Bird Ten: Ladybug Season

Now that I no longer "have to" write about red, I suddenly have something red to say...
My home blooms ladybugs for many weeks every March.

Ladybug Season

Our lives are littered with ladybugs –
a friendly plague emerging with each spring.
You gamely try to rescue every one.

Appearing in loose huddles along
the window sills, forming speckled
tableaus on the crown molding,

tracing invisible trails along the
lampshade seams and shutter slats,
searching for each other, for the way out.

I am their salty goddess. Never does
one fail to scale my offered fingertip,
to skate a ticklish path along my palm.

I will encounter their remains for months –
freshly wincing at each bitter carcass
crunching underfoot.

How I miss them already. Sad, dead
spotted things – forever crawling
when they had the chance to fly.

Image source: http://www.cirrusimage.com/beetles_multicolored_Asian_ladybird.htm

Some Books: 35 + 1 = ?

I have been procrastinating on completing this tag (from Jessica @ 9to5Poet), partly because it kind of felt like homework, but, mostly, because how on earth can I pick 35 books to represent myself?! Every book I have ever read -- good, bad, or indifferent -- is rattling around in my being...

I don't even know what this list is, except, perhaps, a stream-of-consciousness sample of some books that have stayed with me. I can only say these are the books that came to mind, in the order they came there, and I stopped at 36 -- that's how old I am this year. This is torture.

1. Roots - Haley
2. The Little Prince - St. Exupery
3. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - Konigsburg
4. Where the Sidewalk Ends - Silverstein
5. Danny, Champion of the World - Dahl
6. Maus - Spiegelman
7. Understanding Comics - McCloud
8. The House on Mango Street - Cisneros
9. The Language Instinct - Pinker
10. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
11. Jane Eyre - Bronte
12. The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner
13. Bird by Bird - Lamott
14. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Hurston
    
15. A Whole New Mind - Pink
16. The Tipping Point - Gladwell
17. The Poisonwood Bible - Kingsolver
18. The Lovely Bones - Sebold
19. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Angelou
    
20. A Wizard of Earthsea - Leguin
21. Weetzie Bat - Block
22. How to Eat Like a Child - Ephron
23. The Hobbit - Tolkien
24. The Chronicles of Narnia (Set) - Lewis
25. Pippi Longstocking (Set) - Lindgren
26. The Color Purple - Walker
    
27. Reflections on the Gift of a Watermelon Pickle - Dunning, et al
28. A Day No Pigs Would Die - Peck
    
29. Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art - ed. Greenberg
30. Preposterous - ed. Janeczko
    
31. The Cider House Rules - Irving
32. The Transitive Vampire - Gordon
    
33. Interview with the Vampire - Rice
34. Orbiting the Giant Hairball - MacKenzie
35. The Dot - Reynolds
36. God Went to Beauty School - Rylant

Image by gadjoboy

Bird Nine: Red Weather

I was determined to be a good kid and write something red-inspired this week, but my body resisted. For some reason, I kept thinking about Wallace Stevens' "tigers in red weather." And, of course, a strawberry kool-aid moustache. I am not sure I like any of these kooky vignettes even at all, but, nonetheless, here they are in their little red jackets.

(In the interest of "embodying" my work, I did indeed bite my own arm for the first time in 25 years to see how long the bite-marks would remain).

Poor bird -- perhaps it's doomed to a life of hapless flapping.

In Red Weather

the man with the kool-aid moustache
flings his boomerang briefcase
into the bloody sky and skates away.

the woman escaping the garden
strangles each tomato on the burdened vine,
lunges toward the low-hanging moon.

the uncle with hibiscus eyes
pulls a twisting niece onto his plump lap,
inhales her damp popsicle scent.

the boy with werewolf daydreams
sinks pup-fangs into his forearm flesh,
shivers as the crimson bite-marks fade.

the grandmother standing in the rose hedge
kneads her toes into the loam,
shuts her papered lids and waits to bloom.

Bird Eight: Look at Me

I first stumbled on Look at Me about three years ago (I think). I was discovering the joys of "found" art/objects at the time, and I found a photograph at the public library -- I planned to send it in, but I wasn't sure if it was old enough (I will send it now). I love the rules: the photos must be candid shots of at least one (unknown) person looking at the camera, from at least 25 years ago. (So, in one sense, Look at Me is the opposite of Running from Camera -- dontcha love it?) Frederic Bonn, owner/originator of the site, describes the collection:

"These photos were either lost, forgotten, or thrown away. The images now are nameless, without connection to the people they show, or the photographer who took them. Maybe someone died and a relative threw away their photographs; maybe someone thought they were trash..." (MORE)

These photos are ordinary, comfortingly familiar, surprising and heartbreaking all at once. Expect several birds. (Thanks very much to Fred Bonn for permission to "borrow" from his wonderful collection).

Image 177

Hansel Poses by the Oven, 1919 After weeks of plying the wretch with sausages and sticky buns, meat pies, potatoes and puddings, of daily squeezing the brat’s spindled finger to gauge its certain plumpness – the nearsighted hag grew suspicious. She groped between the bars with a gnarled claw, cooed as she was able, as to an errant pet, finally seizing upon a frayed woolen stocking, a chubby ankle, dragging it to her across the burred floor of the dirty cage. Suppertime, she sighed, as she caressed the dumpling flesh between her callused paws. The oven would be lit. The girl was called to clean his face, to mend and tuck his shirttail, to take his tender photograph: portrait of a memorable meal.

Bird Seven Revised: My Friend Robin is Right

My friend Robin was right, I think (see her Feb 19 comment on the original post -- I can't make it link here). I struggled with this part in the initial writing, was originally going to stop after "...so I can miss you," but it seemed to make the end come too abruptly. Now I see I could have stopped shorter, trusted the reader more. Thanks, Robin.

Valentine for the Runaway Man

Once, in the kitchen, he was standing at the sink, sleeves rolled, suds flying, scrubbing the paella pan, and she felt it coming on -- the terrible need to chase him away. This became a game. She stole up behind, sockfeet padding percussively in place, clawed hands poised like a hungry bear, a cartoon monster, a lunatic crab. "What are you doing?" he asked, and she answered, "I'm chasing you, of course. You've just forgotten to run away." "You're crazy," he laughed. "Please," she insisted, "Run away."

I promise, my love, that one day, I will run away for you.

---

Valentine for the Runaway Man

Once, in the kitchen, he was standing
at the sink, sleeves rolled, suds flying,
scrubbing the paella pan,
and she felt it coming on --
the terrible need to chase him away.

This became a game. She stole up behind,
sockfeet padding percussively in place,
clawed hands poised like a hungry bear,
a cartoon monster, a lunatic crab.

"What are you doing?" he asked,
and she answered, "I'm chasing you,
of course. You've just forgotten to run away."
"You're crazy," he laughed. "Please,"
she insisted, "Run away."

I promise, my love, that one day,
I will run away for you.