Bodies, by Marty Blue Waters

I love bodies of water. They are always on the move. A river flows and floods and sometimes is reduced to a little trickle of galloping molecules. The ocean tides keep ancient time. The waves break with a great churning of overexcitement and then leave salty bubbles behind to wash the sand and make it smooth, taking all footprints back into the sea. This never gets tiresome. It's like a steady heartbeat that works on its own whether or not you're aware of it. It is the essence of life, in its various rhythmic patterns.

Even a stagnant pool of yucky water has motion. Rain splatters into it or someone steps in it or a dog drinks from it. A deep, still pond with a mirror surface reflecting land and sky has sudden movement when a frog jumps in and cracks the glass open. Bobbing ripples travel out evenly until their circles disappear and the mirror repairs itself.

I grew up on the ocean floor, also known as Kansas. My bicycle was my boat and it took me far out into that place New Yorkers call "the middle of nowhere." The most magical spot in the universe to me. The land is not greedy for attention the way a mountain range or a panoramic mecca can be. Those things do draw a crowd and are deeply gorgeous. I'll hand them that.

But it's the sky, the clouds, the wind, the moon, the stars, the advancing storms that all do their own spectacular jobs with great, anonymous style that I admire. Different every minute. This is what occupied the mind of a sailor like me. The wind was a brutally brilliant artist friend, creating a constantly moving canvas in endless waves of poetic moods.

When I was around 8 years old, I watched a documentary about how the entire mid section of North America was once a vast, shallow ocean, many many eons ago. Then, when dryness overpowered the elements, the water receded, and the plains were born. Enormous salt mines were left behind, deep underground, and now they serve to supply the needs of the present world, especially when it gets all iced up. And there is also a fresh water ocean hiding deep below the surface of the plains. I'm not sure how that got there, but it has become the basis for farmers' irrigation systems that try to outwit the natural dryness of the land. Someday that will be forced to change into another element too, no doubt.

So thinking of Kansas as the bottom of the ocean was a wonderful image that lodged into my brain and gave me a new perspective on my home terrain. After that, when I hopped on my bike to go explore new dirt roads, following the most exquisite vanishing points imaginable, tooling along endless straight lines next to fields of wheat or pastures of sorghum, I was a sea captain sailing into the uncharted waters of western Kansas. My companions were my dog, jackrabbits, turtles, coyotes, rattlesnakes, birds, skunks, deer, prairie dogs, and anything that moved in its own path whether I saw it or not. All of us traveling along like little fish in the big ocean.

Body Memories, by Annie Wexler

Age 7.  My mother tries to curl my fine straight hair with a curling iron. The ringlets droop within a minute. "You have terrible hair," she says. My first knowledge of shame.

Age 9.  I live in the country. There are few other kids. My body is skinny and wiry. I can climb trees, forge streams, catch insects. My life is in the woods.

Age 12.  A baby sitter tells me, "You have beautiful legs." My first moment of consciousness about my body. After that I start looking in the mirror.

Age 13.  I go on a nighttime hayride in the back of a big pickup truck with a Jewish youth group. Benjie Levine lies down next to me and I feel his erection. I don't know what it is. Benjie later becomes a gynecologist and later still goes to jail for fondling his patients.

Age 13 1/2.  I get my first period. There is a red stain in my panties. I run and tell my mother. She slaps my face and I am in shock. "That  is what my mother did to me," she says. "To bring the blood back to your face." Then she shows me how to use a sanitary belt and pad. It will be years before tampons.

Age 14.  I run a race in summer camp and win and am declared the fastest runner of all the girls. I get a trophy. I feel pride for the first time.

Age 17.  I leave for college. I have dyed blond hair cut in a pageboy style. I wear knee-length skirts and sweater sets with pearl buttons. I am my mother's daughter.

Age 19.  I leave college and spend time on a kibbutz in Israel. I shed my old clothes in favor of khaki pants and work boots. I stop shaving my legs and armpits.  I do hard physical labor and my body sings with exhilaration. I am no longer my mother's daughter. She never gets over it.

Age 21. I get married for the first time. We have sex. I don't know anything about orgasms. I have to fake liking it to be a good wife, but my body isn't really there.

Age 28. I am pregnant with my first child. I throw up every day for the first six months. What is my body telling me? My breasts are huge and my belly stretches until I think I will burst. And when I do, everything is blissful. I nurse my son at 2 a. m. in a rocking chair. I have never known such peace.

Age 40.  Another child, a failed marriage, a new lover who tries to seduce me by hand-feeding me chocolate truffles as foreplay. It works. I am in my sexual prime and it is that little window of time after birth control pills but before herpes and AIDS. My body revels in its juicy glory.

Age 55.  Another failed marriage. Menopause. No more cramps, no more fibroids, but no more youth. My body won't sleep at night. It torments me with hot flashes. Hair thins, everything dries up. Where will I be in 10 years?

Age 74.  My body is happy again. At peace with the changes. Some things point down that used to point up. Some things sag that used to be tight. Brown spots on my hands, pain in my back. But I feel strong and healthy and in love with my body. For as longs as it lasts I am grateful.

Body Scan, by Barbara Cartwright

I used to have nice feet. Beautiful feet. Especially if my toes were painted with nail polish. Red. Or some other striking color. But as you age, feet are the first to go. They insist on sensible shoes. Flat or flattish with a rounded toe box. They tire easily. And they can't be coerced into going on. Now, nail polish is what I use so people look at my feet but not too closely. They think: "She paints her toes. She must be taking care of herself."

I'm fond of my ankles. They're not thick. They could be narrower, but as far as I know there's no plastic surgery that makes people's ankles more definitively thin. And even if there were, I wouldn't go for it.

I have good calves. Not great but good enough.

I'm a little knock-kneed. I remember the pediatrician telling my mother it was the only part of me that wasn't perfect. Liar! I'd like to give him a piece of my mind today but what good would it do? What good would it have done back then? Still, who the hell was he looking at?

My thighs have seen better days. Those number in the single digits, if you must know. If I lose enough weight they begin to approximate what I expect from a pair of thighs. That's a big if. Also they used to be stronger. They're still strong enough for hiking and stairs. Or an evening of dancing.  But if I bend my knees and sit on my haunches, I have a terrible time getting back up. I want to cry for help but I'm too embarrassed. Sometimes I sit like that for hours. Perhaps it's a lack of elasticity that's to blame, which I'm sure I could improve upon if only I did regular yoga or stretches. But I never remember to do anything I feel guilty about for not doing. And these are the last activities that come to mind if I'm already sitting down.

My abs are in a witness protection program. Even I don't know where they are. We don't communicate. It's not allowed.

My waist comes and goes, depending on what it has to compare itself to. On bad days, it looks like a Calvin Klein model but wider, like someone on a steady diet of cake and ice cream sodas. On good days, I can consider wearing a belt. Note the word consider.

I used to think I wanted perkier breasts. I read somewhere they should fit perfectly into a champagne glass. The wide kind from the '40s and '50s; not the tall flutes we're accustomed to today. These days, if I want to pour my breasts into a glass, it has to be a sturdy tumbler, the kind you get at IKEA or Crate and Barrel. Wide mouth, straight sides. I prefer not to dwell on that right now.

Once I joined a gym and went regularly for a few months. I liked the way my shoulder and neck muscles took on their own identity. How I could flex them at will if I rotated my outstretched arms palms front, then back. My biceps refused to play along. I don't know why. You'll have to ask them.

I am more than okay with my neck. But I prefer my face when it's less puffy. Still, I prefer a nightly glass of wine even more. My hair has good days and bad, usually nothing to do with any input I might have.

I am very fond of my ears. Wouldn't change a thing. Though it would be nice to stop the ringing. Likewise my nose and mouth. Fond, that is. My teeth could be whiter and shinier. I think it's that age thing again. Cf. earlier reference to feet and toes.

My hands don't seem to be changing much at all. Except one knuckle is arthritic and bent, just like my mother's got to be. And I have one finger that pops in the morning. I forget what you call it. Trigger finger? Something like that. It eventually stops popping if I clench and unclench my fist a few times. It's really just when I wake up that I notice it. The doctor says she can give me a shot of cortisone but I'm afraid I'll pass out from the novocaine they shoot you up with first. I'll just go on saying "good morning pop-up finger" until it hurts or won't pop back up at all.

And maybe, just maybe, by that time I won't be able to see it crook or hear it crunch. I'll be so far gone, it'll just be cake and ice cream sodas all day long.

Finally an upside to getting on and getting old.

The Body In Place, by Yvonne Fisher

Is the body different when we are in different places, different locations? Of course it is. My body was so different, during my week in New York City, than it is up here in Ithaca.

In Ithaca I have space to feel my body, to move around, to stretch and breathe in good air. In Ithaca I feel the aroma of lilacs drift in through my nostrils and float down through every nerve, blood vessel, and bone of my body down to my toes, the soles of my feet, connecting me to the very ground and earth I stand on. My body is part of nature and I cherish it. I become the lilacs and the lilacs are a part of me.

Here in Ithaca, my body absorbs healthy, nutritious food whenever I want to eat. The food nourishes and strengthens me. I drink coconut water to replenish. I eat coconut cereal with coconut milk. I become part coconut and I live my coconut-filled life. My body feels blissful and well-tended.

In New York City, I had a different experience. My body walked around concrete for miles and miles, to Broadway and back to Chelsea, to the East Village, to Soho, and all around. I walked with hoards of people, crowds everywhere, so that my body blended with all the others, creating a dense, tense harmony of sorts, dodging around people, scooting away, brushing up against people, running a bit, slowing down to a halt as if we were actually waiting in line as we all walked down the street.

As I looked at other faces, other bodies, I became them and they were surely part of me. We were the same, a massive species, all looking around, all looking up at neon ads for sexy underwear, flashing lights, explosions of movement and stimulation everywhere. We melted into the harsh, exciting environment like bionic babies in a robotic, electronic world. Everyone was looking down at their phones, car horns were honking angry and frustrated, sirens screaming, all of us oblivious, cool, walking on by.

My body was strong and tense walking all over the City.  Twice, I went for neck and shoulder massages to ease the stiffness, the tension, the pain. My body ate dinners late at night in dark, steamy restaurants with unbearably good food: the freshest sushi, the tenderest clams, the richest salmon and lots of wine flowing, being poured into my glass so I just kept drinking, who knows how much?

All of it felt out of control. I was giddy with delight and sensual pleasure and indulgence, sleeping at different peoples' houses, apartments, couches and beds, like the vagabond I was meant to be. My body adjusted to everything, slid into different beds, overstimulated, exhausted, thrilled. I could barely sleep.

This was my body's experience in New York City. I could do anything, everything, cry, laugh, talk endlessly, be silent, play, dream, melt into all of it, be overtaken and surrender to it.

On the bus back to Ithaca I felt my body relax, collapse. I was going home to sanity, simplicity, lilacs.

Someone on the bus, three seats away, had a bad cold and was coughing and sneezing. Oh no, I thought. I took my yellow pills that I get from my acupuncturist, to ward off colds. When I got home and went to bed I fell into a deep, dead sleep, letting go of all the stress and excitement. My body melted into my clean, purple, flannel sheets.

When I woke up the next morning I had a head cold. My brain was filled with cotton. My body was worn down. My debauched days and nights made my body sick.

I did recover quickly and still could smell the lilacs. My body was home, safe.

But what a fabulous time I had!

Body Time, by Nancy Osborn

If I had to focus on one part of my body as the representative part, the epitome of who I am, it would be my legs, along with their feet, knees and hips.

Legs: strong, sturdy, ready to walk anywhere, up to the challenge of hills, loving the splash of rain water puddles, but not too happy about ice.

And willing to carry more than just myself. They've carried a sister riding piggy-back, a baby (first inside me then on my back), knapsacks of school books, library books, groceries, laundry, a yoga mat and meditation bench, backpacks of clothes for travel in Greece and Italy.

Feet: overlooked at times but having the uncanny ability to draw my attention when they are hot, when they are cold, when my socks have rumpled themselves down under my soles, when my toes cramp during meditation, when my shoes are too tight.

Legs and feet can create the most elegant and beautiful movements in dance. And I love my legs and feet for having been willing to school themselves in these motions. Now more often I school my legs and feet to fold and relax into meditative silence, allowing the rest of my body to slow and quiet itself.

Knees: I could just consider them a part of my legs, but as I age these joints have begun to demand more attention and care. Now I can no longer expect my knees to gracefully lower me to a squat. Now I must sometimes pamper these joints and use a helping hand when rising from meditation or sitting.

Hips: another often unappreciated part of my leg, just there, helping me walk or fold into a forward bend, swing my legs or land a jump gracefully, until they don't help. I knew long ago that I should never take my hip joints for granted, learning this lesson the hard way during a dance concert. Another woman and I were expected to gracefully extend first our left leg into a slow développé and back, and then when that movement was completed, to do the same with the right leg. But I could never do it quite so smoothly on the right, despite hours of practice. There was some sort of quirk in my right hip joint that made the movement less than smooth. I always hoped all eyes were on my partner at this point. The same quirk shows itself in yoga poses these days, reminding me that we aren't just mechanical creatures, though some anatomy illustrations might give that impression in their diagrams of bones and muscles. We are creatures with living parts, less than perfect parts, parts that age and change.

When I was younger I'm sure I took my body and all its parts for granted. At the slightest impulse it would do what I wished: stand up, sit down, bend, turn, twist, jump, glide. There was no need to think about how the parts of my body accomplished these movements, they just did. And maybe that's the way of life: when young you just get on with things, make your way in the world, using your body almost unconsciously to move forward, both literally and figuratively.

But as I move into the last phase of my life I find that I can no longer remain so unaware of my body. I've come to realize that if an accident or fatal disease doesn't bring my life to an end, that my body itself will find a way to remind me that a life doesn't hurtle forward non-stop forever. And that it has, in fact, been reminding me of this for awhile.

My body calls out to me to notice it, to care for it more attentively, to coddle it even. It makes it quite clear that it is slowing down and with that slowing, that my life is also moving toward the stillness of death.

There comes a time when it is important to take account of the slowness of age, to reflect on all that the body has experienced and known, to honor the way it has supported my being through all my years. That is the body time I am in now.

Two Collective Lists

On Thursday afternoon, April 28, 2016, a group of people met at the Tompkins County Public Library to participate in a workshop called "Poetry for the People." We wrote collective list poems and poem/prose inspired by other poets' work. We ended by reading some haiku out loud to each other. We had a very good time! Below you will find two collective lists created by group members. Contributors' names appear at the end.

Poem of Ourselves

I ride my bike as often as I can
I look forward to outdoor summer concerts
I like blue and green and sometimes yellow
I try to find the path that's clear
I might fall short and lose my way
I can't know all the ins and outs
I get  my inspiration from spending time in nature
I am working on a third book of poetry
I have a cat named Mia and a granddaughter named Mia
I am an only child
I am creative and resourceful
I am a grandmother, whose role mode is my grandmother
I am me
I was like that, once
I am yours, forever
I crave silence but often forget to allow it
I sometimes long for a place I couldn't wait to leave
I am a professional secret keeper
I wish I had a magic wand so I could cure the ills of the world
I love to watch out my window and look at nothing, or perhaps the wind blowing the leaves
I am always ready to accept a lunch invitation on the spur of the moment
I hold joy and sadness together inside
I am pushing myself into new and scary places
I play piano, timidly or confidently, depending on the day
I celebrate sin
I celebrate reaching up and reaching under
I celebrate sitting on the ground
I was married once but I'm better now
I was worried once but now I can't seem to remember why
I was lonely once but then I became my own best friend
I try to remain in the present instead of sinking into the past or drifting into the future
I have waited many years for my hair to grow long enough to braid
I may not remember your name right away but I will remember the book I recommended to you more than 20 years ago



The Happiness Poem (inspired by the 19th century Japanese poet, Tachibana Akemi)

Happiness is when you find a tiny flower in bloom under the old dead leaves. Happiness is  when the exact item you want, in just the right color, is on sale and you get the very last one. Happiness is finding the stars under the clouds as they blow away out to sea. Happiness is fresh baked bread, right out of the oven. Happiness is feeling completely at ease. Happiness is receiving that long awaited reply. Happiness is  a T-shirt that fits just right. Happiness is a salad stuffed with greens, cucumbers, onions, olives, and no dressing needed. Happiness is seeing without the aid of glasses. Happiness is the memory of a kiss that sealed a deep and abiding friendship.

Happiness is when you spy your daughters walking around the backyard, and though you notice with a pang that the little one is now the taller of the two, instead you choose to focus on the fact that they are holding hands. Happiness is is hearing your son and daughter deep in conversation, talking and laughing, and ending by saying "I love you," and not because they have to. Happiness is a long soak in a hot bath, a stack of books waiting to be read, receiving real mail addressed in a familiar hand. Happiness is is standing at the edge of Lake Superior while the waves wash up against your legs and you throw your hands up in the September air and you laugh and laugh. Happiness is seeing the face of your baby sister for the first time. Happiness is sitting, staring out the window, notebook and pen close at hand, and having inspiration come along and smack you upside the head with a baseball bat. Happiness is when you finally, finally, do a beautiful assisted arabesque in a dance class and your dance teacher looks over at you and says "Good." Happiness is walking into a bookstore and breathing in the smell of printer-ink, words, and blank notebook pages.

Happiness is playing a piano duet with your teacher and finishing at the same time. Happiness is a fragrant bouquet of peonies from your garden. Happiness is eating a chocolate ice cream sundae at Purity. Happiness is is getting a phone call from your best friend. Happiness is seeing your book in print. Happiness is finding a love note in your lunch bag. Happiness is your knock on the door, asking for cookies and milk. Happiness is seeing your eyes light up and your beautiful smile as you climb up Tuthill Ridge holding a newborn deer in your arms. Happiness is the sun setting in the west, leaving a trail of apricot. Happiness is the smell of coffee perking in the morning and sharing a quiet moment with you.

Happiness is when your old dog follows you with his eyes, whatever you do, and you exchange meaningful looks. Happiness is waking up in your own bed in your own house. Happiness is the white trillium coming back again each spring, in the same spot next to the old shed. Happiness is having jars of food you grew yourself. Happiness is having a full larder. Happiness is looking out a sparkling clean window and seeing the full moon. Happiness is dancing for a long time without stopping. Happiness is teaching children to sing "Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah." Happiness is a coconut cream pie.  Happiness is a birthday visit from every single family member.

Happiness is when someone other than me washes the dinner dishes. Happiness is practicing the piano and my fingers remember what to do. Happiness is candles lit, tulips in vases, and the family sitting around the table. Happiness is no new drama. Happiness is finding a kindred spirit in an unexpected place. Happiness is when I have enough bold colors to start a quilt. Happiness is when I am the center of someone's universe. Happiness is when I'm in my tent and I can smell the campfire and hear the owls bid me "good night." Happiness is when I'm laughing with my safest friends. Happiness is when I'm in love . . . for now or/and forever. Happiness is sitting in my favorite chair by the window, reading a book I am enjoying, then falling asleep — was it 2 seconds or 20 minutes? — and waking up and continuing with my reading exactly where I left off.

Happiness is when a group of strangers come together to write and after two hours they know each other better, through the stories they have shared.

Workshop participants:

Barbara Kane Lewis
Bill Murphy 
Caroline Gates-Lupton
Julia Ganson
Kathy May
Kim Zimmerman
Laura Gates-Lupton
Patty Little
Paula Twomey
Ruth O'Lill
Zee Zahava

The Leo Sayer Poem, by Stacey Murphy

Their songs spill over the fence
Along with the scent of warm charcoal.
The neighbors from Burma preparing for a feast,
Serenading me
And my rake
And my garden
On a fine April afternoon
Now hip-hop, now rock ballad
My ears yearning to learn the words that are in their own language
And then — a song in English.
Leo Sayer from the early '80s
And we are all singing —
Voices from their yard,
A really strong tenor from across the street,
My own among my weeds,
Even the birds harmonizing —
We raise our collective “Whoa whoa  yay yay”
To the blue sky,
Our hearts soaked in music
Giddy with the promise of warm days to come
So we sing to them —
To our lives,
Our people,
Our universes —
Our hearts so full,
We love them more than we can say.