The Poem in My Pocket

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Yesterday was “Poem in Your Pocket” Day, and I was fortunate to be invited by David Horowitz to read poems with four other poets at the Edmonds Bookshop, where I sold four books, and bought two.

Here’s a poem for your pocket from Jane Kenyon:

The Thimble

I found a silver thimble
on the humusy floor of the woodshed,
neither large nor small, the open end
bent oval by the wood’s weight,
or because the woman who wore it
shaped it to fit her finger.

Its decorative border of leaves, graceful
and regular, like the edge of acanthus
on the tin ceiling at church…
repeating itself over our heads while we speak in unison
words the wearer must have spoken.


thimble2(I found the image at http://www.etsy.com/listing/56781815/simons-sterling-silver-victorian-thimble)

It’s been a week of wounds, great and small, which somehow makes the idea of retrieving this artifact from under a woodpile additionally comforting.  My uncle died on Saturday after a long illness, a friend wrote to me about her grandbaby’s unexpected death. Boston. Waco. Everything in between.

Over at Wait! I have a Blog?! Kathleen Kirk put up a poem yesterday for Boston. I hope you will have a chance to drop by.

Ellen and Eclipse

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Someone emailed to tell me “that foal looks like a goat,” so here’s a picture of Ellen with Eclipse, who is all grown up now. I’m not sure what’s going on with the costume. Whenever I see Ellen, she’s wearing blue jeans. These pictures happen to be from a blog called Photography with Soul. And there are many more.

ellen26

While I’m sharing blog addresses, I also want to direct people to my favorite, The Pen and the Bell, whose letter this week features a quote about writing — for ten minutes — from Rumer Godden. How could you not?

Unbridled

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ellens goatWell, it is poetry month. Here’s a poem I wrote several springs ago after visiting my friend Ellen Felsenthal. (She is a photographer, and the photo is from her website.) I’ve always thought this poem could become slightly “bigger” if I worked on it, but it resists me. It wants to be what it is. Premarin is a pharmeceutical made from the urine of pregnant mares. The foals are often destroyed. In my mind, then, this is a poem about redemption.

Unbridled

I visit my friend Ellen’s farm
to meet her rescued Premarin filly
gorgeous paint girl

one of Ellen’s three horses
along with her mare Harmony
and a foster horse that needs training

Ellen has rescued numerous beasts
a pony named Elvis too old to be adopted
several goats including one who bleats like a baby

causing Ellen to say oh Waylon we hear you
also three sheep three dogs
a cat with a litter of kittens

Ellen says we can borrow
the neighbor’s horse we can saddle Harmony
and go riding but we stand talking

until it is too late to ride until
the horses tire of nudging our pockets for peppermints
finish the carrots we carried to them

and walk slowly away
their swaying free bodies unbridled
ungroomed.

Doing the Work

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bootsThis is something my daughter Pearl and I have been talking about. She loves music and has been in school choirs since she was a little girl. She wants to make a career in music, but hasn’t yet figured out how to get there from here.

It’s a question I dealt with myself some years ago in my writing, but I find that one’s mother is not always the right person to offer advice. So I looked for other mentors for Pearl. I paid for piano lessons for an entire year — with an amazing woman who I hoped would inspire Pearl.

Pearl didn’t practice piano once that year, well, not once during those nine months. Not once. The only glimmer of light I got was in noticing that she was not willing to give up her half hour with Susan each week. So I kept writing the checks, and hoping. Eventually I told her that was it.

A couple of positive things have happened for Pearl this past year. She’s found a terrific choir teacher at Edmonds Community College, and when I thought she was going to drop out of school this past quarter (the Math 80 conundrum) she regathered her forces — because of choir — and registered for spring quarter. Though I don’t necessarily think college is going to be her path, I hated to see her quitting simply because she was discouraged. I wanted her to make conscious choices.

And another thing. In January she and her sister attended a Lady Gaga concert. Inspired, Pearl bought a beautiful leather bound journal (with music engraved on the cover) and she started jotting down lyrics for songs. She also started practicing the piano. She even arranged for it to be tuned! She wrote down this quotation in her journal and shared it with me — it’s from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and is one of Lady Gaga’s tattoos —

gaga tattoo“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”

This is what I’ve learned from practicing my own art. You can’t just look into your heart in the deepest hour of the night, you have to do something. Wanting to be a writer — or a singer —  with your entire being will not make you a writer or a singer. You have to do the work, at least a little bit every day.