Nutso


So I am a little bit nutso over the Swine Flu, the threat of pandemic, and how to protect my family. My friend LaDonna told me in all of the years she has known me she has not seen quite so obsessed over any one thing. This week there were 3 cases in the Elementary School across the street from my house, and currently that school is closed, three times a day, I am getting updates from the school district on the status of swine flu in our school district, and lastly I have been seeing my own neighborhood on the 6 o'clock news. At one point the news crews were filming from my yard. So I am thinking I have earned the right to be a bit nutso. My daughter is healthy, I am healthy and my husband is healthy and there have been no cases in the high school where my daughter goes to school. I also have been on a self-education program, reading all I can about the flu, and it seems that most people survive this flu, even in Mexico were the death rates climbs every day, the majority of individuals are recovering. The best information on what to do can be found on the Centers for Disease Control website, and the World Health Organization, can show you the impacts world wide. The best recommendations for preventing the spread of disease is good common sense hygiene, wash your hands often, use sanitizers ( with at least 60% alcohol), avoid public places, practice social distancing ( meaning limit close in contact, hugging, kissing, etc) and if your sick, stay home and if you have flu-like symptoms go to the doctor immediately, as antiviral drugs are effective in limiting the severity of the disease. So I will likely be a bit nutso--until this is over. I did ask my husband if we could go to the hills the three of us until it passes, however we have no cabin in the hills, no way to earn a living in the interim, and as he pointed the three of us might actually kill each other before the six-month period needed for the vaccine passed. So for now, I am going to continue to be just this side of nutso--with my hand sanitizer, my roll of paper towels to cover public door knobs, shopping baskets, my functioning thermometers, and hunker in at home, with a batch of books, netflix delivered to door and drive my teenager and husband a bit bonkers with my hovering. The plant, a Texas Bottle Bush, one of my favorite, right now the bush is covered with about 20 of these blooms.

Experiments

in Black and White

I have been experimenting a bit with the black and white settings on my Nikon, as well as converting some photos over in Photoshop, and lastly I am using film. My film camera is not professional quality, it is a Canon Sure Shot, with an optical zoom lens, one I love that takes fantastic candid shots, one that is close to 10 years old. I took the Canon with me this weekend on a backpacking hike, a dry run for our Arkansas trip, once I get the photos developed, I will share them here. I have been participating in a 30 day challenge at ITWS, which I officially dropped out after 11 days, yesterday. Saturday night our power went out, and I fell asleep before I could scrape together a poem. I was pretty sure I could of posted two yesterday, but instead I took it as a sign, that perhaps I need to focus on doing other things. I have been swamped with my job, a good swamped, but at the end of the day my brain has been near the mush stage, which is not conducive to writing. Last week I was so brain dead by 9:00 pm, that I laid down and then woke up at 11:00 pm to write my poems. I am not sure I could of done that for another 19 days. I wrote one set of poems during that time that I really like, that I want to continue to work on called What Breaks the Human Heart, so far I have written four, with the fifth and six forming a bit in my brain, and partially on paper. I would like to write at least 10 of them. I am mostly groovy, just struggling with that four letter word-time. These photos from my garden, last Wednesday and Thursday, click on them to make them big, to view the detail.

Plants and Animals

Comfort Street

by Susan Culver

I've been reading again, this time a fantastic book of poems and stories by Susan Culver. Susan is a friend and fellow inmate at Inside the Writers Studio, where we routinely participate in the lunacy called the 30:30 where I have had the wonderful privilege of reading her poetry the last several years. Comfort Street is a compilation of stories and poems about being human, both the light and dark of us, the resilience of spirit, in Reminders For Life, she writes

The streets are filled with hunger and deceit. If you must travel, travel the patched grass. Follow the trees.

Close one eye and there's only half a city. And half a city is conquer- able. The rest is canvas.

Her book celebrates the beauty and honesty of the human experience, the individual and the whole of us. I would highly recommend it. The book is available from Lulu Press for 13.50 ( print) or 3.75 ( electronic) Here's a sneak peak from You-Tube

And it Rained

It rained yesterday, a glorious rain, a deep rain committed in its task of watering the earth. I got up from my desk a couple of times just to stand at the glass doors to watch the curtain of rain, to see the wind curl the trees, to smell the musky scent of earth and water. It was a healing rain for a earth that has been near drought, the threat of fire becoming even more real with each passing day without water, here in the big city we are mostly safe, because of sprinkler systems, and limited amount of field and pastures, yet less than 30 miles from here is pasture and farm land. Today I am going to garden, to plant a few flowers, my husbands sister (mine too) Kim brought me a 3-gallon Gerber daisy and a overflowing basket of million bells and today I am going to find a garden spot for the Gerber, likely on the pool side, the Gerber one of my favorites, I have 4 in my zen garden, an orange, a red, a yellow and a pink, all in bloom this week. Perhaps I will take a few pictures today. I need to finish weeding and to lay a bed of mulch, I am also going to plant a small vegetable garden ( this is where we all should laugh), I can not grow anything that is edible, I have a long history of big green plants that don't bare fruit, or squash that the rabbits get, tomatoes refuse to pollinate in my presence, and sadly the only vegetables I have had any success with is chili peppers and cucumbers, but I am going to try again. I am planting squash, cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes. Think happy thoughts for the garden, but I am not hopeful, history has a sneaky way of repeating itself. The bluebonnets ,volunteers in my garden, this year two plants. If it is not too late and they have any at the nursery I will buy a few more today and fill out the bed. I started a 30 day poem challenge on Tuesday, and I am writing a wee bit dark, but oddly it is quite healing, I am having a bit of fun with the macabre. I started a series called What Breaks the Human Heart, I want to write 10 during the 30 day challenge. We will see how I do. I have been thinking about the power of prayer, about God's love and the holy spirit as the embodiment of Christ, I generally do not write spiritual poems, but perhaps a few of those will surface also.

Feeling Groovy







I spent yesterday morning weeding, something that has to be done to balance out the garden, to keep invasive plants from choking out others, to remove the seeds that the birds leave or that washed into the cracks and crevices of my yard. Honestly other than the removal of some very insidious ivy ( ivy which I would burn with glee and diabolical laughter) I generally feel bad about the process of removing the plants, as in my mind I believe that they did not chose to be a weed. Some such as dandelions and poppies flower and I find them quite beautiful. I have however manged to overcome my natural inclination for entropy within the confines of my garden and try to plant species that naturally work together and are conducive to our Texas weather. Twice a season I purge out the volunteers to maintain the integrity of the garden. I am always recharged by the feel of dirt between my hands, a connection that is formed between man and their environment, the tendering and caring of another living thing perhaps, the ability to witness the miracle of a seed, I am unsure, but any time I spend in service to the earth recharges me and begins to restore my own sense of balance and perspective. I have been more solitary than I have been in many years, enjoying the solitude of being, of understanding that the ability to move my diaphragm in the exchange of oxygen is a gift, a joy, a blessing from God, and perhaps also feeling a deeper responsibility for how my life interacts with both man and planet. Perhaps a maturity of middle life, the desire to live fully and to find a way to honor my own gift of being through the choices I make using whatever natural talents that I might have. I have made an accounting of myself and found in some areas I fall short. I believe this has been a good thing. The photos from my garden yesterday, a baby oak tree that I weeded up, and then planted in a pot, I found it incredibly beautiful; full of hope and promise, I stopped to photograph its potency before I planted it. I really need that macro lens and if anyone close to me wants a baby oak let me know.

A photo taken from behind the waterfall, I was laying down in a bed of Asian Jasmine, for some reason I like the photo.

A Texas Knock-Out Rose.


The first of the Ganazia, this plant three years old, one of my favorite of all perennials.

Home Again



I am home again and it feels good. A long week in New Mexico working from sun-up to sun-down but good work. I came home full of thought, energized and full of commitment for the work, a good thing. While I was there, I went to the Mining Museum in Grants, New Mexico, which I much enjoyed. I pasted a You-Tube link for the museum above. This week marks the passing of several critical deadlines for my job, and I think perhaps over the next week or so I will begin to come up for air, I even took today off and am going shopping with a bunch of teenage girls for a formal dress for a 15th for one of their friends. Rachael and I have mom and daughter hair appointments. I am going to the sunrise service on Sunday for Easter, the youth at the church do a fantastic job. The weather man says we are finally out of danger of a late spring frost, so this weekend I can begin to plant a few flowers. I am still mostly on hiatus from poetry, at least writing new, I selected 18 poems out of the 48, and am polishing them for a draft chapbook. I sent off two submissions one to Touch and one to BlazeVOX, we will see how I do. I am almost mostly groovy.

In the Voice of A Minor Saint

I received a wonderful chapbook from Sarah in January, and I have now read it from beginning to end four times. The book is filled with lovely and thought-provoking poetry from the cover art to the last page. Sarah's poetry is filled with striking image, wonderful sounds, sly and wicked humor, ripe with intelligence but it is it's thinking human heart that makes her one of my favorite authors. I have not yet decided if I have a favorite, as they are all wonderful. The book is available from Tilt Press for 8.00 dollars, as Sarah says on her blog only 36 cents a poem. A steal at that price. I give it two thumbs up. Check it out.

I realized yesterday that when I archived my old posts several links were lost, so I am going through the archives restoring a few links and reposting a few older posts. I am out of town in New Mexico this week, and hopefully will be taking off Friday to spend a long weekend with my husband. I had a relaxing weekend and spent it being home, working a bit in the garden, cleaning, reading, and working, truly working on my chapbook. I took one of the those Facebook quizzes that had you list poets/writers that were influential to you, after I took the quiz, I tagged several of my poet friends and asked them each to recommend someone to read. I am always reading, not like normal people, from beginning to end, but more like allowing the fates to pick for me, I open the book and where it naturally opens, is where I start. I do this for poetry and for my Bible, something my Gran told me once, that she let God pick what she needed to hear. My Gran left me her study Bible, I keep it in my desk at work, and I find myself reaching for, allowing it to open, and reading, I find her notes in the margins, folded slips of papers, and it is like she is there with me still holding my hand. Below is the list of poetry books I bought on the recommendations of my friends. I have read at least a couple of poems out of each, and will be reading more in my fit and spurt way over the next couple of months. I bought these five books plus three others for less than 40 dollars including shipping at Abesbooks.com.

Ham on Rye ( Charles Bukowski--John and Jacob)

Weather of Words: Poetic Invention ( Mark Strand--Larina)

A New Selected Poems: (Galway Kinnell--Jayne)

The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992 ( Jack Gilbert--Chrissie)

Four Questions of Melancholy: New & Selected Poems ( Tomaz Salamun--Sarah)

Flutter Poetry Journal



The April issue of Flutter is out featuring fantastic poetry by Elizabeth H. Barbato, Andrea DeAngelis, Lori Morgan Flood, Allison Rae Hipple, Carla Martin-Wood, Ashok Niyogi, Rod Peckman, Fariel Shafee and Christian Ward. Also photography by me. Flutter, currenly in its 3rd year of publication is a on-line journal published by friend and fellow poet Sandy Benitez. This is a beautiful journal and I have been fortunate to have had my own poetry appear in this journal on two occasions. Sandy is in the active military and has continued to produce this journal through a tour of duty in Iraq, raising two-young children and two very rambunctious puppies. She is also a great friend to me, supports my work by reading poem after after poem, listening to my poetic angst and encouraging me when I am in a poetic slump. I think she rocks. With this issue she is also venturing into the print world, a print copy of the January 2009 issue may also be purchased at Lulu. I bought my copy today, this is a beautiful journal.

Blog Temporarily On-Hiatus



Am in the process of reworking blog--will be back.