A Letter a Day

Still haven’t set-up a new blog, but I do have an interesting project for February.

Last year I took part in  INCOWRIMO 2018.  People from all over the globe partake in this fountain pen letter writing marathon. Thus far over fifteen hundred people have listed their addresses —and beginning on February 1, 2019 each participant writes one letter or postcard a day to someone on  the list or to someone they know. Fortunately, February is a short month.

If you are interested check it out—
incowrimo-2019.org

The new blog:

BendingTowardsWords.Com

Stuck

I cannot figure out how to make my blog Eu compliant. It may be that I have to shut this blog down and start a new blog that has the notice embedded. I’ll keep you posted.

Cold

It snowed    then frozen rain    then the cold    this morning our outdoor thermometer read two degrees     translated into -17 degrees real feel.
How do people who live in areas where this temperature is the norm survive?
I am not made for this cold. Even my car whizzes and shudders.

Until I looked up the coldest ever in this country —save for Alaska— and found out that Roger’s  Pass ,Montana owned that award—70 degrees, I thought that only Siberia experienced that type of cold. At —70 if you tried to spit into a bucket your spit would morph into ice before reaching the bucket. In Alaska a —80 was recorded.

By those standards our Day was balmy.

Waiting for the Cold

It is time to admit

that we of technological

acumen can do no more

than offer weather predictions 

and purchase milk and bread

Mary Oliver

 Mary Oliver looked at a landscape through a poetic lens. She watched the small changes in a pond with “risen lilies” and the ocean “galloping in the pitch” as well as when the ocean’s “salted waves with their soft, untroubled faces” gazed toward the shore.

She lived for years in Provincetown, MA where the ocean, dunes, shore fed her imagination. Where she lived with her partner, photographer Molly Malone Cook. When Molly was ill with cancer Mary Oliver spent her days taking care of Molly and at night went outside, sat on a bench and wrote poetry — with a flashlight for light.

Mary Oliver was out as a lesbian before it became acceptable. She was who she was without any excuses and her love poems—both personal, and beautiful celebrate love. She and Molly Malone Cook shared that love for forty years until Molly’s death.

Mary spent months culling through Molly’s photographs for a book that is both an eulogy and a celebration. Our World is a memoir and a deeply felt look at their love for one another. It is filled with Molly’s photographs. 

Oliver relates how they met in the Edna St. Vincent Millay kitchen at Steepletop —“ I took one look and fell , hook and tumble.”

Mary Oliver will be missed. Her careful eye for the details of nature will be missed. 

In her book, Rules for the Dance,  for poets and those who either want to read poetry or begin to write poetry she writes: “ Can you find words to make some living inch of the world vigorous, breathy, fibrous? Upon such bright straws the weight of your work leans. As with any enterprise, practice will make you better.”

And when she writes about other poets she writes about herself.

      “...Poets have, in freedom and in prison, in health and in misery, with listeners and without listeners, spent their lives examining and glorifying life, meditation, thoughtfulness, devoutness, and human love. They have done this wildly, serenely, rhetorically, lyrically, without hope of answer or reward. They have done this grudgingly, willingly, patiently, and in the steams of impatience.

       They have done it for all and any of the gods of life, and the record of their doing so doing belongs to each one of us.

       Including you.”

Rest In Peace , Mary Oliver.

       

The Hype

It’s happening. The local meteorologists have already begun the hype. The dreaded Arctic Vortex is on its way. This means cold cold temperatures and snow. The first of these snows is due to arrive dragging with it other water related phenomenon. There will be sleet, freezing rain, and ice. This ice will drape itself over and around tree limbs. This in turn will cause power outages. The cold temperatures will mean dwellings will lose heat quickly. Ominous warning, dire predictions. People will rush to the stores, buy up everything on the shelves. 

With an important  football game on Sunday the avocados, limes and peppers will be a hot purchase. Wings— barbecued, teriyaki, sesame covered, and any additional coating a chef dreams up will be for sale. Chips and cheese. Crackers. Celery and carrots for the weight and health conscious. And sweets. 

And there are people who are homeless who won’t be purchasing food for the game or for their house. They will hopefully find a warm place to sleep and a place to stay during the day. They always need to deal with ordinary cold weather with or without the hype.

A Personal List

winter sets in
and my pile of books grows higher
than the armrest of my chair
where poetry and history
weigh each other down
and memoir
chides fiction for a place
where adventure
hobnobs with personal stories
of daring and endurance
where how to be creative
feeds off spiritual books
and Bible commentary
where a softbound book
on learning bibical hebrew
sits on top of a book
on creating collages
winter sets up
genre bending

The Cycle

dusk

catches up to the moon

and leaves behind light

until dawn claims

her place

and brings in light

once again

Winter Walk Around Walden Pond

Ice cracks

as it stretches

beyond boundaries—

breaking a thin layer

of frozen ice 

with brazen force

To Snack or Not to Snack

Yesterday we watched the post-season patriot football game surrounded by food. what is it about post season football and the desire to consume food? Some snacks were healthy like the celery and carrot sticks dipped in hummus— but the carrot chips, even though they contained less fat then a bag of potato chips, can’t be placed in the category— healthy. And why does an open bag of chips have to be finished— even the crumbs? would shrimp be classified as food and not a snack?

of course the following day i swear off salty, fat laden, high calorie food. a conundrum — next week is  another play-off game. perhaps i will listen to my inner voice and refrain from those chips. or will i be swayed by the ad rhetoric and the advertising and believe that  this particular brand of chips is sugar free, low sodium, low fat and tastes marvelous? But in my heart i know these words are pandering to people like me.

ncidentally, the pats won. i did my part—ate, watched, and cheered.

A Marker

honey pot apple orchard 

closed for the season 

and set out their last apples—

“ambrosia” —a bit sweet

like a “ honey crisp”

i miss the tart taste of 

early “gravensteins”

harbingers of autumn

a bittersweet welcome

“ ambrosia” welcomes

the coldest months—

a reminder of the cycle

A Place of Prayer

wrapped in a cloak,

a tallit 

a womb like space

a tent

a sanctuary

we breathe silence—

we stand on holy ground

and seek 

pray 

Lovers

first 

cut out a shape

place it on bone white paper

stare at it long enough

until it needs another shape

a piece that indents

and juts out so they fit

together — feel just right

in their edges and empty places
in their soft lines

then place them on the paper

and glue them down

but not so tight they can’t be moved

adjusted, turned— 

A Tao of Waiting

an upside down world 

turned on its side

shaken, stirred

tumbled

until whatever 

is untethered

falls

off

Hesed or Loving Kindness

One commentator notes that Hesed is something you do and not necessarily something you feel. The word Kindness ( Hesed) appears many times in the translation of Ruth and the word is used in conjunction with an action. This doesn’t preclude feeling.

Hesed is God’s love, in the Hebrew Scriptures, for the Hebrew people. So how does this word apply to me? I’m beginning to own the word.

The “ Kabbala explains that kindness was, in fact, the reason for the Creation. Since G‑d's "nature" is absolute benevolence and loving-kindness, He created the worlds so that He would have upon whom to bestow His kindness, as is written in Etz Chaim, "It is the nature of He who is good to do good."—-Moshe Miller

A place to start...finding my place.

Letter to a Queer Teenager

         …it breaks boundaries…
                    Edna O’Brien


Breaking past norms
Refusing to follow the crowd
Digging your own path
ain’t easy
You look behind and hardly
a soul follows
But just keep moving
past the words, past
the looks and past their shaming
Keep moving beyond the narrow
places and you’ll find
there are others
dressed in finery
be it a buzz cut and plaid shirts
or leather or a sequin dress
or button down shirt
or a dress and heels
Soon you’ll meet up
Just keep walking

You Spell it Wimmin

The universe answers serious requests when you think no one is listening. Just the other day I was bemoaning the loss of women’s bookstores—and women’s music. I missed the pulp novels— many of doubtful literary value. I missed the buttons, posters, sweatshirts, car stickers. Yes, you can get all that in Provincetown— the Mecca.

And just after my nostalgia, my walk backwards in time— I read about Butch Heroes by Ria Brodell and published by MIT Press. It’s a queer history from the fifteenth century to the present. I was looking for lesbian books— this book unearths stories of trans people whose stories are buried in arcane books or in a few scholastic and academic books. Her point is that throughout history there have been trans people and non-binary folks. 

Since she is an artist she not only wrote a book, but did a series of twenty paintings of some of the people found in her book. I’ve ordered it from our library system. Any serious study published by a mainstream press is valuable. 

I’ll wait until we get down to Provincetown to walk into a lesbian bookstore, buy a button, and maybe even find a pulp romance. Meanwhile I’ll listen to music of some of my favorite singers over a Bluetooth connection and an app. Margie Adam I hear you playing, Lucie Blue I hear you singing, Alix Dobkin I dig your lyrics. 

To Seek Meaning

Ofttimes when translators attempt to simplify they erase the myriad interpretations possible when wrestling a meaning for a word. Genesis 37:15 reads “And a certain man found him ( Joseph), and behold he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What are you seeking?” Many translators say instead— what are you looking for? 

Today I read a commentator who asked readers to think about the nuances of seeking and how that word applies to Joseph and how it is applicable for your own life. To seek means searching. Looking, according to the dictionary,  means gazing toward someone or something. 

Seeking implies a quest. It asks many questions. It may take a lifetime to answer or answers will change over time. It’s elusive. Often it is ignored because of its existential nature. And if it is explored it offers clues, but no concrete answers. The answers are shrouded in gossamer—offering hints—until studied. 

Words can’t be simplified to the point that they make us passive readers.

On a Cold Day

winter 

squeezes 

through cracks

wends 

through space 

caresses 

with a cloak

of hoarfrost

An Alternate Reality

It’s the pursuit

the chase 

to find an answer,

do something

you’ve never done before

that alters 

an ordinary day

when you enter

 it in your calendar 

amidst the daily routine

A One Thousand Piece Puzzle

The Christmas puzzle’s

nine hundred fifty pieces fit

Fifty green pieces wait 

Hesed

Just when I finished complaining about my word, its place in the pantheon of grammar and the difficulty of writing about this cumbersome word —I happened upon the Hebrew word Hesed. Hesed is often translated as Loving Kindness.  There’s something that draws me to the Hebrew word— still the softness of the s Sound, but with more complexity.

The universe has a way of turning everything upside down. A way to suggest another aspect of an issue, another face.

“Know that kindness is sometimes soft and sometimes bold in its appearance.”

———Melissa Myozen Blacker

Finding My Place

Just when I thought I had it all figured out— go concrete rather than abstract

Just at the moment I found quotations agreeing with my stance

At that moment my edifice of belief cracked

I found a Buddhist magazine with the word Kindness on the front cover

Just at that moment when I read the titles of articles

At that moment I wondered if the universe conspired to give me that word

At that moment I knew that I needed to wrestle with meaning for the universe

At that moment I knew my task was to grapple with my place within the word

Where did I fit

Where had the fit been ungainly

Where did I need to live the word 

How does this abstract noun become mine