cigars in heaven

In the beginning, there were Tolkien and Lewis. My early guides into the dank underground of fiends and fell beasts. Into the perilous realms of myth and faith and fairytale. Into the crannies of my own imagination. Sure there were the abridged [gasp and shame] editions of Cooper, Stevenson, Twain, Defoe, Dumas, et. al., and the uninhibited goofiness of Seuss and Silverstein, and the apprenticeship to Encyclopedia Brown, and the commiseration of another fourth-grade nothing, and espionage with one Harriet M. Welsch, and more, for sure; but it was in the Shire in conference with a wizard that I first felt the true, osmotic warmth of fiction's fire; it was in Narnia over tea with Mr. Tumnus that I knew, more than almost anything else, that my name was Lucy and I was fond of the flute. Soporifically fond.

In short, I am here for having been in those places. My enthusiasm for literature would likely have dwindled soon if not for the early and abiding influence of those two ingenious dons. Perhaps, I would have never returned to unabridged editions of those illustrated classics. Perhaps, I would never have mucked through the marshes of Dickens or raced through the heather of Hardy--those two later heroes of mine. And here's a thought, by what road then, if not for them, would I have arrived in front of this screen. Writing because I too am a writer now, if I may be so audacious in the vicinity of these other names.

I wonder if I'd've ever found my way here. Then again, such is the nature of all of our choices. That is, they uncannily result in actuality. Or so it seems. Though there is some dispute as to the existential before and after of it all, the which-of-my-choices-were-mine-after-all of it all. So who knows, really. I am only guessing that I would not be here. Here in your face, specifically. More generally, here in my face. What laughter lines do I owe the bumbling Samwise Gamgee, what furrows were plowed when Aslan was slain? Even if those particular lines have been erased, re-scrawled, and erased again since then; it was surely those lines that first taught my flesh to wrinkle at words.

I am of this mind presently because today is Lewis' birthday. A fact I do not claim to have secure in my head by devices mnemonic or repetitious. A fact I was treated to by my desk calender. Thanks, desk calender. It is a fun fact indeed and colors my cockles rosy. The fellow would be 112 by now. Had his mortal heart been as lasting as his legacy. Had anachronisms not been liquidated in That Hideous Strength. (Best Chapter Title Ever, BTW--The Liquidation of Anachronisms. That phrase alone could have kept me thrilled with literature for a plenty long time.)

Though we are not always on the same page, Clives Staples (best name ever, btw) and I, he will always be half of my holy duo. Beyond his fictions, I will always admire his faith in the unflinching face of reason and reality. Through his personal grief, he learned the approximate weight of the world's sorrow and bore it out on pages before us that we might feel, by reading mere words, some lightening of our own heavy loads. He said what we wanted to say about God--what we should say if not for want of a candor willing to broach the blasphemous. What a fine apologist, old Jack. Commitment in surfeit. Against all claims of experience. An "intolerable" doctrine of Hell, admittedly repugnant and "detestable" but nonetheless justified as moral. No problem. A heaven populated by unrecognizable family and friends yet more joyous than the sensational loves of them all combined. Sure. Why not?

Now doesn't this all sound great. In fact, thanks to you, Jack, it does. Happy birthday, Mr. Lewis. I hope you were wrong about heaven. I hope "there are cigars in Heaven. For that is what we should all like. The happy past restored."

piebald

The Penny

Imagine my shock when I discovered

The cost of koi, one lone, piebald koi

Was in the hundreds.

Did you see the look on my face

In that moment, that one, blurred moment

When I thought, In such a world I can ill-afford

To fall in the pond retrieving my wish-wasted penny.

suffer the little kiddos

Here's a snippet from my kiddo story "Constance and Her Constellations." It would be ill-advised to disclose too much of the plot in this forum. It is enough to know that Constance and her dog are trying to help their friend Doodle Doo, the weather vane, get unstuck from the roof.

Constance and Rabbit head for the wide-open field to wait for night. They sit on the blanket and eat from the pail. Little by little, the day grows darker. Smidge by smidge, the sun drops behind the trees. At last, as the remaining light drains from the sky, Constance spots a brilliant star. She becomes very excited and Rabbit howls and jumps up in the air like maybe he can reach it.

“Name it, name it,” Rabbit says. “What will you name it?”

“But it’s just the one,” says Constance, “and we need a whole constellation.”

Rabbit humphs and sighs.

Just then, a pair of silver, glowing eyes appears in the distance, low to the ground and coming towards them. Rabbit growls. Constance tries to be brave but it’s hard to be brave in the face of something so strange.

All they can do is wait. A narrow face takes shape around the eyes. Next, the body and tail of a mega-fat rat appear.

“It’s a ‘possum!” Constance says with disgust.

“Yeah, it’s a ‘possum,” Rabbit repeats though he had never heard of such a thing.

The huge rodent keeps waddling towards them. When it reaches them, it stops and twitches its nose, like it’s sniffing for a place to sink its long teeth.

“What do you want?” asks Constance.

“Yeah, what do you want?” repeats you-know-who.

“Patience little girl, patience grumpy dog,” speaks the ‘possum. Its voice is wise and soft. Constance had expected mean and raspy. “When darkness grows, the rest will follow. And that, by the way, is Sirius.”

“What is serious?” Constance asks.

“Not serious like important, Sirius like the brightest star in the sky.”

“Oh yeah . . . Sirius, of course. I thought you said serious,” says Rabbit, nodding knowingly.

“Now seriously, I must know what the point is Mister . . . Mister . . .” Constance does not know what to call the ‘possum.

“Mister Nonce, if you please,” the wise ‘possum says.

“I do please,” replies Constance, “and I am Constance and this lop-eared dog is Rabbit. We are hunting starflies so our friend Doodle Doo can get down from the roof.”

Mister Nonce seems to grin. Come to mention it, he has seemed to grin since he waddled into view. “In that case, you’ll need a passel.”

too much much?

One million.

1, 000, 000.

Eine Million.

An impressive number compared with almost anything besides national debt and the distance to outlying galaxies. As a yute (did he say 'yute'? excuse me your honor, as a yooooth) few things were more alluring and yet ever out of reach than the status of millionaire. Except in the game of LIFE. Which, after we lost the plastic mansion, why bother playing really? To have a mess of peg kids? To sling the spinner into orbit every other go? To become a millionaire in Monopoly was harder still. We had to manipulate the rules, turn free parking into a jackpot. As a matter of fact, we had so inflated the real-estate market that the Parker Brothers allotment of varicolored bills was inadequate and we were obliged to print larger bills of our own. (Perhaps we were minor prophets considering the current mortgage mire.)

However sliced, a million is a number to be reckoned with--for its psychological and cultural significance (granted for pre-2K generations, mostly) as well as its actual numerical heft.

Why the fuss? I have reached a dubious milestone in my life. Blew by it about a month or so ago, actually. (No, would-be-glommers, I have not come into a million bucks.) Hold the drumroll. No applause, please.

By my calculations, in the last 12 years, I have ingested over 1, 000, 000 milligrams of mind-numbing pharmaceuticals. And I can't help but wonder how many lost flashes of brilliance that accounts for, how many less-than-thrilling stories in my catalog, how man never-inspired poems? Speaking of never, I will never know.

But that's Ok, right? It has to be OK. And that goes for all of us. Sure, you may not be so drug-addled as me; but you have your stuff. Stuff that impedes productivity. (Kids much?) Stuff that stultifies creativity. (Workaday onus much?) Stuff that shin-kicks, sucker-punches, and blind-sides the freedom of the mind to simply stroll the acres of live-oak and imagination. (The world is too much with us much?)

Did you ever try to count to a million as a yute? It would have taken about a week. Unless you needed food or sleep. Which most of us do. Ghandi and Edison, respectively excluded. A million miles? Go to the moon, bring me a rock to look at, then take it back. A million words? A] Your homework is to read War and Peace and Les Miserable. Or B] 1000 pictures of your choice.

Our lives are not measured in millions but let there be no doubt that there are millions of things we contend with in a lifetime. And most of us, for the most part, for most of the time will be OK. We will have to be OK. Because the alternative is bleak--all the mansions are plastic and all the money is just paper yanked from spiral-bound notebooks and printed with Magic Marker.

dam that i am

I taught myself a writing lesson today. A lonely poet without mentor will resort to such measures, I suppose. At any rate, I thought I would share it with you, Ether, unsure as I am how much or little you might care. And even if you don't, it is conceivable that through your Eminent Diaphanousness, through your sheer veneer to the Nothingworld, some one or another might find my self-tutelage useful now or someday.

It has to do with poetry so I will whisper against discovery by the elsewhere crows. Ha-haw-haw-haw. I can hear them already. Jerks.

So . . . this morning I was reading poems by Jeremy Lespi (a poet too soon gone). While engaged with one on the left side of the page, my med-induced attention deficit had my eye wandering to the right side of the page where in the middle of a different poem, I latched on to this phrase:

"I will kneel on/ some obscure gossiping Wednesday, more/
slowly one wild goose of a year from now . . ."

I did not read the rest of the poem. Did not follow the phrase's thread back to the beginning or continue to unspool it to the end. I simply hovered there. Just above those lines. And it was enough. Enough for the osmotic nature of poetry to infiltrate my mind, to move me deeply even though I was only in the shallows, only ankle-deep and yet . . . and yet absorbed through and through.

The moment, as most will, passed. I went back to the other poem on the left side and finished reading it.

More time passes. I scroll through the Amorphilacious-Antaginons (Facebook). I eat a couple of Toast Chee Crackers, wash down with Vitamin Water, check my email. At this point in my days, I know that I am usually done with being productive creativity-wise. I begin to think of lunch. Of dinner, for that matter. Will I take a nap today or bully myself into practicing my German? Denn ich bin müde aber ich will auf deutsch sprechen.

Then something peculiar happens. Today is Wednesday, I think. I should write. No, I MUST write. But why? Because it's raining. So what? Well, because I saw the word "Wednesday" a bit ago, and for reasons unqualified I felt the whole world sog my soul, the mere hint of years spent chasing things like rumor and whimsy. All that when there are prayers to pray--genuflections to be made. Other days of the week to hold back--creaking, twiggy dam that I am.

So I wrote, without rewinding or unspooling:

I will write on raining Wednesdays

The wide world notwithstanding,

Though all else speak

More truly.

Today is Wednesday.

Cold and wet.

The gray we’ve invented

To describe the salted blue

Skies.

Eyes too can be blue,

Salted and grayed,

Mine, for instance, on days

Like today. Skies

Burdened, earthen—

An invisible clay. No,

Not invisible—

Gray.

Lies.

I will write them today.

And every Wednesday after

When it rains.

Nothing spectacular. Nothing destined for the chic, slick pages of the New Yorker. Nothing much at all. Except, and here is the lesson, an obedience to the unqualified, a readiness to skip the obvious and write from the oblique, from the opposite page, from the impertinent viscera.
Sometimes, to have hovered is enough. Despite the seeming detachment of the hovering object from the entity behovered (nonce-word), there is that osmotic force, so precious in poetry, that does not require one's absolute attention, that will, given proper gravity, draw one in, suffuse one's unthinking mind, and absorb one in the shallows.

That is all, Ether. That's the lesson I taught myself today. Spread the word in many places. You are good for that, my cosmopolitan friend.

Wait . . . one more thing. I shall call my poem "Barometer." For today, at least.