tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-151766352024-03-13T05:31:06.046-04:00The Smell of Sun, Poetry by Mary Stebbins TaittA Random Selection of Current Poems--
Selected by when I have time to post and little else.Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.comBlogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-7070737555756976312015-04-23T10:58:00.002-04:002015-04-23T10:58:42.056-04:00Devil's Garden Poetry Assignment<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8qvxS2nz0zw/VTkHi1zqKjI/AAAAAAAAEsM/4BYqcB06lqU/s1600/all%2BDick's%2BGrass%2Brabbit%2BDSCN0169%2B%2Badj%2B20150423-0853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8qvxS2nz0zw/VTkHi1zqKjI/AAAAAAAAEsM/4BYqcB06lqU/s1600/all%2BDick's%2BGrass%2Brabbit%2BDSCN0169%2B%2Badj%2B20150423-0853.jpg" height="292" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"All Dick's Grass"<br />
Click image to view larger</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Canyon Cataracts</b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moqui Marbles, Coyote Gulch, the Grand Staircase, petrified
wood; Marlon Brando<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
loved Escalante, and you loved me. Red-rock Cave, Golden
Cathedral, Slot Canyon,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wild Cat Gulch; dream images fade in sunrise. Toadstool
Trail, Hoodoos, Rimrocks,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Natural Bridge, The Woman’s Dance; over time, our hearts
grow blind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bryce Canyon, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indian petroglyphs, Devil’s Garden; we fail to see, with
true delight, even the most<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
exquisite scenery; we fail to see each other. Under the
falls, spray; eyes almost opaque.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
Mary Stebbins Taitt</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">20150423-1023-2<sup>nd</sup>, Thursday, April 23, 2015, 1<sup>st</sup></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Iowa Poetry mooc assignment 2/2, define the line, then write
a poem following that definition of line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My definition, the breath.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(NOTE:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This poem is
NOT directed toward Keith!)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-46896293805954766922014-06-17T09:36:00.000-04:002018-05-07T20:42:23.937-04:00A Visit with Van Gogh, in French<div class="MsoTitle">
<div class="MsoTitle">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">{pre}A la rencontre de Van Gogh/Rencontre avec Van Gogh<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Je déambule à travers de larges touches de soleil, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
des champs de blé courbés, des femmes chargées <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
du blé en gerbes, des arbres sombres<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
au loin. A la lisière du champ, il est assis, affaissé,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
immobile, et rempli de lumière. Je m’assieds<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
près de lui, contemple cette fin d’après-midi,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
le chaume des champs ,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
L’âpre surface de la terre/l’épiderme rugueux du sol<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dans ses yeux sombres et sauvages, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
L’espace d’un instant, je vois des galaxies<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
entrer en collision, d’étincelantes cités des ténèbres <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
tomber en ruines. Il reporte son regard sur sa palette,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
sur les champs par-delà sa toile<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
mes doigts jouent avec un éclat d’obsidienne, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
sentent l’arête de la surface lisse, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
les ténèbres de son implosion. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Un trou noir s’épanouit au cœur de son âme. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Le bord de ma manche, l’ourlet <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
de ma robe, ma chevelure soufflent vers lui. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Une grande lumière émane de ses ténèbres, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
illuminant la nuit qui tombe.{<pre o:p=""></pre>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mary Stebbins Taitt, ........<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="">Mary Stebbins Taitt ........ translated by Marie Rivet</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span class="">This poem originally appeared in Montserrat Review in March of 1999</span><br />
<span class="">see my version <a href="http://absenceofpaint.blogspot.com/2012/01/visit-with-van-gogh.html">here</a>. (I accidentally created two different poetry blogs.)</span><br />
<span class=""><br /></span>
<span class="">[The stupid blogger keep translating it (poorly) back into English) Click "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">show original</span>" (above) to see in French, and to see my original poem in English, use the LINK!]</span></div>
Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-52856611411759311432012-08-27T09:44:00.002-04:002012-08-27T09:44:12.148-04:00Etched<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--FfPVo2oAiA/UDt3vpLfmLI/AAAAAAAADrw/wEBb2tiByvA/s1600/Picture+442.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--FfPVo2oAiA/UDt3vpLfmLI/AAAAAAAADrw/wEBb2tiByvA/s400/Picture+442.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Etched</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Mists of water fall<br />
and fall. No damp squirrel, no<br />
bird, no elm leaf stirs.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Elm leaves and their lean<br />
branches droop, pulled down<br />
by a weight of rain.</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
In silhouette, sparse<br />
leaves and lean branches etch themselves<br />
against wet grey sky.</div>
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br />
a cycle of three haiku</div>
merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-57207483725318793712012-08-09T11:07:00.001-04:002012-08-09T11:18:05.282-04:00Brilliance Afield<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O9r2jXkRpys/UCPKSg1J-2I/AAAAAAAADnI/DEBoX72mG6M/s1600/3+wolves+collab+%23323+1970+x+1040j.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O9r2jXkRpys/UCPKSg1J-2I/AAAAAAAADnI/DEBoX72mG6M/s400/3+wolves+collab+%23323+1970+x+1040j.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Brilliance Afield<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Burning the wild lands, the moon rises gold; gold the eyes
of wolves</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Running in a rapid crouch up the snowy hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exhaling,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I slip into the aspens, follow their tracks into a threshold
of</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Light under the firs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The moon squats fat among them. I</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Linger and watch, afraid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Discard the fantasy that</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could be accepted, that I could be safe, that I could
run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A screech of owl cries. Wolves sing: close chorus, far
response.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nothing contains the fierce sacredness of this music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Call back from this hidden body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I pluck a tuft of fur from a drift,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Embrace bare branches, moon-bruised sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A cloud-smudged mirror of ice, shadows flicker, a broke</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Face of moon shimmers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I whisper: elk, caribou, antelope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stubbornly,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I reclaim the dream of hunting with the wolves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh folly!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will I return to this</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Evening over and over, sifting through these images, lies
and dreams?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Late-night owl calls again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wolf tracks fade in drifting snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I glimpse</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Deer, then fox.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Braid my tracks into theirs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Notes:</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">1)This is an Acrostic poem. Acrostics are often used as games or doggerel. I have chosen here to attempt a </span><i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">serious</i><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> acrostic poem. </span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">2)I would like to invite anyone interested to "play along" by writing serious (or not-so serious) acrostic poems and then posting the links in my comments section. I am sure you all know that in an acrostic poem, the first letter of each line creates a word when read vertically. It is a fun way to write about love or friendship or any other topic.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">3)Poem and art by me, Mary Stebbins Taitt, published in </span><a href="http://www.avocetreview.com/" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #21a2f9; cursor: pointer; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; outline: none; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Avocet</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">. I'd love to think all of you subscribe to </span><i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Avocet</i><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> and have already read my poem, but I am guessing that is not the case. Because published poems are often read only by those who subscribe, I think I may post one of my published poems, maybe once a week, to share them with you. I hope that's OK.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-62702494613936902302012-07-23T16:17:00.001-04:002012-07-23T16:17:26.571-04:00<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nz3Q3lZl8dc/UA2vR-BmsOI/AAAAAAAADjY/N38swwBpf6c/s1600/Picture+421.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nz3Q3lZl8dc/UA2vR-BmsOI/AAAAAAAADjY/N38swwBpf6c/s400/Picture+421.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Botanical Gardens<br />
Golden Gate Park<br />
San Francisco, California<br />
photo by me<br />
click image to view larger</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="story-titles subtleborder" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; height: auto; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="story-titles-container bg2 bgborder2" style="margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">
<div class="story-titles-content subtleborder" style="border-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 5px 6px 18px;">
<h1 class="brightcustomhover lit2" style="float: left; font-size: 22px; font-weight: bold; height: auto; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 12px 0px 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 8px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Haiku: What the Heart Feels</h1>
<h3 class="subtle verysubtlelinks lit2" style="color: #b2b2b2; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 11px 6px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
by <a href="http://cowbird.com/author/mary-stebbins-taitt/" style="color: #b2b2b2; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Mary Stebbins Taitt</a> · <a class="words-btn" href="http://cowbird.com/author/10430/story/33794#" style="color: #b2b2b2; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">32 words</a></h3>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="story-media-text" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 60px 60px; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="story-text subtleborder formatted" style="border-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); margin: 0px 0px -12px; max-width: none; padding: 30px 87px 0px 0px;">
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 16px;">
What the heart feels when<br />
anger and hatred are set<br />
aside: love, peace, joy.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 16px;">
<br />
Yes, I know this is not a traditional haiku.</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 16px;">
And NO I do NOT know what the flowers are, please enlighten me.</div>
</div>
</div>merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-53955102558666584232012-03-29T17:02:00.002-04:002012-03-29T17:02:16.937-04:00<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0pLyPCnqAtc/T3TNNhn0trI/AAAAAAAADT0/UajPS7esolI/s1600/Picture+368.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0pLyPCnqAtc/T3TNNhn0trI/AAAAAAAADT0/UajPS7esolI/s400/Picture+368.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poppies in Rain<br />
Acrylic on Paper<br />
by me, Mary Stebbins Taitt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<div class="story-titles subtleborder" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; height: auto; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="story-titles-container bg2 bgborder2" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<div class="story-titles-content subtleborder" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-left-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-right-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-top-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 18px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 8px;">
<h1 class="brightcustomhover lit2" style="float: left; font-size: 22px; font-weight: bold; height: auto; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 12px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: visible; overflow-y: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 8px; vertical-align: baseline;">
From the Dark Centers of Flowers</h1>
<h3 class="subtle verysubtlelinks lit2" style="color: #b2b2b2; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: visible; overflow-y: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 11px; vertical-align: baseline;">
by <a href="http://cowbird.com/author/mary-stebbins-taitt/" style="color: #b2b2b2; cursor: pointer; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">Mary Stebbins Taitt</a> · <a class="words-btn" href="http://cowbird.com/author/10430/story/16543#" style="color: #b2b2b2; cursor: pointer; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">129 words</a></h3>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="story-media-text" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, 'lucida grande', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 60px; padding-left: 60px; padding-right: 60px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="story-text subtleborder formatted" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-left-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-right-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-top-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); margin-bottom: -12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: none; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 87px; padding-top: 30px;">
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Sometimes, I journey into darkness<br />
while every shadow harbors a malevolent bat<br />
whose wings reach out, sticky as spider webs<br />
to trap me.</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
It’s a lovely day, friends say, trying<br />
to cheer me. The sun shines; its warmth<br />
caresses my skin, but in the shade, bats gather,<br />
gnashing their teeth as their claws grow pointy.</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
When I bend to smell the flowers, the bats<br />
ambush me. They pour from the center<br />
of each blossom like flying monkeys,<br />
like a plague of locusts.</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
When they eat holes in me, I am moth-eaten;<br />
I am Swiss cheese. I am lace curtains<br />
blackened by coal-fired ovens. I am despair.<br />
The sun shines through me.</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
I am a pattern of light.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />
120329-1642-1st</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
location: Detroit, San Francisco</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
photosource: me (acrylic painting) (detail from "the Misunderstanding")</div>
</div>
</div>merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-82593887590192246752011-10-19T09:56:00.001-04:002011-10-19T09:57:56.805-04:00New Eggplant Poem (draft)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1SH9J9dpVx0/Tp7WTqOw2lI/AAAAAAAACyc/n62UjDjPRaU/s1600/Picture+13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1SH9J9dpVx0/Tp7WTqOw2lI/AAAAAAAACyc/n62UjDjPRaU/s1600/Picture+13.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
This is a new poem that I wrote for my poetry class with Dawn McDuffie. The formatting came out sucky, sorry about that! :-( It is a DRAFT:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="Body1">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Aubergine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Solanum melongena</i>, a Recipe</span></b><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Open your loppers and wield them like the
mandibles <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">of a huge insect. Steer them step-by-step
toward the tall rangy plants<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">that bow with the weight of their
fruit. Swoop and center the jaws<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">around the fruit-stalk, yank closed the
teeth to sever the tough stem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Watch the purple, pear-shaped fruit plop
onto soil </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">damp and fragrant from days of rain. Carry
it reverently<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">to the coiled hose, allowing each of your
ten fingers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">to stroke the rich, smooth skin. Wash the few
dirt clusters <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">from the plump base of the fruit with a soft
spray </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">and dry the fruit on your clean cotton
apron. Enjoy the way <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">the water droplets sink into the fabric and
disappear, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">leaving only faint and fading dark spots on
the paisley pattern.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Brush your lips against skin the color of
stormy sunset. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Inside, place a skillet on the fire, add
fat, and turn up the flame.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Slide the cutting board from its home along
the window wall </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">and pull the thick-handled butcher knife
from its block. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Lay your sacrifice on the wooden altar and
slice from the shoulders </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">to the hips. Pause to admire the creamy flesh and small designs <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">of seed. In a low, flat dish pour
stone-ground cornmeal, flour, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">salt, pepper, garlic, and a pinch of Old
Bay. Blend with a fork. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">From the egg basket on the sideboard, raise
your piles <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">of fresh-picked spinach, cilantro and
parsley, pausing to sniff <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">the aromatic cilantro, and lift out two
brown eggs. Thump them <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">quickly against the edge of the sink, pull
the shells apart <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">and let the wet suns in their small seas
fall into a flat dish. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Mix with the fork. One by one, lay the
slices in the beaten eggs, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">flip them, lay them in the cornmeal, flip
them and drop them <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">into hot fat. Listen for a quick sizzle and
a hiss of bubbles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">When the edges brown, turn them over and
watch them dance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">When the slices resemble the sunset gold of
the elm leaves <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">that gather in the tall grass outside your
window, lay them <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">on towels to drain and cool. Arrange like
petals of a flower <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">on Grandma’s heirloom Botanica platter, with
sprigs of parsley <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">and cilantro. Danger! Don't make these more than once a year<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">and don’t burn your tongue as you groan and
savor <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">the crunchy crust that clings to the hot,
soft fruit. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Mary Stebbins Taitt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">for
Margaret and Keith</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;">111018-1516-2a(3),
111017-1432-1b(2), 111017-0836-1<sup>st</sup> complete,111016 partial draft a<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Further
instructions, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not part of poem</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">layer
the leftovers with tomatoes and parmesan </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">and
bake. Cut into rectangular chunks and serve warm.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">-OR</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">- Place the fresh
fruit in the microwave ten minutes.
Cool. Carefully scrape the
soft pulp <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">from
the now delicate skin, add lemon, olive oil, tahini and garlic <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">and
spread on pita, toast or chips.
Wallow then, in the gorgeous glory of baba ghanouj. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-56614211280983256452011-07-25T09:27:00.000-04:002011-07-25T09:28:07.734-04:00Turn Back the Clock (new Poem)<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Eia5tegIyyY/Ti1uIduyoXI/AAAAAAAACrI/fIEE4U7mbhM/s1600/Picture%2B177.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 283px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Eia5tegIyyY/Ti1uIduyoXI/AAAAAAAACrI/fIEE4U7mbhM/s400/Picture%2B177.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633279800609251698" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Turn Back the Clock</span></b></p><p class="Body1"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></b></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I cannot look at the face </span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">of the man who killed Norway's children.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I turn away in horror.</span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Why? I ask my husband, why</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">did he kill children?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Why children? How could they have harmed him?</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Why did he dress as a policeman, the one person</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">we teach our children to trust, to go to for help</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">and safety?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why did he then</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">shoot them?</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Why did he shoot them as they ran, shoot them as they swam</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">off the island toward the mainland, trying to escape?</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Why <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">did he do it? How could he?</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Why? I cry.</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">And cry.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Fibers of my heart</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">tear apart</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">shred</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">the little strands of muscles part</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">and all the soul leaks out.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I want to go back in time<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">gather the children</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">and protect them.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I want to turn back the clocks<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">and make them safe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I want to restore</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">the lives they have lost</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">and let them flow forward again</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">to their own fruition.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I want to go backwards in time</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">and undo the evil</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">that made the man</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">do what he did</span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">before he did it.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">"If you want to bake an apple pie</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">from scratch</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">you must first invent the universe."</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I want to reinvent the world</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">without that pain.</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I want to erase every thread</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">that led to that event, </span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">unwind it, unravel it </span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">back to its source,</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">ablate that well of darkness</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">and set the wheels turning again</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">so those children run free,</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">laugh, grow up.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Or I want </span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">someone</span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">somehow</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">to</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">save </span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">those children</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">who can no longer be saved.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I cannot look at the face</span></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">of Anders Behring Breivik. </span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">I want to trust the world again.</span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Mary Stebbins Taitt</span></p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">"If you want to bake an apple pie </span>from scratch you must first invent the universe."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Carl Sagan</p> <p class="Body1"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">110725-0900-2a(2), 110724 1st draft</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-Times New Roman";font-family:";font-size:10.0pt;color:windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p class="Body1"><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Helvetica;">Images harvested from internet, for which I apologize. Click images to view larger.</span></p> <!--EndFragment-->merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-28488745714743753532010-06-23T08:37:00.001-04:002010-06-23T08:37:44.310-04:00Two more poems being translated into French<div class="gmail_quote"><div><a href="http://montpellierdailyphoto.blogspot.com/">Marie de Montpellier (in France)</a> is translating two more of my poems into French. She's already done two others. Her current choices are one from <i>Desire</i> ("Forgetting You") and one from <i>Counting Fingers, Smelting Light</i> ("Remembering Ricky"). I am very excited, pleased and honored. YAY! :-D Woohoo!</div> </div> Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-5482499502234592582010-06-18T16:04:00.001-04:002019-08-24T12:40:36.311-04:00First IPad Poem<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">If</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What if, instead of dying flowers, perfume </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
smelled like mountaintops, like granite </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
and fir-filtered wind? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Breezes lift our feet </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
from the rock and fragrance-scented air </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
buoys us up over golden rows of mountains.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
You laugh like a child taking his first step </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
out onto the taut surface of water</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
and instead of sinking, we skate </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
on that tensile surface that quivers </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
like my heart when you reach </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
the long pin feathers of your wings </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
and wrap them all light and tickle </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
and remember around me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Mary Stebbins Taitt</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>for Keith</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">first poem on Ipad, </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
1000618-1557-2b(3), 100617</div>
Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-89099604838567230372010-04-16T23:22:00.006-04:002010-04-17T13:40:41.606-04:00Fool's Errand<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_U18Pkzzfm1c/S8ntyyk04CI/AAAAAAAAA7g/y_mAI04eMQs/s1600/Picture+167.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_U18Pkzzfm1c/S8ntyyk04CI/AAAAAAAAA7g/y_mAI04eMQs/s400/Picture+167.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461157479988912162" /></a><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">"THE SNIPE HUNT" by Mary Stebbins Taitt (click image to view larger.</span>)<br /><br /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Fool’s Errand</span></b></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Winged as a curlew, long-beaked as a woodcock,</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">sleep whistles and dives through the shattered night.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Searching, I scrabble through dark swamps </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">reeking of marsh gas and fœtid with the smells </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">of rotting fish. My song bursts with yearning, </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">alternating chipping, burbling and fluting sounds, </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">like a sparrow held under water. My pleading </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tastes of the raw shrimp and crayfish I wave</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">in a mesh bag. Snipe bait. Muddy ooze seeps </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">cold through the knees and hem of my nightgown, </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">black muck and slime cling to my fingers and toes. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Burdocks, stick tights and beggars ticks</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">burrow in my hair. I carry a snare for the snipe </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">of sleep, but when the bird swoops by and I reach </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to snag it, my fingers pass, ethereal, through </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">a taunting fantasia of feathers, fog and clouds</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">of unborn sleep that drifts past, damp, intangible </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">and utterly unattainable. Snipe dreams tumble by,</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">hauntingly near but always beyond reach. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They refuse to descend into my wake-parched eyes.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I strain toward the gibbering voices of dream</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">phantoms. They talk in tongues, whisper </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">and twitter in mysterious dream-coded languages </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">and their aurora-colored feathers flutter </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">around my bed, falling like the warm snow of dreams </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">but never touching my face. Long snipe beaks</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tear the night in strips, shredding it into confettis </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">of longing. The snipe of sleep will be neither captured </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">nor kept. It cannot be domesticated. Elusive, beyond wild,</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">it ranges over the incalculable waters of night. It turns </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">bedrooms into swamplands and sanity </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">into shrieking lunacy.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Mary Stebbins Taitt</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Times New Roman"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A snipe hunt</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> is a wild-goose chase or fool's errand. The term originated from a practical joke where experienced campers convinced inexperienced campers to capture a “snipe,” variously described as a bird or animal. The novice campers were given absurd methods of catching the snipe, such as running through the woods carrying a bag while making odd noises (snipe calls). Real snipes, shorebirds with long bills, are so difficult to catch for even experienced hunters that the word "sniper" originally meant someone skilled enough to shoot a snipe. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 11.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps if I could capture the snipe of sleep alive (and release it in the morning), I could finally rest. But if, sniper like, I </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">shoot</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> it, sleep will never come.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">100417-1203-4b(12), 100416-2249-3g(10), 100411-1838-2b(3), 8/16/2007 4:37 PM</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This and the previous version at the Rolandale Silk Creek Retreat House in the Hiker Kitty Room. NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Month)</span></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><br /></span></span></div>merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-72938993813561471942010-02-13T10:18:00.006-05:002010-02-13T16:04:50.658-05:00Tree Dreams<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_U18Pkzzfm1c/S3bDL02w99I/AAAAAAAAAZc/xsFc9b1PuJ4/s1600-h/Picture+17.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 284px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_U18Pkzzfm1c/S3bDL02w99I/AAAAAAAAAZc/xsFc9b1PuJ4/s400/Picture+17.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5437748208030775250" /></a><br /><br />newer version:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tree Dreams in February</span><br /><br />Under the ground, a dark and perpetual night, almost as void<br />of life as deep space, presses cold teeth against the dreaming trees,<br />but the trees sink further into their roots and listen all the way up<br />the long fibers of their empty veins to owls rustling in their nests,<br />to small movements inside the eggs, to the first cracking<br />that heralds these winter babies, these messengers of spring.<br />Lost in their roots, sunk in depths of the frozen earth, trees dream<br />of sweet sunshine, of snow melting, of the slow unfurling of leaves<br />and flowers, of fledgling owls stretching their wings and launching<br />into the great pale blue of treacherous air. The trees remember<br />summer nights, owls lifting silently from their branches, occluding<br />the moon and stars, or hooting to one another from high above<br />the branches where the little diurnal birds rest in their nests.<br />The trees dream the smell of summer wind and the wet caresses<br />of rain. As they weave into their dreams the smells<br />of their own flowers, the tastes of their own nectar,<br />the touch of the bees’ pollen-laden feet and gentle tongues,<br />the taste of frozen earth loses its pungent bitterness.<br /><br />Mary Stebbins Taitt, 1st, a poem for the unity web exercise.<br />100213-1554-1c(3), 100213-1013-1st<br /><br />First draft:<br /><br /><b>Tree Dreams</b><br /><br />Deep in the frozen earth, trees dream<br />of sweet sunshine, snow melting, of the slow unfurling of leaves<br />and flowers. Underground, a dark and perpetual night, as empty<br />of life as deep space, presses its cold teeth against the dreaming trees,<br />but the trees sink deeper into their roots and dream of summer nights,<br />of owl flight and the resting diurnal birds tucked in nests in the trees’<br />safe branches. They remember being awake, they remember the smell<br />of wind and breezes and the wet caresses of rain. As they weave<br />into their dreams the smells of their own flowers, the taste<br />of their own nectar, the touch of the bees’ pollen-laden feet<br />and gentle tongues, the taste of frozen earth loses its bitterness.<div><br /></div><div>Mary Stebbins Taitt</div><div><br /></div><div>1st draft just now.</div><div><br /></div><div>The illo is also called "Tree Dreams" and is a quick "Unity Web," my personal version of <a href="http://www.zentangle.com/index.php">Zentangle</a>, which I cannot afford to buy. Of course a quick Zentangle is probably an oxymoron, but I can't help it, I need to go. See more <a href="http://www.zentangle.com/gallery.php">Zentagles here</a>, most of which are much nicer than my quick "Unity Web." If you click on the illo, you can see it larger.</div><div><br /></div><div>I learned about Zentangles from <a href="http://web.me.com/wildridge/PoetryTherapy/Blog/Entries/2009/9/22_Mindfulness_Practice_as_Writing_Drawing.html#">Nessa here</a>.</div>merrytaithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07389878391357276777noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-63017979372457932622009-11-24T20:58:00.001-05:002009-11-24T20:58:49.068-05:00Life is a Circus<b>Life is Circus</b><br><br>In the circus of my sanity, no applause<br>ripples the canvas, no cheers <br>harmonize with the band. My mind<br>wobbles across the tight rope, sagging,<br>slipping, tumbling into the darkness<br> where no nets wait to catch me.<br>The lion's maw, full of rotted teeth,<br>yawns open and I tumbled toward it.<br>My last sequins sparkle faintly<br>in the fading light as all goes black.<br><br>Mary Taitt, 11.24.09<br><br> This is for <a href="http://moineauenfrance.blogspot.com/2009/11/life-is-circus.html">Laura Tattoo</a><br> Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-46892635733715230922009-05-14T17:10:00.001-04:002009-05-14T17:10:21.648-04:00Meeting the Neighbors in my Nightgown<b>Meeting the Neighbors in my Nightgown</b><br> <br> It wasn't fire or an earthquake that brought me outside<br> in my nightgown; I went only to fill the backyard bird feeder<br> so that the early risers could fill their tummies<br> but glanced up at a quiet whine from Nelson<br> as Frank yelled, "He doesn't bark at you,<br> anymore; he's decided he likes you," and they<br> came across the street toward me, Frank<br> in his wrinkled Madras shorts and unbuckled black galoshes,<br> though it wasn't raining and there were no puddles<br> or even sprinklers running. His chartreuse shirt<br> with the giant Mickey Mouse clashed with the ragged<br> pink and orange shorts. I was embarrassed<br> to have no bra, worried my breasts would giggle,<br> held my arms carefully over them until I bent<br> to pet Nelson and saw the hairy grizzly-bear heads<br> peering up through Frank's open black galoshes.<br> Eliana from next door was beside me then,<br> arms folded across her chest, bra-less, too,<br> wearing her son's high-top basketball shoes<br> and in a too short nightie with a man's shirt clutched<br> about her until she, too, bent to pet Nelson.<br> She giggled, I giggled, and suddenly we all laughed,<br> laughed and laughed until tears ran down our faces.<br> Nelson yapped at us and all the neighborhood dogs<br> set into howling and the mailman, coming around<br> the corner with his arms full, handed us our mail<br> with only the slightest flicker of a smile, said<br> "Top O'the Morning to you," and tipped his cap. <br> He bowed, danced a little jig, clicked his heels together,<br> and continued down the street, while Frank, Eliana<br> and I retreated quickly back into our separate homes,<br> wiping away tears and snorting softly to ourselves.<br> <br> <br> Mary Stebbins Taitt<br> 090514-1639-1b(2), 090514-1225-1st<br>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-20614264245437059392009-05-12T13:22:00.001-04:002009-05-12T13:22:42.306-04:00Vertigo Fear Shadows<b>Vertigo Fear Shadows</b><br> <br> At the edge of a shadow cast by the neighbor's oak,<br> sun shines on my face, a breeze rustles my hair<br> and the shadow of the oak shifts and wriggles, restless<br> and hungry, withdrawing and then approaching<br> my bare toes, over and over while the whole dancing<br> shadow with it's patches of sun slides slowly closer.<br> Shadows of leaves, shadows of branches, shadows<br> of baby acorns nestled among the leaves. Shadows<br> of robins passing each other with worms and insects,<br> shadows of their babies opening wide their mouths.<br> Such a chorus of pleading. Wingbeats, then stillness.<br> A touch of cold startles me. I look down to see darkness<br> on my hands, isolated and with no visible source<br> from the tree. The deep, cloudless sky throws no shadows,<br> but the shadow on my wrist expands toward my heart.<br> Compelled to drink from that well of night, I bend toward<br> my hands. A black wave engulfs me. The earth tilts, the sky<br> spins and the tree lurches. I smell bruised grass, damp soil.<br> Feel tiny pebbles mashed into my cheek. Taste salt and iron.<br> Sweating and cold, I watch the jonquils and tulips leap jaggedly<br> in the garden. Jump and twist spasmodically. On my knees,<br> my body curls in Bala-asana, the child pose, and I close<br> my eyes to still the jumping. The darkness<br> behind my eyes turns and jerks raggedly. I breathe<br> slowly. Feel a passing chill, another shadow.<br> I open my eyes to see a vulture circling, its shadow<br> passing over me again and again.<br> <br> Mary Stebbins Taitt<br> 090512-1319-1b, 090512-1229-1st<br> <br> NOTE: This did NOT happen as written, but is a combination of the earlier experience of vertigo with the later experience of the shifting shadows and the mysterious one on my hand.<br> <br>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-57294039501170948742009-05-04T03:47:00.006-04:002009-05-04T12:15:24.709-04:00FriendsThis would not format correctly below. See it <a href="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfd4sddw_482hp74p5dh">correctly formatted here</a>.<br /><br />Friends<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I detest work</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> but I need a milkshake. Ready? Here goes:</span><br /><br />I saunter in the kitchen door.<br /><br />“I love you, little Sweetness and Light,” my mother says.<br /><br />“Whatever,” I answer, and keep on walking.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Hear the grump in my voice? She deserves it.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> First, I’m not little. I’m a teenager, and I tower</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> over her. OK, only by an inch or two,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> but she’s no dwarf.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Anyway, I’m not little, I’m not sweet,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> and I generate no light, except</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> perhaps toward any witches who see auras.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Mom might; she’s that weird.</span><br /><br />I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back<br />and give her a hug.<br /><br />"OK, what do you want?” She asks.<br /><br />“Friendship,” I say.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> She guesses right, of course.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> I hug her mostly only when I want something.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> or disappears off my radar entirely.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> She knows it, too.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> I want to stay up all night and sleep all day.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> and watch TV. Hang out with my friends.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> I want no school, homework, baths, clean clothes.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> clean the bird cage and bury the compost.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .</span><br /><br />I hug her again, stroke her hair. “Friend,” I say.<br />“Milkshake,” I say. “Real friends<br />make their friends milkshakes.<br />You’re my friend, right Mom?”<br /><br />“Oh,” she says, “you want to make me a milkshake,<br />how sweet. You charm me with your generosity.”<br /><br />“Awwwwww . . .” I release a big sigh<br />and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her,<br />but already, she hauls out the milk<br />ice-cream and sugar.<br /><br />“Chocolate,” I yell, as I dash upstairs.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Don’t tell Mom, but I often create a perfect milkshake.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> I just hate to wash the blender.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> or George killed any monsters yet.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> And </span>she<span style="font-style: italic;"> can wash the blender.</span><br /><br />Mary Stebbins Taitt<br /><br />090504-1157-2e, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1st of this version (earlier draft/version was a short prose poem)<br /><br />earlier draft below:<br /><h1> <span style="font-size:100%;">Friends</span> </h1> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I need a milkshake </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">but detest work. I saunter in the kitchen door.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"I love you, little Sweetness and Light," my mother says.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"Whatever," I answer, and keep on walking. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I hear the grump in my voice, but she deserves it.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">First, I'm not little. I'm a teenager, and I tower</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">over her. OK, only by an inch or two, </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">but she's no dwarf.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">Anyway, I'm not little, I'm not sweet, </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">and I generate no light, except<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">perhaps toward any witches who see auras.<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">Mom might; she's that weird.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">and give her a hug. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"OK, what do you want?" She asks.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"Friendship," I say. She guesses right, of course. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I hug her mostly only when I want something. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">or disappears off my radar entirely.<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">She knows it, too.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I want to stay up all night and sleep all day. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">and watch TV. Hang out with my friends. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I want no school, homework, </span><span style="font-size:100%;">baths, clean clothes.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">clean the bird cage and bury the compost.<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I hug her again, stroke her hair. "Friend," I say. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"Milkshake," I say. "Real friends </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">make their friends milkshakes. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">You're my friend, right Mom?" </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"Oh," she says, "you want to make me a milkshake, </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">how sweet. You charm me with your generosity."</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"Awwwwww . . ." I release a big sigh<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her, </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">but </span><span style="font-size:100%;">already, </span><span style="font-size:100%;">she hauls out the milk </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">ice-cream</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> and sugar</span><span style="font-size:100%;">.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">"Chocolate," I yell, as I dash upstairs. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">Don't tell Mom, but I create a perfect milkshake. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">I just hate to wash the blender. </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">or George killed any monsters yet.<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">And Mom can wash the blender.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">Mary Stebbins Taitt</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:100%;">090504-0340-2c, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1<sup>st</sup> of this version (earlier draft/version was a shorter prose poem)</span> </p> <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/19/napowrimo-19-if-she-were-really-your-friend/">NaPoWriMo #19</a><br /><br />I spent a lot of time trying to get this to format correctly on the blog, but it would not. So Sorry. Wahn! Waste of time, too!Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-59233298398184304062009-04-27T13:42:00.001-04:002009-04-27T13:44:51.386-04:00Conversing with a leaf<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SfXuphCvR1I/AAAAAAAASSI/UYzEp0wmkto/s1600-h/leaf+on+moss+3+painting+7+copy-782693.jpg"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SfXuphCvR1I/AAAAAAAASSI/UYzEp0wmkto/s400/leaf+on+moss+3+painting+7+copy-782693.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329428131074754386" border="0" /></a></p>for Class tonight:<p style="font-weight: bold;">Conversing with a Leaf</p><p>Like a fledgling, it quivers. Though dead and brown,<br />cracked and dried, it shakes its thin wings. In scratches<br />and wiggles, it talks with the wind, then speaks to me<br />with unconcealed enthusiasm. I look around to be sure<br />you're not watching. If you were watching, you might think<br />I've lost my wits. Perhaps you'd be right.<br />I converse with a leaf, though I utter not a word, but instead,<br />shake my arms with quick spasms and flutters like a baby bird<br />begging for food. I open wide my mouth—a foolish sight,<br />you'd surely think, for one so large, without beak or feathers,<br />so decidedly un-bird-like. When I smile at the leaf, would you<br />think me an idiot? I ask the leaf for nothing, but thank it<br />and the wind for reminding me to look. Yes, spring comes.<br />Pausing in my tasks, delighted by its long-awaited warmth,<br />I raise my arms to the sun, rejoice in the purple glory of hyacinths<br />and blousy yellow jonquils that burst from under last year's<br />narrow, snow-blanched leaves. In grape-bark, grass<br />and mud nests, eggs hatch. Cardinals and robins<br />will soon fledge. You're not watching, are you?<br />Because the morning light and warmth seems ample<br />reason to dance around the talking leaf. I fling my arms,<br />twirl toward the promise of lilacs and the sweet breath<br />of hyacinths and flap and jiggle wildly for all the season's<br />fetal but upcoming baby birds.</p><p>Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />^this line, and everything below the line, is not part of the<br />poem—note to self, some drafts of this were not printed!<br />090427-1231-4a, 090426-1137-3a, 090425-2148-2e, 090424-2043-1g, 090424-0930-1st<br />Sun could paint my face with light and I might enjoy jonquils, hyacinths<br />and choruses of spring birdsong if I stayed outdoors. But instead, I go inside<br />and struggle with recalcitrant and unforgiving words. Woe closes<br />like darkness, cloys like stale air, on the poet who cannot or will not<br />relax and savor clusters of many-stamened speckled Hellebores<br />but carries experience away from its source<br />and ponders the language around it endlessly in the dimness<br />of her study. I am torn between the need to record and arrange these words<br />and the desire to stroke satin petals, while outside, sun shines<br />on newly opened scarlet and yellow tulips.</p><p>Started from the following journal excerpt: Conversing with a Leaf,<br />from my journal 090424: Through heaps of fallen lanceolate leaves,<br />bleached almost white by snow and sun, the neighbors' hyacinths press,<br />purple glories making their way without the aid of gardeners. And<br />next door, pink ones, like small fluffs of cotton candy on green<br />sticks, carefully tended. I incline my caring toward the wilder ones.<br /> The air is cold but the sun is warm. On the sidewalk, a dead brown<br />oak leaf trembles in the wind, leaping about gently without blowing<br />away, reminding me of a baby bird, begging for food. If you had been<br />watching, you would have seen me speaking to the leaf, though uttering<br />not a word.</p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-11867226121543340002009-04-20T12:03:00.003-04:002009-04-20T12:19:07.354-04:00A Trick of Light (NaPoWriMo #18 Word Salad)<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/Seyc7C4Jn5I/AAAAAAAASKc/Z0eeWXaD7sY/s1600-h/fractal+flame+090310-0957-736737.jpg"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/Seyc7C4Jn5I/AAAAAAAASKc/Z0eeWXaD7sY/s400/fractal+flame+090310-0957-736737.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326804997471051666" border="0" /></a></p><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Trick of Light</span><p>When her compass of shadows points only to darkness,<br />a rumble slashes behind her, a torn crack of sound.<br />Imagine the girl, hair brushing her waist, gown hitched up<br />and clinging damply to her skin as she wades through<br />the tall wildflowers that brush her bare legs with dew.<br />She turns in the meadow, resplendent with reds from the low sun,<br />curious and afraid. She holds the purple asters and goldenrods<br />close to her chest, flowers that evermore will signify the end<br />of summer, half the end, in a way, of everything,<br />but she doesn't know that yet. Not quite yet. She sees the horses<br />first, black, green-eyed, drooling spittle, dancing in their harnesses.<br />They paw at the air and rock; sparks fly from their hooves.<br />She sees the driver next, dark, handsome, old. Then young,<br />a sort of trick of the light. He is already in front of her<br />before she thinks to bolt. He seizes her, scoops her with an arm<br />around her waist, just as she begins to scream. Her head falls back,<br />flung on her thin neck by the upward rush as the chariot spins<br />and turns downward again. Dangling like this, she sees<br />one last glimpse of the darkening meadow, the flowers<br />a sea of colors, the stars whirl, the moon sets precipitously<br />at the edge of the chasm. The Underland seethes with the dead.<br />Their eyes and skin glow greenish, like foxfire or fireflies,<br />giving the vast caverns an eerie light. Creepy. In the throne room,<br />Hades makes diamonds for her by crushing coal in his bare hands,<br />a nifty trick, but Persephone will not stop crying. When he touches her,<br />the flowers blacken in her hands. She calls and calls for her mother.<br />He offers rubies, emeralds, pork chops, polenta, chocolate. Of course,<br />the pomegranate stops the tears. Her mother had fed them to her<br />as a child, one seed at a time, but when Hades feeds her his seed,<br />all trace of sweetness disappears from her tongue.</p><p>Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />090420-1141-2a; 090419-2016 1st completed 1st draft</p><p>the fractal flame was made using Apophysis.<br /></p><p>for <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/18/napowrimo-18-word-salad/">napowrimo #18: word salad</a></p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-52687915740456488732009-04-20T10:17:00.004-04:002009-04-20T10:30:25.228-04:00confined<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeyD964jBuI/AAAAAAAASKM/zWYt0GXc2X8/s1600-h/Fawn+Lily+090420-1008-747595.jpg"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeyD964jBuI/AAAAAAAASKM/zWYt0GXc2X8/s400/Fawn+Lily+090420-1008-747595.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326777559074146018" border="0" /></a></p><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Confined<br /><br /></span><p></p><p>Fawn lilies, pale in the shadows of trees, open their throats</p><p>and call the bees. Bees, drunk with sleep and winter,</p><p>stagger from the hive. The hive hums with its own morning.</p><p>Spring caresses the forest lightly. If you hurry, you will see nothing</p><p>but the dark still-sleeping trunks of trees. But stop. Place your ear</p><p>to the trunk and listen. Sap thrums in its veins, singing</p><p>to the buds who hum softly as they gather their new leaves</p><p>to unfurl. And in a spot of branch-filtered sun, the first</p><p>mourning cloak butterfly fans slow wings among the fallen leaves.</p><p>You might mistake it for one of them if you didn't pause and look.</p><p>But I cannot look. Confined indoors, I miss the birthday</p><p>of the forest: the doe, licking her newborn, pressing</p><p>with her nose to balance it as it wobbles toward</p><p>its first breakfast. Picture me longing, aching; see me imagining</p><p>instead of watching, as, stepping among the white lilies</p><p>that bear its name, in a moment never to be repeated,</p><p>the newborn fawn takes its fleeting first steps.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Mary Stebbins Taitt</p><p style="font-style: italic;">for BB</p><p>090419-1153-1c; 090418-1916-1st completed draft</p><p>for the prompt, "missing something or someone or something missing" for <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/17/napowrimo-17-missing-something/#comment-14501">NaPoWri Mo #17</a> National Poetry Month at <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/">ReadWritePoem</a>.</p><p>The fawn in the composit is by <a href="http://lakeloop.blogspot.com/">Berrybird</a>. The word layout is by <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">Wordle</a> (from my poem). I took the trees and the fawn lily and made the composit.<br /></p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-63355749880403594632009-04-17T23:08:00.004-04:002009-04-17T23:15:10.591-04:00Making it on my Own (Word Trails)<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SelELmENT7I/AAAAAAAASGU/OP0DVIA3cVU/s1600-h/collage7-710357.jpg"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SelELmENT7I/AAAAAAAASGU/OP0DVIA3cVU/s400/collage7-710357.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325863000329768882" border="0" /></a></p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeaiDxjutGI/AAAAAAAASEg/aGhWZzgVQcI/s1600-h/Flash+in+the+Pan-735112.jpg">For the </a><a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=0c44fc260aed66b395d0a38934b156e3&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F2009%2F03%2F19%2Fin-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/03/19/in-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009/">NaPoWriMo Challenge</a> <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/16/napowrimo-16-a-t-rex-and-a-thesaurus/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">#16 Word trails, </span></a>for national poetry month at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=6bad890c3772a5367f049fa2996fe8c2&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/">ReadWritePoem</a>:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Making it on my Own (Word Trails)</span><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Writing as I walk, I follow word trails through a forest of thought,<br />each word linked mutably to a host of images and memories.<br />An Icabod Crane tree hangs over the path: twisted. The word twisted<br />links to broken, broken to shattered, shattered to glass<br />and to my heart, that old saw, that cliché that still feels so rich and real<br />to me, so true, in spite of centuries of overuse. It's difficult<br />to be a poet when you love clichés. My glass heart shatters from anger,<br />from a hand or fist or knife, smashed against a face, face links to fly,<br />fly escape bird wing fast fancy fallow Farrow Darcy.<br />I liked that name, Darcy. But I could not name<br />a daughter Darcy because of Darcy Farrow, though any name<br />must link to some tragedy or other. A good name ruined.<br />Alicia was another. I'd chosen it as a possibility until Robert Garrow<br />raped and killed Alicia Houk and abandoned her body along the trail,<br />the trail I walked to school each day. A beautiful girl left all winter<br />under the snow, no a trail of words, but a trail of horror. Strange<br />what we remember and what we forget. A trail of memories.<br />Reading old letters, I discover that I wrote my parents daily, twice<br />daily, often, after I left home. Such an outpouring of confusion,<br />a plethora of words, forbidden words, like fire hunger beg drugs,<br />like robbed, beaten, kicked, evicted, like plethora, a word my teacher<br />says not to use in poetry. Much of what I wrote my parents<br />I forgot, but occasionally, a favorite story surfaces, suddenly revisited,<br />shiny in the moment of it's recording, fresh with excitement<br />and pain or matter-of-factly written as commonplace,<br />two of us cramming into the turnstile together because we only<br />had one subway token between us. The half-rotted fruit<br />we pulled from the dumpster behind the grocers, devoured, grateful<br />for any sustenance. Sitting on the fire escape to get even the slightest<br />hint of breeze. "Don't send money," I wrote repeatedly<br />to my parents, "if I can't make it on my own, I'll come home."<br />Unlike Darcy Farrow, unlike Alicia Houk, I made it home eventually.<br />Boyfriend lover husband anger fist hit bleed abuse. Finally, escape.<br />Twisted, broken, shattered, home. I made it home,<br />if that breathing but mangled girl ringing my parents' doorbell<br />was still me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />090417-2124-1c; 090417-1641-1st (complete) draft</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">word image created on <a href="http://www.wordle.net/create">Wordle</a>.<br /></span></p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-8799304174786081902009-04-16T11:01:00.003-04:002009-04-16T12:23:01.534-04:00White Duck on a Green Pond<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SedIR6McC9I/AAAAAAAASEw/-GlLeIlv3tM/s1600-h/IMG_5961-787416.jpg"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SedIR6McC9I/AAAAAAAASEw/-GlLeIlv3tM/s400/IMG_5961-787416.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325304556905302994" border="0" /></a></p><p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SedIR8awQVI/AAAAAAAASE4/71Hq17uu43Q/s1600-h/IMG_4464-787900.JPG"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SedIR8awQVI/AAAAAAAASE4/71Hq17uu43Q/s400/IMG_4464-787900.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325304557502218578" border="0" /></a></p><p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SedISMvTQ6I/AAAAAAAASFE/8WMUbCoXUVw/s1600-h/IMG_2159-788217.JPG"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SedISMvTQ6I/AAAAAAAASFE/8WMUbCoXUVw/s400/IMG_2159-788217.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325304561883366306" border="0" /></a></p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeaiDxjutGI/AAAAAAAASEg/aGhWZzgVQcI/s1600-h/Flash+in+the+Pan-735112.jpg">For the </a><a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=0c44fc260aed66b395d0a38934b156e3&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F2009%2F03%2F19%2Fin-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/03/19/in-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009/">NaPoWriMo Challenge</a> #<a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/13/read-write-word-14/">13, a word list</a>, for national poetry month at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=6bad890c3772a5367f049fa2996fe8c2&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/">ReadWritePoem</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">White Duck in a Green Pool</span><p>The Clinton River makes an acute turn, chews<br />up the banks and topples trees whose roots hang fibrous<br />and ungrounded into the green water. Mallards, quacking<br />and grunting, slide along the current like pucks<br />in an air hockey game, smooth on the wrinkled green surface,<br />interrupting the reflection of willows and phragmites<br />with their shiny blue and green heads. When the river cuts<br />back far enough, it will rejoin itself, abandoning<br />this U-shaped oxbow to stagnate like an old appendix.<br />Already, the trail caves into the river and disappears,<br />almost impassable between the plunge to water<br />and the thicket of brambles. Already,<br />old oxbows ring islands of trashy willows and weeds<br />where Canada geese nest, the males hissing,<br />trailing intruders, attacking with wing blows,<br />with the heavy thump of breastbone against neck and shoulder.<br />No one in this dismal place is jubilant, but the white ducks,<br />resting on the sandbar opposite the bend of the river preen<br />their spotless feathers with bright orange smiles.</p><p><br />Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />090416-1025-2a, 090413-1730-1b</p><p>Okay, something a<span style="font-style: italic;"> little</span> more cheerful.</p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-76329852529747301162009-04-15T23:12:00.005-04:002009-04-16T10:10:30.975-04:00Flash in the Pan<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeaiDxjutGI/AAAAAAAASEg/aGhWZzgVQcI/s1600-h/Flash+in+the+Pan-735112.jpg">For the </a><a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=0c44fc260aed66b395d0a38934b156e3&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F2009%2F03%2F19%2Fin-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/03/19/in-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009/">NaPoWriMo Challenge</a> #8, for the <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/08/napowrimo-8-wednesday-is-list-day/">"Old Flames prompt,"</a> for national poetry month at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=6bad890c3772a5367f049fa2996fe8c2&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/">ReadWritePoem</a>:</p><p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeaiD5QvmKI/AAAAAAAASEo/PBrTpanW1H8/s1600-h/Documents4-735728.jpg"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeaiD5QvmKI/AAAAAAAASEo/PBrTpanW1H8/s400/Documents4-735728.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325121797206546594" border="0" /></a></p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Flash in the Pan<br /><br /></span><p></p><p>Barbara screamed, pointed at me, and everyone turned to look.</p><p>She screamed and screamed, pointed and flailed. Her face turned</p><p>scarlet. The thirty children who had gathered around me gaped at her,</p><p>all of us standing as still as if we were staring at Medusa, until my boss</p><p>found someone else to teach them and secreted me away with Barbara.</p><p>I shrank. Disappeared into a knot of thorns that tightened around me.</p><p>In the news, only that morning, a crazed wife had killed her husband</p><p>and his lover. But in private, Barbara's maniacal frenzy abated;</p><p>she spoke quietly. Fingers released their threatened hold on my neck</p><p>and I took a breath and another.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p>I still wanted her to disappear and take Gordon with her. Forever.</p><p>Before our first kiss, I'd asked him: "Are you married,</p><p>are you engaged, are you in a relationship?"</p><p>"No, no, no," he said, and he lied. I believed him. He wore no ring.</p><p>I tend to trust. I'd welcomed him</p><p>into my home, my heart and then my bed. But they were engaged,</p><p>and then they married. After he lied,</p><p>after he cheated, they married. He probably blamed it on me.</p><p>If I were her, I'd have been as angry, but never</p><p>would have married Gordon. She told me, in tears:</p><p>he'd cheated before. Said he saw other woman</p><p>when he was with me, too, Cheated us both.</p><p>Cheat once, cheat again. I so would not have married</p><p>Gordon that he was the first step toward a vow of celibacy</p><p>One year, then another and then a third. And on to ten. Barbara married</p><p>a cheat. I married silence, peace and a spacious</p><p>empty bed.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p>Mary Stebbins Taitt</p><p>090415-2212-3b; 090414-1115-2b; 090413-2252-1d; 090313-1602-1st</p><p><br /></p><p>This poem has long lines which don't translate well into blog format.<br /></p><p></p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-52641786268801771052009-04-15T08:53:00.003-04:002009-04-15T09:05:18.942-04:00NaPoWriMo prompt from ReadWritePoem #15: “Instead of”<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeXYxv8SkpI/AAAAAAAASDg/t8J3N1WEq-w/s1600-h/IMG_0013-706196.JPG"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeXYxv8SkpI/AAAAAAAASDg/t8J3N1WEq-w/s400/IMG_0013-706196.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324900483630011026" border="0" /></a></p>For the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=0c44fc260aed66b395d0a38934b156e3&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F2009%2F03%2F19%2Fin-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/03/19/in-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009/">NaPoWriMo Challenge</a>, for <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/15/napowrimo-15-instead-of/">prompt #15, "Instead of,"</a> for national poetry month at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=6bad890c3772a5367f049fa2996fe8c2&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/">ReadWritePoem</a>:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Instead of</span><p>writing this poem, I stare at the ceiling remembering how I used to watch movies on a blank wall, sometimes with a projector, and sometimes just staring at nothing but white. White sang and rippled into color, color meshed into patterns, creating people who often danced and sang. No one else could see those private movies. Now when I stare at the ceiling, because the wall here is blood red instead of white, I see a tea-with-oranges yellow from the lamp and speckled-horse blue from the cloudy sky seeping in the window to meet the yellow. The colors kiss near the shadows of books piled nearly to collapse above the lamp. Instead of writing this poem, I lie back in my swivel chair, stare at the ceiling and remember how as a child in bed at night, I loved to watch the pattern of car headlights sweep across the wall and ceiling, the rectangular window shapes gifted with flight.</p><p>Instead of doing my exercises and getting on with my day, I am pretending to write a poem. A prose poem, with spruces, oaks and elms full of water droplets and mourning doves. Raindrops stipple puddles full of sky almost as white as the ceiling. Full of the reflections of wings. Sparrows fall slanting across the window from the cedars to the feeder looking like sudden heavy snow, looking for food on the empty feeder. Instead of filling the feeder, I watch my fingers poke at the chiclet keys with their little letters, bing bing bing bing. Instead of getting dressed and making breakfast, I sit in my nightgown with my bare feet on the chair legs, shivering and shrinking from the cold of this rainy April morning and watch as one by one, the little black squiggles of letters fill up the white page.</p><p><br />Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />090415 (tax-day)-0844-1st<br />NaPoWriMo prompt from ReadWritePoem #15 for 4-15-09: "Instead of"</p><p>This is a first draft. If I revise it, I will post the revision above this version. so the newest version will always be on top.<br /></p><p>The photo of the Chickadee is from Kensington Metropark on Good Friday. We rarely have chickadees at our feeder.</p><p>I've done several others poems from NaPoWriMo prompts but haven't had time to post them.<br /></p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-48636879921415774332009-04-13T13:41:00.004-04:002009-04-13T14:07:05.913-04:00I Come From Trouble<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeN5RW-8QgI/AAAAAAAASBw/NcT76igwheo/s1600-h/The+Formosan+Deer-785341.jpg"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeN5RW-8QgI/AAAAAAAASBw/NcT76igwheo/s400/The+Formosan+Deer-785341.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324232523616371202" border="0" /></a></p>For the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=0c44fc260aed66b395d0a38934b156e3&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F2009%2F03%2F19%2Fin-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/03/19/in-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009/">NaPoWriMo Challenge</a>, for <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/12/napowrimo-12-where-do-you-come-from/">the "Where do you come from" prompt</a>, for national poetry month at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=6bad890c3772a5367f049fa2996fe8c2&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/">ReadWritePoem</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I Come From Trouble</span><p>White deer wandered through husks of burnt-out buildings,<br />browsing the new growth that sprang up after the fires and riots.<br />They'd fled into the river during the flames, somehow survived.<br />The gang from Royal Oak rounded up the deer for food,<br />but I hid a pair in the old zoo where I'd been living since<br />the trouble times. I hated to keep them captive; the place<br />resembled an ancient prison: small dark cells with no windows,<br />stalactites and stalagmites forming around the leaks in the roof,<br />but better that than eaten by the gangs. They showed up too well<br />in the woods and outer compounds, even at night. I blacked up<br />with char from the burned-over tree stumps. I gathered food<br />for the deer at night, let them loose in the inner chambers<br />where the hunger fiends couldn't spot them. The twenty-foot<br />chain-link fences with three strands of barbed wire<br />discouraged raids on what must have seemed to the gangs<br />like a hopeless jungle of weeds. I'd planted nettles and thorny<br />brambles on both sides of the fence and the moat of stinking swamp<br />was helpful too. They didn't realize that the dandelions,<br />burdocks, nettles and other weeds provided all the food<br />we needed, the deer and I. Though I couldn't see into the city,<br />I heard the gunfire and explosions, guessed at the gang war.<br />Heard the invasions, the Feds purging. Waited for silence,<br />And then waited some more. And here I am, with my companions<br />Snow, Ice and their baby, White Dove. We come from trouble<br />times. We came through flame and lived. I am a new woman;<br />call me Phoenix.</p><p><br />Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />090413-1333-2b, 090413-1322-2a (first completed draft), 090412-1st<br />draft, unfinished</p><p>Note on the poem: this is for the NaPoWriMo challenge, "Where did you come from." I've written a number of "Where-did-I-come-from" poems, so I was looking for a different but related idea and yesterday, BB and I explored the old Zoo at Belle Isle where the white deer were kept captive after they were rounded up. The horrible, prison-like price and the fate of the deer (sold for food!) upset me and resonated, so I wrote this—it's "imaginary" but a metaphor of sorts—I<br />come from trouble—flame and fire. The fire, gangs riots and Feds are part of the history of Detroit. And Easter Sunday seemed like a good time for a rebirth image.</p><p>This is the first completed draft, what I wrote yesterday was only about half this and different. So there's a good chance there'll be more drafts and I will post them in the same post above the other during National Poetry month, anyway. That way, the newest version will always be at the top.</p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15176635.post-9729245871344285462009-04-13T11:11:00.005-04:002009-04-13T11:23:37.209-04:00A Jar of Clowns<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeNWFRr1XTI/AAAAAAAASBo/-ABIQ2shd_k/s1600-h/Self+Portrait+as+Lizard+Woman-777526.jpg"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_F9St9mFLbOU/SeNWFRr1XTI/AAAAAAAASBo/-ABIQ2shd_k/s400/Self+Portrait+as+Lizard+Woman-777526.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324193833128647986" border="0" /></a></p>For the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=0c44fc260aed66b395d0a38934b156e3&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F2009%2F03%2F19%2Fin-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/03/19/in-case-you-were-wondering-napowrimo-2009/">NaPoWriMo Challenge</a>, for <a href="http://readwritepoem.org/2009/04/01/napowrimo-1-lets-get-it-started-and-poet-can-you-spare-a-word/">Disparate things, yoked</a>, for national poetry month at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=76973306626&h=6bad890c3772a5367f049fa2996fe8c2&url=http%3A%2F%2Freadwritepoem.org%2F" target="_blank" title="http://readwritepoem.org/">ReadWritePoem</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Jar of Clowns</span><p>Like the snakes at the museum with their yellowing scales<br />and pale, clouded eyes, my clowns are jammed in the jar<br />until no space remains for humor. Only a groan or two escapes,<br />the wheeze of tortured breath. My face presses, with theirs,<br />against the glass, three-quarters of the way to the bottom.<br />The pressure blanches my skin white and bloodless; it curves,<br />following the bend of glass. Bruises blossom at the contact<br />points. A hint of jelly clings to the jar by my tongue, apricot<br />maybe. Or peach. Not enough flavor remains to decipher<br />taste. The absence of laughter causes slow starvation,<br />a steady shrinking of the adipose of joy.</p><p><br />Mary Stebbins Taitt<br />090413-1059-1st</p><p>This is my FIRST draft, it's likely I'll write more, and if so, I will post them ABOVE the 1st one so the newest is always at the top.<br /></p>Mary Stebbins Taitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10626507461216769140noreply@blogger.com2