I know, I know, you are all tired of National Poetry Month! But my students turned in their projects on Friday, and I just can’t help but share some of their amazing work. It was a snowy-wintery weekend, perfect for poetry.
I have another group corpse poem:
Some of my students turned in anthologies of their favorite poems with commentary.
These were so well done and one in particular used my suggestion to do an ‘altered book’ and wow!
All month I’ve been trying to post some poetry every day, starting with the poetry of our 
wedding! My students are busy, tonight, putting the finishing touches on their month long projects, and this morning, this was on my desk.
A group of students chose to do the ‘exquisite corpse’ method of writing poetry. They agreed on a theme, and met in my room for three days to write. Each student wrote one line and then passed it to the next, who could only see the line of the person who wrote before them. I love the way it turned out. And, I love the poetry of the typewriter, yes, typewriter on the page. One of my students decided that he’d take it home and type up five copies, one for each group member to turn in, because he felt that would add to the poetry of the piece. I love the irony of it.
Two poems today-one is a whimsically fun ‘reflection’ and t’other is one I wrote about
good friends who took care of me after a major surgery, along with APG. Enjoy.
Reflection by Alex Goerner
Oh how lovely they look,
Staring deep back into me, two pools of bright hue surrounded by supple skin
Hello there I say, looking deeply and longingly at them.
pixabay.com
They say nothing
As I blink, they blink back
I’m in love I say,
they say nothing as a huge grin envelops the face
I find myself grinning back
The Packard Place
A comfy nook created on the couch,
surrounded by Little Mermaids, the warmth of soft blankets pulled up to chin–
snug, with yellow flames from the fireplace.
pixabay.com
In the brief moments of wakefulness,
large panes let in trees and sky, helping me remember I’m still part of this world;
young man on the floor keeps watch with the furry, molting cat.
Late in the day, chicken soup, heavy with noodles heats,
brothy balm, solace to my battered core.
This Packard place resides with gladness and light,
pixabay.com
cheer and renewal, reassurance and welcome.
I don’t have to buck up, instead I am lifted up.
Not alone, but
rather gladdened of heart; heartening my soul.
A good friend of mine wrote this for her grandfather and I continue to be moved by it:
November 18, 2005
First Presbyterian Church
Wilmington, NC
My granddaddy loved light. He was born and raised on a small farm in Hope Mills, North Carolina and grew up there in the dark days of The Depression. He spent several years of his young life without electricity nor indoor plumbing. My uncle Steve tells me that because of these circumstances granddaddy swore that in his adult life he would never be cold or live without light again.
Subsequently, granddaddy’s house was always set on a steady 80 degrees Fahrenheit. A tally on Wednesday indicates that Granddaddy’s house also contains approximately 165 light switches, 39 lamps, 22 light bulbs in the master bathroom alone, 73 gold framed pictures, and 11 of these pictures have their own individual lights mounted on the gold frames. My granddaddy loved light.
Perhaps one of granddaddy’s first experiences with light was when he met my grandma. He was at a church picnic one Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1949. His church and grandma’s church had joined together in the countryside of Fayetteville for fellowship and good southern eating. In the midst of watermelon seed spitting and the red and white checkered picnic blankets, the crowds parted, angels sung, harps strummed and there stood my grandmother, shinning and beautiful.
Granddaddy was instantly smitten with her and struck by her long flowing blonde hair that made her glow and cast off a brilliant light as the summer sun beat down on her blonde locks. Granddaddy would forever be in love with this radiant light that she gave off and it would be the beginning of 53 years of marriage and the start of another branch of the Cashwell family tree.
Christmas was another time filled with light in my grandfather’s life. Granddaddy insisted 
every year on having at least one Christmas tree in the house that was decorated in nothing but white lights and red balls. My aunt Faye tells a story of when Granddaddy got a flu shot at the pharmacy in a local Kroger. The pharmacist wanted Granddaddy to wait in the store for an hour to make sure the shot didn’t cause any adverse reactions. Granddaddy turned to Faye and said, “Come on then, let’s go shopping.” Granddaddy got a shopping cart and proceeded to fill it to the brim with every last red Christmas ball that Kroger had for sale.
I remember the glow that this red ball tree would cast on our family every Christmas as we read the narrative of the birth of Jesus before opening our gifts; a tradition that began in his family and which he carried into his own marriage and family. We read of the Shepards: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone over them.” This passage from the Gospel of Luke captured the spirit of the season as well as the love and care granddaddy gave to those around him throughout his lifetime.
As a Shepard himself, Granddaddy never hesitated to help and protect people in times of need. Friends, family, and strangers all experienced the light of Christ reflected in him and the glory of the Lord shone over all of us whenever we were in his presence. There are countless memories that we all have where we experienced his warm smile, his devotion and love to goodness and righteousness, his commitment to family and friends, his steadfast faith, his really long stories, his pride in hard work and organization, his secret love for a good debate, and the ease in which he forgave, humbly apologized, and loved without ceasing. These were the gifts that he brought to all of our lives.
One of my grandfather’s favorite songs was Eva Cassidy’s version of Fields of Gold. Every time I visited him in the last two years he would usher me and any friends I had with me into his study and ask: “Have you heard this song by Eva Cassidy? It is beautiful!” “Yes granddaddy, I’ve heard it.”
Nevertheless, He would crank up his surround sound speakers in his study to full blast and the house would almost shake as Granddaddy eagerly awaited our reactions to the power of this song. Cassidy sang, “You’ll remember me when the west wind moves among the fields of barley. You can tell the sun in his jealous sky when we walked in fields of gold.” You could see in granddaddy’s face how captivated he was. Granddaddy would often fall asleep in his big armchair to the tunes of Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy dreaming and walking in his own fields of gold.
I would like to share a poem by nature writer Mary Oliver. She is my favorite poet and she writes of the peace that one can find in nature and God’s grace that abounds in all of creation. For my granddaddy who loved being in the outdoors, this poem seemed most fitting. I read it now as an offering to all who were touched by the life, love, and light of my grandfather, Richard Cashwell.
White Owl Flies Into And Out Of The Field by Mary Oliver
Coming down
out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel,
or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful
and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings-
five feet apart-and the grabbing
thrust of feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys
of the snow-
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes,
to lurk there,
like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows-
so I thought:
maybe death
isn’t darkness after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us-
as soft as feathers-
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,
not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow-
that is nothing but light-scalding, aortal light-
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
It is now our task to carry forth the love and light of Christ that we knew through the life of Richard Cashwell. Though his physical being is gone, his Spirit shines in and among us, a scalding-aortal light. And we rest with the peace that, as Oliver said, death isn’t darkness, but so much light wrapping itself around us; and Richard Cashwell has been resurrected to a new life with Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.
In trying to get my foot more firmly in the door of online teaching, I apply for jobs available every week. This last week, I had a response to my resume that came with an invitation and a link for a video interview. It wasn’t in person, but it was still one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever had.
To begin, you simply practiced using the technology to get familiar, in not entirely comfortable, with it. I answered the practice questions several times and went through the tips to get better each time. When I felt I was ready, I clicked to start the actual interview, 
reminding myself to look into the camera and not down at the computer screen where the timer was. I had three minutes to answer each of four questions.
One asked me to speak about how I would integrate my faith into my teaching. That was a first for me. One asked me to talk about a time I went out of my way to help someone. Again, really? One asked me to react to some values this institution holds dear and as I began to speak and reflect, I came to tears and had to apologize to the camera. I was taken aback by the questions, and at the same time, felt that these were important questions to be able to answer and it gave me a sense of the integrity of the organization. I hope I hear back from them.
That brings me to this day’s poem, which also brought me to tears.
54 Million*
You, who rail at the death of Al-Awlaki
or even Bin Laden –
You who protest, holding candlelight vigil
outside prisons when killers die –
Where were you when the
Holy Innocents
were murdered in the
should-be safety of their mothers’ wombs?
Where were you?
You, who cry out in defense of the whales and the polar bear,
and the Iowa Pleistocene snail.
You, who would free Tibet
and spare the baby Harp seals
and the old growth forests –
You, who march for gay rights and civil rights and workers’ rights
and womens’ rights.
Where were you at the march for the inalienable right to life?
Where were you when the
Holy Innocents,
in numbers to populate California, Colorado and Ohio
became discarded medical waste –
as flawed, or might-be flawed, or not even flawed,
but perfect in the likeness of God?
Acting in your assumed deity-likeness,
falsely promised by the deceiver
when luring you to the forbidden tree
you determined them
inconvenient, unwanted, not real
Where were you when the world lost
Artists and acrobats and atheists and Brothers and bakers and builders and Comforters and cardiologists and cartoonists and Daughters and dreamers and dancers and Ecologists and engineers and entrepreneurs and Fathers and farmers and forgivers and Graduates and geographers and geologists and Husbands and harlots and hobos and horsemen and Illustrators and immigrants and ignoramuses and innocents and Jugglers and jewelers and jokesters and Knights and kinesiologists and kidders and Lovers and lumberjacks and laughingstocks and Mothers and musicians and missionaries and Nurses and namesakes and ne’er-do-wells and nay-sayers and Organists and optimists and orthopedists and Philosophers and poets and pediatricians and Quilters and quarrelers and quitters and Rustlers and realists and rappers and Sisters and sons and sons-of- bitches and Teachers and troubleshooters and trouble-makers and Uncles and undertakers and union bosses and Vegetarians and vintners and voters and Wives and woodworkers and writers and Xenophiles and xeroscapers and ex’s and Yearners and yakkers and yellowbellies and Zoologists and zionists and zealots
And God only knows whom else?
Where were you when these
were stolen from us
in the name of choice?
Our babies,
who from their silent suspension,
had none?
Where were you?
Where were we?
Where was I?
God,
Who with Him, allowed us to create them,
and with the same gift of free will to kill them,
knows.
*Abortions reported in U.S. since Roe v. Wade in 1973; far exceeding total deaths of all American wars of any size or declaration; more Jews aborted than killed in the holocaust and more black Americans than in the slave trade. By 2016, this number has risen to 58,900,000, and counting.
©Kathleen VanDeVeere, October 2011, revised April 2016
Photo curtesy: Harvey Shaffer Photography
I hosted a poetry reading, the first ever, for my high school students at a local coffee shop (where else?!) last week. Fifteen students showed up and ten of those read poetry. It was interesting as we competed with the sound of the blender busy making smoothies, but I loved the way it turned out, and, some of the students asked when we could do it again! Totally cool. Most of the students who read, chose something by
Indian, my hero!
a poet who is already published, but I did have a couple students read their own poetry, and I read one of mine.
The April National Poetry Month projects are due at the end of this week and I can’t wait to see what they’ve done. I expect to see several selfies of students chalking poetry onto local sidewalks. They were supposed to get permission first. In the meantime, my hero’s journey studied students are busy in class writing their own epic stories following the ‘monomyth’ we have from Joseph Campbell.
And now, the poem of the day:
Sufferance
Suffer the wind to whistle your name
Suffer the wind to howl you from sleep
Suffer the wind to rosy your cheeks with its powder puff
The wind wheedles its way through the crannies of my house
The wind sculpts snow into concrete berms
The wind unfurls the ominous red flag of Spring
Suffer the wind
© Kathleen VanDeVeere, April 2013
Tag: Written as the season of wind returns to the foothills. Kate writes from Bailey, and can be reached at vandeveerekd@hotmail.com
Tractor
Corn harvest is life in a John Deere tractor.
I begin each day with mocha, a 7-ll special.
Friday’s are fresh, warm cinnamon knots melting in your mouth,
God will bake them in my heaven.
I gulp the last of the coffee,
pulling into the field on the rutted, sandy road.
My mammoth green tractor sits, waiting patiently.
Checking oil, warming up engine,
like planes taxiing before take-off, it is our abiding routine;
washing windows, scrambling on vast, ridged, dusty black tires.
I tuck my daily rations in and turn on the radio-link with the combine.
Rolling through countless rows of corn,
we bounce alongside the gleaming silver combine
eating its’ way through the string of stalks.
Stripped cobs clonk our window,
fair-haired leaves released from their post dance around us,
and rabbits flee from our path.
Bushels of bright yellow kernels swivel up the combine auger,
filling the immense brown cart coupled with us.
Rotating, throttling, we surge forward,
conveying our golden cargo to the waiting semi.
Circling like stones in a tumbler, our day passes.
A bursting circle of corn is now a clear-cut forest,
a wide swath sheared to mid-calf stubble.
Darkness comes slowly,
the sun’s glare where nothing can block it.
Suddenly it is night.
Ghostly stalks shimmer in haze of dust and tractor lights,
we are swallowed in the dark,
the cart full of corn,
waiting for an empty truck.
Shutting down, I step into the chill night,
the tractor hood is warm from the long day’s run.
Comfortable there, absorbing the sky spilling over with stars,
the crackling sound of corn stalks,
and the humming buzz of the combine.
One old star blazing in a final journey
crosses from northeast to southwest,
fading only as it meets the horizon.
The earth seems to settle, cool, and take a breath.
National Poetry Month continues with a poem by a dear friend from high up on a mountain!
Sometimes, in the Fog
Sometimes on damp foggy mornings
when trees coated with hoarfrost can be seen from the porch
I fancy I hear the skirling of pipes from beyond the mountain.
And sometimes, I catch the keening of the women
whose fathers, husbands and sons are lost at sea.
And sometimes, I imagine smoke from roaring fires on the cliffs
blended with the mist that hangs above the moor.
And sometimes, when shadows are cast long,
photo credit: pixaby.com
the strangest things are carried on the wind,
And I conjure in my heart’s hollows
the whispered rhymes from my clan’s ancient bards.
© Kathleen VanDeVeere, March 2012
Nature
What is second nature?
Is it like first nature, once-removed? I understand it to be those things that come naturally. There are certain things that are second nature to me:
Horses: brushing, saddling, mounting, riding-both of us feeling the wind and sun or rain and cold, warm breath from a soft muzzle on my arm, moments where I feel part horse, jeans and boots.
Loving: grey, rainy days, voices singing harmony, the touch of tight embrace, joy on another’s face, hitting the target-falling in love with each new experience and throwing myself into it with little, sometimes no, restraint.
Writing: poems, stories, memories-all the fleeting moments that whip through my head, some end up on paper and others continue their plots tucked into the notebook filed in my thoughts.
What is not second nature?
Does that make it third or fourth nature? Nature you have to practice? Non-nature? Anti-nature?
There are certain things that are not second nature to me:
Chopping onions or grilling, unless you enjoy meat cooked to the toughness of a piece of wood.
Playing games in relationships, I can never catch on to the rules.
Sounding intelligent on the spot, “uh, er, um, gee.”
Walking in high heels and a dress, see above “horses.”
Computers and staying up late, especially not together.
Ignoring someone’s pain and keeping emotions hidden;
Look before you leap and guarding my heart.
Riding a bike, did you know they can buck you off?
Holding back and lack of appreciation, or-ignoring beauty
Have you seen the jagged edge of Saw Tooth?
National Poetry Month continues with my ‘list’ poem:
Lists!
Lists for class:
Commentary
Multi-topic
Second nature
Drills at school
Bring your laptop
Popcorn and fruit
Look up Rooney, philosophy of a conference.
Lists for the stable:
Your watch
That hat
Boots and gloves
Lots of Pepsi
A new pack of gum, Orbit please
Oreo’s bridle
That special horse-skin-loving mohair cinch for Smokey’s tender hide.
Lists for home:
Food
Alex says, “There’s nothing to eat, mom.”
I say, “I have class, homework, lists…”
Pick up more Jolly Time white kernel popping corn, eggs, that squash soup you planned to have last night, but it was gone, no time to stop anyway.
Lists, lists, lists- lists of conferences, poetry to send, a message for Jared about his stupid Alien Ware computer (aka, the lemon), that water pump that needs replaced, the oil that should have been changed, call Dion, call Peg, don’t forget dinner at Elaine’s…
Maybe I need a list of my lists, so I don’t forget which list is where and who needs what and when:
 | Kathy Cordes on The Outhouse |
 | Michael Moore on The Outhouse |
| Michael Moore on Grandpa’s House |
| Kathy Cordes on Indian and the Helicopter |
| Kathy Cordes on Cathy 24 March 2023 |
Sally Gerard 