Gathering with poets

What gathering with poets reminds me.

• We have something shared that is both similar and dissimilar.
• Listening opens us to new places within ourselves.
• Discovery is central. Some take pleasure in the scaffolding of form or the tease of puzzling within it. Others take flight abandoning form completely. Others pick'n choose what to punctuate. 
• Why poems: To express. To find. To Tear. To laugh. To become more whole. 

The prompt: 

Write a poem from what instantly connects with you in this poem

To Go to Lvov by Adam Zagajewski TRANSLATED BY RENATA GORCZYNSKI

Of nature and seasons

only gardens and weeds and the amber of Queen Anne cherries in drops of rain and in the thorns of roses...Frozen forsythia yellowed. If streams mumble ... and grass snakes disappear

into thickets

with soft ferns, boundless fields of summer, lances of trees —of poplar and ash, green armies of burdocks     at dawn when dew gleams snails converse about eternity     pure as a peach 

Of spirituality

Dedicated to the Almighty the cathedral rises ... as straight as Sunday The bells pealed ... the cornets of nuns ... the Jesuits baptized plants Orthodox church’s silence without Mercy.          Why must every city become Jerusalem and every man a Jew?               I’d resurrect them so singly; the New Testament.  

Of metaphor

Like soft signs, fainting maidens, schooners near the theater ... dew gleams on a suitcase ...within frontiers not just in my passport ...murmur of each stone, scorched

 Of change

Converse. Breathe aloud. Burst. Overflow. Expect. Laugh with lighting. Express in haste. ALOUD for eternity. Encore. Encore. Cut the censors that they might go breathless.

Whirrr is what we do

That moment you comb memory but are oh so stuck in muck.

That moment you find your missing glasses perched on the crown of your head.
That moment you smell burning, not boiling, water. Damaged Diamond.

That moment you wake to what you had forgotten.

That moment someone-else's priority distracts.
That moment the voice in your head interrupts "This is something ..." 
That moment good writing feeds you an unforgettable line. More insight a Google away.
That moment you ignore pause, rewind, replay to be present.
That moment you wake in drool. Missed it. The very thing you stretched your day for.

That moment you inhale Spring, lungs compressing for life itself.
That moment you think "Is cardio class over yet? Again. Again. And again. 

That moment you can not hold the laughter back and splatter your joy into your drink.
That moment you lean in to a hug.

That moment a question alights that you know will not be answered, so you do not ask.
That moment you stop reading to read again.
That moment you realize this person has become a friend.
That moment you realize being a mom is something you just do.

That moment you lost another poem. 
That moment you read another poem and your heart goes whirrr 
transports you back over 50 years

It went "Zip" when it moved
And "Bop" when it stopped
And "Whirrr" when it stood still
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.

~~~~ 1st draft -- the bones of it ~~~~
That moment you wake up realizing what you had forgotten.
That moment when you stop reading to read again.
That moment you hear a story and the voice in your head says I must remember that line.
That moment you are interrupted by someone-else's priority, distracted, maybe never to return to your moment.
That moment the good writer of a TV drama feeds you an unforgettable line which in trying to be present with the story, you do not remember well enough to Google. The value of replay if you have the moments.
That moment you walk into the gym and inhale the clean of it thankful, but lungs compressing for life itself.
That moment you think is cardio class over yet. Again. Again. Again. 
That moment you can not hold the laughter back and splatter your joy into your drink.
That moment you want to find a date for in your memory, but are oh so stuck in muck.
That moment you want to ask a question that you know will not be answered, so you do not ask.
That moment you realize this person has become a friend.
That moment you realize being a mom is something you just do.
That moment you lost another poem. 
That moment you read another poem and your heart goes whirrr transports you back over 50 years 

~~~ related ~~~
Don't Allow the Lucid Moment to Dissolve by Adam Zagajewski   

Eating Ants

From The Body's Question: Poems Tracey K Smith US Poet Laureate 2018

Ants love sweets. I relate. I relate.

Crave is me.

Save the colony, are they.

Alone in my honey ...

Swarms about my crumbs ...

My home in their planet.

He chides. More Protein.

Eat more insects, scientists say. 

I am without their predictability
a persistent pheromone informed calculus 
I am tornado like shadowing above them 
in my fear of itchy contamination. 

It is in my head: automatic negative thoughts.
Bait them, slow to the queen they go. 
No.

Voices in my head;
I'd rather not kill the ants but I do want to be rid'f 'em. 
What of an Option B?

Mock (giggle)
Eat ANTS.

Chorus
We need ants.

Refrain 
There is science! 

Yuck surfaces from my gut's own microbiome.


I am not at the ready to extinguish life
to partner with residual guilt
I am open to sharing space with planet savers
oblivious to true knowing

It is in my heart: be mindful
seductively resilience comes among the pharmakons 
vinegar and cinnamon.

Notes: 
This poem evolved from a satirical exchange about real life ants in the kitchen. While writing I encountered nudges on this poems' purpose as I try to wedge into my life more time for poem-ing. 
After a chat with a local poet I seek and find again the inaugural reading by Tracy K Smith. I scan and listen soon to hear the poetic reference to ants and purpose and reach Joy and poem such that "The body is memory". 
In my next attempt to squeeze in some writing time - I listen with some disappointment to Dr. Daniel Amen reading of his children's book. 
Distracted from life-balance again by tasks at the intersection of me and work [In chunks it appeared on my LinkedIn while posting my 5th anniversary search for collaborators] I click; nudged by prior knowing through Community TV curation and a friend who often connects me to a world bigger than my box. I take time to listen to informing promotional videos by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg about the nonprofit Option B which just so happens to be more on what to do about ANT specifically when beset by trauma.

And as I revel in the puzzling of words, word usage examples play along: 

mindful eating will allow you to savor your food and eat more intuitively rather than emotionally

and end in a surreal wrap-up with the term pharmakon (Jacques Derrida Plato's Pharmacy) and inference by David Foster Wallace 

The self-conscious appearance of unself-consciousness is the grand illusion behind TV's mirror-hall of illusions; and, for us, the Audience, it is both medicine and poison

Sips

when one opens
doors passed by in bygone days
inhales 
up-close a fragrance of Prosperity Roses 
teeters on that edge
a foothold in now

sips
a wine nuanced with bourbon barrels
being neither wine nor bourbon
being other
assertive by review and outcome

when one opens
doors in policy of equal chances
rising to the top
sinking to the bottom
flocculating peradventure
intimate and forgiving
carnality
a privilege 
stamen defunct 
musky with age a short blush 
decades rooted 
thus extroverted and demoded 
desired consequences flower
peak masterfully
among seductive
sips

It is the talk that lingers.

~~~~
The poem began as this .... Did it evolve or devolve with a day of attention.

when one opens
doors passed by in bygone days
sips
a wine nuanced with bourbon aged barrels,
being neither, being other, assertive
by review and outcome

doors, in policy of equal chances,
desired consequences
peak masterfully
among seductive
sips.

It is the talk that lingers.