Muscular and assertive shadows with claims to the olden days. Wisteria.
Shadows that process.
A delicate shadow that refuses your judgment.
Shadows warmed by wood.
A shadow with secrets.
A bevy of shadows? Or perhaps a parliament. No, a convocation!
Happy Monday all! We walked out with Finn this morning, flexible in our gear. Hats on, hats off, gloves on, gloves off. Langley windy, as usual. Warmed up by the bottom of the Cypress slope, as usual. We feel spring arrive through the lens of habit and garments. Finn sleeps now. Pooped.
When you’re five feet tall at the Aspen XGames, you might not see much!
Holding up my phone, I could capture a bit of the slopes. At one point, I felt bold and knifed through the crowd declaring, “Five-footer coming through!” But I didn’t stay up front for long. Some ditzy woman high on something waggled and hooted and flung her arms about in a way that made me fear for my safety. Gawd.
Even though I couldn’t see much, I’m glad we went. It was an experience. Maybe not an experience of viewing elite snowboarders doing astonishing things, but an experience nevertheless.
You watch these tricks (when you can at last see them watching YouTube from the couch) and wonder: how? Not only how is such a feat possible, but how does one practice it? There are precipices involved, speed, and heart-stopping defiance of gravity. You gasp. And since records keep being brokenyou also wonder, is there a limit? Three spins, four. Is five next?
But I’m not here to discuss sports. I’m here to appreciate vocabulary, in particular the kind of specialized vocabulary that grows around something unique and novel. It’s musical even when you haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about.
I recorded some announcer comments one evening. It’s a found poem of sorts.
My rules for found poetry (I’ve posted some here before) are: no added words and words must be in the order that they were uttered. Enjoy!
XGames 2023 Found Poem
I guess that was a drifting back rodeo?
That was the definition of air awareness!
He’s going way too big and yet somehow he’s still alive.
Sometimes you get away with it.
Total destruction.
Does a butter.
What’s he got for Run Four?
Ooh what?
Who needs a grab?
You heard that collective groan.
‘Course he’ll get another chance.
Backslide 180.
That’s the great thing about Knuckle Huck.
This is overall impression.
I like the hand touch behind the back.
That’s my favorite part, the sway.
Almost a double clutch.
We’re under the two minute warning.
The beauty.
Contest period.
Double tango from the Icelandic legend there.
Just to take a regular run on a forked bird is haunting.
Being the dude at the bottom.
I woulda rolled out of the way.
Cap off Chipotle Knuckle Huck with Marcus Cleveland.
That’s a 1440.
That was absolutely ridiculous.
If you want to gasp yourselves, YouTube has tons of footage.
** Erasure Poems are a form of found poetry that start with a source document. I used a letter from Eliza Lucas Pinckney to her father HERE to create a few variations.
And here’s a poem made from football game commentary.
Even when lids shut, the tissue aquiver — the scroll of light rolling on, a form ofdamnation.
I want to go through my days, my nights, like a rib cage. Each curving spear connected at a central pole. Sure in form, sure in purpose, protecting the two wind lobes and the single beating fist — lungs and heart safer for the bony embrace.
Instead, a vibrato of uncertainty.
How has the non-tactile flow of damage gained ascendancy over sinew and nerve, crowding out all the places in the body that crave silence?
One day those ribs will spear dirt and crumble. Shouldn’t the body being Hand Maiden to Death wake us out of stupor now and then?
Let me eat a cracker with a smidge of butter. Let me sweep the steps free of snow and then sleep under a blanket that whispers ‘hallelujah.’ Let the sun falling on tabletops stir gratitude.
The Solstice is here. Let ‘standing still’ mean something.
Personal update: the bad news is live-in caregiver up and quit. The good news is that I got to see my brother walk.
The boxes arrive like secrets waiting to be heard. The beauty of forgetting. Memory herded and exploited the stuff of scholars, but let’s not neglect the joy of a blurred-out past. What did I order, exactly?
The slicing of tape like ripping cloth. One violent jerk with a blade. Last time I jabbed my thumb and bled all over the fur of my new boots before I knew of the wound. Some injuries come like that, stealthily, all consequence and no memory of impact.
The time before there was no blood, just mystery. What did I order, exactly?
Opening, remembering — a pre-ordered deck. The American Renaissance Tarot. It winks in promise. Remember? Remember?
It is still a stranger to me, this collection of 78 cards but already I thrill to its character – American, not Egyptian, not medieval European. Say it again, the breath rising, cresting, enunciating with the power of recognition, four syllables:
A-mer-i-can.
There’s Harriet Tubman! Edgar Allan Poe! Oh, and look, Moby Dick and Frederick Douglass. One figure teaches a young Black boy to read, another upholds a sacred root. Hawthorne, Stowe, Harriet Jacobs. They’re calling to me and they’re calling me home.
Hello. Been writing a lot and editing even more and they somehow take away from showing up here.
We got a little snow last night. The cooler temps make it seem like December. Almost nothing else does. More on that in the next days.
This post/poem is in response to the prompt: “some days disappear like…” courtesy of Kathleen Olesky. Also, though it’s presumptuous, Rumi also deserves a credit here.
(Above: writing room as seen in mirror)
Some days disappear like
Some days disappear like snow on an
outstretched tongue, quietly, others
like butter in a hot iron skillet
with a froth and a sizzle.
Some nights land like a stranger
lurking in the bushes, leaving
us shaken and afraid, others
come on us like Magi
to the Christ child, bearing
fragrant and precious
gifts, unexpected.
An afternoon can drawl
or contract, lounge
or catapult. Is the rhythm a
function of what we had for breakfast and
the dreams that visited overnight?
Or are they perhaps their own
small kingdoms, with rules external?
My favorite times are mornings
born of rest when the pulled
curtain reveals a lovely
soft wash or a hearty
glare of eastern light. A
new day, no matter what.
Let’s meet there, near the
windowsill and pull it up,
the sash, and lean, together,
and breathe, then shout, “Thank you!”
This post/poem is in response to the prompt: “some days disappear like…” courtesy of Kathleen Olesky. Also, though it’s presumptuous, Rumi also deserves a credit here.
