Stubborn Sheri Reda

Stubborn by Sheri Reda
~ writer, performer, story celebrant ~
Beautiful cover by Chicago artist Nancy VanKanegan!
Produced by locofo chaps / moriapoetry

If you're feeling gloomy about the current political climate; if all the political commentary is giving you a heavy heart, clogging your brain space, and weighing down your spirit, try reading this inspiring collection from my friend Sheri Reda. Her voice will lift you up, and you will feel better. Indeed the poems are disruptive, yet they offer a sense of balance, confirming bleakly that it's "not so bad," that "It’ll never be better than this," even though it's entirely possible that "there will be no nightingales."

To deal with the bleakness of this rancid landscape, Reda offers a "pre–apocalyptic shopping" list to feed our "hungry century,"* leaving the reader with a stubborn, contaminated hope for the future:

"The outward sign of something much, much worse...
Cut—burn—away the fact of him. You will
nurse the wound, protect the scab, oil the scar, and never
again be smooth and clean. Never once free of the fact of him
while you wait, phone in hand, ringer on high,
for the call that says what’s next."

*Other poems quoted above:
"Not so Bad in Lincoln Square"
"this"
"11pm we"
"Fat and Somewhat Happy with Vilsak and Perdue"
"Go Ahead"

Equinox Poster by Spiritualitea

Why the World Wags

Metal Windmill ~ Round Rock, Texas ~ 13 January 2016

Thoughts for the Vernal Equinox

1. Thanks Patricia Henley:

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what it wags. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting." [emphasis added]

by T. H. White, 1906 - 64
in The Once and Future King, Chapter 21 (p 183)

Windy City ~ Chicago ~ 9 March 2016
2. Thanks Sheri Reda:

A Color of the Sky

Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.

Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,

which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.

Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,

dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.

by Tony Hoagland, b. 1953
from What Narcissism Means to Me: Selected Poems
[see also]

"What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky."

Vernal

I never did figure out what was making this
unusual shadow on my kitchen wall the other day.
Was it a manifestation of Happiness?
Or did it have something to do with the Vernal Equinox?
A wispy harbinger of Spring?
Half darkness, half light . . .

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

A couple of poems for the First Day of Spring:
The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

~ Mary Oliver

Here's another one that seems to go perfectly
with Mary Oliver's Box of Darkness:
Happiness

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon.
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.

It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

~ Jane Kenyon (1947 - 1995)
found in Otherwise: New and Selected Poems
[see also "A Brief for the Defense" by Jack Gilbert]

Miniature Daffodils in Ben's Backyard
Durham, North Carolina

They appear normal sized until you see them side by side
with their larger garden - mates