Winter

 (Sally Elford, 'Winter Field'; https://twitter.com/sallyelford)


Just listen to me now:

Let your field lay fallow;
Let your seed germinate;
Let your mind ruminate;
Let your sauce reduce (down.)

Do nothing
Say nothing
Be nothing
Write
Nothing (but this.)

Cross out all your lists;
Sit out this game (this season;)
Live out the darkest days;
Sound out every last silence.

You, desert mother,
are dormant; Dreaming.
Let the dreams
do what they will
In and to you.

Later,
not now,
you should tell us all about it.

PARTING WAYS

I guess we haven't communicated well for a while, but I'm not sure when the silent treatment began.

We’re on a train traveling through North Dakota, somewhere between Grand Forks and Devil’s Lake – watching the sun on the sandstone hills, on the eternal prairie, ranch and farm, on the horses, and on the paint peeling off clapboard. Chill penetrates the window - snow is ahead of us in Montana, I hear.

With a chirp, my laptop reminds me of our meeting this afternoon in Dar Es Salaam, and I realize how long it's been since I shared with it what was going on.

I never updated it with all of the changes in our plans – scheduling surgery, cancelling the work trip to Africa, booking the train to visit mom and dad, suffering the shift of expectations, slowing down and getting grounded, living with the unanswered questions that require our time. I think - I should change my calendar. But what can I tell it?  

Maybe it's better to let it go - with my smart phone and Google account and Apple ID – go on without me, living that planned life from which I’ve been forced to diverge.

Yes - I’ll keep to this other path alone where I can only take what comes, only do what’s in front of me, only wait. I’ll check in now and then to see where my laptop thinks we are and find out how that other life is going. A clean break is best for both of us, I think. It doesn’t even need to know I’m gone.

I’ll close its notification about our plans in Tanzania and go back to counting how many colors are in North Dakota’s grass and sky.

by Lori Martin, 11/6/15

LARCH

Growing up in Baltimore’s concrete and brick,

Borrowing books at Enoch Pratt about the natural world

- I mean all the natural world besides crabapples and cockroaches -

I read the word “larch” in stories, and tried to imagine

What kind of tree it could be, and what kind of forests and mountains and rivers,

And what kind of world it was that moved those writers,

A world that seemed like magic and dragons.

Now on a train, racing between one city and another,

Glacier Park in Montana materializes out of the dark night,

Frosts and mists lifting imperceptibly into the morning,

“Those are deciduous conifers,” my seatmate says.

Bright gold needles on dark brown trunks aglow with their own light

Rise above the dark green forest like blossoms, like spires,

Can they be trees? They seem like magic and dragons

Who beseech their Sun God to rise,

With their burnt offering breath rising around them,

Bright creatures bellowing praise as She tops the black peaks.

I am moved to write whatever I can about them –

Magic. Dragons. Larch.

by Lori Martin, October 24, 2015

What if my Poems had been Babies?

Huh.
I found a pile of poems I wrote
14 years ago.
Wow - I think -
What if they had been babies!
I'd have a houseful of teenagers -
Whole, new and OTHER people.

Instead of biology experiments,
I chose words, and here they lay where I left them,
unchanged, un-grown, un-OTHER.

But hey,
as I read them,
Memories of moments come alive -
forgotten things brought back and breathing,
The things I noticed, and thought,
Suspended in my well chosen words.

Makes me wonder,
Could I write some new poems like these?

Or -

Not new, but NOW -
To notice now, like I did back then.
Today's poem, not just another baby, born and left,
but its own awkward perfect creature,
grown from the dividing cells
of all the nows
I've noticed
since then...

Well, the metaphor collapses.
I just need to write.

(me at 14 - awkward creature...)

Cellulite Day

(photo by: Catheryn Alex Hamilton. Used without permission. "Fried Pies.")


These skies match my thighs.

Rippled rain clouds that never bother to rain.
Old, cold, stretch-marked, vast and gray.

No blood reaches my skin: I'm pale.
No sun reaches the earth: it's stale.

No breathe of wind moves these clouds,
No breathe of motivation moves me.
I lie on the couch, stare at this sky, and wonder:

If I JUMPstart my system, generate -
circulate - palpitate away my fatty layer,

Would I manage to burn off these clouds?
Could I diet the sky to a svelte, sunny blue?
Unlikely. What should I make for lunch?

On Longing

I miss you.

Up with the dawn to walk the coast -
the sun has reappeared
after many dark days of rain.
The half moon, ghostly,
rides through layers of leftover cloud
in the golden sky.

This makes me think
of loneliness
and longing deeply
and living without you.
The emptiness becomes everyday
and something in me drops off to sleep.

It awakens with a start,
with a stab and a yearning,
at the slightest brush with hope.
And here is the sun again
after all this time, reminding me
how long it has been.

by Lori Martin, 2002 (amazed at how I understood things I still had a lot to learn about - and wonder what I think I understand now that I will grow to know more deeply. Anyway - loss and longing.)

(Photo: 2013 in South Africa, Fish Hoek)

WATER

This six ounce plastic cup of water,
slapped down and spilling a little,
with a menu, fork and paper napkin,
is a new covenant.

I hear it say, "Drink this, you,
in remembrance of this molecular mystery,
that what is in you and you and you
is also in a six ounce plastic cup
and in the deadly truths of thirst, and drought,
and water wars, and tidal waves.
In the ice on Titan and the mud around the blueberry bush.
You baptize and make metaphors
and remember to drink your two liters a day
just so you can say that the great IT IS sent you,
with a promise more precious than blood,
by boat, breaststroke, and drowning,
all the way down through your life."

Water.

I lifted the cup and drank:
let water pass my lips,
surround my tongue,
embrace my teeth,
penetrate my throat,
and rest in the pit of my being.

When she asked, "what will it be?"
I said, "I'm fine with water."

7/24/15

You Left Me Today

(I wrote the first draft in 2003 after my parents visited me in Scotland. Here it is revised.)

Typical weather.
As if to send you off
in true Glasgow style -
there was a brilliant sun
low in the blue winter sky,
patches of dark cloud,
chilly rain and burning light.

As I walked away alone,
I looked back
for one last glimpse of you,
but you were gone.

Instead of you, a rainbow
stretched from my feet in a complete ring,
encompassing the airport, planes, and sky.

Like an omen.

I worried that it meant
that this would have been
our last goodbye.
I am not ready.
I will never be ready.

I would like to believe
that it was a promise...
a comforting sign
from a God who loves love,
and longs for an end to goodbyes.

But all I know for sure is that
you left me today.

RELOCATION COSTS

This relocation (dislocation)
caused me PAIN and
LOSS of function
DISJUNCTION
caused the paths that
came to meet to
MISS, out of
SYNCH, out of
WHACK, beats
UNBLENDED, trains
OFFTRACK
I'm a square peg knocking against round rocks and hard places
I never counted on. Like a fish out of the sea, I'm out of my league.
I can't play this game, finish this swim, or say the name of
this TROUBLE I'm in.
(But I just tried moving to another town...)
an OTHER town
I OTHERED myself,
MOTHERED my own LOSS.
I didn't/couldn't count this cost
of (dislocation) relocation.

(by Lori Martin, poem - 2003; mixed media painting - 2015)

Scaffolds

The beauty shop was covered in scaffolding
for as long as I can remember,
as if keeping up outside appearances
can mask a crumbling center.

Twice I have encountered
women in pain here, but
I walked by and said nothing.

First: she stood on the threshold, prim and freshly coifed,
her curls collected in a style studied to
appear carefree.
Makeup freshly made did not mask the bruise
freshly emblazoned around her eye.
Battered.
She looked at me directly, and she knew
that I saw her. She sent me questions with her look
that I would not answer.
I walked by and said nothing.

Second: she stood in front of the shuttered shop (closed Sunday),
pressing her face against the glass, hair hung
straight like curtains, closed.
Her shoulders trembled, and I heard her crying,
choking out sighs, unable to face the world behind her
with the required smile.
She poured her truth into this private corner like it was sin,
and all the proper confessionals were full of the worthier,
or empty of any priest.
I walked by and said nothing.

Much older now, I wish I had spoken and loved bravely,
I wish I had opened my arms to collect them in
And shore up their crumbling centers.
Instead I added to the plaster behind which they hide.
I am left wishing, and they are left to maintain
their outside appearances for a world that, like me,
largely walks by and says nothing.

Two Odes for Pigeon Feet

ODE TO PIGEON FEET

Oh, Pigeon Feet,
cast in greening bronze,
you stand upon
your proud pedestal,
memorial to a crime.
Lean knuckle and claw
clutch an arrow pointing
West. Perhaps it is a clue
to tell us who stole
the rest of you.
Who can name the thief
Of our Pigeon from
West Princes Street?
Oh, if only you could speak.
If only they had left your beak!
But all that remains,
Tragic and proud,
Are your Pigeon Feet.

ODE TO PIGEON FEET REGAINED AND LOST AGAIN

In a gesture of faith
and hope in the power
of art to transform
the heart of man,
the artist recast
our Pigeon! It stood
resplendent, a testament
to redemption for
the briefest few weeks
before being stolen
again. Now -
I am sure that someone is enjoying
a matched set of footless pigeons.
But I wonder -
will the artist go on, ever hopeful,
supplying the vandal
with an entire footless flock?
Or will measures be taken
by the powers that be
to keep out the thief,
Perhaps encasing the work
in a cage? How ironic
(bronze-ic?) - the statue
of a bird behind bars.
It seems to me that
the best course would be
to cage all of us
and all of the spaces
we have already defaced,
so that we can look
but not touch.
Art and beauty would be
safe from us
and free.

by Lori Martin - I wrote these in 2002 while living in Scotland. Original photos for once!

Sonnet for Friends

Sonnet

Afraid to seem weak, you used to stand
Like a stalwart statue of liberty,
Lifting your torch with a straining hand,
Until life knocked you off your feet.
Unasked by you, we gathered your imperfection
And skin on skin, made you feel what we are made of -
Warm, muscled comfort embodied in affection.
Before you could resent your need, we gave you love.
You would not bend, but being bent, conceded
And discovered wellness and pleasure, not shame
In the revelation of the things that you needed
And our tender meeting of the same.
Able again to stand, still you choose now and then to fall,
Having found our liberty resides in all needing all.

Tiger

Someone saw fit to sew
From fake fur a jacket,
Orange and black stripes,
With a hood and ears,
With a tail, too, and then
Left it in a thrift shop
Where it hung in the window
Like a second-hand zoo.

One January day I stopped in
And bought it, thinking:

Just what this city needs,
With its long colorless winter
Putting us all in a coma.
A bit of the tropical sun
Filtered green through
A dense, wet canopy.
A bit of the chattering
Cacophony, warning
As a predator passes.
A bit of that fear that
Wakes us up to alertness
And appreciation of 
Every moment that we are
Alive. Only the fittest will survive.

So watch out, you!
I've turned into a tiger,
And I'm prowling around town
In my new jacket. Growl!!

by Lori Martin, 2002
(photo by: Paul Goldstein; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/10751945/What-its-like-to-run-a-Marathon-with-a-tiger-on-your-back.html)

Shoes

Expatriate - I have lived in Scotland
Long enough that the shoes I brought from home,
That fit so well, have worn out pounding Glasgow's pavement.

In the process of trying to find a pair of new shoes,
I discover how poorly I fit in here. The foot of the Average Scot
Is a good inch narrower than the foot of the Average American.

Or at least I assume this from the size of all the shoes I have tried.
I have not, in fact, come close enough in eighteen months here
To an Average Scot to find out.

And I think to myself - I bet our feet are the same.
But like hanging the wash on the radiator,
Walking in rain like it's not raining,

Fixing broken things with "out-of-order" signs,
The Average Scot suffers through ill-fitting shoes with pinched feet
Simply because one hates to complain...

Here is the sinkhole of homesickness amid shoe boxes -
Oh, I long to speak and not see the polite look of incomprehension.
I long to listen and have some inkling of what has been said.

I long to be my old, unselfconscious self,
Not this pinched person I have become,
Trying to fit into this other place like one of Cinderella's sisters.

I want to go HOME.

Really, I just need to pick out a pair of shoes.
I'll be fine.

by Lori Martin, 2003
image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/imarr/371886209

BOWERBIRD

In National Geographic I read about the Bowerbird
Spending years of his short life collecting trash -
Shattered bits of autoglass, bendy straws, rodent bones, pop tops, et cetera -
And with this stash of garbage, he begins to weave.

A carefully flattened gum wrapper
With split sequins and lost lego
Become silver and gems sparkling
In the dusty desert sun.

Colors alternate in pleasing patterns
Blue comb, white button, blue clothes pin, white bottle cap.
He has a natural eye for symmetry
And an ear, as well.

He composes a song to accompany his visual art
With voice and instruments of his making
Clink - a penny on stones
Swish - a coffee stirrer through sand

Rehearsing his song, rearranging his elements,
His life is spent weaving
An elaborate bower to woo his Beloved.

Surprised

I realize that I have just learned from this bird
About God
and myself.

We all create beauty for the sake of love.


by Lori Martin, 07/2010

National Geographic article: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/07/bowerbirds/morell-text.html

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO WRITE POEMS

(image: Throes of Creation, Leonid Pasternak)


I strain against an insistent rhythm,
Beat my brain against the padded cell of my skull,
Dive into a sucking sea of words to struggle,

Until the ecstasy of inspiration chokes me,
Until my breast bursts and I can inhale,
Until I am breathing it in and out.

Blood and water mingling down my side,
I drown in revelation and start to write,
Emptying myself of the sounds and meanings.

I give birth in the desert with heaves and cries
To my precious lonely baby.
She lies, naked and despised, but alive.

Do I lift her to my practical breast,
And raise her to be something? Or what?
No - I just hope someone who cares will find her.

I wander away, praying for another birth,
And To feel again the exquisite pain
Of writing another poem.

by Lori Martin, 6/12/15

FLORIDA SUNRISE


There was only one cloud in the sky this dawn,
Pink and small in all the blue-white-blue.
She peered over the edge of the earth turning
And saw that cosmic flame first. She burst
Into a flamingo glow, glorified by what was to come.
She is only one small cloud, pink in the blue-white sky.

by Lori Martin

Iona Abbey

image: http://tvrfan.deviantart.com/art/The-path-at-night-Updated-73067995

(I wrote this in 2002 on Iona, after attending Compline (night prayer) in the Abbey, and experiencing the walk to and from.)

Blind -

Pressing embrace of darkness,

Eyes straining for a hint of path,

Feet feeling for gravel,

Trembling.

I fear, but yearn,

And finally find my way

To the sanctuary.

Silenced -

Breath caught in holy wonder

At the whisper of a voice, words

That Breathe in

The wind

Through cracked stone.

And finally my heart cracks open

To hear.

Stilled -

By the weight I feel on every

Inch of my skin - you pressing in,

Spirit of matter,

You pour

Over my edge,

Flooding me full

To bursting.

And here is my prayer.

Guide in the Dark Night,

Voice on the Breathing Wind,

Full Weight of all Creation,
Let me stay. 

by Lori Martin, 2002

Night Sails

image: http://www.cgvector.com/tag/child/

I have decided to make the bedroom

My vessel and cover every flat surface

In blankets and pillows and 

Teddy bears.

All the everyday clothes shall be tossed. 

I will wear only ruby red gowns from now on,

And, of course, when it is cold,

Fuzzy socks.

The light-switch shall always be off. 

I will keep an ever-charged flashlight

For under-cover reading and 

Shadow manufacture.

By day the window shall be shuttered. 

I will blot out the sunlit world and all 

Its un-strangeness, and make the 

Dark everlasting.

By night I shall throw open the window. 

All the air out under the moon must be

Let in with its breathing breeze and 

Impish gusts.

I will follow a path of stars strewn and 

Sail my ship of cushions out

In vast magic dreams.

Anchors away!

by Lori Martin

6/2/15

CRAVING

You know when you crave,
It indicates what you lack,
Some nutrition or mineral,
Some elemental need?

I am craving
Hot sauce.

I can't think of anything
But wanting
Buffalo wings and Thai soup
With chili oil pools.

The mushrooms and meat
Are not the point.

But sauce with a spoon,
To burn and linger,
To make me real,
To feel.

I wonder what it means
I need.

by Lori Martin, 5/31/15

GIVE ME ANOTHER
by Lori Martin, 5/31/15

OH, let me be
Numb between the red
Rashes of TRUE
Poetry inflicts.
The more I attend
To this bitter muse,
The more I am
Dissolved.
What is me
Left after?
Sleep keeps
Me here.
Yes, one more.

WHAT IS THIS?!

I eat crap

I binge-watch t.v.

I drink more than I want to

I troll list-icles on Bored Panda

I spend money I don’t have (OMFG, AE!)

If I didn’t eat watch drink troll spend so DAMN much,

I could have time to cook healthy food.

I could take walks and meet friends.

I could write and paint.

I could pray.

I could think!

Ah, there’s that rub… rubbed RAW.

I would remember

I would feel lonely

I would be afraid

I would despair

I would wonder why I was alive

If I thought about it too much, it would HURT. DAMN.

I started out trying to write a poem;

To write a truth that would call me out, but

There aren’t any internal rhythms.

Is this even anything?

I need a drink.

POETRY

by Lori Martin

This art is too tame.

This tiny pen line on paper,

Straining to remain in control,

Is too focused on the point.

I need a brush and a bucket.

I need a stage from which

To leap, scream, and dance.

Poets do it with so much tension!

All the passion and vehemence

Of a scribble. In creating,

I strain against this palpitating

Pain, this pressure berating

My brain beats against the padded walls of my skull screams

Poetry

Is a painful, messy birth

In the wilderness

Leaving nothing but paper

And confined scribbles

Ready-made for rejection

With a self addressed envelope.

This art is too tame.

NINE LINES

 
You are an inexorable reality.

I cannot ignore you, and

I cannot escape you.

I cannot contain or explain you.

You always shock my expectation,

Being not what I thought you should be,

Therefore more true,

Because you are Other than me.

You are the convincing surprise.

SAVING THE WORLD ONE PLASTIC BOTTLE AT A TIME

by Lori Martin 

On a charity walk around our lake

To save snow leopards (and the planet),

A boy in front of us, about eight,

Chucked a plastic bottle into the water.

His mother, blonde and pink-breasted, 

Slapped him in the head and walked on.

We stopped and twittered,

indignant.

The men-folk among us

Scientifically chucked stones

(ignoring for the moment the issue of erosion)

Landing them just past the bottle, mostly.

This eventually affected its migration

Toward the shore until Jimmy,

(Who can't swim but is tallest),

Timorously stretched out his hand,

And plucked the offending object

From the water. "Hurrah!"

After celebrating our victory

Over all enemies of Nature,

We put the plastic in the trash,
(No recycling in sight)
And finished our asphalt walk
Saving snow leopards (and the planet.)

POOR THING
by Lori Martin

When you are alone in a crowd
- Childless -
A toddler - running in glee and loving this moment -
Gets turned-around and mistakes
Your leg for its mother’s.

For one flashing moment
You are in the chemical-electric soup
Of squishy human hug-love.

But you know.
The poor thing is betrayed.
You are not its mother.
You scan the crowd… where is the right leg?
Maybe you can find it in time,
And relinquish this free affection
Before…

It looks into your eyes in horror
- You are horrible -
It screams and runs away and
Leaves you alone in a crowd
- Childless -
Poor thing.

MUIR'S THREAD
by Lori Martin

“Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.” John Muir

I pull a string,
A thin thread,
Lint, really, on life's filter,
An annoyance,
Out of place,
I pull hastily,
And out comes
A duck, flapping,
Geese in a V,
A heron pursuing a turtle,
And their lake,
Reflecting trees unraveling,
Spilling leaves like autumn,
And I grasp with both hands,
Planting my feet to gain purchase
And out comes the whole sky in pale colors
Of spring, hiding the deep night
And its many other threads
In a tangled ball of order
We call
The universe.
Thunderstruck,
I stop pulling
And collapse
In the heap of it all.

HEADLINES
by Lori Martin

I paste a ransom note out of these headlines
Shredding the words for dear life
Demanding an answer NOW

Poverty violence hatred despair
Pain death destruction greed
Homelessness abandonment
Oppression neglect

Who is to blame?
What can be done?
Where is there justice?
When will it end?
WHY?

I spell it all out in torn letters
I beg the powers-that-be
Rewrite this! Please. If you can.

After a time, in the silence,
I paste a wish list
Out of these headlines.

Love courage grace mercy
Healing redemption hope
Beauty joy kindness life
Justice peace.


(I wrote the first draft of this after September 11, 2001; and rewrote it April 28, 2015.)