I am not on Facebook. Don't look for me there. At my request, my account has been deactivated. I find Facebook's arrangements with its advertisers to be dangerously invasive. Did you know that if you click on any ad on Facebook that the advertiser then gains access to all your personal information even if your setting allow "only friends"?

I can't pretend that I will be making regular entries here. I am very busy with the business of survival . . . working daily to fix this old house and to tend to my garden, which provides me daily greens. I am very grateful to have shelter, glad to have earth to grow food. Small backyard gardens are good for the planet; no fuel used to transport my food! Plant vegetables, folks. If you have windowsill, you can grow greens. Today, I picked kale and tatsoi, ate a few tender and buttery beet greens followed by spicy sorrel, red and green. Soon, there will be squash. Tiny yellow squash are swelling beneath the shriveled blooms.

When I sit on back steps, breathing sun and listening to the gulls swooping high above, I am pleased by the flowers blooming down below. Today, when I went to buy caulk, I saw a budding delphineum. Now it grows near the fern next to the foxglove that I hope will spread its seed far and wide until the whole yard blooms. Butterflies alight on the marigolds. Las mariposas . . . las hermanas mariposa. Viva! Even the most delicate can be free.

When I walk from my front door, I see the olive tree my son Issa planted in the planter I built of salvaged brick, speaking peace. The tree is blooming, dropping its tiny white flowers on the dark earth below. Soon there will be a sea of lettuce growing at its feet and daises blooming nearby. I am lucky to know how to build, how to plant, how to enjoy the beauties of being alive. I am glad I don't need to shop, to buy, to consume. Sun makes me happy. Wind makes me ecstatic. Tomorrow, I will continue repairing 100+ year old wood on the front of my house, gently readying it for paint so that it might last another 100 years and offer shelter to another woman, another family, another life. May there be joy in your life.

May there be peace. Breathe the sun when it comes from behind clouds and sing the wind. You'll be glad you did.

was born (times three)
 

My eldest son was my only one born in hospital
NY Hospital (Midtown) Natural childbirth, of course
I was not happy with the "officious" hospital folk
They were not happy with me
They thought me too young to be a mother
At barely 19, I probably was

Three years later, pregnant again, I knew
I would not go to any hospital
My second son was born in "an old folks home"
in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He rested
the first twelve hours of life, rocked by octogenarians
who sang soft songs to his sleepiness

Six years later, my youngest boy was born
in midwinter in my home, a Brooklyn loft
with a wood stove cranking and lightning flashing.
When he gasped his first breath, Ufiza (the midwife) stepped
on our watch, a pocket-watch crafted of California gold
that had belonged to my baby's great-grandfather.

Time stopped, I guess, just as it began.

 
                        -- Mother’s Day 2010

 . . . keeps raining all the time . . .

She finds space inside distance, an absence
holds her, rocks her, wraps her up in woman song.
Black freighters, caves, cracked teacups. Love gone wrong.
Women in love with men in love with men
in love with women wanting love to offer
profit or return. A weave of rich brocade
labeled first as Destiny then as Fate.
But if love’s a weaver, she’s a spider
warping makeshift looms with threads
so strong they tether trees to stones, bend wind,
collect the rain. Sometimes webs are broken
but she knows spider threads are body threads.
They float on wind, hold on to light and wings.
Even shredded webs become offerings.

 *     *     *     *
 
. . . This is the final poem in my manuscript Darkwood Of Error. I include it here as the first post of this soon to be rambling blog, a place for photos and brief glimpses into the dim-lit caverns of my mind.