What does it mean?

How does a poem arrive? Develop? And what does the string of words -- placed this way and that --- mean, anyway?

I don’t know. Again and again, I don’t know.

And sometimes, even as the author, I don’t know what a poem means. Often the tone, the mood, is more important than the meaning. And sometimes meaning surfaces long after the pen rests and the page turns.

I wrote this poem over a year ago, but it is only now — as I experience friends and family in the throes of pain – that I understand what's been said.

Wounds that Bind
for Cindi

The hand that feeds the fire has no recipe.
You don't know what you're fighting so you
fan out      like a surgeon, mend endlessly,
step across hard shadows to stitch the awkward girl
in the corner.

Awake for days, walking through meals,
the moon births new     chaos
You hear lullabies.
You, baby flame, extract conscience
but mandate sedation
You know the price of wide awake.

Words rise

We’re in a bout of sadness. Loss swirls around our house, hits family and friends and turns a breezy summer into a deep, dark season of sorrow.

In the midst of beach vacations and late-night parties, sorrow seeps into happy occasions and my mind worries on the recent string of life-changing events. Just one is devastating enough but this time they come in a clutch, one tragic turn after the next: a young girl raped, a teenager killed, a trio of youngsters taken in a fire, mothers mourning, fathers angry.

In this conflicted season, I am out of words that will assuage events that make no sense, that break rules and wreck lives. And so my mind can only pick words from stilted air, settle on sounds that will describe what my spirit is too heavy too hold.

Words rise, not in a string of sense but in single sounds: tragic, inconsolable, broken. I’m collecting words and applying them like a balm, a gentle rub to every aching thought.

It’s not the direct hit that hurts but the inability to make things better for those I love.

Once, when I was distraught with slow change and my powerlessness to do anything of immediate value, a friend offered a simple solution: Be present, she said.

It seemed so simple. Too simple. But it was the best and most I could offer. I was present. I showed up. I paid attention. It showed dedication and interest. And it worked. And soon, being present turned into being useful.

I don’t know what to do now with the grief that consumes my family and friends, my heart. I’m standing here, waiting for words and action to rise again.

Sea lions, starfish and silence

Silence.


Simon & Garfunkel sang its praises and Ode magazine devoted an entire issue to its value. As an introvert who has learned to turn ‘on’ when required, I’ve always felt most at home in quiet.

Last week, as I made a mad dash to attend the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference in Seattle (Prizes and Surprises! For all the juicy details, click on Poetry at right) I was reminded of the solace that silence brings.

Mad dash, in this case, meant a two-hour drive to a small airport that took me to a bigger airport that took me to an even bigger airport.

It had been a full week with a houseful of loving, enthusiastic family who were visiting the Oregon Coast for the first time. Our happy band enjoyed a full week of lighthouses, beaches, kayaks, forests, bayfronts, sea lions and starfish.

In the midst of all the fun, I got a bout of the stomach flu and spent 24 hours queasy and weak.

By the time I raced to attend the conference, I was spent. When you live a quiet life — as I now realize I clearly do — it’s not obvious until you experience unquiet.

I often rail that our (the collective our meaning, I suppose, everyone else and sometimes me) fascination with connection has made us chatty but no more connected. Cell phones, email, and yes, even blogs like this, contribute to the white noise of our lives. We’re all talk and not much listen. We’re screaming to be heard.

But when no one listens, the noise level must increase until the racket is just normal. When we are — miraculously — faced with silence, fear takes the place of noise. We don’t know what to do with our minds, so full of banter and chatter. We feel a need to fill the space and so we reach for the ipod, turn to the computer, turn up the tv. It’s too much to hear our own still voice.

And what a loss, this quiet erased.

How did silence become so scary? I’m tempted to say this is a generational issue but that’s too easy a dismissal and inaccurate, too. I know many people my age, and older, who feel edgy in the empty spaces.

Of course, silence is far from empty. Even the quiet is alive with sound — hums and buzzes prevail. Nature, so seemingly serene, is — when you really listen — bursting with sound.

In silence — when the mind is quiet, receptive and at rest — words rise, songs take shape, paintings form. Inspiration is surely rooted in quiet, in a willingness to be, not do.

I am lucky. I have always considered quiet an ally. Just as a cell phone needs a battery charge to take the next call, I need quiet to replenish my mind and body. I need the equilibrium silence provides.

And so, my two-hour drive to the airport was wonderfully silent. No radio or cd. No cell phone. No last-minute plans and worries. I crawled into silence and clung to its comfort.

When I arrived, my head was clear, my body rested, and my enthusiasm restored. Even my voice, when I spoke again, was hesitant and thin, as if it too had needed the rest.

Talk less. Listen more. I’ve always appreciated the sentiment but today I appreciate it even more. When we value the restorative power of silence, we don’t see the adage as an admonition but as a coveted invitation.

Solo, not alone


To travel is better than to arrive.

— Robert Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I had forgotten how much I like solo travel. Something about being alone allows the mind to wander, the heart to open.


Traveling with a spouse or friend allows the thrill of shared experience but traveling solo provides unexpected opportunities to meet ordinary people that, in the right mind, seem especially warm, kind and interesting. I had forgotten the pleasure.

On a recent trip I must have been especially open and receptive because I met people at every turn:

• A woman who worked at Boeing. Thirty years ago she began as a data entry clerk and steadily worked her way up to mechanical engineer. “It’s not hard,” she said, seemingly very humble. “I took classes they offered and they even paid me to go to school.”

• A truck driver and I shared the very narrow, very back row, of a very small plane. Before a knee injury last year, he had worked 17 years transporting goods for FedEx, which required fevered three-day hauls from Chicago to Portland and back again.

• A kind Canadian couple returning from a three-week excursion through Europe. It was late and they had been traveling toward home for 24 hours. Though worn and weary, we talked and laughed for nearly an hour, and they shared with me their English chocolate, a souvenir from their travels.

Earlier in the day, as I grew exasperated with my delayed flight, I met a man suspended in airport limbo.

Since his wife's passing four years ago, he had retired and spent all his time traveling the country to be with his grown children and their youngsters. But on this last trip, his car broke down. A new engine was required. The car was towed home but he was stranded in the airport. One flight was cancelled, another delayed. He was now stuck in the Portland airport for endless hours, far from home.

And because he and I were so chatty, he did not hear his name called for his stand-by flight. He missed the plane but was unbelievably unruffled.


I noted his admirable attitude and he answered quite matter-of-fact. “When I was 20, I would have been arrrgh,” he said, clenching his fists and knotting his face, “but what are you going to do?”

And, as if the universe was rewarding his calm, he made it on another flight — mine — that departed just a few minutes later.

It’s true that when you see goodness, it’s easier to see more. In turn, it’s increasingly easier to feel happy, and pass it on. It’s simple, yes, but I forget. Solo travel helps me get quiet inside, so my outside can allow.

That night, when I reached my destination, I was buoyant in the conversation and accomplishments of fellow poets and writers. My delight took a new hue. It wasn’t my own happiness I was feeling but the many individual joys given kindly to me throughout the day.

Kick the Critic

The world, and my head, is full of critics.

Big talkers with sandpaper voices that cripple every action with an overwhelming fear of mediocrity. When my inner critic is louder than my mind is bright, I go to the experts:

Natalie Goldberg, who wrote the classic Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, encourages writers to kick their critic to the curb. And indeed, in my copy (circa 1980s) the chapter Trouble with the Editor is dog-eared and nearly every passage is underlined.

Anne Lamott’s self-deprecating wit and tender humor always move me to a place of possibility — and my inner critic rankled enough to go away. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life is her classic how-to book. Fortunately, this ‘manual’ is more humor and heart than step-by-step guide.

But sometimes even the ‘experts’ aren’t enough. To keep my mind encouraged and my spirits lifted, I have this touchstone at easy reach:

Keep the Channel Open

A letter from Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille

There is a vitality, a life force,
a quickening that is translated through
you into action. And because there is only
one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through
any other medium, and it will be lost.
The world will not have it. It is not your
business to determine how good it is,
nor how valuable, nor how it compares
with other expressions. It is your
business to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself
or your work. You have to keep open and aware
directly to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open.

Secrets & Stories

It’s the summer season, and seemingly every publication is touting its Summer Reading Guide. Oprah’s O magazine, Poets & Writers (with a cover photo of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses!). Even the Oregonian has devoted pages and pages to their must-read recommendations.

But I just can’t do it. I’m not feeling lofty or ambitious. The days are long, the sun is shining and my attention span is shorter than my daily horoscope. As much as I really do intend to read Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I’m just not there yet.

Instead, I am obsessed with quick, voyeuristic fixes like these:

• Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure
This beefy collection of six-word memoirs, compiled by Smith magazine, offers a blend of the pithy, sad and inspirational. Dubbed as “America’s haiku," these ultra-short autobiographies are addictive little gems.

Started small, grew, peaked, shrunk, vanished.
- George Saunders

Danced in fields of infinite possibilities.
 -Deepak Chopra

• PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
PostSecret began in 2004 as an art installation project by Frank Warren. It's catapulted into a community art project with numerous book compilations, a thriving website, and its own Wikipedia entry.

The concept is simple but profound: People anonymously decorate postcards and share secrets they have never revealed. More than 200,000 secrets have been collected, ranging from admissions of infidelity and criminal activity to confessions of desires, dreams and embarrassing habits. The artful mini-canvas of a postcard, combined with raw truth, is a compelling — and, at times, heartbreaking — combination.

"I think we all have secrets," Rick Warren said in an interview that appeared on Geek Gestalt, "and I like to imagine us keeping them in a box. Each day we face a choice to bury (them) down deep inside it, or find the box, bring it out in the light, open it up, and share the secrets with the light."

Find Your Place

The book is out!

Find Your Place, a book of poetry and prose from Seashore Family Literacy, has hit bookshelves everywhere — or rather, a couple of libraries, bookstores, and kitchen counters across the central Oregon Coast. But it could be everywhere — and it could be yours!

The 64-page book reflects the work and spirit of the Young Writers Group, a collection of students age 14 to 21 who enjoy writing practice with a supportive vibe. Students and adult volunteers meet every Thursday evening to write together in a place where it is safe to reveal the darker (and occasionally, lighter) side of life.

I’ve been a volunteer with the Young Writers Group for nearly four years. And, I’m grateful to feel I have found my place. I like to say that “poetry saved my life,” and it’s true. But it’s this endearing group of misfits and upstarts that expanded my heart.

Do you want to feed your mind, encourage young authors and celebrate the power of the writing process? Find Your Place is available for just $10. (And all proceeds go to the writing programs at Seashore Family Literacy, a nonprofit organization).

Blah, blah, blog

The road from resistance to revelry is a long and winding route.

I’ve resisted this blog, and before that I resisted my website. It’s not that I am against technology. Rather, I shy from self-promotion. I think it’s in bad taste to toot your own horn. I like a soft piano, in a dim room. I’m not crazy about parades.

But I understand the need for presence, for promotion. Ironically, much of my work is in publicity and promotion. I promote companies and ideas. I shout from the rooftops, and write loud and clear to give voice to small business, big business, to the haves and have-nots. And yet, and yet, when it comes to promoting — or even revealing — my own efforts and achievements, I am uncomfortable offering more than a restrained hooray among a few friends.

The irony, again, is that each week I urge teens in the Young Writers Group to take pride in their work. “Own it,” I tell them. “Read it loud and proud!”

And so, I am taking my own medicine. Despite my initial resistance, I have come to this: A blog doesn’t have to be all about me. For now, it can be quiet place to share a few notes.

And so, let’s go. Not with the thunder of the self-absorbed, but in the same careful way a single line, when spoken softly, carries great weight.