What I Cannot Live Without

There are many things I could live without, but those that comprise our natural world are not among them. I could do some trading, but even that would be difficult. Perhaps if the trading went along these lines ...


 "Fifty-Fifty"

   You can have the grackle whistling blackly

   from the feeder as it tosses seed,

if I can have the red-tailed hawk perched

   imperious as an eagle on the high branch.

You can have the brown shed, the field mice

   hiding under the mower, the wasp’s nest on the door,

if I can have the house of the dead oak,

   its hollowed center and feather-lined cave.

You can have the deck at midnight, the possum

   vacuuming the yard in its white prowl,

if I can have the yard of wild dreaming, pesky

   raccoons, and the roaming, occasional bear.

You can have the whole house, window to window,

   roof to soffits to hardwood floors,

if I can have the screened porch at dawn,

   the Milky Way, any comets in our yard.

~ Patricia Clark, She Walks into the Sea, Michigan State University Press, 2009

Photograph by Russell Heimlich

More Light is Fermenting

There's almost a foot of new snow this morning and the wind is persistent, as it pushes it into snowdrifts around my porch. A part of me wants to complain, but I also realize it might be exactly what I need, perhaps even asked for, in order to stay here inside a bit longer...

"Spiced Manna"

Someone 
Will steal you if you don't 
Stay near

And sell you as a slave in the 
Market.

I sing
To the nightingales' hearts
Hoping they will learn
My verse,

So that no one will ever imprison
Your brilliant angel
Feathers.

Have I put enough spiced manna
On your plate
Tonight

In this tavern
Where Hafiz
Serves?

If not please wait,
For more light is now
Fermenting.

Someone will steal you if you
Don't stay near,

And sell you as a slave in
The market,

So your Beloved and I
Sing.

~Hafiz 



The photograph was taken yesterday evening at 6:00, as more snow continued to come down...

The Jukebox in My Mind

For reasons unknown a jukebox has been playing in my mind lately along with a few memories. My first jukebox was in a cafe about an hour from home where I sat with my parents and played, relentlessly, the Lennon Sister's "Sugartime." Shortly after that my parents bought a small cafe where the jukebox was perpetually fed with coins painted with a splotch of red which told us it was our money and not a true customer. It was a pretty simple accounting system. The records were changed regularly by a man who came around just for that purpose. But, the song I remember is Lefty Frizzell's "Saginaw Michigan." I have never gotten tired of that song. I still love it after all these years.

In seventh grade, when I thought having a boyfriend might be a good idea, I sat across from Allen at a cafe after our church youth group had taken us down to the YMCA for swimming and general mayhem. Allen is the young man with whom I exchanged a fair amount of kissing back in the days of that youth group; necking was far preferred to bible toting, so that's what I did. On the wall of this cafe was a jukebox that was being fed by the two of us and others sitting in the booth. What I remember was the brief discussion which ensued after the playing of Johnny River's, "Secret Agent Man." Yes, a few fools were certain it was Secret Asian Man, but since I was still considering a future as a secret agent I knew better.

Soon, it turned into the summer of '68 and I'm in an even smaller town where my then current boyfriend was living at the time. He was working at a resort in that same small town so my sister and I went down to a local club another friend's parents owned to hang out while we waited for him. When I walked through the door, my friend, Stan, whom I've talked about more than once on these pages, walked the length of the club with a big smile on his face. Man, he had a nice smile. We stood next to the jukebox on the wall and threw in a coin. What I remember is Bob Lind's, "Elusive Butterfly." We just stood there and listened. He was such a good friend. It's good to have friends like that.

No Place to Lose Your Wings

                    "This Sky"


                    This

                    Sky

                    Where we live

                    Is no place to lose your wings

                    So  love,  love

                    Love


                    ~ Hafiz






Please visit my poetry site: teresaevangelinespoetry.blogspot.com

The photograph is mine.

Every Thought and Action

"Now is the Time"

Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child's training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.

~Hafiz


Painting by Winslow Homer
I hope you'll click on it to enlarge ... it's truly gorgeous.