Category Archives: Memory

A Prelude (for my Mother)

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A single bell has rung the hour.
Our moment to remember dear affection is now here.
The overtone from ringing still quite clear.

The ringing overtones are lucid and bright.
Our memories like the matin chimes that wake.
A single bell has rung, the hour appears.

The bell now rung to mark remembrance of the hour.
The organist starts her pedal tones and song
over tones of ringing, crystal clear.

The sounds of bells and melodies o’er tones so clear;
A prelude of majestic time begins
after the bell has rung, the wrinkle of the hour.

The bell-tone sounds the hour as it’s rung.
Songs of memories flush and flare the cathedral walls
with tones of ringing bells so loud and clear.

A single bell has rung the hour in song,
the overtone from ringing, clear and strong.

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This is a poem I wrote for my Mom who passed away earlier this month. She was an excellent pianist/organist. I read this villanelle at the beginning of her memorial service, so the prelude nature of the bells and the repeating sounds would stand as a testament to her talent and life. Thanks for reading.

Bridges

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A craftwork of metal and wire arisen out of a mist.

Something fashioned by a fantasist

appealing to our journey, future-made

above the clouds with hope arrayed.

A box across the creek bed, made of wood.

The romantic moonlight lit and understood

its dirt road point of interception.

It hosts a memory of affection.

The stone one with its aqueduct eyes,

peering just above the waterline.

A docile stream that’s hardly flowing,

yet moves a slight, its life sea-going.

The poet’s words are diffident,

but stand in verse, the infinite

transitions to a place of rest

spanning over rocks and clefts.

Horizons stand, all that remains

beyond the beckoning segue plains.

Curating

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When I was boy, I’d spend time under a towering southern pine. Whose needles cast a glare in the summer-lit sky and its points directed everywhere.

Now older, I travel here and there, and see the trees that stand aware and pause to take it in. The light that shimmers with the shade and curating the different shapes of leaves all made.

The oval spoon of plum and quince, or the linden with its sharpened tip. Formed to gather in the sun and rain, collected dew that slowly drips and drains.

The starfish shape of the sweetgum leaf, inspired to creativity. As poems with their structured phrase and red-emblazoned points in space.

The divided prongs from the pin oak leaf that grasps the memory of a summer breeze. The stacked order of the hickory, harkening to an autumn sea of yellow leaves.

Each one novel in its time and pressed in a book will hold its shine from birth to death. They grow, then die in cyclic breadth.

And through the time when leaves are felled, the needles of pine remain and tell with glistening light or captured snow – infinite points of where to go.

Poteau (For Patricia)

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In the mornings we always welcomed the day looking at your Poteau Mountain.

And far away the mists crawling over its topmost trees towards the base –

the sun rays up through the field, a race.

A visual prompt of creation’s way, and you would say – it’s going to be is a pretty day.

Our conversation would turn a phrase while we drank our coffee

and up the hill, the blue-green tinted tree line spilled into oak and rock about halfway down.

In summer, with the evergreen on display – it always was a pretty day.

In autumn when the leaves turned red, we made a trek – the road ahead was rocky, steep,

We climbed the hills and look out on the valley’s thrills below. A cloud passed through the brush and stayed.  It blocked our view but didn’t ruin that pretty day.

A frost would settle winter mornings on the upper trees under a cloudless awning clear and blue. And as we sat behind a framed glass view, the window shared your mountain too.

With winter’s frigid accolades, you never ceased to smile and say – it sure is a pretty day.

Springtime storms would hang and cling, the thunder from your mountain sings a song of praise and grace.  The distant rumbling warned of storms, but you were never made forlorn or worn or gray.  Even this was such a pretty day.

Those mornings when you weighed your heart, did you ask God for each fresh start?

The mountain only in your view – a post -but sky and land beyond that too.

And all this scene of wondrous awe, the trees, the sky, the rocks and all

in your witness, don’t dismay –He said –

for here Patricia is your pretty day.  

Fireflies

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The occasional blink or glow that dots our eyes

and echoes light in ink-filled summer skies.

Random, flighty bugs go back and forth,

never staying long upon the earth.

Poetry resides in likened states

upon the page, lying there in wait.

Until the dusk of summer’s memory comes

flitting in our minds and waiting on our tongues.

Then off the paper, wisping as it’s read,

circling ’round our voices, resting in our head.

The instant blink or glow that passes in our eyes

then echoes light amid the ink-filled skies.

Life on the game show channel

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I sit and breathe in your long silences,

the room filled with TV conversation

about the puzzle just done or the prizes they won.

Lounging in quiet while you sleep,

then you stir to acknowledge the commercial break

about stuffed-crust pizza, ready to bake.

These moments are interludes,

built as a ladders to an afterlife. While we brood

all our days picking out letters for words forsooth

or the answers from among the multiple choices we choose,

we have one eye on the stuffed crust pizza, ready to bake.

The beginning of the game is rapid fire, and everyone gets an answer right

and we are introduced to each contestant’s life, the bright light

of their enthusiasm spurring us to play along

wishing we knew all the correct responses from wrong

or knew the best path we could take.

The episode of this game soon passed

the winnings of our participation never would last.

While from question to question we walk in our mind

’til our slumbering surpasses our tangible time

we are barely awake, our dreams filled with ladders

and craving for pizza already baked.

Poinsettias (a pantoum)

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A vase of red poinsettias,
with blooms all tinged with gold,
sits atop a mirrored cabinet
that reflects her pictures from years ago.

With blooms all tinged with gold,
a glittering of yesterday
reflecting pictures from years ago,
An illuminate display.

A glittering of yesterday
fills a world my mother dreams.
An illuminate display,
her youth, sparkling in scenes.

The world she fills with dreams
reflect the mirrored cabinet:
her youth, sparkling in scenes,
with a vase of red poinsettias.

Scratching Frost

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Ahead of my steps in linear course, 
the shovel scritches back and forth
- a sound that scatters with the snow 
and bits of debris ground below.

As I amble across the drive
the scratching noise itself derives.
A haul gets tossed to the edge,
bits fall wayside, marking a ledge.

This song in concert with my walk
could not be heard with snowplow squawk-
rumbling in the cold grey air
tossing snow, making bare

the concrete surface on which I stand.
The scraping by a shovel in hand,
the detail frost and snow aligned,
showing what I've left behind.

And as the chore has come to close
I look back at the path I chose.
Leaning on the shovel there,
snow still falling everywhere.

The best way out is always through – Robert Frost

There’s always one more

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In the still life of a stand of flowers, beauty only lasts as petals are reaching their horizon. In a second, they fall and fade from memory.

I pick just one in that moment.  On another day it will grow elsewhere, the memory of the first a propagation of seed and light.

In the waning moments of a day, there is a gasp of light before the darkness draws down the shade.

There are many more specks after it fades. A memory in one more snapshot.

Getting to know the sky requires the memory of space, the distance between and among the stars.  Finding one and remembering where it is.

But if you misplace it, no matter,  there’s always one more.  

What Sweeter Music

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Traditions start as single activities.

A one time event makes an impression so that it is planned for again in order to recapture the excitement and joy of the first one. Nothing celebrates holidays like traditions.

I had the fortune of growing up in a musical family. Both my father and mother were music teachers and my two siblings and I had lives that were intrenched in music lessons, church choirs, band, piano, choir concerts, etc. No time of year was more filled with music than Christmastime.

At early ages, my sister and I would wear out the phonograph playing my father’s vinyl albums of the Robert Shaw Chorale “Hymns and Carols Vol. 1” and the Harry Simeone Chorale “The Little Drummer Boy.” I don’t remember the first time I heard them, I just remember listening to them every year. This grew into my own tradition of seeking out and purchasing a unique Christmas album each year. My collection on CD is extensive. 🙂

When we were slightly older, perhaps tweens or so, my parents taught us a Christmas carol to sing for our relatives after we made the long car trip to Grandmother’s house – in 4 part harmony. It kept us engaged and perhaps kept us from fighting over spots in the back seat. Our first carol was an arrangement of Deck the Halls, followed in subsequent years by several Alfred Burt Carols. It became a tradition throughout our teens, with my oldest brother contributing the final carol we would rehearse and perform as a family unit (written in a fit of inspiration during his first year of teaching and sent to my parents as a Christmas card – much like the Burt carols).

A most memorable tradition began soon after we had moved to Arkansas in the early 1970’s. My father had become the choral music director at (then) Arkansas Polytechnic College, a place that at the time was known for its band program but never had much of a choir. I suspect that he decided that he wanted to give a grand Christmas program one year. Preparations would always begin the Friday/Saturday before the concert with the search for the appropriate Christmas tree to cut and bring into the main lobby, the crafting of decorations, and last minute rehearsals. The program grew each following year and would begin with small ensembles singing in a pre-concert venue around a Christmas tree.

Antiphonal brass and choirs would perform from the open balconies of the music department lobby. Processional pieces that involved brass and organ announced the start of the program. Unique stage decorations such as large evergreen wreaths of cedar and pine or a mock stained-glass window would adorn the center of the stage.

There were exciting new choir pieces and familiar favorites and the community came out in droves year after year.

My father passed away a few months ago, and these memories have been a comfort these past few weeks. I am fortunate to have a soundtrack for my memories of him, and much of it is Christmas music. Here is a top five (ok, six) list of Christmas musical moments influenced by my Dad.

1. O Come all ye Faithful (Robert Shaw Chorale)
2. Come Dear Children – Alfred Burt
3. Ríu Ríu, Chíu – Anonymous
4. XIV: The March of the Three Kings, from Hodie by Ralph Vaughan Williams (really this entire work, Hodie, is worth a listen)
5. His Yoke is Easy, from Messiah by George Frideric Handel

And finally, a moment of sweetness that expresses my father’s love of music greater than any song, poem, or piece that I could have written.

What Sweeter Music – by John Rutter

I encourage each of you to embrace your traditions, not only during this season of the year, but all year. It might be baking or going to events. It might be meals together or a hike in the woods. It could be singing or storytelling. It could be volunteering to help others. Watch them grow each year. Make something your own tradition and share it with ones you love.

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Images within this post are my own.