God’s flocking

First snow of the season fell last night.

At least, it was the first snow of the season for me (I don’t know if it snowed here in northern Illinois last week when I was enjoying the balmy humidity of Mexico’s west coast).

I captured this flaky drapery during this morning’s walk around the block, and it even adorned the top of the water tower as the sun rose, but I suspect it’ll be gone before the day is.

Dust of Snow
By Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Not the crow's nest, perhaps, but this perch made me glad for my down jacket and knitted gloves.

Autumn poetry

Thank you Mother Nature for all that you bring
by Drew, 12 

Thank you Mother Nature for the colorful leaves blowing in the wind,
the trees that dropped them down.
Thank you Mother Nature for the bright apples growing big and tasty
and for the corn yellow and large.
Thank you Mother Nature for sun that grew the pumpkins
so beautiful all around.
Thank you Mother Nature for the squirrels all around
collecting large brown acorns in the grass.
Thank you Mother Nature for all the little animals
running all around.

Hail, Summer, how I have longed for thee

When roses turn their pretty heads to greet the morning’s rays,
Then I shall curtsy to the date and welcome summer days.

Isn’t June delightful?

Ah, June. Nobody appreciates June like a Minnesotan.

After months of being cooped up in the house, June is when summer is unleashed.

Days are hot. Nights are warm. Lilacs bloom. The scent of lilacs wafting through the neighborhood is better than any perfume. Mix that with the smell of meat sizzling on the grill and you’ve got a little bit of paradise.

When I was a lifeguard, decades ago, the municipal pool was always most crowded in June. Ah, the pool. Suntan lotion. Skimpy swimsuits. Floating on the water.

There’s only one thing I don’t like about June, and that’s June bugs. I hate June bugs with their big, crunchy beetle bodies more than spiders and wasps. June bugs are disgusting.

But June bugs aside, June is a lovely month. My mother quoted a line from poet James Russell Lowell’s poem that sums things up:

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days.

Poetry … at gusts of 30 mph

I am a leaf, blown about by the wind.

I am brown and falling to pieces, a remnant of a year remembered.

The spring sun hides behind a cloud, winter’s last wheeze, last puff.

The wet air weighs on me. I am sloppy, slippery, dripping, done.

I am April.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

An auspicious lunar perigee of occurs today: The moon, in full phase, will come within 221,567 miles of Earth, as close as it’s come in 18 years.

Some experts say this “extreme supermoon” could create abnormally high tides.

Some old wives who tell tales say the full moon causes lunacy, that is, intermittent insanity related to the phases of the moon. William Shakespeare linked the lunatic, the lover and the poet in one of this works. Science, however, doesn’t find much credence in this legend, but if the moon affects the oceans in the form of tides, why couldn’t it affect human beings, whose bodies are composed of up to three-quarters water?

Some of us are more sensitive to physical influences than others. Some people are allergic to pollen and miserable in the spring. Barometric pressure affects some people in the form of sinus pain and headaches. Some poor souls suffer though the short, dark days of winter with seasonal affective disorder. Isn’t it possible the moon’s gravitational pull could create some lunatics?

I’ve seen some bizarre behavior during the full moon in the past year, so I’m bracing for a little mania tonight.

The moon is at her full, and riding high,
Floods the calm fields with light.
The airs that hover in the summer sky
Are all asleep tonight.

– William C. Bryant

Winter refuses to release its icy grip

If the burning bush had a message from God, what does a frozen bush say?

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favour fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

– “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost

I don’t want to be an old lady

I don’t want to be an old lady,

     but I want to wear fashionably functional shoes

     not fashionably painful ones.

I don’t want to be an old lady,

     but I want to wear flashy bras under my girly blouses

     not flash my girls.

I don’t want to be an old lady

     but I want to drink wine out of a glass

     not wopatui out of a paper cup.

I don’t want to be an old lady,

     but I wish a buffalo chicken salad with dressing on the side

     was as easy on my hips as a buffalo chicken sandwich with a side of fries.

I don’t want to be an old lady,

     but I want to carry a cute black bag

     not wear them under my eyes.

I don’t want to be an old lady,

     but I want to listen to lyrical music sung by singers who make me wanna scream

     not unintelligible music screamed by singers that make me wanna wear ear plugs.

I don’t want to be an old lady,

     but I want my man of maturity to listen to my hopes and dreams

     not immaturely hope and dream I’ll shut up and listen.

I don’t want to be an old lady,

     but since I can’t keep a wrinkle-free face and youthful body,

     I want to keep a carefree and youthful attitude.

Can I get it in a cute pink jar with collagen-building vitamins?

A poem, circa 1983

Of balloons and coffee cups

Of tennis shoes and rings

Of paper bags and ribbons

And other foolish things.

My desk is piled up with junk.

I haven’t see it since

I bought it from a thifty store

With a book of household hints.

The book, with many other things

is on my desktop now.

My mother says to clean it up

All I can say is, “How?”

I’ll leave it just the way it is.

The junk means much to me.

Of balloons and coffee cups,

I’ll let it be, I’ll let it be.

 

Only a packrat of disturbing proportions would keep creative works such as this for nearly 30 years through nine moves. (It is sort of creative though.) It was on the same piece of paper as this gem:

There once was a girl named Rose

Who always talked through her nose.

She yelled at Rick.

She said he was “Sick!”

So we’ll believe her ’cause she “knows.”

I’ll let it be, I’ll let it be.

Or maybe, now that my creativity is preserved forever on the internet, I can throw this piece of paper away now.

There are times …

Digging through some of my (ancient) files, I found this poem written to me by a couple of friends in college. It was probably a class assignment, composed on May 8, 1987:

There are times in every life

          when we feel hurt or alone …

But I believe that these times

          when we feel lost

          and all around seems

          to be falling apart

          are really bridges of growth.

We struggle and try to recapture

          the security of what was,

          but almost in spite of ourselves,

          we emerge on the other side

          with a new understanding,

          a new awareness,

          a new strength.

It is almost as though

          we must go through the pain

          and the struggle

          in order to grow

          and reach new heights.

Sue Mitchell & Alfredo Castillo