[Returning visitors may note new materials, added more or less randomly. The first two stanzas, dated 12/5/12, were found on a page of miscellaneous notes jotted in various directions. Written at “Inspiration,” our creekside shed/ refuge/ cabin nestled in the pines, it starts as Virginia’s twist on Li Po, when asked why he favored such country, so far from the mainstream: “Why live in green mountains?/ I laugh–/ Peach blossoms follow moving water.”]
~~~PEACH BLOSSOMS FOLLOW
why live in green mountains?
good grief…peach blossoms follow
…the smell of burnt toast
sundown…
fried egg on a plate
–last licks of light
———————————(12/5/12)
pine smoke
–our neighbors
home from work
new handhold–up &
down the icy steps, even
grandma brings in wood
paper lanterns fill with moonlight
———————————–
dark clouds
in & out among
the stars
pitch black–even dreams
drained…to silence….
——————————-
muddy road
~~~–a gate at each end–
cold cabin
still laughing
I turn the heater on
this night is mine!
this day is mine!
I will eat & slepp
& write poems
for myself
& my friends
I will follow the beaver tracks
breathe in the sweet
wild air
& the blackbirds’ liquid chatter
& the river’s song
I talk to my new person:
the time of our life
is an open mouth
in a rainstorm–the tongue
will tell us where to go–
dawn is a sharp-toothed snake
…& we must bite it
while we can
[This was the last page of the 4-page sequence which follows in her own hand. With no title, the pages aren’t necessarily meant as a single grop or sequence. Despite the first lines (“dark clouds” & “dark, muddy road”), the work–more accurately, the adventure–isn’t at all dark, but a celebration of freedom, to go wherever the tongue leads….
The road taken here leads to “Inspiration,” the cabin where the 4 pages were written. Signed “for Shirley,” she’d have passed Shirley’s two-gated driveway also along the way, presumably at the end of a busy teaching week during which Shirley had done diagnostic consulting for some of Virginia’s students–thus the cryptic letters tests & school system used to abbreviate conditions & categories.
The same whole group also showed up in a folder Virginia had labelled “P-D poems,” a larger collection written in response to her own experience of brain changes, experienced & observed in friends. Her diagnosis of “Parkinsons” covered an extremely broad category. The cryptic letters here may intentionally merge the supposedly diagnostic tests she’d been given & those Shirley had administered for some of Virginia’s “special ed” students under contract with the school system.
Either way, Virginia’s own “dark, muddy road, a gate at each end” a mile or two further upstream from Shirley’s leaves all that system-driven time-&-attention behind for the luxurious freedom of having no outer obligations to anyone for the moment, no categories to fill, no assigned roles, no agenda beyond recovery of the self, open mouth/ in a rainstorm.]
————————————-
MUDDY ROAD [click “a-dark-muddy-road,” below, to OPEN a Pdf of the 4 pages.]
==================================
[Note this poem has been selected for publication in an upcoming New Mexico anthology, expected 2022. A few of the following were published in various Poets’ Picnic chapbooks, having first been selected for hanging as Weathergrams…. The “small plane” reminds her of her lifetime friend, the one & only Kitty Houghton, who flew her little plane in for visits on many thus special occasions. The “long-legged cranes” would likely be from one our many Bosque del Apache “crane festivals,” including at least one night sleeping in the heart of the refuge.]
==================================
rain sounds all night
–morning music pours
~~~from my ears
already– this day like no other
buzz of a small plane–
look up to the sky, each time
thinking of my friend
on a blue page the sky is written
long legged cranes/ wing
to wing across/ the purple/
night–/~~a trail of stars
before the town wakes
birds & I
sing up the sun
[A few more, more or less at random.]
with the rain
…laughing voices return
to the orchard
———————————9/13/07
tipple tipple–
~~~splash!
a young bird runs
across the skylight
———————————-
leaning by the door
new year’s broom
standing in snow
even in summer
night-cold draws up
from the stones
eyes flash & glimmer
in firelight–mind reaches out
–the body warming
———————————
first light on your
wedding day the robins sing
louder than ever
——————————-(4-21-07)
one primrose open
yellow as the moon rising
between branches
wing to wing across
the purple night
star-cranes, wings & legs
[A few of these can also be found elsewhere, e.g., among Weathergrams hung from trees at an annual Poets’ Picnic we never made it to in the flesh.]
=================================================
~~~STEPS
Lest you get the idea she was a master of the Basho moment only, here are a few pieces from a folder she’s titled “in progress,” along with some clearly finished works in her own hand following.]
~~~STEPS
one step. –or a half-step?
1/2 one of two?
or is it one step forward
two steps back
~~~~~~~two steps back
~~~turn around
daeh e’ruoy dna [?*]
~~~~~~~~~~~~”first take no falls”
at the edge crumbling
old concrete steps steep
going down? / coming up?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I lean…
my cane like a thin leg
with no power in itself
only to stick where I land it
my hand trembles the cane
wobbles–poised high above–
one push–time, point, release–
platform/ earth/ air & water,
all in one dive leap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~letting go
through the balance point
passing back & forth
through the same SPLASH point–
the next move already formed
in the mind
~~~~~~~~~daeh c’ruoy dna*
—————————(8-11-’12)
[*I’m not at all sure my transcription of this repeated phrase is right. Some of the letters look like they could have come from another alphabet, possibly one of her own design. (Or could it be from Beowolf?) If you recognize the phrase, its source, &/or pronunciation, let us know at bodlibrary2020@gmail.com.
Here, the woman with her cane makes a musical dance-game, singing herself up & down the concrete steps outside our house, a route she took up & down at least twice a day over many years, from house with bedroom to studio next door. Her girlhood as a diver helps inform her sense of balance, meanwhile, done all the more attentively after having broken her hip in a 2010 fall. “First…no falls” was her doctor’s mantra, each visit after, a practice successfully followed most of the time–& always on these particular steps…..
Her love of dancing & water never faded. Near the end, she remembered high diving, with the mountaoins turning upside down. Her sense of kinship with earth, air & all breath-taking creatures comes out in the ecstatic dreams that follow, and also reflected in her last recorded poem, whispered with arms gently moving, facing the large east window at dawn: “one more hula/ under the blue sky.”]
———————————————-
~~~Ecstatic Dreams
~~~1~~~
tonight I sleep
with whales
head down
vertically aligned
perfect density
air to bone
water to blood
just below
the waves
the stir of
dusk settling
whispers of light
eyes closed
eyes open
night
a garden
of silent
breath
~~~2~~~
I dream ecstatic sleep
the press of cold seeps
from all sides my heart
a stone, falling into dark
ocean’s deep embrace: skin
to bone squeezed to muscle
—touch of fin—
till light itself escapes
ravens slowly gathering,
streams of orange, green & yellow
as if on fire–a deep sea river
tentacles fluttering & ____ [?]
in the current–great luminous eyes,
the deliciously soft flesh of the squid–
joy in the hunt!
joy in the battle wrapped &
thrashing–teeth sunk in–
a final snap! the great body
goes limp, fades
to gray, suckers release
long, twisted lines of
holes…joy in the taste…
chewing & swallowing
one more beak settles
into my stomach
called to air, I rise
from the abyss
through a wake of
luminescent bubbles
a mass of silvery fish
explodes like fireworks
through long seaweed
a flock of penguins sweeps
faster & faster up a column
of sleek turbulence
bursting through the shattered surface
ah cracking air–tremendous breath!
tremendous splash! cracking air!
the sun-drenched oceans
echoing in their beds!
tonight
will I sleep
as a whale?
a leaf in the wind?
a butterfly?
wings & the shadows of wings
flicker the domes & fissures
hills & valleys of
my mind…
—————————–[no date]
[Breath-taking. We’d ask her about the title, if we could, seemingly without one. She’d have either offered one of her own; say “if you’d like” to an editor’s suggestion; or take time to think about it, to feel the question through. Mind & feeling become full partners in her dance, as if either might get lost without the other. Not opposites, let alone adversaries, they make a whole greater than their sum, as in what follows.] —————————————–
[This one needs its temporarily lost first stanza replaced–from a visit to her mother on Orcas Island.]
“maybe the blue-eyed marys (calypses) are out”
“let’s go see this afternoon”
“oh, I hear the spotted towhees!
–your father would be pleased”
toot of a small fishing-boat passing
voice-fragments drift
up the steep rocks
————————————
]Meanwhile, back at the ranch….]
festive day
an orange ribbon
for the boundary rock
———————————-9-6-88
back boundary fence
10 years ago
my father stood here
among the leaves
red berries flicker
as I walk away
——————————-[maybe 10 years later?]
~~~TWO TOURS DE FORCE:
[Here are two exhilarating adventures of motion & memory, as deeply playful as profoundly experimental poetically. Each is taken out of its original context in different groups. ‘divinity‘ comes from a sequence she wrote to & for her mother. ‘Downhill from here…‘ was part iv. of a gift called “Mahalo…my husband,” being her breath-taking take on the last stage of a shared lifecycle. More information on them may be found in the “Poetic Discovery” post, but nothing comes close to the direct experience.]
[Click each to open. But BACKSPACE your website control to close PDF automatically & return to the main site. Trying to close the PDF otherwise closes connection to the whole website.]
~~~~divinity
~~~~Downhill from here
[Whew! Besides the over-the-hill couple about to experience imminent decline, where “Downhill…” actually begins, the we of the poem’s described adventure includes her & her Plumb Lane buddy, Kitty Houghton, a companion presence throughout their lives, starting in the same nursery (born days apart), country neighbors thereafter, part of each other’s family. It’s clearly Kitty being quoted (with a laugh) in “Look ma, no hands!” before their last leap– ]
======================================
~~~~~MORE LEAPS, GIFTS, & POSTCARDS
~~~ZOO-ku
words dance in my head
like cranes, beaks straight up
~~~~dance
~~~~~~~~in my head, cranes!
long-legged wings stretched
~~~lift! stamp! beaks up to the sky!
condor dreams–the wild
cold air, blue & endless
snow-peaks from above
concrete ledge–wings
hunched (longest span in the world)
head down
upright, white head turned
to gaze down sharp–wide-eyed
we stand looking up
aren’t you proud, eagle
that your offspring have gone back
to old hunting grounds?
what can you do, giraffe?
with your long long legs? run! run!
over walls & out
let the whole desert
be your stretching ground–
[These above may have been part of a game she played with her students, at least once, inviting them to imagine themselves as the animals conversed with. I’ve taken only ones in her hand, some of which may have been more or less jointly imagined. In a variant of the game, there could be the chance for others to add a last line, appreciating each unique reflection. The poem is less about animals than about the imagination, the shared heart taking flight. Likewise the following is not about earrings.]
———————————————-
~~~robin’s egg blue
a tiny robin’s egg (blue
blue) ~~~ swings
below her ear
~~~~~~~given by her daugher
in Paris (if I remember right
what she said some time ago),
a graceful, easy time
walking lightly time before
inertial years of gradual slowing,
as particle by particle inevitably
dried the pool & circuits of smooth
coordination–at odds with
the rhythms of her limbs–
pain & joy mixed, she tells
of her quest-journey to Australia
& back–& then that she’s picked
the quest up again, called into
the myriad chaotic/ ordered
branchings of her own mind–
dark passageways that offer
a new way for the touch of stillness,
for grace re-emerged, revealed
in motion & spirit of the dance,
blue as a robin’s egg, again
open to the sun–
~~~~~~~~~~~~~to Jeanine–
~~~~~~~~~~~~~friend with heart & courage
(We haven’t seen or talked
since her deep-brain surgery,
& now, thinking of her again
& again I silently renew
my pledge to ask how her quest goes–
each person’s life a quest,
a persistent call to the inward path,
to discover the core heart treasure,
struggle to bring it back–
& find it again in sharing….)
—————————vrb (6-21-05)
[Poetry was often a kind of meditation for her, a way of settling, exploring & tuning the self; it was also, at heart, a way of sharing, i.e., being & tuning together. In a sense, that’s the main, if not her only, agenda. Any thoughts or ideas grow out of that soil–the experience awareness brings to light. The following was a birthday sharing, here in her own hand, “for my son Gus.”]
—————————–(6-5-00)
~~~WILD (birthday) ROSES
——————————
[Her sharing (like her poetry more generally) could take many forms, from the open-ended meditation to moments caught on the fly, as on these postcards to Gus from the Bosque del Apache during one of our crane festivals there. Gu shad done seasonal Forest Service migration studies in & around the refuge, but was living in Hawaii at the time. The green chili burgers were from the famous Owl Cafe, between the refuge & where he’d lived during at least one period, so all these were like photos from home.]
~~~POSTCARDS
green chili burgers
on the run
between flights–
(great owl/ just after dusk/ in the dark)
2 hawks higher & higher into the sun
tour stop #12
a tree with crows
for fruit
easy as geese we cruise from pond to pond
flying in at dusk
in two & threes–
taking off in one great lift
shadow of the hawk part of the branches
rustling husks
like dry November rain
love from
the both of us
all mixed up together
as usual
^^
@@
y
———————————(11-29-00)
[Whether taking the form of a musical interlude, meditation, dream adventure, thank-you note or feelingly noticed moment, a high percentage of her writings can be called love poems. Besides those to, for, &/or in harmony with particular loved ones (family members, students, friends of all sorts), others reflected her love of music, dance, painting…& particular places in the natural earth.
The Bosque del Apache was one we re-visited many times together, including once when we slept (if one can call it that) out in the midst of the flocks, wide-eyed as the snow geese rose at dawn. Another was out in the heart of the dunes at White Sands, where friendships with people, including the management that kept inviting us back (ostensibly for my full moon public programs there), meant we got to stay when everyone else had gone, the whole night on a high dune under moon, stars & clouds.
Besides notes in notebook, on pads & assorted scraps, she kept a special sketch-book for White Sands, with entries at various times, pieces from which may already be up, elsewhere on the site. Otherwise, will look into adding more of her Bosque & dune offerings here ASAP…. –27 May 2020]