Margaret Blanchard

WAYFINDER
“All you have to position yourself is your memory.  You keep the record
of where you’ve been in your mind, all the time.  It’s your history.
If you forget it, you’re lost.”  Nainoa

Your story of the surgeon’s slip
through the routine operation,
the holiday spent in a hospital bed,
the consequence worse than the cataract
is not the familiar tragic tale
of blindness inflicted by failure
to recognize parents or children,
the classic denial of Oedipus
or reluctant heroism of Lear’s Gloucester.

You yourself had to reply to your mother’s
refusal to give up her car after the same
futile operation, and the last accident,
“Mother, you could have killed
that whole family.”
Without further protest
she handed over the keys.

When we call to see if by some miracle
your sight has been restored,
you can tell by our voice
which daughter we are
though many say we sound exactly alike—
as blindfolded mothers who can identify
their newborn simply by a touch of their hands
only an hour after birth.

So what’s the lesson here?
While clearly not the old punishment
for flawed vision, surely this means more
than accidental obscurity.

Did you need to be ripped from the sight
of missing buttons, empty plates
and the eternal football game
to delight in the music you rarely
had time to hear, the songlines
half forgotten, buried
deeper than vigilant observation
of family tensions, subtle discernment
of the rise and fall of other people’s moods?
Did you have to be denied
the books which guide you into yourself,
the car which keeps you on the move, on your own,
the bright pansy faces hopeful
even when the temperature drops?

One clue, perhaps, must be traced back even further,
is wound at the core of even older ways of knowing.

Hawaiians say the people found the islands
through navigation by the king’s son,
blinded at the age of five so he could read
the route through chants and leis of shell.
Aborigines map their world through paths of song
sung from region to region, generation to generation.
Mayan elders train their future shamans
by confining them, as children, in a cave
with just enough light so they won’t go blind,
just enough food so they won’t starve,
releasing them at the age of nine
full of wonder at the world,
finely tuned to hints of pattern.

The contemporary Hawaiian wayfinder can sail
6,000 miles without instruments, sensing
even when underdeck, the size and direction
of a swell by the way the boat rises and falls,
telling distance at night even when stars
are not visible, knowing each dawn
by the shape and color of clouds,
the touch of wind and feel of spray
which way the weather will shift.
Sight does not master; it serves
a sixth sense.

You were our wayfinder.  By foot, by car,
by train, by ship, by plane, you led us four,
along the lines you’d been taught.
If ever you got lost, it was later
when we ‘strayed’ from expectation,
tradition, the rules as you had known them,
as you taught us, while also showing us
latitude to evolve between the lines.
You watched with dismay as we tunneled under
like moles, or swung out with free fall
into, what must have seemed to you, pure fog.

Now, hearing the name of your Indian surgeon’s
Infant son, “Michael Patrick,” you guess
he’s half-Irish, send him a toy for Christmas,
and couch grandmotherly advice to his doting father
with quote from experts, “they say,”
insufficient crawling could lead to visual contradictions.
And so, you sail your way past bitterness
while the rest of us, bright-eyed,
grope through blame.

As Mau, the traditional wayfinder, says to Nainoa,
the modern navigator, “Now you know all there is to know—
it will be twenty years before you see.”

Now, finally, I see how you navigate
rough waters, even past cataracts.
“They say” seasickness comes from conflicting
messages: the eyes show us our world atilt;
the ears assure us we are balanced.

Though your sight revealed an old order
eclipsed and children adrift,
your listening recalls the songlines
which map our ways to love.

Margaret Blanchard

Zero’s Edge

“Gracias, my child.  Your hunger spurred our wandering feet
beyond that gnawing in our gut, our light-headed longing
whose pangs brought us to this place of plenty.

Your infant needs inspired gifts of berries on the trail 
birthing us to this land of fruited plains 
where enough food is wasted to feed our deserted homeland, 
with her hollow eyes, bloated belly, skeletal limbs, empty hopes.

One who shared her fruits in that crowded, stinking camp
died with her generosity, when, weakened by starvation,
she succumbed to fever’s clutch. Feeble myself, I could only sigh
when they wrapped her body in her tattered serape 
and lowered her into the dusty, sweating earth.

Although ours was not a doomed caravan, 
hers wasn’t the only limp form falling 
onto parched ground while we trod on through the dust, 
our meager rations gone, far from promised land.
What saved me was your pulse next to mine, my precious cargo.

I pray you’ll never remember that journey, but I fear hunger 
will throb in your blood—not starvation at the border of abundance, 
but hunger’s other side-- envy of the wealthy’s hearty meals,
their plates rounded with gilded edges; surplus rimmed by emptiness
--like our countryman who struck gold now scorning the rest of us.

To prosper while surrounded by famished others, as some rich folks do,
to crave what others savor, as we sometimes do,
or to starve as our old country does—
each is a hole in hell-- each, one edge of zero.”

Nancy Gore

Crossmatch:


in which a donor’s blood is mixed with the recipient’s to determine compatibility

Eight years ago my friend's heart stopped working. The doctors had no idea why: “It just happens sometimes”. They didn’t think it was in any way related to the rheumatic fever she had as a child, but I can’t help but connect the two. The medicine she now takes to keep her body from rejecting her new heart, literally that of a younger woman, is doing its job. Unfortunately it also causes kidney failure.

People ask me if I’m scared to donate a kidney.
I was more scared of not donating.

The evaluation of my kidney starts in November with an online assessment and a phone interview. I’m so excited when I get the “blood shipper package” in the mail I take a photo and send it to Tonie. I tell her they will be mixing my blood with hers to see what happens. I suggest this will probably work better than when we tried to become “blood sisters” by pressing pin pricked fingers together.

“I hope it doesn’t destroy the space-time continuum,” she replies.

Six vials of my blood are shipped from Central Vermont Medical Center to North Carolina’s Duke Transplant Center on December 1st. I see a multitude of lab results on the patient portal but I have no idea how they impact my ability to donate til three weeks later. Everything looks good, says Lauren, my Donor Coordinator. Next up, a trip to North Carolina for a two day Living Donor Evaluation.

GFR, glomerular filtration rate, is key in determining how well a kidney is functioning. The Nephrologist at the Duke Transplant Center explains that when a person donates a kidney the remaining kidney usually steps up it’s game. There is math involved. She takes out a pen and draws two ovals on the paper bag my lunch arrived in. Based on my blood work she is concerned my GFR may be too low. The four hour kidney function test, scheduled for tomorrow, will be more definitive. A person my age who wants to donate a kidney must have a GFR of at least 80. My GFR is 84. Tonie’s is 9.

Our friendship stretches 50 years and starts on a hot summer day in 1972. I clutch the back of my mother’s thighs, peeking around them at a girl about my size. There is something compelling about her: a pretty face that seems to mirror my own confusion, only hers is framed by dark curly hair. Above our heads a murmur and blur of adults. Below us, on the floor of the ad-hoc food coop, are wooden crates full of fruits and vegetables. We look at each other. The two of us, mystified by the world around us, already a sense of being together in a world we don’t understand.

I don’t see Tonie again til the following winter. My mother drives me to her house in our avocado green Valiant. I'm not sure if my mother uses the words, “St. Vitus Dance” or “rheumatic fever”. I do understand that something is wrong, that Tonie can’t control how her body moves and that my visit is meant to cheer her up.

I am led down the carpeted hallway to Tonie’s room. She is propped up in a small single bed. I sit in a chair beside her and watch as her arms and head jerk from side to side. I hold on to my mother’s words, there’s nothing to be afraid of, she just needs a friend. I can’t understand Tonie's words but she shows me a trick. As her head and arms flip and flop she manages to grasp the bell at her bedside. A mischievous smile erupts under the eyes that catch mine as the bell breaks the silence and her mother comes running. I am dazzled at her audacity.

Tonie appears to have fully recovered by fall when we are newly enrolled in a small fledgling Quaker school. I remember memorizing multiplication tables. Tonie remembers coloring. We both remember playing Tarzan on the branches of one of the many magnolia trees outside our classroom. She feels bad about the time she suggested I play “Baby Fatso” in the Tarzan game. A couple years later I was marginally accepted into the “cool girl” clique and only played Tonie’s Narnia games when the cool girls wouldn't have me. We had a handful of years left in what seems now like the innocence of childhood, still feeling safe in the world. We had kind, loving teachers who read, sang and played with us.

I visit Tonie the summer after our junior high graduation. Headed to different high schools, it will be the first time we aren’t classmates since we were 7 years old. She is excited to show me the two wooden life size sculptures that her father has recently finished carving: one of her and one of her younger brother, Alex. The likeness is startling. With each detail I am overwhelmed by how much her father must love them. My friend’s beauty magnified, the small nose, it’s tip and nostrils an elegant triangle. I asked her about the sculptures on my recent visit. She remembers the cast set around her, the heat of the North Carolina summer. She still loves the smell of wood chips. All that time with her father. It must have been a sweet reprieve from the grief and rage in her mother’s home. I ask if she thinks the events of 1979 had anything to do with her father’s decision to carve the sculptures. She shrugs it off but I can’t help but wonder the depth of the fear her father must have felt. Any mention of ‘79 between us and we don’t have to fill in the blanks.

It is Nov. 3, 1979. Tonie’s father is supposed to bring her to my 14th birthday party that evening. Alex is at the rally, where Tonie would have been had she not put her foot down. It’s another of her mother’s many political activities, but a really big one this time. Tonie had talked with me, in the manner of any 14 year old girl complaining about their mother, about how much she did not want to go to this rally. The fact that her mother was a self-proclaimed communist organizing a Death to the Klan rally did not phase us like it should have. Even so, I don't think it’s fair for her mother to say she has to attend.

"If you don't want to go, don't go," I tell her.

I am surprised her mother relents.

Tonie and her father are at the Krispy Kreme on High Point Rd. when she calls me. It was their tradition to stop for a donut and coffee after a morning searching the booths at the Sedgefield Flea Market. I had joined them a few times on these outings, excited by our mutual quest for Beatles memorabilia, (John was her favorite, George was mine).

I hold the yellow handset of the phone. Tonie says, “I can’t come to your party. My stepfather’s been shot. I saw it in the paper. Look at the Greensboro Record and you’ll see”.

On the front page of our afternoon paper is a photo of her step-father, on the ground, a bullet wound in his chest. In time, the news of his murder, along with four other members of the Communist Workers Party at the hands of the Klu Klux Klan, would spread throughout the world. Anyone with a history in that city knows the date. It’s impact still reverberates.

But this is not about that. The events of ‘79 did not and does not define my friend nor our friendship.

Tonie has accepted me through all my screw ups. To be honest, she joined some of them (like the time in 9th grade we were suspended from school for smoking and took the day to see Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke at the Janus theater). We have gone long periods with no contact, but she has never missed sending me a birthday card. To my shame, I almost never sent her one. She made the best mixed tape of child friendly songs from artists like Louis Armstrong and Arlo Guthrie when my first baby was born.

I love my friend and can’t imagine a world without her in it.

I read, “the kidney is in no way a static organ..It’s like a tree with branches in which each branch takes care of its own growth instead of being dependent on the trunk”. I think of our friendship. How far we’ve come from that day our bewildered eyes first met. The people and events in our lives shaped but did not ultimately define us. Our friendship has always contained hope.

Email from Duke Transplant Center:
Friday, March 4, 2022
Nancy,
Just got word! We are ready!!! When do you want to donate?

As soon as I can.

*https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/06/adult-kidneys-constantly-grow.html

Ros Cordiner

Extract from March diary – Norfolk, England

7th March 2022

Just outside my window is the lilac bush. It’s purple. I wanted white but was too impatient to wait so bought the first one I found. It’s served me well over several years although I wish the flowers lasted longer. Despite suffering from an invisible little worm that snuggles into the backs of the leaves each end of season, it remains healthy and strong.
This morning, the buds are out, showing strength and optimism. Like the hydrangeas, it returns powerfully to defy nature every spring. On St. David’s day, I commended the daffodil for it too shows strength in adversity. When knocked down by a late snowfall, it rises up again valiantly once the deluge has departed. Clematis needs care but that too offers continual loyalty and delight. Gardeners among us will know which plants in our garden are over-confident in their strength such as ground elder although its family member, the tree, gives us flowers and berries to use in our kitchen and is a dream to prune. It looks so dead in winter, I’m always delighted when it bursts forth again. Surprisingly, another contender for its staying power, despite its beautiful delicate mauve flowers, is Japanese anemone. If not careful during the summer, it needs to be reminded to stay in its place and although I’ll probably never rid myself of its roots (not that I want to), it is easily dug back to size in Autumn. No one will have planted bamboo without regret and grass in the flower beds is tenacious and back-breaking.

As I’m writing this, I’m naturally personifying my plants. (I made the mistake in the staff room years ago of mentioning that I linked dog breeds to people. Everyone was begging me to tell them what sort of dog they were. It didn’t end well. I learnt my lesson.)
We only need to look at the news to be able to label insidious ground elder types, the loyalty of grassy souls, those daffodils that suffer and rise again. Not forgetting the Japanese anemone who use their gentle flowers to hide a grim tenacity of will.

I think I’m like the daffodil, not that I have ever come across as delicate in any overt way. Trees are my passion. I have just planted a silver birch dismissing comments that I won’t live long enough to see it grow tall! Plants and flowers are pretty but we have all but lost the knowledge handed down by our grandmothers to know their abundant uses for medicine. Now we pay extortionate rates for pharmaceutical companies to do it for us. A tree gives life, food and shelter to our animal kingdom, including ourselves so I’d like to feel I’m akin to their bountiful sharing. I’ve read a few books on trees recently where I discovered the true nature of their amazing life and their vital connection with nature. If you haven’t discovered it for yourself, you should read “The Hidden Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben. I think I have a good understanding of nature but this was an eye-opener and an unexpected gift of fascinating knowledge. Trees have their dormant season which would be a tonic for us to give us a rest from the turmoil that we seem to put ourselves through. I’d quite like to sleep through the winter. Others prefer a winter break on the ski slopes with all that paraphernalia and excitement. Not for me.
One plant I would not want to be, with my fear of the dark and my need for warmth, is a potato lying in the stone cold, dark soil, alone, no company apart from worms and susceptible to rotting and blight. This may of course hark back to my Irish ancestry and the great suffering caused by the Irish dependence on it.

I guess with climates rising, we may find ourselves not needing a greenhouse to grow a beautiful array of Mediterranean fruits. A colourful display to embrace and love but what will happen to the wheat and barley in our farmers’ fields? My American friend, Merrie moved from the rich watery Norfolk Broads to Arizona no doubt she faced an enormous horticultural shift.
Some older people may have a problem with the resulting change in diet since often these strong peppery flavours are no longer comfortable for the digestion. My sense of taste is as sharp as ever but sadly now there’s safety and a good night’s sleep in maintaining a boring blandness.
Anyone who knows me very well, will be aware that I have a sensitive touch – I’m an instinctively huggy person in moments of emotional need, unless repelled, then I become a bear in a cave. Touch is akin to feel which links to that sixth sense of “feelings.” So often in my life this has seemed a mixed blessing and I’ve craved being blissfully unaware. How great it would be if the “academics” who dictate our education system understand that intelligence can also be empathetic, artistic, musical and all manner of other things which are not only equal in importance but provide a broader understanding of the world and how we choose to treat it.

I’ve always blamed my lack of concentration on my overpoweringly acute senses. As for hearing, I can only read in utter silence as any distraction will be like a magnet to my ears and draw me away, however great my book. Often, I reread my favourite authors these days to make sure that I have not missed any of the little gems they seem to offer on every page. Kate Atkinson is the master of this.

As for my sense of sight, my art diploma has been a revelation of self-discovery. I find my sense of sight has been asleep all my life. Suddenly, I’m searching for colour, form, movement and depth in everything that surrounds me, from shadows on faces on film to skies and the sea – a bit late in life, but I’m going to make the most of it from now on.

Ros

March Diaries from Norfolk (England)
8th March 2022

A wren catches my eye as it emerges boldly from the hedge to flit across the garden to the pond. The pond is recently relined and apart from some loyal irises (transplanted with care), I can see the pebbles clearly on the bottom. In past seasons, I’ve managed to keep it clear from blanket weed by immersing a bundle of barley. It works. How, I don’t know? The problem seems to be the aerating plants that multiply to such an opaqueness that my little net struggles to get in and search for a newt to show the grandchildren. Now it lies empty of all life. Cold and barren.

This parallels with Putin’s flattening of Ukraine. Many have fled but will those who are unable or unwilling to leave, shrug and obey, then multiply and expand into a new desert, devoid of freedom, reason and art.
I visited the famous Hermitage in St. Petersburg a few years ago. We were led by a Russian lady in her forties who had been brought up in the communist regime and her entire conversation seemed scripted. She was unable or unwilling to venture out of the box. We had done our homework and asked to see certain works (including those of Hitler) – the vastness of the building and the crowds were overwhelming. Our guide had privileges so we jumped the queue.

I first came across The Hermitage when reading about the siege of Leningrad – a tale of torture and deprivation, starvation and desperation. It took me many traumatic nights to devour the small print in over 1,000 pages. The population was reduced to boiling leather belts to make soup.

To expand on today’s writing, I looked up a few facts about the evacuation of the works of art from the Hermitage. I found such an interesting and concise account (ref: Meb3Art) that I’ve reprinted it in full below. Stalin’s refusal to allow Director Orbeli to begin the evacuation was based on negative propaganda.

If you have the time or inclination to read it, one might muse that Putin could do with a Director Orbeli to organise his operations today.

Ros

The evacuation of the Hermitage The events describing the siege of Leningrad and its staggering number of casualties (estimated at over three million on the Russian side) have been well documented. The loss of life and destruction are considered to be one of the costliest in history. Hitler’s orders were to destroy the city and its entire population. According to a directive sent to Army Group North on the 29th of September 1941, "After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban centre. […] Following the city's encirclement, requests for surrender negotiations shall be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very existence, we can have no interest in maintaining even a part of this very large urban population." (1)
It would be safe to say that the Hermitage and its collection could not have survived all the bombardment, battles, fires and looting of Leningrad under a complete Nazi occupation. We can see the destruction endured by all of the palaces that were outside the city’s circle in many period photographs. Hitler ordered the looting and destruction of the Imperial Palaces of “ Catherine Palace -Tsarskoye Selo, Peterhof Palace, Ropsha, Strelna, Gatchina, and other historic landmarks located outside the city's defensive perimeter, with many art collections transported to Germany.” (2)
The operation to protect, package and evacuate most of the Hermitage’s collection that counted over two and a half million objects must be one of the largest and most difficult art rescues in history. A series of events dating back to the 19th century contributed to the success of the speedy and “officially” unplanned evacuation.  
Until the last part of the 19th century, the Hermitage collection was considered and administered as the private property of the Czars. Access to it was restricted to very few and its display organized to a large extent on different decorative groups. The lack of apparent interest in large acquisitions for the Hermitage at that time proved to be one of those events that contributed to the collection’s survival. “Under Alexander II (r. 1855-1881), the Hermitage Museum became an independent government administration. During his reign, and those of Alexander III (r.1881-1894) and Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917), the Czars had little involvement with the organization and acquisitions of the Hermitage. While the collection grew little during the late Romanov era, it was an important period for art historians. The curators used this time to organize and catalogue the collection.” (3)
For the first time in its history, the Hermitage had a careful, detailed and scholarly itemization of its collections. Such a list was to prove crucial in any plans to package and transport millions of objects. Second, for some unknown reason, the director of the Hermitage, Joseph Abgarovich Orbeli began to prepare for the evacuation even before World War II started. “In 1937, the Sampson Cathedral was leased to the museum, where a team of joiners pounded boxes of certain sizes for specific exhibits (objects). This work took four years. What is most interesting, is that no one knew about this, except Orbeli and the head of the special department, Alexander Tarasov. Probably, the museum workers guessed, although the funds were checked quite often. But when the war began, thousands of boxes and packaging material somehow quietly appeared in the Hermitage. Interestingly, workers even knew which boxes and which exit to use to remove the pieces.  
Everything was very well planned: all the necessary documentation was prepared in advance, a schedule for the order and place of packing was created, a route for transporting them was developed – which stairs to go down, through which staircase and the sequences to take them out, and so on, says the leading researcher at the Department of History and restoration of architectural monuments of the Hermitage Svetlana Yanchenko.” (4)
By the beginning of June 1941 as the Nazi troops approached Russia, Director Orbeli started seeking orders from Moscow as to the protection of the Hermitage’s collection.  Lane Bailey in his Honor Theses (3) mentions that Stalin specifically ordered Director Orbeli not to start packing or even accumulating packing materials for the eventual evacuation. These actions could have given the impression of desperation or defeatism which was to be avoided at all costs. On Sunday, June 22, 1941, the Nazi forces invaded Russia. Without any orders from Moscow, Director Orbeli directed all of his employees to start packing that same evening (5). By the time the green light arrived from Moscow, Orbeli and his staff were way ahead of the game with more than half a million pieces of art taken from the Museum’s galleries and packed in boxes. (6)
The fact that thousands of prepared and numbered boxes already existed, secretly stored, numbered and specifically made for most of the collection; together with the accumulated packing materials at a nearby Cathedral is certainly an incredible accomplishment of Director Orbeli and those that may have known but never discussed.
To date, we have a detailed and highly organized list of the collection available, the availability of prepared and numbered boxes, stored packaging material and specific detailed plans for moving  all of the boxes through the Hermitage’s galleries to their evacuation. However, Director Orbeli and his staff were to perform many more actions to salvage the art.
Two full trains were able to leave Leningrad with the Hermitage’s treasures. The first one departed on July 1, 1941. “… loaded the crates under heavy guard on a hastily assembled train consisting of two locomotives, an armored car for the most valuable objects, four Pullmans for other special treasures, and twenty-two freight cars filled with canvases and statues. Two flatcars with antiaircraft batteries and one passenger car filled with military guards provided security for the train.
The train quietly departed on July 1, preceded by a separate locomotive to clear the tracks. In the interest of security, the train 's engineers did not even know their final destination. The train eventually arrived near Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), a Ural Mountain city in south-central Russia, where it remained until August 1945.” (6)
“A second train carried away another 700,000 exhibits on July 20, but more than one million artifacts remained in storage. Orbeli ordered preparations for the evacuation of the final collections, but curators had only packed 350 crates by mid-August when work stopped.” (7)
A third planned train could never leave since the Nazi troops had closed all access to the city. Nearly one and a half million objects were evacuated to Sverdlovsk 1,500 miles away from Leningrad.
All remaining objects were transferred to the lower floors, basement and into hastily constructed bomb shelters which were also prepared for the staff, their families, and others in the academic and cultural environment. The evacuated art returned to the Hermitage on October 10, 1945. (8)
One collection of objects could not be moved out of their assigned places in the galleries. The fabulous set of monumental Russian Empire Style Vases that were so large and so heavy (some of them weighing in excess of 10 tons) remained.
The State Hermitage Museum possesses an impressive collection of monumental vases made of Russian semi-precious stones mounted in gilt-bronze. “These vases took years to produce. Once the stone had been selected – rich dark-blue lapis lazuli, jasper, pink rhodonite or various porphyries from the Ural Mountains – a craftsman would begin to turn the stone to designs set by the Tsar's Imperial Cabinet. Often, these designs would be the work of the foremost architects of the day. When the vases were completed they were exhibited on the Jordan staircase of the Winter Palace at Christmas and Easter. The Tsar would pick the pieces he wanted and the rest were given away as gifts. Among the most treasured of these vases were those made of lush green Russian malachite, created in a laborious mosaic technique.” (9)
Photographs exist that show these vases standing defiantly in the middle of the damaged galleries, some with broken windows, open ceilings and holes on their floors. For us, those images show the permanence and endurance of these monumental vases.
Over two thousand people lived in the shelters of the Hermitage and the rest of the Winter Palace during the siege. After each bombardment, soldiers and those that lived there boarded the destroyed windows, cleaned the debris and tried to salvage chandeliers and ornaments from the walls. Director Orbeli and other guides managed to give tours to the soldiers describing the paintings that would have been hanging from those empty frames in the different galleries. One example of the situation inside the Hermitage’s shelters was narrated as follows: “By this time the daily bread ration in Leningrad was 125 grams per person. This sketch depicts a thin, bony palm stretched out holding four small crumbs of bread. The fingers are long, thin, and crooked, perhaps representing rheumatism that many Hermitage workers, including Director Orbeli, suffered from throughout the siege”. (10)
There were countless acts of bravery displayed to protect and salvage the art collection during those months of the siege. Ludmilla Voronikhina, an art historian at the Hermitage tells one of them: “In the winter, freezing water from a burst pipe flooded the cellar. A team of elderly lady museum guides came to the rescue, descending to the ice-cold underground lake in total darkness, treading gingerly in rubber waders to avoid crushing the submerged vases, dinner services, and Meissen shepherdesses underfoot.” (11)
The Hermitage lost some treasures and sustained enormous damage during the siege, but the incredible foresight, planning, organization and hard work of a very small staff that was helped by soldiers, sailors, and citizens of Leningrad, saved one of the most important collections of art in the world. A visit to the State Hermitage Museum today should also be a celebration of the human spirit, and gratitude for the many that helped build, preserve and protect an immense collection of art in the face of darkness.
Director Orbeli’s words summarize that spirit in this short entry of his diary “On June 22, 1941, all employees of the Hermitage were called to the museum. Hermitage researchers, security personnel, and technical employees all took part in the packaging, spending no more than an hour a day on food and rest. And from the second day, hundreds of people who loved the Hermitage came to our aid … We had to force these people to eat and rest by order. The Hermitage was dearer to them than their strength and health.” (12)

March Diaries from Norfolk (England)
9th March 2022

Being outside, with unfettered space and close to nature is crucial for my well-being. Winter frustrates me as I press my nose against the door to the back garden and wish for the day when it will be warm enough for me to sit outside to read, to muse, to write, to have my breakfast, enjoy my latte or sip a chilled glass of a pale Sauvignon in the early evening.
When I started this writing project, I labelled it simply “diary” as I had no idea what I was going to say although I knew it would certainly involve nature. I belong to a writing group in my village where I’m known for my pessimistic responses to most topics and in my little online poetry group, I often display many different styles. But when composing poetry for my personal release, it is always linked to nature. Although on one occasion I wrote about a daffodil, in fact I was using it as a cover for narcissism. I love daffodils. I even love the Wordsworth poem despite its overuse. The bank vole loves daffodils too. It eats my bulbs so not many survive and flower into spring but for a pound I can buy a bunch of limp looking unopened daffodils, tied in a thin elastic band, which thrust out their glorious trumpets almost as soon as I put them in water. I do this regularly, early in the season, to bring joy to my kitchen windowsill and connect me to outdoors.
In the past, I have entered one or two poetry competitions when felt emboldened by what I believe are my “excellent” choice of words, but I’m too closely linked to the Romantics and Thomas Hardy to ever be considered for a prize since modern words and language seem to always win the day. “The Darkling Thrush” by Hardy speaks to me of nature reflecting our world, our hopes and fears and is surely still relevant today?

For a moment, this morning, I felt sorry for myself as I woke to the freezing house. Then I remembered, I had a house and others didn’t; many through a series of misfortunes – loss of job, divorce, depression – but thousands of others as refugees. The white plane lines above me in the clear blue sky today have been left by passenger jets not fighters or bombers. In fact, the reason behind my writing this diary is, in my very small way, to help the efforts of those in Vermont to support refugees.

The first few lines of Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” have been going round and round in my head for days. They probably will again in the summer when we take our grandsons to Belgium for a battle tour entitled “All Quiet on the Western Front.” In fact, I’ve already bought a war poets book. I won’t embarrass them by making them listen. I’ll read them to myself at Ypres and in the trenches.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

By now we have watched the harrowing scenes of Ukrainians leaving their homes by car or on trains that arrive to welcoming receptions of food, shoes, baby buggies and arrangements to house them and help them on their way, but surely Owen’s words reflect what’s happening to their minds – the very part that we don’t see. We’ve witnessed their tears and hopelessness. Constantly I worry about the effect of every day experiences on my grandchildren and how these might mould their innocent minds but what of the trauma these children are experiencing?

The first 193 Ugandan-Asians arrived at Stansted Airport on 18th September 1972. Some had made their own arrangements but others were taken to RAF Stradishall in Suffolk, organised by the UK Ugandan Resettlement Board. These “refugees” from Idi Amin have been such a wonderful addition to our growing international society. They are friendly, open, deeply religious, hard working and delightful.
So, many people in the UK this morning are asking why the government is taking so long to help in this re-settlement crisis? Ukrainians with links or desires to come here have made their difficult journeys to Calais only to find themselves retracing their steps to Lille (?) to seek visas with no guarantee that they will be successful. Others are stuck in cities far away starved of advice and guidance, not knowing which way to turn. We are all scared of false claimants, of being taken for a ride! I’m so angry with this government and its ministers who lack moral fibre, clear thinking and compassion; who laugh at the general population, seeing the majority as insignificant drains on resources. It’s the selfish comfortable middle classes, the “I’m all right Jack” brigade that keep them in power. How can you be happy in your own life when there’s so much suffering going on around you? It’s beyond me although I have close family and friends who support them still. They must have their reasons?

Back to the current evacuation. I say to my grandchildren – just imagine that you have to leave, now, not a moment to spare, now! I bought my granddaughter a lovely suitcase for Christmas. Just imagine her packing that up. She’s a stylish girl with a lovely nature. She enjoys make up and clothes. She works hard all the time. She’s a dedicated and active member of several organisations. How would she choose what to take? She has “elephant” – her toy from babyhood. He’d be packed of course unlike Judith Kerr – “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit” – she spent the rest of her 90 plus years regretting the choice she made which left him behind.
I look at the other two girls. One would just follow her mother, nobly saying “it’s ok. I’m not bothered.” The little one would cry. The boys would follow too, in certainty that their mother was making the right choice for them. What of their mothers then – my daughters? How would they feel taking their children into the unknown, leaving the security of their homes, saying goodbye to menfolk and grandparents, alive to the fear that they may never meet again, and entering a world of strangers who don’t speak their language? How terrible to be a loyally committed to your duty as a parent, everything you’ve ever stood for, but be thwarted by circumstances beyond your control. It’s heartbreaking.
This morning on Facebook, someone had posted one of those slogans which read:

“Don’t be sad if you’re having a bad day, tomorrow will always be better.”

Let’s hope they’re right.

Ros

Elizabeth W Robechek

Elizabeth W Robechek

Linzy Lyne

TRUE STORIES FROM THE TOP OF THE HILL – DAY ONE

I wish someone would hurry up and invent a time machine, preferably before my allotted span runs out. Mind you, someone like Elon Musk or Richard Branson would pay to get an early seat in it and go back to see how they could change the world and incidentally make even more cash. They might possibly cause what scientists call an “iconoclasm”, which could result in the entire human race ceasing to exist. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on your point of view. Not so great if you happen to be rich and famous or incredibly happy at the time. That's the thing. Time.

What I would love to do is to journey back to check out all my little memories, you know, the vivid snapshots we have of our lives, to see what actually happened, my memory not being what it was. I want to revisit my grandmother's kitchen on a washday Monday, with the big copper tub steaming, Nanny working away with some kind of wooden implement to get the sheets clean. Then I want to escape into her garden and see what kind of hens they kept in the hut down the end and whether there were really juicy strawberries growing under netting. Grandad would be sat at the dining room table, coughing and drinking tea from a pint pot as he studied the form for the day's racing, his William Hill totaliser at hand on the oilcloth table cover. When I came in, Nanny would tell me to get the “bikkit tin” from the pantry and sit me on a wooden buffet. My uncle would arrive on his motorbike, with my cousins in the sidecar, and I hear them saying “Lindsay, where have you been? Where were you all this time?” That's the first iconoclastic event. They don't know yet that I will leave them for so long.

I'm here, dear family. I strayed away, lived my life of random events, beads on a flimsy length of string, and now I'm cast up on this hill like a piece of plastic pollution on a beach, wondering what it was all about. If I went back, what would I change, if anything? Would anything I could do have any effect on how my life turned out?

To you, my readers, you're welcome to come with me, there is a seat for you in my time machine. There is no shortage of places to go and it's a free ride. I don't expect to visit my memories in a tidy, chronological fashion in preparation for an autobiography. My time machine, like Doctor Who's Tardis, doesn't quite work that way. These are my true stories, told in the order they choose to present themselves. Welcome aboard.

Linzy Lyne

TRUE STORIES FROM THE TOP OF THE HILL – DAY TEN

In January 1967 I returned home after an unsuccessful attempt to follow in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac by going “on the road” in Europe, guitar slung over my shoulder and £5 in my pocket. I was brought down to earth by my parents saying that if I persisted with my refusal to return to college I must get a proper job and pay for my keep. So saying, Mum dragged me down to the job centre, where I insisted I would not work in a shop, office or factory. There were two alternative jobs on offer, one in the British Museum at £6 per week and one in a local library at £8 a week. I picked the library and so began my short career as a Library Assistant at the tender age of sixteen.

I was posted to a public library in the West London suburb of Southall, which is home to the largest Punjabi community in Britain, and there I quickly found my niche as a somewhat colourful character. As a burgeoning weekend hippie, I liked to arrive at work in a brightly coloured mini dress, straw sandals, brass Indian bells tied round my ankles and a big straw hat with fresh flowers tucked into the band. I loved wandering around humming as I tidied the shelves. The Assistant Librarian, Ted Mawby, would sigh in despair, saying “will you stop tinkling behind the stacks”!

I loved meeting the huge variety of people of all nationalities who came into the library. We had an impressive collection of foreign language books, but unfortunately they were not well bound and often fell apart, and as none of the staff knew one language from another (were they in Sanskrit or Urdu? we wondered) some covers may have been put back on upside down or on the wrong books.

One of the duties of our branch was to supply cover for a local hospital librarian on Friday mornings when she went to her book-buying meeting. No-one else was willing to take this task on, so I volunteered. The library was in a Victorian mental asylum called St Bernards's. I was going through a phase of reading books about teenagers with schizophrenia (the library seemed to have several of these) and was also dabbling with some “experimentation with my consciousness”, so the mental institution was a fruitful ground for my interests. I tried to remain undaunted by the huge imposing building, with its awful smells, strange inmates and long white tiled corridors.

Once the librarian had gone, I was left alone in the room with any patients who wished to sit there, accompanied by two patients who helped out. There was Anne, who had a large shiny face and was “waiting to be released”. She would have a long wait, she had been there for many years and spent a lot of her time going up and down the stepladder and talking to someone on the ceiling. Then there was a dear little man, I called him Mr Rawlings in a song I once wrote about him, but to tell the truth I don't remember his real name. He was almost blind and walked around holding a torch in front of him. He was supposed to keep the books in order but couldn't read the titles. He wore a black overcoat, too big for him, and a hat, and he had no teeth, so couldn't eat properly. When the tea trolley came round (the tea was strong and tasted dreadful) he would get half a cup of tea, lots of milk and sugar, and drown some digestive biscuits in it. Then he would slurp the horrid mixture down appreciatively. Sometimes at weekends he went out to stay with relatives in a caravan.

Some of the patients weren't there to read at all but would sit holding a newspaper up and peer over it at me, very suspiciously, wondering who I was. Then there were nurses and doctors who came in to borrow psychiatry books, which were kept behind my desk so the patients couldn't look up their symptoms. One day I was treated to a visit by Matron, together with a large entourage, she was a formidable woman and that day was sporting a large purple bruise around her eye. She marched over to my desk and leaned over, barking “do you want to know how I got this?” “Ye—es” I stammered. Grabbing a pencil from my desk and lunging it towards my eye, she shouted “A PATIENT did THIS!” I was terrified. Mad as a box of frogs and she was in charge!

On another occasion an alarm went off while I was in the library, the only staff member among a dozen or so patients. No-one took any notice. I dithered, should I bravely lead all the patients out into the garden? Was there a fire drill? I had no idea. I ran out into the corridor, where I was met by a female patient kneeling down in her thick torn stockings, washing the floor with a rag. I said “Is that the fire alarm?” She turned her face up to look at me.

“Earin' bells, dearie?” she said kindly, and went back to her cleaning.

Sarah E. Franklin

The Old Woman, The Wheelbarrow & The Boy

1. Waste of a good barrow to set it
curbside full of pink geraniums.
Got years of work out of its
good old wood. Repainted
five times over the years.
I like a red barrow. My
boy loved a ride in it.

2. Had a pretty good run with her—
fifty years. She oiled my wheel,
kept me sanded, painted. We
hauled it all—compost, grass
seed, gravel—even her boy.
She gave me to him, but
his wife has curbed me.

3. There’s Mom, out front again
visiting the old barrow. My
Maggie bought her a slick
new aluminum one, easy
to handle, but Mom just
doesn’t seem to enjoy
gardening any more.

Sef, 3/4/2022

Sarah E. Franklin

Back on Track

These trains are
a problem
for all of us.
They carry
the displaced
just as they did
in those
bad old days;
one million
this week. More
millions next week.
Today’s welcome—
food, beds, clothes, toys—
will require
saintliness
not sustainable.
Already, some
patient and modest
black and brown students
turned away—with guns.
The world
still does not
look back
to acknowledge where
these parallel tracks
do take us.

—Sarah E. Franklin, 3/5/2022

Kathryn Davis

Kathryn Davis

Jane E Wohl

Endurance

The first footage from the submersibles identifies it,
Shackleton’s ship, now nearly 10,000 feet below the surface
of the iciest waters on earth. Her name is still clear across
the stern, though a white sea anemone has nestled in
among the letters, and we remember that the men camped
on the sea ice for five months after the ship sank.

It’s one of the great survival stories, even now,
more than 100 years later, we shiver and starve with them.
We are reminded of what people can do, what we can endure.
There are no bodies on the wreck, no one went down with her.

But there was so little hope of rescue, so far from England,
so far from anywhere. We are filled with wonder.
But, sometimes it’s not voluntary, sometimes
it’s what we must do that becomes heroic.
In Poland, mothers have left strollers at the train stations
for escaping mothers with children, providing rest
for their very heavy, weary arms.

Jane Wohl
March 9, 2022

Twink Lester

1976

Bunny Slope

We were a family of seven in 1976 when Doug won a trip from a contest in his insurance business.  It was to a condo on a ski slope in the mountains of NC.  We found a baby sitter for our five year old mentally retarded son, Austin.  He would be called mentally challenged now, I think.  Inviting our good friends, Lynn and Roger and their two young children to go with us, we set out in two cars for Beech Mountain. None of us had ever skied before and we had to buy appropriate gloves and jackets.

All four of our kids slept in sleeping bags on the floor of our room—which they  always did when we traveled.  They ranged in age from three to ten and we were all decked out and ready for our ski lesson.  Lynn stayed around the condo with her two babies and Roger went with us.  He had read a book about how to ski and knew more than the rest of us, although he’d never been on skis before either.   The lodge fitted us for our boots and skis.  When we were outside before putting on ours, we helped the kids put on their boots and skis and proceeded to the rope several yards away for the bunny slope lessons.

The boots were hard and slammed into my shins—already I was questioning why I thought this would be fun.  We held onto a rope which pulled us up the small hill.  The kids were comfortable immediately.  Doug and Roger seemed to get it, but just getting up the rope pull was not fun for me.  Feeling somewhat like a weeble, I wobbled all the way up.

A pretty young woman with an accent introduced herself as Helga and said she was Aaron’s ski instructor.  What?  He was going off with her away from the rest of us? Would he want to?  She got to him before I could as I could barely walk in those dreadful boots.  They were smiling at each other and she took his hand as she guided him to a place where they could ski down the bunny slope.  She stood behind him with her skis on the outside of his and off they went.  Aaron didn’t even have a backward glance at us.  What was I supposed to do—yell at the top of my lungs that she kidnapped my baby boy?  Even in that moment I knew that this was not right and I turned my attention to my other three who were seven, nine, and ten years old.  They were listening to the ski coach and learning the basic lessons for skiing.  Doug and Roger were there with them and I felt torn between taking off those damn boots and following Aaron and Helga on foot or risking my life on the bunny slope.

In just the first twenty minutes on skis my shin was probably bleeding and I was  just short of crying.  Then the instructor sent Doug and Roger down the hill—they went back and forth as he had taught us and then they pointed their skis into a peak to slow down.  No problem.  Then he sent my three kids down the slope with the parting words of, “Don’t get too close to each other.”  Amy, Ashley and Aaron looked like pros. No problem.  Then it was my turn—I was sweating and I thought my leg might snap from the boot cutting it in two.  The instructor told me to begin.  “Okay.  I’m just psyching myself up.”  I slipped past the tipping point of no return and it felt like I was racing down a high mountain.  Unable to make my skis slow me down, in fact I couldn’t make them do anything I wanted them to.  Talking to them was useless—but in my panic it was all I could do.  I tried to go from side to side, but that didn’t work either.  Seeing the bottom of the slope coming up rapidly, I had to do something so I sat down which made one of my skis part ways with my boot and slide calmly down the hill all by itself.  It was a relief not to be skiing, but I felt embarrassed that I fell—on the bunny slope.  

Twink Lester

2019

Tarragona, Spain

Choosing a place to live in Europe for two months was not nearly as easy as it sounds.  I had to buy books for six or seven countries and read them.  Then I got all confused and called my brother, Jorge.  He had spent a semester abroad in Barcelona when he was sixteen and encouraged me to look at Spain first.  Okay.  Wanting a town I could explore by foot was my main criterion.  At seventy-six that had a far different meaning than it did at sixty or forty.  Together Jorge and I looked at maps on our computers while talking on the phone—he from Puerto Rico and I from Chapel Hill—we both spotted Tarragona and said in unison, “That’s it!”

Tarragona turned out to be my ideal place.  It was the first Roman outpost and Old Town, the  neighborhood, was over 2000 years old.  With the Mediterranean Sea within sight most of the time and down the very high hill I lived on, it was hard to get seriously lost.

Finding an airbnb was my next step in planning.  I kept going back to an apartment which had a bedroom—the kitchen, living room, dining room, and a sleeper couch made up the other room—plus a tiny entry hall and a small bathroom.  All the walls were white, very modern furniture and lighting—hinting of windows never shown.  After searching for a few days and always coming back to that apartment, I claimed it for March and April.

When I arrived in a taxi, my musings were soon revealed.  My apartment was the same age as Old Town and made into a studio fairly recently.  It had no windows because my very thick walls were part of the original walls that made up the fortress the Romans built.  I lived on top of the hill—I swear it felt like the Alps when I returned home in the early evenings.  In the morning, though, it was an advantage—no matter how I felt, when I walked out my door,  gravity pulled me downward.  There were small squares along the way, some had food opportunities, ice cream possibilities, and some just had benches on which to sit.  Not wanting to be seen as an old woman taking her last breath, I smiled at passers by, patted small dogs and made funny noises to little children.  Catalan was impossible, not Spanish which I didn’t speak either, but a smattering of words I thought I recognized, but I was incorrect 100% of the time.

The people and place were astounding.  Everything I needed to exist or even for a few luxuries—bathroom heater and wastebaskets—were not that far away.  I explored every narrow street which was hardly wider than the occasional car which  passed and left me hugging a wall.  Because the lanes were all ancient and made of very uneven rocks, it was a little difficult to navigate.  The good news was I never fell.

When exploring, since the town wasn’t laid out in a fashion I was used to, it was easy to get lost.  However, lost has more than one meaning—lost because I was looking at wide expanses of Old Town laid out for me down the mountain, as I chose to call it, but didn’t know how to get to a specific place or lost in myself thinking of nothing in particular, or lost in the tiny plants which grew between the rocks that needed exploring, too.  If I made my way down to the bottom of the mountain, I always knew where I was and how to get home.

Alexandra Noyes

Homing – 1

Look around, wherever you are, what do you see? Are you at home? Are you comfortable? Do you have a cup of something warm in your hand? Are you near a window? Is it night or day? Is an animal nearby? A bird at a feeder, or on a wire? A sleeping cat? A mouse scurrying, a pantry moth bouncing along the ceiling?
This morning I heard a Cardinal singing its spring song. I was dusting snow off the car. My kind neighbor, Albert had just plowed one side of the pull-off (there is no drive here). As is our routine, I was preparing to move the car over so he could scoop the other side on his return from other plowing gigs. While I shoveled the small wedge of deep snow still blocking me in at the fender, I was remembering I had a couple of delicious orange-cranberry muffins I’d pop in his mailbox as a, thank you.
I paused to give my back a break, breathe, and look around. I love shoveling snow, even if my back seriously questions the relationship. The attraction is mysterious. But it has a lot to do with the fact that shoveling requires those, not infrequent, essential pauses that dimark the clear boundary between “doing,” and “being” so well. I have found there’s often something special to be found in that momentary no-mans-land.
The wild turkeys, having heard me crashing around in the yard, were trudging through the snow in the open field across the road, headed my way. The leader, breaking a trail, swayed drunkenly from side to side, hoisting her prehistoric blue stick legs as high as possible. This maneuver was made more comical by the lack of forward bending knees. But a wise person doesn’t laugh aloud at turkeys. They have good memories and are not beyond seeking revenge if their intention is serious. The procession advanced. Their faces perpetually frozen in that slightly ominous turkey-scowl. Knowing the routine, they were expecting a morning dose of cracked corn and seed to be forthcoming soon. They were expecting – not demanding, despite their ominous visage, turkeys are incredibly patient beings.
They, like some other birds, prefer ground feeding to the acrobatic requirements of hanging dispensers. However, these turkeys will fly up into the cedars if they believe corn is to be found in those branches. Cardinals and towhees, and my beloved ground-doves like their seed on the ground as well. So once the turkeys finish their breakfast, I usually go out and scatter a few handfuls for them. The bluejays were calling hungrily.
It was in that moment of observation and contemplation when I heard the cardinal’s spring call. At first I was unsure, “What was that?” Every year it always seems to catch me by surprise. I must have looked pretty turkey-ish myself; head suddenly tilting this way and that, feeling handicapped as I hadn’t donned my hearing aides yet, eyes round, and scouring the branches for the source of, what is for me a truly sacred song, marking a sacred time. But there it was again, and yet again – the unmistakable cheery, insistent call. But the source remained invisible.
For such bright and showy birds male (and female) Cardinals are mostly incredibly secretive, and shy – loath to reveal their whereabouts when they’re not feeding. I can totally relate to that tendency. We must share a strong hermetic gene. So today let me pass along the message from one shy, winged singer to a shy, old scribbler. Both hidden somewhere beyond the woody surround, to you all, wherever you are, with love,
“Spring is here. What cheer! How do I know? Because a cardinal told me so.”

Axie Noyes
Hollister Hill
Plainfield Vermont
March 1, 2022

Susan Ritz

Spring Lament

I’ve never been a big fan of spring. Growing up in Minnesota, I had no idea why spring was the favorite season for friends who lived in more temperate climes. Minnesota seemed to go from winter to summer overnight without much in between.
Now that I’ve lived in Vermont for over thirty years, I am still not convinced that spring is a season at all. Snow fleas, For Sale signs, muddy ruts, and roadkill.
But also the smell of rain, the morning calls of the chickadees, cardinals, and titmice. And steam rising from sugar houses up and down the hills.

Susan Ritz

Russian Bear

Many years ago, at the hot end of the Cold War, I lived in a West German village like this (thanks, Hermann Hesse for the inspiration!). On days when the Foen blew in, I could see the Alps across the horizon, past the peat bogs of Dachau. Though you can’t see him, just around the corner of the church in this painting, stands a soldier in a white snowsuit, hiding in the shadows with his gun.
On my way home from grocery shopping in town, I noticed him and fifty more, moving in formation across the snow-covered cornfield field, like astronauts or armed snowmen. I pulled the car over, my heart racing. Is this it? I wondered, are we finally at war? I turned on the car radio and slumped with relief. No emergency signals, just Beethoven as usual. That soldier, and all the others you can’t see, are on a NATO training maneuver, and our village is once again under simulated attack. I never got used these surprise military trainings that arrived in our midst twice a year.
In West Germany, in 1984, we are always waiting for war. Despite massive protests (I had held hands in a human chain that stretched across the entire country a week after I arrived in 1983), Amerika had positioned 68 Pershing 2 missiles and 98 Tomahawk missiles throughout the country—within miles of my village and within miles of every village, town and major city as part of NATO’s missile defense system. Deterrence, they called it. Sitting ducks said we who watched every bump in the rocky relationship between Ronald Reagan and his revolving Soviet counterparts. One false move and we’ll be the first to go. “Neun-und-neunzig Luftballons," Nena’s catchy warning about the consequences of mistaking a bunch of balloons for aggressive action, has been the number one song in Europe for months.
Tonight, I can’t help thinking about the undercoating of fear that we carried every day, on the front lines of those last hot years of the Cold War as the Russian bear lumbers into Ukraine, nuclear threat clenched between its old, yellow teeth.

Annie Wattles

Home From the War

My father was from a small town in New York State.
When we drove there from Brooklyn to see his parents, my Mamie and Myron, it took so long. From Brooklyn to Buffalo to Auburn circa 1950 with no big New York State highways yet. My Mom hated the drive. It sounded like she didn’t like his parents either. I loved them.
There was lots of smoking in the car. Me maybe 5 or so hated the smoke, but I loved the smoking. I just wanted to try one, but I didn’t ask. They enjoyed talking to each other in the front seat.
Once just my Dad and me were going alone for the yearly visit. We got snowed in during the trip so we stayed in Buffalo in a hotel and went to the bar. Then, to a movie to see Bridge Over the River Kwai. I watched my father cry throughout the movie. I remember barely being able to see over the seat in front of me. I mostly watched my Dad. I put my head in his lap. When we came out of the theater the snow was over my head.

R.D. Eno

OUT OF NOWHERE

You come out of nowhere, with a suitcase packed full
of articles of clothing for a different season,
parcels of food you will never taste again,
clutching an address where no one’s lived for years.
Words jam up at the mind’s apertures like traffic
at a bottleneck and rage at one another
to get out; your name screams in your throat
but cannot utter itself in this tightening place.
Back there, memory falls into the black crater
where the world broke, the sky went dark, the gunshot
tore time apart. You can hear the cataract,
feel the gravity of oblivion, its mighty rip
as you crawl up time’s pitch while the clock strikes back,
even as you jettison, one by one, the things
that brought you here, that asked to be saved,
until the past is the nowhere out of which you come.

R.D. Eno

THE DOOR

Someone set fire to the men’s room at Joe’s bar,
and the only thing remaining when it was all over
were these words scratched on the stall door:
“For a good time, call this number.”

The number had burned away. And though you’d see
it every time you dumped, no one remembered
or ever called – it was just part of Joe’s scene
now a waste of ashes and embers,

and not only Joe’s but the whole block, the entire
city you knew like your mother’s face, gone.
We built a box for the door so we could carry
it with us when we moved on.

Nothing was left for us. But at least we can show
our kids, when their spirits get low and the going goes bad,
that there was a city once, and a bar called Joe’s,
and a good time was once to be had.

Amy Handy

Pain

A friend loaned me a copper bracelet
Her husband swore it took away all the pain
I’m trying it out. I think it might be working

Today I fell down in the middle of Main Street
I stopped traffic   good to be able to say that once in my life.
My knee hurts like the dickens. I wasn’t wearing the bracelet.

If I can get upstairs to bed, I’ll put it on. Ill maximize 
my options by doing Reiki, saying a prayer, calling on 
healing angels, being thankful that my life is

so darned easy, copper bracelet and arnica may do the trick.
And I don’t have to walk away from my home carrying a new
baby and a toddler, while worrying about whether the nuclear 

reactors nearby are being shot at or burned or otherwise incapacitated
while we are already in pain, thirsty and starving, and my toddler’s hand
holds so tightly to mine.  I would have no answers. No bracelet can heal
this unanswerable pain.

Amy Handy 3/8/22

Jim Rader

Jim Rader

Ruth Coppersmith

Starlink, my first crankie

Susan Reid

March of the Sunflowers

Susan Reid

Never Annoy an Old Woman