Pandemic

To all those sheltering in place!!! I send love and wishes that you, yours, and all stay well.

After almost 57 years of marriage we weren’t sure how we’d weather 24/7. I’m so happy to report no cross words and attribute it to doing our own thing during the day, I’m writing postcards to voters in upcoming state elections and housework (I really get into it) and my husband works from home. Then wine with dinner (a necessary habit) and finding non-news programs to watch together. Hope all is going well for you and especially those with school age children. I just help take care of two grown-up needs.

I invite you to see my three latest poems on this site. There is also an anthology that I’m part of. The Sum of Us, by Women Who Write, there are five poets work including mine in the new book. If you’d like a copy email me at redmel@me.com. Perhaps reading poems will take your mind off the Corona Virus? Keep washing your hands, keep 6 feet of distance, and find something that you can keep doing to lift your spirits!!! We’ll get through this, Melanie

Some Believe Birds Are Harbingers of Things to Come

They fall to earth
& fish wash up on shore

 
Winter fire: breathing & coughing
The dry forest smokes & crackles

 
A clutter of destruction
elsewhere amaryllis bloom

                          
North, South, East, West, deluge—
Floods will change our diet

 
Worse than drought no crops
planted on flooded plains

 
In my home-town next to the bay
prediction of a 1.1 feet rise by 2050

 
I wish to think of other things
& buy a ring of pink morganite

 
Summer brings a mockingbird who
sings & rises up, wings flash in our pine

 
We listen and watch for his display
everyday. It makes us smile!

 
He circles our property sits imitating
songs & flashes in the magnolias

 
Down by the lagoon before
Returning to the greenest pine

 
Mockingbird aggression chases away
Playful scrub jays, woodpeckers &

 
Sparrows who inhabit our trees
Wish he’d scare those raucous crows

 
Then one day, two days, five, no more
Mockingbird song. He must have flown on

 
It’s so very quiet his loud voice, his song

Retreat at Spirit Rock

Outside gray rain but grass, bushes, trees
surround us: this forest of green.
Wild turkeys, redheaded toms, waddle
uphill picking and pecking.

Inside we meditate, ponder humanness––
How do we know this cargo: know ourselves?

That bitter night under many blankets,
I dream of patterns, patterns on cloth
in a place filled with women and fabric.
There is a white card with my name on it.

The pieces of fabric become rich in color,
thick, plush as carpet. I belong here, I belong.

Too Much Fish

Much that has been going on in our America these last two years that has, to say the least, been very disturbing for me. I wrote a new poem last week that puts some of my feeling into words. I wish everyone joyous holidays filled with love, and merriment. Laughter will get us through. Melanie

Too Much Fish

What was the President’s name in 1975
Same as it is now––
Donald Trump

He calls her question racist the African American
reporter asks at the press conference.
Really is this Presidential?

Stupid, he calls a reporter’s question, as he leaves
the White House. Adds, she always asks stupid questions.
Really?

A recent study found that women who carry a little extra weight,
live longer
than the men who mention it!

Trump: I answered the questions from Robert Mueller myself, not my lawyers ––
I answered them easily, very easily. Whole investigation just a hoax!
What do you think?

Trump says, Mueller is biased for Democrats (He’s a Republican)
might he switch to Independent,
when this is over?

Ann Richards: Poor George (Bush), he can’t help it. He was born with a silver boot in
his mouth. What would she say about Trump? Perhaps, poor Donald he was born with
golden bone spurs up his …

Stephen Miller, 32, Trump’s right hand man. Complains in high school when PA
announcements are read in Spanish. He devises Trump’s No Tolerance immigration
policy.   Effective?

After a march on the U of V campus chanting, Jews will not replace us, White
Nationalists hold the Charlottesville rally: a peaceful counter-demonstrator run over,
killed. Trump blames both sides. Says, there were very fine people on both sides.  

10/27/18: at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, eleven worshippers shot and killed
by a man who wants to kill all the Jews. Thousands demonstrate when President Trump visits.
Some sing. Some carry signs: Fully denounce White Nationalism, or Talk Matters

11/6/18: In Belvedere, Ca on the street side of her front yard fence –– angry voices ––
can’t see them but hears a man yell, we’re trying to get rid of people like you!
Voices stop, doors slam, the sound of cars driving off.

Blanca, an outdoor cat, drops a live bat on her owners’ bed at 2 am. She becomes
an indoor cat after delivering a decapitated squirrel –– the coup de grace.
When is enough, enough?

My Muse inspired this poem.......

 

 

Au Revoir                                                                                                               

I follow

the white tip

of a cheetah’s tail.

Set your sights low,

daddy taught me.

Winds blow

hard and dirty

hot sand

hurries the feet.

A procession

of red parasols

winds its way

to the temple.

Coq fights

along the road,

pigs fattened for slaughter.

The cheetah

runs her rough tongue

up my naked calf.

Hold on to the beauty

hold on.

Just some erotic p0em I happened to write

The Thin Man

Finally

I discover

Your promises –– tin

Finally

I see

You need to control

Finally

I understand

The fragility of you

The substantial nature

 Of your cock

Fooled

Me

HOME, a new poem about, simply, some time at home

Home

Radiant summer leftovers ––

red begonias in large blue pots.

Rain drips from an open umbrella

shading the patio table.

Leaves from the miniature

cherry tree scatter across glossy grass.

Inside our dog sleeps, slumped

on window seat pillows

overlooking the garden.

To the tune of a dying smoke

detector my husband dozes

in his comfortable chair

work papers spread on his lap.

I’m grateful, I’m sad, all at once.

Lucca's Wall

built in 56 BC surrounds the old town. This city within a city enchants me. I travel its cobblestone streets narrow and twisting. The same streets Dante walked when he lived here.  Bicycles reign. There are few cars. Miniaturized garbage trucks keep things pristine. Serenity–– bicycle bells and conversation fill the air. We pass a small 12th century church its marble façade carved like a wedding cake. We enter a small square where the bronze statue of a seated Puccini, cigarette in hand, stares out at us. Across the street, off to the left –– his home. Lucca’s Guinigi tower, looms ahead, crowned with a forest of rooftop oak trees. I long for custard-filled pastry set in a store window not the huge unwrapped hams hanging from its ceiling.

We follow our guide turning here, there, streets clustered with medieval houses opening onto church squares. Turning again, a relic of Roman times, Piazza dell’ Anfiteatro. A solitary piece of art in the arena encircled by tourist filled cafes and small specialty shops. We find one filled with scarves of richly colored wool, cashmere, silk, most tissue thin. The window display ––a woman weaving at her loom. There’s even time for pastry.

Add-ons over centuries widened wall ramparts to their massive 17th century size. Napoleon’s favorite sister planted them with linden trees after he conquered Lucca in 1805. I join walkers, runners, and cyclists who use the broad tree lined pathways, watch them, as I make my way (I’d rather stay) through the wall’s impressive iron gates. Find our bus back in the twenty-first century.

Itsy Bitsy Spider...Forget that Water Spout

This photo of a munching spider made me laugh out loud. To me it looked like a girl with a ribbon in her hair and giant black eyes holding a colorful kite! But this furry arachnid is polishing off a leafhopper. The article in USA Today contends that the world's population of spiders consumes 440 million to 880 million tons of insects and other pests a year = to the weight of more than 85 million elephants. How anyone can make a calculation like this beats me but click here to read the article in its entirety. 

Tree of Life

Do you know that The New Yorker magazine has a talk program on radio (88.5), Sundays at 3 pm? I heard it today for the first time. It's divided into sections and the initial interview was with Harry Belafonte. I never knew he was a revered civil rights activist. I fell in love with him growing up listening to his lilting voice, seeing him in movies, thinking he was one of the best looking men, ever. They played a bit of his calypso music bookending the interview and I was surprised to find myself singing along! I haven't heard that song about having to...."leave this little girl in Kingston town," since the fifties. Today he spoke about the fact that no one is leading the fight to stop the erosion of voting rights for minorities, Blacks in particular. Where he asks are the NAACP, the Black Congressional caucus, others? I was taken aback because I haven't thought about it, but he's right.

Last night at the end of an amazing meal, filled with delicious food, great wine, and comradeship I sit waiting for some coffee to be poured when suddenly I feel a jolt; hot liquid runs down my back; I scream. I hear an "oh shit," and realize the busboy has spilled hot de-caf on me. Every body jumps up to help. I am fine after an ice pack, shower, and warm bathrobe at home stops the shakes. Today it's beautiful. Outside, birds sing as I write this. I am grateful for this joy that I feel at being alive, well, and being a woman in America. The pictures of what is happening in Syria and so many hot spots in the world really brings this home to me. That minuscule catastrophe last night stained clothing, no harm to body. Money, I gladly pay, for cleaning clothes will right this damage. Nothing rights the horror of war.

Tonight, tomorrow, Jews will be celebrating the new year of 5777. They will be in synagogue praying, thankful for another year. A friend tells me there are 4 kinds of Jews: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Retired. She says at our age it's OK to stay home and give thanks to G-d. Taking what she says to heart we are staying home to appreciate our blessings. We also have decided to go to a late morning movie and eat sandwiches for lunch in the theater. (Something we did years ago.) L'Shana Tova to all who will be celebrating this New Year of life. May it be a sweet one for you and yours.