Poem

Stone

I have one mala bead.
It is, depending on the season,
cold or warm in my palm, but
always the perfect shape and weight.

Tooled by the lakeshore's mantra
it ceded all its misdirection
and drew into this
baby-smooth, old and new,

wise, silent, comforting stone.
I keep it on the grey worn arm
of my porch chair
and when I pick it up

it pauses me,
allows me passage from the moment,
permission almost,
to gather my awareness around me

so that I notice
some remarkable common thing
that has been here all along
waiting for me, as patient as a stone.

April 14, 2020

Poem

Veery by Jim DeVona / Ink / 5 x 7

Veery

Another gift since the start of July
has been listening to a veery in the morning
fluting in the sumac tangle
up behind the barn as I walk that rise.

I'm used to hearing that haunting
in the evening from the darkness crouching
along the creek, counter-pointed
by lightning bugs at that changing of the guard.

But in the morning the singing seems
less an ode to quiet countryside
and more a fanfare for me -
as though the kingdom belongs to us both.

7/21/20

Poems

Mornings

Another gift since the start of July

has been listening to a veery in the morning
fluting from the sumac-tangle up beyond the barn
as I walk that rise.

I am used to hearing that haunting
in the evening from the darkness
crouching along the creek; counterpointed
by lightning bugs at that changing of the guard,

but in the morning the singing seems
less an ode to quiet countryside
and more a fanfare for me -
as though the kingdom belongs to us both.

July 21

Being here

My criss-crossing paths
through the Summer goldenrod
are mown fairways eight-feet wide;
avenues for evening walks to the river,
but also boulevards for turkeys and deer
and, perhaps, shopping-aisles
for the young red-tail hawk
who has made my matrix his turf.

We watched him
perched and preening for forty-five minutes
atop the wind-lashed power pole
and we hear him each day
at every hour somewhere
among the encircling tree-tops
creeing from the crow patrols
or just squawking - adolescent as he is.

But to my point; my paths,
I realize, are ready-made enfilades
for his sweeping hungry eyes.
Creating them has prepared a table for him.
And so, like the wren and phoebe
who found me useful to trim and notch
the wild world for them to build a home,
this hawk, the new blood, might stay also
for my being here.

July 21

Living Without Pause

From February 7th through the end of June I wrote over 80 poems; most during the stay-at-home time of the pandemic. I scrambled to get them typed and published before my access to ACS software expired; not to mention that the LuLu site I use sold-out in the meantime becoming as distant from user-centered as as any opaque corporate site could be.

That said, I was able to to manage an 8.5 x 11 version, just to have it (Also ordered a single copy of all my other titles because LuLu is not a place to store files (their bold).

My Day

Emailed 3rd video poem to students and staff as part of ACSLIB annual celebration of National Poetry Month. Today's poem was "The Writer," by Richard Wilbur. Followed up on responses to my posting; the fun part.

Corresponded with SLS Director.

Gained fluency with Teaching Books site and with SORA flexibility.

Read articles at School Library Journal site and at Chronicle of Higher Education.

Reviewed and added titles to current Follett book order.

Scripted, filmed, and voiced over poetry video for this month's celebration: "Mending Wall."

My Day

Fired off my first poem/video to 7-12 students and staff for National Poetry Month. Tried to make the tone of the email more of a celebration than any expectation. Enjoyed following up with respondents.
The first poem I sent was ,"If."


Read for and hour or so in The Knowledge Gap in the morning. Broke at 10:00 to participate in a instructional Zoom session through SLS with the World Book rep. She demonstrated many of the traditional functions as well as a teacher interface for instructional support called 'Wizard'.

In the afternoon I scripted, shot the scenes, and edited a poem/video to share later in the month.

Poem

So here’s the thing

For twenty-seven years
I have been stockpiling
revelations, epiphanies, and jewels
for you. Whether they are
easy for you to find or whether
you have to work up a sweat
to get at them, they are here.
Of course, there are more elsewhere,
but what I have hoarded here
is enough to bring reaching,
noticing, and doing within your grasp.
It’s something alive that I am leaving you.
It’s not a tombstone, or a dare, or even an expectation.

It’s a promise.
Persevere.
Read widely.
Make time in your world for this world.
It is the world of before and now and next.
You can have it. You can know it.
It is here in reach.
Reach.

March 2020

Undivided attention

Poem

Scanning the 1888-1917 Board of Education Minutes





I had hoped it would be

like I had dreamed

the pages facing the future

without recalcitrance

(I not wanting to chance

a broken hip or last infection

as a trade-off for her legacy)

but it became apparent

an incision 
would greatly ease the procedure

It was all I could do to keep her stable

What started as dedication
became disassembly undoing

the dearness I had hoped to honor

by severing it

to spare her longevity

I snipped the ligament

that strung her days together

not listening, but capturing

increments memories 

whose meaning I risked

even as I held them

each by each in my hand

So must a surgeon

separate 

what you are

from 

who you are

to reconcile 

what steel might wound

what steel might save.




March 7, 2020

Internet Archive

 

 I've been adding some ACS archive material that appears on our school website to the Internet Archive as a backup.

19th Century Afton Union School Academic Ledger (PDF)

1888-1917 ACS Board of Education Minutes (PDF)

1917-1934 ACS Board of Education Minutes (PDF)

Afton USA 8th Grade Project Folder (PDF)

Making History in the ACSLIB (video)

Springtime: ACS Softball (poem/video)

Charter Oak, circa 2000

Holiday greetings

I am using my own chap-book video to make up a short gift-book of poems for folks who supported our poetry reading in November. Doing the assembly in the library has prompted plenty of questions from students passing by.

Playlist experiment

Post-poetry glow

Many thanks to the friends, colleagues, and students who came to our library Coffee House last night and were such comforting listeners as I read a selection of my poetry. It was good to be among their warm company and to share so many diverse conversations about the community, books, and history.Looking forward to the next Coffee House in february.

Autumn Reading

Started sharing, mailing, and posting my reading handbills.

Who you were

Not for the first time this ACS autograph book from the the 1940s brought me to a halt as I was looking for something else in our cabinet of archive material.



Who you were


Buried in the library
for at least my 27 years

these lists of who you were
have remained unaged and elegant

within the sombre black
of memories unknown.

Being only names
I search for rationale -

why keep you in the archive?
what can your names tell me

other than where you were
on this occasion, on this date -

mothers and dads
witnessing, indelibly, your children's lives?

And then I think

how like cemetery stones
your signatures have become -

gracefully inscribed, alone,
with only your long wait

to join you to each other
who were neighbors once,

perhaps neighbors still.


10/23/19

Autumn Poems

Porch Poems

Just finished uploading my 13th book of poems to be printed. Always glad to have a legible version of what I've written.

Packing-up poems

Starting to pack away all the school-day things around the library for Summer storage. How nice to find fresh magnet poems on the window sill!

Poem