Pandora's Jar

I am so very pleased to be able to participate in this week’s landmark 100th wordzzle challenge.
It was the clever and inspired word play and camaraderie at Raven’s Nest that helped me to overcome my inhibitions and begin blogging. The first piece I ever published was here.
A family medical emergency has made it difficult to come up with an offering utilizing this week’s words. I had written a story that didn’t get posted last week. Raven has been gracious enough to invite me to share it past its due date.
Congratulations to Raven, and to all the wordzzlers whose imaginations traverse the daunting gaggle of words each week. Condolences to family, friends and the online writing community for the passing of Dr. John.


10-word challenge: thermometer, Pandora, vivid, langourous, Saturday, pancreas, apple dumplings, watch tower, lichen, sparrow

mini: rigid, spiritual, ribbon, web cam, vitamins

To all my children,
Everything is contained in this jar.
It is all here for you, for the dreaming.

infinite love and blessings,
Pandora

The jar had inhabited the shelf. No one knew how long. It remained largely unnoticed. Fiesta plates—tangerine, peacock, cobalt-- dazzled breezy weekenders. Matte green vases were snapped up by rigid traditionalists praying for Rockwood.

On a slow Thursday afternoon, a woman with soft Italian gloves coaxed the jar forward. Her fingers absently pried the cap while her eyes scoured the shop for hidden treasures. The jar made up its own mind, remaining crusty and inscrutable. The following Saturday, a bookish couple crept about the periphery, sniffing at the cluttered isles. The woman, wan and hollow, lifted the jar from its perch and peered into it, as if demanding irrefutable proof for the Goldman conjecture. Brackish water sloshing against thick optical walls was all the reward she received for her efforts.

With the economic thermometer plummeting, a once steady stream of tourists had thinned to a narrow ribbon. But the Watch Tower Mercantile and Ephemera was still standing. It had survived the vagaries of fortune for the past 150 years.

There was nothing for Therese to do but get into her Honda coupe and drive. She took the coastal route, the fog curling damply around her.

She had searched in vain for some explanation, and wound up blaming herself for early frost. After all, it had happened the day she returned from visiting with family; her brother had surprised her with a webcam to document the blessed event. Why oh why had she taken that plane trip? It was reckless! She was certain it had been the low air pressure in the cabin…there were those studies with flight attendants. Or maybe it was the mail order vitamins, that vigorous swim, the emotions stirred up by the Sidney Lumet film. There was no solace, spiritual or human to be found in these days. She continued to withdraw, until she found herself on the other side of emptiness.

Therese had been alone with her thoughts for nearly two hours. Weary of driving, she signaled her intent to exit. The highway spilled onto a tidy downtown district. She parked at 2nd and Main and wrapped her sweater snuggly around her. Things felt slightly unreal, as if she were watching another girl wandering the quiet streets. She drifted past Flora’ Buttercup Café, Tally’s Corner Diner Bar and Grill, Mad Hatter Books and Tipple’s Inn.

Something about the windows reflecting on the weathered sign motioned her closer. The implausible toss of words shivered the air. How we plant our hearts and souls into the starched mercantile durability of it all, and then watch as our bodies evaporate into trails of smoke.

The door swung open easily. Things seemed to be resting. A sudden cold blast dislodged the Calico. The clear sweet tone of the door harp ushered her into the idle warmth.

Therese decided to stay. She felt comfortable in this colloidal world where cherished belongings awaited new life. A late ray of afternoon sun softened the features of the cavernous room, caressing the naked grain of a massive sideboard, glinting off of a solitary metal rim.

As Therese approached the jar, she felt something loosen inside. She swallowed and a storm gathered in her eyes. Her fingers sorted through her emotions. She brushed the surface layer of dust off the jar. It sparkled with a light of its own. The tears came freely.

The proprietor gazed across the counter in a curiously familiar way.” “I’d forgotten this was still here.” she mused. “There was no price.” Therese stumbled. “It’s just an old jar,” the woman countered. “Maybe you can find a sunny window. If you wouldn’t mind waiting, I’ll check to see if there is any record.” She swiveled on her chair and tipped towards a bulky drawer. Blunted fingers worried through a thick file, producing an unmarked faded envelope.

Outside, it was beginning to rain. Therese opted for the inland route.

She loved the jar for its age and its heft. Upon awakening, she would gently open it and wait.

Today it was the steam rising from a stack of apple dumplings, transporting her vividly back to those languorous summer mornings on Nana’s porch. Apple dumplings, piping hot, drenched in cinnamon syrup, enough to tax the most durable pancreas. She inhaled the sticky perfume, took her first luscious bite, reveling in the sappy trickle navigating the slope of her chin. The morning was thick with sparrows which she chased narrowly out of trees till the sky was filled with them. The fluorescent green lichens spreading like a luxurious carpet over the ancient oak.

Each day was a delicately wrapped gift. Candied orange peel, Oaxacan chocolate. Astor Piazolla, crepiscule. New songs starting to form .

Winter Dreams

Winter Dreams

she set sail
on a single silver blade
across a frozen lake
wheeling
on soft rime
koi, soft bellied
dreaming
below
etched into brightness
long strands
holding a bouquet of balloons

absinthe limbs

Week 98 of Raven’s wordzzle challenge!

This week's words were: treasure chest, idiom, pantry, crippled, baying wolf, wind chill, time, angel, salamander, laundry list
and for the mini: risque, radish, ring tone, ravishing, ruler

Absinthe limbs

Because she was orphaned
she adopted language as mother,
a treasure chest of homonyms.
she was not crippled or foundry
whenever the wind chill plunged
she dipped into her pantry
of ready idiom:
the baying wolf
slaying the angel of time;
the young salamander’s
absent limbs.
a laundry list
of risqué ring tones;
blistering radishes --
early candidates
ravishing any visored ruler.

Lipstick

This piece is inspired by Cecelia, my mother in law, who continues to amaze and enliven everyone she touches. Even as traces of her memory evaporate, her essence continues to delight.

Many in the blogging community are familiar with our family’s ongoing encounter with Alzheimers. Cecilia is now in a facility close to home where she is safe and well cared for. When we were preparing her new room, I went back to find her lipstick. I knew she would be looking for it. No matter how she is feeling, Cecilia always puts her best face forward.

Her indomitable spirit refuses to be circumscribed by circumstance, odds, “professional” advice or her adult children. She rises to every moment and meets it with dignity, intelligence, love and humor. In her own words, she “outfoxes” us. She is one of those rare souls who truly acts "as if", and in so doing, " becomes", blowing the curve of despair.

Lipstick

she reaches for her lipstick
the light is dim
her lips even the color
a poem
she knows
by memory

she is
blowing the curve
one
day
at a time

Detroit Beet

Thanks to Jeeves of Silence is Poetic for this week's prompt, sunny days.

We haven’t had many sunny days. It’s January in Minnesota. But winter is rich with gifts.

Detroit Beet

Color has to be imported
in the middle of January
crows speak for us,
telling our fears
to thickening shadows
burly barristers
filing for damages.

Yellow has to be imported
in the middle of January
We linger
over Manila mangos
imagining
fleshy pulp
caught in our teeth

Green has to be imported
in the middle of January
to get anything
but a grainy
monochrome
you must conjure
dusty grapes
from Argentina
or douse yourself
in badjnak festivity

Orange has to be imported
in the middle of January…
or so I thought
Have you ever
tasted
a golden beet
in the dead of winter
carmelized
til her sweetness
sings?

overwintering
soft bodies
we live on dreams
in the hollows
of Northern red oak

Detroit beet
blooms,
taproot
searching
a thousand suns
white blindness
falling around her.

In my old bedroom

Thanks to The Dark Lord, who brings us "chaos" this week at One Single Impression.

Sorry I haven’t been by to visit this past week. We had an out of town guest staying with us and I haven’t had an opportunity to keep up. Looking forward to sampling various flavors of chaos flowing from your pens.


“The past is never dead, it is not even past.” William Faulkner

This poem is about incest: metallic taste of fear, retinal sear, a child frozen in time.



In my old bedroom
you come and go
as you please

oiled skin of night
glistens
just outside
the window
sleek finned cars
transport lives
unimaginable

headlights skitter
up the walls
green like lizards
calling no attention
to themselves

I lie very still
trying to make sense of
cracks in the ceiling
long after you are gone.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are".

It is difficult to comprehend the degree of suffering and the scope of loss the Haitian people are experiencing. In the unfathomable devastation of the earthquake’s wake, let us do is everything we can do to help in the relief and rescue efforts.


Haiti: How to Help
If you're looking to donate to emergency assistance in Haiti, these organizations are among the most effective:

Doctors Without Borders, which already had teams working on medical projects in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, has treated hundreds of injured people and is working to get more staff into the country. Doctors are setting up medical facilities in tents, since their own buildings have been severely damaged.

Partners in Health, an aid organization that "is based on solidarity, rather than charity alone," is working to coordinate 120 doctors and 500 nurses on the ground in Haiti, evaluating how best to respond to the crisis. PIH's flagship project is based in Haiti, and it's where the organization's broadest range of resources are located. Donations "will go directly to our relief efforts on the ground, which currently involve organizing the logistics to get the medical staff and supplies needed for setting up field hospital sites in Port-au-Prince where we can triage patients, provide emergency care, and send those who need surgery or more complex treatment to our functioning hospitals and surgical facilities," according to the organization's development coordinator. Updated information can be found here.

Oxfam dispatched a team of specialists to Haiti, and is working to send badly needed medical supplies. The organization is concentrating on water and sanitation, to prevent the outbreak of waterborne diseases in the wake of the crisis. You can read about that work here. Oxfam's humanitarian coordinator in Port-au-Prince said, "Our immediate priorities will be providing safe water and shelter material for the people who have lost their homes. Many people have lost their homes and were sleeping out in the open last night. There has been no rain yet, but there was rain earlier in the week and if it comes again it will make the situation much worse for all those made homeless by this quake.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a starting place for organizations that have a reliable and established helping presence in Haiti. If you have any information on ways to support relief efforts, please feel free to share here.

It is also time to begin to reflect on Haiti’s history and the relationships that have contributed to its extreme poverty and fragility. What makes Haiti so different from its Caribbean neighbors who enjoy a relative level of comfort and insulation against crisis?

In 1804, the imported African slaves that were brought to work the island revolted against their colonial rulers and established the first free black state in the modern world. Haiti also is the first independent nation in Latin America and the only nation born of a slave rebellion.

In 1825, after encountering a decade of fierce resistance, France recognized the independence of the new republic in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs as indemnity for profits lost from the slave trade. Reparations have been exacted ever since: from invasion and occupation--to deforestation and exploitation of natural resources--to neoliberal policies that have flooded the country with cheap agricultural surplus and forced its people into urban sweatshops—to the deliberate undermining of its political stability by the abduction of its democratically elected leaders. These historical relationships at least in part help to inform the vulnerability that exacerbated the impact of natural disaster.

In the spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation , let us embrace the spirit of community, solidarity, and generosity to rebuild Haiti in its own image.