebe Lakin

Once we rode a train to Java and became more riveted to ourselves.

Once the roof collapsed and I attained enlightenment.

Once in a quiet corridor she tied her hands in knots and looked into the corners of a book.

Once the fierce wind ripped a hole in my heart and I sewed it up with pine needles.

Once I baked cookies out of rosemary and wet wood and left them outside where they melted.

Once I looked at the scalloped edges of the known universe and wondered about going home.

Ghostwriting, by Rob Sullivan

conduits in the rain

water flows free

seeking its level

butterfly alights

beauty overwhelms

viewer responds with vision

specters flit between

darkness and illuminati

glimpsing truth and prettier lies

history tells his story

while heart speaks

of hers

titans and demigods

flex collective muscle

paupers still beg

dreaming the big dream

soothes great aching

sounds of suffering

she walks through

her life in beauty

so deeply, must look away

when will this race

be finished

may I borrow your legs?

songs, poems, stories

were still simmering

til the flame was no more

can you teach me

to sing, play guitar

write tunes, pen words?

how can I make out the signal

amidst static diversion

unmodulated frequency?

dust, smoke, rubble

settle to silent clarity

mind expands to receive

prepare the vessel

muse infuses as a ghost

writing for the ages

A Small Plot of Ground, by Melissa Hamilton

Before I found my birth family, characters I’d never met danced through my head.  Once, I dreamt that I slipped into their home during a holiday meal, hiding in their pantry behind the canned peaches.

The aromas of crab cakes and corn pudding wafted in as shoes tapped on linoleum.  “They must be southern musicians,” I thought, for surely that tap had rhythm to a song I knew.  But I dared not peek.  In awakening, I went back to assuming my mother was a Russian Ballerina, it sounded more poignant and romantic . . . the gift of creating when all is unknown.

The word “Family” always had a nip too it, I envied those who resemble their sister or have traits of a great great grandmother found on Ancestor.com. I felt as if those born into a family have been given a small plot of ground on Earth, a solid history and belonging to the human race.   Without genetic relatives, it seemed I wandered untethered, like a gazelle dangerously lost from her herd.

When I first heard “we found her,” from the Children’s Home, I was given basic facts.  She was a math major and scientist, she had no other children.   I learned she had German ancestry and my father was Dutch.  As soon as the phone was in the cradle, I went outside.  The night was comfortably clear, but the stars felt too silent and turned upside down.  Suddenly everything I knew, or imagined, was wiped clean, I was not Irish and had no reason to struggle with math!   In subsequent years, we would both need to rebuild our identities, but carefully, much like an archeologist assembling ancient bones.

For several months, my birthmother and I wrote to each other anonymously.  I painstakingly formed each sentence as if sacred text, and sent them to the Children’s Home.  They removed any identifying information and mailed the letters to her.  Back and forth we wrote, gingerly sharing details and clues to our whereabouts and selves.

One day, a small package arrived, inside was a Snoopy tie tack.  “What an odd gift,” I thought, but what can one give in such an awkward reunion?  There are no Hallmark cards to congratulate you on finding genetic relatives!  Some even shake their heads and shoot despairing glances, “you ought to appreciate those who raised you,” they hiss (as if expanding one’s family negates love and loyalty) . . .

Almost twelve years later, my birthmother and I talk almost weekly on the phone.  She’s given me the first photo album of my ancestors, carefully labeled in her looping script.  Each year I learn a bit more about Aunt Florence or Uncle Harold and don’t need to hide among the canned peaches, for I’m invited into the past. 

The Snoopy tie tack was my birth mother’s clue that she worked at NASA.  If I had looked closely, he was wearing a tiny Space suit.  This tack had gone up in the Space Shuttle and was presented to my birth mother at an awards ceremony just before we met.  “Most of my coworkers passed their awards onto their kids,” said my birth mother. “Now that I have a child, I can pass it on too,” she said.

This gift twenty-eight years later, a piece of metal from Space, tethered me back to Earth.  In meeting my birth mother, I found that small plot of ground. 

The Age of Dust, by Sara Robbins

I have a useless closet in my bedroom 

a place where things go to die — 

like the two blouses my mother made for me 

36 years ago. 

I will never wear them. 

Not just the outdated style

but they do not fit me anymore. 

She made them

on her Singer sewing machine. 

She bought the fabric and cut it. 

She made these blouses with love 

and they hang,

fading with the years, 

slowly turning to dust. 

Proof that I was loved.

NOTE: With thanks to E. B. White for providing the title for this piece

Deliver Me a Poem, by Maureen Owens

Deliver me a poem today.

It’s time; I’m overdue.

Meanwhile, snow rests on branches,

geese lift from a field,

early morning light glows

on the gold of winter corn.

Infuse me with words.

I want to spew fine lines,

delivered with perfect breaks,

so poignant, a reader’s heart

can only swell in resonance.

Enough. We all know, a poem’s arrival

is  certain to be inconvenient,

forcing an unsuspecting poet

to resort to napkins and dull half pencils,

lucky to salvage even a morsel

of what might have been.

Stranger, by Yvonne Fisher

This happened long ago.

I was a child trapped in my childhood life, my cramped apartment, my family of refugees, my clueless existence, my low self image, my need for approval from anyone and everyone, the kindness of strangers, the hope for some change, the desire for something, deep and profound, rich and transcendent, something unnameable, trapped in the yearning.

I was a typical child in the '50s, quiet and sheltered, no words to express.

And one day a stranger came to visit from somewhere else. A distant cousin I never heard of.  A grownup with a family.  Her name was Tamara.  I remember that.  The most beautiful name I ever heard.  She had an accent from Europe, another refugee.  But she was different. She stood tall. She had something I now understand to be confidence. She was a Doctor.  She was not a Nurse. I didn't understand.  But I looked up at her. I saw her.  She was beautiful in a way I've never seen.  Her whole being shone like the sun.  I didn't understand.  I was awestruck.  I never met anyone like her.  She was a Doctor and she had a husband and children. She must be the smartest person in the world, I remember thinking. How is it even possible?

I watched her visit with my mother.  I watched her mouth move as she talked.  I watched her eyes bright as the stars in the sky.  I was used to a kind of dullness like walking through a fog.  But here was something else.

     

And then she turned to me.  I blinked.  She came down to my level and looked into my eyes.  I could hardly stand it.  I couldn't breathe.  I didn't know what to do.  She asked me questions no one had ever asked before in the history of the world, I thought. She asked me what I loved to do and what I wanted to be.

     

Not just the usual what do you want to be when you grow up —

She asked me who I was as if I were a person.  And I didn't know what to say.  Nothing came to my mind.  My mind was running all over the place.  I couldn't compute the question.

    

So I said nothing.  And I felt shame.

     

I couldn't tell her my passions, my yearnings, my love of theater and movies and jumprope.  I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

     

And then she said:  don't worry, you'll know.  Do something you love. You'll know what to do.  

And she changed my life forever.

     

The seed was planted: to do what I love, to be a person.  And the best seed of all:  that it was ok.  I was ok.  Okay, okay.

     

No one until then spoke that language to me.  This was a woman like no other, I thought.

     

Something opened up and I stepped into my life.

     

I never saw her again.  I don't know what happened.  But I saw something in her eyes.  I saw something.  I experienced a moment of intimacy and connection and I was forever changed.

     

Everything was possible.

2 Poems, by Rob Sullivan

RSVP

Friday just past

noon

a hint of magic

is carried

on the wind

it's been

traveling

since the earth

cooled

and the seas

formed

muses make 

music

to amuse

and tickle

fancies free

they call for us

they sing

their songs

an invitation

to the dance

to the laughter

to this life

to great love

please RSVP

===

REPLY ALL

when your heart

shatters

beyond recognition

reply all

when negligence

and cruelty

assail you

reply all

when friends shapeshift

or disappear

reply all

when loneliness

will not 

leave you

reply all

when the three

times mist

into illusion

reply all

when hope fails 

when mercy is gone

when love's lost

reply all

reply all

to heaven and earth

reply all

to gaiety and mirth

reply all

to the sweetest

surrender

reply all

until you can remember

good will best 

evil

victory

we will

win most sure

right and pure

then on some shining day

all voices as one

will say

REPLY ALL

REPLY ALL

REPLY ALL

I like / I don't like: 2 lists, by Maryam Steele & Jackson Petsche

Maryam and Jackson don't know each other. And I have not (yet) met either of them in person. But I know them both through wonderful correspondence and through the Sparking-at-Home program. 

Last Friday I posted a collective list on the Lost Paper blog: 

http://lostpaper.blogspot.com. Then I received two wonderful, long, juicy lists from these 2 writers and I simply cannot resist sharing them with you, right here, on PaintedParrot. 

Maryam Steele:

I like garlic in everything

I like making kimchi and tasting it every day to see if it's fermented enough to eat

I like knowing there are mistakes I'll never be stupid enough to make again

I don't like doing yoga while a baby tries to climb on my back

I don't like finding hair in my food

I like hot and sour soup made from scratch, sushi rolled by my nine-year-old, and baby fingers trying to steal my tea

I don't like when people I love move far away

I don't like noisy plastic toys

I like homeschooling and being able to stay in my pajamas all day

I don't like people coming over without calling first

I like getting books in the mail

I don't like anxiety, though it likes me

I like letting my kids draw and paint on the walls

I don't like lawnmowers, unless they are sitting silent in the garage

I like art, our counter stained with ink, kids asking if I'll hang up their purple yin-yangs, and bird-drawing tutorials

I like writing quotes on little pieces of paper and putting them on walls where I'll see them every day

I like that I forget the details of the things people have done to me, even though I retain the sense of caution and wisdom I gained

I like having maps on my walls

I like getting up at 3 a.m. to get three hours alone before the kids wake up

I like watching Korean dramas

I like stitching entire bed-size quilts by hand, leaving the noisy sewing machine in the basement

I don't like shopping

I like freckles, big noses, and crazy wild eyebrows

I like the smell of campfire smoke in my hair and clothes

Jackson Petsche:

I like listing the things I like

I like being me

I like strong tea, old books, sneakers, the smell of fallen leaves in autumn, mystery novels, John Lennon's music, and taking long walks

I like playing Melissa by The Allman Brothers on guitar

I don’t like when pop songs are used in commercials

I like walking around the Hall of Languages, at Syracuse University, wearing my headphones

I like Batman but I don’t like Robin

I don’t like The Rolling Stones after 1969

I like watching my 3-year-old daughter dance to music

I like the smell of old books

I like Pina Coladas (non-alcoholic) and occasionally getting caught in the rain, but I don’t like “The Pina Colada Song”

I don’t like ties, or capitalism, or making myself a sandwich to take to work in the morning

I like seeing the Laura Nyro record I have on top of my bookcase

I like watching the credits at the end of a really nice movie

I like writing songs

I like remembering New York City and I like listening to songs that remind me of living in New York City

I like feeling that I am not alone

I like finding that space in the stillness when I am here in the present

I like wondering, and looking out the window, and reading, and writing, and communication, and a really good love song

I like chocolate cake because my daughter loves it and asked to have it on my birthday; and there is still some in the fridge and I really like that

I like marriage

I like being a father

I like when a song saves my life (for the moment)

I like when technology plays nice

I like when movies end with a freeze frame shot

I like when a song demands to be played a second time

I like . . . ellipses . . .

I like liking things

Return to Sender, by Natalie Detert

First thing this morning, my husband asked me, if I wanted some coffee in my milk

As the cat dropped a ball at my feet with an eager bark, really he did.

And, the news on NPR was good, so very good, all politics and economics and hijinks aside.

So, I sat down to pizza and cookies for breakfast, pleased with myself

Until daughter number one requested only fruits and vegetables in her lunch, and seaweed, too.

Daughter number two descended the stairs with knee high socks on her hands as mittens,

Thumbs sticking out of the holes her big toes had slowly etched out.

I gave my husband my look to remind him that I was not his grandmother, and

I never had nor never would darn a sock, thank you very much, bemused at the thought.

“I have a life,” I said as I went out to drive the carpool to school with all the teens and tweens

Who never complained once about my music on the radio and even let me sing along without rebuke.

Later, the postman left the mail in the planter, the housekeeper shook the dust about,

The cleaners neglected the stain on the jacket lapel, and the grocer packed the milk atop a dozen eggs.

I watched my neighbor run by the house backwards, befuddled by the sight.

His gasping strains of “training, triathlon” momentarily inspired images of my best self,

The self that goes to the gym to lift weights and run fast and hard and long on the treadmill.

Instead, I climbed the stairs and sat at my desk with paper and envelope at hand to write you

A personal letter, just this once, once again, despite the years of unspoken words, to give them voice.

I just didn’t know who to write them to or how to fit them on a single sheet of stationery,

The words pouring forth, exploding from the pen, escaping the envelope.

So, instead, I wrote on the envelope itself, inside and out, sealed

The stamp and mailing address inside, and marked it “Return to Sender” with these words —

Today was hard and unexpected. This life, at once pleasing and surprising then backward,

Upside down, and inside out, cannot be contained and controlled, remember.

You don’t know all of me or understand everything about them, but the perplexity clears,

The mishaps and misunderstandings pass. Just mail the world your best efforts and loving thoughts,

Special delivery, and wait by the mailbox tomorrow, you can count on its arrival.

2 Short Pieces, by Sara Robbins

The Book of Me

The book of me would include you of course, but not you now, not the white guy in a suit at town meetings or water board meetings or real estate or Republican meetings. This story stops with the boy with long blond hair, wearing tight striped pants and a butterscotch leather jacket, standing on a bridge over a sign that says No Standing On Bridge.

On Friday Afternoons

On Friday afternoons I cook my mother's recipes. Say, Brunswick stew and hoecake, or chicken paprikash with kasha. Of course I've morphed these recipes — I've added an array of vegetables to the paprikash: bell peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, along with the chicken and lots of good paprika. The sherry, the dill, the tamari — those are mine too. And the kasha? I rarely make kasha but if I do it's my own technique. I can't exactly recall her way but I know she toasted the buckwheat in a frying pan and somehow an egg was involved and chicken stock. I am channeling my mother when I cook these foods, emotional alchemy. Far away, my brother makes his version, with no vegetables, but maybe an onion, and he always makes kasha. We both put sour cream on top, but I also use yogurt if I feel like it and he never would. We remember our mother in different ways.

Paper Plate, by Linda Keeler

a sun, a clock, a face, a hat 

a paper plate can be all that

in summer — potato salad piled on top 

be careful there, don't let it drop

or use it for an easy way 

to keep the dish soap far away

toast for breakfast, there's no mess 

use it again for lunch I guess

look at this plate, it's thin and flimsy 

it can't handle Korean kimchi

after use, don't worry dear plate — 

a recycled reincarnation will be your fate

Cottage Inventory, by Isobel Reade

In the kitchen, a jar of coffee, bottles of wine, a few pots and pans, dishes in the sink, cat bowls on the floor, also Sandburg and Safire.

In the dining room, a long table of tiger maple, three Duncan Phyfe chairs, a book of Tarot, both Agatha Christie and Simenon, chatting quietly with Chas. Finch, Arturo Perez-Reverte, and Alan Bradley.

In the sitting room with the corner fireplace, now gas, a Portuguese mirror remembering centuries, silhouettes from the Jazz Age, an old trunk from the Far East, and Ishiguru, all alone.

In the east room, two leather chairs from an old inn, a daybed from a spinster aunt who remembered the Titanic going down, also Faulkner, Borges, Lightman, and in the shadows of the shelves a motley crew, drinking cocktails, coffee, beer — Irving, Poe, Churchill, countless poets, a few artists and historians, some young, some old, da Vinci muttering to himself, various lady novelists, a few hikers and gardeners, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Rash, Patchett, a few Irishmen, god knows who else — enjoying themselves though, in the small room, either laughing, in earnest, or distracted.

In the bedroom, dead relatives dim and quiet on the walls, cats sleeping on a bed — and in the far corner, Jefferson, Umberto Eco, Cavafy, and Kalinsky, wondering how they came to be together on the same small table under a lamp.