Ahz mah (So what)

The Fruitless Pear Tree in New England, Mid-November I don’t know how to write a poem, but I do know something about red. I am a master of red, an aficionado of red, an exuberant maven of red: blood orange, claret, burnt sienna, rust, all with a bit of a green undertone if you look closely. You were looking closely yesterday, probably wondering how I do it, how I stand so dignified even though I’m shivering in the wind, even though it’s getting late, even though everyone around me is giving up and letting go. But I’m not letting go; I won’t. You stoop to pick up a single vermilion leaf at my feet, and look up at me, desiring more. But my answer is No, why should I? I know what comes of letting go. The browns, the greys, the taste of death.

I stopped blogging a few months ago because I started writing poetry instead, something totally new for me. I am loving the way a whole other part of the mind seems to light up within this form of writing. This first poem seems like a fitting way to begin sharing. It was in response to a prompt to write an extended simile in which only the title gives the narrative context. Taking a Poetry Writing Class for the First Time at 62 She’s trying, like the skinny girl playing trombone in the high school marching band. Really she’s a flute player, second chair, decent enough; but honestly, who hears the flutes in a marching band? Cheeks flushed, arms weary from holding the brace in one hand and the slide in the other, she struggles to keep pace with the quick-stepping bass drums and trumpets and saxophones. But finally, gloriously, she can hear herself, and who cares if she’s off key? One Saturday afternoon, while the punctilious band director is distracted by the pretty majorette’s mother, t...

On vacation, in my own home. Calling it a retreat, because that sounds more spiritually meaningful (although shopping online for a vacuum cleaner and cleaning up the deck and rearranging bedroom furniture and filing papers might not seem particularly spiritual). This morning, savoring a cup of loose leaf fair trade organic green tea from China and a small piece of banana bread with chocolate chips that I baked myself, I hear my reverie interrupted by a sneering inner voice: Suburban white lady. The world is on fire and you are sipping fancy tea. People in nearby Brockton – no, even here in Stoughton – don’t have enough food for their children, and you are sipping fancy tea and staring out the window at the leaves and squirrels. Millions of people in this country and beyond are in high anxiety this week over the fate of our democracy and their very lives, and you are savoring a cup of fair trade tea and a small piece of banana bread. This is a familiar voice. It pretty much hangs out j...

Every Thursday in my condo neighborhood, except for during the winter months, the landscaping workers descend upon the earth for many hours with their soul-crushingly loud machines. Mowers and blowers. It has been my weekly ritual, for years now, to sit in meditation each Thursday observing deep aversion, righteous indignation, sadness, bodily distress, cursing. Every week I think: This is Wrong. The gasoline-powered blowers in particular are an ecological nightmare. This has been known for years. I fret for the ecosystem, I fret for the workers' well-being. Someone should Do Something. I should Write a Letter. They should – we should – and then I never do, and they never do, and the landscaping workers continue to descend upon the earth every Thursday. This month, a new level of outrage arises, as I realize that they are altering our experience of the fleeting glory of autumn. Crunchy leaves underfoot on the quiet streets where we all walk, blankets of reds and yellows on the vibr...

It’s happening again. I’ve been trying for several days to write about something really Big. A fundamental, largely unseen crack in our culture; something that impacts every one of us, down through the generations. But I’ve been writing about it, in pristine and earnest abstractions. I know I’m right, but who do I imagine I will convince with carefully crafted logic? And then I realize that it’s happening again – that the mind is wrestling with the fog of Big Issues when it could be dropping down into actual experiences – like the swish of yellow leaves underfoot, or the cool dampness of the air at twilight, or the uneasiness in the body after an oddly tense conversation with a friend. Or noticing how the days are flowing by rapidly and that I no longer find it troubling.