Monthly Archives: July 2023

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Enemy

A friend and I are talking this morning and he is talking about praying daily. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. That turns into a discussion of enemies and ourselves. It’s easier to have an external enemy identified than to deal with ourselves, isn’t it? Here is today’s poem.

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Enemy

Do you have an enemy?

Do I have an enemy?

maybe I have no enemy
I have people I have forgiven
I have people who I have asked to forgive me
I have people I have forgiven
but keep distanced
no reconciliation
possible if they continue abuse
blind and deaf
saying “We are righteous!”
over and over to each other

A book teaches me
asks what are you most proud of
in yourself?
Three things:
strong, smart, tough.
The mirror is what you fear the most
weak, foolish, vulnerable
I shy back, hate the author
and he is correct
at least for me

Like the sutra
sometimes I am weak
sometimes I am foolish
sometimes I am vulnerable

When there is a person
or people
I want to hate
What aspect of myself
of my past
of my psyche
are they bringing up?
Are they stronger, smarter, tougher?
Are they weaker, foolish, more vulnerable?
Why do I want to hate them?

It’s easier, I see
to hate another person
and cast them out like a demon
then to look in the mirror
and see the aspect of myself
that I long so much
to hate

That demon
once cast out
will return with seven more

Mirror mirror
on the wall
tell my why
the angels fall

if an angel gets it’s wings
every time a bell rings
each time we hate another, as well
an angel falls heaven to hell

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Names

Last night I go to the Cowboy Ball, replete with cupcakes. It is the kick off of our local county fair, which is in two weeks. There is an hour two-step lesson and then a really fun band. The crowd is very mixed. There are some people who can two step, though not very many. There are some people faking it. After a while there are people dancing six count swing or tango or salsa, but everyone waltzes when they play the waltzes. It’s not quite a polka.

One dance partner asks, “Are you the poet doctor?” I blink. “Yes,” I say, pleased. “Which open mike were you at?” “Disco Bay.” I have done four there in the last three months, three at the poetry open mike and one at a music open mike. I was assured that they want poets too at the latter. Ok, then. “And what do you play?” I ask, because it must have been the music open mike. “Drums.” He is with a band that I know. “When do you play again?” He wrinkles his forehead. “I’d have to check my calendar.” “Get back to me!” I say and he says, “Thanks.” All this while dancing. We are doing some two step, falling into swing whenever one of us messes up a step.

I am nicknamed the dancing doctor by the coffee stand at the Farmer’s Market. She writes that on my cup. They are right next to the outdoor “stage”. I try to lure small children out to dance, solo since they don’t know me. They are wonderfully free and fun when they do come out.

I am pretty thrilled to be the poet doctor! We will see if that sticks in this community.

The photograph is Simon Lynge and Janna Marit two weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market. And here is the coffee stand.


And look! The poster for the Cowboy Dance in the lower left!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: community.

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Child memories

This photograph is from a box sent by my cousin. My sister Chris and my mother Helen. On the back it says “pear tree”. My mother would try to assemble the parts of the Twelve Days of Christmas. When I was in my teens, she would hang glittery pears on her avocado tree that she had grown from a seed. One partridge, two calling birds. She had seven tiny glass swans that she would set swimming on a mirror lake, with white fluff around it for snow. I don’t think she got past seven. My mother had wonderful traditions that she developed for Christmas. She loved the old carols and wouldn’t sing the modern ones at all.

I think my grandfather or grandmother took this photograph. I thought, why isn’t it square? But it isn’t: it was cut from a page and is a bit of a trapezoid.

My sister is about four, so this would be from around 1968.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: children.

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Keeper

Here is my lovely momento.

I write a poem called “In my parents’ house”.

In 1995 my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, makes teapots with the poem on the pot. She gives me one for Christmas.

She dies of cancer in 2000. My sister chooses my poem to read at her memorial.

A friend then reads the poem at my sister’s memorial in 2012 (also cancer), because I missed the California memorial. I was sick at home with pneumonia #2.

After she dies, I am sent a box of a few things from her house. Yarn and a second teapot. My sister had one.

I give the teapot to my niece, my sister’s daughter, telling her her grandmother made it.

My mother signed things with an H inside an O.

Here is the poem:

In my parents’ house
love is dispensed in teacups

When they notice you
Pacing in some empty mood
Or with that blank deserted face
Eyes shutters into an empty mind
They say, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

The warmth of the cup in your hands
And the hot liquid, sweet and milky
On your tongue works wonders
And binds your soul to your body

When my sister is twelve
She embroiders a patch for a quilt
In yellow flosses, a cup
with steam curling upwards
And the words, “Such a comfort. TEA.”

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I think my maternal family still has the quilt, with jeans patches. My grandmother Katy B handed out squares to everyone at the cabins in Ontario and we all made squares. She and my cousin sewed them together and tied the quilt.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: momento.

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Wrought iron man

I know a man from an iron dale.
Stiff and creaky, he won’t change.
Rust flakes off as he hunts his grail:
the perfect woman, but he has aged.
She’ll let him do just what he wills,
drink and sing and run and hide.
A plastic doll might fit the bill.
While his joints freeze, dudettes abide.
He could do with rustoleum, a coat of paint.
He doesn’t see that he leaves a trail.
His friends cringe at his rusted taint.
I note that now they are all male.
He’s proud as hell of his iron will.
He’ll soon wake frozen, rusted still.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: wrought iron.