April 2019 is National Poetry Month

According to T.S. Eliot, "April is the cruelest month...," It's also National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world. Go to poets.org to see 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month.

I will post one poem every week of April, each on a different topic I care about: #ClimateChange, #Immigration, #GunViolence, #Poverty, and a bonus on #Genomics. I invite you to do the same.

Eliot's poem, The Waste Land, from which the lines, "April is the cruelest month" come, ends:
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih

You may be familiar with these terms if you practice or have studied Hinduism and/or Buddhism. I haven't, but when I first read the poem in my "formative years," I looked them up, and then followed the threads to Buddhism and flirted with becoming a monk. Unfortunately, I was not permitted to wear a robe and sandals in the military, so abandoned that flirtation, and instead focused my amorous attentions on a pretty Air Force nurse who was tending to my ills. That led to a sudden profusion of love poems, too embarrassing to publish.

In this time of Trump, I hope for you,
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata
Shantih

Remembering My Mother on Mothers' Day 2017

My mother, Nella, had a favorite expression; “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” She lived her life in a way that embodied that saying.

Nella was raised by an aunt in a little village in the hills of Tuscany, Italy. There was little work to be had in Italy and Nella’s mother and father were working in France, she as a wet nurse, he as a shoemaker. Deficient nourishment resulted in Nella contracting a form of polio. The doctors told her mother that Nella would have to wear braces for the rest of life. A decade later (1918), Nella was walking off the ship, Conte Verde, at Ellis Island unaided.

The family settled in Chicago and Nella, 4’ 11” on her tip toes, learned English and defended herself fiercely against school bullies who picked on the new immigrants. She graduated from high school, got a business school certificate, and at 20 years-old, set out on her own for California, where she worked during the day as a hospital switchboard operator and studied ballet in the evenings at the Earl Wallace Studios. She presented the Italian version of the Paul Whiteman movie, The King of Jazz, in 1930, and was about to go on tour with the Earl Wallace Dancers when she met and married my dad. They were together for 76 years.

My mother’s admonition to never give up and her encouragement of my aspirations were the foundation of whatever success I’ve had in life, and the enduring respect I have for those early intrepid immigrants to America’s land of opportunity.

I'm Thinking of Her

Jacobs Road, Kennewick, WA, May 2017

I don't know how to pray

or to whom

or what

or why

I know the sky

the grass

the flowers

and speak with them

In whispers

"I'm thinking of her"

Again?

"Always"

Fargo 2017

Ewan McGreagor as Ray Stussy in Season 3 of the TV drama, Fargo, tells his parolee girlfriend (and accomplice), Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Wingstead), "I ain't never killed nobody before." Nikki pats him on the arm and says, "Life's a journey."

Eating the Sun

(originally published April 2009)

Mouths open

Eating the sun

Greedy for fire and flame

To nourish their sex

Shameless

The Nameless All-Dissolving Ocean

Cannon Beach, OR, May 31, 2012

Someone inside you steps from the forest and across the beach toward the nameless all-dissolving ocean. 

(from Astonished, by Don McKay)

Winter on the Columbia River

Columbia River, looking up river from the lighthouse, Noon on February 2, 2017