Continue reading “prouf of lyfe: in search of lost tyme”
Category: Crone
summer
june, you, monthlong solstice
your 30 days of day
of Light’s false dominion /
he suggests a good way to estimate
the number of roses on my climbing rose bush
is to count the number of buds and blossoms on one linear foot of branch
so, I do.
there are 60 or more
i probably missed some
then 6,000? or more?! on this eight year old gem
how many june bouquets, boutonnières and corsages they would a florist supply
instead,
i keep them all for future rose hips,
and refuse to prune
unless a branch cracks under
the weight of drenched petals in this year’s wild june rainstorms
so many vases i have filled this june.
i suggest that i may create a perimeter of this variety of rose
an impenetrable devastating fortress of thornage — a natural, beautiful “devil’s rope”
i once saw a group of mule deer clear an 8′ fence in colorado — without a running start, could a herd of robot dogs do that?
he sees i’ve saved old nails, screws and Mexican coke and beer bottle caps in an empty 3lb coffee tin
Continue reading “summer”fawn
yester day
i counted more than 30 species of birds, here
first, i kept a running list in my head
then, i made a google doc to share
and i didn’t even know there was an organized
bird migration count happening
until after the fact /
this morning,
it finally felt
vernal
warm, new air,
a gentle breeze
the exact kind of day to find a fawn nested in the tall grasses around a mulberry or walnut tree
while her mother is off foraging
every one is being born today
every one is dying today
somewhere
it seems //
i can’t remember what it feels like to be a beloved daughter
i can’t remember what it feels like to be a loving daughter
now, repeat those sentences with the word mother instead of daughter
everything is drifting,
has drifted
every thing is being pulled away,
has pulled away
the gravity of me is no longer enough
to hold these familiar bodies in orbit
in a system of we,
in a galaxy of us,
we existed,
only on paper, i think.
but not on kodak paper; you hated
both portraits & candids,
& taught me to hate them too/
and today,
on “World Migratory Bird Day”
the May Plow arrived even as every one is
gestating,
laboring,
birthing,
nesting,
laying,
birds, turtles, deer,
chipmunks,
wild turkeys, cranes,
geese and snakes
the timing of these men with their machines is so detached
from the cycle of Earthling life:
mothering,
arriving,
hatching,
latching,
nursing
feeding
raising and rearing.
protecting.
the products of men with their machines are fertilized with phosphate, nitrogen, ammonia, urea
unironically sourced from the Fertile Crescent
shipped via the Strait of Hormuz
because their forefathers, not foremothers, strip-mined the soil of Turtle Island, barren, a hundred years or more, ago
you manifested your destiny !!
so,
happy-and-proud Semiquincentennial,
dear western european Whitey ////
hues
in french blue pyjamas
july 2025
last night, this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, two of the four barn swallow nestlings were ready to fledge, and did,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, i washed the hummingbird feeders meticulously with bottle brushes, as if they were my own once-baby-son’s bottles, and filled them with fresh, sugared well water,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, i tried to stake the seven foot,
no eight foot, tall hollyhocks, bent over by overnight wind gusts,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, Israel was committed to its holocaust of Gaza,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
and i earnestly searched reddit for military opinions about possible conscription of our young people,
both this morning — and last night
in absentia
i carry on in absentia
dialogues
monologues — rhetoric, socratic, analytic,
with — and for, people i once
knew,
had,
loved,
who i have lost or misplaced,
or
who have lost or misplaced me,
in some way,
Mother’s Day: also a day for the children of mothers
motherhood and childhood are complex, complicated and heart-expanding, heart-breaking and heart-full journeys — but mostly elusive destinations, through our rose-colored glasses or from our cracked rearview mirrors /
today is an exceptional day for revisiting motherhood, childhood and mother-child relationships //
Mothers’ Day, for many mothers and children often feels unbearable from physical loss or heavy with physical absence; it may be pregnant with disappointment, misunderstandings, unrealistic or unmet expectations; reminiscent of failures, judgment and estrangement; — or worse, it may be painful with the memory or ongoing experience of neglect, abuse, betrayal or disownment ///
these golden beings that we, mothers, carry and birth from our bodies and raise up with our arms and hearts into a world that is too often, dark and heavy /
mothers were once golden beings too //
mothers can be/come dark and heavy worlds too ///
Continue reading “Mother’s Day: also a day for the children of mothers”My Great Grandmother Survived “The Great Tri-State Tornado” of 1925 – the deadliest tornado in U.S. history
The 100 Year Anniversary of The Great Tri-State Tornado
revised 2025 first published May 2011
Seeing the footage, videos and photos of splintered trees, the rubble of homes, first responders and devastated people — and hearing of the rising tolls of the injured, missing and dead and imagining the immense pain of all the fractured families — especially in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and in Joplin, Missouri — it is all the more remarkable to me that my great grandmother, Mable Agnes Brantley, then just one day shy of her 18th birthday, and her soon-to-be husband, Harry T. Ruble, survived the 1925 “Tri-State” tornado.
That tornado devastated the town of Murphysboro in Jackson County in Southern Illinois. It remains the DEADLIEST tornado in U.S. history to date: an F5 on the Fujita Scale — nearly 700 people died — but it is also infamous for its duration, sustained speed, length and breadth!
Mable Brantley would go on to have a full life, to raise children during the Great Depression, to work outside the home before and during the War Effort and for decades after — and more importantly, to help to raise her grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great, great grandchildren. Continue reading “My Great Grandmother Survived “The Great Tri-State Tornado” of 1925 – the deadliest tornado in U.S. history”
The time is NOW for applied anti-fascist actions of resistance and desistance and acts of courage —firstly, by elected and sworn state and local leadership
political & ideological opposition is meaningless now
Billionaire JB Pritzker, the current Governor of the State of Illinois in an annual constitutionally mandated “State Of The State” address of February 19, 2025, questioned the near and long-term State of the Union — of the United States of America,
the relevant paragraphs are excerpted below with a link to the full transcript:
Continue reading “The time is NOW for applied anti-fascist actions of resistance and desistance and acts of courage —firstly, by elected and sworn state and local leadership”“smiles and cries”
coming into full being as a crone, one thing i have learned — and practice — is to not suppress my emotions or thoughts
whether in private, shared, or public space
but to feel or express them right then (with very rare exceptions) —
and to NOT control “my smiles and cries”
i spend a significant amount of time solo —largely, by choice,
so, when I feel immense grief or joy, or experience beauty or pain, humor or outrage,
i let my tears
or my teeth
or my uvula
or my tongue
or
my voice
be in the moment,
and this often manifests even if i am in a public space
i have become as uninhibited and honest — as a young child,
or — as someone on their death bed.
Continue reading ““smiles and cries””january 10 2025
a sweet spot, a warm, quiet evening,
of a too-soft winter here,
on & of the good Earth,
that tempts the comfortable one
to flirt with forgetting
the hard totality
of this hot and cold, man-made,
loud and brutal World.
La Virgen de Guadalupe
illuminated at night
(embellished canvas, dollar store)
view from a winter bath
slouching toward bethlehem
i resist stirring, opening my eyes, or thinking
as the dog wakes, and waits
i am in the center of another dawn-dream,
on the precipice of
experiencing some thing, of understanding some thing
but it cannot hold,
evaporating
with every
slouch toward consciousness
i open my eyes to
the grey of the room, to the dark white gyre of the sky through these generous windows
i open my ears
to the beat
of crystals pummeling these generous windows,
once and again, realizing
i possess slow thighs,
heavy lungs, a heavier heart,
an entire weighted mass,
and a mind — less than half-known / half-known
i want to re-bury myself in the warm sands of sleep, the enveloping weightless numb
and drift back to
the liminal/
this must be the
feeling
of the fully-gestated
unborn fetus, warm,
quiet, still
waiting to be born
yet resisting being known, moving on
