And Jamie’s Getting Married

Tags

celebration, friendship, Jenny Ratigan, retirement

                                                           for Jenny Ratigan  

                                                           on her “retirement”

 

The kiss of the sun for pardon          

The song of the birds for mirth        

   You are nearer God’s heart in a garden

Than anywhere else on earth.          

                                                          from a cross-stitch sampler

                                                          I remember hanging

                                                          in my grandmother’s living room–

                                                          attributed to author unknown

Jenny:

It is September now:

The days are shorter, sweeter;

the insect chorus shriller.

The harvest has begun

(although there will be corn and beans

and peppers, warm-juiced

tomatoes, great pot-belied melons

bursting in the sun

until the frost–

and even then

the vegetables of winter–

potatoes, greens, pumpkins in bright profusion,

fat cabbages and raucous rutabagas

will defy the cold.)

It’s time to gather in.

 

Done those uncertain early days of planting;

so too the weeks, the seasons, years

spent striving, sweating, struggling

(like Mary Quite Contrary)

helping the garden grow.

Late summer storms

silently streaking

across the darkened sky–

dramatic, frightening

harbingers

(or so it sometimes seemed)

have mostly passed.

The harvest moon is out;

it’s time to gather in.

 

The periodic droughts that cracked the earth

rest brought by cooling breezes in the night

and then the softly falling rains

have grounded you.

The cycle of the changing seasons bears no threat

and, holding Henry

you understand with crystal clarity

that love can never die.

Your roots stretch long and deep.

You’re clearer now and (always gentle), gentler.

There’s nothing you need prove.

This golden time is yours.

The harvest moon is out;

it’s time to gather in.

 

It is September now.

The latest crop of clueless college students

will have to find their way

without your patient counsel.

Still, how many lives

are forever changed

for having known you.

And us as well–

your family, fans and friends–

how deeply you have touched us

how openly you’ve shared

both pain and pleasure–

hard to say (not really) which bears

the greater grace.   Let us be here for you now.

This golden time is yours;

the harvest moon is out.

It’s time to gather in.

 

So let’s raise a cheer; September’s here–

And–oh yes–Jamie’s getting married!

karenblenz                                                                                                            September 2003

I HAVE SEEN HORRORS, TOO

Tags

addiction, death, demonstrations, Karposi's lesions, Vietnam War

Carol said, and I tend to believe her (for Carol is it seems to me someone who tells the truth, though I admit I have not known her long) that Michael lives from spring to fall in the park near his mother’s house and that he served in Vietnam.

I am myself from the time of Vietnam, although my friends mainly chose other ways to fight and for a while (I am embarrassed to say it to you now) we actually believed that with our demonstrations and our protests, our rallies and evasions (of various sorts) and our songs, that we had stopped the war.

But of course the war goes on.

And I have seen horrors, too.

I have watched Karposi’s lesions spread and devour the body of a friend, and worse than that, I have seen him weaken and consider the possibility–after people, invoking the name of Jesus, assured him it was true–that somehow something that he did–or was–deserved this punishment.

And I remember watching my father refuse all through my childhood until my uncle died, to speak to his brother Frank, or Frank to him, for reasons I could never ascertain. And helpless now I watch my only sisters obediently recreate this same sad scene.

And I have looked away from the face of the grandmother of a three-year-old who lived in a house near mine where his mother sold crack and could not wake up at the smell of smoke.

And I have held my ears to keep from hearing the screams of a friend–a friend who was at once my child and my mother–while her nurse, on his second supper break of the shift, refused to come. And I have made the only choice my love allowed–and cursed the God who did not do it first.

And I have watched a praying mantis, stepped on, half its body squashed to the stone floor, still fight and struggle with the other half to get away. And almost daily I look on as hungry, hopeless children of the richest nation in the world squirm in the same doomed dance of death and I cannot help them any more than I could save the graceful, struggling insect.

And what I want to ask Carol (if she knows) is this:

What special grace, or lack of it, has kept me–has kept all of us–from winding up like Michael, in a park from spring to fall with cinder blocks for furniture and memories of horror for companions?

And more than that, I need to ask (although I think perhaps I know the answer) which of our lives, Michael’s or mine, has become a prayer?

 

A Poem for Mary Who is 89 Today

Tags

celebration, friendship, joie de vivre

each day to which we wake

each breath we draw

is gift          that is for sure

but still—

like the child at Christmastime

delighted

to unwrap the box she had expected

to contain

a new school skirt and blouse

or perhaps a knitted sweater

to find instead a pair of shiny skates

as this sweet Saturday simply bursts forth

I cannot not be glad

 

after a frigid snow-deep february

(its only virtue being it was short)

march has blown in

the temperature today has soared

proportionate to my spirits

the sun, unhesitant, seems self-assured

and on the campus

students jog in shorts

 

the stacks of dirty snow

that punctuate the landscape

like asterisks dropped at random

onto a printed page

have signaled their surrender

the rising sap

and anything seems possible

 

so everybody

(including disappointed lovers

of rhymed couplets)

hear, hear

let’s give a cheer and raise a beer

(a glass of wine would be just fine)

and join the cosmos as it celebrates

the recurring cycle

of light and life reborn an spring

and mary’s birthday

karenblenz

©

WINTER (1993-94)

Tags

grief, mourning

The winter started early, in October

     the world in flames, preparing for the ice.

 

Chrysanthemums, exuberant, everywhere

     Sprawling across the landscape of our souls

           in noisy desperation

         (or was the desperation merely mine alone?)

         bursting, jostling, screaming

               in loud outbursts of raw color

                     as if they somehow knew it was their final chance to shout

     and rough-skinned pumping, raucous,

       piled in prodigal profusion

             designed (or so it seemed) to hide the fact

                     the glory of this glodern world on fire

                     could signal anything in any way more ominous

                     than an abundant harvest.

 

I knew better

     though knowing was no gift:

     dear god, the awful, heavy weight of knowing

           which gave no power at all to stay the course

           but offered only a persistent, numbing dread

                     of the form of the inevitable end.

No fit at all.

 

Still, when it came

     Implacable, relentless rolling force

           of Ice,

           snowballing,

           gathering strength and size as it progressed

           —the way an avalanche starts with one loose stone—

It came with gracious haste.

 

 

At first a soreness and slight discoloration

     a damned dark blotch beginning on her leg

           and spreading to my heart—

           “Be calm, her doctor, eminently reasonable,

                    proclaimed.

                     “It’s just a bruise.”

                     But it was not.

Nor did it tarry long.

 

Two weeks in hell

     surrounded once again

           by antiseptic smells and attitudes

           the faceless answering intercom

           the earnest young consultants

                     who smelled of soap,

                     drew patient diagrams

                     and fed her lies along with hyperAl

were all it took.

     It didn’t matter, tough.    We both had grasped the truth.

 

A few friends came.   The staff were often kind

     and there were moments when

           despite the pain

                     that for some reason drugs could not contain

     the grace was palpable.

 

She waved at Al.      She called me “Karen-girl”

     in jest because I called her “Brownie-girl;”

     She looked for Som.      I know she felt our love

           even as she screamed and prayed, all in one breath

     but in the end, our love was powerless.

One final gift—and I fulfilled the trust

     that I had pledged such a long time ago

     and she was gone.

     A lifetime full of love and faith and grace and light—

           and now—just gone.

 

And then the cold hard winter bore on down

     too soon; old records,

           shattered, fell:

           all bets were off—

           I did not need the news to tell me that.

     The days grew short and grey

           as if the very gift of light—

                     and life—itself

           were now withdrawn

                     to leave me empty, shivering and afraid

                     in hope of spring, and spring not guaranteed.

 

It rained, and rained and froze.

     The trees were all transformed

           with every branch and twig and smallest bud

                     encased in crystal sheaths

                         that did not ring

                               but clanked with a dull sound

                                    like death

                               when the wind blew.

How well I knew that sound,

     that lifeless clank.

 

The mercury dropped to zero,

     then below

     while icicles, identical,

           lined up in savage rows,

           hung from each step

           and marched across the clothesline

                 like jagged shards of glass

                     aimed at my throat.

     The unaccustomed cruelty

           became the commonplace.

I thought I saw God’s face.

 

And now the ruthless ice

     is everywhere,

     the scene outside a mirror

           of my inner desolation

                 put on display

                 for all the careless world to see.

     The path that yesterday was midless, easy

           has turned treacherous underfoot;

           I cannot see its end.

     My hands, my ears, my heart

           are brittle, frozen,

     the very ground of my existence shaken.

 

     I am afraid.

     I do not like this cold.

 

The winter started early, in October

     the world in flames, preparing for the ice.

 

…karenblenz

©

UPDATE

Tags

grief, mourining

The spring that I’d been praying for to come

all the long hard winter after you were gone

is here at last

 

and I planted pansies last week on the porch

one day when I was missing you

(the way you used to wear bright colors on dreary days)

in the wooden window boxes Will made for us last year

—getting them in early the way I always mean to do

but never seem to manage—

(lots of time to plant damn pansies now)

 

and Eric the street guy came by and raked the yard

and cut back the hydrangea and the corner prickles bush

which should have been done in the fall

but of course it wasn’t

(jesus, you were still here then)

and I gave him $20—way too much

 

and your friend B ill who used to cook for you

came by and whistled when he saw the yard

and said wow would you look at that?  what’s gotten into

you?

giving me a too-long beer-y hug

but of course he knew

 

and I heard you laughing in another kinder spring

at the “little faces” of the flowers bobbing in the breeze

as we argued over whether the two

one yellow ones

or the big deep purples were the best

 

and I said to Bill nothing—nothing at all—has gotten into me

and we laughed

as though front yards and lawns and flowers in window

boxes

had any meaning now,

any reason to exist

 

here without you.

 

…karenblenz

may 1994

©

April Encounter

Lumbering

long-legged

along the trail

above the creek

through the burgeoning

bursting forth

of an awaken world

fragile unfurling fronds of green

small white bells hiding underneath

battle chunks of hardy skunk grass for the light

otters, eagles, groundhogs

fishermen

move among the new-leafed trees

green smell swirling all around

the air heavy with spring

 

Lumbering

long-legged

along the trail

above the creek

nose a-quiver tail stub wriggle

he suddenly sloshes to a stop

confounded by the sight ahead

a large feathered body beneath a long graceful neck

hunkered down beside the trail

implacable resolute regal

a gander atop a clutch of eggs

the puppy pauses   their glances lock

the goose’s mate rising from the water below

as each decides for fight or flight

and then it’s over

 

Three chipmunks clamor by

and the pup is off

Lumbering

long-legged

along the trail

above the creek below.

 

karenblenz

april 2009

Another Vision

for Jean

 

we come from different worlds

both struggling now—

toward destinations

likely far apart

and yet

through Design

quite clearly not our own

for these few miles

we share the road together.

 

and we share this—

in the quiet spaces

of ordinary days

we often catch

flashes of bright color

deep ramblings, laughter

the whirr of moving wings

 

i see dragons—

their massive wingspreads

gliding through the quiet days

I smell the smoke

of the fire they breathe

—they really do—

in the defense of what

(of whom) they love

 

 

ancient, protective guardians

their fiery fierceness

all too often

misunderstood

 

I see them easily

and am unafraid

because

you may already know this

I have long been one of them

 

for you it’s different

in shafts of sunlight

in sudden unexpected bursts

of breeze

when my dragons come to me

your vision

is gentler, deeper

in the silence (not)

of early mornings

you see angels

 

 

Karen b lenz

Nov 2002

sunday with magda and the new york times

einstein was right   time

           sometimes

curves     more   gently

vibrations

of the super-

strings   slow   down

the rules relax

like on this sunday morning in september

       outside   zeda’s   latte

       lounge   the   sky’s

                 relentless blue

     eschewing

           the solace

               of the smallest cloud

watching and waiting

 

while we snatch an hour

     from obligation

     to read   drink cappuccino   write

         some letters     perhaps a poem         FINIS

   to   a   week   from   hell

 

and though

           the summer’s gone

     the sun is warm

         upon my back

     and in the gentle moment

my fears subside

I am affirmed

 

all rights to magda

9/17/2000

Karenb. Lenz

Fiddling While Rome Burns

Elections loom.

It is October 2004

     in the ? shucks good ole US of A

become the Evil Empire

       of the decade

       of the century

           [or possibly even longer]

 

 

I no longer wonder how

     “good Germans” allowed

         the Holocaust.

   My sister thinks George Bush a godly man.

 

Three million Iraqi dead (and counting)

     –mostly civilian,

           the weak, the old, the children

and their mothers—

       a sovereign nation in ruins

             punished

                 for offenses in which it played no part

     [DON’T LAUGH, the teacher said, IT SERVES YOU

         RIGHT]

for claiming its own oil

       for the weapons of mass destruction

       it only dreamed of

 

 

Magda, studying political science

     at Penn

         (rated somewhere near the top

                             of American universities)

is staggering under the load.

   We watch the opening salvos

                                 of the candidates’ debate

               —Bush, looking old and tired

repeatedly

                         accusing Kerry of changing his position

                   and Kerry, calmly, reasonably I thought

                                           holding his ground—

           and turn it off.

           Magda cracks her books

                               and when I wake hours later

                                                   she’s still at it.

 

She stumbles home from class

                   at noon the following day

                   and I cannot wait

                                           to ask her—

               expecting careful learned analysis—

                             what the professor thought

                                                                of the debate.

 

He didn’t even mention it, she said.

 

Karen b lenz

October 2004 ©

World Series

a scarlet baseball cap

white letters spelling Daulton

Shaler shields his face

contorting in a grimace

with his mighty effort

to gain the victory

and unassisted

rocking on unsteady legs

mount the single step

into the Burger King.

 

his mother

modish

stylish sub matron

of indeterminable age

expressionless

is close behind.

 

She waits in line to order food

as he selects a corner table;

—summer sun

spills freely through the faceted glass

struggling

to command the twitching of unruly limbs

pulls out a chair

just far enough

to sit in it.

 

Relieved, he sinks down hard

his head flops forward

to his chest.

 

his mother brings the tray of food. Three

drinks—two are for him—

and two wrapped sandwiches.

he bends his head

to reach a straw, takes a long pull:

life can be thirsty work.

Hoisting a double cheeseburger

his mother looks toward him and at his nod

holds it to his mouth

so he can eat

before she unwraps hers.

Casually alternating bites

in a practiced rhythm,

they share their meal

 

Nearly finished

he grunts and gestures—

arms flailing wildly

as he attempts to speak:

his voice an adolescent’s

dropping tenor

comes out in spurts.

 

I turn my head

curious to overhear

what could be so important

worth the struggle.

 

“Don’t forget—

“The seventh game’s tonight,” he

tells his mother. She nods in agreement.

“It’s the last one.

“If God is good” he smiles “he’ll make the Marlins win.”

 

karenblenz

november 1997

©