Taking Time (A LONG Time) to Smell the Flowers

I fell for this little daisy-hugger the other day and had to share him/her with you:

“Where’er he dwells, he dwells alone,
Except himself has chattels none,
Well satisfied to be his own whole Treasure.”
—From “The Snail” by William Cowper

[Photo by Audrey Green.]

Life Instructions

The nest in the photograph is atop a young oak tree across the street, spread across branches that aren’t much more than twigs. What I am unable to show by camera, though, is how amazingly minuscule the nest is. I could hold two of them in the palm of one hand.

It’s not a new nest, and when I recall how many terrific winds have gusted through the neighborhood this year alone, the engineering of the bird home is all the more remarkable. Whose is it? Will they be returning to it, as so many birds do?

I’ll start monitoring it. As the oak begins to bud and leaf, I expect that’s when the home will be reinhabited. I’ll keep you posted.

Until then, I aim to follow these wise words from poet Mary Oliver, and I encourage you to do the same:

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
—from “Sometimes,” in Red Bird by Mary Oliver

Heart Attack

It’s that time of year again. As Valentine’s Day draws near, businesses of every kind try to capitalize on our affection obligations. Hearts abound—on cards, in jewelry, as the shape of cookies and pizzas. At the sight of hearts, hopeful recipients quiver with expectation; gift-givers quiver over the appropriateness of their chosen gifts.

At the sight of hearts, I fondly remember a certain pooch. Valentine’s Day can be far in the distance and I still see hearts everywhere I look—like the absent tree branch (above) I noticed during a January walk.

My beloved canine had a heart-shaped brindle patch on her left side. Children in the ’hood found it magical and often asked how and why we tattooed her. [I thought then that this was just one of those funky thought processes of young kids. I’ve since discovered that some people really do TATTOO their dogs. Ugh.]

Anyway, you’ve one more day to arrange that perfect Valentine. Here’s some humor from the Appalachians to get your creative juices flowing:

Lines for Valentines
by Anne Shelby, from Appalachian Studies

If you won’t be my valentine
The moon can’t glow. The stars can’t shine.
The corn won’t grow and the forks won’t tine
If you won’t be my valentine.

If you won’t be my valentine
I’ll hold my breath. I’ll pout. I’ll pine.
I’ll stomp and spit and swear and whine
If you won’t be my valentine.

If you won’t be my valentine
I’ll drink a pint of turpentine.
I’ll hang myself on a kudzu vine.
I’ll exhaust myself in nervous rhyme.
I’m liable to commit a crime
If you won’t be my valentine.

If you will be my valentine
On chocolate cherries we shall dine
And drink our fill of warm red wine
And not get up till half past nine

And step out light and dress up fine
And seek what’s silly and sublime
And we’ll be happy all the time.
If you will be my valentine.

News from Home

My mother just mailed another obituary to me—the second this week. Death has become an expected topic in her letters and in our weekly phone conversations.

At first, the deceased were the age of my grandparents and parents. Now they’re my age, too.

It’s sobering news. Reminds me to take nothing for granted. And reminds me of these lines from Billy Collins’ poem, “Obituaries”:

And all the survivors huddle at the end
under the roof of a paragraph
as if they had sidestepped the flame of death.

[Death in the Sickroom by Edvard Munch.]

A Love Primer

 





















“…To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go. ”

—from “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver


[Art by Jamie Wyeth.]

To Have and Have Not: The New Equal Rights

As you may have gathered from my reading list, I’ve been bingeing on Wendell Berry’s poetry. He writes transcendently about place, nature, farming, food, land conservation, and life cycles. If you’re unfamiliar with this Kentucky icon, I encourage you to get acquainted with him. (Start with Mark Bittman’s overview in Humanities, “The Thing (or Things) About Wendell Berry,” or read Berry’s 2012 Jefferson Lecture, “It All Turns on Affection.”)

Here’s a snippet from “The Reassurer,” published in Berry’s 1994 Entries. It made me chuckle when I read it because it might just as well have been written today.

from his smile they understand that the fortunate have
a right to their fortunes, that the unfortunate have
a right to their misfortunes, and that these are
equal rights.

A Cat By Any Other Name…Is A Cat Is A Cat Is A Cat?

Most of my pets have suffered through and recognized a multitude of monikers. (Except my husband’s Burmese. She came with an unfortunate name from which we never deviated. This I deeply regret. She deserved better.) I used to feel embarrassed about the affectionate names I gave my pets—even a little ashamed.

However, all my animal reading of late informs me I’m hardly alone in this matter. Wherever the lives of humans and critters intersect, so, too, do quirky identifiers.

Take my first cat, for example. She had NO name when I adopted her. After a round of serious decision-making, I gave her the nickname of one of my siblings: Precious. And it fit. Her tiny, snow-white body of ultrafine fur, her peridot eyes, her translucent pink ears, her troubled past and ultimate rescue—all pointed to a fragile creature whose quiet nature made her seem more of a porcelain figurine than a growing kitten. She truly was Precious. And though she never outgrew this name, she grew in to a few others: Miss P., Missy, Preciouroni (she LOVED pepperoni), Preciouronious, White Thang (after the tune “Wild Thing” and because one vet we took her to labeled her file with a large “W,” meaning she was “wild and uncontrollable”; oddly, this held true only for that particular vet clinic), Miss Thang, Blanche, Blanche du Chat, The Empathy Cat. Her Whiteness tolerated every nickname we dished out.

I thought we did well by her until I read “The Naming of Cats” by T. S. Eliot. The poet contends every cat should be given three formal names: 1) The common, sensible name—the one used daily; 2) A particular name, one that’s peculiar to your cat and shared by no other feline—one that’s used, perhaps, only on paper; and 3) The name only your cat knows and will never confess. As the poem goes:

“When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name…”

Oh my. I had no idea so much was at stake. I clearly failed my felines.

Some people think names don’t concern animals. It’s our tone of voice that motivates them to respond to us. “Pickle” or “Pumpkin” makes no difference; it’s how we say it that matters. But this line of thinking ignores both the intelligence of animals and their individual personalities.

Take Precious’s best friend, for example. When my husband gave the kitten to me, she could fit in the palm of my hand. (She could fit on top of a doorknob, too, but that’s another story.) Whenever I touched her, she purred—like the tiniest of racing engines. I named her InstaPurr, and for her entire life, anyone could rev her motor with the slightest touch.

InstaPurr garnered a long list of nicknames: Purr, Purrbator, Purrly Girl, Pumpkin, Dirtball (she was NOT a clean cat in her youth—ignored the litterbox and showed no interest in personal grooming), Sweet Pea, Binge and Purrge (yup—she ate, she vomited; it seemed like a game for her, her way of challenging me: “Ha! See if you can clean THIS up!”). She took all her names in stride save one. One word could throw her mood and incite her to yowl: Mabel.

Call her Mabel and she’d immediately do the opposite of whatever she was engaged in: jump out of your arms, walk away from nuzzling your ankles, stop purring. We couldn’t believe it; thought it a fluke at first. But soon we realized we could use the name to our advantage. Whenever Purr started to do something bad (she was the most ill-behaved pet we ever had), we would just say “Mabel” to her and she’d stop. “No,” “Don’t,” “Knock it off,” and every other typical reprimand had no effect on the cat, but call her “Mabel” and she’d retreat.

I don’t know what she heard in the name, but her reaction was clear and innate. It MEANT something to her. Purr was not a Mabel, regardless of our intonation. Purr taught us that words matter, even to nonhumans. Naming a creature demands thoughtfulness and vision. And if that creature is a feline, think Eliot and not Shakespeare—for the feline expects a “deep and inscrutable singular Name.”

[Photographs are from Freekibble, which you can access at the right of Lull to feed shelter cats with the click of a mouse.]

A Remedy for Loneliness

It’s National Poetry Month again. Wanted to share this Jessie Haas poem that she crafted from a true story. (For me, the richer experience is imagining the poem rather than the poem itself.)

Company for Breakfast
Ashton Timson lived alone, up there on the hill.
Bred good work stock.
One year a mare died on him.
Ashton raised her colt on a bottle.
It did all right.
Some folks came up to visit one morning.
Near the house they heard talking.
“Ashton must have company!”
They knocked
He came to the door.
Behind him in the kitchen,
Was that good-sized workhorse colt.
“I was lonely, and so was he,” says Ashton,
“So I asked him in to breakfast.”

1940s, Williamsville, Vermont

—from Hoofprints, by Jessie Haas
 

[Pic is from America’s Horse Daily, which warns “Television is not recommended for foals.”]

Connecting in an iSociety

Last week I had the good fortune of visiting an elementary school where one class spurred their third- and fourth-grade brethren to raise money for the local humane society. “Just $1” was all they asked from everyone.

They ended up taking in $1,000.

I joined a humane society employee in thanking the children and introducing them to two of the dogs awaiting adoption. Every child was allowed to approach and pet the setter-like pups we had.

The children were sweet and well-behaved; many wanted to regale us with stories—mostly tragic—of their families’ dogs. One youngster, though, really stood out to me.

She was part of the Special Education class and her teacher held her during her introduction. The sprite’s dark hair spiked out in fine braids and red bows, matching her striking red-and-white ensemble and nicely framing her inverted teardrop-shaped face. Her large, round eyes popped when she came within an arm’s length of the pooch. I thought at first that the situation was too much for her. As her teacher repeatedly (and somewhat exasperatedly) encouraged her to say something, an altogether different kind of communication was starting to occur: As the pooch stretched her tiny head toward the girl, the girl’s round eyes had changed from surprise and anxiety to…what? Some kind of understanding? The two youngsters, canine and human, seemed to be having a soundless conversation together. I told the teacher the girl was already saying something though we couldn’t hear her. Thankfully, the teacher relaxed and allowed the child a few more moments with the dog.

After all the children had met the dogs, and as the presentation of the $1,000 donation was about to begin, I scanned the audience of children and noticed the little “red-and-white” girl in the back row, just staring into space. What was she thinking or seeing? I watched her long enough for her to notice me and lock eyes. I smiled and waved; she beamed and waved back.

I wanted to scoop her up and take her home with me. I wanted her to become best friends with the little pooch at the end of my leash, having a lifetime of endless, wordless conversations together. I wanted, at least, to always remember the calm and wonder that came over her when she and the pooch looked into each other’s gaze.

I thought about this encounter when I first saw Marshall Soulful Jones perform his poem “Touchscreen” (watch the video below—I promise you it’s worth your time).

I think Jones would agree that in our iSociety, the invisible thread between a little girl and a pup trumps every kind of technological connection we idolize.

Beyond the Divide

Compassion
by Miller Williams, from The Ways We Touch: Poems

Have compassion for everyone you meet
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit,
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.

[Photograph by Gordon Parks.]

Obligations of a Pet at Christmastime

I don’t have a dog. Or a horse or a cat. Not even a turtle or a fish.

When I was a kid sans live companion animals, I collected figurines and stuffed animals to fill the void. Today I read about them.

My current read is Christmas Dogs: A Literary Companion, which opens with a litany of the unfortunate results of mixing dogs with Christmas—white puppies slobbering on the red bows tied ’round their necks that soon turn said white canines into pink ones, dogs who treat the indoor tree as an outdoor one, dogs intent on redecorating the tree.

My pooch never caused a problem at Christmas. She enjoyed herding us when we brought in the tree and when we took it out; she displayed rapt attention and excitement whenever we opened a present intended for her. Otherwise, she didn’t touch or eat or bother a thing. Perfect pooch.

One of our cats, on the other hand, made Christmas difficult every year of her too-short life. She licked and chewed the wrappings: paper and bows. She ripped them open if she hadn’t already eaten them. Not only did she make a mess and endanger her life, she also gave us a peek at our presents and spoiled the surprise I so love about Christmas morning. What’s more, my family’s gifts are as much about presentation as they are about appropriate giving. The paper and bows my imp of a cat destroyed were often handmade, impressive creations.

We were soon trained to keep all presents on tree boughs and atop the mantel, out of her reach. (Yes, I know she could have climbed the tree to reach the gifts hidden in it, but she chose not to for some reason. For that matter, she was such an incredible jumper she could easily have scaled the mantel and shoved every present to the floor. I was grateful in both cases that she exhibited restraint.)

Obviously, our pets’ perceptions of Christmas pageantry often differ from ours. Do you have a holiday memory or anecdote involving your animal companions? Won’t you please share it with Lull readers in the comments section?

I’ll leave you with a poem from one of my favorite children’s book authors.

Christmas Dog
from Falling Up by Shel Silverstein

Tonight’s my first night as a watchdog,
And here it is Christmas Eve.
The children are sleepin’ all cozy upstairs,
While I’m guardin’ the stockin’s and tree.

What’s that now—footsteps on the rooftop?
Could it be a cat or a mouse?
Who’s this down the chimney?
A thief with a beard—
And a big sack for robbin’ the house?

I’m barkin’, I’m growlin’, I’m bitin’ his butt.
He howls and jumps back in his sleigh.
I scare his strange horses, they leap in the air.
I’ve frightened the whole bunch away.

Now the house is all peaceful and quiet again,
The stockin’s are safe as can be.
Won’t the kiddies be glad when they wake up tomorrow
And see how I’ve guarded the tree.

[Dog photo from A Usable Past.]

Resentment: The Poison You Take While Waiting for the Other Person to Die

In the (so far) delightful Walking Ollie, novelist Stephen Foster admits: “I thrive on having something to resent.”

I don’t. That’s not to say that I easily let go of resentments, but I believe it’s futile and harmful to foster them. Whenever a resentment resists my attempt to fling it away, I reread this poem by humorist Robert Crane. You may find it instructional as well.

a pocket full of resentments
from Cranelegs Pond the Blook
i used to collect resentments like loose change in my front, right, pants pocket.
i’d never tell a soul either, especially the object of my discontent.
nope, i’d just accumulate them—little secret silent scars.
it’s what i did, very well!
yeah, in my front, right pocket.
and what a great place to store them.
i could wash my pants a thousand times, and they’d still be right there for me to pluck out and commiserate with whenever i was feeling taken for granted or put upon.

that is, until i met keaton.

i inadvertently did a wise thing.
i told her about this little fetish.
and then she advertently did a wiser thing.
i don’t know how or when, but she cut tiny holes in all my pockets.
you know, small enough for resentments to fall through, but not pocket change or my prized chapstick.
i can’t even find the holes, but i know they’re there somewhere, because now when i reach in to grab one or two resentments, they’re gone, leaving me empty handed in the bad energy department.
it’s refreshing really.
almost minty.

my only regret, i wish i had said something about this habit sooner rather than later.
hmm ... regrets.
now maybe that’s something i could collect?
i’d have a basement full in no time flat, that’s for sure.

Wishing you a resentment-free Thursday …

[Art by Anne Taintor.]

Bird Expectations

When we first moved to the Bluegrass, the long stretch of property behind our apartment building was separated from the next property by a variety of large bushes, undergrowth, and a line of tall trees.

A utility company butchered the trees, stripping them of most of their branches and their magnificent height. Later, our new landlord removed all the bushes and undergrowth to erect a fence between the properties.

When I think about habitat loss, it usually involves expanded agricultural endeavors, housing and commercial developments, or natural disasters. What had happened in my own (albeit rented) backyard was no different, though. The homes of who knows which species or how many of them were obliterated in a matter of days by good intentions.

I thought more about habitat loss recently when I read that some migratory birds return to the nests they build, year after year. Not just the geographic area they lived in, but the VERY NEST.

What happens to birds who, after traveling hundreds or thousands of miles, return to find their nests gone—or the nest and the whole bird neighborhood have vanished? I suspect they start over again in some cases. In others, though, I wonder how much farther the birds have to travel to find an appropriate environment for their dwelling. And do they have the energy and search capacity to sustain the journey? (Yeah, I could research these questions, but as I write with pen to paper, the sirens keep warning that a tornado is approaching. I’ve shut the computer down until the scary weather moves on.)

Worse than discovering that your nest—which you built with heart and engineering genius—is gone must be the realization that your entire species is gone; only you remain.

Last night I opened the latest issue of Poetry magazine to read one poem before going to bed. Strangely, it illustrated some of my ruminations about birds and extinction, despair and yearning.

Bird Left Behind
by Sophie Cabot Black

As for her, the circumstances must be ordinary
And so the return. Door unlocked. The path mowed
Right to the oiled gate; the pasture

Cleared of stone and alder. All untouched
Enough to enter. The man or woman
Off down the valley or working above

Treeline. No other sound but a few strays
Hurrying through the dusk as if the end
Will begin, certain and with nothing

More to say. She does not know she does not know.
Having come back to find her kind
And none being left she took herself up

Into a tree unclear what to do next save only
Sing the song she wanted sung back to her.

[Top pic from Hummingbirds at Home.]

WordGazing: Weather Worries

At the bottom of the television screen last night, I saw this:

Flood warning…don’t drown.

Well, thanks for the encouragement, I thought. I wasn’t planning to.

But then I saw the warning in its entirety. In the case of rising waters, viewers were told to seek higher ground. Otherwise…

“If traveling, remember turn around, don’t drown.”

Could this be the newsroom’s nod to Poetry Month?

[Pic from LEX18.com.]

The Marble Truth of Easter

As joy envelops those observing Easter, the pastel colors and promise of resurrection can leave a bittersweet taste with those suffering from grief and loss. Here’s a twist on today’s holiday, a perspective that really spoke to me.

Easter

is my season
of defeat.

Though all
is green

and death
is done,

I feel alone.
As if the stone

rolled off
from the head

of the tomb
is lodged

in the doorframe
of my room,

and everyone
I’ve ever loved

lives happily
just past

my able reach.
And each time

Jesus rises
I’m reminded

of this marble
fact:

they are not
coming back.

by Jill Alexander Essbaum, from the January 2011 issue of Poetry
[Painting by Abbott H. Thayer.]

Not A Day Goes By…

It was this month last year that my husband and I took our beloved canine to the specialty wonder doctor we thought would turn her health around.

We waited at a lunch joint (called “Poochie’s”) across the street from the animal hospital while the doc conducted a battery of tests and MRIs. We returned to the vet’s office only to see the wonder doc in tears.

She revealed her diagnosis slowly, opening with news we already knew: “She’s the sweetest, most loving dog. No matter what indignities I imposed upon her, she was patient and kept giving me her paw or nosing me for a pet.” Then the doc told us what our regular vets had assured us wasn’t happening: “She’s in a great deal of pain.” The wonder doc proceeded to tell us all the options we had—none of them hopeful, all of them traumatizing.

We made what we thought was the humane choice. We sat on the hospital floor, hugging and holding our first and only dog while the doc administered a drug to calm her. After some time, the doc asked us, “Are you ready for me to give her the final drug?”

How do you answer that?

After our initial bewilderment, we nodded our heads to give the go-ahead. In seconds, she was gone. And we headed home without her—our shadow, our herder, our I’ll-make-everything-all-right-for-you-always companion.

The subtraction of her presence from our days felt surreal. As Donald Hall wrote in “Distressed Haiku”:

You think that their
dying is the worst
thing that could happen.

Then they stay dead.

For years, I had counted on our pooch breaking all the longevity records and living longer than the average age for dogs of her size. But then what?

Was she ever going to reach that magic number where I would say, “Ah, yes. That’s a long-enough life. I’m ready to let her go now”? Not likely. Her passing would always be too soon.

Every day I half expect to see her again, the Heart O’ My Heart. Every day I have to remind myself that after her untimely death, she stayed dead.

Note: We have precious few photos of our pooch because cameras scared her.

Opening Day for Poetry

Yesterday was opening day for major league baseball. Today begins a month devoted to poetry and poets and their fans. Seems fitting that I just read this excerpt from an interview with Etheridge Knight:

“I died in Korea from a shrapnel wound, and narcotics resurrected me. I died in 1960 from a prison sentence, and poetry brought me back to life.”

On the other hand, just this morning I read this in Mary Karr’s memoir, Lit:

“[M]y junior high principal had actually warned that any girl aiming to be a poet was doomed to become—I shit you not—no more than a common prostitute.”

[Sidenote: Mary Karr studied with Etheridge Knight in his Free People’s Poetry Workshop.]

Well there you go. Poetry lies somewhere between life-saver and criminal. Your choice.

[Art by Picasso.]

First Hues of Hope

A dear friend recently sent me this poem, which I’ve been wanting to share with you. Today seems appropriate, after spotting my first crocuses of the season.

“Even as the snow fell
Through it came whispering
A breath of spring!”
—Kobayashi Issa

Mark the Day with Poetry

Late Fragment
by Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

May the Spirits Be with You

Theme in Yellow
by Carl Sandburg

I SPOT the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

[For more Halloween poetry, visit the Poetry Foundation.]