Silence

I've mentioned before, I believe, my weekly generative poetry group, six to ten or so of us (I'm not sure our exact number) who meet on Thursday afternoons, read a selection of poems based on a particular theme, then spend half an hour creating our own poems based on that theme, and share them. I feel very brave to participate in this group—though I am (very) slowly beginning not to tell myself that "I am not a poet." As a friend in another poetry group reminds me, if you write poems, you are a poet. And yeah, I guess I write poems... Pretty much every week, in fact, if not more often. It's becoming a life-affirming practice of mine.

This week's prompt was silence. The featured poets included Rilke (in both German and English), Amy Lowell, a couple I hadn't heard of. I especially liked this take on the theme, by Billy Collins:

Silence

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a player not moving on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the floor,

the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,

the silence of the moon

and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,

the silence of the window above us,

and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning

which I have broken with my pen,

a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—

the silence before I wrote a word

and the poorer silence now.

If we are true to the spirit of the exercise, we do not read the prompt poems beforehand, but just soak them up as we read aloud by turn and discuss as a group. Then, when it's time to write our own, whatever comes, comes. 

What came for me this Thursday was insomnia. Interesting, because I don't generally suffer from insomnia—but it was an easy enough place to go when thinking about silence. Our next sharer also wrote about sleeplessness, and getting back to sleep. This led to a general free-for-all of sharing of ALL our best insomnia pieces by email. It was funny and fun, and uniting. 

That's what poetry is so good at, and for: reminding us of all that we share. Ninety percent of our humanity. The dirty nasty awful political stuff is really only a small aspect of who we are. And yet lately, it feels like 90 percent. 

Poetry is my antidote.

(The orchid above is a very rare one from Florida, the Bahamas, and Cuba, Dendrophylax lindenii, or ghost orchid. It is pollinated by only a few sphinx moths and hawkmoths, and is endangered in the wild, while cultivation has proven very difficult. It is the subject of Susan Orlean's wonderful book The Orchid Thief—and, arguably, the movie Adaptation.)

Book Mutterings

My first two books of the year—and it's almost March! I have not been able to concentrate—have been Philip Roth's The Plot against America and, for something a little lighter, Martin Walker's "Bruno: Chief of Police" mystery The Patriarch. I found the latter in a local Little Library, and jettisoned my usual rule of reading mystery series in order. (I'd already read the first and second Bruno books; this one was number 8.)

I think I'm just not a big fan of Martin Walker. Bruno, sure: I like Bruno, and I like wandering the Périgord, France, countryside with this pragmatic policeman, and I certainly like eating with him—yowza: truffles and pâté and cheesy potatoes and so much wine! But Walker insists on overcomplicating his stories. This one included French aviators with ties to Russian politics, an animal rights activist squared off against hunters, vintners, and a robotic auroch (which ends up playing a role in the final scene). As I neared the end and things just really weren't getting tied up, I feared the worst—and sure enough (this is something I remember from one of the first volumes), Walker cops out at the end, offering a Gallic shrug at all that's gone down. Oh well! C'est la vie!

The Plot against America, on the other hand, is a masterpiece. Published in 2004, the basic story is a rewrite of history, with Charles Lindbergh being elected president over FDR in 1940. Antisemitic, isolationist, authoritarian Lindbergh. Pearl Harbor doesn't happen. Instead the US curls into itself, seeking some sort of "purity" while, essentially, collaborating with the Nazis. Sound familiar? It was eerie—creepy eerie—to read it in the days after Trump was inaugurated president. How quickly we can shift from normalcy to insanity. 

I'm still grappling with what to say here. As I say, I've been having a hard time concentrating. Thank goodness for a couple of writing groups I'm participating in. Right now, I'm obsessively editing a poem I wrote last year at this time, which has to do with "legacy." And I'm scraping together three essays for another workshop. Continuing to think about the Japanese internment—which has taken on a new significance now that the "left" half of the country has been relegated to oblivion. 

And now, I need to find another book to read. Something that captivates me. I need to be swept away into a story very different from the current reality.

Tony Hogland, poet

George Bligere posts a daily poem, and this was the one from a couple of days ago. I adore it. It provides some solace from the ongoing awfulness... 

Keep looking for the good parts.

Field Guide

by Tony Hoagland

Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
up to my neck in that most precious element of all,

I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
floating on the tension of the water

at the very instant when a dragonfly,
like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,

hovered over it, then lit, and rested.
That’s all.

I mention this in the same way
that I fold the corner of a page

in certain library books,
so that the next reader will know

where to look for the good parts.

Just...

 ...checking in.

 I don't even know what to write anymore. 

Do I have a photo for this post? I guess it could be a black square.

I did meet this morning with my lovely poets, and we hashed out words and meanings. Delicious. I also went to Window on the Bay at noon to stand with a few other hundred protesters. 

Well, okay, there. I've posted something.

I feel like I should get back to writing daily, regardless.

Okay, maybe. Let's see if I show up here tomorrow.

Costa Rica 3—walking tour of San José

[I'm ironing out some kinks in the formatting on this page, so captions are missing. Stay tuned.]

A small group of folks from what will be our large (18!) group for the next two weeks met this afternoon for a walking tour of central San José. We had an excellent guide, Enrique, and it was a pleasant afternoon for a stroll and some history. (I've decided to continue posting my travelogue on Facebook, so I'm duplicating here for my own purposes.)

Souvenirs, anyone?

READ POETRY!!! That's my kind of graffiti.

A colorful street of shops.

A park corner. The trees are
Australian paperbarks.

Herbal remedies. 

Costa Rica 2—San José

We arrived in San José last night around 8:30, got to our downtown hotel around 9:30—all in the dark. So it was fun to wake up today and look out our big window. We ventured a couple of blocks to a sweet coffeehouse that served real breakfasts. Took a walk in the 180-acre Parque la Sabana, across from our hotel. Wandered through local neighborhoods. And otherwise generally rested up. (We're both still getting over a cold and/or bronchitis, and resting up felt good.) Here are some photos I took. (Click to see them larger.)

The view from our window

I loved the multitude of hearts on my latte!

A beautiful beetle.

Maybe Handroanthus chrysotrichus, golden trumpet tree

Parque la Sabana is very pleasant and well used

The lago is empty, except for puddles and
abundant water hyacinth (barely visible, but there)

A kitty friend

A rather forlorn owl

Vendors and kites

Crossing the street was challenging,
until we noticed an overpass

An artistic cow at the hotel we'll be moving to Sunday

The national stadium, and an ongoing football match:
easy to tell which side is which

The overhead wires are artistic statements unto themselves

Sunset view out our window

David after a delicious meal of
Caribbean chicken

The morning view, but at night

Costa Rica 1—en route to San José

We take a break from the countdown to 100 to splash photos around, of our Sierra Club trip to Costa Rica, which commenced with a long day of plane rides on Thursday, January 23. I normally post photos to Facebook, but I'm trying to figure out how to live without Facebook. And this is my best bet, I guess. For now. 

For this trip, I made the momentous decision to travel light. Just clothes, really, and toiletries, and hiking sticks, and shoes, and a guide to Costa Rican birds, and a journal and some pens, and I decided I did really "need" the laptop (how else could I post my daily photos?)—but for a camera, only the iPhone. No real camera. I always lug a real camera along, no matter where I go, but on recent trips the iPhone stuck in my back pocket has done 95% of the heavy lifting, and I barely even glance at the heavy camera I've dutifully packed, so this time I'm just caving in and settling strictly for documentation. iPhone photos aren't, to my mind, especially good, but they at least capture glimpses of memories. So, they'll have to do. 

So, here's installment #1: aerial shots, mostly, plus some arm-waving cats (where you have to imagine the waving because I can't post a video here).

The newly sprung Hughes fire, north of LA

Flying over Pacific Palisades, recently
devastated by the Palisades fire

Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign (IYKYK)
on a glorious LA day

Taking off for Houston: Marina del Rey

Approaching Houston: lots of building going on

Houston in the distance

Imagine them waving!

There are a couple of things I like about Facebook, in terms of sharing travelogues. I like the way the photos get tiled for a one-capture presentation—and then when you click, you can see the individual shots with captions. I also like getting comments—the overall sharing, of life, of experiences, of friendship. FB may be seriously compromised now by the kleptocracy/oligarchy, and I grant that. But it still does something that no other social media site does. 

I may just have to quit social media altogether. Keep this journaling spot, for my own pleasure, and not even care if anyone ever looks at it. When did we all become so needy? Or is that even what it is—neediness? No, I don't think so. I continue to enjoy all the various communities I belong to, and FB makes it easy to do so. It's allowed us all to become artists and storytellers and better citizens (well, the folks I hang out with, anyway), and to share our thoughts, concerns, and lives more easily. It's been good.

Damn you, Mark Zuckerberg, and all your greedy, careless kind. Seriously. Damn you.