Make Right the Time (Danny Schmidt)

SONG: Make Right the Time by Danny Schmidt

BOOK: Poetic Logic: The Role of Metaphor in Thought, Language, and Culture by Marcel Danesi

POEM: The Hour by Michael Lind

Maybe the moment recurs daily at six, when commuters,

freed from the staring computers,

elbow and bump in unsought intimacy on a station

platform with you, and frustration

rots what is left of your strength. Maybe the hour comes after

dinner, when televised laughter

seeps from a neighboring room; maybe the time is the dead of

night, when you ponder, instead of

dreaming. Whatever the time, you will escape it—by sinking

down with a book, or by drinking

secretly out in the dark studio, or by unbuckling

pants on a stranger, or chuckling,

one with a mob, in a deep theater. Soon, though, the hour

comes to corrode all your power,

pleasure and faith with the damp dread that it daily assigns you.

How you evade it defines you.

QUOTE: "When I am asked by young poets what advice I have to offer them about the conduct of their lives, I am inclined to warn them about the dangers of hothouse anemia. “Do something else, ” I tell them, “develop any other skill to turn to any other branch of knowledge. Learn how to use your hands. Try woodworking, birdwatching, gardening, sailing, weaving, pottery, archaeology, oceanography, spelunking, animal husbandry — take your pick. Whatever activity you engage in, as a trade or hobby or field study, will tone up your body and clear your head. At the very least it will help you with your metaphors.” ~ Stanley Kunitz

Where the Seeds Are Found (Karen Mal)

So much emotion swirling right now, coupled with lack of sleep - I had promised M I would find something for her, buried in a stack of paperwork... and I stayed up until 5:30 a.m., reading through the entire file, even after I had found what I was looking for...

Long story short is that, 10 years ago, four women (one of whom was the hub connecting us all) engaged in an intense e-mail correspondence (amidst our real-life relationships) we termed our Village, meeting up around the "well" of the computer to share stories, support and sustenance. From March through September 1997, we each wrote (almost) daily, baring our souls... on pregnancy, motherhood, husbands/exes/boyfriends, books, music, food, fears, joys, transitions, rituals, spirituality, etc. - the sisterhood chronicles illustrated our abilities to be incredibly strong, as well as amazingly wise and riotously funny... and we always "threatened" to turn it into a book, changing the names to protect the innocent (guilty?... :-)

At one point, as a gift to all, I made copies of everything and, perusing the pages last night/this morning took me right back to that time, synchronistically a decade ago - it was exhiliarating, it was exhausting, it was fruitful, it was frustrating, we raised each other to new heights, we crashed and burned. Since then, the friendships have ebbed, flowed, lain dormant, re-bloomed... and reading the unfolding history made my heart ache - as Joni would say, "we can't return, we can only look behind from where we came". I *know* the growth, power and love gained in those seven months is immeasurable - I can't help but feel a twinge of sorrow at what is not, and will never be, again. We are different women now, and that's okay - it was a glorious time, and I am honored to include it in my life's resume of experience... <3

SONG: Where the Seeds Are Found by Karen Mal

BOOK: Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

POEM: The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road

precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

QUOTE: "And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom." ~ Anais Nin