In the Leaving

I haven't written in so long, but today I was prompted, perhaps by divine suggestion, to write. I found this poem in its raw form, handwritten on a rumpled piece of stationery on the floor as I was cleaning...with no idea where it came from or when I wrote it. A poem about a poem that I never wrote.

In the Leaving

“In the Leaving” was the title of a poem I once wrote,

Though I never finished it

Or even began it really.

I could never truly imagine life without you.

Perhaps it would be like an expanse of dark and time;

Like being wholly separated from God.

Separated from hope.

You are my savior of sorts

And “In the Leaving” fills me

With a silent knowing,

Yet it can still mystify me

Like the line of a song that I cannot remember,

But it is on the tip of my tongue.

Dear Emerson

"Emerson, I am trying to live,  as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine. Not to speak of the busy heart."

Mary Oliver 

Today was one of those kind of days.
The one in which I found myself lost in thoughts of how far I could get from this particular life on the money in my bank account...
Which meant I was not going to get very far.
I caught the sky over an open field as I was driving and decided to pull over. I marveled at the beauty of the clouds and the way the rays of the sun made streaks, like light is depicted in ancient religious paintings.

 Emerson would have been proud... 

Straining Toward Home

....overhead, the Geese with their necks outstretched,
Are straining toward some mysterious home.
And i, here on the ground,
fumbling to find direction.

No Matter How Lonely

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.” 
― Mary Oliver

Morning

I am here, in our little room upstairs which we refer to as "Paris" though I've never been. It is a vacation spot for me; our bedroom, where the boughs of the trees reach inward toward the windows, birds flit about at the feeder hung on the oustide sash and a cat or two lounging on our bed with fresh vintage sheets. They watching intently with drowsy eyes...oh and old feather pillows that smell of grandmothers house. Bolstering my back against the old white metal bed whose life itself has seen so much of children bouncing, love making, sickness and tears and thousands  upon thousands of sleeps.
It is quiet up here. I can escape the busy busy busy of my grandchild and my youngest daughter fumbling around in her motherhood as all mothers have done. There are dishes not clean, piled in the sink, clothes in heaps on the floor in the landry room and work that beckons me each time I pass by my making desk downstairs, heaped with potential and discarded rhinestones.
This is not my whole life. It's just a moment that I have taken to reconnect. For me, reconnecting means reading a little favorite poetry, or writing a bit with a cup of Chai tea in hand. Setting aside the remains of the day until I can take a deep breath, and exhale; get dressed, put on a pair of favorite earrings or a sparkly necklace, and face the day ahead with a grateful heart.
Here is a poem I read this morning by my most beloved poet, Billy Collins~

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,

the swale of the afternoon,

the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,

his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—

throwing off the light covers,

feet on the cold floor,

and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,

a palmful of vitamins—

but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,

the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,

a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—

trees fifty, a hundred years old

out there,

heavy clouds on the way

and the lawn steaming like a horse

in the early morning. 

Stain (Memorial Day 2012)

my father, circa 1968

Today I remember you.
Or what there was of you.
The same stories you told me
about coming home from Nam
to be there when I was born.
Stories about getting on the 'chopper
and then me falling asleep on your chest.
And excuses for why you disappeared.
I see your photo now and then
the tears come, but just a little.
I choke them back.
The war changed you.
All smiles before,
all drunkenness after.
And I, left behind,
then found again,
then left behind,
then found again.
Years would pass with
no sign of you.
No sign except
my own reflection,
my roundish nose,
my one crookish eye,
my smile.
Today is not the only day
I think about you.
But today I am forced to
bring you out of the old suitcase
of memory
and trace my finger over
the writing on the backs of these photographs
of a young G.I.
The only handwriting of yours that I have ever seen.
The last trace of you
that I have.
The only physical things.
These photographs of a lost boy,
a lost man,
a lost father.
Gone forever from me,
but the stain of your memory
remains there in my own reflection.
My nose is yours,
my crooked left eye,
my cheeky smile;
my broken heart.

J. Valentine

my father, second from left, circa 1968

The Messy Middle

Below is a poem that is currently on SARK's call line. Read by her.  I call it when i need someone to tell me that I really matter. When I need someone to give me a virtual hug. When I need a cheerful voice of affirmation and I can't think of anyone to call that I'd like to burden with more of my life "stuff". SARK doesn't mind. I'm grateful that today her inbox had room for my message of thanks back her. If you'd like to call it, here is the number~ 415-546-3742. Her website is www.PlanetSark.com ,for more inspiration, free printable things, wallpaper, workshops and books.

Benjamin

Life has become so much more full, since we've become full time caretakers of our little grandson...so full of joy and smiles and song and fumbling for what works; full of so many shifts that were sudden and stressful and rewarding and a whole mixture of joy and sadnesses as well. Susan Kennedy calls it "the messy middle", where most of us spend a lot of our time living.
I find myself blaming myself for the way my youngest daughter E. has "turned out" so far,even though I know in my heart that I have been the best mother I could be. Wondering where it was that I went wrong. She is 19 now. Watching her destroy herself again and again when I've spent so many years doing my utmost to build her up and foster her dreams, is so difficult. For me it is akin to watching a terrible car crash coming that I am helpless to prevent. For my husband and I, it is a feeling of fresh grief and loss, mixed with hope and fervent prayer that she will one day find her way. And a feeling of exhaustion from trying to juggle my work, his work, new baby, homekeeping, our relationship and two other boys (ages 7 and 17) that need us too.
I can say that I am proud of E.'s selflessness when it comes to doing what is best for this precious and happy go lucky little fellow. She knows his best place is here with us until she "sorts out her life." I am grateful for that. And so incredibly grateful for this~

And grateful for SARK (Susan Arial Rainbow Kennedy) and her message line, and for introducing me to a now favorite poem that resonates so deeply with me.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.


Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.


Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.


Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

—Naomi Shihab Nye from Words Under Words: Selected Poems

Blessings to You and Yours,
Jennifer Valentine

Sailing and Ascension, every piece tells a story...

The Secretary's Ascension

The Secretary's Ascention

I made this assemblage necklace with thoughts of my sweet mother...who since as long as I've been alive, has made work and much sacrifice of being a secretary and bookkeeper. She began in Washington D.C. as a page with a little black metal typewriter on her desk, and in her 20's, we migrated to the south, where i spent most of my life. Every day after school I called her...and in the background, I'd hear the chatter of the keys on her typewriter...over the years, as technology progressed, the keys would become quieter and quieter still...and I was, and still am, sincerely amazed at the speed of which she can type and simultaneously converse. Each time I see an eraser wheel such as this, i think of her...long ago...leaning forward to erase a wayward letter, while thinking of me and longing to be home. 

My mother has finally taken the leap she has been dreaming of forever. A move toward the Oregon coast, away from the oppressive heat of the south. A move that she has dreamed of for years. This necklace is a bit of a homage to her, and her brave flight toward a new life.

Sailing to Byzantium

Years ago, during my first attempt at college in Washington State, I nervously sat down in a class called British Literature. One of the first poems we read was "Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats. I fell instantly in love with discussing literature, and the lives of ancient poets. Here is an excerpt from the poem:

"Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come."

I think of that poem and those first amazing college days each time I create something with a boat...

You can read the remaining parts of the poem here, at POETS.ORG

The Rapture of the Lego Men

I wrote this today...kind of formulated it in my mind as I vacuumed and actually had a moment to write it all down! (not easy with a six year old home for the summer!) keep in mind, I never profess to be a real poet...I just put thoughts down and make it look like I might know what I'm doing...

  The Rapture of the Lego Men
 

As I vacuumed today, I thought of it.

How many times it has been done.

Three boys and 25 years now,

off and on again,

I've come for them,

I, a gentle beast

with a sucking machine.

I don't really mean to be.

But once again I become in charge

of the rapture of the Lego Men.

They wait for me with some uncertainty

in crevices behind suitcases and trunks,

under couches and behind curtains, they wait

to be raptured up into the dusty air

with ardent faith in where they are going.

There are others there,

they tell me.

There are others.

I tell them I know.

They look up to the heavens

with eyes transfixed,

sometimes half-smiling and

missing their hat or their arm or their vestiges.

Forgotten by boys who have found

other toys

or whisked away by age or circumstance.

I wonder to myself

as I push and I pull,

what my own rapture will be.

Will I rise up in a whirl of dust

and float and glisten

in the rays of the sun?

settling gently among still water, the leaves of trees,

sprigs of new grass, and on the tender hearts of mankind?

I have listened to the Lego Men.

They tell me there are others...

and I believe.

              (copyright July 2011 by Jennifer Valentine)

Love, a most favorite poem by a most favorite poet, Billy Collins (and some portraits of Saints)

The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone

St. Teresa

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.

St. Catherine by Raphael

St. Agatha by Niccolo de Simone

A Special Valentine's Day Giveaway!

Well, I am keeping my graphic design (almost but not quite yet) degree warm with a little practice, but this didn't quite come out the way I wanted it to. Might look better in print...anyway, this is my Valentine to you!

Enter a line from your favorite love poem for a chance to win a 20.00 gift certificate for my Etsy Shop! I'm giving away two of them on Valentine's Day.

IN OTHER NEWS, I have opened a separate shop for my children's line. I a very excited about the things I have planned for this special venture. Making the sweet hairpin sets and necklaces just makes me smile huge, and melts my heART. Here is the banner and link (just click on the banner) for the new Etsy site if you'd like to visit:

SPECIAL THANKS to The Graphics Fairy for all of the wonderful free Valentine images and such!

A Portrait of Self

I want to remember this day. I want to remember this bedhead in bright red with dark roots and makeupless face and wearing all of my spring clothes in the middle of this Michigan winter. Putting on her amazing springtide earrings, and a favorite necklace given to me by my mama years ago by Mati Rose. I put it on when I most need it. I need it today. Bright colors on one side and on the other it says "There is nothing wrong with you." If I can't hear anyone actually say it to me, I need to wear it close to my heart.

redheadbeadhead

I have painted myself with color today...in the brightest I have. Red shoes, green pants, blue shirt bright green sweater....my kids still make comments even after almost two years of it.  I come from literally years of wearing all black...a throwback from working at Eileen Fisher and living in a Seattle suburb years ago. I guess I thought it was easier and more "chic". It was. I desperately wanted to be chic. But that was then. I'm not worried about "chic" anymore. Now I paint myself in layers of color whenever I can. I don't much care anymore even if it really "matches". It lifts me. It was my 40th year resolution and I've kept it going. Quite possibly the only resolution I've ever kept.
Yes, I want to remember this day. The sounds of my little boy playing in the other room. Patty Griffin station playing on Pandora. Jewelry waiting to be finished on the table.
Hope in my heart.
And the feeling that there is really nothing wrong with me. Sometimes I allow others to make me feel terribly terribly flawed. I'll be 42 soon. I like myself. I heard about this revelation when I was 30. How when you turn 40 things change. They have. I've let go of some stuff...some clutter in my heart. I like the light in my eyes and the new big wrinkle in the corner of my left eye that I discovered the other day. (I don't spend much time in the mirror, so it is always a surprise when I really look!) I do, however have issues with my chin. Still trying to make peace with that......
uh-um but anyway, what do you do when you need to be lifted?
Aside from wearing lots of color, I love a big  cup of double-spice Chai tea and take maybe take in the scent and sight of lemons. (I keep lemon oil on my table and sniff it...sometimes even putting a dab under my nose and inhale deeply) I prefer lemons to fresh flowers (they're cheaper too.) Sometimes I keep one or two on my table to feel and scratch and sniff until they loose their lemony-ness.
and I read this poem called The Journey by Mary Oliver that I want to share with you:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mamma, the Beach and Edgar Allan Poe

When I was 16, my mother presented me with this book.

I was a young novice poet, writing and brooding about broken hearts and love and wounds and teen angsty things...and I loved the dark words of my (then) favorite poet, Edgar Allen Poe. I learned from a friend that today he'd be 201 years old. My little antique book was published in 1882...I don't think I own anything else that is quite that old, or a possession that I've had quite as long.
My little Poe book has moved with me more times than I care to count. Packed and unpacked. Darkness and light. And always in the first box  I opened in the new place. My Poe book and my children and I have criss-crossed this country from cities and towns in Florida to Seattle,Washington, and then finally landing here in small town Michigan where we live our days celebrating each unique season. Though my three teenagers would disagree, there is something very charming about living here for the past seven years.
In each place I've ever lived, my little old Poe book became a reminder of my mother and from whence I came. It grounded me. It has always been there, resting quietly until I take it down from its place and gently turn the brittle pages and run my fingers over the lines of my favorite Poe poem, Annabel Lee.

I once recited it in High school English class, bringing with me my red "boom box", and on it, a recording of the ocean waves (I crept out that night before the assignment and traveled with a friend to the beach to record them.)  Barefoot and skipping in the shallow waves and twirling in the darkness, I practiced the poem aloud with the ocean mist in my hair and recorded the gentle rushing forth and receding of the waves. Yes, I was quite the romantic then and the world was wide open. Quite the dreamer at heart...and I suppose that hasn't changed much.
There was something about those last lines of Annabel Lee that resonated within me and furthered my love for poetry. For the past 28 years I have written off and on, sometimes going years uninspired to write...but always, my little antique Poe book was there waiting quietly for me. And my mother, never too far from my thoughts.

So, Happy Birthday Edgar...and thank you for your words pressed into the yellowed pages of a little brown book that made everywhere I lived a home, and inspired me to write. And thank you mama, for the very first gift of poetry...and the little old book that holds the memories of my young-ness and my spirit....and always reminds me from whence I came; of you mama, my forever home.

Wishbone Chandelier

I bought this pin this morning.
Wanted to let you know.
It is a wishbone pin, Dad.
I bought  it for myself
because today is your birthday.
Bet you thought I didn't remember.

For so many years
I always meant to call,
but I never knew what to say.

I was 8 and
my first memory of you was how you hung
wishbones on your
chandelier to dry.
And you took one down
and we each held the delicate bone
(always pulling in opposite directions)
and made a secret wish together.
I remember I got the larger piece,
so my wish was supposed to come true.
But it just never did.
And now you are gone from me
forever.
You left without saying
a
single
word.
Left me with nothing.
but this dead birthday phone call

and this damn
wishbone chandelier.

i thank you God for most this amazing, a favorite by e. e. cummings

I created this from a scan of a favorite book cover of mine, and thought I'd add an equally favorite poem. I've been an e. e. cummings "fan" since high school. His work never gets old for me. It was he who first taught me that poetry did not have to rhyme or have perfect punctuation or be even, to be poetry. Reading this again; hearing this again; reminds me to remember to play...to be lifted from the no into the beauty of the day we are given. What is your simple joy today? Share it with us in a comment, won't you?

Newly Fallen

I found the leaves
today,
neatly pressed in pairs and threes
between the pages of
the dic tion ar y
as I looked up
Entrepreneur.
I imagined you there
in your soul soaked old man coat
(the one I mended with silver thread)
conducting a
deliberate
&
silent gathering
of the newly fallen
as you flowed through
the arms of forest--
contemplating which
of thousands
to send
to me
to win back my heart
which was
never really lost.
I found the leaves today...

Luminosity

They seem to appear from the canvas,
with searching eyes, somehow manifesting from the drips and smears;
a soul of their own doing.
Brought to life through his hands,
these waywards finally at rest.
A life story made real
yet transient and fleeting
as the fog rolling by
the car windows on a sultry nighttime ride.
Luminous
soft
fluid
and
smoldering
from the palette of his dreaming.

(Untitled acrylic on canvas)

("Speed" acrylic on canvas)

("Transgressions" acrylic on canvas)

(Jeremy, crayon and acrylic on canvas)

("Apparition"acrylic on panel)

( These are an example of work by my husband, Ken Morford.  His online Etsy shop is still under construction,but  inquiries about purchasing paintings are welcome. His blog contains a little more about his work. Click here.
Ken is also a poet. You may find his beautiful poetry here.
I am a lucky girl. Surrounded here at home by his talent, and graced with his words.

Talisman of the Sea, a vintage assemblage necklace

Talisman of the Sea;
amid the reports of bomb vests
and shootings
and those who are lost,
you are here
to remind me of the sound
of the sea shore--
the earth
breathing life;
throwing itself at our feet
over and over and over
again.
Love me.
Love me.
Love me.
Love me....

This vintage assemblage necklace is for sale in my shop right here.

Celebrating

I try not to be a self absorbed blogger...but my attempt to connect; to relate with you, the reader, also helps me to connect with myself...and something about "putting it out there" in space and time seems to make it more real. How much better it is to go to a play or a show with someone else, so you can turn to them and say, "Wasn't that amazing?" "Aren't you glad we came?"
I guess that is what I need. To feel that connection with humanity, to satiate the hunger that I have for goodness....for the knowledge that there is inherent good in a world filled with the constant bombardment of sex and rage and the push to be more than all you can possibly be.
Here I am. And this song of myself, is also a celebration of you.

I celebrate my eyes and for all they have seen.
They have seen births and deaths;
tears wiped away in frustration and anger,
in sadness and with immense joy...
because they see you.

I celebrate my ears,
because I hear you.
My aging earlobes pulled south now, ever so
slightly, by earrings created with my wrinkled hands...
hands that have felt the smoothness of a child's skin
and felt the emptiness and the wonder of death.
Hands that have joined in prayer for you,
not ever knowing if you feel it.
But still, I pray.

and I celebrate my mouth and the song
that wafts from my throat
though you may never hear it,
I sing for you, and for the missing
of those I can no longer see
ever again or maybe just for a time.
I am grateful for the voice and the song that appears
from the corners of the creases and the scars
and the age of my lips.

and I could go on, and on
but I am so tired today.
The essence is this

I'm so glad you're here.
I'm so glad that I'm here, so that I
can see you.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Yesterday, during an incredible thunderstorm, I was thinking about one of my favorite poems. Maybe because of the references to water...
My husband and I often read aloud to one another on long trips or sometimes before we drift off to sleep. Yesterday, I opened the curtains and we lay in bed together to watch the play of the wind in the trees and listen to the thunder. He listened attentively as I read aloud the many pages of  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock...

"There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."

                    My Husband and fellow poet, Ken.

And, with gentle humor, during the rare moments that I look closely at my aging face in the mirror, I have been known to quote Eliot's words:


"I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."


and then, the end; is my most favorite part:


"I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

Make yourself a cup of tea...you might like to read the whole thing here.
Do you have a favorite poem? I'd love to know what it is....