R.D. Eno

SNOWMELT

A warm day peels the snow pack from the meadow
the way the nurse drew back the blanket from my mother’s
corpse unveiling her as if she had just exhumed
some bog-cured relic Behold! Here begins the brief
season of remembering of romance written
in a hand of worms on crinkled sheets of switchgrass
or of silphids amid woody litter in the naked rooms
spring couldn’t be bothered to tidy You walk
the margins of the desiccated garden that is not
quite awake contracted in its prolonged apnea
and see the remains of past summers’ abundance
generations of asparagus sugar snaps kale and chard
Soon the heave of rehydration soon the lilacs
soon the importunate mob of greenery and fungi soon
the emergency of resurrection but for now Behold! 

R.D. Eno

EURYLOCHUS

You can’t judge a man by his epithet no not even yourself
“Godlike” Eurylochus might have been but not a god
no superman but just supernumerary one of the crew
his sobriquet lent only for the sake of the meter yet tapped
by chance to earn it as if to audition for an epic of his own
He might have drawn sword or bow at Circe’s palace
as one by one his shipmates succumbed to her singing
though doomed from the start in a narrative not of his making
Miscast as a hero he shrank from his moment who might
at least have shammed something like fortitude Not that I blame him
for blowing his shot at distinction for being no more than ordinary
But to fall for the title he borrowed only to fill out a spondee
and cherish his grievance that fortune had taken it back? Black
spite shriveled his soul Tragedians call it hubris but I
more pointedly suggest he aspired beyond his means and didn’t
even get to enjoy the mindless roll and wallow in the sty
or share the bewitchment that rewards the ordinary guy 

John Bollard 1

Translation from the poetry of the 14th century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym.

An Invitation for Dyddgu

Radiant girl of a gifted nature,
Dyddgu with the smooth black hair,
I invite you – hidden desire is anger’s refuge –

4       to the vale of Minafon.
No feeble invitation would suit you.
No greedy man’s invitation to his shack will it be.
No provisions for the benefit of a young reaper,

8       no corn, bright green mixed corn,
no bit of a ploughman’s dinner,
and no meaty feast of a serf,
no Englishman’s visit with his friend,

12     no razor celebration of a bondman.
No promise will I make – a good ending –
to my golden one but a nightingale and mead,
a light-voiced brown-backed nightingale

16     and a thrush with hearty, pleasant speech,
shaded growth, and a chamber
of verdant birch. Was there ever a better house?
While we are out under the leaves

20     our fine strong birch will guard us.
A loft for the birds to play in,
a pleasant grove – that’s the way it is.
Nine trees of fair appearance

24     are in the wood altogether:
at the bottom, a rounded circumference;
at the top, a green bell tower.
And beneath them – desirable dwelling –

28     verdant clover – manna from heaven –
a place where two – a crowd worries them –
or three can spend an hour or so,
a place where noble roebucks come from the hill,

32     a place where birds sing – it is a fine place –
a place of dense blackbird dwellings,
a place of splendid trees, a place hawks are reared,
a place of good new building-trees,

36     a place of great desire, a place of heaven on earth,
a place with a green mansion, a place frowns are mild,
a place near water, a cool smoke-free place,
a place not well-known – thickly wooded land –

40     to flour merchants and long-legged cheese makers.
There tonight, wave’s brightness,
let us go, the two of us, my fair girl,
let us go, if we go anywhere, lively one fair of face,

44     my girl with eyes bright as coals.
Notes: 4 Minafon: the name means ‘riverbank’, from min ‘side, edge, bank’ + afon ‘river’ (as in the Avon, the river in England with an ancient Celtic name). 12 razor celebration: neithior arf barf, literally ‘celebration of a beard weapon’, is generally interpreted as the celebration of a young man’s ritual shaving when he comes of age. 40 Why “flour merchants and long-legged cheese makers”? Of course, they represent the contrasting town life from which he hopes to escape with Dyddgu, but surely they are there primarily for the rhyme and alliteration: Blotai neu gawsai goesir.



"Action is everything.

With it we are successful.

Without it all our enthusiasm is worse than nothing."
                        -- David Ruggles, 1841
www.johnbollard.com

www.protestingwithrosaparks.com

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John Bollard 2

Translation from the poetry of the 14th century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym:

The Ruin

The Ruin
‘You, broken-down shack with a gaping backside,
between the moorland and the fallow,
Woe to any who saw you – they would think –

4       as a delightful hall of old,
and who see you today with a shattered roof,
beneath your ribs a broken house.
And moreover, by your fine wall

8       there was a day – painful rebuke –
within you that it was more joyful
than you are now, wretched framework,
when I saw – brilliantly I spread her fame –

12     in your corner – a fair one within –
a maiden – she was noble and genteel –
finely shaped, lying beside me,
with each one’s arm – her memory shall remain –

16     entwined around the other:
a graceful girl’s arm, bright as fine snow,
beneath the ear of the best lad for praise,
and my own arm – simple tricks –

20     under the left ear of a beautiful, gentle girl.
A happy time for the joyful under your thick beams,
but today is not that day.’

The Ruin:

‘My complaint – truly the spell of a host –
24     is about the path of the wild wind.
A storm from the bosom of the east
beat along the stone wall.
The moan of the wind – path of anger –

28     from the south ruined me.’

Dafydd:
‘Is it the wind that caused this trouble of late?
It winnowed your roof well last night.
It horribly damaged your thatching-laths.

32     The world is always dangerously deceptive.
Your corner – two cries of realization are mine –
was a bed for me, not a pigsty.
Yesterday you were in a fine condition,

36     snug over my gentle dear.
Easy to argue, today you are,
by Peter, without rafter or roofing.
Many an event causes sudden madness.

40     Is this broken-down shack some sort of illusion?’

The Ruin:

‘A great deal of the household’s work has gone,
Dafydd, to the grave. It was a good way of life.’

Barbara Johnson 1

            When I ponder which are my favorites among these Malayalam-language Jewish women’s songs from Kerala, South India, I rank songs about the biblical Moses very high. Today I give you one about him as a child and another as a man of heroic leadership. Moshe is the Hebrew form of his name, and he is often referred to with respect as Moshe Rabban (Teacher Moshe) or  Moshe Rabbenu (Moses our Teacher) – making the first stanza of this song even more delightful.

These stories about him are based on the biblical Book of Exodus and related stories from Midrash (post-biblical Hebrew commentary on the Bible).  In both of the following songs, each line is sung twice.  

                       Baby Moses Taken from the Water

1. Creator God made a decree for little Moshe Rabban.
It came at just the right time to save baby Moshe Rabban. 
2. His mother carried the box safely down to the stream.
Floating down in the stream, there went that good square box.
3. The box was closed very well, so it would not open up.
Just as the royal maids went down to the river to bathe,
4. The box came straight to the maids on the palace riverbank.
When it arrived at their feet, together they opened the box.
5. The princess then lifted the son! To the palace together they went.
When she nurtured him there, rocking and feeding him
6. The power of discernment was given; the Strong God made him wise.
The God of Strength gave strength to the precious little child.
7. With the Strong God’s help, Moshe got wisdom and strength.
He had the greatest power of anyone born on the earth —
8. Even more strength than the men who dwelled in the wilderness.
So great was the strength of Moshe, equaled only by God!

        It is also easy to imagine one of the large rivers as the site of a royal palace, where the princess and her royal maids were bathing on the riverbank when little Moshe came floating by.

    

1. Just as from Egypt You saved us,
So now, we pray you, redeem us.
2. Just as sinless Moshe led us,
As in procession he led us,
3. As we were all led together
With pillars of fire before us,
4. Pharaoh took up his sword
And tied his sword to his waist.
5. Then he was drowned by the Wise God,
Drowned in the depths of the sea.
6. As they were going together,
They met up with fanatic Pharaoh.
7. Seeing, they stared so intently,
Seeing, they cried out in terror,
8. Seeing, they were so frightened,
They cried out loudly to Moshe:
9. “How can I deal with this sorrow?
What? Shall I never have joy?”
10. There in God’s Holy Presence,
Moshe beheld their sorrow.
11. He led this dejected People;
He led them over the sea.
12. The other People were drowned,
Drowned in the depth of the sea.
13. Great God, you are the One!
In our time redeem us, we pray.

Barbara Johnson 1

Now let’s return to Moshe Rabbenu  - Moses our Teacher!  Earlier I shared two Malayalam language songs about him, “Baby Moses Taken from the Water” and “Redeemed from Egypt,”  and I ended with a promise to send more.  After some delay, here’s another of my favorites.

In the biblical book of Exodus, Chapter 19 begins the story of how the children of Israel (Bene Israel) wandered through the desert of Sinai after crossing the Red Sea and escaping from Paroah’s army.  It was there on a mountain in the desert that Moses received the Torah.

 How to explain the multiple meanings of Torah? I looked in the Encyclopedia Britannica, as my (very non-Jewish) father would have advised.[1] In the narrowest sense, Torah is the contents of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. It is also a parchment scroll, on which all those words are inscribed by hand. A Torah scroll is kept in the Ark of each synagogue - from which it is removed with great ceremony on certain occasions, to be read aloud.  In a broader usage, Torah refers to the entire Hebrew Bible – or most broadly to “the entire body of Jewish laws, customs and ceremonies. ”

 As you will see in this song, Torah is personified in various ways.  Not surprisingly, the vast collection of Midrash (post-biblical Hebrew commentaries on the Bible) includes many stories about what happened on Mount Sinai; and there were Kerala Jewish families who owned and studied old Hebrew books of midrash.  I made use of a splendid scholarly resource:  the seven-volume publication Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society: 1919, 1937) - in an effort to identify contributing sources for this song and others.  

1. O Holy Tamburan[2], be for us the first help.
Torah we received from You, received her with Your help.
To us she brought good fortune, to the children of Israel,
The children who belong to You, to You the only One.
In clearest joy we walk along, saying as we go:
“Beneath the Torah’s glory is the only way we’ll go!”
………………………

3. When Eternal God appeared in majesty—
In all His royal splendor, in majesty He came—
All the earth and all the sky were a-tremble then,
With lightning and with thunder and blasts of the shofar;
With music ringing out, ringing with the sounds
Of violins and trumpets, vīṇa and āraga. [3]
Oh, how great Your glory! All were gathered there—
Twenty-two thousand angels and the servants of God.
4. The mountains and the hills came jumping like deer.
The bigger ones were mocking the little crooked hills:
“O bent-over mountains, why are you jumping so?”
The little hills answered, and this is what they said:
“We want His royal procession upon us to descend!”
But small “Hunchback” Sinai stood silent and shy.
When God beheld the greatness of humble small Sinai
God raised up Sinai, above all the rest.
5. This is the famous mountain, the famous Mount Sinai,
Blessed by the righteousness of the Fathers three. [4]
Beholding its greatness, the greatness of Sinai,
All the noble children and Moshe Rabban
Gathered there together, proclaiming on Sinai:
“Now we are ready to hear what God commands.”
But when they heard the voice of God, they fainted dead away!
And there were none remaining to wake them up again.
6. Then the divine Torah responded with this plea:
“O God most Pure and Holy, I cannot help but ask:
Is this the proper way that You should behave?
Behold Your holy children, unconscious as if dead!
They came to receive me - Your daughter to receive,
To rejoice in the marriage of the daughter of the King.
They came to my wedding; they came to celebrate.
And here lies my bridegroom: Moshe Rabban!”
7. On the word of Torah, God responded then—
Responded for the sake of the children of Israel.
The dew of redemption He showered over them,
So all who were unconscious came to life again.
Arising, they sprang up, jumping up with joy.
Rejoicing they sprang up, with praises to God.
With singing and with dancing, they celebrated now,
And there with them also was Moshe Rabban.
8. Moshe Rabbenu received the command:
“I give the shining Torah into your hands.”
With joy they accepted her; the Torah they received.
And the first-born children by Torah were redeemed.
So we must sing Your praises, sing out the praise of God,
Exalting You with praises to the highest degree.
Oh, gather us together—Your beloved children—
And in Yerushalayim[5] grant that we may be.

This song about the giving of the Torah combines several narratives from midrash with unique and charming Kerala flourishes.

A dramatic element is the appearance of those 22,000 angels and all the heavenly servants of God (Ginzberg 1968, 3:94, 4:38n207). The midrashic story portrayed in stanza 4 is a narrative that Ginzberg calls “The Contest of the Mountains” (3:82–85). In explaining how Mount Sinai was chosen as the site of the revelation, the Kerala song creates a verbal anthropomorphic image of Mount Sinai’s shy, humble personality and character as well as its physical appearance, using the Malayalam epithet “hunchback.”

            The remainder of the song is built on another tradition from midrash - that the people of Israel were struck dead with terror on hearing the first word proclaimed by God at Sinai. In response, the Torah intervened on their behalf, and God restored them to life by sprinkling on them the dew that will ultimately be used to revive the dead—and then sent two angels to support each of the listeners so they would not fall dead again while the commandments were being given. (Ginzberg 1968, 3:95, 6:39n110).

In contrast to this awe-inspiring story, the Malayalam song quite playfully personifies the Torah as a disappointed bride.[6] The singers and listeners in Kerala might well have imagined her dressed in the finery of a Kerala bride as she sweetly but firmly questions God—Who apparently has rendered unconscious all the wedding guests and even her bridegroom—by asking “Is this the way to behave?” After being showered by the dew of redemption, the wedding guests in the song do not need angelic help to leap up singing and dancing, both to celebrate the marriage of the Torah with Moshe Rabban and to accept the Torah with joy and songs of praise.

The overlaid mental images of Torah and bride are enhanced by appreciation of Kerala’s confident and elegantly adorned brides.  Here’s an example of one:

                 The Gold-Clad Bride

1. This woman whose body is all clad in gold,
This woman causes the whole world to shine.   (x2)
2. Of precious jewels, the diamond is she;
Of scented beings, camphor and rose.   (x2)
3. Expert in needlework, stitched with gold,
Her skill with a needle was given by God.   (x2)
4. Proudly she walks now, swinging her arms.
Greatness You gave to her, Lord Tamburan.   (x2)
5. You are the One Who sustains the world.
In the beloved Shekhina [ 7] she dwells.   (x2)
6. Her marriage pendant is worn on a thread.
Long may she live, for one hundred years!   (x2)
7. We are the People of the Jews.
In our synagogue let us bow down;
Let us bow down in our Jutapaḷḷi.[8]
                                                                                      Translations by Barbara C. Johnson &  Tzipporah (Venus) Lane

[1] In those days the encyclopedia  was accessed in many old green volumes on the bottom shelves of the bookcase, not “online.”

[2] Tamburan (Lord) is one of the Malayalam words for addressing God.

[3] The shofar is a ram’s horn trumpet (blown in battle and on high religious occasions in the Bible and today in synagogues on Rosh Hashanah).  The vina is a large seven-stringed instrument which is central to South Indian classical music.  I have not been able to identify what is an araga.

[4] The three Fathers (Patriarchs) were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

[5] Jerusalem in Hebrew.

[6] There is one midrashic tradition that God was the bridegroom and Israel the bride on Sinai (Ginzberg 1968, 3:92) and another that Israel was the bridegroom and Torah the bride, with God and Moshe as the best men (Ginzberg 1968, 3:454 and 1968, 6:36n200), but I am not aware of any with Torah and Moshe as bride and groom.

[7]  Shekhinah (Hebrew) is the divine presence of God in the world.
[8] In the Malayalam language, a palli is a building for non-Hindu worship, so a Jutapalli is a synagogue.

Katie Spring

Night Bloom

some flowers only open
at night

somewhere in our cells
we remember

the riotous bloom
that tips

the bleakest dark
into hope 

Katie Spring

Spring Ephemeral

Your blooming leads
to the whole world
waking up 

Linzy Lyne
Linzy Lyne 1
BIBLIOPHILE NOTES FOR THE MARCH ARTS MARATHON
Page 25 – Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2009
Winner of The Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award

Every time I open Wolf Hall I get this wonderful rush of anticipation. From the first page you are totally immersed in the world of Thomas Cromwell, almost as though you are inside him, living his life and thinking his thoughts. I think this was the genius of Hilary Mantel, that she could bring you to a place where you actually love the character telling the story, and who could have predicted, from looking at his stern portrait by Hans Holbein, that we would learn to love Thomas Cromwell!
The first part is about the brutal treatment the young Thomas receives from his father, Walter Cromwell, an infamously rough publican and blacksmith in Stepney. In the words of Thomas's brother-in-law, Morgan, “if he's not watering his ale, he's running illegal beasts on the common, if he's not despoiling the common he's assaulting an officer of the peace, if he's not drunk he's dead drunk”. Thomas decides he must leave London before his father finishes him off and decides to go abroad. We get an early insight into his intelligence when, much to Morgan's surprise, Thomas takes his leave of him in the fluent Welsh he has soaked up, but at the same time there are hints of a rough side to him when he wonders whether he has been responsible for someone dying in a recent fight.
We rejoin the story with Cromwell in service to Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he bears a lifelong loyalty, and the beginnings of his connection with King Henry. His inner thoughts reveal a shrewd assessment of both men, which will continue throughout the story, as his service to Wolsey ends and he becomes the King's man. We find out more about Cromwell's life in Europe, the harsh life of a soldier which he abandoned when he saw the frescoes of Florence to become an accomplished trader and lawyer. During his years abroad he learned more languages and back in London we catch a view of his sense of humour as he remembers that “in Castilian he can insult people”.
I love the intimate way his marriage to Lizzie is portrayed. It is in their private conversations and his quiet moments of reflection where we gain an inner view of his character as a fond husband and father to son Gregory and daughters Anne and “little Grace”. We also gain insight into his religious beliefs, as he has a copy of Tyndale's New Testament in a locked chest. It is Lizzie who enlightens him about the mood among the people about the King's intention to seek the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, who has failed to provide him with a son.
Cromwell's rise to the most powerful position in the land is told in his voice. Throughout the book, he is referred to in the third person as “he”, not “Cromwell”. It is his account and his alone. If you enjoy this volume, happily there are two more in the series, “Bring Up the Bodies” and “The Mirror and the Light”, which complete his story. I am so grateful to Hilary Mantel for the years she invested in bringing Cromwell's story to life and she is sorely missed.

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Linzy Lyne

Linzy Lyne 2
BIBLIOPHILE NOTES FOR THE MARCH ARTS MARATHON
Page 26 – Books? You've Got Books
I learned to read before I went to school and I've always been surrounded by books. I remember the pictures in 'A is For Apple', and my nursery rhyme book with Wee Willie Winkie. I had a little leather case full of books which I lent to a family up the road. They never returned them and my mum warned me never to lend books again. For Christmas and birthdays I always asked for a pony, but knowing that wasn't likely I also asked for books. “Books?” said my mum, “you've got books...” But there was always a pile of new books at the bottom of the bed on Christmas morning.
My first great passion when I was about seven was the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton and I collected most of the set. When I started a new school in London, halfway through the term and in the middle of the day, knowing no-one, the teacher told me to get a book from the shelves and read till the end of the lesson. When I found Five go to Smuggler's Top I nearly cried with relief to find that my friends Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the dog had come with me. Then there was the Deans Classics series bought at the paper shop, with Treasure Island, Heidi and What Katy Did.
Soon I became horse mad and read every pony book I could find. The best ones were always the stories where the pony-mad girl overcame all odds and got the pony of her dreams in the end. For me that was to come much later, when I was in my forties. These dreams never really go away, they are suppressed for years but yearn to be fulfilled and books fan the flames.
In my teens I discovered science fiction and eventually read every book in the library's fantasy section. There were hundreds of books with yellow Gollancz covers and so many writers I can't list them all, but Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Kurt Vonnegut and
E E Doc Smith all spring to mind. I discovered historical fiction when a school friend introduced me to Mary Renault - I read all her books and Mary Stewart's, especially the Merlin series.
Then by chance I started working in a library and my reading tastes widened. The huge choice available meant I took lots of books home and devoured Orwell, Kafka, Golding, Herman Hesse, Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, Steinbeck, Burroughs and others. I discovered poetry and read Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and the Liverpool Poets. When I worked for a while in the library of a mental hospital I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Then I took to my bed for three weeks having caught jaundice from my soon-to-be husband, and my boss at the library brought me The Lord of The Rings trilogy to read, which was positively life-changing. Ever since, I've claimed I need three weeks in bed every year to read it again!
When horses came back into my life I acquired hundreds of volumes about horsemanship and often turned back to my pony books. Inexplicably, my mum had got rid of all my Famous Five Books but somehow my pony books had survived and I still have them all, tatty from much reading and no doubt destined for shredding when I finally part with them.
So in later years I started to enjoy the company of female authors and read all the titles by each one as I discovered them – Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Annie Proulx, Barbara Trapido, Kate Atkinson, Joanne Harris, Sarah Waters, Hilary Mantel, and more recently Maggie O'Farrell. There have been so many other memorable books like The Life of Pi, The Kite Runner, The Dice Man, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and everything by Ian McEwan, Bill Bryson and Alexander McCall Smith, I can't possibly list them all and I haven't even mentioned any biographies!
Well, how many books are enough for a lifetime? I wish I had kept count so I could say how many I've read in at least 70 years of reading. I would like to read them all again and lots of new ones too!

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Alexandra Noyes

Axie Noyes 1
Day 19
Debutante Ball, DC Spring 1968


Newbold Noyes presents his daughter, Alexandra Noyes, at the Spring Bebutante Ball, Washington DC, 1968

About this photo:
It's a perfect example of just how much reality a photo can hide.
This is what you don’t see in that photograph:

Both my father and I have each just swallowed a tranquilizer with champagne.

I am wearing makeup covering my shoulders and neck that hide what remains of an extreme case of ringworm. I got the ringworm from a litter of kittens my mother  brought up to the attic room where I had been cloistered all winter - suffering deep depression. She thought the kittens would cheer me and they did, until they infected me and the one friend I allowed into that dark space, my dear friend, Hap. Sadly they were all put down, as our vet deemed their infection too advanced for treatment.  I pretty much felt I should have gone with them.

Earlier that Fall I had what amounts to an emotional breakdown. I’d taken an unplanned spring break from Woodstock Country School the year before. As a result I took a job as nanny for two seven year old twins adopted by a couple friendly with my parents. They all lived in a posh apartment on New York City's upper west side. Their Mom was a serious professional editor and the Dad, a longtime photographer for Time-Life company Both parents were deeply committed to their professional lives, though they’d adopted these twins later in life.  It was for me a full, full-time job. However, in my spare time I managed to become enamored with a young man I met through friends. We hung out together every week on my days off.

Together, we managed to get me pregnant. I didn’t realize my condition until I later returned to Woodstock for my final trimester. When I got the news in that strange doctor’s office in the village, I didn’t know what to do. There was a strange mix of abject fear and a weird, detached excitement.  I remember I stopped in a little jewelry shop and bought a charm bracelet. I guess I sensed I was going to need some kind of otherworldly enchantment  to survive what was to come.

I told my prince , who I thought I was in love with, the news. He was scared too and also excited and blew hot and cold all summer long. One day he’d tell me he'd bought an engagement ring, the next he’d say he’d found out where I could go for an illegal abortion. All the while, as a kind of welcome distraction, I kept plugging away at finishing up my time at Woodstock. Oddly, during that tumultuous period I was really shining academically.  I got an A on my final term paper on Japanese internment camps during WWII, received heaps of praise for a term long project of artwork and creative writing reflecting my love for the coast of Maine. Oh yes, and  I played Lucky in Beckett’s Waiting for Gadot. “Qua, qua qua!"


When I returned home to Maryland after graduation I finally told my parents what was really going on, besides all the lovely accolades. I was nineteen. I felt like and in many ways was, two separate people headed in two entirely different directions. Dad didn’t take the news well. Mom was uncharacteristically quiet. He asked me to invite my “boyfriend" down for a “visit." When my friend arrived a few days later, after what seemed like cordial introductions and sandwiches and beers on the screened porch, my Dad pretty much read the poor fellow the riot act. The upshot was, I packed a little bag that same day and headed up to the City to, I thought,  get married. But so much for half baked expectations.

Once in his mother’s apartment, his family put me in their sights for their own firing squad of reality. His sister and each parent exclaiming loudly,  it felt like all at once, that basically I must be crazy to consider marrying such an immature, emotionally unstable lad. He was twenty-two and had enough sense to remain absolutely still during this barrage.  I just sat there too, letting their sharp  pronouncements blast through me. They hadn’t even offered me a cigarette or a blindfold. Afterward I  understood how he must have felt under my Dad’s attack.  His family finally ran out of ammo and his Dad made the unlikely suggestion that we all head out for dinner at a nearby great deli. I was totally thrown by this dear jewish family’s negotiation tactics. They just didn’t compute. Later I learned that that first confrontation had probably been only the beginning of a planned,  much greater parley.

Once out in the street I wondered why I’d brought my little suitcase with me to go to the deli? I found myself lagging behind his family, now all chatting happily striding west toward, "the best corned beef sandwiches in Manhattan,” as though the first round had been theirs and that had settled something and an uncomfortable weight was lifted. My prince charming noticed me shuffling behind and came back to see what was up. I barked something like, “I just can’t do this. I need to go home.” And without another thought I flagged a free cab just heading my way, kissed his cheek, jumped in and rode alone to the airport to take the evening shuttle home and fly into the eye of another kind of cyclone.

In those days, in order to receive a legal abortion one had to obtain documentation from two psychiatrists stating that, after consultation, they found the subject ( in this case me), to be too emotionally unstable to responsibly bear and care for a child. I admit, that description fit me to a tee. Dad’s shrink was a kind soul and signed the required papers after asking me a few questions which I answered honestly, if through ashamed tears. However, the second doctor let me know he was a deeply religious man and he basically put me through his personal, moral wringer. Only after questioning me for what seemed like hours and reducing me to a blubbering, snotty mess, did he surprise me by finally signing off. But in doing so he let me know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t at all at peace with the outcome. I remember telling him through those gasps that happen when one’s been crying for too long and can’t quite get ones breath, that his lack of peace was ok by me, since "that makes two of us."
……...

When at last I descended those attic stairs to the first floor of my childhood home I only thought I was going to share a meal with my family for the first time in months. But I was actually emerging from a kind of hell. So, I was totally dumbfounded when my Dad absurdly asked me if I'd be willing to participate in that season’s debutante, coming out party? My first response was a solid, hell no! But over the next few days he stumped me by persisting in bringing up the silly topic. Once he even gently reminded me that he’d never asked me anything in my 19 years, but now he was and this was it. He was never able to explain why it meant so much to him that I’d be willing to participate in what he knew was a ritual I despised in every way. But here’s the thing, I loved my Dad to pieces, even before everything had happened. But here he had seen me though that infernal time. I slowly came to realize, I hadn’t been the only one hanging fire those past months. Even though he’d been upset with me, he'd so easily and completely forgiven me for everything, if he had ever really judged me at all and now all he wanted - all he was asking was for me to stand by him, dressed to the nines, at this silly event. He didn’t care that the ball meant nothing to me. I was a truly perverse Cinderella. He was asking me to get up out of my self-absorbed pity and damn well shine with him, loud and proud, for all the world  (or at least stupid Washington society) to see- my ringworm, sorrows and all.

 So, of course I eventually said yes. And together we did bow to the Mystery that hums through everything, even through silly debutante balls. 
He stood right by me as I silently proclaimed,  “Here I am world, take all of me, good and bad. I’m here with my Dad and together we’re stepping
back into
the light.

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Alexandra Noyes

Axie Noyes 2
Day 26

I drew this after yesterdays share. In that cartoon from the first Trump term, a little ant is seen to ask, “Where will it all end?”
This drawing, An Ill Wind, is modeled after an unspecified AP/El Salvador presidential press office's photograph. The work expands on a photograph taken of the over 260 Venezuelan and El Salvadorian immigrant men packed into a holding center in El Salvador. They seem to be bowed by a harsh wind. They were deported after being accused of gang membership without evidence of their gang affiliation or due process of law and in direct opposition to a Federal Judge's clear order to return them all to the States. Apparently the main “evidence" that ICE relied on to establish their "gang affiliation" was the fact that these fellows have body tattoos.
Donald Trump has claimed that the USA is at war with Ten De Aragua, a serious Venezuelan gang. Trump describes the deported individuals as terrorists that are part of an "invading force." He has invoked the Alien Enemies Act. These men have been incarcerated in the infamous ECOT prison, the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador. At this time their fate is uncertain.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Buckle recently stated that he would be willing to receive and indefinitely detain deported US citizens in this same facility.

An ill wind
ano yes 3/25/25 

About all this: And just how exactly does this apply to my stated focus, "Ripeness is All? So far my daily offerings have included older personal materials; writings, drawings and memories brought forward and enlarged upon in the present moment. Perhaps the work has served as a kind of balm. A kind of  hopeful, stubborn distraction. However, given the current climate and how fast our country’s situation is in fact devolving, everything, including time, feels like it's escalating, spinning out way too fast. Allow me here to remember March 15th. The day the actual deportation of these migrant men began. So far they have endured 12 days in that nightmarish facility in El Salvador. I’m very sure those 12 days are, to them, as years. We can imagine how that must feel, saturated in the stinking fear of being forgotten. I am compelled to bring their plight somehow to the surface of consciousness for myself - for us. As I color each head, rub bright pigment into the paper with my fingers, I pray, stay alive! I shape the bent shoulder and feel the plastic tie dig into a hidden wrist?  Pray, You are NOT alone! And as tears and prayers soak the pristine masks…waiting..what’s next? Pray…You are not forgotten!

I’ll return to my previous focus with joy another day. But today our world is, right now, on fire and it's a kind of ice cold, numbing, leaping fire. We must jump in with even a single, insufficient, imagined, magical extinguisher and try to evoke a kind of rescue, even if only of our own precious humanity…….


and somehow bring comfort
catching hold of any bowed sufferer
because
this weird, brittle fire
and  terrible wind that drives it
touches  us all.


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Axie Noyes 3

There’s a barn on our place in Maryland. Along its northern side’s a narrow garage, added on by the Lamotts in the 40s, before we arrived in ’49. There’s an old silver maple that’s grown into that wall overtime and has, every year, fattened and pushed more and more into the building , like a in-grown toenail. Its determined roots bubbling the garages’ thin foundation.

At one time it was a drive through garage, but early on we filled the far end with stuff we had no use for and so it’s always been blocked. The tractor lives at the far end in winter and a car can be tucked in behind, but it’s a tight fit.

I always resented that garage because the windows for each stall opens into its dark recesses rather than into fresh air and a view of a green expanse of light and trees. I had a sense at a young age, I guess, for what made good practical design. This addition was poorly conceived. Particularly since even I could see that at the far end of the barn was a long shed where a garage could easily have been added that wouldn’t have impacted our horses quality of life at all.

But it’s too late for these thoughts now.

There are huge doors at the front of the barn that are rarely closed. It’s an ordeal to shut them as they have to be lifted and jimmied cause they sag - too heavy for their weak hinges. The whole building sits on a cement slab, except for the end stall, that’s got an earth floor. That’s where Sheba, our old Black Lab, used to welp her pups and Benny, our Shetland pony, once stood in deep holes filled with water, cause he foundered after getting into the grain.

It was originally a cow barn, built in the late 30s to house beef cattle, we think, probably Black Angus. The sale of their meat helped sustain the Lamott family, living there during the war.

We have horses ‘cause of Alec Holston. He told my folks when they arrived from the city, “A barn’s dead without animals. And a dead barn’s a shameful thing.” Alec was a horse-man and my Dad had ridden and loved horses as a child, so horses it was that made our barn come alive. But cement’s not ideal for horses sensitive feet.

Think about it. Like a ballerina on toe, they literally walk and run around on one thick nail at the end of each leg. Wikipedia says, “[Horse’s hooves are] both hard and flexible…. Their other digits have receded over millennia but can be detected still within the hoof skeleton.} Alec knew this and so much more about the miraculous structure of horses hooves and taught us to soften the floors of their stalls with mounds of straw and sawdust.

The slab-sided walls of the barn were white washed in and out every so often by Alec. The barn was really his territory - his area of expertise. He died in ’64 and the barn was never white washed again. It has never been one of those pristine barns, but a well used space; neat, yet dusty. Its surfaces have the patina of a lightly rinsed oyster shell.

Stepping in, you know you’re entering another world. Your senses are bombarded with ancient perfumes. Horses have a honeyed scent. Their dander and fine hairs float with dust moats that love to dance in sunlight angling into the dim, like fishing lines, all the shadowed hours of the day. Their breath is, for us who worship them, like heaven’s promise - never bitter - always true.

Underneath that base line sniff you might note straw or shavings - wet with bitter urine and the odd baked soar-dough of horse manure (if your there in the morning before mucking) or later, after clean up, it’s all fresh sharp sawdust - or clean straw that has no smell at all, like buckets of fresh water just hung the corners of every stall.

From the tack room, to your left might come a subtle waft of old, well maintained leather, mixed with saddle soap and preservative oils. There’s burlap and rough twines, and if you breath deeply and hold it, you can just detect a hint of Gentian Blue once dabbed over a hoof to cure a case of thrush or even a tinge of the a hidden sliver of trimmed hoove the dogs forgot. Taking another step in… you breathe oats. Honey, sweet oats. And if you really pay attention, there’s a pale waft of spiderweb silk trailing, like Spanish moss or weird grimy icicles a-dangle.

But over all this, a harmonic sweet cloud hums in the air above your head, from breathing bales and bales of grey-green, prickly, dried summer’s meadow. Hay.

The drawing above depicts a memory of a late September morning in 1972. The farm house I grew up in is empty there and then. I woke up early, rolled my sleeping bag and walked into the bare kitchen with it’s fridge door ajar, like a dumbfounded white fool. And all the cabinets, washed and drying, awaiting the next inhabitants stuffs. They gape and draw my attention like a troubled missing tooth.

I lean over the old, bleached, bright porcelain sink and take a long drink straight from the tap. It’s the sweetest water in Montgomery County. Come up from the deep artesian well through zinc pipes. The well’s never gone dry in 22 years and more. Originally, according to County records, this place was first called, “Cool Spring Level.” But this well will soon become obsolete, as the entire town is shifting over to city water and sewer. Times have changed and I’m not ready.

Taking a deep breath I walk myself out through the echoes, shoes in hand, over the cool slate of the screened porch. The door slaps shut behind me. I stuff the sleeping bag and shoes into the back of the old impala. Not ready to leave, I wonder out to the barn. Hollowed out now too, like a giant white pumpkin. Julep’s stall is deathly still. I dream I see her turn her dark head and blazed nose to greet me with her immense eyes welcoming. Mom gave her away to friends weeks ago. She is only 30 or so i think to myself. She’s healthy and definitely has a few more good hacking years in her. But I can’t imagine my life without her. If a horse can be a bodhisattva, she is one. The relationship between a horse and rider can be incredibly intimate. It stung my eyes like smoke to see that vacant stall. It just wasn’t right.

I moved past it like jumping a flame and grabbed the first smooth rung of the ladder to the hay loft and hosting myself up and up and into a dim world of barren floor and eaves that I had never known before. Even here I find the devastating vacuum of open space. The loft had always been heavy with hay. I’d never seen it cleared end to end and was stunned by this unexpected open capacity - for what I couldn’t say.

The boards shone gold, polished by decades of standing and moving hay bales - here, only covered by a flimsy scattering of loose and curled stalks, lifting in morning air passing through this long flute of space, sounding a note I strain to hear.

I walk over to the sunlit hay door overlooking the drive where, I was told, I took my first steps.

I sit myself down - legs heavy and dangling - bare toes wiggle over my known, old world and I wait, never wanting to go. I think, this is like when I learned to patiently wait for the horses’ water buckets to fill. There’s that dreamy attention, a conscious contact with the kind of peace one needs never rush from, but could just let the water overflow….and flow…forever. And so I sit, ready, yet waiting, unable to say the word, farewell.

Joyce Kahn

Joyce Kahn 1
Democracy Hero: Judge James  Boasberg



Judge James Boasberg 6” x 4” watercolor
Today’s Democracy hero is US District Judge James Boasberg of Massachusetts, who ordered an immediate hold on efforts by President Donald Trump to quickly deport Venezuelan nationals under rarely used wartime powers intended to resist a foreign invasion — and demanded the return of planes already in the air  until he has more time to consider whether Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was illegal.
The Obama appointee issued a temporary restraining order blocking DT’s attempt to revive the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, that was last used during Japanese Internment.
From the TRO memo:
The vagueness and breadth of the expected Proclamation, along with the government’s haphazard process for accusing individuals of affiliation with Tren de Aragua, will undoubtedly result in fear and uncertainty about the Proclamation’s scope, and will chill immigrants in their day-to-day activities and the exercise of their basic constitutional rights.
The Alien Enemies Act allows for summary deportations of people from countries at war with the United States. The law, best known for its role in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, has been invoked three times in U.S. history — during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II — according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and policy organization.
Hours before the White House published its proclamation, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of five Venezuelan men seeking to block the president from invoking the law. All five men were accused of having links to Tren de Aragua but deny that they are in the gang, Mr. Gerlent , a lawyer for the ACLU said. One of the men was arrested, the lawsuit said, because an immigration officer “erroneously” believed he was a member of Tren de Aragua because of his tattoos.
Judge Boasberg initially issued a limited order on Saturday blocking the government from deporting the five men.
The Trump administration promptly filed an appeal of the order, and the A.C.L.U. asked the judge to broaden his order to apply to all immigrants at risk of deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. At the hearing Saturday evening, Judge Boasberg said he would issue a broader order applying to all “noncitizens in U.S. custody.”
In the lawsuit, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union wrote that the Venezuelans believed that they faced an immediate risk of deportation. “The government’s proclamation would allow agents to immediately put noncitizens on planes,” the lawsuit said, adding that the law “plainly only applies to warlike actions” and “cannot be used here against nationals of a country — Venezuela — with whom the United States is not at war.”
The judge agreed, saying that he believed the terms “invasion” and “predatory incursion” in the law “really relate to hostile acts perpetrated by enemy nations.”

I took the information above directly from articles in the New York Times and Politico. I apologize for any redundancies. - JK

Be well. Have courage.

❤️Joyce

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Joyce Kahn

Joyce Kahn 2
Democracy Hero : William R. Keating Keating

Hello Sponsors,
Tuesday’s Democracy hero is
William R.Keating, Democratic Representative from Massachusetts District 9, Cape Cod and the Islands.




William R. Keating. 6” x 4” watercolor

Last week, during a House Foreign Affairs Europe Subcommittee hearing,
 the chairman, Representative Keith  Self of Texas, called upon Representative Sarah McBride, freshman Democrat of Delaware, to introduce her and intentionally misgendered her calling her MISTER  McBride. Representative McBride is the first openly transgender person in Congress.  She started to answer, addressing him as Madame Self, at which point Representative Keating asked the chairman to repeat the introduction . Of course, Self repeated the original misgendering. Incensed by this smugness and disrespect, Bill Keating exclaimed, Mr. Chairman, Have you no decency sir?”

 Representative Keating said , “You will not continue this meeting without me unless you address the duly elected representative the right way, “and Self disbanded the meeting.
A link to this disgraceful behavior by the Texas Representative is below.

https://search.app/FDbGjBDtxc2YhBfa9

To her credit, the next day, Representative McBride  said she was not about to engage in the culture wars that consumed the republicans, who would be better off paying attention to the important issues that affected their constituents.

Bill Keating’s cry, “Have you no sense of decency?” took  me immediately cback to the McCarthy vs. the army hearings of 1954.  During a period called the Red Scare, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, had been subpoenaing scores of Americans in all walks of life to appear before his House UnAmerican Activities Committee in an attempt to find Communists, who were purported to have infiltrated the government  and the army.  In these hearings, people were bullied, asked to testify against friends and colleagues , and  to name names of members of the Communist party. These were witch-hunts, and many people lost their livelihoods as a result of black listing.
In a televised hearing a lawyer for the army, Joseph Welch, used that same phrase when confronting Senator McCarthy.
“ Have you no sense of decency?”
That period of intense fear  and persecution came to an end. They always do. McCarthy died of alcoholism at age 47, three years after this hearing.

Be well. Have courage.

❤️Joyce

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Joyce Kahn

Joyce Kahn 3
Democracy Hero Liz Cheney



Liz Cheney 6” x 4” watercolor

Good morning all!
Today’s hero is the courageous, indomitable former Wyoming Republican House
Representative Liz Cheney, who continues to stand up to the perp in the White House and his policies. While in Congress, she was promoted by the Democrats to be vice chairwoman of the Jan.6 Committee, which investigated trump’s role in the attempted coup. She lost her seat due to trump’s backing of her opponent and her open views against the republican sycophants.( my opinion). After the humiliating White House performance against President Zelenskyy she recently said about t, vance, and musk ,
“At best, they’re Kremlin tools. At worst, they’re fools,”

In 2025 she was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal and pardoned from potential future prosecution.

Process: I continue with these 6” x 4” watercolors for this series. I am learning a lot about each person when I search out information on Google.

Be well and have courage!

❤️Joyce
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Loring Starr

Mobile of Origami Stars

Bree and Darwin Melchiorre

 Ceramic jar