Climbing the Third Stair

I am visiting friends right now, and this afternoon while they were at work I took a walk around the area to enjoy the view. As they live in a new subdivision in rural Maryland next to a state park there was a lot to look at! There are trees everywhere and they are starting to color up.

In the evening they took me with them to their landscaping class. It was interesting to listen to the other students talk about their houses and what they wanted to accomplish landscaping-wise, but at times my attention faltered and when it did I started working on some poems.

I am not a poet. I do not claim even to myself that my poems have any value as poems. When I write them I do so with the idea of sharpening my handling of images. This is one of the reasons I write almost exclusively in haiku.

I managed to compose two poems relating to things I saw on today's walk. I almost think the first one should be pulled apart and made into two independent poems, but I don't know if I will ever really get this done.

******

Here at the bottom
of autumn's thin blue heaven
hawks regard me coldly

******

Looking down on
forest trees turning color:
Brocade thrown over hills

I am a huge fan of Dante's Inferno, which I first read in high school because of an Uncanny X-man summer special. (Let it never be said that comic books are not educational.) Since I started writing I've been reading and rereading it, trying to tease out lessons from the Master's style. (In much the same way, I guess, that Dante studied Virgil. I'm fairly certain that of the tow of us, Dante is the better student.)

Tonight I felt moved to share one of my favorite passages. It's the section where Virgil is explaining who Dame Fortune is to Dante, and I've included one of Virgil's bit of smack:
( Cut for length, but you really should go and read it )

It's way after my bedtime and I'm frustratingly not sleepy. I'm blaming the weather--according to the National Weather Service it's 85 here, with a heat index of 94 (that's 29 and 34 for you metric folks)--this is Not Good Sleeping Weather. I can deal with heat during the day, but at night I need it to cool down.

While I am here--last week while searching my desk for something I found a poem that I must have written a few years back. I record it here, so that I can find it again, should I ever have the need for it. I can't presently imagine such a need, but there's always the unexpected.

First view of the sea
by a mid-continent girl--
Oh! It's flat like home

This morning I had a dental appointment (regular teeth cleaning, nothing exciting) and so ended going in to work in the middle of the day. It was a hazy sky, the sun burning behind a veil of clouds with snow flurries.

White motes dance earthward
swirl, dip, silver sifting down
Sun shines through snow



I've been sort of grouchy this past week, mostly I think because of the approach of Valentines Day. Nothing good can be said about a holiday that combines ever-present reminders that I am a romantic non-entity with the opportunity to eat suicidal amounts of chocolate. On the other hand, I've felt pretty good today--probably due to my recovery of my earring collection.

Earrings have always been my favorite kind of jewelry (unlike rings and bracelets they don't interfere with your hands, and unlike necklaces you don't need to worry about your shirt collar matching) and through high school and college I amassed quite a collection. Then my ears started reacting to the metal and I'd wear a pair for about 2 hours before my ears itched so bad I had to take them out. No more earrings.

Until recent months when a jewelery-making friend suggested that I try sterling silver or 14 ct gold plate--and they worked. Oh, rapture! Last weekend one of the local craft stores ran a sale on their silver and gold jewelry findings and I bought a package of earring wires in each metal. Last night I sat down and converted almost all of my remaining earrings over to the new wires. Today I had the bliss of having to make a decision about what pair to wear. Oh, such bliss!

On the way to work I stopped by and bought several packages more wires. I only have a few more pairs to convert, but now I'll be able to make earrings for myself as well. I don't see myself getting as deeply into jewelry-making as I am crocheting, but I would like to be able to put together the occasional earring.

We are now deep into autumn here, and I'm loathing it. Normally I like fall (actually, I like all the seasons which is why I plan never to move to Hawaii) but we have had drab/overcast/rainy days for what feels like weeks and I'm starting to erode under the constant blahness of it all. (Which is why I plan never to move to Seattle. I don't think it was a coincidence that grunge music started there.) Autumn should be about the yellowing of the maples, the slow bronzing of the oaks, the late defiant blaze of chrysanthemums--not this brown-and-gray muck I'm currently trapped in. It's the time of year that I normally dream of jetting up to Sioux Falls for an L5R tourney as an excuse to admire the roadside weeds, but now just want to burrow more deeply into my blankets and sulk.


But when reality fails me there's always art. Women Poets of Japan by Kenneth Rexroth and Ikuko Atsumi has a beautiful poem by Princess Nukada (who lived sometime in the 7th century) which compares spring and autumn. No poem survives its own translation, we are told, but this ghost is not without power to move me:

When spring escapes
freed from being huddled in winter's sleep,
the birds that had been stilled
burst into song.
The buds that had been hidden
burst into flower.
The mountains are so thickly forested
that we cannot reach the flowers
and the flowers are so tangled with vines
that we cannot pick them.
When the maple leaves turn scarlet on the autumn hills,
it is easy to gather them
and enjoy them.
We sigh over the green leaves
but leave them as they are.
That is my only regret--
So I prefer the autumn hills.

The last scout meeting of the year was tonight. I may have more thoughts on this later, but for now here are two haiku I left scrawled on the sidewalk of the church we met at.



Peonies in bloom
in early summer heat
nod heavy pink heads



Catalpa rising
into heaven fears no lightening
only time



I think the first one is more successful overall, but I like the idea of the second one better. Maybe I'll try to work on it more? I'm really a lousy poet, but I like the compactness and stringent design of haiku.

After the meeting Linda, Linda's daughter and one of the other girls and I were leaving the building together. The others stopped to read what I and others had written on the sidewalks. "What's that?" the other girl said. "Haiku" I told her. "You're weird," she said firmly.