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poetry wednesday: monsoon

pattidigh — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:50:13 +0000

Today is Wednesday. That means poetry here on 37days. And today’s poem is by a member of the VerbTribe online writing course that is ending tomorrow (and that ending is simply a new beginning for these amazing writers). I have been blessed to be their guide for these past 37 days. This poem is by Atiya Hussain who lives in Switzerland.

Monsoon

Bathed in the full moon’s light
I watch the big waves roll in.
Over me pour the cool gusts
Of wind that herald
The monsoon is just days away

The waves are huge now, swollen
With mud and sand from the bottom
Of the ocean. It’s a time of churning.
Even the surf looks muddy.
The monsoon is coming.

The wind is cool, a shock to
The still hot air over the land.
Technology may be colder but
This rush of air is cooling, refreshing
Steady and delicious, a slaking of the heat
That has baked our bodies for a year.

The boys have already found the places
Where the sea spills over, crashing
Splashing over paths that are normally dry.
People come to be blessed by the riotous,
Filthy water, throwing back at us all our junk.
Grey clouds come and go.
They will gather and build, crackling
With electric might. Thundering
They will announce the rain.
The first drops scatter, and we run …
The rains are here.

In fits and starts, the laden clouds settle over us
Some days, the heat is stifling, humid and close.
And then the skies pour down a rush of water.
A mist envelops the heavy lines of rain, as drops rebound,
Splatter, whipped ever smaller by the wind.
I wake and rush out to see the wonder of water, everywhere.
Coolness sprays all over me; droplets on my hair, my back, my arms.
In bed I will need a coverlet. What of that woman I saw
sleeping on the street, sodden covers at her feet and
over her head, an ugly yellow umbrella?

-Atiya Hussain

My thanks to Atiya for making this strong offer to the world. Here is the note that accompanied her submission:

Dear Patti, and why was this such a difficult thing to do, I don’t know? I really enjoyed writing this — it came directly out of the daily notes to self that I have been will continue trying to cultivate. I cried when I wrote it. I cried when I got feedback from verbtribers … And then it kept going, so I followed it … Your repeated instruction to offer it, and then stop thinking about it any further really helped me just enjoy the piece, enjoy my working on it, putting it together … when I separated myself from the fear/anticipation of how it would be welcomed, I realized how much I had enjoyed the process — that is a gift I will always thank you for.

Thank you, Atiya. May this be the first of many strong offers your voice will make to the world.

write like your hair is on fire.

pattidigh — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:34:21 +0000

I never knew teaching an online writing class could be such a wholehearted, full-bodied experience.

But it is.

If you are drawn to knowing who you are, where your creativity resides inside you, and what stops you from expressing yourself like your hair is on fire, I hope you will join me for the next VerbTribe online writing class (starts May 16th). Go here for more info!

It may change your life, not just your writing.

Here’s what a few folks had to say about it:

VerbTribe is pure magic. The real kind. The life-changing kind. Conjured from the brilliant mind and boundless heart of Patti Digh, this is, hands down, the BEST way to really get your writing on. Patti’s served up something that’s wildly fun, deliciously different and profoundly effective – a special sauce that dissolves excuses in the blink of an eye, opens doors you never knew existed and gets you in the most gorgeous word-ey groove ever. I felt different by day three. And, really, this is about so much more than writing. VerbTribe has given me new eyes. The awesomeness that I’ve experienced here will stay with me for life. – Fabeku Fatunmise

“After only 8 days, I am remembering WHY I write and HOW I write. The daily work seems so simple and easy, yet it has taken me deep into places I had forgotten and am so glad to be rediscovering. This course is about so much more than just creating a regular writing practice. It is about connection and adventure and exploring our edges, using our words to find the way.” -Ruth Davis

“VerbTribe = 37 days toward building a sustainable writing practice. We’re on day 10. This has already been a game changer for me with most changes having nothing to do with writing. That Patti Digh lets people believe she’s all southern charmy and genteel but she’s an ass kicker of the highest caliber…” -Martha Atkins

Life is short. Write accordingly.

Come, let’s write–and in the writing, learn.

Love,

poets watch the clouds.

pattidigh — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:00:49 +0000

Seeing More – Discoveries?

i watch the clouds drifting slowly by
the trees trembling so slightly
bending, leaning, straightening
i watch the sun dry the deck, little by little warming the wood where my dog sleeps at my feet
I watch my breathing exhaling gently expanding and open to possibilities and inhaling what is, what might be
I watch the possibilities turn my thoughts to dreams and images and stay with my breath
I watch the breeze bring in serenity, clarity, and peace by just being,
by just being

-Esther Louie

[photo by Esther Louie]

Poets teach us to let go.

pattidigh — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:00:04 +0000

Letting You Go

I loved you once.
on those endless summer days in the pool,
barefoot walks on hot asphalt to the corner store
cigarettes for you, grape Mr. Freeze for me.
eating your special Sunday scrambled eggs with ketchup
planting backyard rows of majestic purple irises
and early morning chocolate glazed doughnuts you bought for me
I loved you once.
between the bedtime prayers to God
to bless you and make me a good girl,
the smooth side steps of your brown socked feet
as I stood on them
my skinny arms wrapped tight around your belly
swaying to your Dolly Parton album,
we called it dancing.

But somewhere between then and later
the clouds of anger hovered over
and your appetite for all things bitter was insatiable.
you stuffed yourself, hardened your heart
and, so it seems, your arteries.

You’re old now, and unwell
all those years of deception, Export A’s
and hidden bottles of Molson Dry must have
sucked the air from your lungs and staled your taste for life and love.
all that trying so hard to disrobe from the
self-hate your mother bundled you in way back whenever,
I wonder if it’s getting the rest of you
that never got to be the best of you.

I think of your hardening arteries,
the ones they miraculously bypassed 35 years ago
the ones they ballooned a few years later
a tiny circus display in the corridors leading
to the grand tents of your organs.
I think of those clogged veins that choked out oxygen – twice
and nearly killed your heart and you with it
your roadways of bottlenecked pain and sorrow
the unsaid apologies caught in the backlog of stubborn hatred.

We’ve been necessary strangers for years now
and I don’t regret changing the locks to my heart.
But I am tired of living in this petri-dish with you
tired of this breeding ground of mutated assumptions
and ages old anger
and the hardening of my own heart
that quivers in the shallow lips of this glass dish
waiting for a breakthrough
I am tired now.

Is this forgiveness and if it is
where’s the fanfare?
the burst dam of swollen, unleashed sorrow?
the celebration of having arrived?
is this the final piece, the final letting go they talk about?
the one holding the promise of that soufflé-like lightness from
the weight in the bottom left corner of my heart
where you still live?

call it forgiveness if you like,
if that makes it mean something to you
I’ll say only that it’s time -
time to let my mouth form the words,
my fingers type, scribble, scrawl it out as
my voice echoes against the chasm walls of our estrangement
and tells you that no matter how you take this
no matter whether you own what you did
or your hardened, blocked pathways
ever send this message to your heart
or I ever send this message
or that you ever receive it at all
I want to say that there was, there really was
a time
a very long time ago
when I loved you

and I’m ready now
to let you go

-Jenn Forgie

These beautiful words came to me from the poet herself, a member of the first VerbTribe community.

[image from here]

I finally showed up.

pattidigh — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:00:56 +0000

VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. In response to a photograph I provided to the VerbTribe, writer Terry Lynn George offered us this moving look inside motherhood–and personhood–and showing up fully.

My tears are red as my heart cried while writing this.

The kid in the picture is my daughter, Becky, age 10. It is Parent Day at her school. She is saving the chair beside her for me. I am not there. I am late. Will I show up at all? My daughter, with her quarter inch length hair, shaved up around her ears and a V cut out in the back of her head. She won’t wear the pretty outfits I buy her but insists on wearing jeans and boyish clothes. She is a cute little girl but tries so hard to sabotage it. She is popular with all the kids. Everyone likes Becky. I try to protect her and avoid her at the same time. This is just a phase I tell myself and then remember she has been different since infancy. She did not like to be cuddled and as a toddler she did not play with baby dolls.

At this stage in my life I could not accept that she was born this way and nothing anyone said or did was going to change her, not that anyone said anything, kind of like the elephant in the room. Oh how I wish I had recognized what she is and embraced it with her. The suffering she has endured because I was too vain to admit even to myself that she is homosexual. Her alcoholism started around age 12 and her permissiveness with boys started soon after that. Then the car wrecks and the drunk driving and police knocking on the door. The fact that she is lesbian and how to deal with that got put on the back burner to try to save her life. I tried having her committed for drug abuse, tried counseling – she either didn’t cooperate or the system would fail.

But getting back to that empty chair, yes I was late — to my shame and regret, but I finally showed up and although we were both hurt during the time it sat empty, I like to think we are on the road to forgiving and accepting.

-Terry Lynn George

[photo by Terry Lynn George]

in the place with no shoes.

pattidigh — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:30:01 +0000

VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. Writer KT Patrick Bothwell offered us this beautiful piece of writing about a favorite place she has loved since she was a little girl.

The Place with No Shoes

The juxtaposition of wide fields of deep mooring sand against crisp firm flats of sand is always a surprise to my bare feet. That beach section right off the boardwalk holds me and slows me in the deeps and valleys. It makes my legs ache and my breath quicken. I trudge onward. It’s the deep white powder that leads to the water. There is an oasis on the horizon. At last, my toes hit the crunchy edge. Those firm parts along the ocean made by the tide and large swells of waves. That sure firm surface is made for strolling and enjoying. If I try, I can gently tread across the surface without disturbing the film of hard sand on top. Careful not to crack the skin on the beach’s pudding, I traverse with hardly a footprint. Heel toe, heel toe, light and easy and careful not to disturb these good times by the water. And then a majestic pelican glides by and dips down awkward but intent and splashing reminds me why I am here. I know I have arrived at bliss and lose all abandon. I dance across the firm sand wildly marking and marring the surface leaving prints and laughter. Holding back not a grain in enjoying the moment of making it through the valleys and into the surf. I have arrived fully at freedom and frolic in the place with no shoes.

-KT Patrick Bothwell

it is an infinite loop of offering

pattidigh — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 12:30:21 +0000

VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. Writer Ket Parker offered us this beautiful piece of writing about her witness.

The Bed

Spreading myself here
upon my witness,
the one who sees
the seer.
Floating here in the reassurance
of cotton, worn smooth and cool,
my witness is infinitely patient.

Waiting to welcome
joy, suffering, frustration, laughter,
waiting for my surrender to
dreams and awakenings,
to weather arguments, a silent arbiter.
It holds me and listens to me
listening to the rain

carries my books
endures my humanity
in illness, in carnal bliss,

reminding me always
that space and comfort
are available
and necessary

Unselfishly open
it is an infinite loop of
offering

welcoming all of us,
all our tears and happiness
measured out one day at a time
my children’s fright, my husband’s sleepless twisting
absences and vacancy

it is an altar
paying its own attention
to the dramas, the repetition of every day,
a steady friend
faithful in its implicit
partnership.

-Ket Parker

have i given too little?

pattidigh — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:30:40 +0000

VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. Writer Billie Stingley offered us this beautiful piece of writing about giving.

Have I Given too Little

have I given too little
have I given too much
how do I know
do they judge my giving
or do they even know that I gave

i gave my time until they thought it was theirs
i gave my tears, did they even see the stains
i gave my heart and suffered the scars

the sleepless nights, the tearing of my soul
i anticipated their needs and jumped ahead
did I meet their needs or only my own perceptions

i so wanted them to bypass the pain
to be blessed by life

and now I find. . . the escape from pain, the finding of themselves, the blessing, was never mine to give.

-Billie Stingley

[photo by Billie Stingley]

writing is a choice.

pattidigh — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:30:43 +0000

VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. Writer Sara Rae Lancaster offered us this food for thought about writing. You can find more of her writing here.

Connecting the “Dots”: why my writing matters

In the movie “Stranger Than Fiction,” the character Harold (played by Will Ferrell)
begins to hear an author inside his head narrating his life. It’s maddening for the
character, but I sort of find this concept delightful. Imagine that! My very own
personal author to capture, sort and make sense of the endless stream of ideas
and thoughts that swim through my mind on a daily basis! Oh, wait. I do have an
author. It’s me.

So why, then, do I not capture those ideas? Why don’t I trap them on paper as
they happen? Why do I continue to engage in this constant state of conflict—the
ever-present hesitancy to write waging against the desire to write, the ability to
write and the growing fear of what may never happen if I don’t.

One way I’ve learned to fight this resistance is through a little game of “Connect
the ’Dots’,” in which I think of my favorite story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.
Frank Baum, and connect all the events that happened as a result of the author
putting his story about ‘Dorothy Gale from Kansas’ out into the world.

For those who may not be familiar with the history behind the beloved children’s
book, and later treasured film, the original story began as nothing more than
an expanded bedtime story Baum first told his four sons, and later the other
children in their Chicago neighborhood. It wasn’t until his wife, Maude, urged
him to record the tale that Baum finally transferred the story from his head to
paper. This simple act of Maude telling Frank to “sit the hell down and write” (ok,
she may not have used those exact words), and his choice to make the time
and space to do so, set into motion a domino effect I’m sure even the Great and
Wonderful Wizard of Oz himself could not have dreamed.

For example, had Baum not said the words he longed to say, would the name
Judy Garland possess any recognition? How many families would not have
the memory of gathering around the television set each November to watch
the annual broadcast of the story’s movie version? And what about the many
movies and books that have made reference to the iconic film with phrases
such as, “There’s no place like home,” or “I’ll get you my pretty,” or, how could
we forget, “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” The blockbuster
musical “Wicked?” Never happened. And Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick
Road” may have been “Farewell Black Asphalt Highway.” Definitely not as
catchy.

On a personal level, if Baum never wrote his story, the musical at my local
community theater would never have happened, which means I would not have
met the amazing, life-changing friends I did during those performances. Years
later, I would never have traveled Route 66 for one of my first major freelance
assignments, writing about historical connections between three Route 66 cities
and Baum’s book.

But all of these things did happen. They all existed because one man created the
space and made the time to write one sentence, “Dorothy lived in the midst of the
great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who
was the farmer’s wife,” followed by another sentence…and another…and then
another until he finally wrote, “And oh, Aunt Em, I’m so glad to be home again!”

My point is this: None of us know the chain reaction we may initiate with the
words we write. Or don’t. Now, I’m not banking on anything I write to turn into the
next Great American Classic or internationally recognized cinematic treasure, but
I’m not going to sell myself short either. Whether my words affect the entire world
or just my own little view of it, I’m not going to cut off my words’ potential before
they’re even on the page.

Writing, I’ve learned in the past 37 days, is a choice. It’s about creating space.
It’s about weeding out the nonessential and making room for the essential. It’s
showing up. It’s taking risks. And while there are a lot of risks I haven’t taken in
life, choosing to not write is no longer going to be one of them. There’s too much
at stake.

-Sara Rae Lancaster

[photo by Sara Rae Lancaster]

and for a moment, i do.

pattidigh — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:30:15 +0000

VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. Writer Vickie Velasquez offered us this beautiful piece of writing on Day 13. You can find more of her writing here.

A young boy drips cheese on his shirtless chest
as he takes a bite of a nacho he is eating from a Styrofoam bowl.
He reaches up for a napkin on the makeshift counter
of the mobile diner that blinks “Charbroiled Hamburgers” in bright blue neon.
A much needed breeze flows through the market
and carries with it the smell of leather and popcorn.
Tables are lined with purses, old books, and statues of the Virgin Mary.
A young girl points to a cloudy glass jar filled with giant pickles
and starts to cry as her mother pulls her away.
A woman stops to gaze at a purse and begins to haggle with a local merchant.
She is wearing a shirt that reads, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
And for a moment, I do.

-Vickie Velasquez

[Photo by Vickie Velasquez]