Poetry Friday: Invisible Birds

This is the least involved I've been in National Poetry Month in many many years. I will have a line in the Progressive Poem, and I am signed up to host Poetry Friday at the end of the month, but other than that I have hardly had any poetry-related activity. I'm not teaching English these days, but French, and while we do have an occasional poem on the agenda, it's just not the same as my daily poetry habit of the past. I hardly have any poetry books with me here in Uganda, either, so I'm very thankful for the Internet! And I'm hardly writing at all, except for emails, texts, and lesson plans, as I go through the adjustment process to a new place and a new job. I keep telling myself that next year will be easier, but it seems as though I've been saying that for a while now.

One of the things I like least about living here in this gorgeous country full of amazing birds is the time difference. We are seven hours ahead of Eastern Time right now, so it's very hard to get together with people in the US, what with work and sleeping and stuff. But one good thing about it is that as I'm puttering about at mid-morning on this Friday of my Easter break, it's still barely even Friday on the east coast of the US, and there's still plenty of time to post something.

What's keeping me going these days is watching birds, in my yard for a few minutes in the morning before work, or sometimes -- like yesterday -- hours of fabulous birding in a place full of species I haven't seen before. So here's a Craig Arnold poem about Central America that gets at kind of the same thing, except that in this poem he's just hearing instead of seeing, and I get to do both. You can read the rest of it or listen to it at the link below.

The Invisible Birds of Central America

by Craig Arnold

For Alicia

 

The bird who creaks like a rusty playground swing

the bird who sharpens the knife         the bird who blows

on the mouths of milk bottles          the bird who bawls like a cat

like a cartoon baby         the bird who rubs the wineglass

the bird who curlicues     the bird who quacks like a duck

but is not a duck

Here's the rest.

 

Jone has this week's roundup! 

Poetry Friday, Good Friday

I shared this Emily Dickinson poem for Good Friday in 2017, and here it is again.

To know just how He suffered — would be dear —
To know if any Human eyes were near
To whom He could entrust His wavering gaze —
Until it settle broad — on Paradise —

To know if He was patient — part content —
Was Dying as He thought — or different —
Was it a pleasant Day to die —
And did the Sunshine face his way —

What was His furthest mind — Of Home — or God —
Or what the Distant say —
At news that He ceased Human Nature
Such a Day —

And Wishes — Had He Any —
Just His Sigh — Accented —
Had been legible — to Me —
And was He Confident until
Ill fluttered out — in Everlasting Well —

And if He spoke — What name was Best —
What last
What One broke off with
At the Drowsiest —

Was He afraid — or tranquil —
Might He know
How Conscious Consciousness — could grow —
Till Love that was — and Love too best to be —
Meet — and the Junction be Eternity

 

Margaret has today's roundup, and today's line for the Progressive Poem, here. Thanks, Margaret! 

Spiritual Journey Thursday: Origins

 

When I looked at the calendar at the end of last year, I saw that SJT would be on Maundy Thursday in April. This day is very important in Christianity because it's the day when Christ instituted both the Lord's Supper and the tradition/concept of footwashing, which some denominations do as part of a worship service. Here's some information on Maundy Thursday in case this is not part of your background:

What is Maundy Thursday?

All About Footwashing

The Timeline of Holy Week 

Because this is a day of origins, I thought of expanding the prompt to ask: What are the origins of one of your spiritual practices? (This could be the historical origin of the practice, or it could be how it came to be important in your own life.) You can write about Maundy Thursday or something totally different. And as always, feel free to ignore the prompt completely and write about something else entirely! Leave your links in the comments and I'll round them up! 

Origins: Maundy Thursday

A busy week,
full of
riding a donkey into town,
knocking over tables,
prophesying at the Mount of Olives,
praying in the Garden of Gethsemane,
getting betrayed,
arrested,
tried,
convicted,
tortured,
killed
and buried.

A busy week,
but still
Jesus made time
for dinner with friends,
during which there was awkward foot washing
and some confusing commentary
about eating a body and drinking blood.

Later, they got it.

And that’s what amazes,
all these centuries later,
that in the middle of such a busy week,
Jesus thought of later,
gave us language,
actions,
rituals:
thought,
in the middle of everything,
of us.

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

April 2023

Karen shares about breath prayer, with a traditional one and one she created herself. (I really love yours, Karen!)

Margaret reflects on Maundy Thursday. She has a recording of her choir singing, and a poem about footwashing. A nourishing post!

Arjeha's post is full of details of Byzantine Catholic Easter traditions. It's interesting and beautiful!

 

Patricia is thinking a lot about how her faith has grown and changed over the years. "To make present – memorial – ," she writes, "is something Jesus asks of us every day. Do this in memory of me. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Aid the sick. Visit the imprisoned. I am searching for how to adapt my life so that these become a regular and treasured part of my days."

Chris, too, has experienced change in her faith, and her post reflects on what she's left behind and what she's kept.

Carol has chosen a couple of traditions from this time of year: Palm Sunday (what happens to those palms afterward?) and the washing of feet. She's written a lovely post!

The spiritual practice that Ramona chose to write about is singing hymns. She shares some of the hymns and the person who helped make them part of her heart.

 

 

Progressive Poem 2023

April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading

April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe

April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference

April 4 Buffy Silverman

April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities

April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write

April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche

April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life

April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise

April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care

April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems

April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave

April 13 Irene Latham Live You Poem

April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse

April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch

April 16 Linda Baie, TeacherDance

April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link

April 18 Marcie Atkins

April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard 

April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes

April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle,  Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog,

April 22 Marilyn Garcia

April 23 Catherine,  Reading to the Core

April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference

April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town

April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie

April 27 Theresa Gaughan, Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits

April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog

April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog

April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing

Reading Update

Book #11 of the year was An Episode of Sparrows, by Rumer Godden. I have been gradually trying to read all of Godden's books, and I enjoyed this one. It has the kind of prose style that I don't think Chat-GPT could replicate, because there is so clearly a human storyteller brain at work. This is a quiet, old-fashioned story.

Book #12 was the 2023 Newbery winner, Freewater, by Amina Luqman-Dawson. This is the story of two children who escape from enslavement and discover that there is a community of escapees like themselves living in the swamp. This is based on true stories of a similar community in the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia. At times this read like a superhero adventure, and at other times like a harrowing story of abuse. I can really imagine it being made into a movie, and I hope it will be, because I can't picture what the sky bridge described in the book might look like. 

Book #13 was the third and final installment of the Inheritance Games series, The Final Gambit, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I liked it, and it kept me reading, but the incorrect Latin irritated me. 

Book #14 was a re-re-re-re-re-read, Ultimate Prizes, by Susan Howatch. Sometimes you just need to read something familiar. I wrote more about this series here.

Spiritual Journey Thursday: The Words We Fall Back On

It is not Thursday, and this post was supposed to be written by March 2nd. But the prompt was so good that I couldn't resist doing it, even though I am late.

This month's host, Karen, asked us to share some words that we keep returning to, words that are touchstones for us. I have a folder on my computer desktop called "Mantras," though that really isn't a very good name for what's in the folder. There's a whole variety of quotes and prayers, and even a note sent by a friend. These are all too long to be a true mantra, which is supposed to be very short and easy to repeat. 

Here are a very few of the items in my folder:

"You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope. In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.

" Thomas Merton

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.”  Reinhold Neibuhr

 

 

"The world is full of dark shadows to be sure, both the world without and the world within, and the road we’ve set off on is long and hard and often hard to find, but the word is trust. Trust the deepest intuitions of your own heart, trust the source of your own truest gladness, trust the road, trust him. And praise him too. Praise him for all we leave behind us in our traveling. Praise him for all we lose that lightens our feet, for all that the long road of the years bears off like a river. Praise him for stillness in the wake of pain. But praise him too for the knowledge that what’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and that all the dark there ever was, set next to the light, would scarcely fill a cup." Frederick Buechner 

And here's one of my favorite Bible verses: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17

Thank you for this prompt, Karen!

Poetry Friday: Theater

In addition to my already full schedule, I've been helping with the school play, "The Tempest," complete with 80s music. It's been so much fun, and I've been thinking a lot about what a great thing it is for kids to be in a play, how it's making something together, something real. It's the closest I'll ever come to being part of a sports team. 

Here's a poem I found about a theater, and I especially love this line: "A false world ends in real debris." True, that.

 

 

For the Demolition of a Theater

by Elder James Olson

 

The player was neither king nor clown;

Of tragedy or comedy,

Truth is the last catastrophe.

 

Paper castles, too, fall down;

Spider and mouse have always known

A false world ends in real debris.

 

Here's the rest. 

 

 

 

And because I want to include a feather, for my OLW:

Heidi's hosting today's roundup.

Reading Update

Book #5 of 2023 was The Hawthorne Legacy, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. This is the second in the Inheritance Games series. I finished the first one last month, and the third one is on hold.

Book #6 was I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown. The first chapter of this book is called "White People Are Exhausting." As an exhausting white person, I admit I had to fight feelings of defensiveness as I read this book. But I kept telling myself that it is a great opportunity to get such a clear picture of someone else's perceptions. I really get that it's hard to be in a minority, and the history of race in the United States is a brutal one. I will try to be less exhausting henceforth. 

Book #7 was Rescue, by Anita Shreve. There's lots of rescuing going on in this novel. The protagonist is an EMT, and he meets a woman in the course of his job who needs rescuing. Then later others need to be rescued from her, and in the end there are still more rescues. I like Anita Shreve's books, and I just found that I have reported on six of her others on this blog.

Book #8 was One Day, by David Nicholls. Dexter and Emma meet in 1988, and the "one day" of the title is July 15th of that year. The rest of the book takes us to July 15th of each succeeding year, and shows us the ups and downs of "Dex and Em." I did enjoy this book, and I liked the structure. It went in some directions I didn't see coming. I understand there's also a movie.

Book #9 was Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding, by Scott Weidensaul. This was a fascinating read, with lots of great bird stories and ornithological name-dropping. It's thirteen years old, so it's not up to the minute on current birding culture, and there's a tiny bit too much griping about people who are more interested in adding to their Life Lists than they are in actually learning about birds. I highly recommend this book for people who are as obsessed with the topic as I am.

Book #10 was one of the best books I've read in a while, Solito: A Memoir, by Javier Zamora. Wow! Wow! This is the story of nine-year-old Javier, whose parents are in the US while he has been left in El Salvador, and how he attempts to join them. It is so full of vivid detail and emotion that I felt as though I was along for the journey. There's a lot of Spanish in the book. I've been studying Spanish for just over a year now, and I was pleased with how much I could understand, but since a lot of the point of the Spanish is to show the different ways the language is spoken in the different countries Javier passes through and how that affects everyone, a little glossary in the back would have helped me out. I felt as though I missed out on some of what was going on, just as I would have had I really been in this group in 1999. But oh, what a read! I could hardly put it down, and my heart was with Javier each moment. I couldn't help thinking of the Haitian children living some version of this drama right now.

Poetry Friday: Snow

Today I have some poems about snow. The first two are haiku based on photos sent me by friends last week (click on the picture to enlarge it). Then there's another snow poem, or at least a snow-adjacent poem, I wrote recently. I wanted to include the word Feather somewhere, since that's my OLW, so I went searching for a poem that compared snow to feathers, and the post ends with that.

 

Snow Moon, 2023


Here,
seven or eight hours in their future,
(depending on the time zone,
since my grown-up children
live in two separate ones),
I go outside
in the warm night
to look at the
Snow Moon.

I imagine myself
seeing the same
shining
full
orb
now
that they will see
once their part of the earth
circles round.

But
here
in the Ugandan dry season,
the Snow Moon hides
behind
thick, white clouds
that will
never,
no,
never,
bring snow.

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

I'm going to share one stanza of this poem; there are four. Follow the link to read the rest of it.

from The Snow Arrives After Long Silence

 

by Nancy Willard

 

...The cat at my window watches

amazed. So many feathers and no bird!

All day the snow sets its table

with clean linen, putting its house in order.

The hungry deer walk

 

Here's the rest. 

The marvelous Molly has today's roundup.

Poetry Friday: Feather

Feather

by Lew R. Sarett

High in the noon's bright bowl of blue

I saw an idling eagle tilt

His suave white wings.  As smooth he flew

As water flows on silt.

He wheeled; a feather from his wing

Fluttered from out the clean clear dome

And sank on the grassy carpeting,

Soft as a moth on foam. 

The rest is here.

And speaking of light and beautiful things like feathers, here's a song I found this week by Pat Kalla & Le Super Mojo. The lyrics, in French, are in the comments on the video. My favorite ones:

"Pleurer, c’est une rivière au fond des yeux qui déborde quand il pleut  

Pleurer, c’est dessiner la mélancolie avec un pinceau tout gris  

Pleurer, c’est déranger les anges qui dorment sous tes paupières  

Qui secouent leurs ailes toutes mouillées 

 Et vont au soleil se sécher..."

 

My translation:

 

"Crying is a river deep in the eyes that overflows when it rains

Crying is drawing melancholy with a gray paintbrush 

Crying is bothering the angels that are sleeping under your eyelids

That shake their wet wings

And go into the sun to dry themselves..."

Laura has this week's roundup.

Spiritual Journey Thursday: The Colors of My Life

This month our host for Spiritual Journey Thursday, Bob, asked us to think about colors. He wrote, "We are all called to be shining lights for others to follow. Are your lights bright and bold so that others can see them in the distance or are they soft and muted so that others won’t notice them until they are near you? What color is your light?"

 

I am not sure how to answer what color my light is, but I do know that I have been loving the colors I have been seeing lately in Uganda, my new home. They are a beautiful gift. Here are some recent colors.

 

 

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17.

Check out other people's responses to this prompt here!

Poetry Friday: Try to Praise...

My OLW, Feather, comes up in so many poems. Feathers are inherently poetic and beautiful: here are some links that illustrate that.  

 

In this poem, a lost feather from a thrush features. Sometimes lost feathers indicate an injured or dead bird. Recently we found a pile of feathers from a guinea fowl. A man nearby told us that he had found the bird dead; perhaps it had been killed by an animal. But birds do replace their feathers multiple times during their life cycle, and as long as the bird is alive, feathers do grow back. Not that the process of moulting is easy; this link from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds explains more.

All of that to say that the "mutilated world" of the poem, while difficult and full of struggle, is still beautiful. After the poem, I'm including the Over the Rhine song "All of My Favorite People Are Broken," which quotes a line from the poem.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

by Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world.

Remember June's long days,

and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.

The nettles that methodically overgrow 

the abandoned homesteads of exiles.

 

Here's the rest, including the part about the feather. 

Jan has the roundup this week.

Poetry Friday: Kingfishers and Queenfishers

I really wanted to do a better job with Poetry Friday this year, but last week there were obstacles like exams and grades and such non-poetic things. I wanted to post about Kingfishers for last Poetry Friday, but here it is today instead.

The American Birding Association recently announced their 2023 Bird of the Year. It's the Belted Kingfisher, but, plot twist! It's the female Belted Kingfisher, which is slightly more colorful than the male, unlike in most bird species. So the artist commissioned to paint the bird called her painting Queenfisher! You can listen to a podcast interview with the artist, Liz Clayton Fuller, here. (And you can also see her beautiful painting.)

 

What's funny is that I had already thought, while looking through my bird list from 2022, that last year was my Year of the Kingfisher because I saw eight kingfisher species!

 

Below is a poem by Mary Oliver called "The Kingfisher." It perfectly captures the lightness of those birds, in spite of everything. Then I wanted to write about all the kingfishers I saw last year, the way they hover above the water before plunging to catch a fish, how colorful and debonair they are, and how much fun they always seem to be having, but instead I decided to give all their names in a sort of list poem. (That is, I'm not sure it's a poem, but it's definitely a list.) Neither of these poems (or one could say neither the poem nor the list) mentions my OLW, Feather, but in another way they are both full of feathers, many of them bright blue.

The Kingfisher

by Mary Oliver

The kingfisher rises out of the black wave

like a blue flower, in his beak

he carries a silver leaf. I think this is

the prettiest world -- so long as you don't mind

a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life

that doesn't have its splash of happiness?

Here's the rest of it.

 

 

2022 Kingfishers

Belted Kingfisher

Ringed Kingfisher

Amazon Kingfisher

Green Kingfisher

Pied Kingfisher

Woodland Kingfisher

Malachite Kingfisher

African Pygmy Kingfisher

Here's the roundup.

Reading Update

Here are the first four books I've finished in 2023.

Book #1 of 2023 was something I found at the grocery store. I'm trying not to buy paper books any more, after the traumatic experience I just had of getting rid of a couple of thousand. Books are heavy, hard to move, gather dust. Nobody wants them when you're done with them. Instead I try to download and borrow. But I just can't stop looking at all the books everywhere I go. Here in Uganda there are odd collections on the street, in second hand stores, and even in the grocery store. I wonder why those particular books. There are a lot of business titles, self-help books, a few novels. This one has an obvious connection to the country. It's called Ivory, Apes & Peacocks: Animals, Adventure and Discovery in the Wild Places of Africa, by Alan Root. Root was a wildlife photographer who moved to Kenya as a child when his dad got a job at a meat-packing plant producing "bully beef" for Britain after World War II. He spent his life in this region of the world exploring and making movies. This fascinating book tells the story of all of it. Here's a quote: "The great documentary maker Robert Flaherty once said, 'All art is a kind of exploring. To discover and reveal is the way every artist sets about his business.' This is particularly true of wildlife filming, when every new project means learning to see all over again, to pick up the clues and signs that lead to an understanding of this new and different territory. Today it means googling the subject and getting buried under a mass of information; back then it meant looking, listening and finding out for yourself."

Book #2 was The Inheritance Games, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. This is clearly destined to become a movie. It's a fun, puzzle-filled romp. I enjoyed it and have the second one on hold at the library.

Book #3 was The Queen's Choice, by Cayla Kluver. It's a story of succession in the fairy world, mystery, and quest. This time the second one isn't as easy to come by, because the library doesn't have it. Grr.

Book #4 was Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel. I've had this one on hold at the library for a really long time, probably almost since the moment it first came out last April. I finally got to read it. It's a very quick read, mind-bending and full of time travel and pandemic. It's the kind of book you want to reread as soon as you're done, to figure out all the connections again. I recommend it if you're into the kind of books this author writes.

SJT and Poetry Friday and OLW, all in one!

As my break from school barrels to a close, I am taking some time to write down the thoughts that have been going through my mind about my OLW (One Little Word) for 2023. That's the theme for our SJT (Spiritual Journey Thursday) group for January, and I'm going to include a poem so that this post will do double duty for Poetry Friday, too. So Happy New Year to you and to me!

In 2022, my OLW was BEGINNER. I knew it would be appropriate because I was moving to a new country and a new job. What I didn't know was that I would do that again in August, when we moved to our current home, Kampala, Uganda. Do I recommend making two international moves to two different continents in one year? I do not. But did my focus on being a beginner and giving myself grace to be OK with being a beginner help me deal with the intense stress of the year? Yes it did. 

As I thought through the events of 2022, there was a lot of heaviness in my memories. A lot of grief and loss happened. But the year was also full of incredible adventure and fun. 

 

2022 was the year I became a cyclist again. Since I joined Strava in April, I rode over 1900 miles (over 3000 kilometers), mostly with my husband on one of three tandem bicycles in three different countries, but also some on a single bike. Cycling burned stress, helped me see an enormous amount of beauty, and made me stronger and happier. 

 

In 2022 I continued my birding habit, seeing an unbelievable 407 species in five countries. I've written a lot on this blog about what birding means to me, so I won't go into that again, but birding brought me so much pleasure in a year when I needed that! I sometimes observed on my own, and sometimes with others, and both were fabulous. And I learned so very much! 

I also spent time with wonderful people in 2022. I said many goodbyes, but at my age and with my international background, I am well aware that goodbyes go with the territory. They hurt, but somehow I find the strength to move on and make new friendships. 

So, I wondered, what did these good things about 2022 have in common? What OLW could I choose so that I could have more of these good things in 2023? I know I can't make the year have no pain in it, because I will be living this year on Planet Earth, and pain is part of life. But I would like to have a year of joy and fun, as much as possible. I'm so tired of heaviness and struggle. The opposite of heaviness is lightness, and I gave serious consideration to Light, or Lightness, as my OLW. But then I started thinking about things that are light, like bicycles and birds and easy, non-stressful relationships, and I settled on a word with some more metaphorical resonance: FEATHER. 

 

Lightness doesn't come very easily to me. I have lived for many years in Haiti, which is now in free fall. It's hard to focus on delight and fun with that knowledge in the back of my mind at all times. As alluded to above, I have some heaviness in my recent past. And I know it's shallow of me, but I've also learned more and more this past year that I am not a minimalist, and I miss my possessions lost this year, my cupboard full of mugs for my tea, my array of teapots, my thousands of books that surrounded me, my kids' rooms even though the kids weren't in them any more. Now we live more lightly, in a small apartment with only a few books, most of those borrowed. There are good things about this lighter life, but it's also an adjustment. 

Feathers are light, but they aren't flimsy and they aren't trivial. They are perfectly designed for their purposes, which are several. They are strong. When lost or molted, they grow back. They are gorgeous, in all the colors of the rainbow and more, with iridescence and improbable patterns. Feathers are glorious. 

And Hildegard of Bingen, the twelfth century mystic, called herself "a feather on the breath of God." That's how I want to think of myself this year as I learn to embrace this lighter life. 

In addition to aiming for lightness this year, I want to read and write more about feathers. This poem by Ross Gay includes both feathers and the idea of focusing on delight. 

 

Sorrow is Not My Name

by Ross Gay

—after Gwendolyn Brooks

 

No matter the pull toward brink. No

matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.

There is a time for everything. Look,

just this morning a vulture

nodded his red, grizzled head at me,

and I looked at him, admiring

the sickle of his beak.

Then the wind kicked up, and,

after arranging that good suit of feathers

he up and took off.

Just like that. And to boot,

there are, on this planet alone, something like two

million naturally occurring sweet things,

some with names so generous as to kick

the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,

stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks

at the market. Think of that. The long night,

the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me

on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.

But look; my niece is running through a field

calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel

and at the end of my block is a basketball court.

I remember. My color's green. I'm spring. 

      —for Walter Aikens

 

 

 

Margaret has the SJT roundup and Catherine has the Poetry Friday roundup.

 

 

Reading Update and What I Read in 2022

Here are the last few books I finished in 2022:

Book #75 of the year was Worlds of Ink and Shadow: A Novel of the Brontës, by Lena Coakley. This fantasy is based on the juvenilia of the Brontë sisters and brothers. What if the worlds they invented in their writing really existed?

Book #76 was African Town, by Charles Waters and Irene Latham. This is a verse novel in fourteen voices, telling the story of the last slave ship to arrive on the shores of the United States, after the slave trade had already been abolished. I am late to reading this one, but I'll join my voice with everyone else who said it is a wonderful book. Highly recommended!

Book #77 was The Swimmers, by Julie Otsuka. I read Otsuka's previous novel, The Buddha in the Attic, back in 2017 (the link is to my review). This book has a similar kind of voice, and I had to go back and figure out where I had seen the second person plural voice used before. Sure enough; it was in another book by the same author. This one is about a group of swimmers, and also about dementia, family relationships, and aging. It was very sad and also very worth reading.

Book #78 was Mary B., by Katherine J. Chen, a novel told in the voice of Mary, the Bennet sister made to look most ridiculous in Pride and Prejudice. It was fun to see Mary have a full life of her own, and it didn't work out the way I expected.

Book #79 was a middle grade novel, The Seventh Wish, by Kate Messner. This novel has a touch of magic realism in it, as Charlie catches a fish who offers her a wish. But it's mostly realistic, exploring a serious issue affecting Charlie's sister, a freshman in college. I enjoyed this and will read more of Messner's work. 

Book #80 was Henri Nouwen's You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living. I reviewed it here.

Here are the rest of the books I read this year:

Books 1 to 6

Books 7 to 10 

Books 11 to 18

Books 19 to 26 

Books 27 to 32

Books 33 to 36 

Books 37 to 43

Books 44 to 58 

Books 59 to 68

Books 69 to 74 

Poetry Friday: A Different Advent and a Birdbath by the Nile

Happy Poetry Friday! I haven't participated all that much this year, but I'm on break from school, so I thought I'd jump in today. (Actually, I just checked, and I've posted 28 Poetry Friday posts in 2022, so just over half the Fridays. Not too bad!)

This has been a different year, and so it's fitting that it's been a different Advent. This is our first Advent completely out of Haiti since 2000, our first Christmas season without either of our kids being with us, our first December in Uganda (so...much...rain!). A friend who was traveling for our school break brought over her tree and some other Christmas decorations on her way to the airport, so we have some festive cheer in our apartment. We made a list of adventures to experience in Kampala and nearby, and we've been checking them off every day. It's been very fun, but also a little melancholy.

Last weekend, we had the opportunity to go with some new friends to an incredible house right on the bank of the Nile River. My husband rode his bike there (101 kilometers, 62 miles), I birded constantly and took pictures of a vervet monkey on our balcony, and we all went out on Saturday night to watch Croatia play Morocco while we ate dinner. I decided to share three of my photos from the weekend today, along with some haiku.

Find some privacy
away from fish and herons,
bathe here in peace.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

Shadow, reflection,
suggestions of leaves above,
peace before the splash.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

An upturned blossom,
fragrant in yellow and white,
floats in morning peace

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

The incomparable Irene has the roundup today, as well as a feast of other delights!

Reading Update

Book #69 of the year was The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. While I didn't love this as much as Towles' book A Gentleman in Moscow, which I read twice in 2018, it was a rollicking read. 

Book #70 was The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O'Farrell. This is a historical novel about Lucrezia de'Medici, the duchess in Browning's poem "My Last Duchess." All of O'Farrell's books I've read have been good, and I enjoyed this one, too.

Book #71 was When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead, the winner of the Newbery Medal in 2010. I hadn't read it before, and I liked it. I'm not sure how I had gone so long without reading it!

Book #72 was No et Moi, by Delphine de Vigan. I thought this book, the story of a precocious teenager's relationship with a homeless woman in Paris, was well worth reading. 

Book #73 was Sankofa, by Chibundu Onuzo. It's the story of a mixed-race British woman, Anna, who grew up without a father. When she finds a journal in her mother's things, she starts to learn more and more, until she has to go find the man himself.

 

Book #74 was Everything Sad is Untrue, Daniel Nayeri's story of being a refugee from Iran. This really was a special, unexpected book. I couldn't put it down. 

Poetry Friday: Ode to Neruda's Table and Mine, and the Roundup is Here!

When I signed up to host Poetry Friday back in June, I wasn't even sure what country I'd be living in by November. But I knew that Thanksgiving would be a time when I'd be thinking about odes, and that's why I chose this date. As it turns out, the school where I work now in Uganda doesn't have a Thanksgiving break, since a very small percentage of our constituency is from the United States. And more unexpected, I'm now not even teaching English, so I won't be writing odes with kids this year. I'm back to my original subject, the one I got degrees in: French. 

It's still a great time to host Poetry Friday. I'm pretty sure I was the first person to host Poetry Friday from Haiti, and then the first from Paraguay, and now the first from Uganda.

 

 

Welcome to the roundup, friends! Leave your link in the comments, and I'll round them up the old-fashioned way. My time zone is eight hours ahead of Eastern time, so it's going to be well into Saturday for me before this Poetry Friday is over. Bring it on!

 

 

When we left Haiti last December, we had to get rid of many things. Some we sold, some we gave away, some we lost on the way in various fashions. I'm still grieving over a lot of that stuff, even while my grieving is mixed with guilt, since my losses pale to nothing in comparison with the losses of so many in Haiti during these terrible times. One thing I had to leave behind was my outdoor table. The spot where it used to sit looked so bare and forsaken when it was gone. And I remembered so many happy moments at that table. I'm illustrating this post with way too many photos of it. I was never taking a picture of the table itself, but of the meals and flowers and people that it welcomed. We never ate Thanksgiving dinner there, but we ate Christmas dinner there many times, and breakfast, lunch, and/or supper on ordinary days, and I hosted friends for tea on countless occasions. 

 

 

Pablo Neruda wrote an Ode to the Table, so I wrote one too. You'll find them both below. 

Ode to the Table

Pablo Neruda

I work out my odes

on a four-legged table,

laying before me bread and wine

and roast meat

(that black boat

of our dreams). 

Sometimes I set out scissors, cups and nails,

hammers and carnations.

 

Tables are trustworthy:

titanic quadrupeds, 

they sustain

our hopes and our daily life.

 

The rich man's table,

scrolled and shining

is

a fabulous ship

bearing bunches of fruit.

Gluttony's table is a wonder,

piled high with Gothic lobsters,

and there is also a lonesome

table in our aunt's dining room,

in summer. They've closed

the curtains,

and a single ray of summer light

strikes like a sword

upon this table sitting in the dark 

and greets the plum's transparent peace.

And there is a faraway table, a humble table,

where they're weaving

a wreath

for

a dead miner.

That table gives off the chilling odor

of a man's wasted pain.

There's a table

in a shadowy room nearby

that love sets ablaze with its flames.

A woman's glove was left behind there,

trembling like a husk on fire.

 

The world 

is a table

engulfed in honey and smoke,

smothered by apples and blood.

The table is already set,

and we know the truth

as soon as we are called:

whether we're called to war or to dinner

we will have to choose sides,

have to know

how we'll dress

to sit

at the long table,

whether we'll wear the pants of hate

or the shirt of love, freshly laundered.

It's time to decide,

they're calling:

boys and girls,

let's eat!

(Sadly, I haven't been able to find out the translator's name. If someone knows, please tell me so I can post it. I don't have my Neruda books with me here, so I'm relying on online sources.)

Ode to My Table

Tables are trustworthy: titanic quadrupeds, they sustain our hopes and our daily life. - Neruda


Trustworthy table,
you sustained us.

You stood on your titanic legs
in our Haitian courtyard
and sustained our daily life.

You held up
my teapot
and my piles of quizzes
and sometimes my feet.

You supported
vases of flowers
and Christmas dinner
and weekend breakfasts.

You witnessed
prayers
and tears
and laughter.

You kept silent about
griefs
and frustrations
and confided joys.

Again and again
we wiped you clean
only to spill more.

Around you
our children grew.

Around you
we argued
and reconciled
and discussed
and were silent.

We talked of
politics
and disease,
love and hate,
friends and enemies.

We talked of
homework
and haircuts,
jokes and dreams.

We sat around you
when we were afraid to sit inside
because an earthquake had leveled so many houses
in our city.

We sat around you
with visitors,
carefully distanced
when we feared germs.

Under you
puppies tumbled
and babies crawled
and ants devoured crumbs.

Above you
birds flew by,
some observed through binoculars,
others not even noticed.

You saw
countless bowls of noodles and rice
croissants and patés and soupe joumou
scrambled eggs and cookies
and thousands of cups of tea.

You saw family,
you saw friends,
some as trustworthy as you.

The day the truck came to pick you up
to take you to your new owner
I cried.

How can I ever replace you?
No table in our new home
will ever be you,

Trustworthy table.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

Read on for everyone's links!

 

Check out Michelle Kogan's recipe poem, "Thanksgiving Recipe with a Twist." What do we do when unexpected challenges interrupt Thanksgiving?

 

Linda's got a recipe too today;  hers is for a perfect Poetry Friday roundup! I especially liked the intriguing suggestion: "You can go rogue." 

 

It's Friday morning here in Uganda, and some posts came in during the night! I'm going to work soon, but I'll keep checking all day and adding links as I'm able. Be patient; they'll all be up eventually!

Kat, who wrote a snail book herself called What Snail Knows, is in with a review of Irene Latham's new snail book, Snail's Ark. Thanks for the lovely snail mail, Kat and Irene! And Kat even finishes up with a bonus jellyfish!

Laura's written a recipe poem, too, a recipe for a song! A bird poem is totally the way to my heart, and this one's a beaut. 

 

Alan shares a fascinating post about long poems, and then a rant poem about our times. He gives an alternative name to the genre that I really like: a "What Cheeses Me Off Poem."

Mary Lee has a recipe poem too; hers is for a soap box derby. What a wonderful collection of ingredients!

Marcie's in with a book recommendation (sounds really good!) and a haiku.

 

Sara's recipe poem details a way to make dinner even when all your ways don't work.

Margaret remembers her mom's cornbread dressing -- and knows that it was really love. She's used the haibun form, which I enjoy so much!

When Jone hosted Poetry Friday a few weeks ago, I couldn't get to her post, and the same thing is happening to me this week. I will keep trying, but meanwhile, go check out her link, since whatever my issue in Uganda is, it will most probably not affect you!

It's nighttime here now, and we just had a power cut. Now that the power is back on, I'm catching up on the last few links to come in. Sorry to keep you waiting!

Heidi has written a "Catalog of Unabashed Change" all about how we do and ought to and must live now. Great stuff, Heidi!

Tanita's recipe poem is about a winter concert. Such a treat, and such a job to prepare!

Kelly's recipe poem is about magic. My favorite line after the end of the power cut is: "Light a candle. Right a wrong."

And Shari has combined an epistolary poem with a recipe poem to make a delicious coffee cake!

I'm going to bed now, friends, and I'll be back in a few hours to post anything that comes in overnight. Thank you for all the yumminess so far!

It's morning in Uganda, and my husband is baking bread for our Thanksgiving gathering this afternoon. We worked Thursday and Friday, so we waited until today for festivities. Our oven only goes up to 350 degrees, so he's using a neighbor's. This morning he went through the yearly ritual of hunting down his mother's recipe. I'm going to try to get next week's lesson planning finished while he bakes. But first, here are the links from the night!

Patricia posted an evocative poem about the "tiny things" that are bringing her gratitude this year.

Tricia got some terrible news, and she posted a recipe for healing. Wishing you comfort and hope and yes, healing, Tricia.

Tiel Aisha Ansari doesn't participate in Poetry Friday, but I love her work and I like to link to it when I'm hosting. Here's her beautiful poem, "Black Ink, Blue Breath."

Here's Irene's Q poem for this week! "How easily we break." Indeed.

Any more links? It's not Friday any more, but don't let that stop you. Thank you, everyone, for participating, and helping make my first Thanksgiving in Uganda a poetic occasion. I am grateful for you, Poetry Friday friends! 

It's Sunday morning, and overnight I got one more link, this one from Carol. It's another recipe poem; this one is a recipe for "a mindful work-in." I'm sure we could all use some relaxation after this busy weekend! 

And Liz has extended the festivities to Poetry Monday, with her lovely and hopeful recipe poem "The Making of a Habitat."

Reading Update

Book #59 of the year was a re-read, In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden. You can see what I wrote the last time I read it here.

Book #60 was The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature, by Jonathan Rosen. This book is full of many things of which I cannot get enough: birds, poetry, philosophy, theology, ecology, history. Some good quotes follow. "The library world and the wild, nonverbal world meet in the middle when you are birdwatching." "Knowing the giant numbers of geography, and knowing the names of things, and having a system for putting what we know in its proper place, takes the chill edge off the presence of unfathomable things, which is perhaps a fancy way of saying death." "Backyard birds are in fact birds of paradise. It just depends on your definition of backyard - and paradise." I will definitely read this one again.

Book #61 was The Dearly Beloved, by Cara Wall. I absolutely loved this book, the story of two married couples and their friendships. These characters are so real and beautifully drawn, and their lives are complex and difficult, but also hopeful and lovely. 

Book #62 was the long-awaited Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, by Susan Cain. First I waited for a long time for it to be published, and then I waited a long time to get it from the library. This all can't have been very long, though, because the book only came out in April. I liked it very much, and found it thought-provoking just like her previous best-seller, Quiet, which I wrote about here.

 

Book #63 was Five Wives, by Joan Thomas. This is a retelling of the (to me) extremely well-known story about the five missionaries martyred in 1959 in Ecuador. I resisted reading this because I had a feeling it would be a cynical take on the events, but ultimately I couldn't overcome the temptation to read it. I have such mixed feelings about it. It was beautifully written and if these weren't real people I would have found it entirely successful as a novel. But knowing so much about the facts, and knowing that these people's families are still living, I really wished I knew more about why the author had interpreted things the way she did. Did she have access to source material I haven't seen? (I've read many of the books published on this.) Or was she just using her imagination? And if so, is that really OK? I've read historical fiction my whole life, so I don't have a problem with people re-imagining real events, but this author made up fictional grandchildren for these real people, and that seemed to be going too far. I'm sure the story is more complicated than the hagiography the evangelical world has produced - it's bound to be. But this made me quite uncomfortable in ways I can't fully articulate. Someone else read it so we can talk about it!

Book #64 was Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan. I read this because it's on the French A-level syllabus and I'm going to teach it. I found it quite overwrought but still entertaining. Sagan published it in 1954 when she was nineteen.

 

Book #65 was Un Secret, by Philippe Grimbert. I read this one, like #64, in order to teach it. This is a harrowing story, but I couldn't put it down. It's been fun to read novels in French again, since mostly what I've read in French in recent years has been news articles - all bad news, naturally. 

Book #66 was The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai. This is the story of a group of friends in 1985 and 2015. It's about friendship, love, art, and illness, specifically the AIDS epidemic in its early years. It's set in the gay community of 1980s Chicago and the art world of 2015 Paris. 

Book #67 was Gentlemen and Players, by Joanne Harris. This is a mystery set in an exclusive school, with lots of twists and turns. 

Book #68 was The Ink Black Heart, by Robert Galbraith. This is the latest installment of the story of Cormoran Strike and his business partner and friend Robin Ellacott. This is enormously long but I zipped through it. As with the others in the series, I like the way the author describes the day to day work of a private detective agency. The main story is extremely dramatic, but we also see the mundane tasks that go on, and as always I am most interested in the character development. Trigger warnings galore for violence, language, content.