November 14, 2022

Thought for Today

"The poet has a peculiar duty: he has to create other poets.  We cannot let talent die without waking."

James Liddy,

Studies 85, no, 340

P.S. Write that poem. 

Write that book.

Get me off the hook!

 November 13, 2022

Reflection

MONDAY MORNINGS

There's something about Monday mornings.

I've read a few times that most heart attacks happen on Monday mornings - early - before people are off to work.

If that's true - and - reported heart attacks can be tabulated - it gives a glimpse into Monday mornings.

Tomorrow morning is Monday morning - uh oh.

There's that first Monday morning after a two week vacation with the kids at the beach. We have  to get back into the regular grind of life.

There's that first Monday morning on a new job - what are our thoughts?

Friday afternoons have that "Phew!" in them - as we look forward to the weekend. 

Do Monday mornings have a special sound?

Are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays different?

Sabbath is necessary.

Are there cultures - or were there cultures where folks worked 7 days a week - without vacations - without breaks?

Do or did slave masters - or tyrants know people need a break?

It was Monday morning - March 31, 2008 when I first wrote this.   I had neglected doing any writing into this note book in the weeks that followed.

[Today is November 13, 2022]

 November 13, 2022

Thought for Today

"By day poets masquerade as mere mortals: insurance clerks, teachers, librarians.  But by night they prowl like panthers, seizing words on the run and crunching raw emotion."

Unattributed

The Times, September 4, 2006

 November 12, 2022

Reflection

TABLES AND CHAIRS

 

There are moments and there are moments.

 

There are tables and there are chairs.

We sat there as tiny kids in our high chairs - banging our spoon - wanting our food - wanting attention. Yet when it comes to baby's high chairs there an underlying disconnect. That half moon high chair table top - locked us in - and separated us from the rest of the family.

 

We know tables - the family table as kids - the gathering place where we ate our veggies and our birthday cake - the place we were excommunicated from when we did something wrong.

We remember the tables we sat at in school.

 

We might remember the restaurant table where we proposed.

 

Then there are our chairs.

We remember sitting there in the hospital - with a blanket - waiting for a spouse to get better.

We remember a rocking chair at our grandmother's. We loved to visit her and get to sit in her rocker  - even though we were so small - but she made us feel so tall.

 

"Who sits where?” is the question we think or say - when are at a table in a house where we are a visitor or a guest.

 

It’s interesting when we we visit certain homes. Sometime there is no special seat at the table for the King of the family; sometimes there's a seat where you better not sit.

 

How do you replace a spouse or dad or mom or son or daughter  who has died - when a certain chair still fills them - with so much emptiness?

 

Certain chairs would not get listed as worth a million dollars on The Antique Road Show - because they are priceless.

 

It’s good to sit there at a table in the evening of our life and jot down on paper - the moments of our life, That's old age or retirement homework.

We remember as kids seeing our mom writing home to her parents in another country or our brother in college or in the military.

Gather the letters. Save them  Write the history of our family.

There are tables and there are chairs.

 

 November 12, 2022

Quote for Today

"Watch out for our coming campaign, called Get the Poets Back into Banks, Doctor's Surgeries and Insurance Offices, where  modern poetry began."

James Campbell,

Times Literary Supplement

June 11, 2004

November 11, 2022

Reflection 

WHEN  YOU  CAUGHT  ME

I have to watch the movie,  "As Good As It Gets" again - so I can here, remember and then memorize the lines of one scene - or maybe it was two scenes.

Holly Hunter says something like, "You caught me when ...."

Jack Nicholson then puts his foot in his mouth in his response to what she says and loses Holly.

She said something like, "You should have stopped there."

That reminded me of the times I found myself saying about someone else,  “You lost me when ….”

 

I remember a church service, when a visiting deacon had the crowd sit down for the gospel reading.

So I sat down as he read the gospel. 

Then something off to my left caught my eye. A father and a son remained standing.  His wife and daughters were sitting.

I didn't know what was going on. Sometimes when there is a long gospel reading, folks are told they can sit during the reading. 

Is that what was going on?  Was it a rule's keeping situation?

 

Did that couple have a fight in their car on the way home because of this?  

I don't know.

 

The man didn’t look happy.  I've rarely seen him smile.  He has smiled. I’ve seen it.  But most of the time he does not seem happy.

 

He lost me when he remained standing.

 

Could he catch me if he gave me a different take  on why he was doing what he was doing?

In the meanwhile was I sitting there with my juridical robes on? 

I have memorized the words from the Talmud: "Teach thy tongue to say, 'I do not know.'"

I know those words, but I don't always practice them.

 

When people are dating, do they spend the time judging each other?  Would they know this if they were asked this - if they did this?

 

In the movie, Jack Nicholson recovers - or Holly Hunter gets to understands him.

Is this something we all do?  Do we do this to ourselves - giving outsiders a judgement?  Does God do this?  Do we do this with God?

 November 11, 2022

Thought for Today

"What I tend to say at the beginning of the term to my students in poetry workshops is this: I am going to be involved with your capacities as writers, but your destinies as writers are your own business."

Seamus Heany 

Poetry Ireland Review  

Winter-Spring 1991