A Hidden Well

Big Fish

the world is just awesome

Today's Quote: "You can never be great at anything unless you love it." — Maya Angelou

I keep meaning to update, but then I decide a nap sounds more appealing.  Of course, I never actually manage to take the nap, because as soon as I step away from the computer I notice that there are dirty dishes in the sink, or soda cans that need to be recycled, or whatever.  Hence, I never get around to updating or napping.  Interestingly, my house never actually gets all that clean, either.  Hmm.  It confounds me.

Has anyone seen / heard the Discovery Channel's The World is Just Awesome commercial?  I love it.  It makes me feel happy everytime I hear it.  I wonder if the song can be purchased from iTunes?

Last week I facilitated a poetry workshop with Jenny Fischer's 5th grade class, and it was so much fun.  The kids were great.  They were totally into it, and they really, really got it.  And some of the poetry they composed was just amazing.  The first week we talked about poetry in general, popular misconceptions, why they like it and why they don't.  We read some poems out loud and talked about them, created word pools, and then I broke the kids into groups and assigned each group a different writing prompt.  When I returned the next week, students were invited to read aloud the poetry they had written (did I mention it was awesome?), and then we decorated tags with lines of poetry, messages about poetry, or URLs for poetry websites.  We took a walk around the building (both indoors and outdoors) and tied the tags to tree branches, left them under car winsdshield wipers, stuck them between the pages of books, and so forth.  The kids seemed to love it, and I know I did.  I wish I could figure out a way to make a career of it.

This past weekend Glenn and Jack went camping, and my mom came to visit for the weekend.  Glenn caught an enormous Rainbow Trout and I caught some kind of horrific stomach bug.  Or maybe it was food poisoning.  I did eat shrimp at a Chinese restaurant, so I suppose it's possible.  In any case, I spent a day puking violently and every muscle from my waist to my neck now ache painfully from all the exhertion.  But otherwise I feel much better, so I'm not complaining.  And I weighed 7 pounds less on Monday than I had the day before.  SEVEN POUNDS.  Still, I'll take the gym any day over hugging the toilet bowl.

This weekend Chloe and I are going on a Girl Scout camp trip, which sounded like a great idea three months ago when I signed us up, but appeals to me far less today.  But that's how I am.  I have great enthusiasm about an event, then begin to dread it as the day approaches, and then once I'm there I enjoy myself and am glad I did it.  Chloe's looking forward to it at least!

Casey will celebrate his 3rd birthday next week.  My baby will be three!  Yikes.  He's sleeping at the moment, which is lovely, but I'll have to wake him soon in order to drive Chloe to her Jackson Pollock art class at the museum.  (That entails spending an hour at the museum with Casey, which sounds like a nice way to apend an afternoon, right?  WRONG.  Casey is the only kid I know who can be absolutely miserable at a children's museum!)

Anyway, I'd better move on to those bowls of soggy cereal that are still sitting on the dining room table from breakfast this morning.

The Cord

I used to lie on the floor for hours after
school with the phone cradled between
my shoulder and my ear, a plate of cold
rice to my left, my school books to my right.
Twirling the cord between my fingers
I spoke to friends who recognized the
language of our realm. Throats and lungs
swollen, we talked into the heart of the night,
toying with the idea of hair dye and suicide,
about the boys who didn’t love us,
who we loved too much, the pang
of the nights. Each sentence was
new territory, like a door someone was
rushing into, the glass shattering
with delirium, with knowledge and fear.
My Mother never complained about the phone bill,
what it cost for her daughter to disappear
behind a door, watching the cord
stretching its muscle away from her.
Perhaps she thought it was the only way
she could reach me, sending me away
to speak in the underworld.
As long as I was speaking
she could put my ear to the tenuous earth
and allow me to listen, to decipher.
And these were the elements of my Mother,
the earthed wire, the burning cable,
as if she flowed into the room with
me to somehow say, Stay where I can reach you,
the dim room, the dark earth. Speak of this
and when you feel removed from it
I will pull the cord and take you
back towards me.
-- Leanne O'Sullivan

2 poems

TODAY'S POEM

Prayer Chain

My mother called to tell me
about an old classmate of mine who

was dying on the parish prayer chain—
or was very sick—or destitute—

or it had not worked out—the marriage—
or the kids were all on drugs—and

all the old mothers were praying intensely
for all the pain of their children

and for life—they were praying for life—
in their quiet rooms—sipping decaf coffee—

I bet they've been praying for me at times—
so I'll find my way—so I won't rob a bank—

I'll take them—the mystical prayers of old mothers—
it matters—all this patient and purposeful love.

-- Tim Nolan

YESTERDAY'S POEM

Revelation

We make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone find us really out. 'Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend. But so with all, from babes that play At hide-and-seek to God afar, So all who hide too well away Must speak and tell us where they are. Robert Frost

My Life Before I Knew It

I liked rainy days
when you didn't have to go outside and play.
At night I'd tell my sister
there were snakes under her bed.
When I mowed the lawn I imagined being famous.
Cautious and stubborn, unwilling to fail,
I knew for certain what I didn't want to know.

I hated to dance. I hated baseball,
and collected airplane cards instead.
I learned to laugh at jokes I didn't get.
The death of Christ moved me,
but only at the end of Ben Hur.
I thought Henry Mancini was a great composer.

My secret desire was to own a collie
who would walk with me in the woods
when the leaves were falling
and I was thinking about writing the stories
that would make me famous.

Sullen, overweight, melancholy,
writers didn't have to be good at sports.
They stayed inside for long periods of time.
They often wore glasses. But strangers
were moved by what they accomplished
and wrote them letters. One day

one of those strangers would introduce
herself to me, and then
the life I'd never been able to foresee
would begin, and everything
before I became myself would appear
necessary to the rest of the story.

-- Lawrence Raab 

Tree

It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books—

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

-- Jane Hirshfield

Undelivered Mail

Dear Daughter,
       Your father and I wish to commend you
on the wisdom of your choices
and the flawless conduct of your life

Dear Poet!
       Where is the full-length manuscript
you promised us? Your check is waiting
The presses are ready
and the bookstores are clamoring for delivery

Darling,
       This convention is tedious
beyond belief: the hotel is swarming
with disgustingly overexposed women
far too young to have dignity
or any minds at all

Dear Patient:
       The results of your blood tests reveal
that your problem stems from
a diet dangerously low
in pizza and chocolate

Dear Mom,
       You were right about everything
and I was an idiot not to listen

-- Rhina P. Espaillat

The Secret

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

Denise Levertov

Amen to that

Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Cinder Elephant,
Sleeping Tubby,
Snow Weight,
where the princess is not
anorexic, wasp-waisted,
flinging herself down the stairs.

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Hansel and Great,
Repoundsel,
Bounty and the Beast,
where the beauty
has a pillowed breast,
and fingers plump as sausage.

I am thinking of a fairy tale
that is not yet written,
for a teller not yet born,
for a listener not yet conceived,
for a world not yet won,
where everything round is good:
the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.

- Jane Yolen

Things

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety

- Lisel Mueller