Sticks and Stones

I have been thinking still of trees: pear trees and peach trees; skin-and-bone trees; stick-and-stone trees; red trees, blue trees; the tree on the hill in Wyoming; the pecan tree in Mama Heaton's backyard and how we'd crack the shells with our teeth; the crabapple tree over at the Miller's and how it stank of sweet. Then there is the Weeping Willow, the huge Weeping Willow out at Lake Lure. I was eight, maybe nine. Something terrible was happening. Divorce or insanity or someone sick or dying. Mom was drinking coffee on the screened-in porch, talking from early morning until night until her throat was sore from too much talking, then sleeping--fitfully--and doing it again. I remember going and laying under that Weeping Willow and knowing that I would always remember that day; staring up through the willows, I marked it. All these years later, I can't remember which grief we were suffering; I only remember the tree and the hard ground beneath me.
All last week, I drove around Oklahoma, stunned by the damage from the ice storm. Trees were completely uprooted. Piles and piles of limbs waited to be carried away. People said that the most frightening thing during the storm was hearing the broken branches shatter when they hit the ground. Imagine: sitting in complete darkness (save the flashlight you've dug from the crowded kitchen drawer) and hearing glass after glass crash to the earth.
I've only been back a day, and already I'm having trouble recalling the devastation. I guess I'm most struck this afternoon by how insular our lives are. Perhaps it's the only way to be, the only to way to happily be: to feel just the earth that is under you and to be thankful that it hasn't been pulled from beneath you by some giant invisible hand.

Here, in Brooklyn, outside my window, a man holding orange roses has turned his back from the wind to light his cigarette. Winter is settling in. This old year's hours are numbered, and the sun casts a long shadow across the wood of my desk, a shadow that--come nightfall--will be all but forgotten.

One Pear Tree

Missing only the partridge:

And you...

what do you miss?

Morning Again

I sit in an upstairs room of my husband's parents' house. My coffee cup is empty but I'm afraid of waking the others. The windows have waves of frost in their perfectly square panels, and I am craving a Clementine. Badly. I want to peel it, section it, bite the section in two. I want to wonder if I should have another and then I want to peel that one too. The clouds are so thick, the day feels still yoked to the night. In his childhood bed, my husband sleeps. I wonder what dreams he has.

A Blue (Pitcher) Christmas

Wishing you all the very merriest of Christmases.

Much love.

Warning

(Stars may fall.)

Poetry: It Runs in the Family

This is my little brother, Tommy:

And this is his poem:

RED

Red is a watermelon

I'm getting ready to eat.

Red is the color

that flows through my feet.

Red is the apple

that is starting to ripe.

The U.S. flag has many a red stripe.

Cinnamon candy, Christmas bows,

Tomatoes are red, everyone knows.

But did you think of red cars,

red fish or the planet Mars?

Did you think of red dresses made of silk?

How about a cold glass of strawberry milk?

Did you think of red birds

flying high in the sky?

And if not...why?

Cherries are red,

flowers are too.

I don't know if you like red,

but I know I do!

The Promise Land--Literally

I'm heading back to Oklahoma today, and just in time, I stumbled upon this. It's pretty wild. I had always thought of I-35 as nothing more than a strip of road where I'd smoke cigarettes and chug Diet Dr. Pepper as I made the trek from Norman to Tulsa and back again. Looks like the interstate has a higher calling...

"And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness.

The unclean will not journey on it;

it will be for those who walk in that Way;

wicked fools will not go about on it."

Isaiah 35:8

Health & Fitness Tip #22

In general, avoid ingesting foods that end with the word "ball." While a meal consisting entirely of cheeseballs, meatballs and cakeballs may sound like a delightful idea, you will inevitably wake up the next morning (as mild and lovely as the day may be) feeling like a lardball.

Flights of Fancy

For those moments when the utterly indulgent
feels terribly necessary...

Visit MamaBird: here.

New Poem

The Trees

In a hot bath I think of you
but turn my mind instead to the trees
my mother cut down late last spring.
They wouldn't let the sun in, she said,
and the neighbors shook their heads.
It is, after all, Oklahoma,
and with those unbearable summers,
who wouldn't want the shade?

Now winter,
her voice breaking over the line,
limbs buckle with the weight of ice,
and even this far away, I feel
the brittleness in my own bones.

In the fogged mirror, I rub
a circle with the heel of my palm.
My throat catches my breath.
I hardly recognize what I see.

Give the Kid a Pony

My very sweet, very considerate, very handsome little brother turns 12 today.
(Remember 12? Or have you blocked it out like I have?)
Happy birthday, Kenny...
may you have a year you won't want to forget!

Nostalgia

A painful longing for the past, coined by Johannes Hofer in 1688. Even wine, he found, wouldn't salve it. It doesn't happen to me very often, usually only in the late fall or early spring when it's dark out but not night. I sip hot water, breathe, wait for it to go away.
In Oklahoma, my mother is iced-in. No power. Just sweatshirts and the fireplace, warm Diet Coke, canned food. Here in Brooklyn, the kitchen light glows. In a few minutes I'll go for a long walk; I imagine the cold air will do me good.

The Problem with Blogging #12

I have become afraid of indenting. I sit in my office, looking out my window, into another a window--a gym window--and watch people run on treadmills, run very fast and nowhere, and then I glance at my slate-blank Microsoft Word document. The cursor blinks.

I have abandoned the tab key, and the tab key has abandoned me. O reader, I fear I have painted myself into a corner: a very, very blue corner. Blue, blue, blue: this will not do!

Still Life: Wish Granted

Now that I've gotten that out of my system...

All You Need is Love...

Cocteau's Cab: A Call for Cookie Recipes

All morning I have been thinking of Jean Cocteau's cab. I want to catch it. I want to step out my window--my robe magically turning into straight-legged pants, my fuzzy slippers into tall boots--and whistle. There it will be: the cab: yellowed, metered: a well behaved sonnet.

He is writing about seeing, writing about the role that poetry performs. He is Cocteau, and seeing, seeing is, well, "All of a sudden we see," he writes, "a dog, a cab, a house, for the first time," and it gets us; it hits us; in that moment, it--strange pup--is nothing that we have ever imagined, while at the same time, exactly as we have always imagined. Cocteau goes on about that moment of seeing: "We are overpowered by the unique, the crazy, the ridiculous, the beautiful features of each object. The next moment, habit, with its eraser, has rubbed out this vivid picture. We stroke the dog, hail the cab, and live in the house. We do not see them anymore." O, dirty Habit, shame on you.

And shame on me. For lying. Confession: All morning, I have been thinking more of cookie recipes than of Cocteau's cab.
(I sometimes worry that I will die very happy and loved and with something delicious baking in the oven, but cab-less, poem-less, not even a bird to call my own. Please send your recipes to help assuage slash cement this concern.)

A Poem for Early December

End of April
by Phillis Levin

Under a cherry tree
I found a robin’s egg,
broken, but not shattered.

I had been thinking of you,
and was kneeling in the grass
among fallen blossoms

when I saw it: a blue scrap,
a delicate toy, as light
as confetti

It didn’t seem real,
but nature will do such things
from time to time.

I looked inside:
it was glistening, hollow,
a perfect shell

except for the missing crown,
which made it possible
to look inside.

What had been there
is gone now
and lives in my heart

where, periodically,
it opens up its wings,
tearing me apart.

from The Afterimage, 1996
Copper Beech Press, Providence, RI

The Tiniest Hefner

Beneath the swirling mass of loud, milky stars,

under the cusp of the ever-comforting moon,

on a little planet I like to call home,

in a little country that really ain't so bad,

in the middle of North Cackalacky,

in a city they call the Queen,

down a pretty little road,in their nice warm home,live my handsome little brother and the woman he loves,

and inside of her, growing day by day, the tiniest Hefner in all of the universe...

Jonas:

We can't wait to welcome you into the world, little one.
Grow safe.

Ho Ho Ho

Hoping the coming holidays are less frightening to you

than to our dear Addison Maxine...

Flying Motorcycles, Snow Cream & Eric

This morning: our first snow; already I feel so far away from last night when I dreamed I was shot in the leg during a bank heist, and then I was on the beach riding on the back of a moped; the surf, wild; I looked down; my leg was still bleeding. The roads are slick; Evel Knievel is dead; my childhood friend Eric is dead. Autumn's yellow leaves still fall outside, but the snow--all the snow, more, it seems, than they called for--and the leaves get tangled up in it.

Evel Knievel made it to 69.Imagine making it to 69. Eric was 34. Dad sent the email with the obituary: the vague language, the hospice, the dear friend. I can't believe it's 2007, and we're still afraid to say AIDS. I sometimes marvel at how complacent we can be, how complacent I can be--sipping ginger tea, walking to yoga in the winter, stringing words together.

When we were little, and Eric lived down the road--these were after Evel Knievel's daredevil days; he had already jumped across rivers and filed bankruptcy--first thing in the morning Joe and I would run down to Eric's house. It was still dark outside. Dad would just be getting home from working the graveyard shift at Honey's Inn, and Joe and I would run down, tap on the door, sit with Eric watching cartoons until dawn when we'd all wander outside and play war--pegging each other in the legs and arms with crab apples--until we got called in for supper.

There was no better time than the first snow. The night before we put out a big bowl, and come morning--a little twist in the universe--Eric would run up to our house, and Linda and Dave and Joe and Eric and I would watch as dad stirred the evaporated milk and the vanilla and the sugar into the snow. We sat, the six of us, around the table and ate it from bowls, saying mmm, mmm, mmm, I wish it could always snow! And so...in memory of Eric...I'm so very happy it's snowing this morning. I wish he could be here to lick the bowl. Another winter settles in--Superman is long gone; Evel Knievel has followed--and I am feeling old, feeling like I've known too many people who have died, feeling like I need to cherish every face around every table I'm lucky enough to be given a chair, feeling like maybe I could go back in time just a bit, maybe I should wake up my husband, bundle us up in scarves and mittens and three layers of shirts, and go stomping through the streets, pelting each other with snowballs, until finally, exhausted, we lay down in a field, flap our arms and legs wildly and make snow angels.

Public Service Announcement

Give This Man a Job

Preferably writing love letters or clearing out karaoke bars.
(How could you say no to that face?)

Four Left Feet

So, yes, you can tell jokes that will send us into fits of hysteria and identify bones that will send us into bouts of weeping, and yes, you're a genius and a doctor and a good looking man, and yes, you can pull rabbits from hats and mastermind all things mechanical, but my brother, can you dance?

P(it)ch Perfect

In his essay, thrilled with the violinist he had heard at Carnegie Hall, my student, Yoon, wrote of the violinist's beauty and how she played in perfect "peach." I like to think of Yoon in that big dark hall--an orchard all his own--and how leaving, he reeked of sticky sweetness, the kind so potent that hours later you smell it on your hands and remember.

Other Blue Things

The umbrella I left on the train; the jacket of the woman who was sitting across from me, the one with the sad eyes and the smooth cuticles; the ink in the pen in the pocket of my purse; deli carnations; the bird I was cast as in the first grade, the one who couldn't fly; a stone; a sky; what Christmas would be without you; the space between red and yellow, between mapped land and chartered stars, between two and true; the sound of running water, of running, of walking away and not turning back, of not turning, of turning too quickly; a berry pie; very cold ice; a very hot flame; my pappy's eyes; the guitar pick he's got in his pocket; the bird, though, (little bird/little bird blue), in the end, I think she flew, though I didn't, of course, being only six with no wings at all save the feather-plastered cardboard they strapped to me just before the curtain rose.

Health & Fitness Tip #21

Step away from the pumpkin pie.

The Players

Smiley Jelly Love

Amy and Hill

Maaza, Martin and Livs

We call ourselves (among other things)
"The Southampton Writer's Collective."

Yuck-yuck-yoing with LaLa Limon.

Ah, the Cake

I love this photo that Olivia took because it feels like the kind of photo you find in the drawer of a bureau, a bureau you buy at a little antique store that you happen to drive by one cold November day, a bureau you just have to have, so you rope it on top of your beat-up station wagon, and you get home and start filling the drawers with your own things--soaps, panties, mended socks--and hmm, you say to yourself, what's this? It's a man and a woman cutting a cake with a little man and a woman on top of it. You flip the photo over and try to read the faded blue ink but can't make out the names or the date. You turn it over again and sit looking at them for a long minute, wondering if they are happy.

Trust me, they are. Very.

The In-Laws

I just realized I've been married over a month and have yet to make a disparaging comment about the ole in-laws (who, by the way, I love like crazy). Anyway, this Rockwell-goes-redneck just in from my father-in-law:

Yes, folks, happy thanksgiving from southwest Missouri!!!

New Poem

Near Dawn

In the refrigerator, a bowl of green grapes,

seedless, but still a place where the seed was meant to be.

I have been over the sink, wondering about winter,

while my husband sleeps, the sheets marking his face

in a way I’ll try, uselessly, to smooth later. My mother,

I’m sure, is waking up in Oklahoma. Her hands hurt;

I can feel the pain in my own, but it’s too early to call.

The sound of a phone ringing at this hour—

hollow, frightening—someone is dying, you just know it.

If it is only your adult daughter, the one who’s pecking

at grapes, if it is only her, asking how your plants are,

how you are, if it is only her, and the ring has broken

your whole house, it might not quite be worth it.

That racing of the heart when silence is interrupted—

someone would need to be dead or hurt or really, really lonely,

so lonely even the dawn wouldn’t make good company.

How 'bout a little smile?

Still Life with Brooklyn's Mala Yoga

Three of my favorite women in the world (and, incidentally, the most talented yoga teachers I've ever worked with) opened up a new studio just a stone's throw away. Put down whatever you are doing, and go there now.

The luminous and lyrical Angela Clark:

The very wise and very hilarious Christina Hatgis:The extremely enviable pigeon of a classmate:The inimitable, intelligent and strikingly sincere Stephanie Creaturo:And don't be surprised if you see someone familiar:
Ah yes, even the Blue Pitcher gets her Zen on...

Dream #1116

Early in the week, taking an English muffin out of the oven, I burned my hand. It doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it looks, but for the first few days I didn't want Cody to see it. I could hear him: Babe, you've gotta be more careful. And so I hid it. I'd put the tea towel over my arm or gesticulate wildly. Birds, I'd say. Huge ones!
And so last night, as is often my habit in dreams, I was walking along the beach. I walk for hours in my dreams, around coves and by huts, then another little bend and more ocean; it takes me forever to decide to get in the water, but when I do it's exactly what I need. In this last dream, I didn't want the salt to get into my burn. Standing on the shore I could feel the sting, but finally--I think I could sense it was almost time to wake up--I went in.

In college, Jane and I took Tina from her family one morning. Her husband (now gone) slept soundly; her children (now grown) cried. And we drove and drove, across the Red River and into Texas. We kept heading south, stopping only for cigarettes and Dr. Pepper, Waffle House and pee breaks, until finally we were there. Tina had never seen it before. She ran up the dune, and there it was: the ocean. So much bigger, she said, than she could ever have imagined.

This morning, stirring hot water into pre-packaged oatmeal (I'm taking a break from the oven), I thought about dreams and how they occupy us and how we occupy them, and I wondered what everybody else is doing while I'm walking all those miles along the beach, and then Cody was standing there. Hey, he said, what happened to your hand?

My hand?

I'd like to say he took my hand in his two hands and brought it to his mouth and kissed it. Babe, he said. I know, I know, I said, and we ate our oatmeal. I walked him to the train and thought about how in my dream my hand had actually been healed by the saltwater. We kissed goodbye; now, I am home. The breakfast dishes have been cleaned.

When I'm back in Oklahoma, one of my favorite times of the day to spend with my mom and the kids is the morning. Any good dreams last night? she'll ask as they pick sleepily at their Eggo's. I'm never sure if they're making the dreams up or not, but I love hearing them.

So how about you, any good dreams last night?

Picasso, Eat Your Heart Out

Planning on an autumn stroll through the city?

Go to: 5 West 54th Street
(the MOMA's education & research wing)
for: FREE
& see the 15 foot mural created by students & friends of the Hungerford School
under the wise eye of the brilliant Linsey Miller!

I hear it's absolutely breathtaking.