I love Ted Kooser.

Memory
by Ted Kooser

Spinning up dust and cornshucks
as it crossed the chalky, exhausted fields,
it sucked up into its heart
hot work, cold work, lunch buckets,
good horses, bad horses, their names
and the names of mules that were
better or worse than the horses,
then rattled the dented tin sides
of the threshing machine, shook
the manure spreader, cranked
the tractor’s crank that broke
the uncle’s arm, then swept on
through the windbreak, taking
the treehouse and dirty magazines,
turning its fury on the barn
where cows kicked over buckets
and the gray cat sat for a squirt
of thick milk in its whiskers, crossed
the chicken pen, undid the hook,
plucked a warm brown egg
from the meanest hen, then turned
toward the house, where threshers
were having dinner, peeled back
the roof and the kitchen ceiling,
reached down and snatched up
uncles and cousins, grandma, grandpa,
parents and children one by one,
held them like dolls, looked
long and longingly into their faces,
then set them back in their chairs
with blue and white platters of chicken
and ham and mashed potatoes
still steaming before them, with
boats of gravy and bowls of peas
and three kinds of pie, and suddenly,
with a sound like a sigh, drew up
its crowded, roaring, dusty funnel,
and there at its tip was the nib of a pen.

The Women in My Family: To Be of Use

For many days I have reflected on the inspiration and strength I have gained from the women in my family. Work is and was a given in their lives. Marge Piercy's poem was fitting for my post tonight.

To Be of Use

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who stand in the line and haul in their places,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

-Marge Piercy

Remembering the Queens of Canning

For all of us that have observed the process of canning, helped with canning, or done canning ourselves we know it is not for the weak or impatient! I was inspired to can foods myself by the Queens of Canning:  Auntie Lila, Mom, Grandma West, Grandma Woolum, my sister Carol, Aunt May, Cousin Helen, and Auntie Ronnie. Whether worms came out of the cherries, a few jars broke, or sticky stuff got all over the stove, it was all worth it. This poem just puts you there in a kitchen from youth with the smells of dill and garlic filling the air.


Canning Time

The floor was muddy with the juice of peaches
and my mother's thumb, bandaged for the slicing,
watersobbed. She and Aunt Wessie skinned
bushels that day, fat Georgia Belles
slit streaming into the pot. Their knives
paid out limp bands onto the heap
of parings. It took care to pack the jars,
reaching in to stack the halves
firm without bruising, and lowering
the heavy racks into the boiler already
trembling with steam, the stove malignant
in heat. As Wessie wiped her face
the kitchen sweated its sweet filth.
In that hell they sealed the quickly browning
flesh in capsules of honey, making crystals
of separate air across the vacuums.
The heat and pressure were enough to grow
diamonds as they measured hot
syrup into quarts. By supper the last jar
was set on the counter to cool
into isolation. Later in the night
each little urn would pop as it
achieved its private atmosphere and
we cooled into sleep, the stove now
neutral. The stones already
pecked clean in the yard were free to try
again for the sun. The orchard meat fixed in
cells would be taken down cellar in the
morning to stay gold like specimens
set out and labeled, a vegetal
battery we'd hook up later. The women
too tired to rest easily think of
the treasure they've laid up today
for preservation at coffin level, down there
where moth and rust and worms corrupt,
a first foundation of shells to be
fired at the winter's muddy back.
-Robert Morgan

Remembering Auntie Lila

I wrote this post in October 2010. Last night my Auntie Lila went to be with the Lord. I shared this with her at her ninetieth birthday celebration and I want to share it again today. 


My Auntie Lila is my mom's older sister. We saw her at least once a year during my growing up years. During the summer I often walked up Michigan Avenue from my grandma's house to visit her warm, inviting home. I can remember times she babysat children, watered her lawn, pruned roses, picked green beans, and got dinner started all before the heat really settled into the Orofino valley in the late afternoon. I used to love to sit in the kitchen while Mom and Lila had coffee and chatted about people and events that dated back to when they were kids.  There were many lessons I learned during all those years. Here are ten important ones:

1) Night Owls Rule! I used to love to stay overnight at Lila's in the summer because she loved to stay up really late and watch T.V. , visit, and have ice cream. I loved being another West night owl.

2) Headbands are Cool! My aunt has never looked her age, but I always loved it that she wore headbands to hold back her hair which made her seem very hip when I was a preteen.

3) Surround Yourself with Reading Material.  She has book shelves in her living room, book shelves in her hall, magazines and magazines on her coffee table, a great stack in the bathroom, newspapers around,and probably more books in the back room. I always found something interesting to read at Lila's and we share a love for reading.

4) Cookies Help You Through the Day. My aunt had a cookie jar that sat in the same place on the kitchen counter for as long as I can remember. It was always filled with cookies... always. She had these yummy Sunshine storeboughts that we never had at our house. It was such a treat to dig into the cookie jar while visiting.

5) You Need Your Beauty Sleep. Along with staying up it was always fun to sleep in at Lila's house. She was never one of those up at five o'clock a.m. aunties. It was okay to sleep in while on summer vacation.

  My Uncle Bob, Lila, Grandma West, and Mom in 1955.

6) It is All About Family. Lila's family is the center of her life. Her walls are covered with photos, she tells stories, visits family, loved it when her grandchildren were born,  would wait for her son to drive by in the logging truck, hoped her daughter would stop by after work at the clinic, was happy when her other daughter drove up from Boise, and seemed to like us tearing around in the summer also.

7) Home Grown Vegetables Are the Best. Lila had an incredible garden. My dad would wander around picking up tips from Lila before he got serious about raising his own garden. Whether corn, green beans, or cucumbers... they all tasted better out of her garden. 

8) A Yard Need Flowers. I probably have carried this lesson more than any others. Between my aunt and my two grandmothers growing flowers was instilled in me from a very early age. I remember thinking I could never grow roses because Lila's were magnificent and I figured that meant they were hard to grow. I loved the coleus, zinnias, and other bedding plants that surrounded her yard. Every year when I begin planting flowers I think of her.


9) Smile and the World Smiles with You. Lila is always smiling. She could have been baking a cake, boiling corn, and canning beans in the kitchen during a hot August day in Orofino, and she would have a smile when we came into the door.

 10) The Way To The Heart Is Through the Kitchen. Again,all the women in my family have surrounded me with a love for food, fellowship, recipes, dinners, birthday parties, and much time spent gathering around the table. She would bake cakes even if it was summer and hot. She perfected Swiss Steak with the best cut of sirloin from the Glenwood IGA and served it with buttered corn on the cob on the side. My brother shared the same birthday with my grandmother and here they are having a rare celebration together in the early sixties.

Around Us: Celebrating National Poetry Month

It is always smart to notice what we need around us.

Around Us   by Marvin Bell

We need some pines to assuage the darkness
when it blankets the mind,
we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly
as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of 
needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,
and a blur or two of a wild thing
that sees and is not seen. We need these things
between appointments, after work,
and, if we keep them, then someone someday,
lying down after a walk
and supper, with the fire hole wet down,
the whole night sky set at a particular
time, without numbers or hours, will cause
a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap--
to close round the moment and the thought
of whatever good we did.

Fresh Thinking: Why We Write

Even though I have shared this poem before, I looked at it with fresh eyes this evening. It led to a new way of thinking about writing, some fresh thinking.  I love the line "our words make us visible."

Why We Write

By Julia Cameron

There are many things which resist naming,

And that is why we write.

We write because language is slippery,

And the truth is.

We write because

The light we have to see by

Is always shifting

Never forget that writers are prophets.

We speak in tongues.

We testify.

We are for each other a believing mirror.

Our words make us visible.

Our listening makes us heard.

Never forget that writers are soldiers.

Our writing is the long march,

The walk into time.

Each word is a drum.

We sound it across great distances,

Reaching one another and ourselves.

Every poem is a day's march.

A celebration more necessary than water or wine.

Every poem is a drink of blood.

Never forget that writing is an act of courage -

Not on the days when it is simple and we discount it.

Not on the days when it is hard and we write like sand.

Our words are torches.

We pass them hand to hand

And mouth to mouth

Like a burning kiss.

Never forget to say thank you.

Every syllable is a grace.