Memoirous

Curt—what did you see on that last walk? Squirrels, those bushy-tailed rats, in a moment of late fall frenzy. A mama pushing a stroller, your mind wanders to Benji, the little boy you lost to a brain tumor when he was 11 years old. He would have been a boy all grown up now, sitting with you, his hand warming yours. Litter skitters across the bike path, swirls around the base of a tree, sending the nervous squirrels twittering. The last time you were home to visit your kids you went camping. At night around the campfire you told them what you wanted done with your ashes. They weren’t ready to hear it. The sun slips behind the hospital across from the bench where you sit. Your last poem touched upon this: a life well-spent, lived to its fullest before the sun goes down. Some of your ashes will be next to Benji, some by your beloved Dawn, some mixed with the wind, as you sigh a breath of release.

Again following in my theme of all things Maine and New York School of Poetry-ish and memoir, haiku prose, flash. All this to say: I’ve been reading the poems of Anne Porter. Her first collection, An Altogether Different Language (1994), published when she was 83, was named a finalist for the National Book Award. Her other volume of poetry is Living Things: Collected Poems (2006). I was struck upon beginning this collection how many of her poems seem to be reminisces. In deed, she lived a long life, passing away in 2011 just shy of 100 th birthday. A number of her poems begin with the word once . The Wingéd Children Once when my friends Were driving through the desert In Mexico They passed a pickup truck And in the back of it Each with a pair of wings Of sky-blue plush Such as is used For making bedroom-slippers There rode a dozen little Mexican children. In addition she began a series of poems with This is . Summer Cottage This

Marsden Hartley: The Biography of an American Painter Townsend Ludington Lately I’ve been reading about Maine authors and painters ( see Great Spruce Head Island, see Art Week!). Actually I’ve always had an interest in Marsden Hartley. Ever since I saw this painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, where I was simply drawn in. It is in the same gallery as Night Hawk and Georgia O’Keefe, whose subject matter is somewhat similar. There was something about Cash Entry Mines, New Mexico , 1920 that spoke to me. Maybe it was how big nature is or the color palette: dun, washed red, faded black lines, sand colors. We can never know exactly what will touch us, but I suspect it has to do with peace. I bought at a library sale a monograph about Hartley and I learned that while living one summer in Nova Scotia with a local family the family lost 2 sons and another family member. Their boat was caught in a storm and the lads were lost at sea. This was devastating not only

The most recent issue of Vignette Review is featuring a flash I wrote a few years ago. I actually conceptualized the flash as a series of vignettes. I revised it and cut it down; the ending wasn’t coming together. I sent it around to a few journals etc and it received a round of rejections. Finally it was on the verge of acceptance if I only made a slight edit. Now let me say I am not at all adverse to suggestions. Maybe not immediately, but eventually after a minute of clear thinking I’ll see what the editor is getting at—but this change didn’t work for me. Specifically, he/she didn’t think heat emitted by a hand-held soldering iron would set off a fire-suppression system. My research told me this person was wrong. We couldn’t agree on the change so I had to let it go. Back to sending out the piece. But the suggestion got me thinking— see , a good thing. I took another look at my ending, and in a slight of hand, added a sentence that could be read literally and figur

Thank you CSA Travel Protection. Usually when I book a flight I’m way to cheap to bother with travel insurance. Something like $30 extra dollars. But this last time, flying overseas with my bicycle and cycling the length of the UK ( see JOGLE) I decided to splurge. Just in case I 1.) got into an accident. I could imagine flying downhill and hitting a small rock or nut in the road and skidding out, getting hit by a car, forgetting to ride on the left and getting hit by a car, hitting pea-size scree and skating over asphalt on my butt—I could imagine ANY number of scenarios—and did. 2.) Just in case my bike got stolen, lost, or damaged. I imagined this too. My trip was fraught with imagined difficulties. My expectations were met immediately—before leaving Chicago. Air Canada was late, thus I missed my international connection in Montreal. Why is it that staff never seemed panicked or concerned over individual passenger’s itineraries? I had train reservations made months in advan

Hey! I found your notebook the other day. It was a close-bound golden blank book. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to read it; I was looking for a name, address, who I should contact. I read about you feeling sorry about that night, wondering if he might have taken it wrong. If only you hadn’t been so impulsive. Will life always like this?! You had just gotten this cute little notebook and wanted to write down your thoughts in an attempt to sort things out. You feel like if you only had a chance to get things out, spilled on the page things might start to make sense. About that night . . . did he ever call you? I tried to call, but the number was unlisted—as was your email; my message bounced back. You seemed conflicted about that night. He was okay and he might be someone you’d be into. In other ways it was so wrong, like he was your roommate’s boyfriend’s best friend. Awkward. He still hadn’t called. And, it’d been 24 hours. You blamed the drinking (too much), the weed (especiall

When you reach a certain age you start losing people. There’s been a tally at the end of every year. 2017 reached new lows, new depths of grief. I’ve been thinking especially, somewhat retroactively as it happened during a very busy and then emotionally-occupying time, about my friend Curt Mortimer and all that he has meant to me through the years. His lifetime of selfless giving. Checklist Before Dying: *write a poem *vote for Hillary *watch an epic sunset *drink a good cup of coffee (especially good if accompanied by a friend) Curt had a check in every box before passing away on Election Day 2016 sitting on a park bench late afternoon. He is an example of someone who lived a good, long life committed to the people he loved. But, I’m also reminded of the first person, the first friend I had that died. They weren’t as lucky to have lived a good, long life. I remember the shock—if mortality, that time isn’t forever, that we can be too late to right wrongs, sa

I want to finish a book and start another sit and listen to music over and over watch a movie-- from beginning to end,    straight through savor a cup of tea, holding it letting it warm my hands next to my cheek.

Flash Memories: I was a childhood insomniac. Sometimes in the middle of the night, the quietest hour right before dawn, I’d slip out of my bed and drop out the window to the spongy dew-grass—and under the wan light of the moon I’d twirl, my night dress lifting up like a gypsy dancer. Later I’d sneak back inside, the dog lifting his head monetarily before closing his eyes, and return to my bed. what a strange child I was

Flash Memories: Behind our house was a woods. More like undeveloped land. I remember trekking through drifts of snow with my brothers and sister to go ice skating on a pond. It was big enough to support a pick-up game of hockey and for the beginner such as myself to make circles. Once (or maybe more than that, but at least once as far as I recall) my sister fell in and kids made a chain, the last person, possibly my brother, on his stomach, to fish her out. She walked home with us soaking wet. A few times my mother drove us and we were able to put on our skates in the warmth of the car. She waited for us to finish with thermoses of hot chocolate. --If not, the way home felt long and shivering cold in the grey twilight.

POEM AT THE NEW YEAR by John Ashbery   Once, out on the water in the clear, early nineteenth-century twilight, you asked time to suspend its flight. If wishes could beget more than sobs, that would be my wish for you, my darling, my angel. But other principles prevail in this glum haven, don’t they? If that’s what it is. Then the wind fell of its own accord. We went out and saw that it had actually happened. The season stood motionless, alert. How still the drop was on the burr I know not. I come all packaged and serene, yet I keep losing things, I wonder about Australia. Is it anything like Canada? Do pigeons flutter? Is there a strangeness there, to complete the one in me? Or must I relearn my filing system? Can we trust others to indict us who see us only in the evening rush hour and never stop to think? O I was so bright about you, my song bird, once. Now, cattails immolated in the frozen swamp are about all I have time for. The days are so polarized. Yet