Making the Best of the Holidays

Making the Best of the Holidays
by James Tate

Justine called on Christmas day to say she
was thinking of killing herself. I said, “We’re
in the middle of opening presents, Justine. Could
you possibly call back later, that is, if you’re
still alive.” She was furious with me and called
me all sorts of names which I refuse to dignify
by repeating them. I hung up on her and returned
to the joyful task of opening presents. Everyone
seemed delighted with what they got, and that
definitely included me. I placed a few more logs
on the fire, and then the phone rang again. This
time it was Hugh and he had just taken all of his
pills and washed them down with a quart of gin.
“Sleep it off, Hugh,” I said, “I can barely understand
you, you’re slurring so badly. Call me
tomorrow, Hugh, and Merry Christmas.” The roast
in the oven smelled delicious. The kids were playing

with their new toys. Loni was giving me a big
Christmas kiss when the phone rang again. It was
Debbie. “I hate you,” she said. “You’re the most
disgusting human being on the planet.” “You’re
absolutely right,” I said, “and I’ve always been
aware of this. Nonetheless, Merry Christmas, Debbie.”
Halfway through dinner the phone rang again, but
this time Loni answered it. When she came back
to the table she looked pale. “Who was it?” I
asked. “It was my mother,” she said. “And what
did she say?” I asked. “She said she wasn’t my
mother,” she said.

“Making the Best of the Holidays” by James Tate, from Return to the City of White Donkeys. © Ecco Press, 2004

Bad News About My Vocation

Bad News About My Vocation 
by Ron Koertge 

I remember how the upper crust in my hometown
pronounced it-care-a-mel. Which is correct, I guess,
but to everybody else it was carmel.

Which led to the misconception about the order
of Carmelites.

I imagined they served God by heating sugar
to about 170 C, then adding milk and butter
and vanilla essence while they listened
to the radio.

I thought I could do that. I could wear the white
shirt and pants. I knew I couldn’t be good
but I might be a good candy maker.

So imagine my chagrin when I learned about
the vows of poverty and toil enjoined
by these particular friars.

I also crossed off my list the Marshmellowites
and the Applepieites, two other orders I
was thinking of joining.


"Bad News About My Vocation" by Ron Koertge, from The Ogre's Wife. © Red Hen Press, 2013.

Promissory Note

Promissory Note
by Galway Kinnell

If I die before you
which is all but certain
then in the moment
before you will see me
become someone dead
in a transformation
as quick as a shooting star’s

I will cross over into you
and ask you to carry
not only your own memories
but mine too until you
too lie down and erase us
both together into oblivion.

"Promissory Note" by Galway Kinnell, from Strong Is Your Hold. © Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Not Yet

Not Yet
by Jane Hirshfield

Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch—
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured; not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay. 

"Not Yet" by Jane Hirshfield from The Lives of the Heart. © Harper Collins, 1997

The Window

The Window
by Raymond Carver

A storm blew in last night and knocked out
the electricity. When I looked
through the window, the trees were translucent.
Bent and covered with rime. A vast calm
lay over the countryside.

I knew better. But at that moment
I felt I'd never in my life made any
false promises, nor committed
so much as one indecent act. My thoughts
were virtuous. Later on that morning,
of course, electricity was restored.
The sun moved from behind the clouds,
melting the hoarfrost.
And things stood as they had before. 

"The Window" by Raymond Carver from Ultramarine. © Vintage, 1986

Sidekicks

Sidekicks
by Ron Koertge

They were never handsome and often came
with a hormone imbalance manifested by corpulence,
a yodel of a voice or ears big as kidneys.

But each was brave. More than once a sidekick
has thrown himself in front of our hero in order
to receive the bullet or blow meant for that
perfect face and body.

Thankfully, heroes never die in movies and leave
the sidekick alone. He would not stand for it.
Gabby or Pat, Pancho or Andy remind us of a part
of ourselves,

the dependent part that can never grow up,
the part that is painfully eager to please,
always wants a hug and never gets enough.

Who could sit in a darkened theatre, listen
to the organ music and watch the best
of ourselves lowered into the ground while
the rest stood up there, tears pouring off
that enormous nose.
"Sidekicks" by Ron Koertge, from Life on the Edge of the Continent. © University of Arkansas Press, 1982.

How happy is the little Stone

How happy is the little Stone
by Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears—
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity—

Happy Birthday C.K. Williams

It's the birthday of the poet C.K. Williams , born in Newark, New Jersey (1936). His two greatest passions in high school were girls and basketball. He was a good basketball player, 6 feet 5 inches, and he was recruited to play in college. But then he wrote a poem for a girl he was trying to impress, and she was actually impressed, and so he decided he should be a poet instead. He dropped out of college to move to Paris because that's where he thought a poet ought to live. He didn't write at all while he was there, but he did realize that he didn't know anything and should probably go back to college. He said: "It was an incredibly important time. Not much happened and yet my life began then. I discovered the limits of loneliness." He went back and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and started publishing books of poetry, books like Tar (1983), Flesh and Blood (1987), and The Singing (2003), which won the National Book Award.  (From The Writer's Almanac.)

Commuter Buddhist

Commuter Buddhist
by Jeffrey Harrison

I'm learning to be a Buddhist in my car,
listening to a book on tape. One problem
is that, before I've gotten very far,

my mind gradually becomes aware
that it has stopped listening, straying from
the task of becoming a Buddhist in my car.

I'm also worried that listening will impair
my driving, as the package label cautions,
but I haven't noticed that, at least so far.

In fact, I may be driving with more care.
There's a sensation of attentive calm
that's part of becoming a Buddhist in your car.

A soothing voice drones on until the car
is transformed into a capsule of wisdom
traveling at high speed, and you feel far

from anywhere but where you really are ...
which is nowhere, really. The biggest problem
is getting the Buddhism out of your car
and into your life. I've failed at that so far.

"Commuter Buddhist" by Jeffrey Harrison, from Into Daylight. © Tupelo Press, 2014. 

Breath: a poem

Breath
by Charles Deemer 

There are moments in life
so unnatural to normal breathing
that I hold my breath
for as long as possible

with the mindless faith
that when I finally inhale
I will be revived with pure
oxygen and a new wondrous
landscape filled with beauty
that takes my breath away
and all the past difficulty
of breathing will be as forgotten
as last night's nightmare.

Reading Harry Potter

For My Son, Reading Harry Potter
by Michael Blumenthal

How lovely, to be lost
as you are now
in someone else's thoughts
an imagined world
of witchcraft, wizardry and clans
that takes you in so utterly
all the ceaseless background noise
of life's insistent pull and drag soon fades
and you are left, a young boy
captured in attention's undivided daze,
as I was once
when books defined a world
no trouble could yet penetrate
or others spoil, or regret stain,
when, between covers, under covers,
all is safe and sure
and each Odysseus makes it home again
and every transformation is to bird or bush
or to a star atwinkle in some firmament of light,
or to a club that lets you, and all others, in.
Oh, how I wish for you
that life may let you turn and turn
these pages, in whose spell

time is frozen, as is pain and fright and loss
before you're destined to be lost again
in that disordered and distressing book
your life will write for you and cannot change.
"For My Son, Reading Harry Potter" by Michael Blumenthal from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012. © Etruscan Press, 2012.

Negative Space

Negative Space by Ron Koertge 

My dad taught me to pack: lay out everything. Put back half. Roll things that roll. Wrinkle-prone things on top of cotton things. Then pants, waist- to-hem. Nooks and crannies for socks. Belts around the sides like snakes. Plastic over that. Add shoes. Wear heavy stuff on the plane. We started when I was little. I'd roll up socks. Then he'd pretend to put me in the suitcase, and we'd laugh. Some guys bond with their dads shooting hoops or talking about Chevrolets. We did it over luggage. By the time I was twelve, if he was busy, I'd pack for him. Mom tried but didn't have the knack. He'd get somewhere, open his suitcase and text me—"Perfect." That one word from him meant a lot. The funeral was terrible—him laid out in that big carton and me crying and thinking, Look at all that wasted space. 

"Negative Space" by Ron Koertge, from Sex World. © Red Hen Press, 2014. Reprinted with permission. (buy now) 

Grandchildren

Grandchildren
by Olivia Stiffler

They disappear with friends
near age 11. We lose them
to baseball and tennis, garage
bands, slumber parties, stages
where they rehearse for the future,
ripen in a tangle of love knots.
With our artificial knees and hips
we move into the back seats
of their lives, obscure as dust
behind our wrinkles, and sigh
as we add the loss of them
to our growing list of the missing.

Sometimes they come back,
carting memories of sugar cookies
and sandy beaches, memories of how
we sided with them in their wars
with parents, sided with them
even as they slid out of our laps
into the arms of others.

Sometimes they come back
and hold onto our hands
as if they were the thin strings
of helium balloons
about to drift off.

"Grandchildren" by Olivia Stiffler, from Otherwise, We Are Safe. © Dos Madres Press, 2013.

Japanese Maple

Japanese Maple
By Clive James

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that. That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

Men Are Like Rivers

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that . . . Men are like rivers; the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself—while still remaining the same man.

Leo Tolstoy, "Resurrection," Book I, Chapter LIX. Nekhludoff`s Third Interview With Maslova In Prison

Where I'm From

Where I’m From

By Ryan Saulter

I am from the disc golf,

from medals and Blazer posters.

I am from fresh air

(hanging out with Dad,

it tastes like cheese burgers.)

I am from the brown owl,

the bench in the backyard
where I can watch the sky
and breathe.

I am from reading Dr. Seuss,
the Rose Garden,

from Cousin Bobby and Aunt Marilyn.

I'm from football
and movies,

from bad words, and I don't like Beaverton.

I'm from being safe

and doing the right thing.

I'm from California and McGuire Park,

 Bacon cheeseburgers and mac n cheese.

From Chicago

and my Aunt's awesome pancakes.

In the closet,

a box of baseball cards

that remind me of being young.

I am from rain showers
friends, games,
and feeling safe.

Word for the Day: Bosky

bosky \BOS-kee\, adjective:

1. covered with bushes, shrubs, and small trees; woody.
2. shady.

It was cradled in the bosky foothills of the coastal ranges.
-- Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Well of Tears, 2005

It stood in a hollow of a bosky park, crowded to a degree that surprised and even displeased me, with huge timber and dense shrubberies of laurel and rhododendron.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson, South Sea Tales, 1893

Bosky comes from the Middle English word bosk which referred to a bush.

Musing on a Frozen lake

Gratitude to Old Teachers
by Robert Bly

When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?

Water that once could take no human weight—
We were students then—holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness. 

"Gratitude to Old Teachers" by Robert Bly, from Eating the Honey of Words. © Harper Collins, 1999.