windy on the great plains

Learn from me, girl

I am a tree sparrow who has three friends

We are flitting up and down and twirling around

each of us lands

on a different cedar fence post

and we watch

the girl and the black dog walking behind us.

We dance on barbed wire 

we are notes on sheet music

rising and falling

ahead of the girl and the dog

It is now.

Daytime and full of sun --

we are alive and together

no thoughts of the future.

No dark from the past.

The girl knows this is the way

she is learning

From me

From her dog.

Dwight, Nebraska

This morning, I drove about an hour northwest of Lincoln to Dwight, population 250. The town is a small grid of roads, settled off a cornfield. I heard Ted Kooser writes his poems in this town, in an old brick store front filled with fake flowers. It wasn't hard to find his building. I looked in the windows and saw the fake flowers in the quiet dark room. An early morning writer, he must have come and gone hours before I showed up.

 

thank you...

...for letting me see this

what happens in the dark

This morning, before the sun's warmth erased remnants of the night's game of survival, I witnessed a few temporary traces of what happens in the dark. 

abandoned houses, imagination, poetry

When I was a kid, about 11 or 12, I used to ride my bike out to an abandoned house on Cousins Island. The shrubs out the front door were overgrown, one window broken, and the paint on all sides was thin and flaking off into the tall grass of the lawn. I got as far as the mailbox once, before running back to my bike - cheeks hot with excitement - and peddling away as a balloon of fear welled up in my chest. I hadn't thought about this until I heard Ted Kooser read some of his poems last week. 

When asked about his subject matter, which many times includes abandoned houses and old barns, he mentioned Walter de la Mare's poem, "The Listeners." In his 40 years of writing poems, Kooser said that he may have been trying to write a version of "The Listeners" over and over again. Well, I had never heard of this poem, so naturally I came straight home a found it on the internet - I pasted it for you below. 

After reading de la Mare's poem, I was instantly transported to the old house I used to visit and all those same feelings welled up inside me once again. The unknown is a fertile ground for childhood imagination and poetry is a venue to bring us back to that fertile ground. Thank God!  

Former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser
thoughtfully listens as UNL student asks question

The Listeners

Walter de la Mare

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grass

Of the forest's ferny floor;

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller's head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

"Is there anybody there?" he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller's call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

'Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

"Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word," he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Love is in the air

This morning, Aaron and I went over to porridge papers in Lincoln to make valentines using their wonderful old typewriters. They had coffee, heart shaped cookies, and a DJ in a pink tuxedo shirt spinning some sweet love jams. This is a really cool place, that makes beautiful paper, cards, and knows a thing or two about what looks good. 

Also, in case you missed this, I was listening to NPR's Weekend Edition on Saturday and heard this piece. Make sure you play it aloud so you can listen to Paul Wilson, a 93 year old man, tell his story about meeting the love of his life. Get your kleenex ready. 

X O X O X O 

Prairie Jog

I always have Aaron Copland in my head when running in the prairie. HA!

white

Today I punched my boots through snow drifts, in the white vortex of winter corn fields and prairies. Walking by some underbrush, four pheasants sprang up into the air, beating their wings wildly then disappearing into the white void. 

favorite day in Nebraska so far...

A fast moving winter storm dumped over a foot of snow here on Saturday. We had a few large tree limbs come down at the house and worked all morning to tidy up the property, like the good tenants that we are. On Sunday, we woke early to abundant sunshine and unearthed our snowshoes from the pile of winter toys in the basement. It was a beautiful morning and the snow was still soft, not yet wet or crusty. 

Love spending time outdoors with my husband and dog. Great conversation and endless beauty to soak up. 

snow drifts at nine mile prairie outside Lincoln, NE

Aaron 'breaking trail' for me and Cooper

ice on the barbed wire between prairie and corn field

stopped for a treat 

some rain and a poem

Finally a bit of rain to this dry state. I took this picture yesterday as the clouds starting making their sluggish journey from the west. I'm thankful they are here this morning and there are rain drops now stuck to the window screens. I love weather and movement and it's nice to have some here on the plains. 

I have been emailing with many of the followers of this little blog and I love hearing from you -- this poem goes out to you and your paths. I'm so thankful that you read and that we all stay connected. Peace.

The Journey

Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do --

determined to save

the only life you could save.

Living on the Plains

Living on the Plains

William Stafford

That winter when this thought came -- how the river

held still every midnight and flowed

backward a minute -- we studied algebra

late in our room fixed up in the barn,

and I would feel the curved relation,

the rafters upside down, and the cows in their life

holding the earth round and ready

to meet itself again when morning came.

At breakfast while my mother stirred the cereal

she said, "You're studying too hard,"

and I would include her face and hands in my glance

and then look past my father's gaze as

he told again our great race through the stars

and how the world can't keep up with our dreams.