writing

The Sound of Silence

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

For years I puzzled over what this phrase means.  This evening I discovered the answer.  Unlike the first part of the week, today was sunny, little wind, high 70s, what most consider a perfect day weather wise.  I ran home from work, gave Rosie, my horse, some food, let Isabella, my dog out for a bit, and then ran back to town to see my grandson perform.  He attends Wolflin Elementary School.  The physical education teacher selected a group of students called the SWAT Team who perform at different functions.  The last time I saw them, they performed at a local high school’s basketball tournament.  Today they executed four routines at their school’s annual gala, a fund raiser with games, food, a silent auction, dunking in the water, that sort of thing.  It really astonished me.  I have no idea how much they practiced, but these routines were not short and everything was perfectly choreographed.  First, the boys performed using basketballs to do various tricks and movements in unison to music.  Then  the girls did this complicated sort of dance over these long bamboo poles that other students clicked together.  The only other place where I have seen anything like this is in Thailand at the Rose Garden near Bangkok.  The third routine included both boys and girls and they used this giant circle of multicolored cloth to dance around, in and out, make the cloth into a sort of yurt like shape.  I have no idea how they kept it up like a giant circular tent one minute and flat the next.  Finally, they competed with hoola hoops to see who could keep going the longest.

After I returned home, I hosed off the front entryway, planted some flowers in pots, and watered other flowers, all in preparation for a fund raiser tomorrow night at my house–to raise money for a local senior citizens center.  Rosie is shedding her winter coat and seemed miserable itching so I brushed her.  Now tufts of pale rose colored hair lay everywhere in her corral.  Finally, a bit after eight I came inside for a late dinner.  Then I noticed.  No sounds, no wind, no appliances humming, no coyotes howling, no birds singing, no dogs barking, no sounds at all.  Nothing.  The patio doors are open; I walked outside a few minutes ago.  Nothing.  I sit here before the computer and hear the sounds the keys make when I hit them.  When I stop, nothing.

Rosie

 

Rosie

 

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Isabella on the patio in winter.

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They started blooming today.

Destino

/ Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

Week two of the prose poetry class:

“It is a blessing to live out your destino.”  Julia Alvarez

Long ago, in the hot summer, I could hear the corn grow at night with the windows open in northwest Missouri.  Rolling hills of corn and soybeans still clad the dark brown earth left by glaciers thousands of years ago.  So much time has gone without my returning to this land:  colleges in different states, marriages, jobs in cities.

My father lived ninety years on this farm his Swiss grandfather homesteaded.  He yearned for distant lands, to explore, to learn.  He loved the West, endless space, rugged mountains, canyonlands, wildness.  When it snowed too much for school, he loaded us in the car, turned wheelies, and headed for Kansas City.  His yearning to be a doctor died when very young–the only child left at home, caring for a diabetic mother, recovering from a failed youthful marriage before he met Mom.

He gave me his love of questioning, traveling, reading, trying the untried, a pride in the land and work, and a sense of wonder.  This night, after shoveling out from a dangerous blizzard, I sit in front of a fire, write on a Western canyon rim, look at his parade saddle and the photo of the farm for which he felt so much pride, and cry:  my destino.

The Blizzard

/ Juliana Lightle / 2 Comments

Looking through the window.

Looking through the window.

The steps climbing up the hill to the barn.

The steps climbing up the hill to the barn.

Outside the office window.

Outside the office window.

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My patio which I will have to eventually shovel--afraid to do so today because the wind is so strong.

My patio which I will have to eventually shovel–afraid to do so today because the wind is so strong.

The barn door before I shoveled my way in.

The barn door before I shoveled my way in.

The view out the double barn door. All this is actually under a roof. The wind is blowing the snow everywhere.

The view out the double barn door. All this is actually under a roof. The wind is blowing the snow everywhere.

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The view from the front door after digging it out twice from reoccurring drifts.

The view from the front door after digging it out twice from reoccurring drifts.

The new assignment arrived for my prose poetry class.  In the last couple of hours I have read poems by Baudelaire and Rimbaud as examples of some of the first prose poems.  While I read them, I listened to “The Unicorn, the Gorgan, and the Manticore” by Menotti, a piece I am supposed to be singing in 1 1/2 months.  Work shut down today because of a massive blizzard.  The wind literally shrieks down the canyon where I live–gusts they say to 70 mph.  It piles up drifts four to six feet high.  Twice today I have donned my boots, gloves, heavy coat, and gone shoveling and to feed the horses.  For the first time since the barn has been there, snow is actually inside, driven by the wind, and the horses are standing in snow drifts that blew under the overhanging roof of the outside runs.  Even getting to the barn door necessitated shoveling through drifts taller than I.  The snow continues, predicted for another twelve hours or so, maybe as much as twenty inches.  Living alone fails to daunt me, but I cannot concentrate well today.  My drive is long and climbs up a steep hill.  Even my four wheel drive truck may not make it.  I keep thinking it may take days for me to shovel out even if, when the snow and wind cease, my neighbor brings over his tractor to help.  A friend, several miles away, remains without electricity.  I filled my wood burning stove with wood and started a fire just in case.  It seems a perfect day to write and cook and practice music.  And here I sit unable to concentrate long enough.  The wind keeps rushing through my brain.

Why I Write

/ Juliana Lightle / 4 Comments

This post continues the saga of my writing for the SCN poetry class.  One of our first assignments included reading Mary Oliver’s poem about why she writes and then write one of our own about why we write.  Unlike many writers, discipline frequently escapes me.  I write when I feel like it or get inspired or have something special I want to say.  What do I care about?  Why do I write and about what?

I want to write about

beauty and life,

wind and flowers,

riding and writing on the rim,

sleeping in the moonlight.

I want to write to

make a difference,

challenge the status quo,

instill a love of wonder,

change the world

even if only for one minuscule moment

in one tiny corner.

I want to write so that when I die, they will say,

“She mattered!”