Madeleine's Child

I will exericse my right
to feel human,
to be C__
and not Ms. G___.

I will exercise my ability
to move;
I will move my body, yes,
and I will move the
minds of my students,
hearts of my readers.

I will exercise my freedom
to sleep,
to sleep thoroughly and deeply
and, on weekends, long.

I will exercise the freedom
of speech,
my right to opine and whine,
to declare offense
and common sense.

(Didn't you resolve to swear less?"
a colleague asks.
No, I will exercise my right
not to make certain resolutions,
my freedom to retain
certain vices and
focus on others.
Therefore, I will
exercise my ability,
however unwise,
to say "f*ck.")

I will exercise my attitude,
give the old bitch a workout;
and I will exercise
my muscles of humility.
I will exercise the
ironic beauty of paradox.

Yes, in this new year,
I will exercise every day.

It is not a new poem, but I cannot remember loving it as much in years past as I do today.  So much here that is amazing!  I feel the need to do a lectio divina exercise with this poem! 

These holidays have been interesting.  Just returned from a huge family gathering in the Midwest.  Incredible times.  We had 85 people at Christmas dinner, and this was mainly immediate family.  I love that.  We had snow a couple of days after Christmas, the good kind--enough to make it pretty and to get to use the scarves and mittens we packed, but not enough to shut down life or kill a lot of people on the roads.  We strengthened bonds, caught up on the family dramas, had glimpses of what we miss by living 2000 miles away, had glimpses of what we would endure if we didn't live 2000 miles away. 

Home today:  sleeping in, reading, cooking, making up with the kitties who hate it when we travel, figuring out how I will change my ways in 2012, how I will "ring out the false, ring in the true," how I will "ring out false pride" and "ring in the love of truth and right," how I will identify that which is false and recognize that which is true and right and good. 

As St. Benedict says, "Always we begin again."  Thank God for that mercy!  Enjoy your new beginnings.  Happy New Year. 


"In Memoriam," [Ring out, wild bells]

by Lord Alfred Tennyson"



Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.



Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.



Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.



Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.



Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.



Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.



Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.



Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be

Yep, we have 'em, despite all rumors to the contrary.  Here's photographic proof from my walk this morning.  It was an obscenely beautiful day, fresh from a rain drenching.  The fact that it was my first day off for Thanksgiving break made it an especially sweet gift. 








The rest are available on Flickr.  I tried a visual discipline;  I tried cropping one frame in multiple ways to see how many different ways I could see just one image.  I like this practice and think I'll try it some more. 

In other news, I am still trying to decide what to do about blogging.  I'm considering starting a new one under my real name, but we shall see.  I have been writing, but I have not published any much of it.  And that's okay for now.  Like California, I have seasons, too, and I am satisfied to live in them and see what they bring. 

Just another little sh*tty second draft poem for you, somewhat in the same vein as yesterday's but a little more manic.  For good reason, I think. 



This poem woke me up


at 4:30 in early morning dark,
early morning befuddlement manifesting in mixed metaphors,
the lightstreaks of dreams and blood pressure
on my eyelids’ insides
and the rumble of Monday morning trashcan wheels
to the curb
transforming into a lightningthunder talking picture show.

Flatter, fainter sounds and light
grow sharper louder quicker,
shorter intervals between
till light and sound are barely a boombeat apart,
briefly heartstopping
despite my fascination and attention.

The cat, wide-eyed, leaps off the warm bed
for sanctuary in a darker windowless place.

Drumbeats on the skin-thin tabletop of the sky,
like bad manners at dinner.
Bottle lid removed, opened skies are tipped,
poured on our roof,
spiced with ice
that smatters on window panes,
like salt skittering off the plate and onto the table.

After the drenching, a sudden stop,
water and steam sheeting, dripping,
like opening the dishwasher mid-cycle
to add an errant spoon.

The storm takes its clouds
and goes home,
leaving a bright supermoonglowball behind
for us to play with like gleeful accidental thieves.

Welcome, spring.
Welcome, lord of spring.
You have my full attention.

It's the first day of spring, and we are wind-whipped and rain-drenched, and I am not complaining one whit about it.  For Lent, I have been working through a contemplative photography course, offered by Christine at Abbey of the Arts.  You can see some of the images I've been receiving and reflecting upon at Flickr.  For this week, she gave us a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye (click here to read it), and what I took away from the poem, among its lovely images, was this line:  "Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us / we find poems."  Then I wrote one in personal response.


Poems Hide




The poem today rests

in my lower back, which aches from sitting to write too much

(too much sitting? too much writing?);

in the painful vein on the back of my thigh just above my knee,

a veiny area that feels it might burst;

in my wet cat, caught in the raingale,

dabbed dampdry with a half-used napkin from dinner;

in the attractive silvering hair of our tax lady,

with her black Volvo and black laptop;

in the alto deeps of Amy Grant on the iPod

whose albums have been on repeat for two months;

in the raindrops on the louvered windowpanes,

drops oranged by the sodium streetlight just outside

on the curb in which flow rainstreams with yellow pollen edges.

Tonight I reinvent the fwump and revving of the furnace motor

as it blows warming air only to the top floor of our home,

find the poem in the cornbread from a mix,

sweet like cake and crusty brown on the edges from cooking two minutes too long,

in the whiny mournful cat who does not want to go outside and does not want to stay in,

in the cooling wind that enters my inefficient home to blow the curtains and the edge of the rug,

in the chore of laundry that affords warm time for prayers as I fold underwear and socks.

Perhaps I will even find the poem in the ungraded papers that sit atop my table

and weigh me down with guilt and self-criticism.