Ever been in Winthrop – Washington or Maine? (I’ve been both.)
BEYOND COMPREHENSION
As Doc would have said:
Just because you remember everything
doesn’t mean you understand any of it.
PLACES OF RETURN
Years later, a friend relates an incident of telling his wife his intention of spending the day in a favorite place in the mountains, countered by her question of what makes him return there. Even though he’s a photographer, he replies by acknowledging that many of his writer friends have answered the question simply, saying it’s the surprises that draw them back.
Somehow, as one of his writer friends, I find the word “surprise” in this context jarring. For surprises, one would be better served by trips to new locations, rather than returning to an old favorite. Novelty, rather than familiarity. Upheaval or intoxication, rather than purity or sobriety. Even so, as I consider my own places of return, her question becomes increasingly kaleidoscopic.
First, there’s the very demand of naming a favorite place. In this context, he invokes wilderness, where return is a kind of pilgrimage. Here, return may be once or twice a year, if that frequent. I could counter that with an evening stroll, as I used to do along the canal bank at the back of the desert orchard, or sitting at the café downtown in the small New England city where I now dwell — activities that could take place daily. We could add to that an opera house or concert hall, museum gallery, or even places of dedicated labor: a studio, cabinetry shop, garden, kitchen, or laboratory. Even, though rarely for me, shopping destinations: a boutique or farmers’ market, perchance. A fair or festival.
So the question soon turns to a matter of one’s intention. What is one attempting to escape or encounter? What is one leaving behind and what does one face instead?
WHAT MAKES A TRUE WRITER?
As Doc would have noted:
Qualities of a real writer: engagement, connection, discipline, curiosity, courage, humility, observation.
What more would you add to the list?
CAKEWALK
a trio of Asian dancers
a topless dancer in a red mask
squats with a white banner
a ring, as wholeness
allowing the hole
that opens opportunity
white laundry in autumn yellow
have enough for us, the good steward
tide marsh as a frosted tangle
the luxurious interior of a log cabin with plank floors and rag rugs
an old-fashioned downtown with springboard
harvester in corn surrounded by golden foliage
while I start
packing for the extremes
of Florida and Lake Michigan
in winter
after our first weekend
briefly, the duration of that leap
perchance a woman more serious than me
should be packing for
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
MONTHLY, QUARTERLY, YEARLY
punctual attendance at Meeting for Business is important
as worship
for to love is finding work also
there unmasked, when failing
a shining model of uprightness
and moderation
this purposing of expectation
coming to befriend each other
in daily labor and dreaming
vigilant close labor with any who slight
the holy standard
purposing
a forgiving spirit cherished by the whole
to resume anew
aggregating strength
for individual tribulations
where you’d otherwise succumb
* * *
the old pendulum, tick-tock
causing more than one who attends
to sit on the far side of the unadorned room
and that’s their business
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.
WADE IN THE WATER
A lifetime of Quaker practice and inquiry comes to play in the reflections of Stillwater. The essays are submitted in all due humility, even as reminders to myself. Still, they’re open to all as an invitation.
~*~
For these essays and more, visit Thistle/Flinch editions.
JUST WONDERING
What’s your favorite food toy?
WHAT’S IN THE BAG
Being mindful of what’s right in front of us can always be a challenge. Here are 10 new items from my end.
~*~
- Been collecting bags of fallen leaves from the neighbors, urban farmer that I am. These days, a couple dozen bags are sufficient, unlike the 200-plus I gathered in many of our first years together. They get stacked against one side of the barn to break the sharp blasts of cold wind that otherwise freeze the pipes to the mother-in-law apartment on the other side of the barn. It’s another of my winter-prep rounds. Come spring, the leaves get moved to the big compost bin.
- I carry a sense of being responsible for making everything better – me, alone. Except I have insufficient resources. Which takes us back to my deeply ingrained fear of poverty. No wonder I always want everything to work just right – and get so upset when it doesn’t! And that twists back to my fear of conflict.
- All of my writing (as I’m venturing) assumes an experience, if only an out-of-nowhere phrase (exploring the subconscious, then), demanding discovery as some unity of the cosmos. Even when I’m writing about what I don’t know.
- My appreciation of raw oysters on the half-shell goes back to my girlfriend in college, who insisted I eat (real) seafood while visiting in Florida. (And here we were, staying on a cattle ranch.) Up till then, it had been frozen fish sticks or canned salmon. Flash forward, to New England, where these days just before winter provide some of the fattest, juiciest oysters imaginable. These bivalves have stocked up for their version of hibernation. And, as one Mainer points out, you can count their age on their shells, just like rings in a tree.
- Gotta brace again for the end of Daylight Savings, the day our winter begins. Really begins.
- Of course location affects my writing and sensibility. The slums of a small city can be as urban as anything in a big metropolis, if you look and listen.
- Turn up an old Gohn Brothers catalogue – Amish clothes etc. Realize that’s no longer me, either.
- Ever so messy, the girl with the Lord & Taylor shopping bag.
- Somehow, even my Quaker practice and theory break free from some past.
- Taking the bus to Boston, I look out to see a field of big trucks just before the state line. Then remember, from a detour, it’s the truck spa. Seriously, that’s what it’s called. Keep wondering if there’s something on the side for the drivers.
~*~
WITH BLUE RIBBONS, AND MORE
to be as prolific as zucchini
as radiant as sunflower
as stubborn as dandelion
turning the doorknob
* * *
chance upon friends
some parading with drums
some waiting to dance
some displaying their hybrid autos
some discussing seed varieties
how many from back home
how many at this crossroads
still, we retreat
before the blue sky fades from this year’s harvest
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 