Tumbleword

Happy Halloween

The image comes compliments of Boston Billy, a very creative (keenly moral) guy who carved last night three pumpkin hollows with his fellow witches Ms. A and Ms. K.... Beautiful work!  Boston B... too bad Mr. T wasn't home to help ... he misses you!  I miss you. 

In other places, Graveyards for instance, The Academy of American Poets sent in my email this link to finding poets in graveyards.  Yes, all poets are mere, emaciated bone clanging dancing dark hearted and somehow, dead to the world.  Not!  But if you are curious about where a favorite poet resides as in sleeps among the cobwebs and the worms on such a night as this.... well alrighty then.  Go where you fear to tread.... into the graveyard looking for the muses.

Seek beneath the link Poets in Graveyards.

 I personally miss knowing Stanley Kunitz isn't on the earth, planting and musing with his flowers.  He is so soulful, so light, and No I don't imagine he dwells in a cold grave... because his words are singing still, on earth.  People carry them in their hearts, in their mouths.  The first time I ever saw Stanley, as a 19 year old watching a short film of him on tv, I cried.  I couldn't explain it. I sat there broken hearted and coming totally apart like a rag doll with rotten threads for reality.  His face ripped me open, his words planted new seed.   Same thing happened with the dancer Gregory Hines.  I saw him go around like a whirling top and I cried.  It was like I was witnessing something I had lost traveling into life.  Has that happened to you too?  Its a small hint of grace, it floods the dark corners and shocks us... There are other instances, but I will save them inside in a little box I keep tucked on the shelf of my heart, the words SECRET written in fire on its lock. 

In Mansuetude, this is my Tumbleword: Love what you love.  IT is trying to tell you something.  Also, clear the cobwebs in the inner corners of your loves.  Dust... the snow's white cloth, its cleansing is coming to cover us in fresh white glistening the stars themselves envy. 

Also by Boston Billy -->

Here is the littlest night visitor to my back deck.  Heard him last night in the recycling bin, tearing at a carton of organic milk.  The other day, someone on the street told me a sad story about seeing a possum someone had deliberately, he said, almost crying, run over.  How do you know the possum wasn't playing possum, I asked, trying to make him smile.  He just looked in my eyes, "People can be so cruel," he said.

I did no more joking.  Maybe this little possum is his or her child.  I would have fed it some organic milk, or anything, but the way things are, animals run from us--even when they come to our porches in need.  I threw some dog gravel bits on the deck but that only frightened him away. Yes! I'm very scary, I yelled out after him, wait till Halloween.

I will give you a poem for all that trouble.

This is from Louise Gluck's book The Wild Iris.  Here, the flower is talking to us... if you will allow that to be possible, read on.

The Red Poppy

The great thing
is not having
a mind.  Feelings:
oh, i have those; they
govern me.  I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart?  Oh, my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human?  Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again?  Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do.  I speak
because I am shattered.


Last night, my neighbor came over with a plate of homemade ribs.  Thank you J!  This guy has a sauce that is so intelligent in layers of seasoning, it is brilliant.  I love to cook and use levels of flavor when I spice, and this rib sauce acts on your mouth in layer after layer of different tingling tastes.  It is something that once you try, like the forbidden apple, there is no going back.  You crave after that. Crave! 

In Mansuetude, here is my Tumbleword: give of your gifts to those around you. We are all surrounded by someone playing possum with their lives, with their gifts, pretending to be dead.  Ask yourselves, what does the possum wandering on your porch both day and night, even if in your dreams, what does he or she need?  The world will be fed by someone, any hand offering somehow gets fed in return, with bounty.  Open your hands, offer what is yours to give.  That is how we know what is ours, isn't it? 

YES... The Red Sox took the World Series--though the only "world" in this competition is that our baseball teams are increasingly bettered by players from around the world.  Thank you world!

One sister called from Boston pre-game to remind me to get my broom out.  I thought it regarding me being a witch, literally cranky yesterday, but she meant, "Sweep, sweep, sweep" as in win in 4 straight games.  We did do that!  But the milk toast Rockies made it less interesting for me, they didn't make us fight for it.  The earlier series against the Indians was more exciting.  

This morning, an article by the associated press called the Red Sox the new Yankees.  I can not agree.  The Red Sox are more playful, banging their empty water bottles and chime making things by their noise making band in the bullpen; putting bubble gum (still inflated) on a relief pitcher's cap; laughing and joking.  Tossing champagne at each other with goggles on, this is not the proper form for the pin stripe N.Y. Yankee team that made Johnny Daimon cut his long beautiful hair.  The Yankees have a purposeful look, and the Red Sox have a grubbiness and an artsy quality of chaos to their bench.  Surely, its the playfullness that keeps their hearts going long after all the money and all the fame and the cheers die down; cause it does die down, even in the Red Sox fans who sit around complaining about the late game starts keeping us up way past midnight. 

We get tired cheering this hard.

Inspite of all the money passing hands behind the scenes (Red Sox payroll is second highest only to the Yankees) the Sox do seem to have a thing going on... beside talent, hard work, its called fun, friends, and maybe even a little love?

A friend needed to get some new running shoes.  We browsed the usual places, looking, trying things on.  Nothing seemed just right.  It was like Goldilocks and the Three Bears-- tasting of the porridge had to be done and this one was not the right color, that one was not the right size in the right color, and then not the favored brand and too rubbery or too plastic.  Nothing was hot, everything was blah too cold, worth a dime but not a hundred plus dollars.

  Sneakers are not the most beautiful things in the world unless you are lusting after a certain color or style or breathable pair.  Down right ugly, some of them.  They remind me of some cars on the road, as if the designers making plastic bumpers for trucks are secretly shrinking those down to replicate rubbery plastic fenders for the good old sneaker.  

After a go at it, me not able to get into my friend's head, to read the fantasy of what perfect sneakers might look like, (excuse me, running shoes) I sort of hung back and let him do his little mosaic walk through stores.  No good. Thousands of pairs later, we went to Dick's Sporting Goods. 

This is not a plug for Dicks, I don't love Dick's I don't hate Dick's. In fact, I have never seen Dick in Dick's nor anyone named Dick standing inside it, to greet me or take my money.  Dicks was finally the only place open with sneakers we had yet to gaze at, looking for the one that like a golden slipper in Cinderella's early fantasy would make the prince re-appear... the prince in this situation would be the words, ah, YES, I love this pair.  I will take it home, adore it, use it and abuse it lovingly.

In the parking lot, we lingered in the car listening to the end of a football game.  It was a beautiful day.  In the row of cars in front of us, a hummer gleamed next to some other sun bouncing vehicles.  Then a door opened and a man stepped out with an energy I did not have left at this point in the day.  He stood up, reached in the back of his vehicle and pulled out a Rifle.  I had watched the Rifleman as a kid and knew when a man used a rifle with confidence.  This man carried that power scoped tool with attitude, know how, an I am on a mission do not cross my path you lingering window shoppers you.  I hadn't seen that much confidence on display at all the sneaker stores we'd visited all afternoon. 

We watched in slow motion as the guy and his Rifle went inside Dick's.  We stared.  We looked at each other.  I have never seen a man with a rifle in a suburban parking lot in all my life.  I was thinking the way he brandished it in the parking lot, no bag, no tag, no self-awareness of others, spelled N U T S.   

I know... but....
He's probably returning it, he said.

It only takes a few seconds to imagine this. A world of walking hate.  Insanity.

We looked at each other.  We grinned. The Patriots game was coming on.  We had a schedule to keep.  He'd already opened the door. Let's go in, he said.  He laughed, Come on! I shook my head, acted like I was being silly. 

We got out of my car, entered the rifleman's footsteps.  We were not packing. I actually felt naked thinking this. I hate guns.  I pressed the auto button on my key ring to lock the interior of my vehicle.  The car alarm made its warning sound.  I thought, I could just as well be taking this instant to press the trigger on a gun.  It's a similar gesture.  People do that, they aim their auto key lock at their trucks and make a little flick of the wrist like shooting a gun while they press the lock, they do something with their shoulders too, a little two step happy dance.  Vehicles beep back at us, blow horns, the sound gives satisfaction.  It says, you are safe, your stuff is safe.  I locked up a dead space in my car and took my life (my valuable) and followed my friend's life across the hot asphalt.   

We went inside. The light's were bright, almost garish.  The a/c loudish, blowing full speed ahead.