Spring break 2012 - girls gone wild! With poetry!

I am sitting in the house I grew up in with all three of my kids sound asleep by 8 o'clock, drinking a glass of wine and writing poetry. This has been one of those amazing weeks you can never plan or count on happening for fear of disappointment, but when they come about, all you can really do is just rejoice and be glad.

We kicked off a week and a half vacation with the exciting news that my first full-length collection of poems was accepted for publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers. I don't have a contract in hand yet, so hopefully this announcement isn't premature. I am still in a bit of shock about this good news. I continue to be humbled and in awe at the work of Providence to have placed me in the unique and wonderful position I have with my job. The opportunities and relationships that have developed because of my work and the atmosphere I work in have really compelled me to write and propelled me forward in a way that would have been much more challenging were I to have gone about it my own way, and I thank God that he knows the plans he has for me better than I know for myself.

I am extremely grateful for the encouragement of my "poet mentor," Michael Miller, without whose encouragement I probably wouldn't have been writing as fervently or with as much zeal. There are of course many other influences (to be thanked at a later date) but most assuredly I wouldn't be here, writing about a forthcoming book, without Michael.

So with the happy news of a book coming out in the near future, we embarked on a trip to D.C. with the kids. It was our first family vacation with the five of us, and although we approached it with some apprehension, the trip went swimmingly, partly due to the opportunity to swim (ha ha ha). The kids all slept well in the hotel room, and that is the sort of thing that can make or break a trip for us. Henry was mostly cooperative except for riding in the car, which he hates, I guess, because he screamed 70% of the time. Other than that, we ate well, swam a bunch, saw lots of animals both stuffed and alive, and walked all over the place.

Our long weekend ended with a short stay at my in-laws and a visit with Brandon's brother who drove Great Mom-O up from Florida. It is always a joy to see any part of the Florida Wells clan. We returned home for a couple of days and enjoyed the brief respite of our own private quarters. AND! Aaaaaand, we found a new home for the dingo dog! Yes, that is right, Beans the great menace of a pooch has moved on to happier hunting grounds. No, he didn't die, but I am sure he feels like he is in heaven, with a family that likes him and another dog to play with in a yard three times as big. Poor guy. It was all sweet and no bitter in parting, especially when Lydia discovered her most recent favorite dolly had been disemboweled. Suddenly, Beans leaving for a new home wasn't such a bad idea. I really don't want to think about how much that dog has cost us in stuff he chewed up, never mind all of the usual doggy expenses.

Aaaaanyway, happiness flourishes in the Wells house once more now that our fourth unruly and disobedient child has moved out.

The remainder of our vacation (or my time off of work) has been spent with family. Brandon's grandma is beginning to lose her short term memory, or has lost it completely, depending on who you ask, and on top of that she's quite deaf. Upon returning from Florida, she needed to get some of her household affairs in order, so we have spent some time (hours) at her house helping her out (throwing out magazines from 2001, sorting through junk mail, setting up the voice mail on her phone, writing notes to help her remember what we did, etc.). She knows she is losing it, which makes it a little easier to help her. She receives the help with a little more grace and a little less stubbornness than she might have a year or two ago.

We met up with my family for my mom's 50th birthday mid-week, and we did a few errands at home, paid taxes, that sort of thing, then packed up again for Easter weekend. I colored eggs with the kids and made homemade peanut butter cups (mmmm google chocolate covered Katie and you will find the recipe) yesterday while Brandon did some yard work at his folks' house, and then we went out together alone for the first time in a while. It was a way overdue night out, in my opinion, and we had a grand time, listening to Blue Lunch at Northside in Akron. We even got up and danced a couple of songs. Anyone know a place to learn some couple dances in the Ashland area? I would love to force Brandon into it.

Finally, (whew! I bet you thought this would never end) I spent today with my cousins and their kids who all played together for about four hours with not a single whiny tear or complaint. It was amazing! I always feel as if going home to family or friends that have known me a long time is one of the rare moments when I feel most myself. I do not have to think much about what I say or how I might come off because, well, these people KNOW me. They know the awkward lanky me and they know the me that has three kids and a slightly crazy look in the eyes around 7 o'clock at night. They know the anti-alcohol (and everything else) me, and they know the wine guzzling me. Isn't there a George Strait song along these lines?  All of Sarah arrives around family. There's no leaving part of the package behind.

Now, back where we began, I am happy to wrap up this post with a pat on the back to myself for seven solid days of poem-ing for the start of National Poetry Month and writing a poem a day. Maybe I can whip out another book... ;). My best work is behind me, might as well call it a career and retire to needlepoint and quilting. Who am I kidding? I know nothing about either of those things. I'm doomed to a life of writing poetry, the only thing I can pretend to be good at ( yup, I'm going to end that sentence and this post with "at").

Easter Saturdays

Easter Saturdays (tentative title because I stink at titles)


Cars full of people split the swamp where my creek flows.
They must not ponder, pause, stare at hollowed logs,
branchless trunks and wonder about the end of winter,
spring still a whisper in the trickle of cold water through the culvert.

What does all this dying mean, this surrender
after striving for three seasons? Grasses have been shedding
locks for decades, climbing out of caskets, grow and grow
over all their flawed history. We are all eating ourselves,

regurgitating what we thought was digested,
disposed and left behind. But it heaves back,
the crunch of gravel chip and seal, the steady rain falling
after having traveled the culvert just yesterday,

when I straddled the guard rail, cold metal creasing my thighs,
watching every season of my life die and be reborn.

Enough

Enough
I Chronicles 21:15


How many times have you said,
Enough! Withdraw your hand –
the vessel of your wrath subdued?
What invokes this rage, earthquakes,
hurricanes, bubonic plague, rampant
trauma sweeping across continents?

Why spare any? Impossible
to find mercy in so many, to look
beyond intractable justice and see
love hollow in bellies of famine-struck,
flowing like stopped-up rivers, years
of cloudless skies, millions dying of thirst.

Thank God it wasn’t worse. How much worse
could it have been? Prayers uttered
over sickness, violence, shootings,
bombings, death camps. Thank God
it stopped when it did. Nations wait,
smug faces turned – look me in the eyes,
we say, give us your signs, the proof is in
the flood, earthquake, famine, plague.

My son strains against my grip,
tucked into a bear hug, restrained –
you will listen and obey. The tears come fast,
grief rolling at this confinement,
a humbling hold until Enough.

Withdraw your hand. Sobs like breaking
thunder, tears welling, bursting, driving rain.


-----

Being that this is a first draft, I have a lot of work to do to think through this poem. I want to wrestle with this line, "Enough! Withdraw your hand," and probably shrink the earlier stanzas and grow the more personal connection. It isn't an easy topic - the wrath and mercy of God - but I think I can get somewhere with it. It's just going to take me longer than tonight :)

It has been a while since I just wrote about how things are going around here. The kids are doing great - it was a beautiful day so we spent most of it playing outside and everyone is thoroughly exhausted, including me. Brandon is in PA for baseball, and they are playing SO well. It's exciting - the only bummer for me is that it is really hard to get to the games - we haven't made it once yet. I loved that about baseball season. Hopefully we'll get to a game sometime.

I just realized my tags for this post are going to be really strange. ;) poetry, wrath, God, death, family spring, baseball ;)

Two Poems - Rumble Strip and The Patient Gardener

*poof!*

Explaining Easter to My Three-Year-Old

Imagine your marshmallow Peeps devoured by your brother
without one lick of sticky sweetness, the giant chocolate rabbit
melted in the sun. Even your mother and father –
those great false gods – have eaten every jelly bean,
taken away the pastel colored eggs. You hold your basket,
empty, save for some stringy plastic grass.

This is how Good Friday feels, like waiting
to be taken to the playground all day and then
it rains, like wanting to wear pink but all that’s clean
is gray. And then you are sent to time-out, told to sit still
for three minutes, which is almost more than you can bear.

This is more than you can bear, but be still,
consider how much you had hoped for that delicious
candy basket, how you had dreamed to wear
the most beautiful gown, to hold the bunny’s cotton paw,
to savor those puffy, yellow Peeps.

Now, my daughter, let us rejoice – time-out is finally over,
see the basket overflowing, Cadbury eggs, Reese’s pieces,
pastel M&Ms, more chocolate bunnies
and sugar-coated marshmallows than you could ever eat,
sweetness you can share with the whole starving world.

Cascade Valley

Look, my daughter, the pine tree
dropped its seeds, and here
a fragile sapling braves the forest floor.
This used to be a birch tree
but maybe lightning sliced it,
wind heaved its heavy breath against it
and now the trunk is rust.
Sticks used to flirt, flare
their skirts of springtime buds,

but now we throw the broken limbs
into the rushing floodwaters to see
how quickly we could be carried away.
We are always a hair too close
to the edge, send pebbles skittering
into the river. Let's find our way back
from this spring rage, out of the valley
that catches what used to cling above.

Climb this mountain with its muddy paths,
deer trails, tread marks, hoof prints,
decomposing oaks - we are not the first
to grow and fall. But see the way the leaves
return to earth, the way the dust collects.
Crocus blades emerge from crumbling stumps
as if this growth does not take more than soil,
light, and rain. Reach down, my child,
bring a pine cone home to show
how miraculously we are carried.

Back to Health

I took a leave from blogging/reading/writing/thinking for about a week due to sinus infections and roto viruses which amounted to a lot of nasty bodily fluids in our house in the last few weeks. Ew. I will spare the blog world every grotesque detail. Suffice it to say, it was a sort of comedy of tragedies - sick kids, sick mom, and lots of Purell.

Now that I feel human again, it is almost as if I could take on the world. I'm feeling really energized and glad that the weather turned a bit to complement the mood. Lydia and I went on a two mile hike in Cascade Valley Metro Park yesterday, which was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. We went shopping with Grandma Rose in the morning and ate lunch at Chick Fila (hooray for Chick Fila! - love it.). In the evening, Brando and I went to the Zips/Bulls game at the Q with some friends... and the Akron Zips won! Another hooray - for good ole' fashioned date night at a basketball game - and for a Northeast Ohio team winning some sort of championship. Always cause for celebration.

Today there are very few plans except for me to head back to Ashland tonight for small group. We're currently studying David and Bathsheba's affair, David's plot to kill Bathsheba's husband Uriah, the confrontation from Nathan, the confession from David, and the immediate death of the infant son born of Bathsheba, followed by the conception/birth of Solomon. QUITE a time in David's life!

I have a few poems brewing that I plan on getting out in the next few days - one on paper now that I think I'll type in here in a minute. Most of writing happens in the experience away from the desk, and I've had some time and experiences to start that work of writing.

Junction

There is no el train in Auburn, no steady rumble
like long thunder on a summer afternoon.
Instead, Suburbans honk and veer behind
my neighbor’s combine, pass and speed to the light,
line up at four-ways for permission to turn.

The Cleveland and Eastern Interurban
used to pass through here, the Maple Leaf Route
curving slow through Newbury out to Amish country,
its steady clacking carrying produce and passengers
in to the big city to see a show at the Hippodrome.

Today, the maples shiver and dance along the upraised curve
as if a train has just passed through, but it is only me,
the wind. I do not hear the click-clack on the raised track,
the crowd of impatient travelers standing in the woods waiting
for the junction’s switch to take them north or further west.

Now the forest and road are silent; last season’s leaves
crunch steadily beneath my feet. Syrup oozes slow and thick
from its tap into cold, steel buckets. A car swings south down
Munn Road, wondering at the steady slope in the woods
and then the thought is gone, fleeting as the season’s

leaves along this path. The sun rolls steady on its track
across the blue, though I’m the one who’s moving – I
and the farmer and the Suburban and the earth composting
beneath my feet. How slow the shift in shadows; how soon
I’m surprised to be chilled in the late afternoon.

--------

I have Chicago's el trains to thank for this poem. Lots of inspiration from Chicago - hope to write more in the coming days if work and other responsibilities don't overwhelm.