An Honor Roll
12/20/2009

Mom is in the hospital this Christmas. A lack of eating, depression, dementia, or a bad combination of meds. No one is certain at this point. In consideration of the years she spent toiling over her Christmas cookies, here is an honor roll…of sorts. For those who were never the beneficiary of her fine tastes, well, I am truly sorry. You missed out.

1. Biscotti
2. Pizelles
3. Twists – Paul’s favs
4. Corn Flake Wreaths
5. Pecan Cups
6. Nut rolls
7. Nuthorns – B’s favorites
8. Chocolate Chip cookies
9. M and M cookies
10. Peanut Butter cookies with Kisses on top
11. Sour Cream Drops
12. Italian balls
13. Fudge
14. Bowties
15. Sugar Cookie Cutouts
16. Gingerbread Men
17. Italian knots
18. Chocolate Crinkles
19. Totos – my favs
20. Rosettes
21. Buckeyes
22. Pinwheels
23. Cookie Press cookies
24. Church windows
25. Thumbprint cookies
26. Candy Cane cookies

How I Learned to Take a Nap

12/8/2009
AJW

The household hums in its daily chores:
heat the home, pump the water, let in the light.
A loud thumping comes from below
in the basement laundry -
zippers on hoodies thwack against the side of the dryer,
bass accompaniment to an unknown rock song.

Grey has settled between the cottonwood trees
blurring lines between leftover leaves and bark.
Even the grass, while still green, casts a hue
as if to hush and not wake up Spring, not yet, not for a longtime.

The puppy has completed his tasks too:
Dart outside, bark at the half-bitten moon,
relieve his body of impurities from the night before.
Chew Morning Glory seed pods hanging by threads off the trellis.
Lick at pant legs of boys before they climb onto the bus.

Sniff at the base of the trees along sidewalks,
hope for the scent of a new friend or long lost one.
Alert the neighbors across the street
their fake deer is eating up their patch of Vinca vines,
while next door the white wooden deer are kissing.

Dart back in for his daily dose of banana bites
and puppy rubs to strengthen his response
to the long winter about to commence.

Finally, he settles in where love and words flow.
His eye lids flutter slightly
at the sound of the pitter patter on the keyboard
before he slips into slumber.

This is the moment they sing about:
“Sleep in heavenly peace.”

Januzzi Beach
12/1/2009
Annette J. Wick


She was always a sun worshipper,
her soft brown Italian skin like fine leather,
deepening only a shade.
Eternally bathingly beautiful,
she was at once shy and knowing.
Her caramel skin, perfectly aged at any birthday,
would not wrinkle under the weight of growing old.

Her folding lounge chair still sits at the ready
inside the garage.
If she cannot be located in the kitchen,
the back patio is where she sits and pay homage
to the golden rays rippling through arthritic limbs.
She finds peace amongst the truckers
who drive on the interstate hundreds of yards from her door.
They honk their horns at the distant sight of her -
causing such raucous
it is like wild geese flocking overhead.

When the North wind is too harsh,
she totes the chair around front,
sets it in the alcove of the mudroom doorway.
She is surrounded by the warmth of the brick
and her husband’s trademark geraniums,
their arrival so frequent
the flowers are as perennial as her appearance in the sun

A memory, Christmas afternoon: On another back patio,
she is reveling in sunlight once again.
Her white nylon scarf shields her from wind.
In her fire engine red fleece she is dressed
in camouflage to blend with the season.
She sits beneath bows hung from the outdoor mantle,
their angled ends flapping like wings,
and smiles for the camera.
Hail to her, filled with sun and grace.

Hunter and Flower
11/1/2009 AJW


It’s sometimes said that the full moon
stays up all night
and sleeps all day
like a werewolf.

The full moon of November nights
will do just that
rise at sunset
set at sunrise

climbing to its highest sky point.
At near midnight
the frosted screen
of light will shine

through the burnt leaves left hanging still.
The Hunter will
take out his bow
after crops die.

Down in the southern hemisphere
the Flower Moon
coaxes roses
into plumpness.

The November full moon rises
just like May’s sun
its lunacy
wreaking havoc

on the sleeping patterns of all
who believe in
foolish myths that
moons rule our lives.

Carmen 10-23-2009, Ohio St. vs. Minnesota 38-7.

Remember this moment, I say to myself, as I look over at his
brown eyes sparkling against the backdrop of driving rain
and red plastic ponchos.

Even the hot dog vendors stay beneath the steel girder overhang.
With each touchdown, the army troop
resolutely marches into the end zone and
executes the number of push-ups that match points on the board.
Oh how they must be wishing for this game to end.
No more so than I, as water trickles from eye,
not sure if from rain, runny nose or tears
for a time that will never be like this again

He is schooling me, on nuances of a game
I once taught him.
“See how they line up, in a spread.
They didn’t used to, until they got the new QB,
but that’s what all the teams are doing now.”
Next they line up in wildcat formation
shooting the ball from between the legs of the center
out to the running back, the o-line is unbalanced.
But then I think all of football is so,
as we sit high above the teams and band – the best damn one in the land -
while the wind blows at a temperature less than freezing
and rain forms droplets on my not so environmentally-friendly Styrofoam cup
filled with cider half-heated, half-spiced, half-drunk.

The hot dogs are long,
but the quarters of this game even more so.
Finally, at clock’s end we stand for tradition -
Carmen Ohio.
I have learned the words by now,
the crowd has sung the song so many times today,
that I have forgotten
I did not go to school here.
I only have vague memories of a sister and brother

at another game from another time…

“Summer's heat and Winter's cold,
The season pass, the years will roll;”

Remember this moment, I say to him, reaching out my arm
to cradle the young man that was once my boy
as the chorus of sodden fans warbles,
“Time and change will surely show
How firm they friendship…”

I let go of him, throw my arms up high,
He raises his arms too
and together, with the faithful fans,
we spell out the word that has been our bond today –
“O” “hi” “o”

Passegiatta in Washington Park

by Annette Januzzi Wick

(This article was written in response to a prompt, “Being Awake to Change” and recorded for WWfaC - The Podcast Edition)

In The Teachings of Rome[1], Jay Walljasper writes of architecture students learning about community building through the study of Roman piazzas. “Piazzas put us in the present moment,” says William McDonough, a theology professor. Why then, not see Washington Park in Cincinnati as a piazza? If any public space needed a present moment, Washington Park is it.

In the 1800’s, Cincinnati hosted expositions in Washington Park providing information on new machines being produced. By the late 1880’s, Washington Park was considered for the Romanesque Cincinnati Art Museum heralded as the Art Palace of the West, but because of one powerful donor, the museum was situated in Eden Park instead. Imagine had that museum been built along Washington Park, we would have had a palazzo on a piazza.

I have strolled through Rome’s Piazza Navona with my Italian-American parents and licked up the last drop of Tartufo dessert in that square with my kids. We have had the pleasure of stumbling upon a Greek band on that piazza and had the misfortune of witnessing a homeless man, sitting astride a fountain statue wearing only a diaper. Each square we roamed took on its own personality and led one astray to some other unexplored part of the city.

William H. Whyte, the urban sociologist, wrote, “The street is the river of life in the city.” Cincinnati developers and city officials have focused on the actual Ohio River banks. But the real flow of life comes from streets that lead to an experience, similar to the Italian tradition of passeggiata, a gentle stroll through a main street of an old town. The phrase is reminiscent of the word “passenger”, as in passengers being carried along in an experience.

Italians dress up for passeggiata. Older folks sit along the route, nursing a beer or a glass of wine, and gossip; la passeggiata is where new romances blossom and new shoes rule.

Consider what a passeggiata would feel like around Washington Park. In Illustrated Cincinnati, an 1875 book, the author writes, “Over-the-Rhine is where a visitor would go if "he is bent on pleasure and a holiday… The visitor leaves behind him at almost a single step the rigidity of the American, enters at once into the borders of people …far more closely wedded to music and the dance, to the song, and life in the bright, open air."

Never is that experience more evident than within modernized Gothic Music Hall, first built as a choral hall, anchoring Washington Park. During the times of the expositions, the “back” of Music Hall sat up against the canal, which used floating gondolas to transport patrons. Inside Music hall, a large dome houses a painting by Arthur Thomas, The Allegory of the Arts, with figures representing Music, Science, History and Literature.

In 2010, the city and park will boast a new School for Creative and Performing Arts and offer residents a chance to revisit the use of Washington Park. Students should be encouraged not to rush home but rather to stroll, perhaps buy a gelato at Enzo’s across the street. While Music Hall represents the original Allegory of the Arts, the SCPA is a repository for youthful energy, a new metaphor for arts and community.

The Project for Public Spaces writes on their website, “Small steps to enliven streets, parks, and other public spaces are the building blocks of a thriving city.” Upon closer inspection, one would find these blocks in The Schickel Design Company at the north end. Martha Schickel manages the company rooted in her grandfather and father’s work of designing stained glass and creating architectural designs. Martha’s commitment to architecture and community were shown recently in her relocation to Over the Rhine, into a 19th century building which she redesigned and renovated.

Down the street is a three-story historic building, housing Azzi & Wolf, a luthier of well-crafted string instruments. Andy Wolf is the elder who was raised in OTR and as early as the 1990s was spending seed money to rehab properties in the area. Jules Azzi, the younger, is Lebanese, was schooled in France and had once established himself in New York.

Like the “city of 100 churches” in Lucca, Italy, OTR boasts numerous churches as well. I can feel the pulsating rhythms from the original pipe organ in First English Lutheran. From the end of Race Street, I hear the bells of Phillipus Kirche which long served the German population. Both worship spaces carry enough history to stand as pillars for a piazza.

Tender Mercies, a provider of housing for the homeless who are mentally ill, renovated a nearby 1870’s hotel. Its upgrades include green concepts as rain water retention and tankless water heaters. And while no one should promote homelessness, a parks employee explains in the Emeralds in the Crown documentary that, “In the 1900s, Washington Park was opened over night during the summer for residents of the tenements to sleep outdoors.” Parks were and will be a place to breathe fresh air.

The most recent proposal for the Washington Park upgrade shows a lawn larger than a football field facing Music Hall. Brick pavers will mark corners and pedestrian crossings. Game tables and benches will be conveniently situated. A concessions building will be housed along the east side which could showcase the city’s beer making and wine-producing history. There is even a promenade from which to begin a passeggiata.

In Teachings, Architecture Professor David Maynik tells his students, “Look for the connections that are not apparent at first.” When we look into Washington Park, we view the present in crime stats, homeless residents and closed swimming pools. From its outer rim, I also see the building blocks from the past – Gothic architecture, sleeping outdoors, and First Lutheran’s original organ. I observe real work in Tender Mercies, Martha Schickel, and Azzi & Wolf.

And I see a future filled with industrious young people who parade their SCPA portfolio or DAAP designs through the square while old men play chess and watch them stroll by. I see people sitting with a glass of Christian Moerlein beer or Burnett Ridge wine beneath strings of light hung from tress, or slowing down because they have found a place to breathe, a present moment.




[1] The Teachings of Rome, Jay Walljasper, Notre Dame Magazine, October, 2009.

Closing Down Summer

The water shimmers in early morning.
Fog slides away into coves, gloves coming off fingers,
Exposing nearby fishermen huddling in their brawny bass boats.
Blue gills hunker down
into the dark recesses of cat tail stems and roots,
bobbing around black walnuts
that plunk into the water to the tune of nature’s beat.

When we close the lid on summer,
floating the green tarp, then the gray, over the boat,
the lake is brimming with memories –
of a kayak under a full moon
with each stroke of a paddle,
a quick glance over the shoulder –
is that a chainsaw
or the buzz of cicadas leftover from last year?

Of mornings made new by a puppy
first learning to boat, then float
finally to paddle, a stroke backed into, after losing his footing on the dock.
Of meanderings in the marital bed quietly taking a back seat
to canines, canoes and cornhole.

Of learning to drive a boat – again.
“Idle” moves the boat forward –
has someone reported this to Webster’s?
And in “neutral” the boat slithers across the water,
drifting into buoys and sludge.
Of cuss words when ropes are caught in the motor
and kudos when a skier cuts a swath through the wake,
drops the rope, then slowly slides away.

Of fireworks bursting above the walnut trees.
Then after, while silently watching these side by side with my brother,
boats putter past the dock, lit up green and red like Christmas.
Of Left-Right-Center, a game for all ages.
Mother removes her chips from each pile instead of giving them up
determined to win though she has forgotten the game.

Finally, when smoke off the fireworks fades, the sky fills with stars,
a Lite Brite board after the holes have been poked.
Each star is reflected upon the crest of the silent waves,
each light point becomes a memory
when we look back in the mirror
of our summer and see ourselves -
Young, old, tan, rested, aching from hauling wood and furniture
and kayaking through coves, catching the same stinky fish twice,
suspended in the water by jackets, buoyed by life.

The next morning, the ladder is lifted from the lake,
jelly-like eggs still cling to the rungs
waiting to be hatched in order to be caught.
The last campfire is resurrected,
sturdy cherry logs stubbornly will not burn away.
Brief flames consume stale marshmallows
that slipped off sticks the night before.
Then, in the smoldering,
a distant memory drifts across the ghost in the graveyard field –
summer taking its last breath.

09-2009

2009-09-02 Pear-related Questions

As Leigh and I walked on the Loveland Bike trail, we were discussing why it was we remembered certain trips more vividly than others. As if the details were engraved on our hearts. I explained that I thought I could recall my Italy trips with precision because it was a soul connection I made there, vs. a trip to Phoenix, or even California.

In the midst of this explanation, I inserted, “Mark is painting a large pot for our patio with a scene from the Amalfi Coast in Italy.”

“Wait, Mark is an artist?” She asked, confused. “Like he didn’t just go to Lowe’s and buy paint? You mean, he is really painting a picture on the pot?”

“Oh yeah,” I exclaimed. “I should have shown you his work when you came to my house the other day. Half our walls are filled with his paintings. As a matter of fact, long before I met Mark, my neighbor Michelle remarked to me that the perfect man for me was someone who equally liked sports and arts. And, well, she was right!”

“OK, so I am learning something new today about Mark.”

“Well, the funniest story about our first breakfast involves his art. I wrote about it…”

“Wait, don’t tell me!” Leigh liked to be surprised, “Send me the writing.”

I went home and searched through all my Word files and could only come up with two instances in which I wrote about my meetup with Mark, neither of them did justice to the event. So, I rewrote history.

It was a November day. Mark and I were meeting at Skip’s bagels for breakfast before Mark headed into work. He was on first call that day, which breakfast really meant an early lunch prior to an 18 hour shift. Though I can recall what he wore for our first lunch, I cannot recall what he wore that day. Neither can I recall what I ate, or what we discussed. Talk about not remembering!

As we made our way to the parking lot, he mentioned something about taking art classes. Greg Storer owned a studio and held classes in what was called the Powder Factory, one of the old ammunitions plants in the Kings Mill area. Mark would occasionally attend, as art was calling him to respond to his wife’s recent passing from lung cancer.

I asked him, “Do you have any work on you?”

As clouds were gathering, he confidently showed me the way to his car, where he pulled out a charcoal drawing of a still life. I detected a full shape of an roundish object set atop a table, with a lamp in the background and a pen by the side, but it really wasn’t clear to me what that shape stood for.

I had an artistic eye. I had plenty of photographs of a sunset on the Oregon Coast to prove it. But perhaps what I lacked was imagination or the ability to improvise upon a scene that did not make sense to me. What else would sit beside a table lamp, other than books or games? I went through a litany of objects that graced my own end table tops around the house and came up empty.

So, I decided to just ask.

“Is that a pear?” I said, pointing to the unknown object.

I know Mark was hurt. I could see it in his eyes, bright blue without any reflection off the sky. But, in seconds, we broke into simultaneous smiles proceeded by guttural laughter.

Four years later, he and I were married.

The topic of my being Mark’s muse, or not, arose again, this past week, when Mark was painting the pot. He was quick with his brush strokes, and as a writer, I understand that inspiration hit and you went for it. But inspiration still required editing and I felt the same about art. Someone had to ask the pear question.

When Mark called me outside, I surveyed his work, quickly and decisively noting the cerulean blue sky and blue water, with rows of homes in the middle, could use a little pop. The sky and water appeared flat, as if there were no movement. I had been on that water, I had floated beneath that sky, and it certainly was not motionless.

Mark rolled his eyes. He knew I was been right and in the end, he created a better product. But I doubt he would ever refer to me as his muse, and would prefer that I be rendered mute instead!

Hold You

Here I am at 7 a.m., holding the dog’s tattered blue leash,

hoping he will unload last night’s business in the same spot

before the neighbor’s goldens see the puppy out early

and begin their chorus of discordant barks.

I am holding the calendar for this year and next,

one full of commitments I am loathe to make for fear I am missing

my big chance at life outside the paved sidewalks of my home.

Here again, while my mother’s memory slowly erodes,

I am holding the memory of her canning tomatoes late summer

while she would curse my father for having planted so many.

Here, I am holding my breath for a 737 to depart,

first on Sunday for my son’s trip to Florida, and again on Friday,

during thunderstorms, while his plane attempts to land.

With my loving spouse,

we hold each other every morning

before the day is washed away in the tidal wave of work.

Even my purse is not averse to this task, taking on

recipes torn from waiting room magazines,

maps of Chicago, and the last swath of Tahini pink lipstick.

And while sometimes I tire from this, I go on holding,

as if by some miracle, the state of the world or health of my family

depends on the flavor of chewing gum at the bottom of my bag.

Cole

Blogs seem so inconsequential in the real world, when young boys, doing as we would wish them to do, like play ball, or roll around in the dirt, get hurt in the process.

My neighbor Cole, a little boy who was like a second son to me, and a brother to my son, Davis, was hit a week ago in the head with a ball. Doing what he loved to do - Play ball. Cole grew up in my backyard, making his way through a path we carved out when he was four and my son two. We had no idea that years later, they would walk home from the bus on that path, that others would use it to check in on me, that the deer would trample through, that it would hold so many memories.

Though many tributes are already surfacing for Cole, I can think of nothing better than to share a piece of writing in my blogsphere from the night of vigil for Cole...

To Cole

A Prayer for My Backyard Boy

You are the little boy who made nose and hand prints
on your mother’s back door,
reporting the status of our dinner - hot, cold, pasta or pork -
while through our sliding door, my son reported on yours.

You are the reason we cut a swath through cottonwood trees,
the prickly holly bushes and native vibernum,
so that you two could run freely to our home and back.

You are the freckles and smile that greeted my little boy,
mornings on the path, evenings for slip and slide,
and a few water balloon launchers and snowballs at our back door.
You stomped through the creek, picked up turtles
and loved the life that God placed in your care.

You took the hand of my little boy as a younger version of you –
though you already had two -
and loved him when he needed a place to belong.

Together, you ate pizzelles, cookies whose name you could never say,
made mud pies and built forts with branch clippings and duck tape
that caused us to curse,
though today, we would resurrect every last inch.

And now we await your movement again,
You speak but only in the actions of a simple peace sign,
a thumbs up, agitation through the night.

Though you are the one we pray for,
it is us that needs the prayers.
So tonight, we pray

while the bullfrogs bellow out into the late spring night,
and ambient light wafts over the fields,
dissolving into the glare of the news van spots.

And somewhere in the distance, neighborhoods away
where they have not yet heard of your tragedy,
children shriek and dogs bark, as it should be.
And we sing, Heal me Jesus, but this is not singing,
we are praying with our souls.

We cry because we forget
God does not weep for those whom he has chosen
to teach us lessons that surpass our grasp.

You are still that little boy who steers his bike
through the backyard, over the cedar bark path,
to your dinner table or ours -
where a plate of pizzelles awaits your return home.

AJW

5-21-2009

Selling Ourselves

Look busy Father and Uncle would crow
to employees
toiling in the shadows
of 26^th and Broadway
beneath the banner of Januzzi’s Shoes.

Together they paced the aisles
before Father returned
to the back office space
to pore over “the books.”

We would be dispatched to our stations -
Brother to the store room to unpack
the cartons delivered by the man in brown.
It would have been like Christmas,
if Brother had been me,
caressing each style
before pricing and stocking.

Sister would slowly wind her way
towards the counter
to stand stoic
beside the rigid cash register queen
who scolded her when wrinkled ones and fives
were turned opposite of tens and twenties.

Grandpa, founder and mender,
would retire to his repair stand
where the musk of newly-shaped leather
mingled with the scent of cobbler’s glue.

Customer names were recorded on cards
kept in a metal cabinet.
Filing the recently pulled or
pulling the filed always fell to me.
I would make it a game
see how fast I could order the stack
or search for the cards
of boys with whom I was madly in love,
later to be stung by their betrayal
of wearing of new loafers
bought elsewhere.

Tension lingered in the air
on the days of sales
causing the aisles of shoes to quake -
the children’s section leaning into men’s boots,
rows of nursing whites
holding back women’s heels,
and ice skates teetering on the top
shelves above my head.

Retail was never easy
even before big box stores
swallowed up ideas and families.

But the business had been blessed
by the presence of the mill, the hospital,
and those who needed orthopedic shoes.
As if the store was a ministry itself -
serving and fitting -
and that purpose fed the family,
not the money collected
and carefully counted at day’s end.

Yet customers were never completely content
with the price, style or fit.
Ladies prattled
and squirmed in green vinyl chairs
squeezing bones into shoes too small,
waiting for us to admire their toes
in the slanted mirrors.
We could never lie to them,
we could never tell the truth.

We only knew that the odor of unwashed feet
would cause us
to seek out Grandpa’s shoe glue
or steal away to the store room,
relieved for a moment
from the duty and pride
of selling the shoes, the business, our selves.

Testing blog updates from my

Testing blog updates from my mobile.

Annette J. Wick

awick@cinci.rr.com

What’s in a Name?

My mother was careful about the names she chose for her children,
never wanting to bestow one that others might
abbreviate, mutilate or annihilate altogether.

“Annette Marie”, my mother called,
when I ran afoul of normal.
“Peanut”, my father endowed me with,
despite Mom’s pleas for no pet names.
I was tinier than my siblings at that same age,
or perhaps it was the time gap, when I remained the youngest
for over three years.

Then came “Shorty”, because I never grew.
Followed by “Red”,
as in crimson, my face flushed with
embarrassment in seventh grade Spanish class or algebra.

When my older sister and brother were nicknamed “Shoes” and “Big Shoes”
after my father’s shoe store, I became “Little Shoes.”
And Jeff Thomas took to calling me “Slippers.”
So I had visions of my pink fuzzy ones at home,
that always accumulated dirt, though I wore them inside only.
Jacuzzi replaced my real last name of Januzzi
Followed by “Shoesies from Januzzi’s”
which really had nothing to do with me
only the jingle on the local AM station.

Soon, after creating a superhero story in Mrs. Garfield’s ninth grade,
I did it to myself. I sealed my own fate by penning a story about“Netti Spaghetti and the Meatball Kid.”
Thankfully, only the “Netti” and “Spaghetti” parts lived on.

Having survived those barrages of nonsense,
I answer to Mom, “Hello, Beautiful”, and a friend who
puts the emphasis on the first syllable and calls me “Ann – ette.”
But I no longer answer to Netti,

unless Aunt Lynne berates me for not writing
or Uncle Dennis calls.
To my father, I am now ‘Net Marie, as in “Yeah, ‘Net Marie, what’s going on?”
And my mother, she too shortened my name,
and says, when answering the phone,
“Oh hi, ‘Net. I was just going to call.”

Becoming Italian

You cannot just “be” Italian
even if you are born into la famiglia.
You start by teething on buttery pizzelles,
ingesting a bit of anisette
to soothe your tummy.

You begin to eat dittalini,
“small fingers” of pasta
drenched in sauce
from tomatoes drenched in the summer sun.
You pick them up with chubby hands
and imagine all Italians eating with gusto.

You savor the rind from a chunk of Grana Padano -
nutty, tangy cheese with a wretched stench
that drives your friends away
and all the better, there is more for you.

Your lover thinks of your body
as the Italian countryside
his fingers rolling through the richness
of rivers, valleys, vines.
And when you explode with emotions, it must be
because you cannot sit idle
while the world calls you dego, wop.
You are padre, amico, madre, que bella italiana.

To be Italian, you must feel the bows rocking
on the Madonna or Lafayette
as the ships cross the Atlantic,
inhale the smoke of hot iron
or the steam off the rising dough,
put in years of hard work
in the garden and kitchen,
like the Etruscans who fended off
those from foreign lands,
to keep pure the race of olive-skinned.

You slurp calamari with the same delight
that ‘mericanos slurp spaghetti
and know that someday
your two eye brows will become one,
not from hair,
but from the creases on your temple
where your determination
has met the world head on.

AJW

2/9/2009, rev. 2-19-2009

Journey of a Flower

What is this, the danger of growth?

The daffodil succumbs to that risk late summer,

falling below the musty mulch,

no longer in rhythm

with the events taking place above.

Waits through the wintry mix

for the warmth of the March sun

to begin poking its arms

through the shards of birchwood.

Then slowly,

rolls it golden saffron head around

neck stiffening slightly

in an effort to awaken.

Begins to lift up its chin and unfurl its face,

outstretch it arms.

The pendulum of progress

forces the full bloom of the flower.

Oh how dangerous

to be made noticeable for the singular act

of living, breathing, growing

out of the shadows of the dwarf cherry tree

or pink spirea bush with its fairy dust blooms,

each time discovering new strength

should the frost come to strip away

its sunny disposition

or feet tread upon it.

Its bulbs still multiply beneath,

Its soul still spreading the good word.

That is the nature of the daffodil,

it refuses to stay stagnant, below the ground forever.

Rilke once said, ‘Live everything.’

And the daffodil risks rising before the calendar says its time.

Check out these new blogs from Cincinnati Women

All Points Bulletin:

Missing: One young son, his brain and his hat. Last seen all intact Monday, getting off school bus profusely preaching the gospel of the weatherman and his teachers at school. Went to bed with pajamas on, but turned inside and backwards. Last heard flushing his toilet at midnight. Who wakes at midnight to flush their toilet unless they really have to pee? Only kids who want a snow day. Was found in bed in the morning, at 5:30 after being informed school was closed, was noted to be high-fiving his stuffed animal that he still sleeps with, though he probably doesn’t want anyone to know publicly, so if you can keep that out of the media, that would be appreciated.

Disappeared only hours later into the new fallen snow, having did his share of shoveling, retrieval of the sleds and then headed for parts unknown. Was believed to have had lunch at the neighbor’s house, as hot chocolate still formed a ring around a few mugs left in neighbor’s dishwasher and a squished marshmallow on the floor. Was last seen with brown moustache - from chocolate has not hit puberty yet. Was witnessed to have been flying and then colliding mid-air with other such young boys, after having built a ramp out of the corn hole game and sledding down a hill and across ramp. Was heard to have hurt himself and quite possibly left his favorite Oregon hat somewhere in the dregs of the snow plow’s path. Arrived later for dinner, to cook for parents, only watched his sisters do most of it while he turned on the TV and checked the computer simultaneously for any indication of snow falls that would increase chances of not returning for a second day. Was rewarded for this effort with second snow day.

Was called in an emergency relief effort to the neighbor boys house for a sleepover in an effort to offer relief to said boy’s mom who had been the host of her four boys and another round of four boys through the day’s white death. Returned home at 10 next morning with said boy in two, to retrieve more outdoor wear, as other outdoor wear not suitable for an entire day outside. Warning, it is not known when missing boy last had a shower. It is unknown as to whether or not he was wearing clean underwear despite his mother’s protest to the contrary.

Busied himself with his duties of shoveling with sisters then building igloo in case of need of emergency shelter for the homeless in the area or for his friends, it is unclear what his motives were at this point. Stayed in that same spot all day, with exception of retuning inside for lunch of peanut and jelly and said moustache now contained purple jelly and chocolate. Again, stayed out all day, returned for dinner, movie and another cancelled day off school. Felt need to be rescued from his family by calling in another of said friend, only said friend had to stay home so said friends father came to pick up missing boy, take to their home, where missing boy was said to have remained until 2 pm the following day. Missing boy answered neighbors phone three times when his mother called that number, only to turn down a chance to return home. Mother then appeared frightened that he had turned to runaway status or had forgotten everything he knows, including where he lives. Mother left him at neighbor’s house regardless.

Missing boy’s school cancelled for a fourth day. Boy’s mother now OK with his runaway status. If found, please return his hat and his brain, which by now should have grown considerably smaller. Do not, I repeat, return missing boy’s underwear, or boy himself without a shower.

Here is what I know on this snow day – 1/27/2009

1. Stanley’s Driving School is closed and their classes are cancelled. With two teenage drivers in the family, I believe Stanley to be a wise man,

2. The Open Door Food Pantry is closed - they should change their name.

3. At 5:27, my husband looked out the window and said, there’s really not that much snow out there. At 5:28, the school called to cancel classes for the day. At 6:30, the newspaperman had made it through the street and the plow had not. At 7:00, I began shoveling five inches of snow.

4. On the local TV station website, the number of cancellations were closing in on 500. I may need to adjust that figure later, when the Get Fit with Frannie class shows up scrolling across my screen. However I did just notice that Curves in Kentucky is closed and that will directly impact their state’s fitness goals.

5. Following the webcam mounted on the TV truck of the Fox News Channel is making me car sick, like I am on a roller coaster called “The Cut in the Hill”.

6. The Christ hospital, the one hospital that “stands about all the rest”, is canceling their afternoon outpatient clinic appointments. Their tai chi class is cancelled as well. If you have ever waited in the outpatient of a hospital, you know you can’t have one without the other.

7. The Clermont Recovery Center and the Office of Comprehensive Counseling are closed. They work to offer support for alcohol and drug abuse. I hope they’re open tomorrow, I’ll need it to recover from being at home with the kids today. Do you know how hard it is to get kids motivated to go shovel the driveway so that you can drive them to go sledding on a day when the buses couldn’t get moving and somehow you are supposed to.

8. The winter storm advisory has forced organizers to cancel a class on weather spotting where students are taught to observe and identify different types of clouds, dust whirls, rain shafts and tornado related conditions. Apparently, it does not apply to snow storms which is too bad because they would have hands on experience today!

9. My friend Carol is venturing out to feed the birds and calling that an accomplishment.

10. I laughed at yesterday’s headlines, “Expect Big Crowds in the Milk Aisle Before Nightfall” - words that created panic at the grocery store. Now, not laughing as that last jug of milk in the extra frig is past due. Perhaps a little sugar will help.

Diary of a Woods

1-15-2009

Here’s she comes. I can spot her a mile away, pulling her pink hat atop her fancy do, walking out of the house. The keypad for the garage door opener is not working again – she checks to be sure the key is still under the ceramic pot which once grew fiber optic grass hair.

She hurries past the neighbor’s homes, but I can still see her across the backstreets which she must trudge, out onto the main road, careful to avoid attention or falling into the sewer ruts.

Last week, she was here with her husband. They walk here occasionally though there is still a sign posted No hunting, fishing, shooting. Trespassers will be prosecuted. The sign hangs more as a reminder that once she did not walk here and merely as a suggestion for her days now.

But since the Fall, when the township took ownership of the land, she did too. She has been here, following its progress from overgrown brush to path of stones to paving. She wishes the paths will not be entirely paved and we do too. We that soar above are protection enough for even the weakest of souls, people do not need paths, they just need encouragement to create their own.

She feels she must still sneak in here, but she should not fear. We want her here to document the fall of a landowner and the rise of the woods, if only for her. Today, she stumbles in, fearful that the trucks across the street are on to her. Perhaps she should quit wearing that neon pink ski coat which she cherishes for its warmth.

She is agitated, for no reason. The wind chill is at zero and the snow is softly falling, like gratitude, for finally the sky is releasing its pent up moisture from the clouds and rewarding us with something to cover the paths, so one can make new paths from here. Trucks across the street are idling noisily creating a white noise with which the snow cannot compete.

The deer have already been by, so has the dog from the neighbor’s home. The dog once chased away by her husband, who now insists on carrying a stick when they steal away into these our woods.

She is now past the barricade, which had been moved aside weeks ago. Again, she was grateful that the little signs forgave her for her trespasses, even if the law would not. She busies herself thinking of these sins, looking down at deer hoofs, rabbit prints and is jostled back to the interior by sound of branch cracking. She looks up in time to see an incredible winged creature. She calls this stranger Mystery. This is twice now the creature has appeared to her, she only glimpses it from the back, as the bird flies away. Is it the owl she hears in the morning when at the bus stop. Is it the falcon that made its appearance one day in the tree of the Foxes – the neighbor’s real name?

She shudders and snaps her fingers in a darn like fashion, the trucks idling is still like a roar in her ears, she wanted the quiet, but even her clothes –bundled like ralphie’s brother in a Christmas story – preclude her from enjoying the peace – what will it take one wonders.

Swish, swish from her ski pants overrides the red cardinal’s call until she is directly upon it. She stops, to find it in the collage of brush and leaves and logs, modge-podged together by the fallen snow. The bird is startled, stops its tweaking and twitching and flies off in the direction of another object moving away from her – the white-tailed deer. Had she not stopped to hear the bird, she never would have seen the deer. Such lessons she is learning today, for it feels like she is pushing through life now, not really enjoying it, hardly breathing. One wonders if that is why she is here.

She is coming upon the creek. Unable to wait til Spring, when the rains rush down this ravine here and the swish of water overrides all that is on her mind today. It is the ski trip, the prepartoin for, and the unwillingness to be away right now, right when her life fells on the verge.

But perhaps everyone with the state of affairs in the world, the Israel- Palestinian wars, the historicu inauguration, the economy, everyone is on the verge - suffering from an unknown grief. And she always came to the woods to grieve what was lost and find what was left – the black walnuts. Oh she hopes there are not hoarders that will come by and pick these up – that they will be left to sustain that for whom reaches them first.

Her first step at the creek is on ice, not as it was last Sunday, when she and the He were there. In a playful act, she stepped first, balancing on log with barely a branch to support it. Her foot slipped off and into the water, that day the weather stood in the 20s, but with her wool socks, she persevered through three more miles. Today hope is written on her face that she can cross without breaking through the ice. Alas, she is surprised that she must weigh more than she thought, for the ice breaks through, but alas she is also surprised that her boots stand in 3 inches of water without taking on an ounce.

Safely across, a set of man’s footprints appear and soon join in with tire tracks from a truck. Her pulse quickens despite the plummeting temperature outside. This is just what she always imagined, being found here, alone with no protection other than her phone. She quickly reaches inside her pocket to ensure its presence.

Luckily, the tracks stop near a path entrance from another neighborhood. Workers trespass here more than she can imagine, though they are the ones allowed, according to the law. She sees the orange twp cone in the middle of the sticks of trees. She notes the ancient water heater, set aside from possilbly the meade owners, how historical can their home be if the well behind no longer works and at least one water heater has been tossed aside. Plenty of intruders have come and gone before her.

She reaches the stream again, crossing it from the other leg of the “U” in the path. She can still hear the diggers – she says that word in her mind, yes, diggers, that is what the little boy always called them. He would spot a construction truck driving down their street and say, “wow, would you look at that big digger mommy.” And mommy would exclaim with delight.

As her neighbor, we recall those days of looking over our shoulders, when the construction was finishing off on her street. The trucks roared, interrupted our peace, came in two by two, like the animals in noah’s ark. And on one bright and sunny day, she and the boy had a picnic outside, on their driveway, so he could exclaim, would you look at those big diggers. This is what she is thinking now. How those days have slipped past. And how sad and lonely she must be without that child at her side, always at her side, in the woods, across the creek, in the backyard and she at his side at bedtime.

Maybe she has been running away from his growing up. Keeping him small with her hugs. Maybe his grandparents frustrate her in not spending more time with him, because she sees such goodness in this child, who comes home from school and says, everything was great, but doesn’t have a reason why, why would you not want to spend time with him. He is not special, but perhaps she sees more than most see in their children. Because they have had to look each other in the eye, in the same she will someday come face to face with this mysterious creature in our woods and they will meet, and then he will fly away.

The rest of the walk, she tramples grass not yet grown, nor able to, to avoid the gaze of anyone who still might be out there, creating parking spaces and restrooms. And while this appears to meet the original covenant with the owners and township that this land would always be used for park space, now there will be a flower show and a log cabin placed here that does not belong. So much out of place in this family of things, that her neck goes limp, head falls down in recognition that she may soon have to share these woods.