Ferris Wheels

Don't give yourself Away

Being a creature of the night I used to believe that the very late night was my favorite time of the day, but anymore I love the mornings. Summer has been moderate this year and while I know it makes my brother insane because he's a creature who almost eats the sun, for me it's been wonderful. I will often leave my bedroom windows open and the window in my studio so I can still hear the animals and birds and yet have the air conditioning suck the humidity out of the air and keep my feet cool. So there I was in bed this morning waking softly to hear the birds. I reached over for my ipod to listen to Joni. Joni was singing Both Sides Now and I was thinking about how many times I've listened to that song and the mix of comfort and sadness she's given me. She doesn't just sing the song she draws the words out so if you know the lyrics you wait for them to pour over you like sunshine each word feeding a bit of your soul:

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

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

I had one earphone in and left my other ear to hear for the different chirps in the trees and looked for a cloud, not one today. I noticed the painting in the corner was moved a little because Fat Fat Leroy Brown, the fattest cat in this whole damn house was looking for a place to hide from Richie, his pounding footprints could scare a circus elephant let alone my tender fat cat. They'd come one after the other to see me in the morning when I am quiet and still, listening to Joni sing to me. I felt like Michael Corleone at his Son's communion party, each taking their turn to come lay beside me and let me love on them, kissing behind their ears and singing to them a little. When one would leave another appears listening to the birds and sometimes launching themselves in the air to the window above my bed to listen to watch for them. Last night before I fell asleep I could hear Richie and Chrissy taking the junk from the garage they had cleaned this week to the curb. They were dragging things because kids are lazy and they were giggling, like lovers do, like friends do and I wanted to hug them both and say, good for you. They laugh like Tricky and I do when it's quiet and I can say any one of 300 phrases that will make him burst out laughing. They laughed like Suzy and I do when we both see something funny or when she sees some nut job talking to himself on a park bench and nudges me to say "this is your last chance to save his soul and love him forever." Later in the morning she will text me to ask if I am feeling ok, as yesterday I felt wonky all day long. She loves me like that. And while I was counting the blessings in my head, Joni was still singing to me:

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

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

It's loves illusions I recall. The cool gray light of morning was just floating there and I was thinking that if I died tomorrow I would mostly be worried about someone finding my ipod and flipping through it someone who loves me thinking, "what the hell was going on in that head of hers?" They'd wonder why I was listening to Dh Lawrence and know I had probably read Lady Chatterly's Lover, but I never have. Strange. Best Friend texts me from the office, "your mission today if you choose to take it." I was already on her mission and sent her a secret. She responded with "we should all get what we want." Oh hell who am I kidding, I called her last night when I was sure she was sleeping but she was awake and we laughed until I was sleepy. She still fights off sleep to love me. I am so blessed. I'll mention that if i run into him I will give him her number but hesitate like I shouldn't. She responds "don't hesitate hell give him all the numbers." She won't answer them anyway, she's clever like that.

Can you be surrounded in love and sometimes feel a little hint of lonely creep in the edges? When the pastor of my church says "be happy with what you have." I will feel full of shame, my mother would hardly be happy with me, she lived a small life and wanted the same for me. There are days when the world doesn't feel large enough and you think it will be an ordinary day. You go through the motions, find iced coffee, fill an order, white to a customer, hope the post office finds what's missing, keep the TV turned off (keep down the white noise), eat what's right, cheat and look for some mercy. I did that yesterday as I do most days finding joy in the tiny details that make my life what I've created. And then out of nowhere a really fluffy cloud passed by. I almost missed it as it was dark, dust really that gloaming moment of acknowledging the past day and wondering of the next. I had started a few new pieces, clipping away, and there this cloud showed and it wasn't dark or fluffy white, no shade of gray. There was a cloud of purple passion and it just parked itself over my door.

And when the cloud lingered there
I pretended not to notice
until it reached down mixed in summer breeze
and played with my hair
lingering there until it left again

"I am so tired of shades of gray." Sometimes you hope for something and time passes and you think hope is for suckers who sing about ferris wheels. Other times, it parks there and you think, I'm a fan of hope. Hope wins the day. He'll find me later. He'll use the word baby. He'll know I needed the rain not the rain that washes off the dirt but the rain that leaves your hair purple.

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

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

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

Joni was done. Best Friend was off saving the world for democrats. Richie was stirring he's taking me to the DMV today to change up my license, more proof that summers make you old. The cats are wrestling all over the house sounding like fallen soldiers on the battlefield as they fling their bodies to the ground. Morning is waiting downstairs, a few emails to answer and maybe today I'll find the salad I love with the little peas. If the purple cloud shows up at your door, pour it out, say what you must, it won't be around long, don't hesitate, or you'll wonder.

If you need to find me, I'm at summerpoet@msn.com. You can find my work at poetsummer.etsy.com. I'm never far.

Carrie.



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Do not give of yourself to the dead

D H Lawrence

My friend Tony introduced me to D H. I think lawrence is most famous for his line about feeling sorry for yourself. I've never seen a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from it's bough without having felt sorry for itself.

A few days ago I was thinking about Wilde and his fairy tales, the story of the happy prince and the little bird that flew over the city, finding ways to make the prince happy while the prince's life was falling down around. The prince so unhappy with the way his life has turned out hardly noticed that the little bird had sacrificed his entire life without feeling sorry for himself for even a moment.

Lawrence danced with dark love. I was listening to Robert Polhemus on NPR speak about Lawrence and about women in love. Women in love was so progressive sexual for it's time that reviewers called his work "pure dirt." As with most of Lawrence's works, Women in Love caused controversy over its sexual subject matter. One early reviewer said of it, "I do not claim to be a literary critic, but I know dirt when I smell it, and here is dirt in heaps — festering, putrid heaps which smell to high Heaven.

Anyone who knows me know I have been attracted to older men my whole life. Even when I was a teenager I was drawn to older men, their calm cool, collected nature. I was drawn to them. Lawrence plays with that notion. Women in love is filled with extraordinary passages and now I am tearing them apart and then putting them back together again. I was taken by a passage where Ursula (the woman so interested) catching Birken the boy she was fascinated by standing in the dark under the moon throwing rocks into the water, angry, and talking to himself. It reminded me of Romeo catching Juliet in the night listening to her talk to him even though he wasn't even there. Birken threw rocks one after cursing the moon, cursing his life, decisions he'd made. Ursula was dazed. She had never been witness to an outburst like this. He'd always been so composed and there she was in the dark watching him come unglued and wondered how she'd carry this little secret around with her wanting so much to offer him comfort ever so certain that nothing about her would change this situation or make him whole. He'd throw more rocks as the water struggled against the agitation of the rocks and she'd wait for him to be whole and at peace again.

But like me, Urusla can't ever just let it go. She always has to know. It drives me insane, this piece of me that needs to know. Why oh why can't I just push it aside? Best Friend will tell me, men play their hand close to their chest and they will give over their soul to a woman who will do the same. They appreciate the chess match. For the most part, not many people matter to me really. Its not that I have a disdain for the world but I hold few in close company. I have learned to keep people at a distance but then...then now and again I will forget and I will just have to pose the question and I think that's why I love Urusla so much because she just needs...

Birkin lingered vaguely by the water. Ursula was afraid that he would stone the moon again. She slipped from her seat and went down to him, saying:

`You won't throw stones at it any more, will you?'

`How long have you been there?'

`All the time. You won't throw any more stones, will you?'

`I wanted to see if I could make it be quite gone off the pond,' he said.

`Yes, it was horrible, really. Why should you hate the moon? It hasn't done you any harm, has it?'

`Was it hate?' he said.

And they were silent for a few minutes.

`When did you come back?' she said.

`Today.'

`Why did you never write?'

`I could find nothing to say.'

`Why was there nothing to say?'

`I don't know. Why are there no daffodils now?'

`No.'

Again there was a space of silence. Ursula looked at the moon. It had gathered itself together, and was quivering slightly.

`Was it good for you, to be alone?' she asked.

`Perhaps. Not that I know much. But I got over a good deal. Did you do anything important?'

`No. I looked at England, and thought I'd done with it.'

`Why England?' he asked in surprise.

`I don't know, it came like that.'

`It isn't a question of nations,' he said. `France is far worse.'

`Yes, I know. I felt I'd done with it all.'

They went and sat down on the roots of the trees, in the shadow. And being silent, he remembered the beauty of her eyes, which were sometimes filled with light, like spring, suffused with wonderful promise. So he said to her, slowly, with difficulty:

`There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.' It was as if he had been thinking of this for some time.

She was startled, she seemed to leap clear of him. Yet also she was pleased.

`What kind of a light,' she asked.

But he was shy, and did not say any more. So the moment passed for this time. And gradually a feeling of sorrow came over her.

`My life is unfulfilled,' she said.

`Yes,' he answered briefly, not wanting to hear this.

`And I feel as if nobody could ever really love me,' she said.

********************************************
Oh brave Ursula. He didn't write because he had nothing to say. He had nothing to give you, he had no insight, no power, he was nothing special. How do you write to someone, how are you? and guess what I'm a fraud? Ursula, you need a Best Friend who will take you to a park bench where it's very quiet and let you lean into her shoulder and let you say anything you'd ask him and she will give you the answers you don't want to hear. She will tell you he wasn't the man in the photo. Imagine that? He paints this oh so love picture and its not him. How does he tell you that? He can't tell you he's as confused as you are because then you'd never give yourself to him. The challenge will be over, the game finished, a stale mate. You will have your heart broken either way dear ursula and you get to pick now take your ball and go home. Or...you could entertain it for awhile longer, be like the Prufrock's love song and let the moment linger, don't force the crisis and have one more dance, make love one more time, and let it be over later. I've done both. Haven't we all?

Someone I know, knew, kinda told me this story once about a woman he loved. They were quick friends and he loved everything about her. They worked together, they slept together under under the watchful or not so watchful eye of his gatekeeper. Now mind you he adored the gatekeeper, she was beautiful (cover of cosmo beautiful) but let's say she wasn't the most compassionate woman, and of course not the sharpest tool in the shed, the brightest bulb in the box (feel free to mix those up as it drives best friend perfectly insane) and she knew going in she was "better" than him and would settle.

Now this man loved his secret lover. She was a good sport, she would understand when things were canceled and she looked at him in a way he never really earned. Hell when he gave the gatekeeper the diamond he wasn't sure he could afford she didn't look at him like this woman did. When she laid next to him she touched him like he was gold. She told him one night "you'll have to make a decision soon ya know." He laughed inside. Where would she go? All he'd have to do is whisper her name and she'd be more than accommodating. Love is like that.

A few weeks later she didn't show up for work. He looked for her, called her, and finally hours later wandered down to human resources to ask about her. "she's left, put in notice weeks ago." Imagine that. She's gone. He went to the apartment, key fit the door but everything was gone. Two days ago he was there with her, they were making cozy, the gatekeeper sure he was at the Jewish Guys get together and decide stuff meeting but there was with no pants on eating chinese food from a container, feeling so loved and wanted. Now, not a piece of furniture, no forwarding address, no note, nothing. The absolute pure fucking genius of this move. I have wanted to meet this woman since I heard this story, maybe more than my friend who thinks of her every day, who doesn't let a month pass that he doesn't punch in her name to some search engine looking for her and she's poof, gone. There's no letter to pour over, there's no ticket stub for the opera, you can't save that stuff when you have a gatekeeper. Nothing.

I need that woman in my life. I need her to sit Ursula and I down and teach us the musings of love and the chambers of a man's heart. I need her to show me how just to make a clean break, not just with the men you don't want around any more but with the men you think are tortured, sure you can fix them.

I am off to fix myself today, working while listening to a little DH Lawrence. My son is home for a few weeks, days or hours depending on his ability to be a human being. Best Friend will be here soon. I am working on some new pieces. You can find me at Summerpoet@msn.com. You can always find my work at www.poetsummer.etsy.com. Summer's moments are fleeting so I will try to put some sun on my face today, I hope you get to do the same.

Carrie.

Blowing out Candles on the Moon

When my parents were celebrating
my fourth birthday
men landed on the moon for the first time
Now this doesn't seem amazing
now in the time of ipods
and cell phones and text messaging
but this was the time of
post cards and maps you had to unfold
giant tvs
you couldn't pop popcorn in the microwave
and Lennon was still alive

Aldrin noted the moon smelled like ash, wet ash
like sticking your head in a fireplace after it rained.
He left his footprint there
and while looking down, down at us here
down where my parents where making
plans, buying cake one of those cakes
with the clown head in the center
While I was learning the alphabet
while my mother was making women beautiful
and my father working two jobs to buy a house
while my brother two years behind me,
my constant companion, was stealing some of
my limelight;
men were looking down
from the mysterious moon

There are billions of galaxies each with a billion stars
some days the stars collide and others
rot there for a million years like all of us.
Having been to the cemetery recently to leave flowers,
the grass under my feet brown from the heat
I thought about last winter with the piles and piles
of snow, frozen earth, ice over snow
shoveling every day, thinking about the next time
I'd have to shovel the driveway with no end
The burial place now littered with flowers and little notes
would be desolate, ice and snow so you couldn't even
find a place to put flowers and I knew that the bones of my parents
their parents, my uncles and even the little baby
my grandmother buried here were below me
and while the idea of being near was comforting
how I'd like to dig and dig and dig and just lie on my
mother's casket and whisper to her
it's been so long I don't even remember her voice
maybe down there an echo of her would whisper back to me

When I drove off from that place, I knew I didn't want to be there
even under the shade tree, near the towering
marble angel

I will donate my body to science
I want them to tear me apart, use what they want
like a thanksgiving day turkey
and when they've picked the bones clean
take the rest and make it ash
and Suze will take it with her where she goes
down to the Lake House by the river
where the logs bang up against the the rocks
where we held cigarettes in our lips
and pretended to be cool girls who smoke
and she can throw me to the wind
and I'd land in the water on a fish
and swim and swim and swim

She'd take me home, to the place where my
father and I planted trees that are now so big
you can't hug them so your fingers touch
and she'll leave some there
the place we drove by as a child with my father
our mother in the long black car ahead of us
seeing her garden for the last time
Suze will leave parts of me there so my Dad knows where to find me

She will drive up by Northwestern where we went a thousand times
when the world was overwhelming and she had a boy
she needed to tell me about and I had a secret to share with her
the place where she first told me she was moving
She will take the last pinch of me and toss me out the window
right where the turn meets the lake on Sheridan road
thankful the green beast we used to drive is sitting
rusted in some junk yard children looking for change
under the seat

That last part of me will fly up through the cloud cover
and maybe to the moon where the others are waiting
watching down
all us ashy souls watching and wondering
when the next brave man will enter our atmosphere
leave a step on the moon moving her in mysterious circled orb
keep us company as we stare down at the bright blue marble.

**************************************
You can always reach me at Summerpoet@msn.com and my work www.poetsummer.etsy.com.

Blue Wind Boy

I was thinking about Sandburg this morning when I was in church. The pastor was talking about loving something in it's entirety, not just a piece of it and being part of the madness in the world but separating yourself off from it and being an observer. Sandburg loved the city I loved. He wrote of the women in the mist and of the street lamps of the city.

OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this:
You took little children away from the sun and the dew,
And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky,
And the reckless rain; you put them between walls
To work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages,
To eat dust in their throats and die empty-hearted
For a little handful of pay on a few Saturday nights.

Sandburg was a social democrat and wrote for newspapers and wanted better for the world. I wondered this morning what he would have thought of the times we find ourselves in. Would he have taken up the political forum. Would he be Susan Sarandonish forgetting he was a poet or a writer of children's stories and try to influence social change. Father Michael Flager was on television yesterday as two more kids were shot in chicago, victims of gang violence. I wondered if Sandburg were watching from his quiet suburban post in heaven shaking his head looking down on us all wondering when we are going to figure out our lives. Flager's voice was shaking talking about his own adopted son being murdered, telling of how his church was a safe haven and even opposing gang members would dare not fight in those hallowed halls. Broke my heart. I know I miss people who have been through my life because of death and illness. I can't imagine needless violence.

Sandburg like Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales. Sandburgs full of made up names and interesting fun scenarios. Reading them is like taking a walk through my Best Friend's head full of twists and turns. I often compare her thought processes to that of being a mouse on space mountain, twisting turning, sometimes dark and in the end enlightening and a little glad you got out with your senses about you. Wilde's tales are dark and sad and very telling, not really for chlidren. I recently felt very similiar to the story of the Birthday of the Infanata.

bella Princesa, your funny little dwarf will never dance again. It is a pity, for he is so ugly that he might have made the King smile.' 'But why will he not dance again?' asked the Infanta, laughing. 'Because his heart is broken,' answered the Chamberlain. And the Infanta frowned, and her dainty rose-leaf lips curled in pretty disdain. 'For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,' she cried, and she ran out into the garden.
******************************For the future, let those who come to play with me have no hearts. Wow. I am always looking for just the opposite. The best laid plans of mice and romantic girls.There are days when you consider having a tattoo of a golf club placed on your inner thigh. Best Friend introduced me Sandburg's stories for children.She loves to read to the little ones and they gather around her like pigeons do a french fry, even happier though. My favorite of his stories is the story I am going to share here with you today:

When the dishes are washed at night time and the cool of the evening has come in summer or the lamps and fires are lit for the night in winter, then the fathers and mothers in the Rootabaga Country sometimes tell the young people the story of the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy.

The White Horse Girl grew up far in the west of the Rootabaga Country. All the years she grew up as a girl she liked to ride horses. Best of all things for her was to be straddle

of a white horse loping with a loose bridle among the hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga Country.

She rode one horse white as snow, another horse white as new washed sheep wool, and another white as silver. And she could not tell because she did not know which of these three white horses she liked best.

"Snow is beautiful enough for me any time," she said, "new washed sheep wool, or silver out of a ribbon of the new moon, any or either is white enough for me. I like the white manes, the white flanks, the white noses, the white feet of all my ponies. I like the forelocks hanging down between the white ears of all three—my ponies."

And living neighbor to the White Horse Girl in the same prairie country, with the same black crows flying over their places, was the Blue Wind Boy. All the years he grew up as a boy he liked to walk with his feet in the dirt and the grass listening to the winds. Best of

all things for him was to put on strong shoes and go hiking among the hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga Country, listening to the winds.

There was a blue wind of day time, starting sometimes six o'clock on a summer morning or eight o'clock on a winter morning. And there was a night wind with blue of summer stars in summer and blue of winter stars in winter. And there was yet another, a blue dawn and evening wind. All three of these winds he like so well he could not say which he liked best.

"The early morning wind is strong as the prairie and whatever I tell it I know it believes and remembers," he said, "and the night wind with the big dark curves of the night sky in it, the night wind gets inside of me and understands all my secrets. And the blue wind of the times between, in the dusk when it is neither night nor day, this is the wind that asks me

questions and tells me to wait and it will bring me whatever I want."

Of course, it happened as it had to happen, the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy met. She, straddling one of her white horses, and he, wearing his strong hiking shoes in the dirt and the grass, it had to happen they should meet among the hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga Country where they lived neighbors

And of course, she told him all about the snow white horse and the horse white as new washed sheep wool and the horse white as a silver ribbon of the new moon. And he told her all about the blue winds he liked listening to, the early morning wind, the night sky wind, and the wind of the dusk between, the wind that asked him questions and told him to wait.

One day the two of them were gone. On the same day of the week the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind boy went away. And their fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers

and uncles and aunts wondered about them and talked about them, because they didn't tell anybody beforehand they were going. Nobody at all knew beforehand or afterward why they were going away, the real honest why of it.

They left a short letter. It read:

To All Our Sweethearts, Old Folks and Young Folks:

We have started to go where the white horses come from and where the blue winds begin. Keep a corner in your hearts for us while we are gone.

The White Horse Girl.

The Blue Wind Boy.

That was all they had to guess by in the west Rootabaga Country, to guess and guess where two darlings had gone.

Many years passed. One day there came riding across the Rootabaga Country a Gray Man on Horseback. He looked like he had come a long ways. So they asked him the question they always asked of any rider who looked like he had come a long ways, "Did you ever see the

White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy?"

"Yes," he answered, "I saw them."

It was a long, long ways from here I saw them," he went on, "it would take years and years to ride to where they are. They were sitting together and talking to each other, sometimes singing, in a place where the land runs high and tough rocks reach up. And they were looking out across water, blue water as far as the eye could see. And away far off the blue waters met the blue sky.

"'Look!' said the Boy, 'that's where the blue winds begin.'

"'Look!' said the Girl, 'that's where the white horses come from.'

"And then nearer to the land came thousands in an hour, millions in a day, white horses, some white as snow, some like new washed sheep

woo, some white as silver ribbons of the new moon.

"I asked them, 'Whose place is this?' They answered, 'It belongs to us; this is what we started for; this is where the white horses come from; this is where the blue winds begin.'"

And that was all the Gray Man on Horseback would tell the people of the west Rootabaga Country. That was all he knew, he said, and if there was any more he would tell it.

And the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts of the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy wondered and talked often about whether the Gray Man on Horseback made up the story out of his head or whether it happened just like he told it.

Anyhow this is the story they tell sometimes to the young people of the west Rootabaga Country when the dishes are washed at night and the cool of the evening has come in summer or the lamps and fires are lit for the night in winter.

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

Sometimes when you disappear, the people who love you worry. If however they know you have a sense of adventure they let you disappear knowing that when you return you will be happier. I have felt like disappearing lately and may one day do so. If I do just know I am off having adventure and when I return I will be better for it. I may be sad or I may be happy but smarter and hopefully exhausted.

You can always find me at Summerpoet@msn.com. You can find my work at www.poetsummer.etsy.com. Tomorrow kids, we'll talk about Wilde and his exploits and I am working on a new poem. Carrie

Romance

I would encourage you if you haven't written a poem to put paper to pen. I actually prefer the computer because I can type fast and my fingers tend to keep up with my head. However, this poses another problem as there is never a filter. My filter, my dam, my governing body is weak. Oui Monsieur my guard between my brain and my mouth is weaker than Paris Hilton's hymen. I am not a nervous person mind you but when I am around a man that makes me nervous and my knees feel weak and I start to glance around for an easy exit. I am speaking to you women here; you know the men I speak of, the men of confidence and grace who make you feel at ease, but not really. They walk with a little swagger. Carly Simon wrote songs about men like this. They do interesting mysterious things like build bridges and then they do the mundane and borderline silly, like golf.

I talk a million miles a minute unless of course I am tired or trying to explain something, slowly. So this anxious girl when around someone that makes her nervous starts to get fidgety and always yes always wondering why did I put myself in this position? Why didn't I just stick with easy, easy is everywhere. This is why, when one of those confident, interesting men takes you for a walk with them, when they accept the invite for adventure or initiate it it will shine a light in places you've never been. They will teach you things you can't learn in books like how to negoiate a deal so the other side thinks they've won but all the time, all the while you know you did. HE can be the cool calm waters that giggles when you are spinning and then makes the world quiet. Tricky can do that. I'll be in tears about the kid, about work, about being overwhelmed and he just says "what's wrong baby?" the world is good again. It's all manageable.

I remember being in nyc on a visit unable to figure out any truth that is in my heart or the world and one of those confident men put it all in perspective for me "all the planning you do is all about enjoying right now." I think I am growing up though as recently I was anxious about my son who is in college coming home for an unspecified time period. I called Best Friend and she texted then called him and called me to let me know "you heard it wrong he'll just be around a few days." Either he changed his plans when she called or I did hear it wrong. Either works for me just fine. I let her fix it. It's so hard to let anyone fix anything isn't it? Will they make it worse? Will they wonder why it's so easy for them and yet so difficult for me? When we are supposed to crawl we can't wait to run. When we are running, the safety seems to crawl. Such is life.

So, I wrote this poem and wanted to share it with the world..

Yes Sir
A woman giving me a peculiar look
approached me in the park today
she asked me why I was collecting bits of dirt
dropping them in my coat pocket

"I am stealing a heart." I explained to her
"In the dirt?"
How do I tell her of my plan?
I find only the darkest richest pieces of soil
break them up in my hand and line my pocket

In a few days I'll see him again
and after we make love
we've made love three times now
Well perhaps twice
the first time tender and slow and sweet
and the second rough and hard
taking me over and over
and the third distant and achingly strange

Never once an utterance of an I love you
never once a chink
just a smile and a scrambled egg
a grunt and a jerk and a whisper of a groan
but no poetry
no lingering
no song
a call a few days later and an invite to dinner

Tonight I will steal his heart I tell her
I will wear the right thing
I will hold my head at the perfect tilt
when he brushes the back of his hand against my chin
I will remember those tiny touches
be quiet and careful
And after the dancing
after the shyly undressing
when he is finally laying still in the dark
and I am playing with his hair
watching his chest rise and fall
I will whisper a spell and with one deep breath
his heart will fly from his mouth and I will
be waiting, watch the red thing still beating
fly through the air and have it in my hand

He won't miss this neglected organ
it will make for an improved golf swing
he'll celebrate it's departure because
there are many women and they are all similar
similar in want and similar in pain
their shame on one sleeve, their heart on the other
she makes a great lasagna and
the other keeps a tidy house
One sky dives another paints lighthouses by the sea
her hair flying and smelling of salt

When he isn't looking I will nestle that heart
in my coat pocket sitting in the rich soil
from the park the park where children play
their musings heard long after they've gone home for supper
with dirty little hands

I will water the living thing
feed it chips of chocolate using the foil wrappers
to reflect the sun, keep it warm
and when I am waiting for the bus I will whisper this stow away heart
some poetry
sing it old elton john songs
"You can tell everybody this is your song"
And the very moment he is thanking the gods
for curing him of his ridiculous obsession with love
when he's hit a hole in one
when he's made the brunette with the cute over bite scream
and bite her lip
I'll call and arrange for dinner
I'll cook a ham because most people don't know there are magic spices in ham

And when he's sleeping I will slip it back now bigger
pumping chocolate
and poetry
and afternoons in the herb garden
the arteries full of little dybek stories
and shakespeare sonnets
and the smell of lilacs
Sandburg's Rootabaga story about the
white horse girl and the blue wind boy

For him
with a missing heart
Life will move right along at the pace life moves
Crumpled calendar pages
filled with little notes
the dry cleaning receipts piled on the counter
its almost time for the sports illustrated bikini girl issue
the playoffs are next week
they've hired a new blond receptionist who smiles quickly
when he walks by

and then in the middle of a meeting
he will pause and feel a pain
a little something from his chest
climb up through his throat
past those lips the soft lips
women love against their ear
a green vine out through his teeth
and a giant lilly, white with a yellow eye will appear
the meeting will stop
some will clap inside
the little lawyer he brushes off with a glance
will giggle and for a few days
the world will admire the heart flower
he wears on his sleeve that opens bright when he passes the park
the whole world will see what I saw one afternoon
when his eye caught mine
and whispered, Yes Sir.

*********************************
If you haven't been nervous lately, I'd advise it. Define the space in your head where nervous lives and take a visit. Pack lightly you won't stay long. I didn't. I told best friend once that she shouldn't run for the bus, "another will be along in no less than an hour." Chasing parked cars breaks your nose and I like my nose just fine. Nervous will inspire you to write poetry. It will keep you in bed a little longer in the morning trying to separate out the bird's songs. Nervous will make you look up a new recipe and will give you inspiration to paint something. There are no monsters under the bed just those that live in the dark recesses of our heart. Everything's been done I tell myself, there are no surprises. The sun will rise tomorrow and because of best friend and the way she loves me, my child won't be home for four weeks. Life is good.

If you like to find me you can at Summerpoet@msn.com. You can find my work, as always at the fabulous etsy; www.poetsummer.etsy.com.

It's raining.

Carrie.

Love Letters

Tucked in my room is a box of old postcards from the early 1900s, that time before people even had addresses. It was the instant message of the time, not a real letter, no just a few words that would take a few weeks to arrive. This is why I think love is king. In all my travels, in all my time, translated, real post cards, in it all, never once have I found a postcard that was ill intentioned. It's the scribblings of love, one to another sent out to the air in the hopes it would reach it's destination. I have that kind of hope and I have that kind of love. I was born with it I think from another lifetime in the cosmic swirl of the world.

Best Friend and I used to pour over valentines, sending some to complete strangers so they would know someone thought of them. We'd be covered in glitter, the floor littered with pieces of paper with hearts cut out of the center in pink and red and white, white the sign of real love. We'd shop for weeks for the little glitter and in a box upstairs I have all she's given me and a few little cards from a secret lover who would just sign his cards always sent with the perfect flowers, "for a speedy recovery." It was our shorthand for "I wish you were here with me or me there with you, yes soon." My brother gives good card. He writes the most heartfelt things in cards and when writing him a card once I was thinking of my sweet mother teaching us about kindness and grace while in the midst of some argument over Scooby Do or Land of the Lost reminded in all her wisdom "one day all you will have is each other so be kind." Oh gods, she was right. How right she was. She would delight in the fact that we laugh so hard when we see eachother and that we both love the plants.

Love you see is all around us, even in the most unlikely of places. It lives in the cracks in the sidewalk and with enough warm sun and water it's real. I love that when someone contacts me about my art, it feels like a love letter. Good and bad. I recently received a letter from a woman who purchased some jewelry from me. The thing you see about chance and love is that you never know when it will hit. Sometimes its just a fly buzzing around your head and other times it sits on your shoulder like Sheba sitting on the back of my hair while I work. This woman L, I will call her for here lives in south. She's elegant and funny, and so charming. We write back and forth about our lives. You see she has a son she'd like to strangle on days and my son as much as I love him, there are days when I am ready to pack a rocket ship and ship him out of here to another orbit. Thankfully his visits home are less frequent, shorter stays and full of more joy. L and I exchange the stories of being a mom. We both love the animals, have birthdays in the summer and love dangling charms of things. Well she writes me a letter inviting me to her home for her birthday.

Carrie....In many ways you are so like me....and while we are on the subject it is so much easier to give than receive......you have done so many neat things for me all ready. I don't need a spoecial project....
I have started wrapping stuff for the birthday (sure you don't want to come?). The girls are very nice and everyone fits in immediately.....everyone becomes "family" right away. Anyway, when I was wrapping the rings it gave me the best feeling. That was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done.....
Anyway...I have 12 of everything...and 11 invitees....if you want to come I would only need to get your shirt done....and your present...and I would promise to do a wildly outrageous activity....and we eat lots of junk. (and Diane , the widow, can tell you all about computer dating) and you could see Dana's dog (Diva), 3.4 pounds, and she never goes out without taking Diva and Diva's feet have never touched the ground....and Sharon, my friend since kindergarten who is bossy (like me), and doesn't realize I want to be the only boss that day, and Mary who is your age, and adorable...married to a jerk and lives in Orlando. Sherry flies in from Detroit....Edith, my red haired friend,who lives in Delray....they are retired.
Raynne is the oldest (75) and very pretty...good heart, she loves me......but, loves to talk about her dead husband although she has been happily married to Bart for 25 years.
Marcy...she is a 2 year friend although recycled from years ago.
Rhonda is totally unpretentious and easy....another frustrated director. I am her best friend, oldest friend, worst friend...try only friend. She likes men better.
Marty...a CPA..pretty and thin....
Patty a died in the wool Republican...married to a tax attorney.....bridge player....a little out of the normal circle but she and her husband like to go on gambling trips with us.
I am afraid to read this over, or they would all sound weird as shit.
Anyway...all you would need is rolled up jeans, Keds tennis shoes (the original canvas) and and a pair of pajamas...I would do the rest.....
and you could share a suite with Sherry and I....and spend a couple of nights at my house, with the cats and dogs...
Think about it before you say no.........it could be a China test :)
L

*******************************************
A love letter from a stranger, well not really a stranger, a friend now of sorts. I read that and think, she shares her life and I am so blessed, my cup runs over. I think of all the people in the world so isolated and so alone and even when I am blue I manage to find some place where I feel loved either in the arms of friends or a family that I cherish or my work. Love lingers here in the corners where the cats sleep and in the photos magnetized to the fridge to the notes reminding me to call someone about this or take care of that detail. Then a few days later Craig writes. Craig and I are old friends I think I can call him that, honored to even. I have to nudge him from time to time to tell me something I need to hear from him. So I write him a long rambling Carrie letter, kinda like this and he writes me back the most personal lovely letter and in each line something about how he is and what he is about the love of the land, the nature of trees and advice, something to ponder. And while waxing poetic and pondering on love I've been writing writing writing. I leave myself little notes about poems I'd like to write.

I've always fancied Love a decision
not something that happens to you
like being caught in the rain in your only real wool suit
I found comfort in love being a choice;
some sweet man ties your shoe for you
at the bus stop
to KEEP you from falling and
in his eyes you see a light and you fall
and you fall
and you fall
fall like rain
fall like autumn
because of his tenderness and your choice

No one would choose a scoundrel
unless of course you had a thing for scoundrels
if cross and underhanded were your trigger
if you would toss aside batman for the joker
so you could get the laughs and wear his lipstick


Besides love being a choice I have always believed
that people know the difference between right and wrong
it's inherent in us to know
we are born knowing
it is the hand of God,
the last touch before we decend to earth
and unless
we are very sick or very lost or even full of melancholy
we'd pick right
we'd walk the path of right
like el camino
until our feet were blistered
we'd choose right like we'd choose love

And what if on a rainy day like today, when the sky
is a bruise, the color to match my heart
what if today I played the lottery
planted a seed in the garden that had no package
no little flower to tell you what was waiting
what if on a day full of chance I simply decided
to stop loving you
nobody would notice really
i'm not even sure you would
not for days and then what
gas up the steed?
dust off the shield from the garage?
behind the weed cutter that doesnt work
hasn't worked


I thought it might work today and plugged it in
only to have it cut my leg
and while the blood trickled over
my dollar store flip flops with the little
blue hearts on them
I thought of writing in the muck that
is my heart's desire
This blood now on my toes was beating
through my bruised heart just a few seconds ago
and now it will soon wash away in the rain
and every muscle in my body is keeping me
from bending down and writing
on the cement: You'll miss me
sway with me back and forth until
he makes promises he won't keep
all to keep from getting a finger dirty.

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

I haven't given it a name yet. A love letter to the world, whoever is reading, listening, out to the void wondering what will come back, if anything. If you have a thought you can email me at Summerpoet@msn.com. You can always find my work at www.poetsummer.etsy.com.

Mother's Day - Better late than never

So Rich was home from school a week before and then the week after mother's day because of finals. We planted loads of flowers and started the vegetable garden. I think this year I am only going to play flowers, herbs and tomatoes. In the past I haunted the farmers market looking for tomatoes to make the perfect tomato sauce for pasta. So this year I am hoping to have enough basil and tomatoes in the garden that I won't have to venture far to make the sauce and I do love to make the sauce.

I can't believe how another year of higher education has made him more mature, more willing to help out around here when he is home and more equipped to handle decisions. The pursuit of his education makes me the proud mom but the little tweeks in his personality regarding being more polite and more of a gentleman makes me oh so happy.

When he's working in the garden I can still see him as a little boy at the lake house on a pile of sand playing for hours and hours, his friends coming and going and late into the evening covered in sand and ready for food and a shower being all tanned and in the morning ready to play again. Yesterday we had lunch with Best Friend's mom and her brother and it felt like being home. I love to watch Rich dote over his grandma and I can't wait to venture home soon for a visit with the rest of the nieces and nephews and now grand nieces and the such. I'm not sure when they grew up but they did and I love being part of their lives. Each of them feels a little like my own child and their complex natures really do make me want to be close to them and figure them out. Each of them have so much going on. I am venturing home to celebrate my nephew graduate from med school and yet a niece is leaving for germany, one just arrived home from italy, there's a new baby to hold and cuddle, and I miss them all so much that I am going to hug them very hard.

Business stuff is clicking right along. April was the best month I've ever had but I think most of that was some very large wholesale orders. Etsy is clicking along just fine (I will write more about this in my next post) and I am working on two new lines, a clothing line I've been working on part time in stolen spare moments forever and a line of baby hats like you've never seen before. I am the elf in the shop working on those and for those of you that have noticed, I've let my listings spin down a little as I have hundreds of new new new designs I am posting soon. I have been making and just waiting for a little etsy marketing move before I list them. Now that that has happened, look for them. I have a whole new line of earrings that are over the top and I purchased hundreds and thousands of vintage watch cases that I am going to fill with some wonderful treasures. I am also going to start playing more with resin and the kawaii fun stuff and adding them to my store. You all know I love having new things working through my studio to offer to new and existing customers. I have sold more custom photo pieces than ever before so if you are looking for a one of a kind gift you should let me know. The bracelets make a wonderful gift for a new bride filled with photos of either her wedding party of people who couldn't attend the wedding to let them know they are still close to her on her special day. I can however fill a piece with your art, your children, your pets, your travel photos for a one of a kind keepsake. You can always contact me at Summerpoet@msn.com and you can find my work at www.poetsummer.etsy.com. I am always open to wholesale orders.

Thanks for spending this time with me, Carrie.