Filling the Unforgiving Minute

The best poems are timeless and this is certainly no exception, gender set aside.

"If--"

If you can keep your head when all about you
   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting.
   Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
   And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master
   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
   And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
   And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
   To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
   Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
   Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
   If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
   With sixty seconds' worth of distance run.
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
   And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

~ Rudyard Kipling



Addendum:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1146109/The-remarkable-story-Rudyard-Kiplings-If--swashbuckling-renegade-inspired-it.html

Dogs Make Good Teachers

Several of you have probably read this Mary Oliver poem, as it showed up a few days ago in the online Writer's Almanac. She has a new book of poetry, Dog Songs, from which this poem was taken. Although this beautiful poem and the recording I made on Soundcloud which follows are somewhat disparate in their tone, the perspective remains the same. Life without dogs seems incomplete, as though you're shunning love itself and all that goes with it. Buddy remains one of my greatest teachers. I mean that. He's helped me to be a better person and I think a better poet. I still use that term, as applied to myself, rather loosely because, well, Mary Oliver.


"The Poetry Teacher"

The university gave me a new, elegant
classroom to teach in. Only one thing,
they said. You can't bring your dog.
It's in my contract, I said. (I had
made sure of that.)

We bargained and I moved to an old
classroom in an old building. Propped
the door open. Kept a bowl of water
in the room. I could hear Ben among
other voices barking, howling in the
distance. Then they would all arrive—
Ben, his pals, maybe an unknown dog
or two, all of them thirsty and happy.
They drank, they flung themselves down
among the students. The students loved
it. They all wrote thirsty, happy poems.

~Mary Oliver









The image is of Shackleton's dogs, including Samson, Shakespeare, and Surley. The book, Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, by Caroline Alexander, remains among my all-time favorite books.

A Broken Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen is one of the greatest songwriters who's ever lived and I love his song, "Hallelujah." For some time now, I've been rather partial to Jeff Buckley's version, but I recently found another and have grown to love its quiet gentleness. These boys from Norway can sing and their kind souls can be heard in every note.




 




The photograph is mine.

Lonely Street

Several months ago, I was introduced to micro-poetry by Cletis Stump, a friend and fellow blogger. Shortly after I created my new poetry site, he created a Tumblr site and with my permission has been regularly posting my poems there along with his own, as well as occasional guest poets he's chosen from Twitter. Shelly, aka WildThing, a friend from Twitter, created this youtube video for us using a song Cletis chose by the great Patsy Cline. You might want to enlarge your screen to read the poems and even pause at certain poems ... I hope you enjoy it:





teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com

latenightfootfalls.tumblr.com

photosbywildthing.blogspot.com

A Place Called Cornucopia

There's a little village along the south shore of Lake Superior called Cornucopia. It's a place of blue sky and blue water, beside a blue highway. When I was quite young I looked at a map (something I've always loved to do) and thought it sounded like a place I'd like to know. Through the years, I ended up driving by there several times ... always on my way to somewhere else.

When I first returned to Minnesota from Santa Fe, I was searching for a place to settle down and this area was on my list of options. I drove over one day to take a look around. One of the things I discovered was an organic grocery store on a side street above the lake, nestled inside an older building that must have housed a more traditional store once upon a time. I kept it on my list a little longer.

Eventually, I decided to return to the area where I grew up and spent a good portion of my earlier life. It felt right. This morning, a poem from The Writer's Almanac took my thought back to the lake:


"Sailing on Lake Superior"

Before us now the edge of the earth,
below us the nearly endless cold.
Around us nothing but shimmering
water,
the miles of empty and sparkling blue.

For a few hours, the sail fills on
toward infinity. Shadows of
our delicate bodies ebb and flow
across the deck of our delicate boat.

What if the beautiful days, the good
and pacific temperate moments,
weren't just lovely, but everything?
What if I could let it fall away
in the wake, that ache to extract
meaning from vastness?

Let this suffice; the ease of thinking
it all goes on, whether we're here
to see it or not. The splashing waves,
the suntipped gulls arcing across
the radiant world.


~ Kirsten Dierking, American poet (1962 - )

Homeland Insecurity

The boys and girls at the Department of Homeland Security paid me another visit late last night. I cannot imagine what they would find subversive about my blog. This time they took a look at a post I wrote regarding a visit my sister and I took to Guerrero Viejo, Mexico, back in 1996. They downloaded one of my photos, so maybe that's all they were after, or maybe someone was just bored. I sure wish they would find another way to spend our tax dollars, like creating jobs for the millions of folks who are unemployed. Hiring them to rebuild this country's teetering infrastructure would be a good place to start, that is if we had any money left after spending it on killing people in other countries whose resources we want.

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Entry Page:

 teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2010/10/two-sisters-and-their-adventure-at.html

Exit Page:

 teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2010/10/two-sisters-and-their-adventure-at.html

A Place Called Vermilion

With the last rays of evening light and far below, at the base of a distant peak, elk began to bugle ... and soothed by the soft siren sounds of cool winds tumbling through the hemlocks … spellbound for hours by stars so bright and dense that a needle-wand of light could not fit between them, sleep came slowly to a soft bed of fir needles, on a high ridge, in a place called Vermilion. 

Then morning came, gentle and easy, through a saddle to the east, and within the hour, wolves sang.


Prose poem and Photos: montucky.wordpress.com

Thank you, Montucky, for allowing me to reproduce your beautiful post here at my site.

Just Before the Road Ends

"Waiting"

Left off the highway and
down the hill. At the
bottom, hang another left.
Keep bearing left. The road
will make a Y. Left again.
There's a creek on the left.
Keep going. Just before
the road ends, there'll be
another road. Take it
and no other. Otherwise,
your life will be ruined
forever. There's a log house
with a shake roof, on the left.
It's not that house. It's
the next house, just over
a rise. The house
where trees are laden with
fruit. Where phlox, forsythia,
and marigold grow. It's
the house where the woman
stands in the doorway
wearing the sun in her hair. The one
who's been waiting
all this time.
The woman who loves you.
The one who can say,
"What's kept you?"


~ Raymond Carver











Painting by Dan Gerhartz

The Empty Thermos

One of the highlights of my week when I was very young was peeking inside my father's black metal lunch pail when he returned from working in Minneapolis. Things were tough and our small farm offered only a hardscrabble existence. In order to make ends meet, he went to work as a carpenter in the newly-forming suburbs. He would arrive home every Friday night with a candy bar inside his lunch pail, cut into three sections, one for each of the younger children still at home. I loved going through that pail, removing and then replacing his thermos tucked inside the lid. It seemed like a magical part of my father's life.

We never gave a thought to being "poor," didn't really know what that was. We had parents who loved us and labored hard to improve our lives. And they did, very much so. I will be forever grateful for all they did for us. I'm able to be here at this beautiful place I call Lonewolf today because of their labor, still surrounded by almost an embarrassment of natural riches.

"Labor Day"

Even the bosses are sleeping late

in the dusty light of September.

The parking lot’s empty and no one cares.

No one unloads a ladder, steps on the gas

or starts up the big machines in the shop,

sanding and grinding, cutting and binding.

No one lays a flat bead of flux over a metal seam

or lowers the steel forks from a tailgate.

Shadows gather inside the sleeve

of the empty thermos beside the sink,

the bells go still by the channel buoy,

the wind lies down in the west,

the tuna boats rest on their tie-up lines

turning a little, this way and that.

~Joseph Millar



Joseph Millar is an American poet from North Carolina

Looking for Red Clover

"Lillian's Chair"
           for Lillian Lowenfels

Lillian has just arisen from her chair.
She has gone into her garden to commune with snails
to answer the bird's questions.
She has left her shawl and her cane
and that iron leg brace.
Won't she need her shawl in the garden?
Won't she be feeling the cold?

And she has forgotten her sling
thrown it carelessly aside -
the crumpled black satin
in which she cradled her dead arm
for seventeen years.
In one hand she took her straw basket
in the other her pruning shears:
"That bush needs seeing to," she muttered
and went looking for red clover, queen anne's lace.

What is she doing so long in the garden?
Where has she gone with her red hair?
She just grew tired of sitting and watching.
A vivid light pulled her into the leaves.
Woolen shawl, satin sling, iron brace -
she just walked out on them all.

Left us this empty chair.


~ Olga Cabral

Blue Moons and Snow Globes

One completely irrelevant, totally without merit bit of trivia you might not know about me: I collect snow globes, the more kitschy the better. The photo is a sampling of them ...

In other news: when I was walking down the road to the cabin last night to watch the blue moon rise over the neighbor's field, I heard something in my little orchard. I clapped my hands together hard and said, "Get outta here," followed by the sound of at least one large body hurrying through the brush. I'll admit, my heart was pounding as I walked, somewhat rapidly, back to the house. By the looks of the scat under the apple trees this morning, I think I was talking to a bear. I guess he wasn't sleeping after all. The moon sure was pretty, though.

From my poetry blog:  http://teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2013/07/running-wild.html

A Country Kind of Love

"Love in the Country"

We live like this: no one but
some of the owls awake, and of them
only near ones really awake.

In the rain yesterday, puddles
on the walk to the barn sounded their
quick little drinks.

The edge of the haymow, all
soaked in moonlight,
dreams out there like silver music.

Are there farms like this where
no one likes to live?
And the sky going everywhere?

While the earth breaks the soft horizon
eastward, we study how to deserve
what has already been given us.


~ William Stafford




The photograph is mine.

Finding the Essence

Each of these images might be worth a post, but I don't know what I would say that the image doesn't already convey.  Perhaps a small poem ... feel free to conjure up a few words. Distill the idea to its essence. Trust your instincts. Share them in a comment if you will...

See?  And you said you couldn't write poetry ...

Love Along the Grain

"The Grain of Sound"

A banjo maker in the mountains,
when looking out for wood to carve
an instrument, will walk among
the trees and knock on trunks. He'll hit
the bark and listen for a note.
A hickory makes the brightest sound;
the poplar has a mellow ease.
But only straightest grain will keep
the purity of tone, the sought-
for depth that makes the licks sparkle.
A banjo has a shining shiver.
Its twangs will glitter like the light
on splashing water, even though
its face is just a drum of hide
of cow, or cat, or even skunk.
The hide will magnify the note,
the sad of honest pain, the chill
blood-song, lament, confession, haunt,
as tree will sing again from root
and vein and sap and twig in wind
and cat will moan as hand plucks nerve,
picks bone and skin and gut and pricks
the heart as blood will answer blood
and love begins to knock along the grain.

~ Robert Morgan

When Beauty Takes Root

Penny, a blogging friend, has challenged her readers to do whatever they can to establish a wildlife habitat right where they're at. No matter the size, whether a flower basket on the balcony of an apartment, or an oasis in your little corner of the world, we can all do something to create a healthier planet for all its inhabitants and add to the beauty of this world. I encourage you to pay a visit to her blog. Then, see what you can do to meet her challenge and even spread the word.

http://lifeonthecutoff.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/a-challenge/


Photograph by Penny.

On the Porch

Wendell Berry remains one of my favorite writers. He writes so beautifully and so poignantly of our shared human experience.


"They Sit Together on the Porch"

They sit together on the porch, the dark

Almost fallen, the house behind them dark.

Their supper done with, they have washed and dried

The dishes – only two plates now, two glasses,

Two knives, two forks, two spoons – small work for two.

She sits with her hands folded in her lap,

At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak,

And when they speak at last it is to say

What each one knows the other knows. They have

One mind between them, now, that finally

For all its knowing will not exactly know

Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding

Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.

~ Wendell Berry

The photograph is mine. It's the back porch at my farmhouse in Ansel where I spent the '90's.

The Secret Life of Irises

         "Irises"

          1.
In the night, in the wind, at the edge of rain,
I find five irises, and call them lovely.
As if a woman, once, lay by them awhile,
then woke, rose, went, the memory of hair
lingers on their sweet tongues.
I’d like to tear these petals with my teeth.
I’d like to investigate these hairy selves,
their beauty and indifference. They hold
their breath all their lives
and open, open.
         

         2.
We are not lovers, not brother and sister,
though we drift hand in hand through a hall
thrilling and burning as thought and desire
expire, and, over this dream of life,
this life of sleep, we waken dying—
violet becoming blue, growing
black, black—all that
an iris ever prays,
when it prays,
to be.

         ~ Li-Young Lee

The photographs are mine.

Roses in the Rain

While on my rounds last evening, talking with the greenery, I noticed several new roses had bloomed. When I got closer, nose to nose with them, I saw that there were many more buds waiting to open. Many more. These are the old-fashioned roses that smell the way a rose came into this world to smell. I promised them I'd be back in the morning to take their picture. So, this morning, while the rain came softly down, I kept my promise.

It looks to be a good year for the roses.

I'm going to miss this man. His music helped shape my life. Thank God for youtube, radio and records. Here's George:

Looking for the Keys

I love doors, and the keys that open them...

"Every exit is an entrance somewhere."  ~ Tom Stoppard




All images found on tumblr.

A Lilac and Shortbread Heaven

Yesterday was my first day back at the local farmers market. In my neck of the woods there is little in the way of fresh local produce this time of year. In lieu of that, everyone seemed to have made fresh bread. Unfortunately, I like homemade bread more than I like cookies and that's saying a lot. I was reminded of when I was very young and we would tire of those homemade cookies Mother made, delicious though they were, and yearn for some that were store-bought. We would often stop at the Corner Store after church and once in a blue moon we were allowed to buy them. My preferred store-bought cookie? Pecan shortbread. I would fondle that package and look at my mother longingly until she gave in. Heaven was not to be found in the Great Hereafter, as the Sunday School teacher would have me believe. I knew where heaven was and it was inside that package of shortbread. Which takes me back to the Friday farmers market.

There's a gal who makes all organic bread with peace and love among the listed ingredients. Yesterday I bought Early Riser. Next week she promises Old World, which is, according to the neighbors, other-worldly. But, here's the kicker: she had homemade Scottish shortbread made from her Scottish grandmother's recipe who also taught her how to make it. Three ingredients: flour, sugar, and butter. Needless to say, I brought a package home, clenched in my fist much like that little girl who longed to have a package of shortbread heaven all those millennia ago. Don't tell anybody, but I just ate two and I'm waiting for my Early Riser toast to pop up as I write this.

If a man ever wants to find his way into my heart he should show up with homemade bread and a jar of blackberry jam. If he made both in his own kitchen he would probably gain entrance to more than my heart. But, I'm surrounded by lilacs on this rainy Sunday morning and the scent is intoxicating, so ...

All photos were taken this morning in the rain, here at my home, Lonewolf.