Off Track

I board

this train of thought

and at once

the point of departure fades

the destination disappears

I see no tracks

no conductor

I would blame

my spaghetti brain

so easily distracted

by whim and caprice

but I suspect

even that diagnosis

is a distraction

In movies

train stations

are scenes of

joyous arrivals

sad departures

missed opportunities

As I whizz by

these cinematic moments

I must rely on imagination

to fill in the details for

I am off

to the next thought.

Lasting Impressions

The writing prompt “…that’s the last time I…” sent me on an exploration of lasts. I’ll leave out the shoemaker’s tool for now and concentrate on the more common usages. Last is one of those odd words in English that is its own opposite. It can mean continuing onward and also final, i.e. the memory of that concert will last long after its last note is played. Last can also mean most recent as in the last time I traveled to Italy. I very much hope that last is not final!

      

Certain disappointments or failures can cause me to say, “That’s the last time I’ll ...roll out my own pie crust, drive the length of the Garden State on a Friday in summer, try to meet a man on the internet, take Riley to the groomer who smokes." Of course, circumstances could change, and I could find myself trying a new method for pie crust or stuck in New Jersey traffic, but the intention is that this is a final time.

Other times, the lasts are really final. Sometimes it is a sad occasion as in the last time I visited with my cousin Evelyn, but other times it’s a celebration. That’s the last time I’ll stay up all night doing grades. Sometimes it's said in hope that it is final, as in that's my last cancer treatment.

Tonight I will go to church for Holy Thursday services, marking the “Last Supper,” the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples. Though that meal was their last together, here we are over 2000 years later remembering it—a moment that has lasted. 

"Finishing"

“Writing is a combination of intangible creative
fantasy and appallingly hard work.”

—Anthony Powell

Most mornings include Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" where today I learn that it was on April 10, 1925, that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published. I am amused and encouraged to learn that even after finally sending his masterpiece off to Scribner's to be published, he wanted to change the title, but Maxwell Perkins told him it was too late, so The Great Gatsby it remained. Later, when sales were poor, he believed it was the title that was to blame.

I cannot think of anything I have written that came perfectly gift wrapped from the muse. Even when there is a rare flash of inspiration that flows quickly onto the page, there are edits and re-edits, doubts about word choice, questions about structure, metaphors that need to be unmixed. Right now I would go back and fix the earlier flash/flow problem, but I'm leaving it in just to illustrate the point. So I am encouraged that even the great Fitzgerald was never totally satisfied. 

When the metaphors mesh, and the rhythm moves with the meaning, and the images illustrate exactly, there is joy in the creation, but nearly always there is a niggling doubt that it could be better, so we revise and re-envision, and finally, either when we can see nothing else to "fix" or when we can't stand looking at it any more, we call it "finished," but it's never quite finished, even if it's gone to press.

Remembering Daffodils

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am a person of varied--sometimes extremely varied--interests. Today is the birthday of one of my favorite poets--William Wordsworth. I am remembering "Intimations of Immortality," and his verse celebrating nature, as well as my visit to Dove Cottage in the Lake District of England where he lived with his sister Dorothy--one of those women too often forgotten who inspired the more famous men in their lives--and where they entertained many of the famous Romantic poets of the period. I recall gardens, parks, the old Swan Hotel, and the gingerbread. And I recall Bullwinkle.
(See, I told you so.)

I guess the world really is too much with me, but I have always been a fan of that lovable moose and his pal, the flying squirrel--Rocky. But why do I connect Bullwinkle with Wordsworth? Bullwinkle, for those of you too young to remember or have forgotten, was a lover of poetry and would, from time to time, recite a poem, actually a version of a poem. As in the case of his recitation of Wordsworth's "Daffodils," he is interrupted, and the poem goes off in a humorous direction.

Just as Bugs Bunny cartoons used classical music to illustrate themes, lest their viewers remain Liszt-less, (Sorry, couldn't resist) so Jay Ward brought poetry into the story-lines of Bullwinkle. I was 14 when Rocky and His Friends first appeared after American Bandstand. Although a lover of poetry since my early years, I doubt I had read any of Wordsworth at the time. So, thanks to the two most famous citizens of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, I first heard the verse of Wordsworth, albeit twisted into a plot with Boris Badenov--yet another humorous allusion.

Wintry Mix Up

Wintry Mix Up

Living in New England

I should have known better

than hope that crocus teeth

cutting through dead leaves

and melting snow

meant an end of winter.

As baseball begins again

I should have remembered

sitting in the grandstand

wrapped in blankets

or a long ago April blizzard

that brought down branches.

A week and a half

past the vernal equinox

fat flakes turn to clicking sleet

then to rain

and back again.

Yes, now I remember.

Mariposas

If beauty is truth,

what can be said

of the the blue morpho

who closes its brilliance

into camouflage

as  it stops to gather nectar?

Or what of the green malachite
seen only in peripheral vision

as it flies fast

over concertina wire

taking its glory

out into the black night?

Or the absent orange monarch

once plentiful in the hydrangea?

If truth is beauty

what am I to learn from these?

that beauty is a transitory thing?

that the truth cannot be held?

that there is honesty in butterflies?

Lingering Music

"...our anxiety is less the mind shielding itself from death than the spirit's need to be. It is as if each of us were always hearing some strange, complicated music in the background of our lives, music that, so long as it remains in the background, is not simply distracting but manifestly unpleasant, because it demands the attention we are giving to other things. It is not hard to hear this music, but it is very difficult to hear it as music."

Christian Wiman My Bright Abyss

I am never sure I understand exactly what Wiman is talking about, but what I do get is rich and feeds me for a long time. That may be why it's taking me months to read this book. Every phrase, every sentence makes me stop, read it again, and then ponder it. Very rich and very good!

This particular quotation struck a chord (excuse the pun) with me when he talks about all the things that clutter up life, preventing us from hearing that "strange, complicated music." Returning from Nicaragua, most of our team have said that we return with many questions. What we saw and experienced is like a strange and complicated symphony--full of lovely melodies and disturbing discords.

Now we are back to work, to school, to the regular patterns of our life--patterns that can seem to drown out that other music. But not quite. The roosters are still crowing in Las Mercedes. The school children are still shuffling into their seats at NITCA. The iron gates are still clanking closed at Hansae,

And we are here in the last days of winter, looking forward to spring, but the strange music of Nicaragua still rings in our ears. Let us hope that we keep hearing those notes of beauty and oppression and that someday we hear more clearly the healing harmonies.