The Lanyard

This poem was read at the spring concert of the Brattleboro Women's Chorus on Mother's Day. The chorus is directed by my dear friend Becky Graber:

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past --
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

by Billy Collins

Young at Heart

One of my top ten best movies of all time;
you must see this!
Turns out, Stefan's girlfriend Zara worked with them for a couple of months through the Northampton Center for the Arts and they needed an assistant for rehearsals. She sang with these rock stars!
She helped with a show where they sang Led Zepplin songs.

inch by inch, row by row

gardens at Traver Road School

It is the month of May-O

Though our songs cannot banish ancient wrongs
Though they follow where the rose goes
And their sounds swooning over hollow ground
Fade and leave the enchanged air bare,
Yet the wise say that not unblest he dies
Who has know a single May Day.

(banner made by Margaret Dale Barrand and hung at our church in Guilford Vt.)

Spring's the thing

my new painting!

"The Beekeeper's Garden"
by Susan Bull Riley

Hippy reared polymath

since this is in Icelandic, I don't really know the scoop here, but check out the London magazine blurb about Sam's cd:

Hippy-reared polymath makes murder ballad beauty with post-classical prodigy.
"In this brash and listing age it's sometimes hard to stomach youth in all its loud energy. On the surface, Sam Amidon-a 26 year old Vermont-born film-maker, actor, musician, singer and cartoonist who's been playing fiddle since he was three, and recording from seven-might be too good to be true. However, Amidon's youth brings with it an ability to see beyond the received opinion of music history. Following 2007's solo debut, But this Chicken Proved Falsehearted, Amidon has recruited NY composer Nico Muhly and Bjork/Bonnie Prince Billy producer Valgeir Sigurdsson to rework 10 Appalachian tales of marriage and murder made weird down the generations. Dressing his love-worn and cracking tenor in a sacred whisper of banjo, fiddle and post-Glass pulses, tracks such as Wild Bill Jones, Little Johnny Brown and O Death are transformed anew for this new age of dire consequence."

To Be of Use by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

current faves

Great movie, must see: The Visitor
Great book, must read: Set this House in Order by John Ruff (thanks, Val for the reco) about person with multiple personality disorder.
Great cd: Flynnon, group from Wales (female vocalist, piano, bass player) and Old Time Banjo Festival
Great cd on meditation: Jon Kabat Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners, (Sounds True recordings)
Great radio: www.pandora.com which is a fantastic way to hear lots of music in your favorite genres. You create your own personal radio stations by listing artists and songs you like and then it automatically programs similar tracks for you to hear. Amazing.

Latest faves, anyone?

mindfulness

(click on this to enlarge)