Coffeshop Group Welcomes Peter from Frenchtown, NJ - Hello Skye and Kane - Martha Hunter poem: Gray skies - My poem: Our Cave in Southern France

I was so excited to see the rain through the glass doors of the Giant Supermarket. When I went to the coffee bar to order my usual iced decaf, a man got fresh with me in line.

Miss, he said, I hope you closed your car windows.

I was shocked to see it was boyfriend Scott. He had a basket full of groceries. All I needed were two limes which I picked up after the group.

Peter had a blast with all the women.

He's a transplant from our River Poets Group in Lambertville, NJ, whose membership is erratic.

More women for Peter to swoon over

Martha brot a poem "Was that You?" about living in the same house in Willow Grove as her deceased parents and discovering scents and other things that remind her of them.

Donna, widowed in May and getting used to living all alone in the house where she raised her three children, read a b'day poem she wrote to "My Southern Charmer." This man eats grits and gravy which made me feel like eating the words right off the paper.

Her second poem "Barely There" (good title) talked about her grief as a widow and finding strength in her new grandson's eyes.

Linda Barrett the Ever-Prodigious wrote a love poem to Paul Burke, star of WW2 drama "12 o'clock High."

 It had a terrific surprise ending.

Burke (1926 – 2009) is also known for his work on the iconic TV show "Naked City" which I watched fully clothed back in Cleveland. 

    There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.
    —The famous closing narration



Photo was taken by Mailman Glenn. He used to deliver the mail when we had our New Directions office at 404 Davisville Road.

Both Martha and Peter are retired schoolteachers, possibly the most important profession on earth. I suggested they watch the new Frontline documentary "Life in the Fast Track at North Philly High." A truly inspirational story in this nation, that as Gore Vidal says, has been going down the drain for half a century or more.

Going around the circle, I read my poem "Our Cave in Southern France." Chauvet Cave was discovered in 1994, expertly photographed and videotaped, and then sealed off for fear of damaging the contents.


Thanks, Peter, for the website.

Here's a couple of the many finds estimated at 30,000 years old.

                                                                                      

Yaha! Move into the center boys! I'm whispering to them but they won't budge!

Linda's mom Jane came over to sit with us a few minutes. I told her she should really be proud of Linda! Not only for her poetry but also b/c she's a wonderful, compassionate person.

Compassion: the one quality all religions have in common, said Karen Armstrong, today's guest on The Drexel Interview, and author of The Case for God. Armstrong was a well-chided nun who finally found compassion when she left the convent and went to Oxford Univ where she pursued a doctorate in literature.

I watched en bike to lower my blood sugar.



Okay, who's the next victim to read their work?

Oh, it's Peter. Here's a foto I took of him at the Lambertville group.

On his acreage in Frenchtown, NJ, Peter and wife Betts (short for Betty) raise animals because they love them. Border collies, miniature horses, and now.....35 Black Dutch Bantam chickens.

Grace, what does a chicken say?

What beautiful animals! Methinks I was one of these in a former life.

Or maybe

Don't you wanna bury your head in his fur and cry your eyes out? "Wail, for the world's wrong!" last line of Dirge by PB Shelley.

Peter's "Infrastructure" is a three-page peon to all the forces that brought him his 35 Black Dutch Bantams all the way from New Mexico and only 37 hours.

This postal service must have a fleet of land and air vehicles with a procedure setup for a box of live chicks. Not too cold, not too warm, not too dry, not too much moisture, a non-poisonous atrmosphere, and will always be handed with care.

One iota of a difference in temperature or atmosphere - and poof! - no more bantams. Once they hatch they can live for three whole days w/o food and water, a perfect time to transport them.

In an inspired line, Peter writes another thing that's needed to transport his darlings to his farm

A Universe to form simple matter and energy that allows the eventual formation of generations of stars, that in turn form new varieties of atm types in great qualities. From these atoms a prodigious number of molecules can form that coalesce around new stars to form planets with environments that allow complex chemistry.

 Not to mention DARK MATTER where dead chickens roost.

Beatrice, where art thou?

 Thanks for making a return visit, B.

This month's nature essay was on The Triumph of the Japanese Beetle. I just replaced the word Saga with Triumph b/c that creature is virtually unextinguishable.

It has made its way, B said in her essay, from Japan by rooting inside the earthball of a particular tree never seen before in the US and delights on eating things on the Eastern seabord, tho Carly, from California, remembers them from her home state.

Japanese beetles, she writes, are handsome creatures with iridescent colors.

LOUD SCREAMING HEARD DOWN THE HALLWAY.

They are indestructible with pesticides. Best way to kill em is for beetle-eating predators to have a succulent meal of them.

Anyone game?

Carly is still recuperating from her May heart surgery. I was surprised and happy she was able to drive over from her Willow Grove home. As you may remember, food tasted horrible to her after her operation at AMH and it often still does, tasting terribly salty.

Her poem was a terse reflection on her recovery, lying on the sofa and hearing the drone of the television, the air conditioning, and food bubbling in the kitchen and the arrival of a new friend.

A blue blankie to cover her on the sofa, a gift from Charlie to his gal Carlana.

Two huge dogs waited with their master outside the Giant.

I know Peter saw them too.

Charles "Chic" Gottesman (Jewish father, Catholic mother) "rescued" these big darlings and lives with his wife right around the corner from me.

I can't wait to visit them. Here's the website of the Pyreenees rescuers.

The Great Pyrenees is a very old breed that has been used for hundreds of years by shepherds, including those of the Basque people, who inhabit parts of the region in and around the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France and northern Spain.^[2] One of the first descriptions of the breed dates from 1407, and from 1675 the breed was a favourite of The Grand Dauphin and other members of the French aristocracy. - from wiki

 Passersby were charmed by the gentle animals. "I'll bet they eat a lot," said a few.

They do not, Chic said. They have slow metabolisms needed for the high altitudes upon which they have lived since the voyages of Columbus.

Chic feeds them "ProPlan," by Purina. Hey, that's the same dog food I'm planning to eat when I'm an old lady and Romney and his pal Paul Ryan have taken away my Medicare benefits.

Chic, 76, recited several lines of poetry from Edgar A Guest and Robert Service, the Bard of the Yukon.  

Yay Michael Phelps with your 22nd Gold Medal. I like your biceps n triceps. Phelps retired today from swimming at age 27.

NEW POEM BY MARTHA HUNTER

Gray skies and air crackling with electric energy!
I go out anyway,
positive the weatherman is wrong again
and the sun will shine on my day.
It's Girls Day Out and I'm determined.
Sitting by the picture window in the cafe
drinking my hot chocolate and
nibbling my black and white cookie -
the steel rolls in overhead,
a symphony of thunder,
the shock of lightening
as deluge drops from the sky
Wind bowing the trees almost in half.
"Someone should write a poem!"
calls out my friend.
And so I did.
Right there at the table
as the wind dies and the
sky clears.
And we continue our Art.

OUR CAVE IN SOUTHERN FRANCE

In response to the film Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog, 2011

I. The Director

Herzog wills himself there

shushing the scientists and

cameramen

he is in the presence of the holy

the soul of man

the artist

Himself

the cave is silent

look and all

shall be revealed

II. The Scientist

I cannot sleep

my heart stopped in the Chauvet

we’ve been locked out for good

toxins malodorous

stay and we die

as they did

thirty thousand years ago

their artwork exultant

I ride at night on

the galloping horses

their hooves
echo as my heart
keeps pace

III. The inhabitants of the cave

Life

delicious as the

roasted reindeer

and the maidens who

sleep near us

I play my flute for her

Sing to her

"be my woman

bear my children

still my fears of the darkest nights

and we will lie together

under the yellow burning lamp

in the sky

that lights your

closing green eyes

and fingernails"

IV. The scientist

Upon discovery

the scientist is aghast

he has, Lord, never imagined such

bounty as Chevret

Jesus might as well have come down

on Judgment Day

as this stumbling upon the cave

He will never be the same

Herzog can move on

make more pictures

but the scientist

can only weep, next to his wife,

for the lost cave shut forever

with the handprints of

an eight-year-old boy

coming into earthly manhood

in the wild

the boy arises

smiles

showing slanted teeth

and wants to play

the scientist throws him

a ball

V. The poet    

And I

a watcher

on the screen

born in a Marine war camp

brought home at eleven weeks

by train

fed formula

we arrived home in the blizzard

protected as the eight-year-old boy

VI. The poet's mother

Mother nearing ninety

chosen Queen of the Cave People

her crinkly skin

her leafy face

white teeth

and wisdom:

Draw your charcoal herds upon the walls

bend down the trees for your silver flutes

make not war like the Achaeans  over Helen

The world shall one day find you

and for one shining moment

you will be held like a samurai sword

and then your fame shall be forgotten

for all things pass like the Mississippi flowing by

we must be distracted for swift is our time

edging ever closer

as we cartwheel upward

in the Dance of the Eternal.