Sea Haiku

A storm blew the bird
far off her intended course ~
our boat her refuge.

(Thanks to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration.
And if you're just tuning in,
the story behind this haiku
is in the second paragraph
of the entry just below this one.)

Wings

I am one of the most confident women I know, and I'm not sure why.

Surely some of my "can do" spirit comes from the care my parents took with me when I was young; my childhood is full of stories about their encouragement of my trying things I maybe technically shouldn't have been able to do yet. Putting real records on a real record player before I could even read. Riding my bike home alone even though it meant travelling on old Route 17 for a mile or so. My parents seemed to radiate a sense of "well, of course you can do that," and in many instances I took that as my cue to live up to their expectations. As I grew I guess I internalized their confidence and made it my own.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When I was growing up, my family spent as much of our free time sailing as we possibly could. One time my father was sailing by himself, bringing the boat across Lake Ontario so that we could join him for "the fun part" of the vacation, cruising in the Thousand Islands. As it happened, my father ran into a big storm, and was hard-pressed to keep the boat on course. As the clouds finally cleared and the waves began to subside a bit, he saw a tiny bird which had obviously been blown far off its usual flight path making its way to the forward deck of our boat. There the bird lay in a tousled heap, so still for so long that my father thought it might be dead. But eventally, after some long anxious minutes, the bird began to show signs of life. It gradually progressed to the point of being able to hop around the foredeck and forage for food, happily pecking at the bug bits it found. Finally the bird got up the energy and courage to test its wings again. It flew away... and came back. Then it flew a little further... and came back. At last the far shore of Lake Ontario came into sight, and the bird threw itself into the now-blue sky and headed straight for the smudged line of trees on the horizon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In my work life, I am a college counselor, which means -- among other things -- that I stand at the doorway of adulthood and watch as my students try to navigate their way forward.

Sometimes I get to cheer. Sometimes I hand out Kleenex. And sometimes I just shake my head in wonder.

We are a K-12 school, so we are witnesses to some incredible transformations. Students who seem completely unmoored one year discover the things that matter most to them and take flight.

It is impossible to predict the point at which young people will "come into their own," but when they do, it is a beautiful thing.

So here's what I think flight requires: faith in yourself, belief that the seemingly impossible can sometimes be achieved, some sense of where you are, and a place to land.

Wings alone won't do it.

(Thank you to the women of Sunday Scribblings
for their continuing inspiration.)

Flame Haiku

Tiny leaves are out
on every tree I can see,
fearless flames of green.

(The Poetry Thursday "completely and totally optional"
prompt this week was to write a villanelle.
To which my muse responded, "Yeah, right.")

Earth Day Haiku

Dirt beneath our nails,
we hum songs of praise and thanks
while planting pansies.

Guilt beneath our nails,
we plant pansies in the sun
at the asphalt's edge.

(Thanks to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration.)

Everyday Miracles

Everyday Miracles

What probably happened,
I explained when retracing our steps
turned up bark with beetle trails,
stone steps leading to a rock that was
big enough for both of us to sit on,
and an abandoned bike with its chain
rusted completely solid (horrifying to you),
but no cell phone,
what probably happened is
that someone already found it
between when we dropped it
and when we turned around to look for it.

Probably what will happen
is that someone will call our home
to tell me that they found it,
and we'll get it back that way.
And when it happened just that way,
you seemed pleased but not surprised.
After all, this was the same day 
we discovered
that our shadows could touch and tickle
even if we never did.

Art Haiku

Just one green pencil
takes you to another world –
such concentration!

(D sat in the living room for a long time with his replicas
of a Northwest coast totem pole
and a Mayan sculpture covered with glyphs,
and then came into the kitchen to announce
that he was going to trace them and draw a house in between them.
He turned the picture around to show me,
but couldn't stop working on it for even a second.
He was living in that house.)

PS: last day for THAT shirt! He loves it, but look at how short the sleeves are.

Rooted

Like many people, I came to Quakerism as a kind of spiritual refugee.

I grew up in the Presbyterian church, and was into the whole thing pretty seriously... Vacation Bible School, singing in the choir, mission trips with the youth group, etc. etc. I can still rattle off all the books of the Old Testament with very little effort.

But right about the time that I started kissing girls it became clear that my church of origin and I were going to have to part ways.

While in college, I bounced around a bit, sometimes attending the University chapel, sometimes the Unitarian church at the edge of campus. Maybe once or twice I made it to Quaker Meeting, and remember both times being somewhat unsettled by the silence. (I am not a naturally quiet person.) (My friends are chuckling at the depth of that understatement.)

When I moved to Philadelphia in the early 1990's, I felt a renewed sense of urgency about my on-again, off-again quest for a new religious community to call home, and since Philly is in many ways the cradle of American Quakerism, it makes sense that I would try Meeting once again.

Quaker Meetings, at least the ones I am familiar with, are communities of spiritual seekers, and because one of the central tenets of the Quaker faith is the belief that we are each in a direct and individual relationship with the Divine, people are wary about expressing an opinion about where anyone "should" be on their spiritual journey.

It is not unusual for someone to be an "attender" at an unprogrammed Monthly Meeting for years before taking the steps necessary to becoming a member, so I was in very good company as a long-term attender at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting.

Eventually, someone suggested to me that I might want to sit in on a Meeting for Worship with attention to business, where, as the name suggests, the members of the meeting consider the business of the Meeting (requests for space rental, requests for clearness committees, budgets, planning special programs, whatever comes up). And it was my attendance at these Meetings that finally made it clear to me that I needed to move from being an attender to requesting membership in the Society of Friends.

What I saw, in those meetings, was an inspiring combination of individual ability in the form of some incredibly talented clerks, and a deep and rich tradition of corporate discernment. I can't remember now the specific topics at hand that evoked this response in me (although I'm pretty sure one of them was gay marriage), but here's what I do remember:

I remember feeling as if I should probably remain quiet during the meeting; since I wasn't yet a member, it seemed more appropriate for me to just be quiet and listen. I remember finding it difficult to be quiet because the issues at hand were so interesting, and the discussions so full of life. And then I remember feeling incredibly grateful and a little awed when, on several occasions, someone else spoke out of the silence in a way that absolutely resonated with what I had been thinking and feeling and working not to express.

When I hear the traditional Quaker phrase, "That Friend speaks my mind," it is these early moments in my life as a "convinced" Friend that I most often remember.

I felt such a sense of joy and peace, to not only be supported in my own individual spiritual journey, but to know that I would not be alone, that I would not have to be the "ball carrier," even on those things that mattered most to me, that I could trust in the work of the Spirit through people, and that the important work would go forward, no matter what.

I still feel that way. And I depend on my Quaker community – still predominantly that of my Meeting, but widening now to include Quakers to whom I am connected only through cyber space – to help keep me rooted, committed to a life that is increasingly Spirit-led. I feel that I live in a society that is sometimes punishingly secular and, in places, inappropriately religious; I need a faith community to help me work out what my path will look like going forward.

This is something the internet can help with, I think. No matter who you are, no matter what your experience, there IS someone else out there whose experience can speak to yours. Until recently I'd been thinking about this mostly in terms of those rare connections that can be hard to find in the physical world (e.g. hey, I can find all the other grownups who still love Lego now!), but now I'm realizing it doesn't only have to be about the hard-to-find connections. I can work towards having my cyberlife mirror my realworld life in all its dimensions, and so here I am, connecting with writers and Quakers. It's a good time to be alive.

(Thanks to the women of Sunday Scribblings
and the good folks at QuakerQuaker
for their continuing inspiration.
And congrats, Gautami!)

Safe Landing

Safe Landing

On the fifth anniversary of your adoption,
we left our jobs early to scoop you up,
and we all three walked to the museum
where we paid our respects
to a mummy and the top figure of a totem pole
that had once stood sixty feet high.

On the way to our next adventure,
the day seemed to be warming up
(finally, after all that rain),
and a patch on the sidewalk
called out a challenge you couldn't ignore.

"Watch me!" you called, as if either of us
has done anything but since we became a family.
One of us stood to mark the spot where the leap
should start, while the other tried to stay
out in front, ready to cheer, or catch,
or possibly pick up the pieces.

Behind you, a young man heard your joyous yell,
recalled his own sidewalk challenges,
and turned around just in time to see you take flight.
The trees murmured their approval
as you came back to earth
and reached up
with both arms
to take our hands again.

Easy Monthly Installments

Easy Monthly Installments


Today I heard a mayor say
that we lose thirty citizens
a day to gun violence.
Every day.

Are we so shot-through
with fast-cut smooth-talking
bite-sized-for-easy-consumption
everything

that we've lost the ability
(or is it the desire?)
to remember the wild possibilities,
the as-yet-unwritten splendor of
every life?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here I am standing in line
at the company store
again,
wondering who signed us up
for this devil's bargain
payable only in blood and heartbreak,
borrowed against our souls.
What will I say to my son
when he asks me
what's for dinner?
The choices aren't choices,
and they never seem to change.

(Thanks to the women of Poetry Thursday
for their continuing inspiration.
I am letting myself feel this sadness.
I taped up a few copies of my poem – it's meant to be one poem w/ two parts –
in my school today. My heart was pounding. It felt very transgressive.
I gave Anonymous the credit, because I didn't want it to be about me.
And I left a few blank versions with just "Go ahead. Write a poem." on them
(Dana's idea). You can see one of the blank ones a little further down
the hallway in the photo below.)

VA Tech Haiku

Cellphones, still alive,
ringing in victims' pockets –
unanswerable.

Energy Haiku

Tall trees reflected
in cold water on the path –
harder to run, now.

(Thanks to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration.)

So Far

The NYT's front-page headline today read, "32 Shot Dead in Virginia; Worst U.S. Gun Rampage"

In my mind's ear, I heard an unwritten coda: so far

Worst U.S. Gun Rampage So Far

Worst U.S. Gun Rampage Yet

Remember how earth-shattering the Columbine shootings were? I was in college admissions that year, and it seemed like every other essay was about those shootings and how they had changed the world of high school students forever. Remember how the attacks of 9-11 pushed Columbine into the past?

I am so sad and bewildered to be living in these times in which each new atrocity seems unthinkable, right up until someone thinks up a new one.

I feel what anyone feels. I don't think I have much new to add to the conversation. But I do mourn, both for the friends and loved ones of the fallen, and for the rest of us.

And I wish the commentators would stop talking about "motive." Motive, to me, is in the family of cause-and-effect, useful by way of explanation. What possible cause or explanation could there be?

Can't Get There From Here

We had a little bit of rain today. Around seven inches. According to the agricultural weather report here in the Garden State, early season hay cutting is not recommended for the next several days. Ya think?

Harrison Street is under there somewhere.

We were just feeling grateful that we didn't have anywhere else we were supposed to be.

Grateful, too, that the sirens we heard off and on in the distance today were probably about the rain, rather than gun violence.

Flood Haiku

Already fallen,
the rain now only needs to
decide where to run.

Cold Spring Night

The cold bids us move,
so no one knows if the clouds
let one star shine through.

Secret Identity

Secret Identity

I don't have much use for disguises these days.
Once I discovered that no one was paying attention,
it all got much easier. Now I cloak myself
in an air of authority, walking briskly and confidently,
always ready with the ultimate disarming device:
some version of the truth. A clipboard works, too.

In all these years of hiding in plain sight,
I've never once done time. It's all in the details.
I noisily unwrap cough drops at chamber concerts,
absentmindedly squeeze the lemons at the grocery store,
memorize the plot points of the shows I allegedly watch,
swear and pretend to have forgotten my wallet.

Yesterday, when you thought you saw me,
for a moment there I thought I saw you, too.
Exciting, wasn't it?

(Thanks to the women of Sunday Scribblings
for their continuing inspiration.)

Brothers

Brothers

If I held my breath
I could hear the steady engine of theirs
as they fearlessly slept their way to day,
my tormentors and protectors,
who taught me the power
of a dead worm in the face
but who also let the other boys know
that taunts aimed at me would never fly true
as long as they were there.

As I grew older I gave them up
or imagined I did, but yesterday,
as the rocks flew at my tent,
I reached into my drawer of brothers
scrabbling through the slingshots and jack knivesto get to my bobble-headed yes boys,
remembering the feeling of rock-muscled safety
conferred by this grafted branch of my family tree,
these brothers I never had.

(Many thanks to the women of Poetry Thursday
for their continuing inspiration,
and special thanks to Jill and Megan
for letting me "lift" their lines!)

Liking the Sound

My son wants to know
if the George Washington
on the quarter in his hand is the same as
George Washington Carver,
"that guy who figured out
all what you can do with a peanut."

No, I tell him, they were different men,
but probably the second George's mother
knew about the first George, and liked
the sound of that name, and so used it again.

"And what about that other guy,
who some person got crazy and shot to death?"
Abraham Lincoln? I ask.
"No," my boy says, "the other one that had
a name because his mama liked it from before."
Martin Luther King? I ask.
"Yes," says my boy, "his mama
probably liked the sound of Martin Luther."

He seems quietly happy to think of these mamas
picking out names for their babies,
and I think about how much I will love someday
telling him all the reasons he is who he is.

Thank you for calling?!?!

I just spent 27 minutes on the phone talking with a truly lovely man named Sean at Delta Baggage Handling. Also caught me some, ummm, hold "music." (Those are ironic air quotes, can you see my fingers?)

Still no duffle bag.

But at the end of the conversation, when Sean said (as he has no doubt been well trained to say): "Thank you for calling Delta Baggage Handling," I did not say the thing in my head.

Which was not kind.

Which was something along the lines of, "Thank you for calling?!? Like I have a choice? You're holding all my summer shorts, my bathing suits, and seven library books hostage, you [expletive deleted as I am the parent of a 5.5 year old and trying to model appropriate language] losers!"

I did not say it, because in fact it was clear that Sean was doing his very best.

According to the rules of engagement, I am to remain officially hopeful for five days, at which point I can file a claim for lost items.

It's pretty minor trouble, in the grand scheme of things. And I get bonus points for restraint, right?

Here, Duffle, Duffle, Duffle...

The good news: T's suitcase and golf clubs arrived home safely last night at about 10pm, a mere 22 hours after we did.

The bad news: my dufflle (full of library books, of course), is still AWOL.

This is what Delta has to say about my duffle...

We have located this bag and are scheduling it to be on a flight. Please check back again for the delivery date and time of your bag.

Your basic "please wait while your transaction is processing." Another chance to give my patience muscles a workout!

It's almost a found haiku:

We have located
your bag and are making plans
for delivery.

This Blanket

This Blanket

This is your other wedding present.
It is not a quilt. It is not
fancy. It is the plainest
cotton blanket I could find.
It is a blanket to be
thrown into the car at the last minute,
tossed over a sleeping visitor,
spread out on the grass,
soft on the dampening ground
at a concert under the stars.
It is not a blanket to worry about.
With holes, snags, and stains,
it will still be for nights
when the chill comes up quickly
but you want to stay
just as you are,
where you are,
together.

(The prompt this week over at Poetry Thursday
involves folks donating lines to the cause...
I'm offering up "when the chill comes up quickly,"
and I may try to write a piece for Thursday
using a line someone else has offered up.)

Haiku - Bridge

A bridge cannot say
if crossing is foolhardy
or courageous.


(Thanks to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration,
and to all those who choose courage.)

Another Spring Haiku

Bare feet in warm grass –
Neither toes nor seeds below
Can resist the sun.

Haiku - Home

Miles away from home,
spoiled with silk and satin,
I miss my own bed.

We Didn't Buy One

Well, we didn't buy a timeshare, despite the very best efforts of the nice people at Marriott to convince us that our lives could do nothing but be enhanced by making such a shrewd move.

T had a huge grin on her face for the entire sales portion of the "show and tell" tour of the Grande Vista village we had this morning, and she told me later that it was because it was fun to see them come up against someone who was strong enough to resist their pressure. (That would be me.)

We have several friends who own timeshare weeks and swear by them, and the very fact that Marriott has let its name be associated with the field tells you that the old "you can go on vacation during week 23 and that's it," style timeshares are going the way of the dinosaur.

Still, I find it frustrating that the sales method for timeshares seems to remain essentially unchanged and pretty much the same across the board; lure prospective customers to the property with an offer that sounds too good to be true, give them virtually no information in advance about timeshares or the property in question, and then sit them down with someone for a couple of hours and hope that you can put together a package of enticements and incentives that will be irresistable to them.

According to the guys we talked to today, 99% of people who buy timeshares do it in response to the structured "pitch" outlined above. Why am I not surprised to find myself outside the mainstream yet again?

IF we ever buy a timeshare week, it will be after 1) a complete review of our financial outlook and anticipated vacation expenses for the next several years 2) looking at some owner-generated information about how to get the most out of your plan and 3) checking out a home base in some town other than Orlando, which, although great for golf, exists primarily as an "attraction destination." I can't really see us getting all that worked up about Disneyworld, Sea World, etc. etc. Besides, we've seen the traffic, and if we ever DO come down here to "do Disney," I think Sassafrass Mama has the right idea... get a package that lets you stay right on the Disney property.

So, it was fun. And it was definitely worth it. The dudes at Marriott? They're a little disappointed, but they'll get over it.

Color in the Day

Color in the Day

The days feel a little grey without you,
and realizing how much color you bring
to our lives makes me remember the first day
your mother and I spent entirely
in each other's company.

Even more, I remember how it felt.
We walked all the way downtown, talked
about the books we loved, shared a meal
at an unassuming restaurant with
a flimsy menu and and crumbling brick walls.
Later, your Tama would tease me
that it was a good thing that I hadn't been
trying to impress her, because if I had...
well, that restaurant wouldn't have done it.

In the living of it, that day felt charged
with an energy of its own, as if
nothing that happened could affect
the underlying promise of good things to come.

And it was only after she left, as I sat
on the secondhand loveseat
in my railroad car apartment,
that I realized that she
had been what made the day
sing.

(For D, who is fortunate enough
to be a child whose story begins with a love story.)

In the News

When I was growing up, my father watched the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkheit religiously. My sister and I never really understood the appeal. And if we were feeling really mischievous, we would call old Walter "Mr. Sickness," since sickness, in German, is pronounced "KRAHNK - hite." I don't think my father was amused.

Now, as an adult, I have a better sense of what drove my father's devotion. I see myself as a member of a broader community – multiple communities, actually – and I want to see how the things I care about are faring in a wider context.

But I still don't pay the kind of daily attention that my father did, perhaps because in so many areas the news is, for me, a cause for anger, frustration, worry, or mourning.

I DO get overwhelmed. I bounce around from trying to keep up with the latest on global warming, to trying to figure out how I'm going to explain to my son that his country doesn't consider his parents married, to wondering why we put up with a healthcare system that leaves millions of Americans scrabbling for any safety net at all.

And all the while, I yearn for prophets and leaders who will call us to live up to our very best selves. While at the same time the lyrics to a song I sang for many years ring in my ears:

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

Livin' the High Life

This is what a resort golf and recreation hotel looks like. It's Rosen's Shingle Creek, and we can hardly believe we're here. I just called the pro shop over at Hawk's Landing and they confirmed, using their GPS golf cart monitoring system, that she's on the 18th hole, so I'm getting ready to pick her up from her first of two full rounds of golf during this trip.

Later on this afternoon, I'm going to get a concierge in trouble, but that's a story for another time... ooh, the pro shop just called, gotta go!

(Thanks, Grandpa and Nana!
We try not to talk about D more than 25% of the time...)

Luxury

Luxury

In a resort hotel
luxury is measured by thread count,
goose down, concierge services
and a view that never ends.

Even as I enjoy
the crisply folded top sheet
and the liquid plasma screen
I am remembering the moment of this trip
that felt like truest luxury to me.

I sat on a plane – the luxury of flight! –
and watched through the doubled-paned window
the man charged with getting our bags on board
do a physical double-take as he grabbed
the handle of my electric blue duffle
with first one, and then two hands.

The ability to search the catalog of my hometown
library from the comfort of my upstairs library,
the time to wander through the stacks looking
for a bit of everything – non-fiction, essays,
fiction, poetry, humor, photos – and the chance
to bring it all with me to a place far from
the demands of work and home. The anticipation
of finding a few more sentences that feel as if
they might have been written especially for me.

I watched my book-heavy bag move up the rollers
and disappear into the belly of the plane,
feeling in that moment embarrassingly rich.

Packing List

Packing List

Long pants, long-sleeve shirts
(They say it's cold up there)
Winter coat, mittens, hat, boots
(Maybe even some snow!)
All my favorite books, especially
the ones that take a long time
for Grandpa or Nana to read
(Extra snuggle time)
Six dinosaurs, all the superheroes,
and three Transformers.
Oh, and the Martian Manhunter,
he's kind of like a superhero
except maybe more of a bad guy
(And you really have to have bad guys,
Mommy, even if you don't
want to be one when you grow up)
Wind-up flashlight that can never
run out of batteries because I
am the power source
(In case there are adventures or exploring)
Cards for playing SET and Dutch Blitz
(Which are games kids can play
with grownups
except I might have to teach them)
Excitement, smiles, my best manners
(and your prayers for my safe return)

(Thanks to the women of Poetry Thursday
for their continuing inspiration.)

Opening Day

Garage doors gape wide,
spewing mitts, bats, and baseballs –
it's opening day.

(This one's for you, Grampy!)

Aubergine & Glow-in-the-Dark Green

These are my everyday glasses. I've had them for over ten years, and they are as close to an extension of myself as anything I've ever owned. (I wore contact lenses for a significant portion of my 20's, but camping and childbirth put me back into the habit of wearing glasses.)

I am extremely nearsighted, and have been for almost as long as I can remember. My joke about choosing glasses is that if I chose a pair with a large eyesize, the resulting weight would probably shear off my nose.

So these glasses are not large. But they do make a statement.

I can still remember the day I bought them. T and I were on vacation together in Montreal, one of our favorite cities, and had stopped into this fabulous eyewear store with what seemed like an unlimited selection of frames. This was still in my "mostly contacts" period, so I wasn't so much seriously shopping as I was flirting with the extremely gracious and helpful saleswoman. But then I saw these glasses, and tried them on. They were expensive, imported from Paris. Almost immediately, T surprised me by saying, "I think you should get them."

"What? No, they're too expensive. And they're kind of 'out there,' don't you think?"

"You'll wear them forever, it's Canadian dollars, and you should get them. They make you smile."

Already learning to bow to my partner's occasionally superior wisdom, I smiled one last smile at my favorite sales clerk and plunked down my credit card.

Three apartments, two houses, and a kid later, I'm here to say that the "get them if they make you smile" philosophy of eyewear purchasing seems to have worked out well for me.

I rarely think about the glasses anymore (except when I have to take them in for repairs due to an over-zealous bout of tickling or some in-home wrestling practice), but I do still get an occasional comment. The most common among these is a question... "Do those glow in the dark?"

"Yes they do," I reply with a smile. "But only if I recharge them."

(Thanks to Patti Digh of 37days for her
fabulous essay on wearing pink glasses,
which partially inspired this post.
And thanks to the good folks at Piknik,
who make a great suite of free online photo editing tools!)

Spring Haiku

Windows down at last!
At the road's low point I hear
peepers in chorus.

(Thanks to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration.
And if you need helping hearing this haiku,
you can hear some peeper calls over here.
Special thanks to the Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute
for this great image of a peeper demanding to be written about.)

Absolution

Absolution


"Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace!" (Thesis #92, from Martin Luther's 95 Theses, posted on the door of the castle church of Wittenberg in 1517)


I.

Away, then, with all those prophets
who decry global warming before
getting into their Hummers.
Away with the parents who say no
but who know not how to mean it.
Away with leaders who mistake
obstinacy for resolve.

II.

Martin Luther imagined
his theses to be corrective.
He hoped he might bring the church
back to where it ought to be, to its roots,
and instead, he and his followers
broke it wide open and propelled it
into some entirely new world.

III.

What would absolution look like,
in these days of hunger, rising fever,
war without end, and children
who have never climbed a tree?
To whom do we look, as we
tack our posts up on these tiny doors?
We have what Martin fought for; now what?

(Getting a bit of a slow start, and cheating through back-dating,
but hoping to participate in National Poetry Writing Month.
A poem a day for all of April?! Worth a try!
Thanks to the women of Poetry Thursday
for their continuing encouragement.)