I read an article about Zora Neale Hurston in the NY Times a few weeks ago and starting crying when they talked about not tearing down her town to build a freeway because it was her home.
Then I wrote this.

To Zora.


Patron saint of anthropologists, archivists—
of slick soled women
who learned to walk on gravel roads.

Our lady of the ivory tower-
come down to the town of sweet dirt
rose up under a white top Chevrolet.

Come down to listen. Come down to wrap our words
in the circles of your gramophone. Years of hard
frying wafts kitchen smoke in the seams
of your clothes and the roots of your hair. Girl
thinks she can run away from that

is lying unmarked in the corner
of a colored cemetery. Our only cemetery.

Pants and cigarettes make a martyr
of a Christian woman.

Saint Zora, of the upstart women. Make pilgrimage to lay down at her feet
the sounds of truth rolling down the front porch.

Oh Lord. Miracle after death. Sweet
Southern Saint of ours. To save your
town- it is enough.

I did it!!

My first poetry assignment is done...at least until workshop on Thursday. Here's where it stopped today.


Self- Portrait as a Young Boy Fishing

Papa casts like he flicks a cigarette
off the porch into the pile beneath the bushes,

But the only thing I can do like a man is spit,
so I bend myself back into the boat like a willow branch
and let go.

It’s like falling off the Fletcher Creek Bridge,
knees to forehead, guessing when to slip
beneath the water.

I hold my breath
until I see the surface of his face
warm on me, just for getting it right.

the first assignment

is to write a self portrait poem through another lens (inspired by Jorie Graham's 'Self Portrait as Daphne and Apollo'). Classes start on Wednesday, poem due Monday, syllabus due this weekend.
All I have is a stanza-ish.


Self Portrait as a Young Boy Fishing


Papa casts like he flicks a cigarette
Off the porch into the pile beneath the bushes,

But I can only imagine my line falling,
like me on the Fletcher Creek Bridge,
knees to forehead, practicing
when to slip beneath the water.

He gives me five tries, for every one of his-

Nothing...just musings

I've been trying to write Portland all week, or take pictures, but all I seem compelled to do is shop, and take things back from here. It's been the most delicious week-- I just brought the sweetest strawberries in the world from the Farmer's Market. Went on a perfectly pleasant lunch with Becky, and pretended like my whole life here was still real.

The whole point of this blog is to work on old stuff, but everything Kentucky seems silly right now-- not silly but at least not as tragic (which I think is a good thing).

it's been truly a vacation.

Bergin, KY

Since I wrote a Frankfort and a Clifton poem, and I worked on a Midway one I had this idea that I would make a series of poems about small towns around here . This is the free write that came out. Still not really a poem-- need to do some serious line making and breaking, but I thought again I'd save it on here.

This is the only restaurant in town, but we all like
fried catfish, and fried green tomatoes, and country
fried steak—except Dad, who had a heart
attack five years ago and eats little bits off
everyone’s plate,
and looks sad
like someone shooed him from his mother’s kitchen.

We never eat anymore at places
with plastic tablecloths, even if they are the heavy plastic, easier
to clean, red checkered. It sticks to my legs,
already itching of mosquito bites and smelling
like the lake water.

I am uncomfortable, but it is summer and
the grease hits up with the air and
dances with old men’s cigarette smoke, and suddenly
my stomach hurts and I want to leave.

it’s not that I don’t like it, it just makes me sick.
fried food, and smoke, and sticky plastic
tablecloths and all the things I came from.

I love it there, but I can only stay a little,
eat a little, before I have to breathe.

Packing Up

I found another little thread of the Unpacking Poem that I'd done this year and completely forgotten about until I cleaned up my computer last night. I'll do some work on it later, but I wanted to put it on the blog for safe-keeping. It needs some line breaks and an intentional form.

Packing Up

I know who you felt-
that everything should be handled
that life was bounding, and if you could hold each one in your hand, and think around it,
it would come back to your doorstep. If you could cradle each vase, each dried
hydrangea, each pair of scissors and scrap of fabric, then life would come together
like an unfinished porch project.

I feel like that some days too, look in the mirror at myself walking
thoughtfully around the house. Peeking into the bathroom mirror, half
expecting to see you.

It would be sad, on that day, when the movers came, and the landlord, and the new renters,
when you sat, weary-eyed on the porch steps, trailing smoke and taking long breaths. Too far gone to feel the shame of leaving late, like a guest at a long past party, waiting on the porch for the ride that never came.

more moving...worn out

I'm tired, physically and mentally exhausted from moving, but if you can hang in there with me for a few more days I'll be on a mini-vacation and I'll be writing. At least the plan is to be writing, and reading, and drinking wonderful coffee and real beer. Portland here I come!

I have no way of knowing if anyone's reading, but I'll keep pretending like I have an audience just dying for new work.

R