Memoirous

We are about to turn the calendar page to March. Every February reminds me of James Schuyler. Lots of things remind me of his work and words.   Here is a poem written on February 28 (1969) that reflects a memory from years gone by, the glow of remembered light. “February” A chimney, breathing a little smoke. The sun, I can’t see making a bit of pink I can’t quite see in the blue. The pink of five tulips at five p.m. on the day before March first. The green of the tulip stems and leaves like something I can’t remember, finding a jack-in-the-pulpit a long time ago and far away. Why it was December then and the sun was on the sea by the temples we’d gone to see. One green wave moved in the violet sea like the UN Building on big evenings, green and wet while the sky turns violet. A few almond trees had a few flowers, like a few snowflakes out of the blue looking pink in the light. A gray hush in which the boxy trucks roll up Second Avenue

Ghost Shadow All around us are ghosts Ethereal beings, angels That accompany us on our daily tasks And it is only sometimes When caught unawares, Between sudden shifts Of light and time, ruptures In the third and fourth dimension We are able see Evidence, footprints beside us A slight hope, an assurance We are not alone

Wake up, move these tired bones Sometimes if I have to do the same thing one more time I’ll scream, and at other times I can’t take one more new thing or I’ll explode, it is the dynamic Of life, the tension of old and new The familiar versus sudden revelation The paradox that within brilliant sunlight There is a bird shadow

Super moon in winter Looking east from the terrace Midnight blue and luminesce Powder and smoke and clouds Stirred up by the semi-frozen lake Which creates its own weather. We live in a strange and scary city Full of ghosts and the visages of Time past, full of memories Of summer, chilling on the Terrace in shorts and sandals             Watching the moon filter the sky

Black and white After parking the car On a lonely Sunday night I pause, breathe in frost and ice A single porch light Casting elongated picket shadows How can I sing, How can I write—   With all this quiet beauty

You wonder: Why am I awake at this hour? At this cold, subzero dawn. Slowly the distant stars fade, and a pale casting of light Rises between the buildings. A low hum from Lake Shore Drive plays behind hesitant birdsong. Even the sparrows are subdued, fighting against headwinds, Head colds, hungover from their desperate struggle to survive. We all have our balancing act, teetering on the brink Of a new morning.

Landscape No. 3, Cash Entry Mines, New Mexico After spending 18 months in New Mexico, Marsden Hartley returned to New York in 1919, but he continued to paint the Southwest from memory. My friend Colleen is flying today from New Mexico back to Chicago. She is an artist of the cellphone camera. In 2011 I spent a week in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico at Starry Night Artist Retreat. I returned home to continue to create from memory. Leaving one place for another doesn’t erase our longing, our desire to connect to a landscape, the people we love and miss. True art speaks to our emotions, to the sublime within us. Today it is 1 below with windchill—I reach back in my memories to the night I rode my bike down dark T or C streets to a hot spa. I eased my tired body into the natural pool and soaked in the minerals letting go of stress and self-doubt. For a little while. We all wish to return to some place safe. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/65937/landscape-no-3-cash

Notes on a Flash Series col·lab·o·ra·tion / noun the action of working with someone to produce or create something. "he wrote on art and architecture  in collaboration with  John Betjeman" synonyms: cooperation ,  alliance ,  partnership ,  participation ,  combination ,  association ,  concert ; I’ve always dreamed of working in collaboration with another artist. Writing is such a solitary discipline. But what would collaboration look like? My friend and fellow bootcamper Colleen Davick is a Renaissance woman in that she has her hand in many pots. An avid Gaelic speaker, a spooky flutist, green room hostess, booker of concerts, likes to hang out, always ready for a road trip, and takes awesome pictures with her camera. What if we did a thing together? So here we are in the second month of 2019 and I feel it’s time: We collaborate. Starting next week for one week she will post a pic on Facebook (or a few) and I will

Khomeini waves to followers as he appears on the balcony of his headquarters in Tehran on February 2, 1979. February 1, 2019 marks the 40 th year of Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran from exile. What does this mean to the rest of the world? Many leaders in the Middle East placated the West by calling for democracy and modernization—while at the same time maintaining a regime of suppression and human right abuse. Today we can point to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, colloquially known as MbS. In the 1970s America supported Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. In 1979 the Shah abdicated his throne and Ayatollah Khomeini helped establish the Islamic Republic. https://www.rferl.org/a/khomeini-tehran-iran/29739627.html So what does this have to do with Appalachia, with Cloud of Witnesses ? Though Cloud of Witnesses feels contemporary, it is a historical novel set 1979/1980. A sub-story in the novel has to do with a young

What it’s like to be 50 below Out of control Like mankind is sunk No bailing out of this one Like Jack London’s story “To Build a Fire” We’re doomed Everything and everyone Where each breath is fire and ice And all the stores are closed And all the fun stuff is cancelled Where you feel as if an avalanche has swallowed you whole All the ordinary Earth rules are void Up is down and the sky is falling Life is like artic fog Steaming off the lake An illusion We dream about the day We will be 50 above

Join me and SCBWI member Marlene Brill at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square Wednesday February 20 7 – 9 pm for LOCAL AUTHOR NIGHT where we will be reading from our new releases! https://www.facebook.com/bookcellarinc/ The Book Cellar 4736-38 N Lincoln Ave Chicago, IL 60625 (773) 293-2665

This is how you know you’re getting old: you Google=that song where the singer does that thing. If I even had a clue I’d be able to narrow the search. It’s like having your navigation turned on but forget where you’re going. Thankfully someday we’ll all be using Google just to complete sentences. So I think (but can’t remember) that’s how I stumbled upon the 80s song Mad About You by Belinda Carlisle. And then, I remembered. That hair, those earrings, the shoulder pads. Floral dresses and . . . the jean jacket. In the early 80s I had hair that length, that color of blonde, hoop earrings—but not the jacket. I really really really wanted the jean jacket. We were particularly poor in the 80s and the few times I went shopping at the Brickyard Mall (since demolished). I priced the jean jackets but they were too much. There was a sort of jean jacket, the kind that wishes it were a real jean jacket, but not as hip or cool. I tried it on and rolled up the cuffs, and there was t