Mark Twain and The Beach Boys

Yesterday afternoon, the plumber was here for a couple of hours. The fixings under my kitchen sink fell apart as I was fixing breakfast.  Normally, I try to do these things myself, but I had to admit bitter defeat on this one. It didn't take him long, so, while he was here, I had him change out a bathroom faucet that had been waiting for just such a day. Things not being quite up to today's standards in my little shanty, it required an extra trip to the shop for adaptable parts.

At the end of his stay, he felt obliged to inform me that my driveway was getting hard to navigate. One look out the kitchen window told me that: large mud puddles where none had been in any previous so-called spring. I could see my spring chore list growing as we spoke. Ruts would need to be dealt with. But, that was yesterday and today I can't see any of that for all the additional white stuff that's blowing around the driveway and piling up on the porch. Adding to the fun, as I peacefully slept, ice formed to a measurable tune. And, Daddy has taken the T-Bird away.

To help me find some humor I turned to Mark Twain. You can count on him to bring an amusing perspective to just about any situation. I found his speech to the New England Society regarding changeable weather, transplanted his thoughts to my neck of the woods, and voila! Smiles and nods of recognition to the rescue. For now.

"In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours." Mark Twain

Here it is, in case you could use a a few chuckles this morning:

http://www.nesnyc.org/images/stories/documents/About_Us_-_History_-_Weather_of_NE.pdf

Plus, a song by The Beach Boys to cheer one's weather weary soul.

A Short Trip In the WABAC Machine

When I woke this morning and stretched into the day, I realized this very long, very cold winter was receding into memory, that summer will arrive, as it always has, and the red-winged blackbirds will return.

As a reminder of what is to come, I played the youtube video created by my friend, JB, using photographs I'd taken of this beautiful land I'm honored to call home. While playing it, I noticed another video on the sidebar that looked like fun. And it was. It's a short trip in the WABAC machine. What a wonderful moment between two great artists in their prime. I thought you might enjoy it, too. Linda and Johnny:







And, here is the original post and video:
http://teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2011/11/living-at-lonewolf.html


The photograph is mine.

The Compass in Your Heart

The public radio station, KAXE, has again played one of my poems on their morning program, The Beat.  I am so honored to be included in this fine group of poets, and am very much looking forward to the live reading on the evening of April 11th. I include a link to the poem here and also the original post:

https://beta.prx.org/stories/114570

http://teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-compass-in-your-heart.html

The Love of a Lynx

About two weeks ago, I was working on two poems - poems I had originally put on Twitter - wanting to combine them into one. One of the poems came about due to a plate I have hanging in my kitchen of a lynx in snow with a rabbit beneath its paw, a plate my mother once had hanging in her kitchen. It was a gift from her sister, who had traveled to Norway. I was thinking about finding an image to illustrate the poem on my poetry blog and thought how nice it would be to have my own photo to use. I had never seen a lynx but had occasionally heard them in the woods near our farm when I was a very young girl, a bone chilling cry as though the cry of a baby lost in the woods. I thought even seeing and being able to photograph footprints would be nice although from where I was sitting it didn't seem possible. I let it go.

A couple of hours later, I just got up from the computer and walked over to the window that looks out over my back yard. Right at that moment, a lynx came from the old chicken coop/garden shed and moved across the open space into the pine trees at the meadow's edge. I could hardly believe my eyes. I watched, hoping it would come out of the trees so I could see it again and make certain it was, indeed, a lynx, rather than a bobcat. I knew it wasn't a cougar, as it was definitely spotted with a shorter tail. Just as I wished for this, I saw it come from the edge of the trees, walking towards my woodshed. By this time, I had fetched my father's field glasses and got a closer look. It definitely had the longer legs and tufted ears of a lynx. It disappeared into the darkness of my woodshed, probably looking for a meal of mice among the wood. I watched it lie just inside the shed, behind the snowbank in front of the doorway. I went online and did some research on them, and felt relieved that it was very unlikely to bother Buddy, who was tethered at the front of the house, although I did keep a very good eye on Buddy while he was out there. I went back to watching it for a while, but don't know when it left; eventually, I had to get on with my day.

I might have thought I was seeing things, except I just happened to look out the next day and there it was again, leaving the area by the woodshed and moving back across the open space to the coop/garden shed. I grabbed my camera and got two very poor images, my own personal evidence that I hadn't lost my mind. I wondered if she might stick around, maybe even give birth in the shed among the straw bales. I sure hope so. I decided to not let my curiosity get the best of me, but to stay away and let her have her space.

The significance for me has not been lost. I'm not certain how the world works, what the true nature of reality is, but I do wonder ... was it my own manifestation, was I seeing what I needed to see? Did I create it in that moment, as I suspect we do with all our moments? Was it a message from my mother, or perhaps even my great grandmother, who has brought me messages in visions/dreams before? I do know something quite wonderful happened and I don't need to have answers so much as I need and want to be grateful. It has been the springboard for healing, both emotional and physical. The strength and grace with which the lynx moved gave me the insight I needed to walk in this world with the same sense of strength and grace. It showed me what I needed to see and it provided me with a deep sense of caring and love that the world itself brings to us when we simply ask.


Here is the micropoem which brought me to this wonderful experience:
http://teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2014/03/along-river.html




The photograph of the chicken coop is mine.

Making Room for a New Perspective

Normally I would say, 'Don't mess with perfection," but then I ran across something this morning in my pursuit of an image to illustrate a poem and had to make room for a new perspective. Serena Malyon, an illustrator, has taken several paintings by Vincent van Gogh and, using Photoshop, created what is known as the tilt shift. I'm fascinated by them and immediately wanted to share them with you.

Addendum: I've also posted my poem, "Vincent In Another Life," at my poetry blog with another image:

http://teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2014/03/vincent-in-another-life.html



Here are the sites where I found them and more information regarding their creation:

http://twistedsifter.com/2011/01/tilt-shift-van-gogh-paintings/

http://smalyon.acadnet.ca/blog/?p=28

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/hot/tilt-shift-van-gogh.htm

This Is How I Feel About That

This is still, in my humble opinion, the best article to date on this subject.
http://www.popularresistance.org/meditations-while-painting-edward-snowden/

Staying Sane But That's Just My Opinion

I now have had three of my micro-poetry readings featured on NPR's Minnesota affiliate, KAXE. I've added the links over on my poetry blog, at the individual posts for each poem, but decided to add them here, as well. I include the dates they were aired along with a direct link to each.

November 26th "Goat Man"
https://beta.prx.org/stories/111240

February 3rd "My Father's Thermos"
https://beta.prx.org/stories/111319

February 25th "On the Banks of the Knife River"
https://beta.prx.org/stories/112472

In other (related) news, I'm one of ten Minnesota poets who have been invited to participate in a live two hour broadcast on this same station on April 11th. I will give a link to this as the time nears if anyone would like to tune in.

It's been a long, cold winter and poetry is keeping me sane ... well, so far so good, I guess ...



http://teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com/

A Little Bit of Light

When I think of all those who brought a bit of light and what they endured to do so, fighting their own demons along the way, I am most grateful to them. Their passing from this world was often as painful as the time spent here. I hope their hearts are at rest.

"Beasts Bounding Through Time"

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human

Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into a propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by the Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility  the impossibility
Nietzche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward
us
impossibly.

~ Charles Bukowski, from You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes
Sense


Painting: Landscape Under a Stormy Sky, Vincent van Gogh, 1888

I'm Next Door

If you're looking for me, I'm probably next door, at my micropoetry blog. Everything there gets winnowed down, reduced to the moment, or even the essence of the moment. It's been a cold winter ... hope you all are staying safe and warm.

teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com


You may also click the link on my sidebar, or the image above it ... it will also take you there ...

Traveling by Starlight

In my life, many years have been spent traveling I-80 or I-90, heading west to explore or, later, going between my two lives, the one in Minnesota where most of my family and my two sons remained, and Santa Fe where I spent most of the oughts.

Many times I would travel through the night. I liked the feeling of being out there under the stars, me, myself, and a whole lot of eighteen wheelers. It felt as though an unspoken camaraderie had been established and I felt comforted by this.

Occasionally a rest stop was in order or, on more than one occasion, an exit that led to a closed gas station where I would wait with others who couldn't quite make it through the night. I kept the car locked and my antennae up, but I always felt safe in the company of my fellow travelers.

One night, I assisted a family trying to make it to Cheyenne and the promise of a job. Their note on the door of the rest stop bathroom told me what I needed to do. I told their story here: http://teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2011/12/will-you-be-home-for-christmas.html


When I opened my morning email to this poem, I was reminded of those times. For right now, I'm very glad to be snug and warm here in my home and not on the road to somewhere. But I sure do like this poem:

"Rest."

It's so late I could cut my lights
and drive the next fifty miles
of empty interstate
by starlight,
flying along in a dream,
countryside alive with shapes and shadows,
but exit ramps lined
with eighteen wheelers
and truckers sleeping in their cabs
make me consider pulling into a rest stop
and closing my eyes. I've done it before,
parking next to a family sleeping in a Chevy,
mom and dad up front, three kids in the back,
the windows slightly misted by the sleepers' breath.
But instead of resting, I'd smoke a cigarette,
play the radio low, and keep watch over
the wayfarers in the car next to me,
a strange paternal concern
and compassion for their well being
rising up inside me.
This was before
I had children of my own,
and had felt the sharp edge of love
and anxiety whenever I tiptoed
into darkened rooms of sleep
to study the small, peaceful faces
of my beloved darlings. Now,
the fatherly feelings are so strong
the snoring truckers are lucky
I'm not standing on the running board,
tapping on the window,
asking, Is everything okay?
But it is. Everything's fine.
The trucks are all together, sleeping
on the gravel shoulders of exit ramps,
and the crowded rest stop I'm driving by
is a perfect oasis in the moonlight.
The way I see it, I've got a second wind
and on the radio an all-night country station.
Nothing for me to do on this road
but drive and give thanks:
I'll be home by dawn.

~ Richard Jones, from The Correct Spelling and Exact Meaning. © Copper Canyon Press, 2010



Photograph by J M Hare

Shining Through the Years

Several years ago, when I first arrived in Santa Fe, I met a man who loved poetry even more than I and we spent more than a few evenings reading to each other. He introduced several poems to me, including this one by William Stafford, which has a bit of melancholy woven through its beauty. My friend made a copy for me to take home. Yesterday, while rummaging through loose bits of poetry, I found it and decided to share it with you: Christmas in its tone, but timeless in its question.

"Childish Things"

When they light the candles a little propeller
turns the angels around and around.

They are of gold, of thin metal,
with a trumpet held in front of each mouth,

And a sound that comes when a tiny chain
drags across a silvery chime.

Flecks of light dance on the ceiling
from figures that gleam as they pass the flame.

That sight, that sound, that warm candle
shine through the years. You look out the window:

What are you doing with the years that shine
around and around when the angels come?


~ William Stafford

Food for Thought

Bound by the cold, Buddy and I are spending our days cuddling, reading and writing poetry (he's a very good listener), and eating soup from the slow cooker. Today I make bread. Then, more poetry. Forgive my foolish ways. Nothing else is speaking to me now. My new favorite:

"Beyond the Red River"

The birds have flown their summer skies to the south,

And the flower-money is drying in the banks of bent grass

Which the bumble bee has abandoned. We wait for a winter lion,

Body of ice-crystals and sombrero of dead leaves.

A month ago, from the salt engines of the sea,

A machinery of early storms rolled toward the holiday houses

Where summer still dozed in the pool-side chairs, sipping

An aging whiskey of distances and departures.

Now the long freight of autumn goes smoking out of the land.

My possibles are all packed up, but still I do not leave.

I am happy enough here, where Dakota drifts wild in the universe,

Where the prairie is starting to shake in the surf of the winter dark.

~ Thomas McGrath

A Glen Campbell State of Mind

It's snowing, Buddy's lying on my bed by the window, it's getting dark, and I'm in a Glen Campbell state of mind ...







I hope he's doing well ...




A link to my previous post on Glen:
http://teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2011/08/ghost-on-canvas.html

To Keep the Sun Coming Up Every Day

From one of my favorite poets:

"Regret"

There's no use in regret. You can't change anything.
Your mother died unhappy with the way you turned
out. You and your father were not on speaking terms
when he died, and you left your wife for no good
reason. Well, it's past. You may as well regret missing
out on the conquest of Mexico. That would have been
just your kind of thing back when you were eighteen:
a bunch of murderous Spaniards, out to destroy a
culture and get rich. On the other hand, the Aztecs
were no great shakes either. It's hard to know whom
to root for in this situation. The Aztecs thought they
had to sacrifice lots of people to keep the sun coming
up every day. And it worked. The sun rose every day.
But it was backbreaking labor, all that sacrificing.
The priests had to call in the royal family to help,
and their neighbors, the gardener, the cooks.... You
can see how this is going to end. You are going to
have your bloody, beating heart ripped out, but you
are going to have to stand in line, in the hot sun, for
hours, waiting your turn.


~Louis Jenkins, from Tin Flag: New and Selected Prose Poems. Will o' the Wisp Books, 2013




Louis Jenkins is an American poet living in Duluth, Minnesota.

The Beat in Northern Minnesota

Tomorrow morning, between 7:30 and 8:00, the NPR station for northern Minnesota, KAXE, will be featuring my poem, "The Goat Man," on their program, The Beat. Here is a link to their page where you can live stream it on your computer at that time or check out the archives where it will be added after a day or two:
https://exchange.prx.org/series/32691-the-beat?page=1

They will be featuring other poems, as well. I will give you a head's up when I know the dates.

Here is the post containing the poem:
http://teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2013/11/for-goat-man.html

Winter Coming On

Maybe it's this stage of life, or maybe it's just winter coming on, but I find these images by Steve McCurry oddly comforting ... yes, the threshold of the new:

 http://stevemccurry.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/threshold-of-the-new/

Becoming Masters of Simplicity

Humanity grows more and more intelligent, yet there 
   is clearly more trouble and less happiness daily. 
How can this be so?
It is because intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom. 

When a society misuses partial intelligence and 
   ignores holistic wisdom, its people forget the 
   benefits of a plain and natural life.
Seduced by their desires, emotions, and egos, they 
   become slaves to bodily demands, to luxuries, to 
   power and unbalanced religion and psychological 
   excuses.
Then the reign of calamity and confusion begins. 

Nonetheless, superior people can awaken during times 
   of turmoil to lead others out of the mire. 
But how can the one liberate the many? 
By first liberating his own being. 
He does this not by elevating himself, but by lowering 
   himself.
He lowers himself to that which is simple, modest, 
   true; integrating it into himself, he becomes a 
   master of simplicity, modesty, truth.

Completely emancipated from his former false life, he 
   discovers his original pure nature, which is the pure 
   nature of the universe.
Freely and spontaneously releasing his divine energy, 
   he constantly transcends complicated situations and 
   draws everything around him back into an integral 
   oneness. 
Because he is a living divinity, when he acts, the universe acts.  

~ LaoTzu

Where It Is Always Asia

This is a more-than-normal self-indulgent post as I love horses and I love Raymond Carver. Well, I love his writing and what I know of him, or think I know. He had a way of expressing moments of our shared lives that were either very unsettling or very affirming and often both at once. His poem, "Asia," for reasons I can't explain other than my pure love for horses and the ocean, is among my favorites.

I spent the spring of 2010 at a house on the Atlantic in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. I can still feel the pressing of waves against my heart as I stood on the shore watching. One day I walked out in time to see riders on horses as they made their way down the beach. I stood in awe of what felt like an incredible gift from the world itself.


"Asia"

It’s good to live near the water.
Ships pass so close to land
a man could reach out
and break a branch from one of the willow trees
that grow here. Horses run wild
down by the water, along the beach.
If the men on board wanted, they could
fashion a lariat and throw it
and bring one of the horses on deck.
Something to keep them company
for the long journey East.
From my balcony I can read the faces
of the men as they stare at the horses,
the trees, and two-story houses.
I know what they’re thinking
when they see a man waving from a balcony,
his red car in the drive below.
They look at him and consider themselves
lucky. What a mysterious piece
of good fortune, they think, that’s brought
them all this way to the deck of a ship
bound for Asia. Those years of doing odd jobs,
or working in warehouses, or longshoring,
or simply hanging out on the docks,
are forgotten about. Those things happened
to other, younger men,
if they happened at all.
The men on board
raise their arms and wave back.
Then stand still, gripping the rail,
as the ship glides past. The horses
move from under the trees and into the sun.
They stand like statues of horses.
Watching the ship as it passes.
Waves breaking against the ship.
Against the beach. And in the mind
of the horses, where
it is always Asia.

~ Raymond Carver

Bottom photo: Edward Kreis

Toy Soldiers

We seem to spend a lot of time thinking about the transitions young girls face as they go from childhood to womanhood. We have not spent as much time considering the challenges boys face as they enter manhood; the expectations and fears it surely must engender are all too often taken for granted. I did  not grow up having to think about what would happen if a war came and I was called to "duty." It should not be anyone's duty to kill for us or destroy an enemy we have not come to know. At one time, a long time ago now, soldiers were required to know their enemy. They had to learn about their culture; who they were as a people. It was only a slightly more honorable way to enter battle, if one can ever use the word honor as it relates to killing one's fellow beings, no matter the accepted reason.

When my oldest son was young, in that between place around age thirteen, he and a friend were behind the house one summer day playing with toy soldiers. They lined them up on the rock wall and went through whatever scenarios faux soldiers go through on their way to victory. I could barely hear them from inside the house and didn't pay it a lot of mind. I knew my son and life as a soldier was not being entertained as an acceptable future. They were just playing, I told myself, as I had done with toy cowboys and Indians on the floor of the living room a whole lot of years earlier. The problem with this lies in what it consciously or unconsciously teaches: to view others as potential enemies, as The Other.

At some point they reminded each other the county fair was that evening, and lying on the swimming raft for a while to catch some sun and get a little tan might be a good idea. This was followed by the names of some girls they knew. Soldiers were left at their posts and they came inside to change into swimming trunks.

Neither of these boys ever had to serve in a war, but many have. Some came back, too many did not. One is too many.

"Classic Toy"

The plastic army men are always green.

They’re caught in awkward poses,

one arm outstretched as if to fire,

legs parted and forever stuck on a swiggle

of support, as rigid and green as the boots.

This one has impressions of pockets,

a belt, a collar, a grip on tiny binoculars

intended to enlarge, no doubt, some

tiny enemy.

In back, attached to the belt is a canteen

or a grenade (it’s hard to tell). The helmet

is pulled down low, so as to hide the eyes.

If I point the arm, the gun, toward me,

I see that this soldier is very thin.

It’s almost unreal, how thin he is.

~Mary M. Brown

The Freedom That Follows Disappointment

"Disappointment"

I was feeling pretty religious
standing on the bridge in my winter coat
looking down at the gray water:
the sharp little waves dusted with snow,
fish in their tin armor.

That's what I like about disappointment:
the way it slows you down,
when the querulous insistent chatter of desire
             goes dead calm

and the minor roadside flowers
pronounce their quiet colors,
and the red dirt of the hillside glows.

She played the flute, he played the fiddle
and the moon came up over the barn.
Then he didn't get the job, —
or her father died before she told him
             that one, most important thing—

and everything got still.

It was February or October
It was July
I remember it so clear
You don't have to pursue anything ever again
It's over
You're free
You're unemployed

You just have to stand there
looking out on the water
in your trench coat of solitude
with your scarf of resignation
             lifting in the wind.


~ Tony Hoaglund