Front Row Seat (JM)

  

(Joseph MacRae, July 20, 2022. Image from here. Interesting to note that today commemorates Neil Armstrong being the first man on the moon, 1967.)

Front Row Seat

Before, we hiked, hands entwined. 

Now with partner’s health decline it’s just 

zoom classes, reading books out loud, or

laughing over the mourning doves just outside. 

Though I really must admit it, 

they give a concert fine. 

*From prompt: Freewrite about how relationships (partners, friends, community etc) have changed as gotten older; from Daisy Barett Nash's Writers At Play, July 13, 2022.

Relations (WC)

  

(July 13, 2022, feast day of Our Lady of Chartres (Chartres labyrinth is above), Our Lady the Mystical Rose, the It Is Truly Meet (Axion Estin) Icon of the Mother of God, Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel, and feast day of Saint Clelia Barbieri, and Saint Mildred of Thanet. Image from here.)

Relations

relate (v.): directly from Latin relatus, used as past participle of referre "bring back, bear back" –etymoline.com

Chatting with a friend on a hike (this from younger self)

we continue with stop in Starbucks, steamed milk and muffin. 

Laughing in a zoom class (this from older self), commute to

the kitchen, hot tea, sourdough bread with pumpkin spread.

“It’s not the same hiking without you”, says Joseph. He’s still

out there, 80 years old, hiking Mary’s Peak. Totes home herbs,

stones spotted. Ambles in, sits himself down to tell the tale,

and maybe we’ll call Mom to join in now, talk a few 

times a week anyhow. Always ending with a blessing,

 “May the Angels surround and protect you”,

and seeing that this blessing is forever, 

and that it is deep and 

true, sending 

it on now

to you…

*From prompt: Freewrite about how relarionships (partners, friends, community etc) have changed as gotten older; from Daisy Barett Nash's Writers At Play, July 13, 2022.

I: I Could Write About (JM) (longer version)

  

(Joseph MacRae, July 6, 2022 (earlier version here). Image is of The Merc, from Joseph MacRae.)

I: I Could Write About 

I (pronoun): …12th century, a shortening of Old English ic, the first person singular nominative

 

1. Just About

I could write about living in our tiny rural town, Alsea, Oregon–-just 234 souls. Unincorporated, and like being in the 50’s. There’s John Boy’s Mercantile (the Merc), an old timey general store. History murals fill the outer walls, inside there’s fishing and hunting gear, fresh local meats at the deli. Though remote, we’re on a big cycle route. Sometimes the Merc’s little parking lot near bursts with Harleys, their riders scoring coffee for the road. Or there's Deb’s Cafe (true confession can’t get enough of the biscuits and gravy). There’s a library, out its window can see cows a stone’s throw away–- if you stare they’ll stare back! There’s the Church, school, medical clinic, post office, fire station, grange, organic farm, park, mountains round, birds roaming about--otherwise a whole lot of quiet--and the Alsea river running through it all. And that’s about it. But then, what more do you need?

 

2. About Face

I could remember too, write about living and working in remote untouched places. Kinfolk who goldmined the outback in our west coastal mountains. One who lived with, learned medicine ways from, the Coeur d'Alenes. I could write about myself working in Alaska, on islands large and small, where the only way in is by boat or small plane. Where wilderness is pristine, God touchable, present in His works. 

I have sat on the beach where the indigenous people once had their fish camp, where one can feel the power of the ancestors. I have sat in a small cove on an island near Haida Camp (an old Haida village) and listened to the hum-m-m, the soothing voice, of Earth Mother. The voice coming from her heart. 

I could write about a Legend in Stone, seen from my window while on a train skirting Oregon's Columbia Gorge. Last Ice Age, these basalt cliffs met glaciers turned flood, carving as no artist could.  "Look", I said to the couple next to me, "those stones are the spirits of the ancestors, waiting for the river to be returned." They smiled.

3. About Time

Storytelling is something seeped into these ol' bones, from branches on the family tree where poetry was crafted, legends spun. I could write about grief for the downplay of storytelling today. Shorter attention spans prefer tweets and screens and "reality" TV. But I could write about the heart of the sacred, waiting in these stories we need to tell. And as the the great philosopher Forest Gump likes to say, that’s about all I have to say about that. 

*From Prompt: Create a “Telling Trails” piece (basically to take a letter/a word beginning with that letter/a definition of that word/a picture drawn to/maybe a song drawn to--and write what comes); from Iris Jackson’s Finding Your Storyteller’s Voice with Telling Trails (Pat Conroy Literary Center, Beaufort, SC), June/July 2022.

Alsea Spring (WC)

 

Alsea Spring

Valleys have their advantages–-rivers love ‘em. Alsea

River across the street. Though yesterday found Joseph 

at Lobster Creek. Near hour away that, as most everything is.  

Not complaining. To this quiet leaning, right in. That is till birdsong 

breaks in–-Spring’s mourning dove, raven, swallow, goldfinch trill. 

Morn’s Robin. Noon’s buzzard, rides thermals, there over 

mountain crest. As below all’s by woodsmoke blessed. While 

Deb’s Cafe serves biscuits and gravy (Joseph’s accompaniment: 

growl of contentment) and my hand finds smoothest daffodil

bloom and stem

he's ushered in.

*Included in letter for Daisy Barrett Nash's Writers At Play, letter writing series, 2022. 

Morning Mantras (WC)

  

(June 12, 2022, Trinity Sunday, Eastern Orthodox Pentecost, feast day of Our Lady of Mantalto, Saint Anna of Kashin, Blessed Maria Candida of the Eucharist, Blessed Pelagia Lenti of Milazzo (whose Guardian Angel could be seen by some), Blessed Florida Cevoli (rotara...), Venerable Hildegard Birgan. On Jewish calendar today commemorates Moses Atop Mount Sinai . Image from here.)

Morning Mantras

“Morning Wenny Penny” (this from Mom)

“Good morning my little ball of happiness” (this to 

my Joseph, who when grumpy seeks some humor)

“Hi happy ball” (my mind grappling for

handholds, translation, when startled awake, 

Joseph’s laughter),

as turn to Joseph’s Mama’s “Each morning it's

resurrection, forgiveness, a gift of another day”, as

this morning winks, wakes,

for the opening.

*From prompt: Freewrite as inspired by the concept of dawn; from Lisa Freedman’s BreatheReadWrite, June 12, 2022.

Things To Do When Lost (WC)

  

(June 6, 2022, second day of Shavuot/Octave of Pentecost (Whit Monday). Feast day of Mary Mother of the Church ("[Saint Augustine] says that Mary is the mother of the members of Christ, because with charity she cooperated in the rebirth of the faithful into the Church....[While Saint Leo the Great] says that the birth of the Head is also the birth of the body, thus indicating that Mary is at once Mother of Christ, the Son of God, and mother of the members of his Mystical Body, which is the Church”--Pope Francis’ 2018 decree). Feast day of the Institution of the Nuns of the Visitation by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane de Chantal (above), of the Vodika Virgin Mary, of the Pimen Icon of the Mother of God, and of Felicia de Montmorency (one of the original Visitation nuns), Saint Candida of Rome and sainted family, and Saint Grazia of Germagno. On Jewish calendar today is the Sanctification of the Moon. Image from here. )

Things To Do When Lost

GPS is great for telling you where you are, or how far you’ve come. But not necessarily which direction to go. And if you happen to get it wet, you’re in deep kimchi.–-Joseph MacRae, the “End-of-an-Era Man”

1. When lost, humm a tune.

 

2. Give in to sweet tooth (gotta keep up your strength).

3. Consult Compass (you know, that little round thing,

dwarfed by your screen)--head true north.

4. Or look see which side of tree the moss grows on,

    or where sun is over the mountain.

5. Or wait for calm of night, look up to stars.

6. If all else fails, set out an SOS for morning.

7. Know that you are never truly lost.

Overflow (WC)

 

(May 15, 2022, Second Passover (Pesach Sheini/Sheni), May's full moon/eclipse--Flower Moon/Milk Moon (tonight), feast day of Our Lady of France (Puy), Our Lady of Good Crops (above), Our Lady of the Port, of Saint Dymphna, Saint Isidore the Farmer, Saint Bertha of Bingen, Saint Caesarea of Otranto , Saint Sophia of Rome (last day of winter in some parts of Europe). Image from here.)

Overflow

(from the journal, May 11, 2022, Oregon)

Perhaps it is not your fault, what has happened to you. Not your fault, what is happening around you. But it is your responsibility to look up, to not remain in the negativity.--Father Reverend George Cutty Kuriala, 05/04/22 Mass, The National Shrine of the Sacred Heart, Philippines 

Something happened. Breakout room group, Sunday’s BreatheReadWrite, wake of Roe vs Wade’s overturn draft. Suzy’s snapshot of her Manhattan walk, stops outside a Church. Police edge the line between sides. Swirl of shouts eerie, pierce. At center a women in yellow, silent–-hand on heart. Barbara’s stove bears pot of lentil soup. Needed on this day of body’s pain, but stirring knowledge of a homeless man right outside. Knowledge there’s enough if could only…While Holly shows Heaven’s food as love, those with no stomach for it thus starved. My own piece now a blur, save Julia Ward’s “sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God”. And life after, home clutter’s boiling point. Battle lines drawn. A fight for peace of place, irony not lost. And Joseph’s drive to town, scant grocery shelves, valley stopover at Lobster Creek. Returning with a white flag—white heart rock, smooth now in my palm. Heart’s slow settle in its wake.

Milk Moon spills her Light,

heart catch–-new flow, tend pace--a

breath to trace Her grace

*a try at haibun, inspired by experience at May 11, 2022’s BreatheReadWrite (Lisa Freedman).