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echoes of Autumn…
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voices like leaves rustle and
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scatter to the wind,
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yet another poet’s pen
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has sadly been set aside.
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a wordless farewell…
like the brightest leaves they fall
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when their season calls.
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but just as the memories
of true love always lingers,
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creativity
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and their inspired poetry
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forever remain.
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dedicated to thesilentfingers, Tanumoy Biswas,
Memoirs of a Dragon, cubby and Tiffany Coffman. ty, all.
a song, video and words to explain my silence in December.
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the too familiar turns and bends…
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and statue still are the trees standing sentry tall
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astride this white and weary Winter road,
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my incessant journey of so many dreary and crippling seasons
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recalling the somber memories etched decades deep
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in gnarled bark and devoted wood.
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how the infinite canopy arches in graceful bows,
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laden branches kneel in gratitude to the peaceful sleep of snow.
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i follow the trailing in frail voices of family i’ve lost,
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of those i long to remember
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swirling in the sliver of pause between
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this world and another.
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there is no hesitation in
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passing through the Gate of Melancholia,
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i wrap my solitude close in December’s silent shroud.
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disowning my voice in sequestered quiet honoring memories now,
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turning ever inward bowing in divine gratitude to those who
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found me alone along this snowy road.
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everyday will be a random
posting of daily events or
memories of my daily life
that don’t translate
well into poetry
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I should have known when she spent an entire summer weekend dutifully making notations in pencil on the back of every page of a very neat black clasped, inch thck manuscript. Curious, I inquired, thinking it was something she had written. As she slowly wrapped her left arm around the stack of paper, protective like any good editor and gathering it closer as she lay flat on the pull out futon, answering in a very quiet but deliberate voice,
‘It’s Anna’s autobiography, she asked me to read it and take notes.’
I sat there in my favorite writing chair in the room we shared when she sleeps over, mouth slightly ajar and more than a little dumbfounded. Cbear, my daughter was 12 last year.
I guess I should have known then.
Maybe it should have dawned on me a few months later when she had her choice of languages to study, after testing into one of the better high schools that includes a new advanced 7th and 8th grade college prep program.
‘I decided to continue Chinese. The United States and China wiil be doing a joint space venture someday and I want to be there.’
Spoken so matter of factly, I could only stammer,
‘Uh…sure, that makes a lot of sense Cbear.’
We had spoken about the possibility of her learning French and how it might inspire her writing, poetry and the blossoming creative side of her personality. She’s been learning Chinese for 5 years now, about as long as she’s expressed the burning desire to be an astro-physicist. Stephen Hawking is one of her favorite reads.
It should have dawned on me, right then and there.
I mean, how dense of a father can I be to not realize that my little girl is growing up in leaps and bounds so profound I am continually playing catchup, constantly trying to assimilate and absorb this not so sudden reality? Any comparison, any attempt to relate to how I was at her age has long ago become obsolete becaue there is none.
It feels as though I’m flying by the seat of my parental pants, trying to grasp a shooting star.
And it’s not that I’m attempting to hold her back, that would be as selfish and unfair as it would be impossible but….I just keep wondering where these 13 years went, I worry that her childhood is going by too quickly.
I wonder if she feels the same whooooosh! of time that I do.
Cbear lives with her mom and as a child of a divorce is about as well adjusted as you could expect a kid to be. There are the inevitable day to day details I really regret missing over the years with our every Wednesday, every other weekend sleepover arrangement, but when we’re together we talk about stuff, real stuff.
She and I have always talked, our conversations began when she was very young as my way to resolve conflict, when she occasionally misbehaved and needed some guidance and direction. It was very purposeful, a night and day difference in how conflict was so called ‘resolved’ when I was a kid, the back of the hand injustice I was given as guidance by my parents.
And if there ever was a conversation that
crystalized just how grown up this 13 year
old daughter of mine is now, it is the one
we had a few weeks ago standing in the
kitchen of our apartment after school.
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Soon after moving into Scout’s apartment, we did an assesment of what we now owned together. With both of us being good cooks fond of our own special pots and utensils, the large but poorly designed kitchen that held promise, needed a complete redesign. I cooked professionally for 4 years, and being borderline OCD I designed it to resemble a restaurant kitchen, lots of stainless steel, almost everything exposed, organized and easily accesible.
Every utensil, pot, saute pan and dish had its own place.
I took the entire kitchen down to the studs on the walls and floors and started from scratch, doing most of the work myself. The project took about 6 months, and there were days we wondered if we had bitten off more than we could chew.
But now all these years later, our kitchen like kitchens in most people’s homes is the hub of ours too, the place where the day to day life of our family begins and ends, where lists are made, food is shared and conversations had. Ours is not a sit down kitchen with a table, but it is very comfortable with a large counter where we sit and eat, work on laptops, and chatter about our day.
And if you’ve been to other people’s homes for a dinner or party, the kitchen is usually where all the adults eventually find themselves, the magnet of proximity to food and beverages is just too appealing. So in retrospect, it was fitting that Cbear and I had this converstaion in our kitchen that night.
I knew the minute she began talking this was no ordinary conversation, turning off the burners on the stove I turned around to face her eye to eye, heart to heart because what she was telling me needed every bit of my attention and careful consideration. We spoke for about an hour, I listened a lot, I asked questions and she was as direct and truthful and matter of fact as I’ve ever known her to be. After I took her head in my hands, kissed her forehead as I always do, we hugged for a long time before she returned to her bedroom to resume her homework.
I stood there for a long while letting the warmth and wonder of the moment wash over me, shaking my head some, tearing up a little too. I thought about the first time this person, this now young adult and I first met, in the delivery room after the horribly traumatic ordeal of the emergency C section had subsided, where it was very touch and go for both her and her mom, when the nurse finally handed me this tiny bundle of blankets with a baby inside, how tiny this new life felt in my large hands and the truly beautific smile the nurse had on her face as she told me my daughter and her mom were healthy.
I can recognize that tranquil, clear eyed matter of fact innocence now, it was there when I looked in her hazel eyes that night, as i kissed her forehead for the first time and just before the nurse came back to take her to her mom, the promise I whispered in her little ear, that the injustice I experienced as a kid by hand and from the mouths of my parents, would never be experienced by her. Ever. It would end with me.
And I stood there a while longer, eventually turning on the burners again to resume dinner for us both thinking about promises, that we don’t hear or read much about them these days, these days of instantly unfriending someone, where divorce is so commonplace that more than half of Cbear’s schoolmates are living in single parent households, where commitment and devotion seem like such an ancient concept.
I made two promises early in my life, one I broke staying five years longer than I should have in my frst marriage, a marriage that had become loveless, and in hindsight a promise made to fix what my parents broke, my childlike attempt to repair my own family.
I kept the promise I made to Cbear, easily the most important thing I’ve ever accomplished in this life and the woooosh! of time brought me such a profound and divine humility and gratitude that she wanted our living arangements to change,
that she wanted to spend more time with her dad.
We decided a week here and a week with her mom would be best for all of us, and during the first week we were talking about stuff again. I’ve been revealing a little about my life to her when I was sure she was ready. We were looking at old photos of her when she was a baby and I told her of the promise I made to her that night as I held her for the first time.
And I could see it was she who was listening quite intently this time, and when I finished she looked at me eye to eye, heart to heart and said,
‘Thank you dad’,
and we hugged for a long time, right there in the kitchen.
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everyday….Bucket of Glads
dear friends, this is the 2nd posting on this blog on March 23rd,
and a fair warning, there is a fair amount of prose ahead
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I’ve been watching mornings silently unfold on this lake and over these hills snuggy against the four a.m. chill in my faded yellow, Dale Hollow hoody, perched under the rooftop canopy of a 60 foot houseboat in our favorite cove, tied to the same worn, barkless trees for twelve years.
Even as nothing really changes here and as familiar as it always was, like a favorite childhood memory, this view never gets old. The huge expanse of water and trees and open sky is so absolutely still, it takes waking to a few of these silent mornings to be truly comfortable with what quiet really is.
I pine the entire year for those moments, alone; being a very early riser has it’s benefits.
The only sound is the occasional sipping of that first and always best tasting morning cup of coffee, brewed in a dented, blue and white speckled enamel, campstyle percolator pot. That old coffee pot has been stared at anxiously for the blup, blup, blup of coffee to bubble up in the little glass dome for decades. Woefully small considering the number of empty cups that need filling when everyone finally wakes up, not surprisingly, not a single one of us would ever suggest buying a new one.
No, we all like things just the way they are….and just the way they’ve always been.
My wife has been accompanying her parents, her brother and invited friends on this trip every summer since she can remember and she just turned fifty this year. No, we’re not exactly roughing it but there’s certainly nothing fancy about the accomodations on these old houseboats that were built sometime in the ’70’s.
It’s…well, let’s just call it close knit family style cozy.
Five small bedrooms, a bare bones, corner kitchen, dining table for 8 connected to an open living room, a bathroom with a tiny shower, a small t.v. with a dvd player and all the entertainment, food and drinks you’ve remembered to pack.
Planning is paramount; there are no grocery stores, no towns actually for miles, no cellphone or internet service either, only the C.B. marine radio to the Dale Hollow harbor where we rent the boat, connects us to civilization.
We are in one of thousands of inlets and
coves of natural, steeply sloped,
shoreline that contains 27,000
acres of water, surrounded
by 24,000 square miles of
mostly untouched,
undeveloped land.
from WIKI: Dale Hollow Reservior
Dale, or Lily Dale, no longer
exists. The community was one of
those flooded to create Dale Hollow
Lake, yet its name endures in the
choice of the lake’s name.
Dale Hollow Dam and Lake was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1938 and the River and Harbor Act of 1946. The project was completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1943, making the lake the oldest artificial lake in Kentucky.[1] Hydroelectric power generating units were added in 1948, 1949 and 1953. The project was designed by the Corps of Engineers and built under their supervision by private contractors. The hydroelectric generators of Dale Hollow Dam are used to supply power to the surrounding countryside. The dam, powerplant and reservoir are currently operated by the Nashville District of the Corps.
This isn’t everyone’s ideal vacation but I was hooked, lined and sinkered the very first time I was invited. I fit in immediately. It helped that I knew how to waterski because we always rent a small powerboat and a giant rubber tube too. If you’re a waterskier like most of us, there isn’t a sight more beautiful than still water.
Water still as ‘glass’ is why this is
the cove we return to, year after year.
It’s a good half hour from one of the many choppy,
well traveled thoroughfares that connect
the larger lakes,by midday choppy is
perfect for a bumpy tube ride.
We explore, we hike, we spot wildlife, we float around, we read and write, play games, sing songs and play guitar, sunbathe and at sundown everyone joins in to cook dinner then watch a movie or two before retiring, usually before midnight.
March is the month I always find myself daydreaming of Holly
Creek. I imagine it all again and again on these cruel cold days, feel the warm clean air on my skin, hear the clear water gently slapping the sides of the houseboat, taste the quiet 4am coffee and remember the good natured small talk and giggles with my family. I love knowing these 10 days are already crossed off the work calendar.
It’s important having something to look forward to.
August is waiting, it always is.
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and is it just me, or has this summer just flown by….?
because August is here and it is time for our trip. Cbear, Scout and i leave tomorrow morning for 10 gloriuos days on the lake, the houseboat and on our annual vacation we so look forward to, every year.
a few things have changed since i wrote this 2 years ago, we are all a little older and it’s time to celebrate a milestone: Scout’s dad turns 80 and her mom 77, during this trip. and by the grace of the Goddess, i hope i am, we all are as healthy and active as they are, when we reach that age.
we are renting a larger, more modern houseboat too. age finally caught up with the old ones, giving us too much trouble last year and there are more bedrooms and facilities, for the many people that will be visiting this trip. musician friends will be arriving in shifts, and they are rehearsing favorite songs that will be performed for the birthday celebrations.
cell towers were installed last year, so we are connected: maybe both a blessing and a curse because there is still this part of me that longs to just unconnect from the world for awhile. i will be writing of course but not posting, and the connection will allow me to continue reading all your inspiring poetry, so a blessing there.
we come home on the 19th of July and i’ll resume my normal 3 times a week posting of this poetry of mine. and maybe i’m becoming a little more comfortable in this new habit, spending nearly every waking hour thinking, reading or writing this poetry but i will never forget why i can do this now…this thing i love so much, this second skin i’ve grown, this new way these eyes see the world and writing these words i didn’t even know i had.
between my original family at 20 Lines, my new friends at d’verse poets pub, and all of you new friends and old, there is a circle of inspiration among us. i feel it when i read your poetry, see it in your wonderful comments and encouragemnet and i think all of us, deserve a thank you for all the gifts we are giving each other.
what an incredible community this is at WordPress…yes, connectivity, a blessing that i can remain conncted to all of you, who have done so much for me. i won’t tell you how many poets i follow now, that the list on my sidebar is only partial, that some days i can keep up and read all your new posts and some days i fall behind. know that i’ll get there, i might be late a little late but i’ll get there.
and that goes as well for my many new friends, who i so appreciate. it is my habit to acknowledge your follow, get to know you through your work, say hi….i might be a little late but i should get caught up very soon.
thank you all so very much for all the love and encouragement you have given me, know it will never be taken for granted and that i will always remember, why, i’m writing this poetry of mine…because of all of you.
thank you all so very much.
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because a journey
is no longer moving,
when one step isn’t
followed by another.
but me standing instead
on the edge of an abyss,
and so afraid of opening
that door to the unknown.
and
there comes a time…
to restore the lost voice
of my childhood innocence,
throw off his shroud
and let him light my day again.
and
there comes a time…
to restore a fearless curiosity,
nourishing my artist soul.
listen to this heart
sharing my truth in simple words.
and
there comes a time…
to restore my place
on this earth among the living,
smell the breath of life
feel a pain…feel a joy…and feel alive!
and
that time has come,
the door is swung wide open now!
roads to travel, legs that need to walk
and fear, will not be sharing these steps.
because it was afraid…….that i was before.
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The Return to Innocence
Love…Devotion
Feeling…Emotion
Don’t be afraid to be weak
Don’t be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
Don’t care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don’t give up and use the chance
To return to innocence.
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and a truly remarkable video::::enjoy::::
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and this
journey
of mine
renewal
banner of innocence
a parting of ways
continues….
who could know then 