Everything You've Been Waiting For

Everything You've Been Waiting For:
May you find it all in your Easter Basket!

I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace a
nd I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

~by Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti
(March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021)
[additional poems]

a rebirth of wonder . . .
and a total dream of innocence . . .

Thanks to my friend Jan Donley
for awakening me to Ferlinghetti's poem,
through her own poetry and art!

Also:
the perfect music video for a week of Waiting . . .

Maganjo

Maganjo -- meaning the “original land”
-- like this coffee from Velton's: Kenya Maganjo AA

Thanks to my friend Mumbi for sharing with me this charming image that she purchased locally in Wichita, Kansas. We can only assume that it is a picture of Ireland, though the print itself came without title or photo credit.

As Mumbi explains: "Maganjo means an old home, in Kikuyu, within which family members of a past generation would have lived. That's the meaning I get from the picture. It actually reminds me of a small farm that was owned by my grandparents when I was a child, but my family later moved away."

Since I have been recently immersed in Kenyan poetry, I wanted to include some poems from my reading that capture the nostalgic sense of home and homesickness evoked by Mumbi's wall art and her definition of maganjo:

She rocks!

Without her the stars are falling,
Without her the flowers are glooming
Without her the rocks just stare --

I stand before you today,
With a message to relay
About this special woman,
Who compares to no man.

It's about my mama
Sure more would say papa,
More he would contribute,
In this noble tribute.

In my life she is the rock,
The reason I say she rocks
Without her you see,
I wouldn't even be!

In her womb she bore me
Nine months -- never getting weary
She has seen me through the gloom and the bloom
Raising me up -- when I fall she raises me up!

So don't be amazed, neither dismayed,
When I say she is
Indeed my light, even when it's night
Reason I say she rocks!
That's my mama.

The drumbeats are so near,
The mist I must clear
And I fear --
I hate causing a tear,
But it's a step I must take dear
Please do bear?

~ by Margaret Muthee


The Expatriate

Unfriendly faces
Unfamiliar scents
Undefined territory
This is, foreign land

Mistreatment undeserved
Discrimination unjust
Acvusations unreal
It will always be foreign land

A land not her own
A people she knows not
Home is not safe but --
Foreign land is no place to stay

Choices made, desperate actions
To escape war, to this dreaded land
It must be hard to leave your own
It must be hard, this is -- foreign land.

~ by Grace Kamau

Both poems can be found here:

from the AMKA Literature Forum
and Space for Women's Creativity

AMKA (meaning "wake up" in Kiswahili)
is an NGO, based and registered in Kenya,
concerned with pushing and encouraging creativity,
and facilitating and nurturing women writers.

******************

More poems & more about this project:
To Create a Space for Women's Creativity
@Kitti's Book List

There is a Season Turn, Turn, Turn

Thanks to my friend Beata for allowing
me to share her stained glass Four Seasons,
created by artist, friend, and neighbor
~ Betty Delgass ~

Spring is Here!

Summer!

Autumn!

Winter!

The Emerald Eye!

You can view more art by Betty Delgass
at the West Lafayette Public Library
West Lafayette, Indiana

And that song we love . . .
There is a Season Turn, Turn, Turn

St. Patrick's Day ~ Childhood Crafts

Everything you need for a Happy St. Pat's:

Graham crackers with frosting and sprinkles . . .

A letter from Di to Grandpa and Earl . . .

A homemade card to Mommy & Daddy . . .

A poorly drawn leprechaun . . .

And an Irish jig!

☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘

Mother’s Day Card ~ Same Era

The Ides Have It

Painting by Leonard Orr
~ acrylic on canvas ~
Thanks to Len for permission to pick my own
"excellent titles; you cannot be wrong."
I'm calling this one "The Ides of March"

Nor is this the first time
that Len has allowed me to share his work
on this auspicious date:"The Ides of Whatever"

Beware the Ides of March

German Woodcut Illustration
by Johannes Zainer, Ulm ca. 1474

Depicting from left to right:
1. Porcia Catonis counseling Marcus Junius Brutus
2. Julius Caesars's Death
at the hands of Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus
3. Porcia's Suicide

In honor of the day:

A little history,
a few previous ~ posts,
and a song:
"Vehicle" by The Ides Of March
[Thanks to my brother Aaron for this golden oldie!]

Click for more . . .
Paintings & Poetry
by Leonard Orr

End of Summer Sounds
Golden Paintings by Leonard Orr
Excellent Images
Happy Birthday Dylan Thomas
The same war continues . . .
The Magpie Waiting for his Beautiful Partner
Bursting Into Light
Sun ~ Flower ~ Moon
Days of Optimism
What To Do?
Star - Spangled
That Lost Time & Place
Sad Advent
All the Frosty Ages
Samhain Triumvirate
Vocabcident
Truth & Falsehood Have No Fear
Limelight
Ellie Reading and Rearranging
The Ides Have It

Capturing the Ginkgo Light
Like An Ant
I Will Show You Modernism In A Handful of Dust

The Ides of Whatever
Advancing and Receding
The Essential Sincerity of Falsehood
All Felled

Lovely As a Tree
Evening ~ Timing ~ Floating: Poetry by Leonard Orr
End of Year Book Migration
New Blue Library

Circle in the Sand

Scratch Circle
Photographed by Rygel, M.C. ~ Delaware
More examples by David Marvin ~ Michigan

A Lecture On The Circle

You draw a circle in the sand
and then halve the circle
with the same hazelnut stick.
Next you fall to your knees,
then to all fours.
Then you hit the sand with your forehead
and apologize to the circle.
That's all.

by Nichita Stanescu (1933 - 83)
[Read more poems]

Since Yesterday

Mementos from my friend Marilyn
~ 7 March 1957 - 27 November 1993 ~

On Marilyn's Birthday
Some of her cards to me from 1976

One of our favorite songs . . .

P.S.
At Christmastime

Books, Movies, Wizards

Leap Day Wizard Dreams

&

Classic Cinema, 1924 - 1945

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Illustration from
I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf
By Grant Snider

Lanterns & The Missing Mother

&

How Many Should I Pack?

@Kitti's Book List

Film Classics

New York Movie (1939)
Edward Hopper (1882 - 1967)

If you like old movies, here are a couple of
Fortnightly Posts
for you to check out:

Classic Cinema, 1924 - 1945

&

Classic Cinema, 1946 - 1976

Present ~ Past ~ Future

Equinox & Eclipse

The Flammarion Engraving, 1888
From L'atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire
By Camille Flammarion (1842 - 1925)

Used by Donovan & Duo Dickinson

What is the Present?
Not to annoy the Future.
Not to crave the Past.

I am intrigued by the slippery sense of time in the following pair of near - sonnets by contemporary American poet Maggie Smith (b 1977). Taken together, the Past and the Future seem to advance and recede -- but no mention of the Present, so I wrote the above haiku to fill the gap.

Past
What is the past?

We needed a word for everything before.
See how my saying this is already there, and there
for good -- no fishing it out of that deep water,
the deepest there is. The past is a tide that drags out
but won't return to shore: even your question
has been carried off. Look, you can see it floating.
Anything heavier settles unseen like wreckage
for a silver ribbon of fish to slip through.
The past is not all distant. We can stand at its edge,
watching the waves do the backbreaking work
of pulling, pulling away. From the shore, the past
seems to go on forever, because it does. We say
it was a different time, but all times are different.
This one, for instance. And again, this one. (p 29)


Future
What is the future?

Everything that hasn’t happened yet, the future
is tomorrow and next year and when you’re old
but also in a minute or two, when I’m through
answering. The future is nothing I imagined
as a child: no jet packs, no conveyor-belt sidewalks,
no bell-jarred cities at the bottom of the sea.
The trick of the future is that it’s empty,
a cup before you pour the water. The future
is a waiting cup, and for all it knows, you’ll fill it
with milk instead. You’re thirsty. Every minute
carries you forward, conveys you, into a space
you fill. I mean the future will be full of you.
It’s one step beyond the step you’re taking now.
What you’ll say next until you say it. (p 80)


And this brief passage,
in keeping with the mystic properties of time:

Poem with a Line from "Bluets"

. . . For what should I save
my longing? Forget the afterlife, the aftertown:
there is no knowing what happens beyond this
sad animal, this sack of hair. Forget the golden future
beyond future. I want to see all of it here, all of it
through these eyes . . . " (p 87)

All three poems by Maggie Smith
found in her collection Good Bones [title poem]

Further connections
to Ann Patchett's novel, Tom Lake:

20: "You remember it that way because it makes a better story . . . That doesn't mean it's true."

"What's the story?"

"The past."

57: "He doesn't understand that it's the weight of the past that's pinned us there . . . ."

102: "At least we have the past."

116: "There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well . . . ."

300: "You think the thing that hurt you is going to hurt you forever but it doesn't."

My Harbinger Snowdrops

March First & March Second

"Camelot . . . The winter is forbidden till December
And exits MARCH THE SECOND on the dot."

Look Before You Leap Day

An Extra Day . . .
An Extra Evening Walk Around the Block

February 29

An extra day—

Like the painting’s fifth cow,
who looks out directly,
straight toward you,
from inside her black and white spots.

An extra day—
Accidental, surely:
the made calendar stumbling over the real
as a drunk trips over a threshold
too low to see.

An extra day—
With a second cup of black coffee.
A friendly but businesslike phone call.
A mailed-back package.
Some extra work, but not too much—
just one day’s worth, exactly.

An extra day—

Not unlike the space
between a door and its frame
when one room is lit and another is not,
and one changes into the other
as a woman exchanges a scarf.

An extra day—

Extraordinarily like any other.
And still
there is some generosity to it,
like a letter re-readable after its writer has died. (2012)

Jane Hirshfield (born 1953)
American poet and translator
Also perfect for the Autumnal Equinox

Ten Lords a Leap - Yearing

Previous Leap Day Posts

Quotidian:
2020 ~ 2016 ~ 2012

Fortnightly:
2012 ~ 2016 ~ 2020

The Same Moon

What's the odds?

Last week, my cousin - in - law Gregg was taking the above photo of the waxing Snow Moon in Kansas at the same time that I was taking the photo below in Virginia. We realized it an hour or so later when we saw each other's posts! That's what makes Facebook so fun!

Subsequent nights . . .

Kansas

Virginia

Kansas
[Photo credit: Cousin Audrey]

Virginia

Kansas
I love the way that Audrey has
captured the face of the moon!

Virginia

Last month . . .
Full Moon Over Downtown Charlottesville

Venus Stopped Me in My Tracks

Venere Esquilina
1st-century AD Roman copy
of a 1st century BC Greek original
Anonymous Sculptor
Rediscovered in 1870

Note from the poet: "unlike Michelangelo's David (the one thing i wanted to PLEASE PLEASE MUST SEE on my Italy trip last week - and ohhhh, phenomenal), i had never heard of this statue before seeing her in person in Musei Capitoline. she glows. she simply stopped me in my tracks to dance along my soul."

esquiline venus.

fall into
the earth scented cushion
of my lap

i will stay here
still and soft,
brown and marble moss

i am rooted to ground
buried with rock and quill

here

i will receive
your joy insecurity pain,
here i will receive your
regret, your
hope

i will hear your question
yearn
and stay virtual silent
till the answer sings
to your own inner ear

the confessional
behind my knees
will absolve and cleanse your
pleas(e)

when you stand back up
you will be
natured
nutured whole
again

you will be

sculpted

returned to yourself
through a goddess
vessel
affirming chi

beware the rattle bones
the pulling
ornaments of favor
without heart

beware the candy
of distant sweet

ignore the broken limbs.
i mourn the iris of your eye
the heat of your chest
your belly fire

i mourn the days
we walked the loch
and did not taste or see...

get up

get up now

get up and breathe
and want me

polish and
pedestal me up

get up, my human,
break fast
and be.

###
~Tammy Sandel
Autumn 2015

Now here's the thing:
Tammy's timing of sending me the Venus was perfect!
When she texted me the above photo and poem from Rome,
I was in Maryland, standing in front of this very statue,
whose arms seem to echo those missing from the Esquiline Venus ("...frequently restored in paintings but never in reality."):

That kind of morning...

See Previous Post:
"artifce." by Tammy Sandel

Pierced Ears

More Asymmetrical Favorites
[Following earlier mismatched
socks and earrings]

You don't have to have pierced ears to wear fun earrings,
but it does make it easier!
And French hooks are the easiest of all.
In the following poem, Tammy Sandel traces her girlhood journey into pierced ear status. Her narrative captures my own lobal coming of age experience precisely, with the exception that I was not 12 but 27 (always a slow starter) before taking the leap for pierced ears.

artiface.

Merle Norman 
was the good make-up
and you had to go in
to, go inside the shop to buy it
right next to Allee’s Jewelry
with the good diamonds,
the add-a-pearls,
the good china and wedding registry

i mix this up a little bit in my mind with the pink Mary Kay house parties and the glossy catalogs
from the Avon Lady at our front door,

but Merle Norman was definitely an actual store of makeup
and also the place to get your ears pierced
when your parent (mother) said okay,
when she drove you there and parked on the town square,
walked in with you to the tidy room with pretty chairs and mirrors like a beauty shop
for a rite of passage like a bat mitzvah for us Southern Baptist girls —
i had to be twelve years old
to get one stud in each lobe

(i mix this part up a little bit with the edgy as heck second piercing i got with a college roommate and the much later tattoo).

way back then i was always startled to see small gold studs in the fairy perfect ears of baby girls,
those lucky Catholic
Mexican sweethearts with amber skin
flashing golden ears and
innocently showing off,
nowhere near twelve years old!
their parents (mothers) having made the decision for them well in advance of puberty,
perhaps to spare any anxiety or remembered pain
(like circumcision logic for a newborn boy),
perhaps to preempt tween earring pleas,
or maybe because she wouldn’t need earring communion with all the other rites of her faith

i never really asked
(next time i’m going to ask)
now, today, i wonder who drives our girls (boys, beloved non-b’s) to
um, the mall? for their first piercing
does a parent give permission,
encouragement,
funds?
do they hold their hand and let them squeeze when a silver piercer pops like a staple gun
or when, as my grandmother did it, someone slides a needle through ice-numbed skin into a
waiting cork?

how do they decide where to go?
(Merle Norman’s gone but maybe “piercing parlors near me” works)
and what to pierce?
there are so many options now
there are so many decisions;

does it still hurt?
next time i’m going to ask

i love the freedom to decorate a body with flash and color and marks of meaning
secret and full
and i love as well
the clean slate of a body wearing only (only!) the marks of a life

every one of us so lucky to have ourselves a life
i’ve lucked on into the negotiated ages of ear piercing and driving, consent, voting, drinking, and well beyond,
my skin growing ever more decorated, fragile and fine,
age spotted stretched and thin,
but still strong, still supple enough to hold
all my wonder and delight
i know it’s personal,
but face it, we often put it right out there
for all the world to see,
dangling from our ears
glossing our lip
riding a nostril
wearing it on our sleeves

and personally i’m loathe to miss a chance to notice it all,
to convince you you’re beautiful,
and simply (profoundly) to connect

so…
tell me the story of that fierce scar
which lipstick shade
who styled your ring
designed that knot
your eyebrows slay
what language script is on your arm?

i can’t help seeing you
with your blaring jewelry body beauty art

and you don’t have to answer,
but next time i’m going to ask.  

###
~Tammy Sandel
Summer 2023

A few weeks after Tammy shared her fabulous poem with me, I came across this corroborative passage from Willa Cather, written in 1913, referring to 1880 or so:

“Marie [dressed up for a fortune telling party] wore a short red skirt of stoutly woven, cloth, a white bodice and kirtle, a yellow silk turban wound low over her brown curls, and long coral pendants in her ears.  

Her ears had been pierced against a piece of cork by her great-aunt when she was seven years old.  In those germless days she had worn bits of broomstraw, plucked from the common sweeping-broom, in the lobes until the holes were healed and ready for little gold rings."
~from O Pioneers! (125-26)

In 1984, my sweet sister - in - law took me to
this jewelry store in Germany to have my ears pierced.

I still have the tiny box that the piercing studs came in.
[shown here with a few more mindful mis-matches]

Additional Earrings
Above designs by Lizone
"A Jewel for Mom"
Ocean City Art
"More Mummy Earring"
Diamond Studs Are Forever

See Next Post:
"esquiline venus." by Tammy Sandel