insert poem here

it's that time of year again—the academy of american poets poem in your pocket day is TODAY.

discover a poem, fold it up, put the wonder of it in your pocket—or at least put it somewhere where it might be conveyed—and carry around a little inspiration, a little mystery, a little memory, a little experience. read and reread. feel the pull of an imaginative journey offering, perhaps, a secret, and always pleasure. whatever you do, don't forget to share it.

here's a poem by mary oliver that's in this, my virtual pocket....and in my real one, too.



~Mary Oliver~

ONE OR TWO THINGS 

Don't bother me.
I've just
been born.


The butterfly's loping flight
carries it through the country of leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes


for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower.


The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening


to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever,


which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.


One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightning—some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.


But to lift the hoof!
For that you need an idea.

equinox

~ originally written with a black sharpie fine point on the clean side of a used piece of white hp everyday copy & print paper which has since been recycled.


a handful of words, elvers
in a net, glassy and precious
a handful that is not enough
for the telling—some springs the wind
hollers louder, soft flesh of mud
shivers hot with sun—worn skin of ice
loosed and the vernal land speaking
equinox, conversation in a language
measured dark & light, death & life,
emptying & filling, dormancy &
awakening, garnering & gifting—
eyes lift from march squalls to april
reaping, time's calculations printed
gathered in infinite sheaves born of trees
their numbered days cut and pulped
packed/tossed/reused we recycle a life
seek what is missing and in the seeking
discover the sought after slipping
through our hands, a twofold loss
closed eyes open we are conceived
open eyes closed we sleep and in silvery
fragmented gossamer swim away.

somersaults

was the core of me starving—layers ripped, peeled—losing hold, cold? like a floe
fleeing, outward bound?

(as yet unknown realm/unanswered questions.)

a small spot appears at lunchtime while i hold a spoon
and stir fresh vegetables in a pot, the beginnings of soup, a broth
of oxygen bubbles, a steady steam of spice feeding the space
above my head where shiny silver pans covered
in a moist venous glaze hang from wooden
pegs along a beam. a small spot i ignore.
a small spot. i ignore. a small squeeze on the left side of my chest.
it's really nothing at all. it grows and shrinks—
smaller, bigger, smaller, to almost nothing,
almost nothing at all.

i imagine fibers elongating—thumpbabump—trying to inch their way out. i think,
absurdly, of valentine's day, the throb of love, the center and shape of it—fat, red, oozing.

(who made up that blood is blue?)

blood is red, red and burning, and it plays a satisfying game of survival.

cars flow along the on and off ramps on forest avenue, disturb
accumulations of litter that bite the curbstones near the bent
forms of pedestrians who battle the winter wind. a man hops from one foot
to the other clutching a sign: homeless please help any way you can. 

i walk into the ER no problem, fill out a few questions on a clipboard.
symptoms: ghost dance/soft pirouette. nurse hands me a thermometer,
pumps up a cuff on my arm, pronounces everything normal, says the wait
won't be long. his earring glitters under the energy saving lights.

i lie on a gurney, chat with the docs. i feel good. i never see my monitored
numbers plummet, the lines descending behind my head. i never think i am
a goner, but my eyes see gray. everything turns to a dim rush
a blur of people doing their jobs. later that night i learn my husband cried.

this flip of a thing—this filipendulous detail—decides to tumble
on to monday, its eyes ravenous for tuesday, rolling rolling each day,
each day for a long time after that, never stopping, always onward, its
movement undeterred by the dark uncertainty of an indifferent spit of road.

in the calm before

maybe '13 is gonna be like '69, '78, '97—it's gonna blow out there! that's how the real old timers talk when a blizzard's coming. the new old timers on the news concur. they're reading the maps, the models and the almanacs, the tea leaves and the crystal balls. once they stop peering, straining their eyes, they offer up a prediction. they tell us to stay home. don't move.

in '78 i broke the law. i didn't stay home, didn't hunker down. classes canceled, i drove my vw to maine after the governor of massachusetts declared a driving ban. the worst was over but the snow kept coming. when i stopped at forbidden intersections and inched forward past towering man-made mountains of white powder on my way to the interstate, i imagined the scream of police sirens, but there was no one out there to catch me. not a soul.

put away the devices of our own devising. cameras, cell phones, laptops won't help us now. wind remakes shorelines, alters the course of rivers, wipes fishing ports off the charts. while the waters rise, networks succumb, bullets fly, people wash laundry, children grow. life separates, split by commas, into one thing after another.

in the calm before, we say we wish this day would never end. please don't let it end. the way the light bends through the smudged window and the snow sticks in the tall pines and the dog turns circles in her bed before she settles, and you, you drink a cup of coffee that's already getting cold.

the way that it is heartbreaking. we want to gather it up and press it, amber-like: small pieces suspended, preserved for a million years, an adornment, a crucible of illumination, tawny blare slashing through it, slashing through us. we edge around corners becoming the apparatus of our own survival, don't you see?

after bramhall

a renegade light begins to undo the grip of the dark, rubs the sleep out of air that is becoming wicked, wicked. fierce wind gusts from the west and abuses the swaddled walkers and joggers who brave frigid temperatures as they cut through the remaining gloom.

(but spring can't be too far away because lee in virginia says she saw a huge flock of robins on a lawn; they must have been storing up calories for flight....do fly north fast, birdies.)

arms paddling, various sized backsides swaying or bobbing up and down, some of these people wear vests over their layers with neon yellow markings and happy little lights that blink away what's left of the night.

my feet and i, we're bad, very bad—we take the coward's way out. we retreat indoors—sissies!—away from the cold and into a snug little room downstairs. flip a switch, hear it whir, watch the tiny orange lights flicker and light up the console, the machine coming to life.

i climb aboard.

stride after stride, lap after lap, mile after mile, my breath in rhythm with my molecules as they spin and loop in an unrestrained aerobic dance. it feels good, this breathing room, where all of me is living in air.

the coat

she had been on the verge of leaving for ages, lifting her coat off the hanger, wrapping a scarf around her neck, pushing her feet into boots, planting a hat atop her head.

our young selves—the child i was, that my children were—would hear her calling "go outside. enjoy the fresh air...but it's cold out there—don't forget your mittens and heavy socks," as she attempted to get me, and later her grandchildren, out the door.

winter turns to spring, summer arrives, fall, then winter is once again upon us and she, dressed in her coat, ready to go, lingers.

this image of my mother bundled up in her coat, impatient to move on but stuck and going nowhere, is what i have. it does not exist except that i make it exist. in my possession are real pictures of her—some recent, some from decades ago, some nice black and whites and early color ones that are fading to yellow—but today i don't notice those, i only notice the one of her in her coat and hat.

an abrupt little breath and she is ready, she is prepared for this final departure. "get going," she'd say to us. "you'll overheat and catch a chill if you stand around in the house too long dressed in all those clothes."

but now it's her turn to leave. "go, mom," i tell her. "please go. it's time."

her hand grasps the doorknob and finally—finally!—she turns it and opens the door. she hesitates a moment but does not look back over her shoulder. when i think of her leaving us i am standing in my kitchen viewing the impossible—a procession of snowflakes that defy gravity: the snowflakes don't head obediently toward the ground but fly free like small bleached bugs, higher and higher in the sky of an upside-down world, the world reflected on the granite countertop.

so many weeks buttoned up in preparation, so many hours spent waiting. when my mother steps out on the air to greet snow and sun and moon and stars, i bow my head, my face hot and wet. at last, for her, relief. she had been in that damn coat way too long.



In memory of my mother who recently died peacefully at her home after a long illness.
Dear heart, best friend, I will never stop missing you....

logging on in aroostook county

i have no idea where the weeks have disappeared. one minute they were right here—i'm telling you i had them firmly in my grasp—and then, just like that, they were gone. life is crazy sometimes, filled with the unexpected. it meanders, it zigs and zags, it careens. in maine, life is good, though. so very, very good.

as proof of the good life we lead in maine, the following terms highlight, among other things, how advanced we are.

GOING HIGH TECH IN THE NORTH COUNTRY: COMPUTER TERMS FOR AROOSTOOK COUNTY (A.K.A. NORTHERN MAINE OR THE COUNTY)

1.  log on - make the wood stove hotter

2.  log off - don't add no more wood

3.  monitor - keep an eye on that wood stove

4.  download - getting the firewood off the truck

5.  floppy disk - what you get from downloading too much firewood

6.  ram - the thing that splits the firewood

7.  hard drive - getting home in winter

8.  prompt - what the u.s. mail ain't in the winter

9.  window - what to shut when it's cold outside

10.  screen - what to shut in black fly season

11.  byte - what the black flies do

12.  bit - what the black flies did

payment, please

one day it's warm, the next day it's cold. a little bit of rain, then a dusting of snow. the grass is green, the trees are naked. i have to stop to let three wild turkeys cross the road while en route to my annual mammogram appointment.

i pull into the parking lot of the new medical building in yarmouth. the macadam in this lot was rolled out black and slick onto a farmer's derelict field. a red barn still stands as proof of the old ways, a beacon hailing from more than a hundred years ago in the middle of tall, withered grass. without the barn, i would have no idea that this had been land that produced, that made something out of nothing. the farmer's acreage still produces, only now it produces housing developments, a gas station, and the medical office i am about to go into. the red barn is in good condition, obviously loved by someone. a smidgen of pastureland remains, clinging to the old barn like a child afraid to let go of its parent.

have you noticed there is no photo to go along with my story today? the powers that be at blogger have informed me that i am out of luck, i am at the end of the road, that i have run out of space.* odd thing is, i never knew i had space to begin with, let alone that i could run out of it. they are demanding payment for photo storage. don't quite know what i'll do next.

my medieval torture session over, i harbor gloomy thoughts as i exit, maneuvering along the pavement of the parking area under dismal gray skies.



*has anyone else been told they are out of space and will have to pay up to post their photos? one blogger i know has been doing this a lot longer than i have and has always posted photos, too. she received no such notice.

in the room with raphael

crowds of people pulse on all sides of me, their body heat pressing into me, hearts thumping, their fingers pointing at walls alive with color and history. wide-eyed, they sigh and speak a babel of languages, their heads and necks tilting back—snap, crack—for a better view, first in the pinacoteca, and then in raphael's rooms. there it is, the school of athens and, oh god, higher still, heaven in a ceiling. at times i think i cannot breathe. there are too many people. i remind myself inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

i attempt to take a few pictures with my iphone—after all, how often does one encounter the stanze di raffaello?—but i am not really in the mood. am i coming down with a cold? a raw rain runs clear rivulets across the vatican museums' windows. i position myself by backing away from the throngs toward an empty area near the wall, being careful not to touch the wall. (i have already been chastised once for touching by roman guards in the castel sant' angelo.) the window area is cordoned off, but i feel better with a view of the damp day beyond the crush.

my blah mood starts to disperse when i notice a couple intent on studying the artwork. i try not to stare, but they stop right in front of me. i pretend to be interested elsewhere, yet i am curious. my eyes can't help returning to them, to her smooth white skin and wavy reddish-blonde tresses, to his intelligent eyes and shapely bald head. there is nothing outstanding to behold in these ordinary people, but something about the strangers that i can't quite figure out gives me the sudden urge photograph them. that's the odd thing about it—i am rarely moved to take deliberate snapshots of people i don't know.

the second i see them, i realize they are unusual subjects. he leans into her, gently, slowly, his hand touching her hair, his head touching her head—but no, it's not a tender moment he seeks, it's the audio guide—while she looks up. after he gets close enough to her to hear, they do not move. they stay frozen in the spot they have claimed for themselves, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, his eyes fixed on me (well before i even lift my phone). it's as if they are simultaneously posing for me, but not posing for me. yet that can't be, that's not it. they are listening, absorbed by a voice in their ears whispering a language they understand, explaining the details of what their eyes witness.

i try not to be obvious; i turn and take photos of the frescoes—but what to focus on with this overload of detailed stimuli coming from walls and ceiling? so i just do it; in the blink of an eye, i do it, i do what i have wanted to do all along—i turn back around and touch the camera button.

there is this uncanny sense i have—an idea, a ridiculous idea, perhaps, but a fun one and one that seems like it could be true—that this man and this woman make their living as actors, not because they are dramatic or seem to be striking a pose, but quite the opposite—because they are relaxed and comfortable and, above all, quiet in their own skin, in their own space. it is as if they are alone, not a tourist in sight, in the vast, ornate, renaissance chamber, as if they belong standing where they are standing, and they themselves are on view, an audience sitting in darkness just beyond the walls of raphael's room waiting to applaud.

the man and woman are in position—they just are. they inhabit—more than that, they own—this piece of air.

i can't help clapping in my head.

our house

with thoughts of home, family, friends and the holiday season in maine.....

our house is a very.....(excuse me, but i could almost insert the word very two more times and then you could, maybe, hum to the tune of the crosby, stills, and nash song our house "....is a very, very, very fine house, with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard, now everything is easy 'cause of you...." except i won't and you needn't hum because it's not exactly what i mean right now anyway, but it's a wonderful sentiment—and a true one, except for the two cats, although in the past we have owned cats....), as i was trying to say before i interrupted myself, informal house.

i don't want to leave the impression that our house is some sort of idyllic paradise where one is free to do as one pleases—where anything goes and extreme and somewhat louche informality rules—where one can, metaphorically speaking, sleep all day, lounge around in one's pajamas, guzzle six-packs of maine's best IPA, roam through the house in muddy boots, and leave a trail of wet towels and dirty underwear and socks on the floor.

no, no, no, not that kind of informal. far from it. we are ordinary people trying to live a simple lifestyle, and we have the usual list of things that conspire to give us headaches.

this sounds confusing—it's actually quite simple. it all comes down to one thing: i think i am a wretched hostess.

oh, i can cook, and i am most welcoming, but after the first round of food and drink i frequently neglect to offer my guests more food and drink. (that's where the husband comes in. he's a great jeeves—he tends to these details...well, mostly he does.) i get so involved and distracted by fine people and interesting conversation that i forget to play hostess. that said, now this can be said: a lot of times around here if you need or want something you have to ask for it, and because of this deep flaw in my character, i tend to prefer (except at thanksgiving) serve-yourself pot luck or casual buffets.

but, come to think of it, maybe i'm not that flawed, not that wretched a hostess. maybe it's a means toward the informality i love, a subconscious tactic to get family and friends to relax and feel at home. translation: dig through the fridge, open random and unfamiliar cupboards, rummage where you will but please, if you need something, don't ask me—just help yourself.

at the heart of my concept of casual, at the core of my notion of laid-back, is the centrally located, historically significant, front door knocker.

hereabouts, the nonexistent front door knocker.

we don't have one, never have, probably never will. (although i like interesting door knockers—that  stern one up there looks as if it might bite. what, exactly, is that thing? a not-so-welcoming-looking, part human/part beastie which appears to have come straight out of dickens' a christmas carol?)

we don't have a doorbell either at what is technically the front door (it broke, we never fixed it). we hardly ever use the so-called formal front door entrance anyway. instead, people go around the side of the house on a curving path through the garden and into the screened porch to the back door.

once upon a time, a time in the days of yore—and if your house was large enough—the back door, or side door, or any door that was not the front door, was considered the entrance for servants and trades people only, to be used for the daily drudgery of domestic tasks alone—upper crusty people would never have entered there.

i don't view the back door as a lowly door. it is the only door (other than the garage) that we use, that family and friends use, on a regular basis. around here there is no stiff ceremony, no tradition of the traditional front door. (by this i don't mean to imply that people who use their front doors are stiff, formal traditionalists—most people i know use their front door most of the time. oftentimes it's the only usable door. our use of the back door is only meant as an example, a symbol, of our informality.)

so that's it. holiday or not, we'll greet you—and our sweet black dog will greet you, too—at the back door, the door for all people, with no fuss or formality, just an unpretentious and friendly welcome into the heart of our home.

the readers

in these days of ours, these crazy days of ours, when they make an announcement along the lines of yes ma'am, it's true, the big box stores will be open on thanksgiving day (for the first time in history—i'm actually surprised it took them this long to conquer the holiday), i can do nothing but sigh and sigh some more.

does everything, everything, in our society have to be linked to the marketing of products and the spending of the green? i need it, i have to have it, it's the latest, it's the biggest, it's the best, it will be on sale that day, it will be sold out if i don't grab it now and on and on. society's psyche, our very souls, coaxed in specific directions—aided and abetted by those persuasive entities that are paid to get inside our heads—causing us to believe we need to possess a surplus of material objects.

i've decided that instead of ranting about this any more than i already have—i really have no patience for rants, especially after having endured so many nasty political ones lately—i will go on a love spree.

i say, if you have to buy something, buy books. or take turns borrowing and lending books with friends and family. for the love of books, for the love of beautiful words, enchanting art and nourishment for the mind, get books for your children, your spouse, your grandchildren, your parents, your siblings, your nieces, your nephews, your friends.

ye gods, for the love of those you love, be still, stay home, snuggle and read a book.

just like kevin and aidric—hang out together. lift open the covers of books and turn the pages—kevin and aidric highly recommend the giving tree or tiki tiki tembo or fox in socks or chicka chicka boom boom or curious george or make way for ducklings or time of wonder—to name a few—and lose yourself in the vast landscapes that you will discover in there.

we'll see you when you find your way back.


~ photo of my grandson by aidric's mommy, alexandra mcaleer

stuccoed

it wasn't until the next day, after jet lag had subsided and i could properly take in the neighborhood where we were staying, that i noticed dense stucco-like patterns spattered on objects in very specific areas around the ponte sisto, along lungotevere dei vallati, up via arenula and into the park near our hotel.

i like to think of what i saw as organic graffiti, but these graffiti artists didn't arrive stealthily in the middle of the night armed with spray paint. they arrived promptly at 4:45 in the afternoon and their work was brazen and bold and loud, loud because there were so many of them.

what were they called? where did they come from? why were they here?

i should have noticed the clue—a foretelling right there on the wall—when i opened my eyes after that first delicious sleep. a previously unnoticed golden hued print of a flock of black birds (no artist's name given) hung near the left side of the bed.

after a day of gorging on seeds and bugs, anything in the fields outside the city, tens of thousands of starlings could be seen, and heard—this is called murmuration, the indistinguishable blending of all those bird wings and voices which, the first time i heard it, i thought was rain—heading back to rome to roost in the large plane trees that lined the tiber river and the park outside our door.

the birds swirled and glided, swooped and dropped over the rooftops like sooty snowflakes, each movement in their ever expanding and contracting ballet fascinating and mysterious to those for whom it was a novelty. to the locals, the birds were merely messy pests.

truly wise people opened their umbrellas when walking for more than a minute under a canopy of trees vibrating—yes, and i mean vibrating—with starlings. the birds' bellies were, after all, full from a day of feasting.

unless, that is, they didn't mind becoming stuccoed like the sidewalks and cars, and the occasional head or handbag.

use or freeze by

what remains are tall, straight-backed trees—dark statues on view until may—displayed in the hushed gallery of autumn's forest. the bright colors vanished (although this year, due to a lack of cold nighttime temperatures, the usually fiery colored maples in our yard were merely a ho-hum-so-so-washed-out red) right along with the built-up anticipation of the season. how i looked forward to those colors and to sweater weather, to the crisp tang of mcintosh apples, hot cider, and the snap-whoosh of fall wind spinning the leaves in a whirling carousel of motion.

colors i don't look forward to with eager anticipation are the insidious shades of gray and green that are hiding—make that residing—in my refrigerator. they're inhabiting what's been pushed toward the back, living and multiplying in forgotten jars and plastic containers containing the dregs and leftovers from weeks and weeks ago (how many weeks ago, i am ashamed to say) that i have ignored with a scrupulous avoidance similar to my avoidance of edges—edges of high places like cliffs and the tops of tall buildings. (although years ago i crossed the aptly named knife edge on mount katadin, facing my fear of precipices by staying as close to the middle of the narrow pile-of-rocks trail as possible. i tricked myself into believing that there was a middle when, in reality, no such place exists along most of the dizzyingly narrow ridge between pamola and baxter peaks.)

one of my favorite things about maine and new england is the change each season brings. call me crazy, but i think i would be bored senseless in a perfect paradise world of forever hot and warm and green and nothing else, no in-betweens, no extremes (except scorching heat), no variability, only the same brand of tropical sun and air day in and day out. what grows in tropical climates stays visibly growing for four seasons. that's it. not much anticipation for what comes next.

in maine, though, anticipation for what comes next is always ripe, even if, for now, the dormant kernels of life are hidden and will remain hidden for some time to come. they must wait—and i must wait with them for winter to have its turn—before waking up and announcing their appearance, making a grand show-stopping entrance into yet another season of change.

in my refrigerator the storyline is different.

dynamic new life forms are at this very moment hard at work, increasing their numbers by patiently building sprawling colonies of puke-colored fuzz in a few tablespoons of leftover rao's tomato and basil sauce, or cabot farm cottage cheese, or on top of boneless chicken breasts well past the "use or freeze by"or "best by"dates. these densely packed communities—a biology experiment unfolding right in my kitchen—live in an ideal environment, a utopia of jars and packages. they have no idea about the cataclysm that's about to annihilate their population. but i do, as i clutch a giant hefty trash bag and—grimace! shudder!—force myself to swoop into the depths beyond the open refrigerator door.

connecting the dots

If you sit down at set of sun

And count the acts that you have done,

And, counting, find

One self-denying deed, one word

That eased the heart of him who heard,

One glance most kind

That fell like sunshine where it went—

Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,

You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay—

If, through it all

You've nothing done that you can trace

That brought sunshine to one face—

No act most small

That helped some soul and nothing cost—

then count that day as worst than lost.

—George Eliot, Count That Day Lost

walk with me, if you would, through the old, narrow cobblestoned streets of the centro storico—historic center—of rome.

look here, along via giulia, where aristocrats lived, as well as famous artists who created great works for some of rome's palaces and cathedrals—men like raphael, cellini and borromini—for a close-up view of renaissance urban planning. what mankind accomplishes! the year 1508: this street would be the longest (1 km) and straightest rome had ever seen.

look up. michelangelo's arco dei farnese. the arch was supposed to connect the palazzo farnese with the villa farnesina directly opposite across the tiber river, but that feat of grandeur never happened. maybe the money ran out. who knows. now there is only this lovely, ivy-covered section of michelangelo's impressive design spanning the street above our heads.

further along via giulia, a stone face mounted on a wall, also from the renaissance—as is so much in old rome—the interesting fontana del mascheroni, fountain of the mask. the chin and lower lip are stained a sick green like a verdant vomitus from the mouth where water spews out. they say the fountain flowed with wine in the old days when via giulia was known for its street parties.

see that heap of clothes on the park bench in the piazza benedetto cairoli on via arenula (benedetto was once prime minister of italy)? in front of another burbling fountain? it's a man. men sometimes sleep here during the day, sometimes at night. when it rains they disappear. the unmistakable odor of urine permeates the exterior of a shed in the corner of the park.

on the ponte sant' angelo, be sure to notice a head-to-toe bronze metallic statue man sitting with a bronze umbrella over his head. another guy with a large brimmed hat is spray painted entirely black. unmoving. they really look like real statues. human statues in this city of statues. i saw them yesterday near the forum on the via dei fori imperiali.

don't miss the man—it's always men, never women—who plays "drums" on many various-sized plastic pots and buckets. he's quite good. the sign beside his money jar reads donations for a real set of drums.

in the campo de' fiori square, location of rome's oldest outdoor produce market (since 1869—it was previously used for public executions), observe a talented musician who strolls among the market vendors and serenades the tourists with his guitar. after a few songs he walks toward the ristorante tables and around the scurrying waiters to where tourists sit with their cups of espresso and glasses of wine. he smiles and holds out a cup of his own. i offer a few coins—grazie, grazie—and smile right back at him.

humanity in a foreign city. foreign, but the same. linked points of humankind—everybody, anybody, me, you, him, her, them—connected to one another under the same setting sun.

there once was a wall

bayham abbey, united kingdom. june, 2011.

a long, long time ago the roof tumbled down, as did most of the walls—not all at once, of course, but gradually—after the place was dismantled, abandoned, and left to decay. but because it was set in such an idyllic spot, people cleaned up the debris and—with great foresight—left the ruin in its natural state to be enjoyed by those who might find their way to the abbey one day in the future.

wild rabbits were among the first to arrive. they made themselves at home—witness the many rabbit holes!—and multiplied in what became a well-tended park surrounding the abbey.

they were the only other visible life forms besides myself, my husband—who i no longer actually saw, as he had disappeared into the ruins—and the young man minding the gift shop and collecting the entrance fee. at first i didn't notice them—the wild rabbits blended in perfectly with the browns and grays of tree trunks and rocks and woody bush stalks and ordinary dirt that were fixed at rabbit level around where the abbey stood. i picked out one of the descendants of the original rabbits and as i watched it, it watched me, its head in constant motion bobbing in the grass, its eyes simultaneously on me and the sweet green vegetation comprising its late afternoon snack. this went on for some time—we were both equally patient.

while the rabbit grazed, i leaned against a wall and enjoyed my reverie in the sunshine.

sanctuary—i sensed it under the dome of the sky. the remains of the walls that once surrounded a house of worship now surrounded me. within the pewless wreck, little hints of glory and joy. i shaded my eyes against the sun and scanned upwards. i imagined a choir loft filled with chanting trees—evensong in leafsong—as hymns of summer wind strained through outstretched branches. i read words of praise in a book, the book of crustose, lichen etched over blocks of stone. once, inside of what had been whole walls, a long-vanished altar had proudly claimed a spot on this earth. years later, opportunistic roots dug into ancient slabs of rock—rocks with a determined faith that, even in decay, held fast. once an altar stood where animals now deposited their own offerings.

the rabbit stopped nibbling choice shoots of grass. suddenly, it turned and fled.

as i walked under archways and lingered in the outlined shells of former workrooms, i saw the shadows of hooded monks laboring, baking their daily bread, brewing the daily beer. i wasn't inclined to compare the shambles i observed with exalted spaces boasting fine stained glass, paintings, and statuary, hundreds of flickering candles illuminating precious gold and silver, cold inlaid marble floors, perfectly white altar cloths and heavy chalices filled with blood-red wine.

i had no need for the established trappings of respectability—no. i was satisfied being a congregant in a broken place, a place that had been humbled and brought down. it was here, that spirit of peace—that unchangeable old thing—and remained with me in the land of crumbling rocks and snakelike roots and countless creatures. it held me the way nothing else could.


~ when i got home from italy over the weekend i was glad to find the house exactly where i'd left it—that beast, hurricane sandy, hadn't blown it down while i was away (although, sadly, on the jersey shore houses were blown to smithereens). except for a lot of sticks and oak leaves littering the yard, there was no evidence a monster storm had streaked through here. the power didn't even go out in our neighborhood like it usually does. (jim, our electrician, joked a bit after he finished installing a generator for us. he said the generator was probably the best insurance against power outages.) with travel on my mind, i wrote this piece about a previous jaunt before i left on this most recent one.

the day the earth roared and a baby smiled

on tuesday night, the second night of my trip to vermont, the earth stirred. then it roared.

we missed it, though. didn't hear a thing. didn't feel the ripples radiating out from the epicenter three miles below ground, in the crust of the north american plate, twenty miles west of portland, maine. but much of new england did.

within a minute of the 7:12 p.m. earthquake there was even more rumbling. online rumbling. my daughter's facebook page came to life and vibrated with exclamations: wow, did you feel that? that felt like an earthquake! and we thought our furnace was exploding and sounded like a freight train tearing past the house. a friend of hers from down south knew about the quake before we were able to confirm that it was an earthquake. she wrote just heard maine had an earthquake. that had all of us—my daughter, my son-in-law and myself—checking our iphones for the latest news.

close to the epicenter in maine, hanging lamps swayed to and fro. silverware rattled in a drawer at my niece's house in portland. elsewhere windows shook as if poltergeists had risen out of the ground to cause a ruckus—a little preview of halloween. in freeport ed told me our dog, lille, ran to the door, hackles raised, and barked and barked. people felt and heard the earthquake in boston and new hampshire and in towns south of us in vermont. in the hills above richmond, though, everything was quiet. did the mountains surrounding us, and hills under us, act as a buffer and cushion the tremor?

on the day the earth roared i watched my grandson smile, and i smiled, too, as i listened to him coo his baby songs. the day the earth roared i took care of him while his mother was at work. the day the earth roared i fed him bottles filled with his mother's milk and wiped spit up off his chin and poop off his bottom and settled him in his bassinet and folded his newly laundered baby outfits into neat piles.

on that day, deep under the earth, rocks more than a billion years old—give or take a million—scraped against each other, heated up to the point of melting, split, and made a lot of noise.*

on that day, my grandson had been in this world for exactly three months.



*a scientist was on the maine show "207"after the quake. he brought in rocks found along maine's shoreline that had cracked and melted in earthquakes. they originated deep within the earth's crust, rose to the surface as mountains were formed, and were dragged to the sea when glaciers scoured the land. the rocks were marked with fissures and smooth dark lines where they had melted all those eons ago.

feathers

miniature replicas of gamla stan (old town) architecture in stockholm, sweden


One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.  —Henry Miller

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.  —Mark Twain

maybe the deep down anticipation and thrill of travel—enthusiastically packing that scarred old suitcase over and over again—is hereditary. my parents liked to travel, i like to travel, and it seems my kids like to travel, too.

i have been fortunate in my life thus far, if you count as good fortune the freedom to cross oceans in search of something different, something revelatory. from the time i was quite young i have had opportunities to see—and one time to live in—foreign lands. i will always be grateful for that.

wouldn't it be great if more people had the chance, and the ability, to venture beyond their backyards (in my dream of dreams, i envision something beyond couch surfing where everyone, not just students, would be required to swap countries with someone else for a short time and become a kind of life exchange student), to see farther than their own every day worlds. what if eyes could be opened early enough in life to gain a sharper perspective on the immensity of the earth—and yet the incredible interconnectedness and common ground we share with others—for it to make a difference (i'm thinking of the twain quote), a difference in how people view themselves in relation to other human beings in the world. we, in our villages, towns, and cities, are so small compared to what is out there in regions unseen, unknown, unimagined.

when people visit a place they usually like to pick up a memento or two, for themselves or someone else, as a reminder of time spent away from home. i am no exception.

ten or twenty or thirty years later i revisit mementos—both gifts from others and gifts to myself—that make up a life.

i go through the accumulations, the collections, the remembrances of times past, some of it useful and displayed (small framed pictures and drawings, wooden carvings, a teapot, a doll, brightly painted wooden horses, bits of pottery, an antique chinese jewelry box), some of it forgotten in corners of cabinets and closets (a necklace and bracelets made of beads, seeds and nut-like things and a huge colorfully woven "kenya" bag that my parents brought home from—where else—kenya; two strands of cloisonne beads and little cloisonne jars from china; black lacquer boxes, small fabric change purses and two kimonos from japan; a child's purse with reindeer fur from finland; booklets, brochures, ticket stubs.) if i was ever planning to paste the papers in a scrap book it never happened, and i guess it never will.

a realization: i hold on to things which are broken and/or useless. one time in stockholm we got caught in what we thought would be a quick downpour (it ended up lasting the rest of the afternoon). when we realized the weather would show no mercy, we ducked into a shop in gamla stan and bought a large umbrella—a lovely striped gray and turquoise affair with a curved wooden handle and tip. we also ended up with twelve whimsical little gamla stan buildings. (in those days i toted larger suitcases and could easily pack the umbrella away for the flight home. today i travel much lighter—that umbrella would never fit in my carry-on l. l. bean suitcase.) twenty-five years later the umbrella has a hole in it, though the buildings survive. and all those brochures....why do i keep things which have outlived their useful life?

since my suitcase is smaller these days, i don't accumulate many trinkets for myself, or others, anymore. i mostly return home with dirty, rumpled clothes and not much else.

yet even for someone who doesn't mind living out of a suitcase, eventually the time comes to wind up back in the place where it all started. there is no doubt about it: the best part of a journey is coming home, followed by crawling into one's own beloved bed. the real comfort of home lies in small, oft-repeated, unconscious acts: fluffing up the goose feathers in a familiar smelling pillow until the pillow seems—thank you, goldilocks—just right, and gently lifting off into dreams of faraway while remaining quite stationary and ensconced under a cozy comforter.

twelve

A room without books is like a body without a soul. —Marcus Tullius Cicero

twelve is a good number.

i'm not a superstitious person, nor do i believe in numerology, but for some reason i have always liked the number twelve. (i also like the number thirteen—i'm completely free of irksome triskaidekaphobia—it was the number i chose as my jersey number when i played field hockey in high school.) it is a good number because......well, it just is.

can't think of too many things having to do with the number twelve that make it stand out for me, but there are a few.

of course, the twelve days of christmas come to mind, and those are certainly wonderful. i like the song about the twelve days of christmas, too—twelve lords a-leaping and other very specific numbers of maids-a-milking, swans a-swimming, drummers drumming, ladies dancing and solitary partridges in pear trees, etc., etc, etc. lots of aerobic activity going on in that ditty—and lots of fun to sing horribly out of tune.

i can comfortably seat twelve people around my table. it's a bit tight—a comfortable elbow to elbow affair with twelve—but it's certainly cozy. twelve and cozy together are a satisfying combination.

eggs. i like eggs—especially in the form of vegetable omelets. eggs are mostly arranged and sold in dozens. twelve again.

how about a dozen? i could list a dozen favorites of this and a dozen favorites of that—gerbera daisies, cupcakes, peonies, lobsters, beatles songs, days of vacation, scarlet tanagers in the crabapple tree—ad nauseam.

one very special twelve is the day my last child was born. when she was little, there was this funny craze going around about "half birthdays." you were supposed to acknowledge the sixth month mark, halfway to the child's next birthday, with a happy half birthday! greeting and a teeny tiny present. (i wonder, are half birthdays religiously "celebrated" elsewhere, in other communities in the states and around the globe? i'd never heard of it when my two older children were growing up.) today, the twelfth of october, is her half birthday.

finally, there are my bookcases.

the truth is, i don't lust for clothes or jewelry or electronics or cars—i lust for books. we have twelve bookcases/shelves—built-in and free standing and one that's a ledge formed by a beam that runs along the top of a wall—in the house. we used to have thirteen but hannah took hers out of her room to free up some space. they're mostly my books (i include my favorite children's books with my books), but hannah and ed have books, too, so i politely share some of the shelves with them.

i think books on bookshelves are the heart of a home. books give a home warmth and life and tell so much about the occupants. the very book titles themselves—and the answers to the why, when, and where of the books—can yield interesting stories about the lives of the people who dwell within the house.

for me, browsing along those bookshelves (or some other spot in the house where writing can be found) for a story or poem or essay to read—and rev up my brain—completes the day. (sometimes i even discover little surprises tucked within the pages of a book, bits of paper with a poem or quote i've squirreled away.) books call to me. always have. i find pulling a solid volume out from between its mates is a satisfying act, as is sliding it back in again and selecting another.

shapeshifting

a quiver, a shiver

first one, then another

cast away on the floor.

a careless—a thoughtless—

peeling of garments dropped 

from your long, hard limbs—

can't you go slower, make

the moment last?

at my feet the heap grows 

my blister stings

my shoulder aches

as i scrape the rake

across the ineludibility

of change, smell frigid

winter in curling woodsmoke,

squint my eyes against
diminishing days, search

for summer unloosed
in the remnants
of shapeshifting hours.

sisters

as day turns into night i light the candles. that afternoon i had shopped and cooked taking a little extra care, putting some additional thought into my preparations. i don't see her that often; when i do, it pleases me to make the evening special.

from the time we were young girls, we have been the best of friends. i always look forward to talking and laughing with her when she visits, two middle-aged ladies giddy as schoolgirls whispering ghost stories—and boy stories!—at sleepovers.

plates and stemmed glassware sparkle in the candlelight. dinner for two. i pour red wine. there is something about a long, shared history—the bond between us is strong. we don't need to start out slowly with small talk and polite conversation. we don't need to ease our way into what's on our minds. we are reckless and dive in head first without a moment's hesitation. we talk about the mundane and about matters of consequence and many topics in between. we don't hold anything back. we are unafraid to reveal our deepest thoughts because we know they are safe. there is no judgement—only someone who listens, listens well. it's like free therapy, to have a friend such as this.

oftentimes i can't help being a bit envious of women who have close relationships with their sisters. my friend has two sisters, i have none. i feel a little sorry for myself when i think about that, but not for long.

i say to her you are the closest i will ever get to having a real sister. then i amend that to you are the sister i never had. she nods her head and drinks her wine and i am content .