Puff Of Smoke Poems

Response to Wordle prompt #23 at Red Wolf Poems

Swallow the blues
as if drinking
down a monsoon
full of rocks pinging
through to your roots.
Be patient with wild blue birds of
swallowed sorrow nesting.
Do not be swayed by what chases you
screeching wild peacock cries for help.
Do not run away.
Keep company with your own self
until rocks crack open to
reveal hearts of chestnut.
Something relaxes
unfurls another fluting tendril.
The tree inside you blooms
out through your fingers
your toes your hair.
Save your breath.
Fill your lungs with the songs
of small blue birds.
Invite the gaudy peacocks
who have their place
nesting beneath the tree.
There is always a home
for beauty and need
tucked beneath this tree
full of a trillion tiny birds
bright blue and singing.

          I’m not a big blog follower. Most days, getting my own poem written and posted is all the time I spend online. But somehow, a while back, I was lucky enough to discover a beautiful oasis in the online world, the lovely Leaf and Twig. The site’s tagline reads: Where observation and imagination meet nature in poetry. The site format is simple and perfect. Each day, one photo of the natural world, paired with a tiny descriptive poem. To me, each morning, it feels like the online equivalent of opening a tiny, perfect jewel-box or taking one delicious sip of of nectar.

          So, here’s a treat for you. I asked the author of Leaf and Twig to respond to the same questions I answered on the Writing Process Blog Tour. Her thoughtful reply is below. Well, really, you get two treats—her answers below, and her site, which you should visit immediately for your daily dose of natural beauty.

Leaf And Twig: On The Writing Process

What am I working on?
Maintaining the daily postings on Leaf and Twig – which really is enough to keep me busy.

But I’ve also begun to try and group them thematically – and have begun playing around with self publishing.  I have to say I’m not loving Blurb books interface very much…but I am learning a lot and reviewing my work and looking for connections is a good process. And for me just to be “in process” and not fixated on a tightly specific goal (best selling coffee table book) is the best way to work because then I’m open to the meandering path of inspiration.

Why do you write what you do?
Someone smart and clever said “art is prayer” and for me that is true, it is my devotion. So my writings are daily prayers (visual prayers a reader called them), gratitudes, and thanksgiving for all the beauty the world has to offer. And they are a practice – to stay connected, to slow down and notice, to remember that the quality of life resides in the now and often in the smallest of things. And they are an offering to anyone who needs a little respite, a little solace in our hurried and mad world.

How does your writing process work?
I love this – and it describes my process pretty accurately too:
Writer Elizabeth Gilbert tells a story about Ruth Stone’s writing style and inspiration, which she had shared with Gilbert:
          As [Stone] was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out, working in the fields and she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barrelling down at her over the landscape. And when she felt it coming…cause it would shake the earth under her feet, she knew she had only one thing to do at that point. That was to, in her words, “run like hell” to the house as she would be chased by this poem.
          The whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she would be running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house, and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it, and it would “continue on across the landscape looking for another poet”.
          And then there were these times, there were moments where she would almost miss it. She is running to the house and is looking for the paper and the poem passes through her. She grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her and she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. In those instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact, but backwards, from the last word to the first.[5]

I always have my camera, pen and paper with me. I work as a gardener and often it is in the garden that I discover my images and the poems will “arrive”. But they never come together. The words develop from the images. I edit the images and then title them with a word to help me recall the image. Then I keep a little list of them in my pocket and often during the day while I’m gardening or often driving the words will come. The title almost always changes. I let them “simmer” and revise much the way one adds seasonings to finish the dish. I’m so nourished by the comments on the blog and often surprised at which ones resonate the most with folks.

             Thanks to Leaf and Twig’s awesome author/photographer for sharing her writing process. Hope you feel inspired to do the same!

Abby, who writes lovely poems on her own blog and also over at Red Wolf Poems, asked me to participate in a Writing Process Blog Tour. The deal is, I answer 3 questions about my writing, post it on my blog, and then pass the virtual baton by asking another writer/blogger to respond to the same questions. My answers are below.  Would you like to share your answers?  

What Am I Working On?
          I continue a mostly-daily poetry practice I began in late October, 2012. This doesn’t qualify as “work” in my mind, but as pleasure, a gift to myself that I can unwrap and be surprised by over and over.
          I am also writing a couple of novels. I’m giving some daily effort to one this summer, with the goal of a draft by summer’s end. This draft I’m aiming for is what Anne Lamott, in her justly famous book Bird By Bird calls a “shitty first draft” and Jane Vandenburgh in her incredible book Architecture Of The Novel calls a “provisional draft”. If you want to write stories and haven’t read both of these books, give yourself a gift—walk away from your computer right this minute and go get them!

Why Do I Write What I Do?
          I have been a reader for a long time. To dive into a novel and emerge hours later, refreshed and intrigued by both stories and life is one of the great pleasures in this world. When someone tells me they don’t like to read, my silent and fervent hope for them is that something in their life gives them the joy I get from reading novels.
          The joy I get from writing a story is a whole different ball game. There is nothing else at all like the feeling when a story is really flowing, characters dashing around doing their thing, and I look up to discover an hour or two has disappeared. I think every would-be novelist secretly or not-so-secretly dreams of publishing success, whatever than means to them—critical acclaim, bestseller lists, whatever. I do too, of course, but as nice as that would be, it’s nothing compared to the rush of creating. And I’m amazed every time I remember that this rush is a gift writers give to themselves, that it doesn’t depend on any outside authority granting you a contract or job or prestigious award. Incredible, isn’t it?
          Poems are another animal. Several years ago, when life was too busy to fit in the long attention span needed for a novel, I began writing poems and essays. I had some modest success with these, publishing in a few journals and magazines, an anthology, even a chapbook from a small publisher.
          But I drifted away from writing, caught up in life and work.
          In October 2012, I read a magazine article about Samantha Reynolds, who blogs at bentlily.com. Her goal was to write a poem every day for a year, as a way to wake up and notice the world around her. It made me nostalgic for the writing I used to do.
          This was at a tough spot in my life. I was going through some big personal losses—deaths, divorce, two kids with struggles of their own, including some scary medical problems, on and on. A daily poetry practice is how I pulled myself together, noticing and treating my life and my desire to write with reverence. It is not too much to say that in quiet, incremental steps, writing a poem each day has changed my life.

How Does My Writing Process Work?
          I write poems with my morning coffee, starting with a handwritten draft. Sometimes I am trying to capture a particular moment from the day before, sometimes I’m responding to a writing prompt from a book or website, sometimes I’m just messing around with words. After I’ve got something on paper, I move to the computer and type/rearrange it using the awesome writing software, Scrivener from Literature and Latte. By that point, I am out of time, and need to rush around and get ready for work. So I post the poem as is to my poetry site. Then I congratulate myself for writing it, and firmly dismiss the critic who says it is awful or it needs multiple revisions. No time for that.
          The time constraint has been a very good thing for me. It stops me from over-thinking what I want to write. And as the days and poems pile up, the heft of it reminds me that to be inspired, to be actively writing and following that dream, that the very ACT of doing it inspires and creates more things I want to write.
          Novel writing is a much messier process. I write scenes, story ideas, etc. by hand. When I’ve accumulated some pages, I type them up, again using Scrivener software, print them out and rearrange them in a 3-ring binder. Over this summer, when I’ve got more time to write, I aim for a couple of hours per day. I usually write early in the morning before I get distracted by summer fun. We’ll see how it all works out…

breakfast laid out
pink tray
sunny porch
wicker chair
Do not Savor.
Do not Rush.
Do not Clasp.
Do not Count
how many more.
Look.
Let that be Enough
over and over
one moment
then
the next
flowing past me
or me flowing past it
or
well, who knows
which is moving,
which is still?
What matters is
both of us waving
as we pass by.

In this story, you are
alive and healthy
laughing at something your grandchildren said
tossing a green ball for the new puppy
cooking exotic meals with spices
not sold in our small town
gardening every day
in this fallow period between holidays,
Independence Day gone,
Halloween a distant orange glimmer on the shore,
there is nothing to decorate the house for and so
you have more time for reading cookbooks
as if they were novels
for crying at sad movies
and telling the stories you are filled with,
the good ones you never stole time to tell.
Come, sit on my front porch, rest
your tired feet, your busy mind,
Relax and
Tell me, now.

The colorful names in this poem all come from the gardening & recipe book, The Sage Garden, by Ann Lovejoy.

Wise green wisdom
expected, but garden sage
may send its many cousins—
clary, bee’s bliss, salsa series
indigo spires, gentian, blaze of fire
Jame sage, meadow sage,
Big Blue, which sounds like cattle’s
strong and muddy wisdom.
Names change
the nature of advice.
The flavor of opinion from
bog sage, common sage, woolly sage
differs from what’s whispered
in a smoky voice by
lipstick, Rosita, red arrow,
orange zest.
Pause for teacakes and waltzes
over the advice of chiffon
sage, little leaf, painted maiden.
Nuevo Leon’s sage advice
is delivered in black leather
with a Latin rhythm.
Every morning, choose new advice
as if selecting clothes for the day.
Today, experiment.
See what happens if you listen to the
sure and sultry confidence of
Splendidissima.

Half-baked
Is to be
On the way
Between here
And there
Between raw
And well done
Between cool
Freshly stirred
And
Too hot to touch

Steadies me as it
flows, returns through years
walking meandering miles
                         hill
                    up
where a soft summit shows off
farm fields, hills, three horses,
weathered red barn
Some days a heron
swims strongly through
both of us drinking in
grounded by
our cozy hobbit-view of home.

mountain ash berries
turn green
white then
pale gold
unstoppable
transformation
to the definite
orange
that can only be
Autumn

Found poem comprised entirely of phrases from 3 books: Breakfast At Tiffany’s, by Truman Capote; Home Safe, by Elizabeth Berg, and Summer World, by Bernd Heinrich.

All children know to take the gamble
flying at dusk with their particular talents.
Older, it takes longer before you,
wet feet dripping footmarks to the desk,
Pick up a mask,
a compact mirror, hear
entirely different notes—
flashes of bright crimson,
frayed velvet train station
birches among the blue jays.
Early, later, work steadily
as a mechanic, or a cryptic moth.
It seems a lot to ask for but
This is what life looks like
If we do not clip the leaves.

You know you’ve arrived
when you forget
what the kitchen looked like
if there are blueberries
or if the wind is blowing
in the wooden house
on the distant continent
of external appearance.

You know you’ve arrived
when the phone rings
Both you and the
birches that did not yield
are covered in loopy script.