Dreaming of Warm Sunshine

Travelling home on the tube on Tuesday evening something reminded me of a back yard I used to play in as an older kid: nine or ten years old, playing with my friend Bree while her mom 'babysat' us. Bree was always a lot of fun and we made the back yard our playground even though it was mostly dust and fallen plums in the shadow of eucalyptus trees.

Catching Flies

Being with Bree, even catching flies was fun.

More than fun, it became an afternoon's mission:

holding her plastic atrium poised, we waited

for the right moment to strike, the other of us grasping

the purple lid that would ultimately secure the flies

in their new four-walled, see-through world.

The fact that her back yard--a softly sloping hill,

dust we kicked up and hundreds of fallen plums--

vibrated with little winged creatures didn't really bother us.

My memory, even then, tinted the scene in sepia--

tones of eucalyptus trees and childhood--

and her hair glinted gold down the length of her back.

She held me in wonder, even catching flies.

Grams

Today, my great-grandmother would have been 101.

For the last four days or so, I have been thinking of Grams, missing her, wearing the cross she bequeathed me--a cross she received on her 50th wedding anniversary from my great-grandfather, Gramps. I was one month old at their party and there is a square, tinted photograph of me swaddled in her arms and my great-grandfather looking on: their first great-granddaughter.

The necklace is a gold cross with inlay black onyx and a tiny pearl set just in the middle. I've worn it to special occasions since she passed in January 2009--weddings, rehearsal dinners, nice dinners out--but the last few weeks I've been wearing it when I thought of her, to work, during the day. I find it difficult, intellectually, to wear a religious symbol with so much weight to it--that's how I hold it in my mind anyway--but I find comfort in the closeness of her spirit.

Grams was also a Sagittarius and there are certain things during the holiday season that inevitably remind me of her: singing in the choir; wrapping presents with neat corners (she taught me the right way to wrap them in 6th grade when I used to come over and wrap her grab bag gifts...); and her wise tip of the "Deary-to-Deary" present, a necessary shopping purchase in the run-up to Christmas.

I had the extreme fortune of knowing 5 great-grandparents in my life, all on my father's side. Almost none was more complex or familiar than my relationship with Grams: I was the little girl who didn't want to be a "little girl" and the one who came after-school to help her around the house in junior high. While we weren't explicit in my relationship with Alex, her approval that she liked her meant very much.

The last time I saw her, she was asleep in bed and I woke her to say goodbye: I was leaving to move to England. She smiled at me, at Alex, and I knew she would be done with this world soon enough. She had had her run and now it was time to be reunited with all those that had gone before her. She was ready.

Happy Birthday, Grams. We're thinking of you.

Oh, the snow....

Hello, again.

I know what you might be thinking, 'Did she write a poem today?'

No, I didn't write a poem, but it did snow in London. Quite a lot for the city, in fact, over the last two days and moments of my day have been quite poetic enough for this, the 1st December.

The holidays really are here--and when I say the holidays, I really mean my birthday, the countdown begun. I can't help but think of my birthday and snow as two peas in a pod. Sure, when I was little I yearned for the pool party, the popsicles, the summers running around in the sun (credit to my parents, I did get an un-birthday party in June once. It was a blast!).

But then, I wouldn't have the snow. Or ice skating. Or memories of hot chocolate and piling into the peach mobile to go look at all the Christmas lights around little ol' Yreka with all my pre-teen friends.

I can't help it, I was giddy today that it was December. Hello, birthday month. Hello, holidays. Hello, snow and hot chocolate and the end-of-the-year reflections. Another season has passed, another year older. And, another white winter in London Town.

Poem #30 - A Sonnet

Well, today is the final day of November. A full month of poetry and as I looked back through the blog archive over the last 29 poems, I've realized how quickly and slowly the month has gone. So much has happened: newlywed poems, a friend's wedding, my cousin's birthday, writer's block, dirty haiku, and untranslatable words.

My poetry partner in crime, sasqi, also messaged me tonight to mark this eve of departure into the rest of our poetic lives. With it, she sent today's poem, a beautiful moving sestina.

Tonight, I took her cue again with a form poem. I found myself struggling to sit down and actually write (a month of poems is HARD, my mind said, and the dishes had been waiting for days...), but then realized, again, what to write about?

One of my message over this month with sasqi checking in on our poetic adventure was about how I was grateful for its timing. For me, it's been a year of celebrating my love and commitment for and to another person. Our second and final (?) wedding was in October and by the time the first of November came around, I found myself wanting only to write of her and my love for her.... *sigh*

Of course, as you know, I didn't write sappy love poems all month. But it did feel appropriate to end this project with a form poem historically dedicated to love: the sonnet.

Without much more ado then, I give you a love sonnet. First though, one more thing: I don't know yet if I'll keep writing a poem a day from December 1st onward, but I'm sure glad I did in November. And, I like writing to you again so check back here tomorrow.

Sonnet #30

Waking up beside you looks like all this:

your sweet face hidden by a quilt cover;

eyelids closed in absolute blissfulness;

a kiss waiting on your lips, my lover.

Rising in the morning with you brings such

joy for the day's possibilities that I

can hardly contain songs from my lips much

or from snuggling back into you beside.

But this is only the briefest of times.

Then the day stretches out before us--

away from the lands of duvets the clock chimes

and the hours become our heard chorus.

Still, my love, my sweetheart, my one darling,

there is always the song of the starlings.*

*Poetic inspiration to ee cummings and Josh Ritter

Late Night Writing (Monday)

I won't lie, given how I make my schedule, I do a lot of my writing in the evenings, sometimes from bed. And when inspiration gets tight and I'm without a prompt, sometimes it's the nearest object to me that makes it onto the page (just the first stanza).

I want to tell you about my bed:

the pine frame and mattress came with the flat,

the pillows were airmailed express

having been selected for perfection

a few years prior. But the bedding, it's new.

Writer's Block

or, otherwise, how to split my time:

How do I

split my time

between you, dear reader,

my first love,

and the one with whom

I share my bed,

our home,

the dreams and

silly things,

my her?

Decorating for a Birthday Party

On Saturday, my love and I baked cupcakes for a friend's birthday and traversed south London by bus and by train with a dozen birthday balloons to decorate the flat for the party.

The very shape of balloons is tantalizing.

The way the light reflects and bounces

as the orb responds to the currents

of conversations, the draft of the door.