Let's do it!
Thanks, Barb, for taking the photo. She used to be part of our group when we met at Weinrich's Bakery Coffeeshop, which they closed on weekends. Barb is a teaching nurse at AMH. Our poet Martha Hunter's daughter Emily just graduated from nursing school and Barb, of course, knew her.
Who knew? Certainly not the pollinators, which include, from B's article: 4,000 species of native bees and the lesser known flies, wasps, moths, butterflies and a sprinkling of beetles.
The honey bee is not a native of America! They were introduced from Europe in the 1600s.
Her piece was so interesting, I suggested Beatriz email Alan Kerr, editorial page editor of the Intelligencer, and ask if she could do a Guest Column about it. Just emailed her the contact info.
When I write a Guest Column, as a mental health advocate, I'm allowed 700 words max. But you can get lots of great info into those 700 words.
Arlene Walsh is an amazing writer whose characters are very strange individuals. Suddenly, I realized who they reminded me of: the people in Flannery O'Connor's work.
Flannery (1925-64) died of lupus, as did her father. She was 39 years old. She was a devout Catholic. The home and farm where she and her family lived in Georgia is now a shrine, of sorts.
I sent Arlene a transcript of A Good Man is Hard to Find. It takes all of 20 minutes to read and will shock the heck out of you.
We all enjoyed the start of Arlene's "Appearances." I learned her son Peter is an RN in the ER at AMH.
Martha, on the left with the flag on her chest, wrote a great poem "The Waiting Room," which begins The news comesOne of the great things about our group is that people make friends with one another. Carly and Donna have formed a friendship.
like a pail of cold water
thrown in my face
by a dispassionate passerby
- a drive-by soaking -
A simple test,
taken and forgotten
showing the need for attention.
The imagination revs
and takes me at racehorse speed
to all the darkest places.
This is how it began for my mother.
... The smiling doctor blinks out...
Death held off for another day.
Carly wrote a wonderful mouth-watering poem called "Mother's Day Brunch" that begins
Breakfast potatoes, onions & peppers"It gives you such a warm feeling," said Arlene. "You have a really caring family" ...
Sunny side eggs displayed
Sausage gravy decadent with cream
Achieving a grandstand parade
Finding a toy for grandsonDonna, whose beloved 15-yo daughter Mariel died of meningitis many years ago, met Carly for lunch on May 24, which would have been Mariel's 26th b'day (I think).
Cooper
Is all we can think of now
At the restaurant, both of them felt Mariel's presence.
Afterward, Donna wrote a poem to her dear friend Carly!
The prolific Linda Barrett totally rewrote a poem from 2007 about The Sandman Comforting You and will give it to her grand-nephew after he's born.
She specializes in writing about people and places in her life.
Which reminds me that Martha gave us all gifts. Here's mine
Here are three poems I wrote for today's group.
THE GIRL IN THE
STRIPED SWEATER
See
her swinging down the street
short
shorts
over
legs that have wrapped themselves
around
horses and
bicycles
and
men
who caught her
fancy
Can
you see by her
dancing
steps
she’s
a woman who
cheated
death
and
wears the crescent-
moon-shaped
scar
on
her belly
and
the full-moon scar
on
her brain
She’s
not like you
She
breathes with
music
of pulsars
God
rides on her shoulder
as
she walks toward
her
yellow house
mezuzah
a’tilt on the door frame
Can
you see her
in
her striped shirt
and
short shorts
as
she thanks the
trees
and seashells and
bird
houses three
for
her sixty-seven years of life?
We’ll
allow her to believe
she
is still that long-haired
captivating
girl she once
was
on the tennis courts
at
seventeen.
She
swats away
time
like a dead fly.
TRASH SYMPHONY ON COWBELL ROAD
It’s
hot as we lug our various cans
wheeled
or otherwise
to
the curb
ba-bump
ba-bump ba-bump
like
women in a dorm whose
menses
align
we
find ourselves outdoors at dusk
precisely
at seven when
the
birds come home from a
rough
day at the office
a
final bedtime snack for
the
baby robins living in my
rosebush
nest
and
then sleep
blissful
sleep
for
all denizens of
Cowbell
Road
sparrow
swallow bluejay cardinal
the
warm spring wind rocks
the
birdhouses in my front yard
birds
sleeping among men
I
believe the birds
preeminent
in the diurnal cycle
hear
the garbage trucks rolling
from
their stables near the high school
chuffing
green machines
who
make house calls
every
Thursday morn
trucks
heralded not by
legions
of monarch butterflies
or
rose petals strewn in the street
but
the distinctive lurch and groan
all
the way up the hill
listen
and ye shall hear!
Next
morning, like a spent climax, I lug the can
back
to its home
beside
the peonies on the side of the house
I
sit on the porch steps
with
my manicured red nails
and
watch the water in the
bird
bath shimmering
in
anticipation of the coming day.
MERCY AND THE
BEAR
(Inspired in the
summer when several brown bears were sighted far from their forest homes in Pennsylvania and New
Jersey)
Zing!
The first missile came
from
the tree
her
tree where she feasted
that
day on
sweet
clover honey as bees
swarmed
over her thick
black
pelt
she
leaned back
and
with her long blue tongue
squashed
and ate them
feeling
the tickle in her throat
then
rearing, on hind legs,
she
howled for joy at the sweetness
of
the taste and the air and a
brief
memory that life was fine
her
suckling cubs went deep into the forest
on
their own
her
mammaries no longer pained
But
what was this?
Not those men again
Not those men again
quiet,
hidden under green brush
and
dead leaves
she’d
been searching for breakfast
a
spotted fawn
as
it trotted tail up
after
mother
when
Zing!
that sound
that
sound that meant
run,
hide, strike
claws
out
claws
that a while ago
yesterday,
really, had
found
a nest of young
badgers
unprotected
their
fur tickled her throat
their
blood hotter than
the
sun as it ran down her
throat
and underbelly
Zing!
As she runs
through
the pine trees
faster
and faster
she
trips
falls
on front legs
rolls
over
sees
blood
her
blood
roars
with
something
worse
than
bees
that
sound – the missiles –
brings
pain excruciating
she
limps away
faster
and faster
More
zings fly past her
she
sees them
faster
than winged flies she
has
licked from her fur,
blind
with fury
and
agony
she
lays down and
unfurls
her tongue
to
assuage the burning
the
endless sting
of
the flying missile
now
part of her shoulder
Next
morning
the
pain lessens
Flee
the forest
her
ancient memory
tells
her
she
crosses a highway
hot
to the touch of her
naked
claws
that
make her lope
across
this hardened
river
so
different from
her
forest floor.
Dwellings
she sees,
a
building with balconies
women
with white hair
and
hunched-over bodies
sit
together in white chairs
on
the green grass
she
moseys up to the one
whose
hair is in a bun atop
her
thin pained face
the
bear gives a soft moan
and
quicker than an evaporating
rainbow
licks a sandwich
of
white bread
mayonnaise
and ham
from
her lap
and
from another
a
honeysweet
cupcake
with delicate
white
paper
then
stands with her blue tongue
outstretched
streaked
with saliva
and
icing
as
the ladies gape
then
rears back on her
rear
legs and roars
with
contentment
The
ladies sit still,
paralyzed,
she
smells their fear
like
rotting flesh before the
vultures
come
she
will stay a moment
feeling
the pleasure of
the
smell she instilled
arching
her head
in
the air
to
sniff and roar
then
ambles away
toward
home.
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