hello, this is tomorrow

It's a good thing, I suppose, that I spent all day at my new volunteer gig at RDC (Adult ESOL + First Steps) because I didn't have time to panic about the book reading and signing tomorrow. 

But now dinner is done, Nu is in their room, Big A is at work, and I'm ready to panic. (Max and Huck just don't get this kind of thing.)

I've done poetry readings before but that's with other people. This is my first book reading. What if choke or OMG... what if it's the most boring thing ever?!

I've forbidden Big A and Nu to come. If I'm going to flail, I'd rather do it in front of people I don't know, you know? But I think friends are going to be there although I have not (yet) shared this anywhere.

Pic: Flyer from the bookstore. I was happy to be asked. Really, really, hope it goes well. 

from eremition

I lie here

I don't count the days
anymore than I count trees

they're here 

and although real

also possess speechlessness

as if a call  

of golden light spilling 

from an eagerly opened door

its mouth 

holding in itself

a hole promising easy extinction 

_____________

Pic: Two green parakeets in a tree last week in Athens. We had to walk through this park to get anywhere, and we called it "AntiFascist Park" because of all the graffiti. #Greece

in the abrupt language of going

even before I can probe 

life's chronic condition

hello to day and goodbye

looping around dalliances 

every lifetime seeming

 an infinite too artificial

they say you're gone forever

but you're never dead to me

I find I plead for more time

even if it ends up a hard time

think like a woman

yesterdays heads nod agreement 
though still refusing sleep
or dislocations of night

we are more than what they allow

imaginations far fiercer 

than stolen tyrannies 

you can't tell the angle of attack

but I know, I know

how I know

other women's children are also

children... even if they're

too old to cry 

_____

Pic: A cardinal in the driveway, spied as I walked home from hanging out at the East Lansing Art Festival with the girl friends. (I didn't buy a thing.)

the afterlife of silence

you imagined yourself a mother

as you leaned into the future

then you wake up dreaming

and walking toward yourself

at dusk, stars start like beacons

to show us a new underworld

at emergent touch, birds rise 

in the dawn like smoke signals 

one sadness sparks another 

as devotion returns slowly 

in careful curls like a seared

page... tell me I won't forget

how I know something now

 & hold it secret in my belly 

________

Pic: Summer anemones. Radiology Gardens with L.

our ways

you  have a right  to know everything

I promise you--in  this  dream where 

no one has died yet--one more precise 

than light, picture, or any kind of fire

it's the one where we are wading into

the grasses in the deeps of the prairie

following only the swell of the song

tracing failing light and falling night

which is the same night as last week's--

a future passes from one week to the next

and we meet up now and then, the living

and the lost... before we carry on and away

____________________

Pic: We've had a few trees come down last week... I don't even recall any big storms or high winds, but I may have been in my own head and not paying attention. I snapped right back to attention when I heard estimates on how EXPENSIVE it is to have trees removed. At the end of the first day, there was this Stonehenge-y installation Max was delighted to pee on. 

armature

I keep disappearing

inside my head

becoming a promise

so unbound

it's like using clouds

as landmarks

or charting open skies

as a map

places that turn endless

as love unseen 

to teach me that healing 

isn't always clear

I lift my hands upwards

in adoration

surprised when I learn

how heavy they are

______________

Pic: Sunbeams on our way home from the Pistons game in Detroit on Sunday. They handily won the playoffs, so the mood in our car was jubilant. 

like a ghost in my throat

once again I tell my mom to hurry
synonyms swarm in my belly 
rushing, quickly, soon

                             hug me, hug me

other hours restlessly lie waiting 

an urgent clock is ticking

and marking history

                             hug me, hug me 

in sleep, an endless future patiently

cradles every chance not absence

I'll have to wake soon, mom

                             hug me, hug me now

_______________

Note: One of those dreams where I was telling my mom to hug me quickly... the urgency made no sense. Except on some level, I was aware I was dreaming.

Pic: Red Cedar from the Hagadorn Bridge with Big A after a long walk downtown for his Boss Day dinner. (Reminder: In a college town, the weekend starts on Thursday evening.)

in these vast hours

float the ghosts of ease 
ascend the essence of sweetness
mysterious peace has brushed me
where light echoes soft darkness
where stillness distills silence 
and the certainty of sleep

___________________________

I may get more than two hours of sleep tonight. (But all my grading is done!)

Pic: NM's busy bird feeder.

playback

I know when that note sounds
and I feel touched everywhere
that anything could happen… 
anything bad

unbothered, not hiding its shape 

it is the obviously-wrapped gift
--a rock, a key, a boomerang
you already know

so I am this stranger crying until
it makes me stranger--becomes
my first experience of myself 
as only a memory

__________

A note apropos of nothing: It made me so sad to hear that James Van Der Beek who played Dawson in Dawson's Creek (a comfort watch back in the day that I started dipping back into during the pandemic) died yesterday (so young!) from colorectal cancer. I'm horrified to learn that two years of cancer treatment have left this successful celebrity actor's family needing a GoFundMe to pay for their children's education. The US healthcare system is brutal. [Also brutal, the look Big A gave me when I said Dawson had "battled cancer" because every obituary I had just read used that phrasing. I should do better.]

________________

Pic: The frozen Maple River. The temperatures look like they're going up--gloriously--so all this is going to be melt and runnels soon.

Ok, I've been sick (but here's kindness, smiles, and a speech)

I did bring back an unwelcome souvenir as Nance called it, but I believe I'm on the mend. I had to cancel class (can't remember the last time I did that!), but I got plenty of rest and read like a demon.

Loved this essay on receiving kindness titled "How will the Miracle Happen Today." Travel writer Kevin Kelly writes about receiving kindness from strangers all across the world, frequently people who have little to start with. I don't know where I would be without the kindness of strangers... I still think of the office cleaner in Madras 25+ years ago who wanted to share their paper cone of peanuts with me as I waited for my ride because I was visibly pregnant. ("maybe the little one is hungry" Oh, my heart <3) 

All of it is worth reading, and I bookmarked this bit: "My new age friends call that state of being pronoia, the opposite of paranoia. Instead of believing everyone is out to get you, you believe everyone is out to help you. Strangers are working behind your back to keep you going, prop you up, and get you on your path. The story of your life becomes one huge elaborate conspiracy to lift you up. But to be helped you have to join the conspiracy yourself; you have to accept the gifts."

For more smiles, this NYT article, "The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle" really delivers. Turn on the sound for a pick me up! This part blew my mind in a lovely way: "Indeed, this idea — that laughter is primarily social, less about comedy and more about connection — holds true for adults as well, and has been underscored by research showing that laughter overwhelmingly occurs in the company of others and typically follows banal remarks in conversation, rather than in response to jokes or punchlines. The signature belly laughs seen in the video above are involuntary, bursting forth during genuine, uncontrollable amusement. This type of laughter is driven by the brain’s limbic system, structures crucial for emotion, memory and motivation. But by 6 months, our lab has found, infants can intentionally produce a laugh. This ability comes not from the limbic system but from the brain’s language areas and emerges at the same time as babbling. Six-month-olds will deploy laughter to prolong a game of peekaboo or to signal a desire to join in." This made me laugh in delight!

And on social media, I was pointed to this amazing moment on the Stephen Colbert show, where Sir Ian McKellan (around the 20-minute mark) launches into a rendition of a monologue by Sir Thomas More known as the strangers' case speech. First penned by Shakespeare in 1603-04  (for someone else's play) it asks what the anti-immigrant rioters would do if the king banished them for their rebellion, where would they go? They would become refugees themselves: "what would you think/to be thus used? This is the strangers' case/And this your mountanish inhumanity." How relevant for now.

Pic: The more the merrier. Max and Huck with "cousin" Abby at brunch on Sunday.

disjunction

It's like duh...              I do know what "dead" means             but then also... where did she go?             forever sounds like a trick              and so... does this mean          we can't talk again            (but we're always talking again)                      everything is costumed as a clue                          I follow as an amateur shaman           (also theologian astrophysicist)           with denial and love woven inside me              days keep ending; I keep finding ways          to wake them up again               it would be heaven if she were here             

                         that heaven I wouldn't mind her being in 

_____________

Pic: a gorgeous sunset on my way home... I'd never seen a column/beam/plume like that before. 

 

love so ordinary

you have to shut your eyes to see it

that's when the day goes dark
running like a scar seaming 

into something close

I stop, blind as a person in a photo

coming to the raised edge 

of spectacle to gather 

you, mother

from vast violet evenings to say

goodnight, knowing I will 

endure--or at least see

you in the morning 

___________

Pic: Squirrels on the MSU campus... honestly, they seemed monkey-sized!

if meaning is made of anything

the air feels full of fussy messages 

from the future

every black pebble I gather whispers

reminders for later 

how easily your attention slips away

--a dancer in the crowd

multiplying me with mute mystery 

until I exist

for you might say the book is complete 

but I have a feeling 

I'll still imagine there are places inside 

where I can color it

____________

Pic: Max and Huck ready at the treat jar. We used to try to get them to ring the bell for service, but that didn't take.

the three lessons

while I make myself legible to the world

my body, who has only one owner 

is learning to rebel 

someone holds the book, another gets to ask 

the question and I learn to answer 

without making things up

I am not a child, haven't been one for years

you teach me my past tense, I learn how

to bear being human 

________________________

Pic: Today's sunset along the Red Cedar. Late afternoon walk with Big A. 

public sightings

1) At the MFA student reading yesterday, I was reminded of the many things that are right in the world. Young people are creating poems and stories and journals to host other people's poems and stories and brave voices are finding themselves and amplifying other's voices (one poet read Renee Good's poem). I especially loved seeing old student CW's new work. 

2) JN took me to a drag show on Wednesday (I blew off grief group to go), and I met my first Drag King, Prince Marsallis. I love Prince, so the name in itself was a delight.

3) FYI, If I was out in public and you yelled out “pedophile protector” I would not think you were talking to me because I’m not a pedophile protector. I've decided that I'm going to use this to introduce interpellation in the Critical Theory class.

4) Aw! Someone tipped me off that on a new webpage titled "Best Decision Ever" that asks students why they love the college, a student had named me, saying,  "I’ve never met someone so passionate and caring for students."(I love my students and I'm glad they can tell.)

Pic: From the Jim Daniels reading last week. He's an alum of the college, taught here (before my time), gave the commencement speech at At's graduation, and teaches in the MFA program, but yesterday was the first time I was actually introduced to him. He then proceeded to talk my ear off (I didn't mind at all).

Her name was Good

Today was a day... especially for checking up on my Minneapolis people. It has been so heavy lately. There was the middle-of-the night shooting of Rep. Hortman, her spouse, and Gilbert and then the daytime Annunciation school shooting. This morning on a residential street, ICE randomly shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in the head and did not allow her any medical assistance (they threatened the physician who offered to provide medical assistance with a gun); she died. What are you supposed to do when masked goons with no ID surround your car? If they're shooting white people now, the fascism has really escalated. 

She was a human being. She was there as an observer. She was innocent (if that matters). She was a citizen (if that matters). She was a parent. Her six-year-old's father died in 2023, so this child is truly orphaned. 

Renee Nicole (Macklin) Good was a poet. She won a prize for this poem. 

Monday # 1

It's just another Monday, but also the very first Monday of the year, so I'm counting that as significant! 

I'm all prepped (Canvas pages are published, syllabuses are ready, students have been emailed, I've looked over my notes and silly jokes, diagnostics are ready to go, waitlisted students in the oversubscribed classes have been manually added to the roster, I looked up new icebreakers, etc.). But that doesn't mean I'm not super antsy with the usual mix of excitement AND ANXIETY. I've been teaching for over 30 years... And yet, every time is like the first time.

Some somewhat Hamnet-related thoughts. First off, Nance, Lisa, and J were so kind in their approval of that last poem. And I thought about how I couldn't have written that poem if my mom was alive. And then weirdly how proud she'd be of being my muse if she knew. But how happy I'd be to just have her be here so I could write about ants and grasses or whatever else I used to write about before. Also, I'm pretty wrecked by mom's passing... but, watching that movie, it occurred to me that I cannot even imagine losing a human child.  

Pic: The daffodil buds I bought myself last week are beginning to flower, as are the roses SH gave me on Saturday. JL gave me that little red cardinal when cardinals were visiting me everyday in Amma's wake in September. I should start a label# SecretWinterFlowers

when tenderness descends

even as a world we knew is ending

in the fullness of indifference 

a new year is beginning  

another time will soon need assembly 

we'll plot, field plans, while you 

look down from a photograph

your smile tells me that it's ok to let 

my guard down even after god 

let you down...

in the brightness of believing in you 

I search in the silence and hear

susurrance as a yes

_____________

Pic: Outside with Max this morning.

a time after this time in three languages

because I had not been intimate with death
I did not know all its names

I had to text a friend who teaches Hindi 

to check if kaal, which means time 

is also an archaic word for death

and it is 

doesn't it make sense?

the passage of time means death

look at old B&W photographs

their grey, grainy flecks, the people 

disappearing before their time

how my mother will stay 

behind at the end of this year

And in Tamil kaal-am, which is time or season

is also the formal, euphemistic word for death

someone's season is over     they passed away       I can't find the vein

there's another kaal in Tamil, and that's toddy 

(perhaps for someone who wants to get blackout drunk 

so they never have to remember grief)

Kaal in Tamil also means stone or rock

(or that which you turn into when death visits

they're gone and now you are too)

Or kaal can mean mountain (from where you can fall 

or where you may want to run away and never return)

Kaal in Tamil and Telugu means legs

(you could use those to run away, maybe to the mountain)

kaal-a in Telugu, though, is dream

(yet another way you could run away) 

and if you say it another way

kaal-a is art 

chitra-kaala is visual art

I don't know what art it is 

to foolishly repeat a word

watch it like a small plant 

breaking tips and branches

until it begins to look strange

and loses meaning 

almost becoming 

something that doesn't exist 

almost

_________________________

Note: The title comes from the lovely Nicole's comforting mantra ("there will be a time after this time") although I may have messed it up a bit by borrowing it for this rumination on the passage and polysemy of time. It feels like I didn't stick the landing...

Pic: From the Lake Superior website ahead of the blizzard. 22-foot waves. To a non-native Midwesterner like me, it seems wild that you all are calling these seas "Lakes."