My poem, “Small Bites,” is up in the most recent issue of Anti-Heroin Chic. My thanks to EIC James Diaz for accepting this poem, and for his consistently beautiful journal. The first anniversary of my mom’s death is in a little over a week. She died from Covid. Please get vaccinated when you can and continue to wear a mask.
You can read my poem here.
I’m linking this to dVerse, Open Link Night.
Once more, we tilt, revolve again toward light–
winter gone, the robins sing to welcome spring
as dark days pass, earth’s hues ignite
swifter than the bullets’ hate-filled flight,
blue jays and red cardinals soar bright-winged,
once more, we tilt, revolve again toward light.
Now in daffodil glow, the poets write
of love and fate, and April’s state—that sting
as dark days pass. Earth’s hues ignite,
but the moon hums to fade their sight
and around us all the constellations ring–
once more, we tilt, revolve again toward light.
With shots in arms, we find delight
in friends and bowers, and nature’s might.
As dark days pass, Earth’s hues ignite–
not in bombs, or gunshot fight, but flowers bright.
Against despair and doom, to hope we cling
once more. Now tilt, revolve again toward light.
Watch! Dark days pass, and Earth’s hues ignite.
For dVerse, where Peter asks us to write poems that circle in some way. I was determined to write a villanelle, since I haven’t written one for a long time. I used Sarah’s template when she hosted the villanelle form for dVerse.
“I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)” --Sylvia Plath, Mad Girl’s Love Song
We prepare for winter
with blankets, tea, and books,
candles to light the nooks
of home, as heart, brain
given free rein, see in the shadows,
ghosts, cold, pain,
the fear of what frozen months bring,
the fear of known and unknown things—
we prepare to be together,
we prepare to be apart
our hearts sing, sigh
say goodbye in forlorn wandering
the air waves, weaves strands of grey with light
though it also shoots frozen silver darts–
yet, see
there’s magic still simmering, glimmering
at the surface where sea serpents shed their scaly skin
to dance with water sprites
Waves of water, sand, and air. A sea serpent leave her skin. ©️Merril D. Smith, 2021and eagles soar from bare-branched trees,
again into light,
over the river, the sky is grey
but the gulls rise, and there are patches of blue–
spring is coming
despite the mud-stomped snow,
the geese know time flows
“we’re coming, we’re coming,” they honk and cry,
it’s coming, Spring,
the cardinal couples call,
and the nuthatches laugh,
and the crows gather (not murderous at all)
but aware
that love is in the air.
And if I made you up,
then a wondrous dream it’s been,
there will be more snow, but in birdwing flight
and woodpecker’s drumming
I know spring is coming.
Merril’s Movie Club: So, you know, pandemic. . .we didn’t go anywhere. AND, the GOP senators, except for seven, couldn’t find their spines, or even worse, don’t care to. So. . .I really wanted to see a Merril movie, the kind we would have seen in a Philadelphia theater. I rented one from an NYC arthouse theater instead (filmforum.org). It’s less expensive than going to the movies, but of course, there are more distractions at home, so the experience is not the same. We rented, Preparation to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Hungary’s entry for the Academy Awards. It’s a noirish story of a neurosurgeon who after meeting a man at a conference in New Jersey, plans to meet him in a month in the Liberty Bridge at the Pest side in Budapest. He doesn’t show up, and when she tracks him down, he says he doesn’t know her. Thus, begins a story of did she imagine this whole romance? My husband and I both liked the movie a lot—he was still talking about it the next day. It’s not up there with Cold War (sigh), but it’s still a good movie, beautifully filmed. The quote from Sylvia Plath was at the beginning of the movie.
My poem today for Paul Brookes’ Special January Ekphrastic Challenge responds to all three works of art.
All the Strands Carried, Come Together and Dissolve
The talking heads talk, on TV screens
and from online streams, pontificate and remonstrate
elucidate, and then negate—
but flowers do not wait
for thoughts and prayers, the analysis of fools’ blares.
Unaware of blithering-blather, the slathering lather
of rabid madness—
feeling neither hope nor sadness,
they simply do
until they’re through.
And, I am born, as are you–
in their petal-dust, scattered or buried,
river-ferried or eagle-carried,
or by winds and air brought here—again,
again, again–
then on a sigh, we’re here to live until we die,
and nourish once more the flowers that grow
and glow—
with a wave to bees, a waltz for trees—
a balm we seize,
a thread connecting bodies, earth, air, sea-
from the stars reborn, hearts, heads—we.
I’m linking this to dVerse Open Link Night.
For Day Ten of Paul Brookes’ Special January Ekphrastic Challenge, my poem responds to two works:
Just Over There
These fuzzy-brained days–
I’m a hand-puppet, waiting for direction,
a sense of what to do, which way to go
some sense at all
to my sensibility—magical realism it may be
when the surreal is real
in this inside-out and upside-down world—where is the key
to unlock it?
Somewhere, a butterfly flutters, and the world shudders;
Somewhere a rabbit hops, escaping a predator, or setting off a bomb.
Crow caws, and I open my eyes,
there is light, crystalline bright—
just over there. See?
Monday Morning Musings
“If we're lucky ghosts and prayers
Are company, not enemies
I time travel straight back there
You were singing back to me”
--Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Between Dirt and Stars”
Without a dawn, this day doesn’t break
but drifts from darkness, to violet, then grey–
now beating on the windowpanes,
the rain silver-streaks in drumming beats
and we wait for November storms to rinse the month away.
Perhaps December will come in bright with holiday,
and corona will again define only the gaseous light
of incandescent sun and shimmery moon—come soon
this ending of our sorrow,
this longing for tomorrow–
still, I seize what happiness I can find
in river walks and talks with loved ones, unwind
the spools of memory in conversations of before–
do you remember, I say? And we discuss and laugh,
cry over photographs. We dine apart, with heavy hearts–
cranberry sauce red-berry bright, though unshaped, no art
to recreate what is not there. We’re plague-parted
and squirrels must wait, even as they congregate
on lawns and trees and parks. They scurry now
in autumnal flurry, readying for winter’s cold—
and we get older, I’ll not say old—not yet—
there’s more to say and do, to live without regret
for what once was. To hear the ghosts, to mourn,
to cry a storm—I toss a stone, torn
between yesterday and now
but grateful for what I have.
I listen to the singer sing of love and loss
of memories and dreams—
tears may fall like rain in streams,
but love remains beyond timelines,
never ending, there within, we remember
November ends, on to December,
with candles and cheer, we’ll lighten the gloom,
Zoom our love soon with latkes and wine,
dine and eat doughnuts, cookies, and cake—
celebrate solstice, watch the stars align
in happier fortunes, we’ll look for hopeful signs
in the fury and scurrying of squirrels and storms,
the resting of ghosts in time’s circling arms,
heed and harken how the waves flow and recede,
and carry the seeds
that bloom on a future shore. Just like before—
there’s no more and more.
We have steady rain right now, though it’s warm for November. We may get thunderstorms though as a cold front comes in. Here in the US, we celebrated Thanksgiving this past Thursday, when it rained in the morning, and then was warm enough for many families to gather safely outside. We had a pre-Thanksgiving snack outside with one daughter. It was strange to not be together with everyone. My niece’s daughter and husband made our traditional cranberry squirrel, and the rest of us saw it only in photos. On the left is one from a previous Thanksgiving at my house, and the right is this year. It’s nice they have a similar gold-rimmed platter.
Merril’s Movie/Concert/TV Club: Last night, we streamed Mary Chapin Carpenter’s concert, “One Night Lonely,” performed live at Wolf Trap on November 27. She was alone on the stage, and there was no audience. I thought we were going to watch it for brunch, but it didn’t work out. I did make bagels though.
We finished The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix), which I highly recommend. I was almost ready to watch three episodes the first night. I’ve heard chess sets are in great demand now because of the show.
Monday Morning Musings:
Ineffable,
the word lingers from my dream
almost visible–
how to describe
the dream state,
a word floats in the air—
almost visible,
liminal,
the world of in-between.
Ineffable,
the world today,
inconceivable
that we let it happen—
the naked emperor rules,
the fools see what they want to see
despite fire, plague
the flaming hate
and the ceaseless lies
rekindling the blood libel,
as the full moon hums fiercely
in warning, in horror
we look on,
but also,
ineffable
the beauty
of lunar shimmer
and morning glow
of herons
and deer
and the serenity of the river flowing on
carrying ghosts and memories,
in its currents
time bends, reflecting and refracting
the past merges with the future,
till it, too, is ineffable.
I did wake up today with the work ineffable floating in my head. We didn’t go anywhere this week, but historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American email today reminded me of all the events that have happened within the past week—”It was only last Sunday– seven days ago– that the New York Times released information about Trump’s taxes. Since then, we’ve lived through Tuesday’s debate and the wildfire spread of coronavirus through the inner circle of the White House, along with other stories that would have crippled any other administration but that now pass by with hardly a ripple.” My morning walks and talking to loved ones is keeping me sane.
We ordered Chinese food this weekend and watched two Merril movies: I’m Thinking of Ending Things (on Netflix) and A White White Day, an Icelandic movie available to rent on Amazon Prime and other platforms. I liked both of them more than my husband did, but they are both movies I’m still thinking about. The actor who plays the main character in A White White Day is so compelling, and his granddaughter is very cute. I’m Thinking of Ending Things, is a Charlie Kaufman film, so if you’ve seen his other movies, you know this will not be straightforward. There’s also a connection to Fargo, the TV show, not the movie. Jessie Buckley who plays the young woman in the movie, is in the new season, and her co-star, Jesse Plemons, was in an earlier season, as was David Thewlis, who plays his father. We’ve watched the first two episodes of the new season of Fargo, which is set in 1960 Kansas City, and we both like it so far.
I’m hosting dVerse today, so I’ll be back later. 😏
Here’s a another blue river shot for Liz.
“Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—”
“Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, they are connected in a never-ending circle. Everything is connected.”— The Stranger, Dark (Netflix series)
I listen to the silent sounds,
a voice inside my head
remembered phrases—and the laugh—
forever gone
that echoes without reverberation
save within.
Yet without,
the birds call and sing the melodies
I cannot sing
with human voice, nor fly
to treetops, or into clouds.
Where do they go?
What do they think
of the shadow’s encroachment?
Is it an annoyance
to be interrupted
or more? Are we intruders remembered,
discussed? I watch the crows gather and caw,
“One for sorrow, two for mirth,”
they follow me, it seems
exhorting
with strident calls—
beware or remember?
What am I to do?
And so, I listen, watch, write
of yesterday—and tomorrow.
We walk through corridors,
where the past sits behind locked doors.
Clothing, furniture, paintings—so many paintings!
Scenes frozen in time
upon a canvas,
the artist looked, remembering,
translating memories into color and form
each brushstroke, a touch from the past,
the whole, a memorial
Work in Progress. An artist working on a mural. We got lost, and I took this photo through the windshield while my husband was trying to figure out where to go.
to what was—
this life now reduced to her things.
We travel over bridges, rising
over a river of ghosts
traveling–
Low tide, the Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield, July 2020. ©️Merril D. Smith 2020
through time and tides,
we go about our lives,
carrying on our daily routines
cooking, cleaning, working, loving
when we can
we erase some backstories,
cherish others–
some will never be known.
Like birds, they’ve flown into the clouds,
drifted away, gone
never to be seen again,
but we may find a trace, a feather
Feather–could it be a turkey feather?
This turkey was walking back and forth around the front of this car–pecking at it.
of what was
like pentimento, the traces of a laugh
left in the paintings’ vivid hues.
One of my mom’s paintings, title and date unknown.
My siblings and I have been paying for a storage unit for my mom’s things. Because she died in April—of Covid 19-related complications during the worst of the pandemic in this area, we could not be with her or pack up her belongings. For some reason, movers were allowed in, and all of her things were packed up and put in the storage unit my sister rented. So, masked and keeping physical distance, we’ve emptied the storage space, an emotional experience. We have not yet held a real memorial for her.
Merril’s Movie Club: No movies this week. We finished Dark, a three-season German series on Netflix, which my husband and I both really liked, even though we were totally confused. If you keep with it, the very last episode does explain and tie things up. We started watching The Twelve, a new Belgian series on Netflix, which explores the backstories of the jurors and the people involved in a murder case—actually two different murder cases because a woman is accused of killing her best friend many years before and her child more recently. We’re about halfway through it, and we both like it, and it has a wondering who committed the crime(s).
Also, I read The Women of the Copper Country, a historical novel by Mary Doria Russell. Her books are all well-researched, but she is also an excellent writer with a great ear for dialog and character development. I’ve enjoyed all of her books. This one focused on the copper mines in upper Michigan and the strike in 1913, led largely by the women there. I knew nothing about these mines or the strike, and yet it also seems very relevant. I’m able to get books from the library now in a contactless system.
“There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable. . .
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is a grace too powerful to name. . .
It’s quiet uptown”
-Lin Manuel Miranda, “It’s Quiet Uptown,” Hamilton
“The atoms that huddled for a cosmic blink around the shadow of a self will return to the seas that made us.
What will survive of us are shoreless seeds and stardust.”
–from Maria Popova, Figuring.
No human voices break the silence,
but robins and mockingbirds sing, a woodpecker pecks,
crows caw wise warnings, geese honk greetings
I hear a whoosh above and a shadow flits before me, gone
my own shadow remains, long-legged, invincible goddess–
if only,
she could push away the unimaginable,
the suffering, the families who will never hear a familiar voice.
She can’t. I can only I look for beauty and share
the way sunbeams sift through early morning clouds,
the astounding variety of flowers in a multiplicity of hues,
rainbows revealed in sprinkler sprays, the sight of a deer family
the charcoal splendor of thunderclouds, the intense blue of the cloudless sky,
color and light, physics and magic, charm and fury—
life itself, cycling love and loss,
we never imagine, don’t expect
plagues, freak accidents, revolutions—
we push away these thoughts
because to do otherwise, we could not go on
and on, we go,
craving life, survival
seeds of hope sprouting in unlikely conditions
growing, reaching for light,
for grace
The tenacity of plants. Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield, July 2020. ©️Merril D. Smith 2020
perhaps unimagined,
silence can be comfortable;
it can be lonely, too–
equal and opposite reactions,
we’re pushed and pulled
from the womb to ashes and dust
we ebb and flow
like the tides of river and sea
and yet traces of us survive forever
in shoreless seeds and stardust—
this is the unimaginable magic of the universe—
that in the sparkle of light on water
the past and future exist together,
holding love, loss
and hope.
Delaware River
Merril’s Movie/Theater Club: We watched the Taiwanese movie A Sun (2019, Netflix). I don’t know if it’s the same in Mandarin, but in English, the title plays on the words sun and son. The movie is about family dysfunction and tragedy; the favored golden son who is working towards entering medical school and the younger son who predictably ends up in juvenile detention. But each member of the family has secrets and depths. After a tragedy, the family dynamics change. Though this movie is perhaps a bit too long, the acting is excellent, and the cinematography is beautiful.
Whitall House with a tree decorated for the Fourth of July. Red Bank Battlefield ©️Merril D. Smith, 2020
We celebrated Independence Day, the Fourth of July by watching Hamilton (Disney+). I don’t know if this is available outside the U.S. I subscribed to Disney+ for a month just for this, which was a bit annoying, but I don’t plan to keep it, since there’s not much else I’m interested in on that platform. Still, at $7 and change, it’s worth it. We’d pay more for a movie ticket at a theater. This film is compiled from two performances of the original Broadway cast production, but it includes camera angles that you would never see from sitting in the theater. I’ve discussed Hamilton before. Believe all the hype, it really is a wonderful show, and most likely I’ll watch it again while I can.
The excerpted lyrics above are about after Alexander Hamilton and his wife Eliza’s son Philip is killed in a duel. Alexander and Eliza have been estranged, but in this aftermath of their personal tragedy, they grow close again. Life goes on in the midst of revolutions and tragedies—people fall in love, babies are born, children die. History is never simply about battles and elections.
We ate and drank a glass to freedom (that’s a glass of sangria, banana chocolate chip cake with cream cheese frosting) Ricky was not interested in the first act, but enjoyed the second half. 😏
Comet Hale-Bopp Attribution: Philipp Salzgeber / CC BY-SA 2.0 AT (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/at/deed.en)
Any War, Every War
affects
the heart and mind–
bodies weak, spirits dark
waiting for illumination,
succor
within
the downtrodden,
aided by the helpers–
they fight their own weariness, yet
they smile,
offer
hope like beacons–
fog lights glowing through murk,
beams cutting through storms, resisting
always
with deeds
as well as words
carried in their hearts–peace,
justice, truth, freedom–and then, hope
rising
rising
sun, moon, and stars
shoot through the sky, falling
in brilliant clouds, surrounding us
with light
and so,
we look again,
up to the sky, seeking
beauty, if not hope, shooting light
at us.
For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday using the theme I chose, this quotation from The Merchant of Venice:
“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
This is a cinquain sequence where each stanza can stand alone, but also connects to form one poem. I’ve used the syllable/line form of a Crapsey Cinquain, though I don’t think the meter is right.
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 