Yesterday morning, what may well have been a murmuration of starlings came racing through our back woods like a blinding blizzard. I just happened to be perched in my comfy chair in the sunroom, with a wide-eyed panoramic view of the squall. It was wild! Farmer Gary later explained to me the birds are rather frantic this time of year, looking for food and a bit of warmth. They flew in from the northwest and crowded in the tree branches…
She started at midnight one night 50 years ago. A twig poem. Two days later, Mom finished her series of twigs: Is “twig” a type of poem, just three or four lines long? I’ve looked online (deliberately ignoring that pesky AI) but haven’t found a twig genre. Sonnets and limericks and haiku, but not a mention of twigs. If anyone knows, please post a comment to educate me. Oh, and include which of Mom’s twigs is your favorite and I’ll…
There’s something very odd about pulling up stakes and moving away. Mom had never experienced this until she and Dad married. In 1973, we moved from Fairfield, Connecticut, to Carmel, Indiana. We’d only lived in Fairfield for three years and had spent many hours tending to gardens and other landscaping, as this was a brand-new house and yard. It was so nice of our Connecticut neighbor to stay in touch, especially with the news that those stubborn blueberry plants had…
We haven’t had a poem from Mom in far too long! Here’s one from 1999: Turning Pages What is the driver turning toparked with his back to the sea I have been singing and turning pagesof the Christmas carols our son played for the family Before we left to sing in Indianawe met a man on Meigs Point herea former soldier carrying his coffeetelling about his happy lifehis Christmas shopping during this vacationhe had turned a page Below Meigs Point…
“Wait! Stop! What’s that?” Comedian Bert Kreischer was riding shotgun in my vehicle. He was shouting with excitement. We’d finished up another day of shooting with the reality-show host and it was time to cool off and go home. But Bert was still revved up. Most of the television personalities I’d dealt with over the years as a publicity liaison turned to stone as soon as the cameras were off. Not Bert Kreischer. He kept chatting, chuckling, and hooting with…
When I pulled this short story from a stack of Mom’s college writings, I thought of my sister-in-law Linda. As Farmer Gary and I check out the weather forecast every morning and evening, we end with a quick scroll by the temperatures in family members’ towns (we’ve added Sainte-Croix and Toomebridge recently). As we reach my brother Harry and Linda’s town in Maine, often I cry out a warning: Uh-oh! When Maine is hotter and more humid than Indiana, it’s…
Oh, nature. You are testing me. That fox last month was one thing. But did he have to move his whole family here? Under the front porch? And, apparently, under the back deck as a playroom for the four – count ’em four – kits? The worst part is poor Yow-Yow Kitty has taken to patrolling from up on the rooftop of our house. A close second in the worst-part category is that the cute little kits like to roll…
Have you ever seen a flowering Angel’s Trumpet plant? Simply gorgeous: When she was a teen, Mom wrote about the plant, creating a story about how it came to be. Her high-school newspaper printed this work of prose in 1946. Here’s the full piece: The Herald of Heaven In a gladed forest shaded by dense foliage grows a lowly plant, lowly, that is, in stature. Botanists have christened it “Angel’s trumpet” due to its peculiar shape. No one seemed to…
With Mom’s love of nature expressed in her poetry, I have to wonder … Who is this woman in red? A cardinal? Red squirrel? Red-winged blackbird? Or maybe, just maybe, a red fox. Here’s Mom‘s poem: The Curve / The Cave I will always wonderwhere the woman in red wentshe was my musicI knew her loved herwrote her on the pageand in my hearta lover came out of the Eastwith voice and eyes and hands so tendershe became his flowerdon’t…
The anxieties and worries of the past few months bring me to wonder about another time of national crisis. In the early 1970s, there was war to worry about. And a draft. With three sons, two of them approaching the age to be called up, Mom and Dad must have been concerned beyond belief. We’d just moved to Fairfield, Connecticut. Richard Nixon was president. And Vietnam was on fire. Here are some of Mom’s raw war poems from that time:…