Month: May 2024

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Mothers and Sons

Today, as I’m writing, is Mother’s Day. I’m thinking of motherhood and childhood, of course–being a mother and having a mother. For this, I direct you to a favorite Billy Collins poem called “The Lanyard.” I’ve been handing out copies of it all over the place. Yesterday a woman eagerly asked, “Are you Billy?” Ah, no. Anyway, I’m going to copy it below for you to read, if you like, but also, if you click here, you can listen to Billy Collins himself reading it. I send this to my sons every Mother’s Day. If you don’t read it or listen to it, I’m sorry for you. If you do, I guarantee it will make you smile.

I expected to have daughters. I have three baby girl outfits still packed away in a trunk. Yet I have three sons. I have come to believe that once you have two boy babies and you get pregnant again, you’ll have another boy. It’s a given. And won’t you be lucky! At least, I have been. Although I never had confidence in myself as a mother, I must have done at least some little thing right, because I have three loving sons. Loving, irreverent, whip smart, creative, adventurous, smart aleck, inventive, generous, handsome sons. They have made me feel lucky, loved, and happy.

So then, related but not closely, I said last week that I had offered poems to anyone not dangerous looking. The very day that I sent that letter out, I saw a youngish guy approaching on the path around the lake. Tattoos all over, even on his face, a rough look, combat boots and shorts, a big backpack with things hanging off of it. We said hello and I thought, well, why not? “Hey,” I called out as he passed, “would you like a poem?” He turned and said, “I would love a poem. Thank you, ma’am.” He began reading it immediately, so I gave him another one (Alice Walker’s “Expect Nothing”) and we parted ways.

I walked away a little bit dumbstruck, not sure what I had expected. But again, the power of poetry! Of words. He still looked rough around the edges, and he didn’t really ever smile or look me in the eyes, but he was polite and thankful. I wondered about his situation, what his mother was like, how he grew up, and whether or not he was in trouble. What’s his story? Is he homeless? I hope he has a mother that he’ll contact today. I hope he is okay, happy enough, safe.

I’m immensely grateful that my sons are healthy, happy, safe and sound, and living good lives. And that we all love each other. Isn’t that what we all want for each other?

The Lanyard
By Billy Collins
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy lightand taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truththat you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.“The Lanyard” from The Trouble With Poetry: and Other Poems by Billy Collins, copyright © 2005 by Billy Collins. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Poems in My Pocket

So here we are in the merry month of May, no longer National Poetry Month. Am I sad? Not at all. I adore May and especially this May, which has favored us with gorgeous day after gorgeous morning, again and again. My cup overflows.

And this morning, writing, with tea at my elbow, windows open to the cool air, I marveled at the enormity of green out my windows, the leaves bouncing and bobbing all around, looking so jolly, so free though somehow not free, but rather, attached within their community of others, and it gave me such a feeling of wellbeing, though I’ve been sick.

And I thought about what to write, fully expecting it to be some sort of concluding report, an official accounting of the Poetry Share, since April is now behind us. But I am far from finished handing out poems, because of the joy. So I will likely be carrying poems around in my pockets for a long time to come. Look out!

Here’s a thing. I went to Old Navy yesterday to see about some shorts and I found a pair, black linen with a comfy elastic waist (just to prove that, yes, I really am an old lady), but most importantly with FOUR big serviceable pockets, the better to carry poems in. Yes. That becomes a box to tick off now. Pockets for the poems. I gave poems to three of the salesgirls there. And one to a gal on her knees on the concrete floor of the Salvation Army, sorting through donations. Big smiles of wonderment and lights in their eyes again and again at the question, “Would you like a poem?” Oh sure, maybe they think I’m crazy, but I don’t think so. I think it’s more of who can resist the offer of a poem? Only one person, so far, and I feel pretty sure he has lain awake at night with regret over that. What have I done? that hapless man at the Post Office is asking himself. Who in their right mind refuses the offer of a poem?

I gave to the nurse at Quick Care and the young woman at the pharmacy counter, the checker at HyVee. A woman humming past me on a walk. Bank tellers. A young guy called Zamboni, running through the park. Three ladies at the thrift store. People gathering signatures on petitions. The egg and bread sellers at the Farmer’s Market. The dear postman whose name I now know is Sean, is Irish, and his brother and sister were almost named Seamus and Siobhan. All of this I know because of the Seamus Heaney poem. La!

Just about anyone who doesn’t look dangerous has been offered a poem.

In case you want more recommendations, here are a few of the ones I’ve handed out since the last update. Rumi’s “The Guest House;” Mary Oliver’s “Peonies;” Billy Collins’ “Aimless Love;” Reed Whittemore’s “The Party;” Lewis Carroll’s “The Jabberwocky;” Tony Hoagland’s “The Word;” e.e. cummings’ “[anyone lived in a pretty how town].” And more. I forget. I’ve been sick, so I’m a little bit fuzzy-headed. But really, I can’t be expected to do all the poetry, can I? Your favorites are bound to be different from mine. Go on a poetry safari. Find the ones that speak to your heart. And then spread the love. And then you, too, can call out to others that you’re “on top of the world!” as you walk jauntily by.

It’s just another way to enjoy life. There are so many. This is just one more to keep in your back pocket.

“Then you have to remember to be thankful; but in May one simply can’t help being thankful . . . that they are alive, if for nothing else. I feel exactly as Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden before the trouble began.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

“As full of spirit as the month of May, and as gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer.”― William Shakespeare

“Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.” — Julian Barnes

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Some Bonuses

Here’s my painting, “Green Pot,” which did make it into the Still Life show.

Today I feel as if the world is my oyster, as far as what to write about. I’m tempted to give yet another update on the Poetry Share, as it’s gotten better and better as I’ve gone along. Then, my son is visiting from New York, and that is a joyful topic. But a goal I have for myself in writing these letters is to make sure they’re not too Facebook-y, so I won’t. Then, too, I have an update on the Still Life gallery exhibit at our local arts organization, an affirmation of my writing on Totality in which I struggled with the assignment. I struggled, that is, until I realized AGAIN that it’s always best to draw from within oneself for art, writing, and everything, really.

Then there’s piano teaching, which has become more and more lovely and fulfilling, with students of all ages. And then there’s pickleball, another joyful part of my life. The world is my oyster, of late.

The other day I was walking with Miles on the trail that so many of us love here in beautiful Columbia MO. We dawdled, as we do. Well, Miles is mostly searching around everywhere for a snack of some sort. Dandelion puffs, fallen dog treats, dried up worms, sticks, bits of bark. While the world is my oyster, it is Miles’ smorgasbord.

I was admiring the beautiful polka-dotted bluffs and as I looked up I saw a lovely little columbine growing out of the rock. So pretty! That made me smile, and of course I paused to take photos. Such a pretty little thing springing up out of a bunch of rock. I felt a wellspring of happiness.

Here’s a closer view.

Anyway, we’re dawdling along, ambling, you could say, with the wellspring and the smorgasbord and all–and a voice says, “On your left.” I turn. It’s an older man (my age, I presume), on foot, with a walking stick. Well, I smiled at the warning. I mean, he wasn’t on a bike, or even running. There was no danger. What could happen? I suppose he could have fallen on me or I on him, since we’re old, but we were both quite ambulatory. It just struck me as not only polite but funny. So I say, “How are you?” (I failed to offer a poem, though I had some on me, darn it.) He says, without slowing his pace at all and rather jauntily, the words fairly shooting out of his heart, “Top of the world! How are you?” So I say, “Same!” And we carry on, me with the wellspring, Miles with the smorgasbord, and the elderly gentleman with his walking stick.

What a moment! Two old strangers, senior citizens, you might say, meeting and greeting with that assessment of our lives–Top of the World! I thought, we are two lucky people, aren’t we?

So there you have it. All sorts of grace. Beautiful day, lovely walk, son about to visit, poetry, pickleball, piano, painting, and people. All of the important things in a little jaunty parade, marching through my life. It doesn’t get better.

Yes by William Stafford

It could happen any time, tornado,

earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.

Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake

and look out – no guarantees

in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,

like right now, like noon,

like evening.

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”