June 4: Loss, Janeen Rastall, "Lot's wife looked back"

Loss is difficult, no matter what form it takes.  Losing a dollar.  Losing car keys.  A favorite shirt.  A friendship.  A loved one.  I am at a loss right now to come up with anything fresh or insightful to say after learning about the death of my friend.

I'm a little tired of dealing with loss.  It seems, at times, that life can be just a series of losses.  That's a pretty bleak outlook, I know.  But, really, the world has a way of whittling things down.  Just when you think you're on stable ground, it starts to shift, and, suddenly, you find yourself building a new house of straw or sticks or stone. 

Looking back can sometimes be comforting.  Sometimes painful.  However, it is a very human thing to turn your head and see what's behind you.  That's a part of loss, too.  It's the hope that, by turning around, you can somehow find what you've lost.

Sometimes that works.  And sometimes it doesn't.  Ask Lot's wife.

Saint Marty is probably going to spend some time today looking over his shoulder.  Remembering.

Lot's wife looked back

by:  Janeen Rastall

knowing she would become
the salt all men crave,
the taste they wished on their tongue.

They broke her into pieces
to carry
on their fingers, their palms,
and in their pockets.

June 3: Losing Things, Janeen Rastall, "Photo from Our Only Trip to Riverside, CA"

I find myself always trying to hold on to what I have.  I don't like losing things.  So, when change does come my way, I often struggle with it.

I don't know how I'm going to survive my daughter's high school years.  She's almost done with her freshman year.  In a few months, she will be behind the wheel of a car.  There's nothing that can be done to slow this process of maturing.  No way to stop my daughter from becoming an adult, short of locking her in the attic and turning my house into the setting for a V. C. Andrews novel.

So, I must learn to let go.  It's difficult.

Saint Marty has to open his hand, let the blood flow back into his fingers, watch his little girl dance away.

Photo from Our Only Trip to Riverside, CA

by:  Janeen Rastall

Before my uncle can say Cheese, an air conditioner shudders awake shaking the quartered window panes. I think Earthquake. A radio tosses Take Good Care of My Baby through the fence slats. I can see one leg of the neighbor’s hot pink Capris as she bends and strangles weeds. My sister pinches me. A poodle barks and chases the sprinkler’s spray. The sun flashes the patio door. From the kitchen, my mother laughs. Rats rustle in palm trees that lean from the house. My brother begins to wail and my father tries to hold onto us all.

June 2: Cool Dad, Janeen Rastall, "Skimming"

I find myself thinking about my daughter still.

As you could probably tell from my last post, she is feeling a little persecuted.  Right now, she is at school, playing in the band for the graduation ceremony.  I was planning on staying to watch, but, as we approached the school, she made it very clear to me that I did not have to stay.  In fact, she practically jumped out of the car as I was braking.

I used to be a cool dad.  Did things that most other dads don't do.  I teach college--cool.  I've published a book of poems--cool.  I taught her and her classmates poetry--cool.  I play keyboard in a band--cool.  Not to mention that fact that I used to direct and perform in plays and musicals--cool and very cool.

So, when did I graduate from cool to decidedly uncool, bordering on benevolent dictator (and sometimes not so benevolent)?  It is difficult for me to pinpoint an exact moment.  I know I haven't really changed much.  Still a poet.  Still play in a band.  Yet, I now have to drop her off approximately two miles away from the entrance to the high school.  (I used to think that was an exaggerated teenager cliche.  It's not.)

My daughter is trying to spread her wings.  I get that.  She has a boyfriend now, a nice kid who attended a reading with me at the university a couple months ago.  I'm fine with that.  She is taking driver's training this summer.  I'm a little less fine with that, but I'm adjusting to the idea.  She now has her own debit card so she can learn to manage her money.  I helped her open the account.

She is growing up.  I understand.

I just want to know when I'm going to be put on the cool shelf again, next to her dance trophies, first pair of pointe shoes, and pretty rocks she found on the shores of Lake Superior.

Because Saint Marty is cool.  Really.  He is.

Skimming

by:  Janeen Rastall

When Superior tosses waterlogged rocks
to the shore,
we do not lift them
like shells to our ears,
listen for their deep-veined stories.
We palm the worn stones,
prod places where the waves have had their way.
We flip them hand to hand,
judge their weight
then toss them back to drown again.

I know cool . . .

June 1: Spring Awakening, Janeen Rastall, "Hibernation"

I am sitting in my office at the university.  It is almost 7 p.m., and I have two more hours to kill.  My daughter has a dance class until 9 p.m. this evening.  It wasn't so bad when I taught on Wednesday nights.  However, since the end of the semester, I find myself with a whole lot of time on my hands on mid-week nights.

I'm not complaining.  I rarely have alone time.  Usually, I'm working or teaching after I'm done working and teaching.  Not tonight.  I just took a break from my blogging, walked to a window in the building that faces Lake Superior.  Looked down.  Saw a deer standing in a copse of trees.  It muscles were wound tight.  I could tell it was ready to bolt.  Sure enough, a few seconds later, a car came rolling by, and the deer fled.  I barely saw it leave.  It was there one moment, and then it was gone.

Seeing a deer in a relatively populated area is not uncommon in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  On my way to work every morning, I am always alert for the flash of deer in my headlights.  (This habit is a byproduct of a run-in with a Bambi one morning; I totaled my Mercury Sable for which I had just made the final loan payment.)

Yes, we Yoopers live side-by-side with wildlife.  Deer.  Rabbits.  Skunks.  Raccoons.  Bear.  We even identify seasons of the year by animals.  The normal Yooper male, for example, spends a good portion of autumn preparing for November 15:  opening day of deer season.  (Some local school districts even cancel school on this day.)  And then there's the spring awakening of the skunk, when you rise on trash collection morning to find your garbage bags eviscerated on your front lawn, musk still clinging in the air.

One October evening, as I was driving down a dirt road, a black bear came crashing through the trees.  He was on a dead run and didn't even pause to consider the green Geo Metro barreling toward him.  He was huge, shoulders higher than the hood of the car.  If I had been going faster (or been a few feet closer), I would have had a vehicular close encounter of the ursine kind.

That's life in the U. P.  Rabbits in your backyard (sometimes a stray moose, a la Northern Exposure).  Like the animals, Yoopers are very much conditioned by the seasons.  We are active in the spring and summer months.  When the leaves start changing in September, we slow down, prepare for the cold weather.  In winter, we hole up in our houses, where we have stored food to sustain us.  We hibernate and watch The Voice in our caves.

Saint Marty thinks the Poet of the Week knows a little about this subject . . .

Hibernation

by:  Janeen Rastall

At the shoe store,
you slip your sock into the metal sandal
to measure yourself heel to toe.
In the mirror, all you see are feet,
bearers of a hidden weight.

Slide your foot into this mud print,
heel to this heel.
Spread your toes and let your arches drop.
File your nails to fine points.
Shamble from shadow to oak shadow.
Find a tree hollow and scar the bark.

May 31: Poetry Challenge, Janeen Rastall, "When Asked About My Inner Goddess"

This past weekend, I was approached by an editor of a new anthology of poetry.  He asked me to contribute a couple of poems to a project that he's developing.  It's an exciting opportunity, and, of course, I accepted the offer.

The only issue is that I have to write in some kind of poetic form:  a sonnet or pantoum or tanka or sestina.  I usually write free verse, so this will be a challenge for me.  I have written only one sestina in my life.  I've diddled with sonnets (to greater and lesser degrees of success) and experimented with haiku.  I am a little nervous, but I will give it my best shot.

When faced with a new writing challenge, I turn to poetry for inspiration.  Tonight, that would be Janeen Rastall.

Saint Marty needs to get in touch with his inner poetic goddess tonight.

When Asked About My Inner Goddess

by:  Janeen Rastall

I said I am the goddess of dirt.
I am the loam where seeds burst.
Roots, like old mens’ toes, curl into my side.
I am the keeper of secrets:
lost keys, skeletons and phones.
I dance like a devil with the wind.
I am the place where leaves shred underfoot,
where fallen birds die.
I hold the ice close.

May 30: Crossed Paths, Poet of the Week, Janeen Rastall, "Release"

I have know Janeen Rastall for several years.  The first time I met her was at a poetry reading in which we were both participating.  She was coming off a challenge of writing a poem a day for the entire month of April, National Poetry Month.  If I remember correctly, one of her poems was about caring for her elderly mother.  And I also remember thinking, this is a writer I have to watch.

Over the years, our paths have crossed.  She is tireless in her pursuit of the art of poetry.  Every once in a while, I'll receive an e-mail from her.  She's a gracious and lovely person, and she's become a really great poet.

And that's why I have chosen to feature her as Poet of the Week.

Release

by:  Janeen Rastall

The surf lays out featherless wings
and sanded birch limbs,
pieces once bound by ice.
Does a wave batter debris into something better?
A woman goes to the lake.
shorts and t-shirt taunt early May,
faded welts dapple wintered flesh.
She carves the sand with a stick,
draws two names inside a heart.
In an hour the beach will be blank.
She has predicted this end,
tasted it on his menthol tongue,
felt it in each whorl and callus,
every knuckles’ edge.
When waves encroach, she snaps
a photo with her phone.
She will not stay
to see her name sucked back with the sand.