like a griddle cooling

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication
for Mary Heaney

1. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the backboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

I have loved this Seamus Heaney poem for a long time: its portrays an everydayness yet is evocative of warmth, home, and hidden daily rituals of love.  Mary Heaney, whom the poem is dedicated to, was Seamus's aunt who lived with his family.

At the New Yorker festival, Heaney gives a minute or two of introduction to the poem at 19:42, and the poem starts at 21:58.  It's worth listening to any of his poems read in his own voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HWurkQ1ao4&list=PLHFpn5CtGS959SiwZad59seGiV52dOlBG&index=2

Afterwards, the interviewer Paul Muldoon reflects on the tension present in the poem regarding the tick of 2 clocks, and attributes it to the tension born by two adult females in the household.  Heaney says, somewhat jokingly, that is a revelation; however, the viewer gets the sense that this interpretation may indeed be something he has not considered.

I think a wonder of art--poetric or visual--is its ability to bear multiple interpretations; and that indeed there exist possibilities of deeper, truer meanings than the creator even intended.

Einstein:  "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."

Iris Murdoch: "There is much more symbolism in ordinary life than some critics seem to realize."

Ray Bradbury: "...I never consciously place symbolism in my writing.  That would be a self-conscious exercise and self-consciousness is defeating to the creative act.  Better to let the subconscious do the work for you, and get out of the way.  The best symbolism is always unsuspected and natural."

perhaps a king

A Chair in Snow

by Jane Hirshfield

A chair in snow
should be
like any other object whited
& rounded

and yet a chair in snow is always sad

more than a bed
more than a hat or house
a chair is shaped for just one thing

to hold
a soul its quick and few bendable
hours

perhaps a king

not to hold snow
not to hold flowers

On Nana's 98th Birthday

I've been writing some poetry over the last year, keeping a new year's resolution to write 1 poem a month.  It's been a nice, quiet, non-messy divergence from my usual visual art.  In honor of Nana's 98th (!!) birthday today, here's one.  

Intersection

Boundaries

are what the child knows.

That you can start to cross the street before the car has passed

is what the mother knows.

That you can again find a center of balance

is what the man on the bike knows.

At the intersection is a doctor’s office. 

My grandmother, ninety-seven, is inside

filling out a medical questionnaire.

When she comes to the part requesting 

the medical history of her parents and 

grandparents, she laughs, making even the clerk look up.

That it can demand stillness 

is what the intersection knows.

But that there is no other intersection for miles

is what the street cannot know, 

which is what the child knows,

is what the mother knows,

is what the man on the bike,

dropping hands from handlebars,

knows.

First

entering the digital age with Hafiz

what the circumstances allow

an original poem by a 13-year old, each copy with slightly different illustrations

I listened to a talk by novelist Elik Shafak, who remembers a teen asking if she tastes the words in her books.  Rather than responding fully, she gave a rushed answer that was incomplete.

She reflects on her experience.  "We don’t have time to give the answer.  And actually it did make sense…But I was worried that if I tell all of this to the teenager, it might sound either too abstract, or perhaps too weird, and there wasn’t enough time anyhow, because people were waiting in the queue, so it suddenly felt like what I was trying to convey was more complicated and detailed than what the circumstances allowed me to say.  And I did what I usually do in such situations: I stammered, I shut down, and I stopped talking.  I stopped talking because the truth was complicated, even though I knew, deep within, that one should never, ever remain silent for fear of complexity.”  Elik highlights that in conversation, we often don't give the fullest, truest answers. 

I thought about what composes our identities while illustrating this poem, written by a 13-year old.  In most cases, even regarding the identities we most associate with, there are ways we do not think we fit those identities.  In conversation, we give what we have time to give, in terms that we think are most digestible for another.  This includes elements of empathy, but also may truncate our truths because there's not time or energy for that and, as Elik says, people are waiting in the queue.

I consider what, at any given moment, might be my top ten identities.  

Catholic

Occupational therapist

Creative

Female

Irish

Chicago

32

Virginia

Christmas

Notre Dame

There are spheres of each of these identities I fill, and there are areas of each stereotype I do not fill.  I am and am not each.

I am a therapist 40/168 hours (24%) of the week. There are ways I am literally not a therapist and there are also ways I do not feel a therapist.  For example, I do not fulfill this stereotype when I remember that I usually don’t like touching other people, when I am asked specifics about the hand or ergonomics and do not know the answer, when I fail to act as an occupational therapist should act.  I do not feel a therapist when I am off work and get annoyed with someone asking me about what’s wrong with his neck, or when I am in a grocery store and do not want to be called upon to perform CPR.

We read descriptors in print.  For example, we absorb information about a 68-year old Anglican clergyman from London.  Surely this man does not hold all these identifiers as part of his self-image each day, and surely in each of his roles there are ways he perceives himself conforming to the stereotype and not conforming to it.

We give quick and easy answers about who we are, but wouldn’t it be a richer conversation if we could also answer who and how we are not?  

Or perhaps it is only that more often we should speak nuanced truths: we are from cherry trees and stubbornness.  

Artichoke

Artichoke, ink, 11x14''

Friday night = grocery shopping + art (ichoke).  

The Shucking Station at Kroger

We are participating in an ancient ritual, you and I,

Females in our late 20’s to mid-30’s

in a common task of food preparation

You with your baby slung, rather,

Seated, in the baby-carrier of your cart

(the same sill I would keep my purse on if it didn’t invite theft)

Wearied, standing in this act of labor after our long day of work in the field –

Both in the field of medicine,

I deduce from your blue scrubs.

Quiet, by every reason, because we are strangers

Quiet, I pretend, out of tiredness

And a shared mutual understanding

Of this work to be done to feed ourselves and others.

Caught up in this ancient art

under the fluorescent lights

with the produce trucked in from every corner of the earth

in colorful array behind you.

Any moment the sprayers cheeping their warning

and spraying their gentle mist onto the impossible harvest.

A moment of human closeness I won’t have to face even at the checkout,

except in the event I need to call the attendant.

Soon, you will put your baby in his car seat and drive to suburbia.

I will turn my key and head to my apartment.

Taking out our corn ears,

We will boil water

in our respective homes

in our respective pots

At a temperature that is predictably close to each others’

And to the temperature at which it boiled for

The others who have gone before us and will go after us,

Feeding themselves and others.

happy mOThers' day

ADL (typically, in OT dialect, Activities of Daily Living)

Carriers of Life

for Lolly & Sylva

Let me tell you, little one,

If they were to cart your mother off to the end of Wing 1 every week and roll her up onto the scale, they would notice a perceptible change in her:  that’s you.

Your mother has chosen a lifestyle that includes, on any given day, responding to one confined to sitting in a chair.

The way her deft eyes and perceptive mind

Interact with wrinkled hearts

is a response of yes to life and all of its abnormalities and unpredictabilities.

And she has said yes to you, too.

You mother bears hope of new life.

She who knows that Dependency is a part of life,

who knows that falls happen,

will welcome you into a world where she knows that you will fall,

again and again. 

She

Who deals mindfully with dressing and bathing every day,

Who has heard confused cries and responded,

Whose hands attempt to craft responses to pain,

Who intuits that progress take time,

Who has found ways to lift the near-lifeless out of bed,

Who makes a safety plan for one unable to make it for himself,

Who consults within a team on behalf of the interest of another,

Who has felt the spectrum of human need and responded,

is anticipating your arrival.

You have not experienced gravity yet, nor do you know the coordination and balance this life asks. 

You do not know about breath yet.  It is something your mother measures in others.  In preparing for your arrival she has said to you, yes, the air of this world is worth breathing. 

She who has signed countless people up for the Omnicycle

will show skill in signing you up for appointments, leagues, and practices, too.  Your mother has known the demands of schedule.

She knows the benefits of including family in discussion.  That seeking assist is not to be discouraged, but rather is necessary.  That just being present—just showing up—is half the battle.  She knows how to be flexible, figure it out when she gets there.

She knows how to gently arouse one sleeping and to put one back to bed.

She who carries goals for you also knows that goals sometimes need to be adjusted.

We diagnose the unique sounds people repeat, their strange and halting motions, the ways their minds do not match the realities of the world.  But we know that labels cannot capture the wrinkles and swerves of this life.

What a rich environment for you even now,

As you spend eight hours a day in this place that speaks a refrain of:

We stumble and we help.  We transfer. 

We make gains.  We stand by assist. 

Although we can’t fathom it, we understand that one day you, too, will become Independent, and one day again, Dependent. 

The hands that will cradle you have served countless others in corners of their lives, and responded to various darknesses of body and spirit.  But to these bodies and spirits she has said, get up.  Get up, try again.

She is a strong advocate. 

She has chosen a career that sometimes involves this:

Batting a red balloon, watching it lift into the hair, hover for a moment as she meets eyes with another human being, watches how that human being responds, receives the red balloon back, herself responding in turn.

Your mother’s patience has been stretched and grown. 

Her mind does not overlook the subtle worlds of the verbal, tactile, and gestural.  She will know how to read you on so many planes of existence.

She has cleaned up human accidents seven times bigger and more toxic than any you could produce.

She who has attended many an unexpected

Care Plan Meeting,

Cares and Plans on Meeting you.

She brings hope to this world that she knows, daily, will end in frustrations, in discomforts, in limitations.  Your presence in her says, yes, despite all this, yes.  Life: it’s still worth being here for.  She says, come, anyway, come, find brightness in this world.  Because who are we to limit growth. 

And seeing your mothers in our midst, we know the promise and

presence of life she carries in you, little one.

So, when your discharge date arrives,

When they call out your name,

Take comfort that she will welcome you,

first in line for the Nu Step

Into this living, breathing world.

always making meaning

The Fawn

For one of the occupational therapists who was my clinical instructor where I completed my final fieldwork today :)  

Some of the clients we see are on the autism spectrum--which is infinite.  The therapists at my clinic utilize the DIR (Developmental, Individual Differences, Relationship-Based) framework, which is grounded in face-to-face human interaction.  Central to this framework is the concept of following a child's lead during play, enriching and making his/her initiation of words or play meaningful.  My apologies if using an animal metaphor is in any way offensive; this poem was intended as a metaphorical reflection on a therapeutic interaction.

In the gym,

its red water pipes above,

and ships hoisted with ropes

As crass and inappropriate as the association may be,

I recall The Miracle Worker,

The tale of Anne Sullivan and Hellen Keller.

And the climactic scene at the water pump

As “w-a-t-e-r”

became water:

The Key that unlocked the Beyond.

Some days I cannot help but hear

The white noise of water rushing

As you, miracle worker, set to work

Busying yourself

With what brings water

With what brings life:

What game,

What barely mentioned idea

What toy that catches the eye

And as the water rushes over,

You are sticking your hand out

Over and over again

Looking for that twinkle in the eye,

Your subject of interest:

a young stick-legged fawn

Playing in the grass just beyond the riverbank

And you search for that

glimmer in his eye,

a leg tentatively dipped into the stream,

You desire him to hold it there,

As your eyes meet across the riverbank

And are held for breathless minutes

We know a miracle is at work here.

Like in that play,

When water

Led to watershed

A linking of word and sound and feeling:

a gateway to all beyond.

And here are you,

enticing him from across the riverbank

Because all you know is this land that you live on:

Firm ground, critically rooted

in conversation,

in emotional understanding,

in reading expressions and tone of voice,

In webs that emerge in complex and multifaceted ways

As numerous and unimaginable as the blades of grass under the bed where he is standing, knobbly-kneed and tongue-tied.

And you want to dip your body in the stream that lies between you

And for him to enter this current, too,

long enough to know that you are feeling the same water.

When the wind settles,

Your hands form a cup, and he echoes “cup,”

And you take it to mean—

As you’re always making meaning—

A cup of water.  And you bring a cup.

And you are breathing, watching him drink.

And soon you will be pushing him on his tire swing

back to

Sail away

To some distant land

But in your head is the thought:

The sun is hot.  And over your life a million eyes in the world

will bear down upon you, my dear.

So come again soon, to the edge of your woods,

Where we can dip our legs in this cool current

And together, wonder at where it leads.