Check in
How are you feeling today? Free and happy, or anxious and torn?
Or somewhere in between?
Happiness is easy. All you have to do is set your mind to it.
Happiness is hard. If only we could just wish it.
But we know that we can’t.
For lifting the blues, gratitude helps. Forgiveness helps. But sometimes, the clouds won’t easily dissipate.
I’ve had some days like that recently. My back hurts. My legs jerk when I’m trying to sleep. I can’t get comfortable, mentally or physically.
What to do? Comfort food is out. I don’t eat carbs. A poem might help, but not just yet. This posting is overloaded with poetry already.
Meditation helps, when I can get around to it.
Fresh air
Going outside really helps. Even in the rain. Fresh March air, nothing like it.
If you are in a funk, I don’t have a prescription for you. All I can do for myself is float on the stream of time. Wait for the waves to break. Wait for my heart to crack open, then stitch it back up.
And that image, of stitching, is part of the poetry, too, further down.
Suddenly, everything is blooming.
Ancient plant
In our house, Robert’s amaryllis is in exuberant bloom. This plant is at least 50 years old; it belonged to his grandfather.
It’s lived in the same brass pot that entire time. Robert has never divided it, never fertilized it. Never even added extra soil. All he does is give it some water.
It’s in a north-facing room, and it only blooms sporadically. We’ve never seen it with these many flowers. Maybe it is welcoming me home.
Outside, spring bulbs are raising their heads: crocus, daffodils, jonquils. Hellebores droop shyly, their faces to the earth, and trees are budding out.
There’s a poem for that, too.
Upwelling
Here’s a bud, there’s a bud, Spring blinks alive. Warmer earth, brighter sun Bulbs break and thrive. Wake up late, sun is up Sky has lost its hue. Close the curtains, close the blinds The sun’s too bright to view. Have some coffee, maybe tea Wake up! Time to shine. Make a smoothie, use some kale. Put the words in line. It’s not easy, it’s not hard. The work is what I make. Words dance forth, pirouette, Solely for my sake. Line ’em up, shoot ’em down Hoist that metaphor! Every word a step toward What I’m living for.
Sonnets
Here’s where the heavy-duty poetry comes in.
My husband has been having a tough time lately, worried about the burgeoning cost and lengthening timetable of our home remodeling.
I thought, to cheer him up, that I would write him a sonnet or two. This turned out to be quite the project. Writing a sonnet is a challenge.
What is a sonnet?
All sonnets share some structure. They are 14 lines long, and stanzas rhyme.
The rhyme pattern differs, depending on what type of sonnet you are writing. I found three main ones:
A Spenserian sonnet comprises three interlocked quatrains and a final couplet, with the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
Shakespearean sonnets have three verses and a couplet with this rhyme pattern: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
An Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet is divided 4-4-6: ABBA ABBA CDCDCD. Petrarch was a 14th century Italian humanist and poet.
Rhyme
It is arguably easier to compose a sonnet in Italian, because of the structure of that language. More words rhyme.
English, by comparison, is full of scruffy words from various sources, and a lot of them have no rhyme at all. Nor do many of them fall into easy rhythm.
As I started thinking about writing sonnets, I knew that rhyme would be a challenge. I began imagining lists of words that rhyme:
Minister, sinister
Drama, trauma
Drizzle, sizzle, fizzle
But so often, you need four words:
Ritz, spritz, grits, mitts . . .
The search becomes a dance. Hey, dance:
Dance, prance, trance, enhance, askance.
Or song: strong, throng thong, sarong.
Time to stop listing words and start stringing images together.
Sonnet I
The first sonnet I wrote for Robert is in the Shakespearean form, three quatrains and a couplet.
Closeness
Put me in your pocket. Slip me in Amid the receipts, pennies and the lint. So hidden, heart-stopped, when do I begin? While you groom your feathers, take a hint Of mouthwash before coffee, comb your hair All present? Now’s the time to reach for me. Your girl, your love, who ever finds you fair, And weaves the cobwebs that will keep you free. I beat my heels and greet you with a start Of welcome, open face and warm regard. See now, I’ve stitched the gashes in your heart Forgive me, fair one, stanching blood is hard. I’ve wrapped your heart in cobwebs, that’s my art, And melded to my soul your captive heart.
Sonnet II
I tried the Italian rhyme scheme, also used by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her Sonnets from the Portuguese. This was also a gift for Robert. I noticed right before deadline that I got the rhyme scheme wrong: I used ABBA CDDC rather than ABBA ABBA. But it’s too late to change that now.
Tears of joy, tears of release
You sob into my hair. A single tear Breaks through and wets my temple, salty mass. You hasten to assure me this shall pass, That spasm of today is not from fear. We’ve traveled far together, you and I, Through many a wondrous landscape, old or new. We’ll travel farther, too, before we’re through— In spirit, not in presence, will we fly. Our time together, we can’t always number— Don’t let us count the days, there sadness lies. Though many memories we can encumber, We’ll not bemoan the dimming of our eyes. For we on lotus-flowers do sometimes slumber, While yet we set our yearning to the prize.
Sonnet III
This one is a Spenserian sonnet, named for Edmund Spenser, the late 16th century Englishman who wrote The Faerie Queene. How did I come to write it? The first line, in iambic pentameter, just spoke from Spirit to me. Then I wrote the rest.
In clinic
Let’s read the test results from yesterday, They won’t confirm the diagnosis yet. The MRIs are still in disarray. And CAT scans are the last thing we can get. The radiologist we gave our debt, Seeking to find a pattern in it all. We’ll leave our poor oncologist to fret Until the image readers make the call. The weight of waiting for the axe to fall Brings sleepless nights; we struggle just to eat. We wish at least that doctors had the gall To tell us finally—do we face defeat? We wait to know the outcome of our fate . . . And wonder whether treatment comes too late.
Some thing I saw on the bus
I met a man from Bagdad on the bus. He was in a Permobil power chair like mine and was holding a brochure/book called “Passport to Language.” For some reason, I read the title as “Passport to Nicaragua.” I noticed the mixup before asking whether he had traveled in Central America. Instead, I asked him about the book.
This bright young man said he was hoping to have a career as an interpreter in hospitals. The book was part of a course. Arabic would be one language.
He was quite ready to answer questions but didn’t ask any. He reported that he had muscular dystrophy and that he was from Baghdad. His family—he has three brothers—came to the US by way of Turkey.
He got off the bus at lower Hillsdale, and I never saw him again.
Colorful character
A guy with a nose ring, purple coat, mustard watch cap, green bag, blue vacuum cleaner. Woody Allen glasses.
Another day
A woman gets on, of a certain age and weight, wearing a herringbone tweed coat decorated with a number of brooches. She has a blue walker with a box that says “Merry Christmas from St. Vincent de Paul” and carries bags of treasures. She wears her hair in a neat ponytail above stylish blue-rimmed glasses. She’s busy scanning a newspaper coupon insert when the driver lowers the wheelchair ramp. “Oh, my walker must’ve bumped the button on accident,” she says. “Sorry about that.”
Outside, next to a gas station, a sign says “Tito’s Taquitos.” I’m suddenly hungry.
Chinese omelet
Egg foo young was on the menu at Rose Schnitzer Manor recently. I got to wondering about the spelling: I thought it was “egg foo yung.” Wikipedia sets me straight: the dish can be spelled egg fooyung, egg foo yong, or egg fu yung. Maybe egg foo young.
At any rate, the dish is an omelet made with mung bean sprouts and covered with gravy that is thickened with cornstarch. The gravy could contain oyster sauce, toasted sesame oil or tamari (wheat-free soy sauce).
Sprout safety
Back in the 1990s, there was a spate of food poisoning caused by raw sprouts. The problem was the seeds, which can be contaminated by soil, dirty irrigation water or other unsafe practices. Alfalfa sprouts grown from contaminated seed originating from a shipper in the Netherlands caused an international outbreak in the US and Finland in 1995.
After that, seeds were treated more mindfully. There haven’t been any big outbreaks, but it could happen. The FDA still advises people at risk for food-borne illness to avoid eating raw sprouts.
On the kitchen counter
I grow sprouts on my kitchen counter in mason jars fitted with screened lids that let me wash the seeds a few times a day to keep them moist. It takes a few days to go from seeds to micro greens. I’ve never kept track of how long, exactly. As I finish one batch, I start on another, so there are always fresh sprouts in the fridge.
I buy my seeds from trueleafmarket.com and have not had any problems with food safety.
My favorite is radish sprouts, specifically from daikon radish. They are substantial and zesty, and they pair well with, of all things, strawberries. Here are some with ume vinegar and avocado. I also like seed mixes, like alfalfa, radish and broccoli.
Recipe
If you know how to make an omelet, you can make egg foo young. Just mix the eggs with the filling ingredients and fry in hot oil, not too much. Heat the gravy separately and spoon on top.
NYT Cooking notes that egg foo young is “A terrific way to use up leftovers. . . Typical fillings include shrimp, ground pork or diced cooked ham and veggies such as mung bean sprouts, onions, carrots or scallions.”
I saw a movie on Paramount+ called Morning Glory in which Harrison Ford, in the character of a crusty old journalist who is reduced to working on a morning show, makes a frittata. It’s a way, he explains, of using up leftovers.
Omelet or omelette?
Most grammar guides prefer the spelling “omelet,” including the Associated Press Stylebook, to which I more or less adhere. But if you prefer “omelette,” well, you need to break eggs either way.
Check out
Oblique
As in this photo, I like diagonal, slanted, oblique lines in my photo images.
This is a quotation from Shock Wave, by John Sandford. His character, a detective with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension named Virgil Flowers, is speaking in internal dialogue about finding the crack in a case.
“If he got anything, it’d come at an angle—he’d get it as a result of looking at something else.”
That’s it. That’s the oblique notion that smashes sideways into a straightforward idea, forcing a new image in words or photography.
One of 100 poems
I’m still trying to write a poem a day for the #100DayProject. I’m not posting on Instagram, just running some of them here in Becoming.
Gifts
My cup runs over Is it wine or bile? What you bring me, Singes me. Makes me wonder, Makes me smile. Gifts surround me, Leaves and pennies Small, amazing bric-a-brac. Little toys made out of seashells Frogs and bones and seaweed wrack. Don’t be clever, Just accept them With no question, As they are. Gifts of season, Gifts of reason, Take them, take them Yours they are.
Just one more
And finally, a tiny little verse, written after I missed writing my poem one day.
Quick take
Written in haste, A day after deadline. The mechanical rabbit The greyhound can’t catch.
So, now
I hope you feel better, if you needed to feel better. Thanks for letting me share all that poetry and some interesting images.
Till next week.
—30—
In Clinic holds an ominous ring. I hope it's now autobiographical. If it is, I hope the prognosis is good. Good work o the sonnets, too.
Tito’s Taquitos is worth a stop! Very good food. Thanks for all the poetry.