Category Archive

I imagined honeysuckle yesterday on my walk. I know it’s too early, though. Honeysuckle blooms mid-June here — around my birthday. Spring smells are intoxicating me (finally). Lilacs overgrown fifteen feet tall line the alleys here: twilight dark purple, soft lilac, and white cones. Dusty spring shower scent, sunday quick cut the grass before it rains hard smell. Heady rotting, worm filled, dirt smell as weeds get pulled up, including what seems like acres of Bleeding Heart volunteers near the bird bath. I’m dumping bags of shredded cypress mulch – no faux orange colored mulch here! Sneezing, oh well!
I transplanted a small rose bush that had been mistakenly planted halfway under a downspout at the corner of the garage. In the two years I’ve lived here, it’s budded a few tiny peach roses. Hopefully, it will survive then thrive in its new home in full sun.

Although it’s decidedly unpoetic, Poets.org has an interesting list of FAQ for National Poetry Month. I learned they chose April to reduce celebratory competition (Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March)) not because “April is the cruelest month,” though that’s why I’d pick it. T.S. Eliot — for those of you wracking your brains.

Yesterday, it snowed and drizzled most of the day, like god’s own little april fool’s day joke. Daffodils on the south side of the yard are poking up, but pausing on days like yesterday. Today is the tease, like Eliot said: the sky is clear, with only a few swift moving clouds. It’s bright, but only 40 degrees now (10:30 a.m.). I’m putting off my walk on the hopes it’ll get warmer; I’ll risk the sun exposure now and then.

I should be able to put the down comforter away, trade the heavy blanket for cotton, and even open the windows in April, but this morning I have wool socks on my feet and a sweater on inside. Instead it’s still “mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots…”

Are robins really the harbinger of Spring? A few bounced around my front yard yesterday — don’t see any this morning, though. I am ready for Spring, like most people around here. Putting the recycling bin out Wednesday, I slipped in the four inches of snow and landed on my butt, cursing all the entities who might have anything to do with this latest snowfall.
The view over the top of the screen is tree-filled and watery blue sky — all frustratingly not Spring.
I haven’t learned to channel this itchy frustration into writing yet, and I’m too old to cavort like a goat anymore. I just want to warm up.

I don’t remember who said the quote about Economics, but I’m sure he or she is right. I have no problem spending significant money to buy a hand-made rug, but I can’t spend $1200 on a snowblower. Is it because I’ve reached middle age without having a machine to move snow? Most of the time I stick to “god put it there; god will take it away,” but in Wisconsin, several inches of snow is common and even all-wheel drive isn’t magic. Especially when trying to muscle through the frozen wall the street plow plastered to the bottom of the driveway. And you HAVE to clean in front of the mail box or risk the nasty-gram from the mail carrier.

Now my lower back hurts and I detest “my back hurts” whiners. I know it’s moving the snow this winter and being 55. Thankfully, I have a neighbor with a plower and blower attached to his John Deere lawn tractor, and I’m pretty sure he enjoys using it in the snow. He usually cleans up the bottom of my driveway and in front of the mailbox (Thanks, Keith!!), but he can’t go up my steep driveway. I appreciate what he does, though, but it’s only stalling the inevitable. sigh.

Does being a writer of any kind require full disclosure?  My idea of a poet is not only one who sees the world in a unique way, but one who tells the truth about what she sees.  and experiences.  Is a poet transparent? or are just her poems?  Is it a symbiotic relationship? Can one exist without the other?

I recently wrote a poem where I told about hitting a man — and how he hit me back.  I asked the reader if they believed that the incident was true (or maybe I was asking if they believed I hadn’ t hit anyone since).  In the poem I asked if the details made the description of the incident more credible.  My writer’s group reviewed the poem and one person had a response to a line that I hadn’t expected.  I included the line, “I don’t remember why, though.”  One reviewer thought the incident couldn’t possibly be true because of this line.  His logic was that if you remember all the details of hitting someone, you would remember why.  Shows what he knows.