Year's End

Appetite

Pale gold and crumbling with crust 

mottled dark, almost bronze,

pieces of honeycomb lie on a plate.

Flecked with the pale paper

of hive, their hexagonal cells

leak into the deepening pool

of amber. On your lips,

against palate, tooth and tongue,

the viscous sugar squeezes

from its chambers, sears sweetness

into your throat until you chew

pulp and wax from a blue city

of bees. Between your teeth

is the blown flower and the flower's

seed. Passport pages stamped

and turning. Death's officious hum.

Both the candle and its anther

of flame. Your own yellow hunger.

Never say you can't take

this world into your mouth.

 

By Paulann Petersen        

 

Source: Poetry (July 2001).

California's Feather River

Bobelaine Audubon Sanctuary

A walk in a wildlife sanctuary alongside the Feather River just north of Sacramento yielded bird life and views. We saw a Great Blue Heron, raptors floating overhead in a clear winter sky, Turkey Vultures circling, and smaller birdlife in the brush and shrubs. California Oaks and stands of white barked trees reflected the sunlight. The air was dry and along the path there were deer and coyote tracks in the sandy loam. This 430 acre area is a small remnant of the riparian forests that once existed for miles on either side of the rivers in the Great Central Valley of California.   







Each Day

Morning Blessing

Every day look on the world with wide and grateful eyes.

Every day allow yourself to be touched with delight. 

Let go of what is harsh and harmful.

Remember each day's good.

Speak carefully and with kindness always.

Celebrate the particular mystery and intent of each day.

Offer your unique gifts. The world needs them.

Manifest the peace that is possible every day.

Love with awareness, wholeheartedly.

Each day bow and bless,

Forgive and love,

Surrender and praise.

Based on a reading by Mary Harrington

Pears

"Through All That Happens"  

Rilke

Letters to a Young Poet

As you unfold as an artist, just keep on, quietly and earnestly, growing through all that happens to you. You cannot disrupt this process more violently than by looking outside yourself for answers that may only be found by attending to your innermost feeling.

Yesterday, eleven years after Donna's death...

Yesterday, eleven years after Donna's death from breast cancer, 

I reread my journal from Jan. 5, 2001: 

Northrup Cancer Center. The Chemo Lounge. In the waiting room. The fear palpable. The smell of heavy perfume over sweat. In the lounge, they can't get the needle into Donna's port. The needle bends as the nurse inserts it into her chest. A second nurse tries. Has difficulty. A third nurse holds the port against Donna's chest. They feel the skin, try to feel the opening, tell whether or not it's flipped beneath her skin. Donna is frightened, but trapped in this treatment. Finally, the needle enters the opening beneath her skin and into her port, the subclavian vein accessed. They begin the Solumedral drip (a steroid to prevent the severe flu-like reaction caused by Aridia), then they begin the Aridia. I leave for a haircut. When I return about 40 minutes later, nine chemo lounge chairs are filled with cancer patients in various stages of their disease. A few men, mostly women; the very old down to early middle age. Donna hands me a note. It says: "The African American woman who's so beautiful had a scary reaction to Solumedral. She couldn't breathe and she had horrible back pain. Just terribly scary. Two doctors and all the nurses. Just too much fragility. I'm too fragile for this." The sun pours into the south facing window. It is a salubrious January day. On the Cherry trees along the city streets blossoms have opened. Inside the chemo lounge patients are hooked to drip bags on metal stands leading to open veins in their bodies. They read, listen to music from headphones, chat with one another. Words like "Taxol," "drugs," "Your nurse is ---", "Are you all right now?" float on the air. Clear plastic tubes lead from drip bags. A woman with a scarf covering her bald head brings the nurses a plate of cookies as she arrives.They thank her and make jokes. One nurse goes from one patient to another checking their drip, another  holds a syringe of something and slowly pushes as the chemical is released into someone's vein. Time passes slowly. People watch each other. Donna offers the recovering African American woman an orange slice. The woman has oxygen tubes in her nose. Looks pale and dozes. Boxes hold syringes, plastic disposable gloves, tubing, tape, brown ace bandages. These are the pioneers on the cancer frontier. When Donna has finished her treatment, we leave, until the next time. The next treatment, the next scan, the next report, the next test.

"The great sensitivity of watercolours is primarily due to the immediacy and spontaneity the medium allows the artist, since the actual technique is of the very simplest order." Watercolor: History and Technique. by Walter Koschatzky (McGraw-Hill 1970) I am enjoying this book, although it is disappointing that not one female artist is mentioned, though it covers 500 years of history!

Chickadee, dee, dee

Went looking for the stolen ash tray in morning light.

Ended up gardening,

Up to my elbows in ignorance.

In the company of dandelions, lost dreams,

And the shimmering beauty of a new day.