Stay Open at the Top (dedicated to Jackie Mott Brown)

This is a revised version of a post from years ago
 

A while ago I attended my first art class since junior high school days

"Look with new eyes,” the teacher urged
"Colors don’t have to make sense"
"Don't be afraid to be tacky" 
"When you think you’re finished, it’s just the beginning" 
“Stay open at the top”
 
Scattered across the table were tubes of acrylic paints —
bold reds and pretty pinks
lime green and forest green
a yellow so lemony it made my teeth hurt
orange and eggplant
sixteen shades of blue

I freaked out

Then I pulled myself together and
painted a bright red spiral in the middle of my canvas

It looked like a squiggly piece of pasta

A few minutes later I
painted a few yellow circles
next to the red pasta

I painted lots and lots of circles —
the full moon
over and over and over
   
The woman sitting next to me looked over at my canvas
“What beautiful suns,” she said
And I said “thank you”

I felt like the little prince in the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
when he draws an elephant being digested
by a boa constrictor and the well-meaning
relatives mistake it for a drawing of a hat
   
But I didn’t correct my sister-painter
because she had used the word beautiful

She didn't say “you stink at this”
and for that I was grateful
even though my moons
would now be suns forever more

I Hold Nothing Back

This is a piece I wrote many many years ago . . . .

Sometimes when it’s really late at night and I’m lying in bed and I can’t sleep, I worry. I just let myself go. I hold nothing back. I worry about my life and everybody else’s life, including people I don’t even know, and after I’ve worked myself up with all this worrying I realize I am totally 100% awake and then I worry about how I’ll ever fall asleep and I worry about what will happen to me if I don’t fall asleep and soon my head hurts from so much worry and I realize I have to force myself to think about something else and sometimes all I can come up with are more worries which, naturally, doesn’t help, but other times I wise up and hit upon something useful.

Which is what happened just last night.
   
My head was throbbing from all my worries but I turned on the lamp and reached for my pencil and notebook and started to make a list of everything I could think of that would describe a person who had more worries than I did, a really peculiar, verging-on-unsavory type of person, and this is what I came up with:
       
Cannot pronounce the letter P
Feels faint at the sight of a strand of spaghetti
Was once engaged to a man named Pinky Carbunkle (had to call him Inky)
Has worn only purple underwear since the age of 12           
Won a blue ribbon 3 years in a row for her beet marmalade
Knows absolutely nothing about anything
Writes the “Misery” column for the local newspaper
Stores her diary in the flour bin for safe keeping
Had 6 brothers who all died under mysterious circumstances
Steals catalogs out of her neighbors’ mailboxes
Carves unidentifiable profiles out of olive pits 

Then I was so tired I shut the light and went to sleep and this morning I felt refreshed and rejuvenated —creative, even — and only mildly troubled by the memory of a dream about getting a ticket for sitting in a car that wasn’t moving and trying to reason with the police officer who said “Is that so, little lady, is that so?”

pink-icing cupcakes

pink is the color of cupcake icing
neither strawberry-flavored
nor raspberry
something in the almost-cherry family
but not quite cherry

pink is the color of cupcake icing
that doesn't taste like anything real

my mother never bought
pink-icing cupcakes
and she never made them herself

that would require
a working relationship with an oven

(and an oven
that worked)

but in any case
she wouldn't buy
pink-icing cupcakes
for my birthday
or my sister's birthday

because she had an aversion
to the color pink

it wasn't a pre-feminist thing
it’s just that she had certain likes
and certain dislikes

and she disliked colorful colors

my mother liked brown
any shade of brown —
taupe    sand    sienna    bark
chestnut    tan    almond    camel
coffee

if it was brown
my mother approved

so we would have had chocolate-icing cupcakes
if we were having cupcakes

but we never had cupcakes

we had cheesecake ….

…. from the deli

rowing our boats

sunday morning,
my sister and I
sit on the bedroom floor
and row

we miss summer camp
but it is
only October

our room is cold
but still
we put on our bathing suits

we use wooden rulers for oars
and sing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore”

my sister asks me to braid her hair
and I do
even though it is pixie-short

she asks if we will have
roasted marshmallows
at the cookout that night

i assure her we will

everything is possible
before our parents wake up

two young girls
rowing our boats
on the lake of dreams

 

Note: This is a revised version of a piece written many years ago

blueberry picking at high noon

the radio said expect a breeze
but there isn't one
and only my baseball cap
for a slice of shade

i'm wearing a pale gray silk blouse
so silly
but at least it is lightweight

i pick from one bush and then another
not wanting any one spot
to grow too bare
always moving
slow
but moving

bees buzz nearby
dragonflies mate
then whizz away

it's important to be careful
and not separate families

these 3 berries look like sisters
i pick them all
so no one feels rejected
or lonely

here: a mom, a pop, 6 little babies —
plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop
into the bucket they go

filling it up to the brim
taking time
there is lots of time to take

and on the table
next to the cash box
a pitcher of lemonade
cold and sweet
and only 50 cents

on the way home
eating berries
my fingers don’t turn blue 
my tongue doesn't turn blue
not even my teeth turn blue

a perfect afternoon

and there were no bears 










 Note: this is a revised version of a piece written many years ago

Most Plucky

I've shared this before (and in more than one version) but for some reason I want to share it again, today. It is semi-true and semi-not-true. 


On the long bus ride taking a few dozen soon-to-be-campers from the Bronx to the Berkshires, I accidentally sit on my eyeglasses and they break in half. I don’t tell anyone. I just dig my sunglasses out of my backpack and put them on. I keep them on, day and night, all summer long. 

I have a wonderful time at camp. Everyone is so nice to me. The girls in my cabin take turns being my best best friend. They fight over who will get to sit next to me in the dining hall or around the camp fire. When I say I don’t want to play volleyball or softball or dodge ball nobody thinks anything of it; they ask “Would you like me to sit with you and we could just talk?” 

When I trip over small rocks or fall into gopher holes no one laughs. I have two boyfriends who swear their undying love to me. Everyone laughs at my jokes. No one tells me to shut up when I sing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” out of tune. Every morning my counselor asks if she can braid my hair — she asks like it would be a favor to her, so I say yes. 

On the last night of camp there’s a big Awards Ceremony. Fancy-script certificates are given out for Most Athletic, Most Musical, Most Hot Dogs Eaten, Most Letters Written Home. I don’t expect to get anything. It’s enough to have had such a wonderful summer with so many good friends. But then I hear my name being called and I stand up, adjust my sunglasses so they won’t slip down my smiling cheeks, and walk to the front of the dining hall to receive my award. 

Everyone stands up and claps for me, all the campers and the counselors, too. The camp director hands me a certificate and makes a little speech. He says they’ve never had a camper like me before: so brave and inspiring, so lacking in self-pity. He says I’m the Most Plucky girl he’s ever met. 

And that’s when I realize that everybody thinks I’m blind.

small poems, written since January 2019

new year
same obsessions
the amaryllis blooms

stone lion
broken paw . . . .
weeks since i passed this way

snow falls
i remind myself
nothing is expected of me

i had a thought
but then
i forgot it

sometimes i think
the mirror
laughs at me

wondering…
what is the difference between
me and a cloud

listen
under the snow
a flower is being born

long ago
i was here
this tree was also here

now we are older
we laugh more
we laugh everyday

in the dream
i cook with seeds
flowers bloom inside me

today
the windows are open
easy to touch the clouds

early morning walk
birds birds birds
that is all … that is everything

four months
since i walked this path
i hardly recognize myself

early morning walk
a herd of busses stand
tail to trunk

waiting//waiting//waiting//being

descendants of ancient rocks
we turn our weary faces
toward the sun

left at the curb
my neighbor’s red silk dancing shoes ….
bits and bits of snow

passing the old-old house
hollyhocks
just a memory

tree stump — forgive me
i can’t remember
when you were a tree

dry fields
muddy fields
always the cows

lighting incense
an offering to the
midnight moon

who would i be
if my grandfather
had played the fiddle?

abandoned shed
splintering ….
daisies here and there

wooden bowl
stained purple
last summer’s berries

waiting in line so long
the bread gets moldy
(bakery dream)

going down Linn Street
remembering my sister long ago
in her pink suede hot-pants

walking under magnolias i am lighter

my neighbor’s yard
a Buddha statue ….
i stop grumbling

sharing the room
with a big black fly
this won’t end well

walking a path
around the rug
an inward journey

last night
the moon and me
later  …. just the moon

early morning walk
determined not to find haiku ….
i don’t

zooming around the room
a great big fly
i hesitate to yawn widely

early morning walk
irises irises irises
no heron

my room
designed to fit inside a 
haiku

the stillness of
5:30 a.m.
just me and my heartbeat

peonies pushing past the post


under my new wide-brimmed hat
walking farther
faster


almost-summer walk
a pair of ice skates abandoned
by the creek

little detours around each puddle

my  tiny haiku notebook
still swollen with
tuesday's rain 

black bear in the road
turns out to be 
an overturned trash can 

a new car
in my neighbor's driveway . . . .
i'm just curious 

--

early morning walk
the air heavy with just-about-to-rain

a neighbor has planted a water fountain in her front yard
gurgle gurgle

another overturned plastic cup
the ants go in the ants go out

-- 

just before sleep ...

"my dear" she says

inside my head ...

and i sleep all night

wrapped in her laugh 

how cleverly
we avoid one another
the squirrels and i 


it was a ho-hum walk
until you arrived
! cardinal ! 

late August morning
a cool breeze
the scent of loss

old friend
i didn't recognize you
until i saw your earrings 

pretending
i don’t mind . . . .
rainy day