what’s the nature inside the nature of one wolf?

what’s the nature inside the nature of one wolf?
  
 
a wolf drinks what rain has risen from earth, drinks melting snow that has answered first thirsts of others and falling for the valley crease river down below, drinks those last lasting moments of fear then pain then longer night, drinks sadness doubts regrets and with equal pleasure joy and the sweet taste of new grass, drinks what you never said to mother but thought about repeatedly, drinks a father ghost, drinks those buttons you gave away for a kiss that took years to arrive, drinks the baby’s smile like dew, and the baby falling to the dirt, drinks waving wheat farther than an eye can imagine yet.

so there’s the matter, the measure the manner of a life, all justified by sharp willing teeth.  how much harm or laughter matters the meaning of spirit in flesh?  here belly, here mouth, take this wedded bliss.

 
 

neil reid © october 2012

  
comments:
Write a stream of consciousness poem, was the prompt for writing this.

No great shakes as a poem, just a poem-in-play, but true to the process as I sense the quality of this prompt. Most all simply as it arrived over a few minutes time; not edited much at all. Did have to resist the desire to edit/add in more material afterward. Time does play a role in writing like this, sort of how broad the river goes. Would be good to do again.

Amusingly, the title, done long after the (prose) poem went through far more “thoughtful editing”, changing many times until!
  
Written for the We Write Poems prompt #125,  Streams of consciousness
Read the prompt for more detail.

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a natural history of my kitchen

 

a natural history of my kitchen

  
this is mother’s kitchen.
it was someone else’s before she bought
this place on wheels, moved, left the cat behind,
just what old farm people do,
made it hers.

it was someone else’s good idea, but then
she filled it with high stacked canned goods and
just around the corner two books of black and white,
photographs, people, mostly nameless to me.

when her memory began to go, so went the captions
to all those decades long since floating by.

there’s mom there’s dad (only a few), grandmother
janet too, a great uncle named lew, and the rest,
just ghosts that lay down flat between the pages
falling loose, there, right beside the kitchen now.

glue don’t last forever, that’s clear.

then somebody says, here, I gotta show you this.

and here’s the table where we sat, where she sat,
a formica thing, shiny, window-like, made to look like
wood which it wasn’t, pride of 1950’s practicality.
that’s where I took the photograph, mom and her ghost
on the tabletop.  now there’s two, the both of them.

and here’s the cooking trick when she lost the words
to say what she really liked, and she was always
polite.

      do you like that mom, what I cooked?
her response was always yes, but I learned, when
she asked for seconds, yes please, another plate,
that’s how we discovered truth.

and when I broke my wrist, came to stay with you
because I couldn’t open a can, couldn’t feed the cat,
so you did, just that, and I cooked the rest while
the cat hid behind the stranger’s couch.

the window facing east above the sink, ate the dawns,
right beside where the toast was made, the spinach
deveined, the drawer that wouldn’t close all the way,
big knives in another that stuck.

dishes in cabinets older than me,
back when plum blossoms carpeted the valley
in their own spring snow.

the doors beneath the sink held closed by
a rubber band.  time has a way with place.

magnetic cat on the refrigerator, another with
the doctor’s phone. years later a page from me
with a photograph, less dimmed than memory.

saying, this is your home, I come visit, go to the
grocery, cook dinner with you, and here, here’s
my phone number when you forget.

still there to this day even if she’s not.
 
 

neil reid © december 2011

 

Commentary
Overly sentimental perhaps? Yet maybe because so much clear definition of my family history is rather dim, I keep looking what remnants I do have at hand. What was the story of mother and father? Mostly I don’t know and never will, so it is a history of crumbs left behind. Such is my small illumination, the captions to images of memory. Prompt answered – so be it.

Written for the We Write Poems, prompt #86, A Natural History of My (room).
Please find the prompt responses of other writers here.

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postcards home

postcards home

 
          three feet

where my mother slept.  tissues stuffed into
night-time drawer (not being wasteful I suppose).
where the bed is no more.  where I sit, writing this.
where I sleep on the floor, right beside (despite
not being japanese).

this is my everything place.  eat sleep write.

          fourteen feet

where senna slept.  gathered inside faint scraps
of personal life, given to another day by day.
(no saint) but better, (devoted to another’s care)
what I couldn’t, she could.

where cat-sleep ears heard one night when
mother footsteps went toward kitchen.  no return.
mom’s first cold dark walk into night.  (but found)

          forty feet

a home with rubber wheels.  yet landed fast.
the last stand, last reward of frugal life.  when
she moved in the earth shook restlessly.

I learned to be the better son.

twenty feet by forty-five.

where she labored her last breath.
where I held her hand.  (one might think
it would be hard to do, but harder if not)

          one mile

east third street.  the numbers wouldn’t use
two hands.  where I was a child and mother
was young.  small towns remember too much.

mother makes ham, never turkey.  grandmother
and great uncle lou I escort from across town.
we walk so slowly!  christmas dawn.

greyhound bus at the corner.  driver punches
shapes into tickets.  that was the job I wanted
to do.  mushroom boxes bound for the big city.
groceries two blocks away in those days.

we walk everywhere.

          two miles

she left early, walking up the hill.  me later.
secretary of the new peak roof school, seemed
like the real boss to me.  she knew it all.
sun poured in through the roofs.

tarantulas walked in too.  vacant grass fields
all around and an open door.  gently sent home.

slowly a town settles into itself, into bigger.

but it still seems wrong she’s not in that office
when I drive by now.  epitaph.

          seventy-five miles

pacific grove.  because it is.  the inside breath
of monterey bay.  dead-end by best choice.  no
place else to go, going there.

getting there was once a two lane two hour
greyhound bus ride.  long stop-over at fort ord
boot camp when the ocean was right over there!
impatient feet soon found teetering rocks and sand
and mystery.  mother struggled not far behind.

mother now gone.  boot camp tucked away.
but town and ocean and sand much the same.
I sit more now.  but inside, and yes, the sand
still gets in my shoes, and it’s still me inside.

yea, changes like clothes like thoughts
like poems do, but under, it’s me
the way I was given me.
 
 

neil reid © september 2011

written for We Write Poems, prompt #70 taking snapshots of place
Read the poem responses of other WWP prompt participants.

comments:
Take some snapshots of place centered from your home. Use some rule of measure, as you wish. That was the prompt here addressed. And the result… not exactly what I’d expected for myself. But the poem, it turned to be, had ideas of its’ own, what to do. Became much about mother too. But then, small truth is, that’s the history of right where I sit, right here and writing now. One part of life that she built, and now carried forward by my own, even if the pieces are moved around. So yes, place is also about what, or who, place contains – like you and me.

I rather like the idea, creating some structure for a poem by using some consistent scalar measure (as distance here). I recall one of the ways to see how a young child “sees” the world is to ask them to draw a physical map of all that feels real for them – their house, blocks to school or the grocery, threads out to relatives homes, then what else? So for this poem here, sort of the same, but more condensed, focused in one manner.

One could do this sort of poem threaded by time (or what? as you might desire). Room to grow more again.

And still surprised that mother showed up like this, but I’ll kindly welcome, acknowledge. So be it.

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Mother undone (napowrimo #11)

read write poem   napowrimo #11

prompt by Angie Werren   The thing you didn’t choose

RWP member Angie Werren invites us to write about the choice we didn’t make:

Everyday we make choices. Some are small: English breakfast or Lipton? the highway or back roads? Some are more significant: convertible or mini-van? farmhouse or condo?

Some choices lead us straight into the life we’re living, but for this poem, think about one of the things in your life you didn’t choose.

Be concrete. Pick an object — something tangible* — and write your poem directly to it, as if you were writing it a personal letter. Explain why you didn’t choose it. What could things have been like if you had? Talk about what your life has become without it. See where the “confession” takes you.

*As an alternative, dig a little deeper and write your poem to a person you left behind.

(Almost too volatile a prompt? Many many choices to make right here and now. I listened. This one finally came, spoke the loudest to me. So be it. And not coincident, a core part of near long gone reason why I write. Express, no matter what. Lines being rewritten even now, so likely for a future revision too, this will be. And thus it is, my first relationship.)

Mother undone

Dear Mother,

You’ve gone back to earth so I’m writing here

where just anyone can read can see, witness

a mother and son, writing from your very last home

sitting in the very bedroom where you slept

although I’ve painted the walls since then

                    *   dry

Things are getting rounder now, rough worn smooth

like water does like it was too shallow then, was that it?

A flood would have revealed more than dry autumn fled

                    *   leaves

Sitting next to me on that single bed I remember

the postcard you said to me (it wasn’t enough was it mom?)

But children hear everything (don’t they mom?)

And I bet you felt everything (didn’t you?) (I did and do)

                    *   where

Like they say, you did your best (I’m sure you did)

Your best to endure to provide to carry on years and years

but I would have liked the taste of your tears the frantic

unmoving underbelly of your pain (just to know out loud)

                    *   spring

Instead I ate the fear unspeakable (bad choice you see)

                    *   will

Like mother like son?  I suppose, that much that wasn’t

foolhardy fearhardy loving-instead-of-silent-not-breathing

And maybe (we won’t know) I could have taken the pain

That’s possible!

                    *   come

So I’m supposed to say what I didn’t choose, you know

and they’re all listening here, where the April rain comes

singing down on my roof and the garden I dug and planted

outside, listening like on that creaky old bed

And what would my life have been otherwise?

(They asked me mom)

                    *   to bear again

I didn’t choose to be less afraid than you

I didn’t choose to jump into your silence with better breath

I didn’t choose to be only me (and not partly shadow of you)

I could have comforted you (who knows what’s possible!)

Maybe you would have even been comforted, surprised

by what life can become unexpectedly

Could have been a mother and son

Instead, half a life, coming home, rendering some comfort

maybe you always wanted even if you couldn’t say

But home is home no matter the road

Love, your Son

Neil Reid © April 2010

(every fierce battle in your life is with a paper dragon)

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Shortcut home, Cento poem #2

Shortcut home

a cento poem study group, (Read Write Poem Challenge #2)

from the work of poet Li-Young Lee

cento poem group index

Maybe this time I’ll rescue my mother

each page read by the light of its own burning

And the light was falling, and everything the light touched

I said, “The day is a book we open between us

Maybe it wasn’t the language you used at home

I said, “What if by story, you mean the shortcut home

Every player eventually dies. Everybody plays

And the fires are seeing, hearing, touching

The one who made a world of any hiding place

Or maybe he’s seven winds and ten fires

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?

Soon those names will travel with the leaves

Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

And daylight on either side of the door

She said, “The lake is a book. Open the book

now the shadows of clouds on the pages

A cento, or patchwork poem, stitched together

from lines of various poems by Li-Young Lee,

in his collection, Behind My Eyes, 2008

Read Write Poem poetry mini-challenge:

fall in love with a poet, February 2010

by Carolee Sherwood and Jill Crammond WIckham

Shortcut home, gathered by Neil Reid

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Saving mother, poem #3 (Cento group)

a cento poem study group, (Read Write Poem Challenge #3)

inspired by the cento poems of Li-Young Lee

cento poem group index

Saving mother

Maybe this time I’ll rescue my mother.

Pearl Harbor will just be a sleepy port.

Nobody came & nobody went.

Nothing lost & no wedding bells.

We’ll listen to corn in the summer fields,

rows & rows. Feed my lambs, a feather

said, someone loves like wind, no hope,

no brown uniform thrown on the bed.

His face won’t be in the photograph.

His face won’t look like mine. Nothing

gambled in the high desert dust.

No frozen clothes on the line.

Brothers will just be brothers, won’t

go speechless in the light of day.

Although that one of them, he’ll still

go to Alaska on a tall sail ship.

He’ll still die, an artful youth of a man.

Some things just gotta be. Else no

wonder of clay, sister on the desk.

Maybe Grandfather & Grandmother

will be Egyptian or Indian or make roots,

not drought. She’ll land covered in rain.

Maybe she’ll smile, never knowing

I changed everything, including me.

Neil Reid © February 2010

Read Write Poem poetry mini-challenge:

fall in love with a poet, February 2010

by Carolee Sherwood and Jill Crammond WIckham

POEM notes: Writing this poem was inspired by the strong general sense of family as present in the poetry of Li-Young Lee, and specifically the first line here, Maybe this time I’ll rescue my mother, from his poem, Mother Deluxe.

During the later years of my mother’s life as her memory faded deeper and deeper inside, while I was glad to serve and care for her the general sense was bailing water from a sinking ship. Inevitable. Seeing that word, “rescue”, opened another chance of possibility for me. Not that I can change the physical result, however I can change how I hold that relationship, and even if but for a moment in time and reflection, rescue her, and from not only those last years but from all the history that also colored them.
It is spoken in gratitude.

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Interview with a poet

A little play to do, even if I drop the bowl. A small step away from usual. Disclaimer. Any similarity between this poem and anyone real much less a poet is purely coincidentally amusing. Life is nothing if not associative.

Interview with a poet

Poets mend some words, but only fair
because others they’ve broken apart.

To begin an evening, my feet hurt.
In or out of shoes. Standing for eight
hours a day isn’t very kind.

Labor is not for the timid of feet.

Poets stare sideways. Unnerving,
some have said of them.

It’s like a bowl of fruit after
it’s eaten. Second meanings have
already escaped first glance.

Like socks you wear until
your toe becomes visible.

Like the pear you peal, maybe
that only happens once in a life.
Perfect I mean, till a peach arrives.

All of this is underneath the words.
Like fish contain the lubricant
that makes water flow.

Seven bucks to cross on the ferry.
Nothing to come back except
your shoes. That part you’re
responsible for yourself.

Dad, he gambled away what he
won from the war. Including me.
But what really irked, was
the sister lost.

Just when she might have saved
a life. She had copper skin.

Mom, she just wanted what she
wouldn’t say. Not till two days before
she passed away. That’s why.

Two in the afternoon and all
I have are crumbs. Shouldn’t
I be confident yet? Shouldn’t
love be shouting loud?

Toast with butter would be better.

A bicycle is probably a better
way to write poems that don’t
stand still.

Expression does trust to score
away the stone of life less lived.
And a last breath is only a comma
we seldom perceive.

Holding hands is essential
for getting it right.

That big yellow school bus
and all the kids singing, smiling,
where have all the flowers gone.
I wasn’t pleased.

Not that I wanna be sad.
It was years before I found what
roots have been saying all along.

Faultless is more than starch.

Foreign soils are only an inch
away. Depends where or when
you wanna go. Like when
mother was young.

Would my life have been greener
if the fence was over there instead?
Mother said my diapers froze solid
on the laundry line. Polynesian
tattoos would have been nice.

So poems are like archaeology,
like the best peach, like colors,
like ants in the soil. Just when
a mole comes along.

Everything is more and less
than it has always been.

And broken things are just the
first step toward a mosaic bowl.

Neil Reid © December 2009

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Plum trees

 

 

Prompt #92 – word gems
by Jessica Fox-Wilson, September 11, 2009

Just to be an obedient student, used every word of the prompt, but more than that, who knows?  Seeds for another day?  An optimism lest being shy.

Plum trees

 

Ripe plum trees were my remedy

for staying on the ground.  As a boy

can clamber without a ladder.  Mom’s

extended consent granted to a roof

and sweet ready fruit.  Bags to fill.

 

Sleep was a small room at the front

of the house.  And in the husk of dark,

monster shadows – they might be real!

Mother would respond to whisper pleas.

 

She lived her life for a pittance of memory.

Conformed intent.  She shied into empty

arms.  Although I think she smiled before.

Before limes and light made her bow.

 

A confection’s bowl was grandmother’s

house.  Dimes and plants and cats.

Stories great uncle told.  Mother’s mother

would have none of those.  Pish, she said.

 

Past did not extend into clover’s need.

Practical.  There’s a garden to attend.

No seed from wasted past.  Yet her kitchen

was shared to multitudes of neighbor cats.

 

And years later, past everyone, except

for me, when mother’s hip broke apart.

Then again, everything changed.

Mom’s on the roof, like they say.

 

Neil Reid © September 2009

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Five days

For my mother, Virginia 1911-2005

 

Five days

 

 

Climbing high in memory’s eye, this

raptor’s peak nine decades and one,

woven nest of gathered thread.

 

Five days, one doctor said.

Only his single voice on the telephone.

And I understand how reason arrives.

She’s coming home.

 

Like valley snow, plum blossom white

settled far and wide as eye could hope.

Spring like sleep awakes.  Seen from

her child’s home, now long painted ash.

 

A gentle slope’s summit west of here.

One of a paragraph or two she shared

with me, her mother’s lap like a faded

map.  Hush, she said to me.

 

The full rich hair, a naval officer’s neat

lapels and uniform, the face in a mirror,

exactly me.  Even to my unused name.

One husband gone, one secret kept.

 

It was just a fall’s broken wrist, wrapped,

but it was the last.  A handful’s years

lost of memory, how then now this choice?

No food, the least the most, her silence spoke.

 

Five days at most they said.  Sent

behind, those more to comfort attend.

Was it the third day perhaps, please

allow this to lessen the pain, one nurse

of those gathered spoke, adjusted her.

 

Mother turned her glance, a temptress breeze

of spring, impishly said clear and sweet,

     You wanna make love to me?

     We smiled, understood.

 

In all that history tucked and blanketed,

here was twenty and something again.

Something I had never seen, like a

window now.  Sure it wasn’t quite real

like real, but it was, once upon a time.

 

One sweet page from a secret book.

 

 

Neil Reid © August 2009

 

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Burnished

Burnished

 

I am my mother’s eyes.

I am my father’s hair.

 

Borne of cold maple and

sweet hot humid southern stone.

 

My grandmother’s gingham,

a cat beside the kitchen sink.

A jar of nails unbent in my

great uncle’s backyard shed.

 

Smooth old paint, three layers deep 

upon a farm bred captain’s chair.

Mother tried to refinish it when he was gone,

find its charm under days of labor spent.

 

But the charm was before, part of

a promise unkept in a dusty shed.

Uncomfortable, when she was done.

 

I liked it best in his shed.

 

 

Neil Reid © April 2009

 

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