The Poetry Box LIVE -- March 2021 Edition

Fishing and Sonnets https://basicallybarbmeier.wordpress.com/

It amused me today to work on my catfish sonnet while watching anglers fishing for Rainbow trout on the Deschutes River.

I really wanted to go and ask them if I could rifle through their tackle box so I could finish my research on fishing tackle.  (No cell phone service for me!)

My conclusion for this writing time was,

"Writing sonnets can take me  to strange places in my  poems- places I  never intended to go- usually because of the rhyme I am trying to make."


https://basicallybarbmeier.wordpress.com/

Daddy's Mitt

I used to be soooo passionate about baseball when my boys played it in their youth. Their childhood was spent playing Little League, Babe Ruth, and high school ball. I lived at the fields and relish every smack of the ball hitting leather and crack and ping of a metal and wood bats hitting a ball.

It was all tied up with my Dad also. He taught me to play baseball. I remember watching him play ball on a farm team league in KS. Later after he died, I kept his old cracked mitt in my closet and would take it out to play catch with my sister.

The mitt was supposed to be mine, but I lost it to a sister in the many moves after college. It's ok because I know it is just as cherished in her possession as it was in mine. Besides I don't know that it would be a cherished possession for my boys now. And this morning I discovered this poem..

Pasttime

By Emilio DeGrazia

A girl, nine years of wonder
Still on her face,
Stands directly on the bag at third
Running amazed fingers along the wrinkles
Of my old leather mitt.
It is the bottom of the ninth,
And everywhere in the world
The bases are loaded.

I'd like to think and imagine me and my Daddy having this conversation together as if he had never been sick or had died.

My Go to Doggie Death Poem

My go to Doggie death poem. How's that for guilt? I still feel regret for dogs in my past that I could have done more for. Queenie too....

The PARDON by Richard Wilbur 

My dog lay dead five days without a grave 
In the thick of summer, hid in a clump of pine 

And a jungle of grass and honey-suckle vine.
I who had loved him while he kept alive

Went only close enough to where he was
To sniff the heavy honeysuckle-smell
Twined with another odor heavier still
And hear the flies' intolerable buzz.

Well, I was ten and very much afraid.
In my kind world the dead were out of range
And I could not forgive the sad or strange
In beast or man. My father took the spade

And buried him. Last night I saw the grass
Slowly divide (it was the same scene
But now it glowed a fierce and mortal green)
And saw the dog emerging. I confess

I felt afraid again, but still he came
In the carnal sun, clothed in a hymn of flies,
And death was breeding in his lively eyes.
I started in to cry and call his name,

Asking forgiveness of his tongueless head.
..I dreamt the past was never past redeeming:
But whether this was false or honest dreaming
I beg death's pardon now. And mourn the dead.

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Words

Your words in complete sentences,
making sense with verb, noun, adjective,
march like tiny soldiers across my brain,
drumming in a heartbeat of anguish,
 anger, attraction, appeal.

They bewitch my brain
and I create conversations
from the littered clothes,
fallen from closet hangers
in my bedroom.

Loneliness is imaginary conversations.

It brings to mind the Super Moon
outside my window tonight,
shining through the lattice blinds
with a heavy glow.
Unbelievable and unreal
in its weight in the night sky.
The causation of cadence.
Language beats upon the strand,
dragging words out to sea
and back again.

My existential Dover Beach.

I am bothered
by the scabrous jolt
of your emails,
The lines of practise
are tiny swords
piercing my frontal lobe.

I want.  What I can't have.

I am bewildered.
Your words are seduction,
juicy and trembling on my tongue.
I wrap myself in their silky strands.
I am plaited in the paragraphs,
roped to the pages of your text.


You stab me with your periods.


I'll take your words,
those deleterious words,
and hang them
with semi-colons from my ears.
The colon will be the needle
through my nose.

Seduce me with your words, and I will follow them across the pages.

Queenie

Queenie is my old lady dog of 17.  She was my oldest son's 12th birthday present.  He is 28 now.  Just like in "My Dog Skip"  the kid moves away and leaves the dog at home.  They get on with their lives and leave their pasts in the dirt for moms to clean up and take care of.  Another role of a mother: we nurture dogs also.

Sometimes I look at her and wonder if she remembers him and misses him?  I know now I am her whole world.  She can no longer see clearly or hear.  Her bones ache and she is frail on her legs.  A lot of time she stands and stares for the longest time as if to say,

"Now what was I going to do?  Or where was I going?"

As I watch her decline I worry about her.  The biggest worry is,

"When am I going to have to make THE DECISION?"

I worry when she doesn't eat.  I worry when she looks confused.  I worry when she can only walk 50 feet and then look up at me as if to ask,

"Please carry me now."

I come home and always quickly check to see if she is moving or breathing.  I worry every time I have to leave her alone.

I think this is probably going to be her last summer.  The times she is weak seem greater than the times she wags her tail and smile at me.

I know she is feeling pain from her arthritis.  Her last medication caused her liver enzymes to go way up.  Last week I got her some new meds.  These could cause kidney problems.  So yesterday when she would not eat and I did not see her drink my first thought was,

"Is she starting to have kidney failure?"

Today I did not give her the meds just to see.  She turned her nose up at the chicken noodle baby food but did eat a wee bit of honey yogurt.  She drank some chicken broth and Dog Ensure.  She doesn't seem to be drinking as much water.  She is still peeing and had a small poop.  (Can you tell she is consuming my life right now?)

At one point today I looked at her and she seemed so sad and confused.  It occurred to me it may be time.  Just as quickly as the thought occurred, I pushed it out of my brain.

Once she is gone it will symbolically end my past life of husband and family.  She is the last tie left.  I dread the sorrow and mourning I know I will experience once she is gone.  I don't even know how to prepare for it.  I cry now as I even write this down.

I had to make this decision with my Allie dog a year and a half ago.  I know the hurt fades as do the memories.  I still remember the rawness of the loss and the many tears.

I think what I fear the most will be the bitterness I will feel for my son for abandoning her to me and never once checking back on her to see how she is doing.  I fear I will have a difficult time forgiving him for what seems like such a callous abandonment.

What I will do is tempt her with juicy morsels of whatever I can find she will eat.  I will hug and kiss her which she just tolerates.  I will continue to worry about her and plan my day around not leaving her alone too much.  I trust I will know when the time is right to say goodbye to her.

I know the tears and yes, gut-wrenching sobs, will happen but I know the hurt will fade.  She will forever be in tombed in my heart and symbolic of the end of a marriage and family.  For she is now my only immediate family I have left.

Pastor Bill Cwirla told me on the death of Allie that he believed the closeness that man feels toward dogs is a remnant left from the garden before the Fall.  I like that and it gives comfort.

My Queenie Beanie will be my precious memory.  She has been a companion that has never failed me or left me.  She loves me unconditionally.

I won't miss the poop and pee stains on the carpet though.

Lavender

Today was the Southern Oregon Lavender Trail.   Rosie and I went to 5 different Lavender farms in the Applegate Valley.  We started out in Rosie's old stomping ground Williams, OR where she grew up.  The first stop was Two Sisters Lavender Farm.  It was difficult for us to be impressed with this small lavender farm and I thought they were spendy.  It was because this is what Rosie and I had in our minds: Mt. Shasta, CA and lavender.

Our next stop was Goodwin Creek Nursery in Williams.  Here we had a delicious blackberry/vanilla sorbet.  (It was nothing do with lavender, but it was divine!)  They only sold lavender plants so we did not see any fields.  We had a most interesting conversation with a gentleman about milkweed and Monarch butterflies.  This was the first time I have seen milkweed plants for sale.  In Oregon they are considered to be a "noxious weed".  What they don't realize is milkweed is a staple of Monarch butterflies and with the spraying of pesticides and mowing down of milkweed,  Monarch butterflies are on a decline.    When the boys were little we could find milkweed and Monarch caterpillars.  Now I cannot find them.  Their habitat is being destroyed.

The next stop was one of my favorites and was the farthest out, Luna Blue Farms.  It was quite the chore to get to the lavender so we decided to take advantage of the sun umbrella and chairs.  The first thing we noticed were all the butterflies!  There were 4 varieties of lavendar, but we only noticed the butterflies on one row. There was swallowtail and buckeye butterflies. We sat and watched them frolic through the blooms.  The bushes were alive with honey bees, bumblebees, moths and butterflies.  Soon the farmer came to visit with us and we discussed the lavender business.  It was peaceful, quiet except for the hungry buzz.  Overhead red tail hawks were scavenging in the sky.  It was soul satisfying!

We left Williams and traveled to the town of Applegate.  Eight miles up Thompson Cr. Rd. was the English Lavender Farm.  The lavender was planted on a sloping hill so when the breeze blew the lilac scent was sent down the hill.  It was a freshly graveled road and new "barn".  They served Stim coffee, lavender lemonade, and sold all kinds of lavender products.  Again I thought the prices were spendy.

We decided to not stop at the Applegate Valley Lavender Farm as a sort of political protest.  All the other farms had banded together to publicize and advertise the Trail.  This person decided since she was on the main highway she did not need to pay into the organization.  In other words, she took full advantage of the publicity to benefit herself and not her neighbors.  That's dirty and I would rather not support someone with such callous business practises.

Last on the list was Lavender Fields Forever, which was probably the best organized, best prices, and most user friendly.  They had a food cart, Figgy's, and craft booths.  We were shown how they make the lavender wands by a very nice young lady.  I spent a lot of my money there buying bath gel, mist, essential oil, and patronizing my classroom helper, Susie's craft booth.  My favorite was the cute stuffed bird with the lavender tail!

We ended the day at Fiasco Winery where Chef Jesse Sword had created some quenching lavender iced tea.  We tried his wine marinated shrimp wrapped in prosciutto and drunken apple, smoked chicken, bleu cheese pizza.  (YUM!)  It was a truly lovely day.

We both decided though that NOTHING could beat the  Mt. Shasta Lavender Farms: http://www.mtshastalavenderfarms.com.  The view, the fountain, the free lemonade, the well priced gifts, the lavender and THE MOUNTAIN.   Sorry S. Oregon you just don't have it all.  You can drive 49 mile to Williams or 60 miles to Mt. Shasta.  Go for the mountain!