I met Josh at Cafe Gratitude more than a year ago.  Pretty much everyone at Cafe Gratitude is really nice, but Josh, also known as Zuriel, is really nice!  Smart, warm, friendly, planning a trip to Greece (at that time), and a poet.  Eventually we became FB friends, where he posted this powerful poem (and a great recipe for Root Soup — so now I’m thinking about adding recipes to this blog… you know Poetry and Recipes!  why not!)

I can really relate to the title of this poem.  Sometimes on bad days, I feel I could do what the poem’s title says.  Sorry.  But life is sometimes like that.  Hard to acknowlege, but I’m not here to fool you, and I really appreciate honesty in others.

So, here’s Josh’s poem…

I Died of Loneliness
By Joshua Lerman

I died of loneliness,
slowly evaporated,
molecule by molecule peeling away, soaring to the sky like quiet sparks,
rendered translucent, then gone.

This small lake, once glistening turquoise, nestled in Colorado hills,
got smaller
and smaller
in the dry air.
Who could hold a lake?

All the movement,
all the turning hard in bed
thrashing
sweating
the smells.
Who would stay?

Who here is fully at home in themselves?
I used to be.
Or I thought I was.
Or, looking back, I think now that I was then,
but then I thought I wasn’t.

I shiver.
The cold is broken shards of glass
at my throat.
“Remember the sun?” a voice asks from deep recesses
folded in the hills. “Remember when it spoke to you?”

Forgotten dances rot the roots,
the garden wilts,
soggy stems bend in unnatural angles.
Where are the singers? the minstrels? the Angels
we were promised?
Stand up on your own two feet!

I died, after all this,
of loneliness.
How, now, does one who is wispy as a forgotten ancient secret
find flesh again?
How does one differentiate oneself from air
and make a body of clay,
and who will breathe me into it?

Bike Ride with Poet

12/29/2011  SF

JGR

Around the side of the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium, where summer kayakers and retriever dogs vie for home run balls that land in China Basin, I near two women who are approaching the pier behind the stadium.  It is cool, foggy, December, after Christmas.  I’m on my bike.  The women are pulling suitcases on wheels.  One also carries a sleeping bag.

They walk onto the pier.  I’m confused.  Are they going to camp there like the homeless people?  They look far too cared for, for that.  Each has blond, streaked hair that must cost a lot to maintain.  They take an immediate left off the pier, down a ramp, to the series of block-long floating docks – a marina – where sailboats and motorboats are moored.  Of course.

I wonder which boat they’re on their way to.  Judging from the hair, a big one.  I figure I’ll see them on a boat when I return from the end of the pier.

No one else is on the pier but me. Near the end, I stop, lean my bike against a park bench and sit down.  At the bay end of the first floating dock is parked the biggest motor cruise boat in the marina.  Several girls, nine or ten, climb out onto the front deck and look out at the bay where huge freighters bide their time, with the brontosaur cranes of Oakland looming behind them.

The power cruiser is maybe fifty feet long.  It doesn’t have a helicopter pad but, I am happy to see, it will soon have its complement of cared for women with expensively streaked blond hair.  They pull their suitcases abeam, lift them over the side, and climb aboard.

A lone jogger, middle-aged, receding hairline, wearing ear buds, smiles as he trots past me to the very end of the pier.  He makes a circle and heads back toward the stadium.  As he goes past the second time, I smile, nod, and risk interrupting his jog by saying,

“You know, looking at those people on the boat …”

“What?” he asks, jogging in place, pulling the ear buds out.

“I was looking at those people on the boat,” I say, pointing to the two women who had just boarded The Largest Boat in the Marina, “And I was thinking that I’m really far luckier than they are.”

The jogger breaks into a big grin and says, “That’s great.  That’s a great frame of mind to be in.”  He pops his ear buds back in, and jogs off, still smiling.

On my ride back to Bernal Heights, once I loop over the China Basin draw bridge, and head down the road that borders the ball park parking lot, I look back at the marina, now a quarter of a mile away, where the tightly packed sailboats create, I have to say it, a forest of masts.

Even as the metaphor lands, it is getting a disapproving stare from Billy Collins, who has been riding along with me in my mind.  Too hackneyed.  A cliché among boated harbors.  Forests of masts turn Billy off almost as much as cicadas do.  Having listened to an interview with him on PBS last night, I know he has a comic distrust of poems with cicadas.

I don’t hear cicadas, but as I ride, I am listening to the regular hiss/crash/clang/echo of a pile driver slamming steel piles inch by inch into the ground on the other side of the huge ball park parking lot.  The UCSF medical school is adding to the array of buildings that is already tastefully scattered over four square blocks next to the bay.  It’s been going on for weeks.  Hiss/Crash/Clang.  Echo.

Billy might like the pile driver.  Not the forest of masts.  Definitely not cicadas.  But maybe the pile driver.

                                                                 #   #   #

I’m posting this poem today because without the folks at the Apple store, there would be no blog!  Thanks so much Kel and all of you!!!!

On Being at the Apple Store

An hour at the Apple Store        one to one

passes faster than an hour long massage (which I adore)

is better than sex might be (as I recall)

is more uplifting than an inspirational simile

more inter-generational than an American family

Buzzes with more creative and productive energy

in one small space than in the entire rest of the mall

with more kindness and attention

than most patients get from nurses (by far)

In this creative, learning hour, walls come down

desire begets ability, which inspires vision,

then, more capacity,  an upward spiral…..

A kind of sacred space

full of wonder and possibility

full of kind and patient young men and women

leading their elders into a great adventure

This blessed hour — one to one– at the Apple Store

Gayle Markow

9/18/10

Jim Ramsay

January 2011

The Climb

Think Fuji, Denali, Kilimanjaro – gradual at first, then ever steeper.

Toward the top there are no trees, only snow and rocks,

and a wind that blows from the end of the world.

I watched my mother those last 20 years, eighty to ninety-nine.

I used to say she was declining, but now I know it’s not a

slow slide down. It’s a long, hard climb up.

Watch a child get up from the floor.  She’s down, then she’s up.  Badda boom.

Badda bing. When I try to rise from the floor, it takes a plan, and I grunt

as I man-up, heaving a heavy harpoon at the great white whale of my aging.

You climb higher, get weaker. Knees give out, and hips, backs, hearts.

Your eyes and ears fail to report danger.  As your air thins, you think

you’ll see farther, but the world removes itself, grows distant, dim, confused.

Almost to the summit, it’s

like Norgay and Hillary on Everest:

Very slow, short steps.

Bend into the hill.

Catch your breath.

Another step.

Can’t catch

your breath.

Try to

get warm.

Rest.

By the time my mother summited, she was talking with her parents

half-a-century dead. Then she was there – at the edge of that

huge, round, mysterious opening to the world’s heat and light.

She teetered,

closed her eyes,

and let go.

Some cast notes on the poem.

My mom, Juanita Ramey Ramsay, was intelligent, well-read, funny, and could be caustically observant, as when she said about an aunt who always said the first thing that came to her mind, “She can’t help it honey.  She’s just stupid.”

Mom’s memory became increasingly confused in her 90s.  When she was around 95, my younger brother Gene was visiting her and said, “Mom, do you remember my son John was here last week?”  Mom said, “Well, now, that rings a bell.  ……  I’m just not sure which bell.”

She didn’t have any major health crises.  She just got older and older, and smaller and smaller.  In the summer of 2008, as she approached her 99th birthday in Evanston, Illinois, my brothers and I decided to visit her at the same time.  Ken came in from Cleveland, I from New York, Gene from Anchorage, Alaska.  We began to arrive early in the week.  We were all there by Tuesday.  Mom died on Thursday.

I live in Nyack, New York, but wrote “The Climb” in San Francisco in 2011 while visiting my bi-coastal partner Anita, who had introduced me to OWL, the Older Writers Laboratory.  The “owls” at OWL, including Anita, constantly surprise me with the freshness, insight and honesty in their poems.  They inspired me to focus on what’s important, to pare down what I wanted to say to what was essential.  It was in that frame of mind and ambience that I wrote “The Climb.”  I finished a final revision in June 2011, just after my 70th birthday.

#   #   #

Yes, getting to the end of things… the end of the year, the end of my visit (just completed) to my mom in Phoenix, the end of this evening (I should be getting ready for bed instead of being here… ah well), the very recent end of the shortest days of the year… and with all that new beginnings.  But don’t shortchange the poignancy of the “end” of things.  Take the time to appreciate the fleetingness of all things, the opportunity to practice letting go, to be with times of transition and all their (our own)  hope for the future and discomfort at what is lost, or being lost.

So, yeah, I’m waxing poetic, but darn, I don’t have a poem to share.  I looked for a poem, but couldn’t find the right one.  Well, actually I think I did find the right one.  A poem I really love by my friend Jim.  But I need to write him and ask permission.  So, if he gives permission, I promise to share it here with you, soon.  It’s an extraordinary poem about growing old, and ALL that that means.

I just got back from visiting my 91 year old mom, who is in extraordinary shape — for her age.  Her mind is great.  Her body is slowing down, but still  mostly works, minus a little sense of balance and strength.  My dad died 2 1/2 years ago, and she’s been living alone since then.  We spent this last week looking at places where “active seniors” can move to be with other people, have more activities, more community, share meals together (without having to cook their own, and shop for them).  We visited 3 different “campuses” of “independent, active” living communities — which were different in terms of class (middle vs upper middle) and religious (secular vs christian).  The apartments, the food, the grounds, the activities, the sense of community and friendliness of the people, and more, all needed to be taken into account, not to mention the cost.  It was slightly dizzying.  We were on a steep learning curve as it seems the move may be imminent, not because she Has To, but because it’s seeming like it might be the “right” thing to do.  Sometimes I felt optimistic; sometimes I could feel my heart breaking.  Was it empathy or some degree of unhealthy merging?  Guilt?  Oy!  So many feelings.  My own sense of loss!  The family home the site of So Many family gatherings and family memorabilia for the last 35 years.  My mom was/is a trooper, and for the most part hid her pain at her impending loss bravely, perhaps stoically.  Of course, with the end of living in this home, full of the memories of her beloved husband and family, there will also be the beginning of living in a place that just might fulfill the needs she currently has for companionship, friendships, all kinds of activities she can’t and/or doesn’t do at home.

While I find all the stages of life, including old age and death  compelling, fascinating, etc. my mom is not one to enjoy a conversation about aging and death.  We met with and talked with so many elders, some whom my mother recognized from 60 years ago.   I wondered at their courage too, and wondered about their life stories.  Mostly they talked about how much they loved living in these “independent” communities, and how they hoped my mom would join them.

I want there to be a poem  to share with you.   My heart is aching, and breaking, and thrumming….  I’ll ask my friend Jim.  And if any of you have some poems or thoughts to share, I’d welcome that too.

I don’t even have a picture of the places we looked at to share with you.  But I do have a picture of a palm tree and an orange tree that I took one day on a walk around the block where my mom currently lives.  It’s not where I grew up, but I did grow up in Phoenix, and I can tell you that Phoenix was all about palm trees and orange trees.  To this day, orange blossoms are my very favorite scent in the world.

Sending you love and best wishes for a fabulous, happy, serene, or frolicking end of the year, and best wishes for a happy, fabulous, serene, and frolicking year to come!  May all beings be peaceful and happy, and care for one another with the one great heart of the world!

♥   Gayle

Hi everyone,

Visiting my mom and other family in my hometown, Phoenix, Arizona.  Here’s a poem I just wrote as I sit here in the local Starbuck’s, the morning after….

Yesterday Christmas in Phoenix

Today hot chocolate at Starbuck’s

Intersection of “Muebleria del Sol”, Chevron, Big Lots, and Circle K

Observing life on the road

Sun and shadow

People looking for caffeine, sugar, some kind of happiness

Six days ’til next year.

A million possibilities.

Wishing you and all beings ease, happiness, peace, freedom.

♥   Gayle

An introductory haiku to set the context for the second one.

Profound insight gained

During a five day retreat

Up at Spirit Rock:

Your bright red toenails,

Done at the nail salon?  OM

Mani-Pedi Hum

–Jennifer Scaff King

I loved both of Sati’s beautiful poems about her father.   I was especially moved by Sati’s second poem, the whole poem, but esp. these two lines:

Even coldness has a holy touch-
your forehead white and proud against my hand.

It brought back my last experience with my father — at least with my father’s physical body. As my father lay there – cold – in the funeral home – a private viewing for my mother, sister, and me before the closed casket funeral the next day – I too ran my hands over the forehead and structure of my father’s peaceful 91 year old face.  I’ve always been told I looked exactly like him. Being there that day I saw my own death mask.   I was deeply touched by the connection I felt with him, and the inevitability of my being in that  self same repose one day.

Although this is a Dharma Road poetry blog, I imagine — and hope — there will be buddhists and non-buddhists alike meeting here.   Some will believe in reincarnation or won’t;  others, in heaven or not.  Personally I am most comfortable with not assuming anything. The truth is simply that I don’t know. What I know is there is great mystery and love and compassion.  And gratitude. (and lest I fall into the trap of pollyana-ism, what I also know is that there is dukkha, or suffering).  My dad was definitely not a buddhist;  he was culturally Jewish, but a dyed-in-the-wool atheist.  Still he lived his aging and dying with a huge amount of equanimity.  I was amazed, and so grateful.

Here’s a poem I wrote shortly after my dad’s death.  Two years after his death, it still rings true for me.

Reflection in the Wake of Dad’s Death

Part I

So here’s the problem.

If I believed in heaven OR reincarnation,

I would know where my father’s spirit has gone—

Well, more or less.

Without a particular belief system,

I don’t know.

Dad believed when you die, it’s just all over.

I don’t know if that’s true either.

What to do?

Develop some expertise in

Not knowing.

Part II 

You ask, how do I do this? Funny you should ask.

 Part III  

Gayle’s recipe for developing expertise in Not knowing: 

One part Mary Oliver poem —

              …Still, what I want in my life

             is to be willing

             to be dazzled —

             to cast aside the weight of facts

             and maybe even

             to float a little

             above this difficult world.

             I want to believe I am looking

             into the white fire of a great mystery….

One part David Wagoner poem—

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

           Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

           And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

           Must ask permission to know it and be known….

One part David Whyte saying—

The deeper conversation starts right here, and the first question is not far from       exactly where you are.

One part the Dalai Lama’s laugh.

Put it all in the oven and bake daily.  Don’t stop baking.

Prep time:  none.   Oven temperature: as hot as you can tolerate, and cooler when you need it cooler.   Baking time: as above, forever.  Serves: all beings.

Part IV  

So this is how it is now.

I wake up every day not knowing.

Dazzled, or floating…

I try to find my nearest question.

I laugh, sometimes I cry.

I think of you, Dad.

Wherever else you are (or aren’t),

you are here now,

in my heart,

now.

Part V

Months later, the baking continues.

There is Not Knowing and there is peace, an okay-ness with not knowing.

♥   Gayle

Excerpts are from the poem “The Ponds” by Mary Oliver; the poem “Lost” by David Wagoner; and from a talk given by David Whyte at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco on May 29, 2009.

I have two poems that I wrote after my dad died. Here they are..

The process..

I see you take in a shallow sip of air
gently tether the pulse
for just a while.

I watch you keep the patterned cycle
flowing softly
now and then.

In the space between
I hear a new sound
Playing with the breath.

In the space between
I sense an opening
dancing with forces.

In the space between
I feel the leaving
Of one heart for a greater.

In the space between
I see how gently you pick it up,
embrace the beauty that you are.

and this one too..

For Tim.

We wrap your form, carry you,
feeling the bodies weight
one last time, watching.

Details of your form
the lines and moles,
the tiny frame, humbled by the struggles
show a heart that sought freedom
that carried burdens silently
and too alone.

Even coldness has a holy touch-
your forehead white and proud against my hand.
I am in the domain of angels,
humans- what can they do here?
In a place of remnants
where all we know has fallen
leaving a shell for angels and the earth
to cherish and take apart in their holy way.

Love,
Sati