On Motherhood, Sort of

It's a line from a song by Ann Heaton: "Could you wait a little longer?" spoken to the baby she is not about to be pregnant with because she isn't ready for that. I have no argument with it. After all, I'm the one who said, "Once you're a mother, you're never not a mother." It's something you shouldn't rush into without thought. (As if even half the parents in this world gave it any thought.)

During the interview after her song she said, "I really want to be a mom, but I want to wait until I get myself all okay, life and everything figured out."

I say, "Commendable, laudable, shouldn't we all have done that." I also say, "How long might it take, and good luck with that," and some other smart remark--if I thought of one--that would indicate that I think such an approach naive, at least.

Seven children--and I would not give away even a hair on any one of their heads--and nearly twenty grandchildren later, living in the last while of my 60s, I say, "There's a lot to figure out, and I still don't have much of it done."

Is it just me? Am I slow? Should I still be waiting?

Christmas Carols

Angels from the realms of glory
Wing your way o'er all the earth.
Ye, who sang creations story
Now proclaim Messiah's birth.
Come and worship, come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn king.

* * *

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.

The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood.
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.

* * *

Good Christian men rejoice
With heart and soul and voice.
Give ye heed to what we say:
News, news, Jesus Christ is born today.
Ox and ass before him bow,
And he is in his manger now.
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!

I love the music of Christmas, love to hear it and to sing it. These carols we seldom sing, at least in my society, and they were running through my head as I woke this morning. I wanted to put them here, so I did. From memory.

The Holly and the Ivy has six verses, and I'm sure of only four of them. As you see, I included only two.

This last is a carol my brother Sterling and I sang together. He played the guitar and we both sang. I've never seen it written, and I just sang the words he remembered. Performances were quite spontaneous, as I recall, but always a pleasure for me. I wish we could do that again this year. Here is the song as we sang it.

Virgin Mary had a little baby.
Oh, glory hallelujah!
Oh, pretty little baby.
Glory be to the newborn king.

What shall we call this pretty little baby?
Oh, glory hallelujah!
Oh, pretty little baby.
Glory be to the newborn king.

Some call him one thing. People call him Jesus.
Oh, glory hallelujah!
Oh, pretty little baby.
Glory be to the newborn king.

Some call him one thing. I call him Savior.
Oh, glory hallelujah!
Oh, pretty little baby.
Glory be to the newborn king.

Weather Matters

Weather is not the only thing on my mind. I am not one who watches the weather channel or even the nightly report. I do have an outdoor thermometer stuck on my kitchen window. That is handy, I guess, but I only have it because of my friend who is a weather . . . what? aficionado? nut? It's her doing.

But times like now weather becomes almost an hourly issue. Is it snowing? Will it snow? What? rain expected tomorrow? (And it is. I have just looked online here.) Because one has to negotiate it, get out into it, go places through it. And so I have been outside at 3 AM--can't sleep anyway--just checking on things to see how it will be when I have to drive in the morning, go to church.

While I was out there I was thinking:

1. I'm not a person who likes to be trapped, even in her own home. Don't know anyone who is.
   
2. One of these days I'll need to get those Christmas errands done.
   
3. Maybe get a tree Monday. Guess we'll see how the weather is.

And I've knocked down some of the icicles that melt onto my front walkway, and then the melt freezes, makes an icy patch right near my front door. I'll spread down some of that snow melt on that spot. It's the snow melt stuff I bought last year. It worked fine then, and so we'll see if it's still good this year.

Strange middle-of-the-night behavior, I suppose. But who's surprised?

Finally

So I think this is finished. At least I'll put it away.

Wintering

Carol Schiess

We’ve seen

the last hurried plunge of leaves--

swept off by an impatient wind--

leaves whose anxious yellows

and reds had hung on late,

heightened the sky's bold blue

and held sunlight in the trees.

Color dies

with the passing of the leaves

and nature pushes time

into colder, briefer days.

Trees look older now,

stripped, shamed,

something pitiful revealed

in the collective reaching skyward

of frail limbs.

In winter,

a fearful presence

inhabits the lowering clouds,

waits beneath a hardened earth.

We, in that season,

are left without comfort,

as if, like the trees,

we have forgotten

what we know.

Report

Wintering

Carol Schiess

We’ve seen

the last hurried plunge of leaves,

the oak, ash, honey locust,

whose reds and yellows

have heightened the sky's bold blue

and held sunlight in the trees.

Color dies

with the passing of the leaves

and nature pushes time

into colder, briefer days.

Trees look older now,

stripped, shamed,

something pitiful revealed

in the collective reaching skyward

of frail limbs.

In winter,

a fearful presence

inhabits the lowering clouds,

waits beneath a hardened earth.

We, in that season,

are left without comfort,

as if, like the trees,

we have forgotten

what we know.

I'm not sure this is done. I've been messing with the first stanza this morning. There's something about the way I had it before that seems right, but maybe I'll just leave it this way for a while and look again later. But here's something of what my writing group said.

N said the wind couldn't be impatient. This stunned me, coming as it did from one who is a very good poet and who ought to know that the wind can be what I say it is,--within some limits, I suppose--and not just as a poet but as a person who "feels" the wind is gentle or disturbing or impatient. But I have taken it out and put it back in at least a dozen times because I'm not sure if it belongs, since I have used that word plunge, which I will keep.

S said she liked the word embers instead of ambers. (See an earlier version.) Okay, I thought, but not in this poem.

D said to change the verb "have" in the first stanza to "had." That makes sense, and I did it. But then I undid it, because I like "have" better.

Both S and D did not like the colors. I didn't feel good about them either. Too many modifiers, and I was especially worried about the fuchsia pinks. When D said the fuchsia pinks reminded her of a prom dress, then I knew why I was worried. They both said to leave the colors out entirely. I don't want prom dresses in the poem, but I did and do want some color there. I've added a few trees that were late in losing their leaves and whose leaves are red or yellow. We'll see about that.

D said to put the middle part together this way:

Color dies

with the passing of the leaves

and nature pushes time

into colder, briefer days.

In winter,

a fearful presence

inhabits the lowering clouds,

waits beneath a hardened earth.

Trees look older now,

stripped, shamed,

something pitiful revealed

in the collective reaching skyward

of frail limbs.

We, in that season,

are left without comfort,

as if, like the trees,

we have forgotten

what we know.

That makes sense, but not quite the sense I was thinking of when I wrote the poem. Besides, I think the words "colder" and "older" belong close together.

I took the last line off, about spring coming, because 1. perhaps the idea of spring is implicit, and that is enough, and 2. to leave some ambiguity there.

I came from the writing meeting very pleased. It's always a good thing when other writers take your writing seriously and offer their ideas. In the end, I weigh their ideas and, you know, make the final decision. As I said, I'm not sure this poem is finished.

Tomorrow . . .

is my writing meeting. I'll take my Wintering poem, both versions, and see what they say. They will have things to say, I have no doubt of it.

I'll report back.

Winter Poem(s)

Okay, so I'm working on this poem. Small tweeks here and there, but the real difference is in the endings. As the writer, I see this as simply two ways of looking at something, and both seem legitimate to me. Read on, if you like, and see what you think. (I have also posted the same thing on Lotta Torres but in separate posts.) Carol

Wintering

Carol Schiess

We’ve seen

the last hurried plunge of leaves,

swept off by an impatient wind,

leaves whose ambers, rust reds,

fuchsia pinks have heightened

the sky's bold blue

and held sunlight in the trees.

Color dies

with the passing of the leaves

and nature pushes time

into colder, briefer days.

Trees look older now,

stripped, shamed,

something pitiful revealed

in the collective reaching skyward

of frail limbs.

In winter,

a fearful presence

inhabits the lowering clouds,

waits beneath a hardened earth.

We, in that season,

are left without comfort

knowing, as we do, that

death can come

before spring.

Wintering

Carol Schiess

We’ve seen

the last hurried plunge of leaves,

swept off by an impatient wind.

Leaves whose ambers,

rust reds, fuchsia pinks

have heightened

the sky's bold blue

and held sunlight in the trees.

Color dies

with the passing of the leaves

and nature pushes time

into colder, briefer days.

Trees look older now,

stripped, shamed,

something pitiful revealed

in the collective reaching skyward

of frail limbs.

In winter,

a fearful presence

inhabits the lowering clouds,

waits beneath a hardened earth.

We, in that season,

are left without comfort,

as if, like the trees,

we have forgotten

what we always know—

that spring will come.