Writing poems for strangers

Small verses are written in the moment

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Welcome back to me! I tried to take a vacation, but it really just felt like the rest of my life. I didn’t travel anywhere. I drank coffee, read books, did my daily writing exercise, made notes in my journal, took photos and made plans.

But here I am, all rested and refreshed. Sort of.

Today’s posting is heavy on poetry. Let me know if you find that overwhelming.

Summer dogs

These fine fellows are often found lounging on Southeast Main Street. Their humans declined to give me their names. Fran Gardner photo

Three words

• Lush

• Luxe

• Limit

Lush

Lush has more than one meaning. One is luxurious, overgrown, pendulous, having too much material to fit in a standard container. The other is a heavy drinker.

I’m not sure how the two meanings connect, but there is something fruity and a little bent about both meanings.

It is a word to tread lightly around. It may be too heavy for polite company.

What’s polite company, anyway?

Luxe

This word means luxurious, too. It, too, connotes a certain heaviness. The solid gold choker. Cashmere. Deluxe accommodations with chandeliers.

Part of me wants the comfort of luxe. The other half wants to run away. I like to think I embrace simple things.

Cashmere is for society girls. Besides, moths love it.

Okay, I love cashmere, too.

Limit

Now, here is a word that brings lush and luxe to heel. It denotes the edge, the boundary. In mathematics, it defines a point that a function approaches but will never actually attain.

“Limit” is not the same as “limitation.” No, that word is confining. Limit is a spare word, very specific. It governs us while leaving us free.

And because of that, it is a word we can embrace.

Poetry for strangers

It’s been a while since I had any luck writing poems for strangers. A few times I have sat in my wheelchair with a placard advertising

LET ME WRITE YOU A POEM. IT’S FREE!

but have gotten no takers.

Not, that is, until I journeyed to the Lents farmers market on a recent Saturday. There I was virtually mobbed by folks who wanted poems. Here are some of them.

Romantic

For Winnie and Zach, newly engaged

Isn’t it romantic? Floating down a river, Trailing your hand in the water. Lily pads, mosquitoes, A quiet summer symphony. How did you meet? Does it matter? You are together now Stars in your eyes. Edges to overcome. Places you don’t know yet. Paths not trampled. Leading who knows where. Will life always be this easy? This time for you, the best. Start your travels now . . . The river is running and waiting.

Fixing things

For Andrew, who has a wife and two kids. He just moved here from South Florida. He likes fixing things and playing guitar.

I’m needing repair,
My broken heart, my broken bike,
The fence that’s falling down.
The dog with the leg that’s mended.

An all-purpose handyman—
Someone with answers,
Who can talk to the stars
And make them stop spinning.

Spinning! Make me a top,
When it stops, that’s the place
I lay the bets on my heart,
And plan the next step on the road.

You help me, hold my hand,
Take me into the dance.
Pull me up from my pining,
And set me free to roam.

Cutie

For Franklin, whose dog is Cutie:

Miniature pinscher,
Like tiny calipers
Measuring your steps.

Trembling with you,
Ready for living
In a circle of arms.

Dogs dream, we wonder—
Soft places, bad cats.
Hold tight, quell the yearning.

Believe now, with Cutie,
In the rightness of life.
A soft toy, your arms . . .
All right.
All right.

Franklin’s service dog is a miniature pinscher named Cutie. Fran Gardner photo

Fatherhood

For Chris, the dad of a 16-month-old, Colton Jack:

A month after Father’s Day
And still you’re besotted
With all of a toddler’s
Joy at each day.

Fatherhood is always
So much more than expected—
More moments, more fears,
More exploration.

Someday in the future,
Who knows what will happen?
You’ll still be a father,
Nothing will change that.

Peculiar blessing,
Best of all outcomes.
Hold on to your son, Chris,
For all that is special.

Fir trees

Sarah asked for a poem about fir trees

Standing in prayer,
Worshiping clouds.
Resident birds
Are taunting the squirrels.

Acres of firs,
Miles of greenery,
Cut down for Christmas
Or felled by fire.

Taken for timber,
Still, still they prosper.
New growth each year—
See, those lighter needles.

Every year climbing
Straight, sturdy and tall.
Remembering, creating
The forest that comes.

Skiing

For Sheila, grandmother of Sarah of the fir trees

The moguls are hardest—
Half-buried surprises.
If only you could thaw
And even the bumps,
On your own terms.

Life is like skiing—
Often soft powder,
But sometimes a crust.
Break through, you’ll find
That swift-running river.

Soothe

For Irina, a musician

Cascading chords on a quiet guitar,
Writing poems to such gentleness,
Bright with longing, for so many things.

Calm river, stormy sea,
The roar of a waterfall.
Deer drinking, wolves running.

Texture and possibility,
An arc of your fingers,
Strings on a black fret.

As summer slips by.

Summer greenery

The roof of the apartments opposite my desk is peeking out from surrounding trees in a very Midwestern way. How I remember the overblown green of summer there. Summer’s leaves are more restrained here in Oregon.

The leaves in Oregon get dustier with the passing weeks of summer. In the Midwest, they get lusher. There is a bright greenness to the summer Midwestern landscape that you don’t see here.

Summer foliage in the Midwest is bright green all season, even the grass at road’s edge. Photo courtesy of Janice Hoffmann, who writes the Stories by Janus Substack

The difference, of course, is rain. It rains in the Midwest during the long days and soft evenings. Western Oregon gets very little rain in the summer.

People camp in Oregon without tents, often, because two things that are part of the Midwestern summer aren’t so much here. One is rain. And the other is bugs.

Oregon still has gnats and mosquitoes and yellow jackets. But the numbers are not like other parts of the country, where summer rain makes puddles and spawning grounds.

One thing I definitely do not miss from living in Minnesota is the summer humidity. Here in Oregon, it is dry and warm, not hot and humid. I like it like that.

In Portland, lawns are often allowed to die during the dry summer. Many homeowners put out water for dogs. Fran Gardner photo

Petrichor

Last Sunday, the day I was photographing dead lawns to illustrate how dry Oregon is in the summer, there was a massive thunderstorm. Thunder, too, is rare in Western Oregon.

As a light rain started falling, that strange scent of new moisture on old dust and plant parts wafted through an open door.

There is a term for that fragrance: petrichor. I found this word in the novel Crow Talk, by Eileen Garvin. In one scene, Frankie, the bird whisperer who is one of the main characters, visits a tree damaged by lightning: “She leaned her head against the red trunk and breathed in the smell of warm cedar, sweet pine needles, and the petrichor of the approaching storm.”

It did not rain much during that Sunday thunderstorm. No lawns got greener. The leaves on some rhododendrons are already brown and withered. They will recover.

About Crow Talk

I enjoyed reading Crow Talk and interviewing the author. My review can be found at Oregon ArtsWatch.

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Angels

I have mixed feelings about my Twsbi fountain pen.  It’s so fashionable that people comment on it. It uses a plunger to fill ink from a bottle, and it holds a lot. But it’s also fat in the hand, and I don’t like its aggressively industrial design, with the ever-visible ink register. And unlike my other fountain pens, of which I have a small collection, it sometimes leaks ink.

Now there’s an optical illusion. Because of the oblique wood grain, the photo looks like it’s tilted. Fran Gardner photo

Last week, as I was making a note in my journal at a coffee shop, the Twsbi started leaking. I don’t know why, but suddenly I had ink all over my fingers. I waved my hands around, wishing I had picked up a napkin.

I thought about using a hankie, but the ones in my pockets were nice white ones I didn’t want to stain.

I had just maneuvered  from the wheelchair into a chair at a table where I could plug in the laptop. It would be tough to climb back on the wheelchair and go get a napkin with wet ink on my hands.

While I was contemplating wiping the fingers and the pen on my shorts, which are dark loden, a man who had been working at his own laptop saw my predicament and came over with two napkins and a cup of water. His name is Steven.

Angels appear all the time in my life, holding doors, plucking items from high shelves at the supermarket, choosing to marry me.

Steven was the angel of that day.

Going forward

Remember, as you move through this week, how special you are. There’s a certain amount of derision about the idea that everyone is special, but that doesn’t negate our need to know that we fit into the world in our own unique way.

You are the only one who can eat for you, or breathe for you, or sleep for you. So do all these things the best way you can. And don’t forget to pet the dog.

—30—

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