Intimations on Biscuits

Heritage is more likely known through simple things:

flour, buttermilk, and shortening

The implements employed here are the family’s treasures:

grandmother’s pan,

great-grandmother’s sifter,

great-great-grandmother’s technique.

The patience to get them just right, however, has to come

from some place deep inside the maker.

A dowry of sorts, as the man says with a smile,

“I married her because I loved her and she made the best biscuits.”

When she sinks her hands into the mixture -

cool liquid meets with the fine dry flour -

she is aware of a thread tightening around her and binding her.

This is what we have always done.

It is a way to reckon with failure.

They won’t be perfect the first few times…

brown on the bottoms,

lumpy inside,

failure to rise.

But there will be plenty of strawberry jam and Sourwood honey

on the table to ease the process.

c. 2011 hcs

I’m going to put together a resume and cover letter; I’ll send it to team owners across the country. Since the NBA season is about to kick off,  I’ll start my career with a team in that league.

This all came about last night as I listened to interview clips from several prominent NBA players. I was relaxing after teaching college English classes for over eight hours, and I think I was extremely sensitive to the players’ verbal mistakes.

So I thought, I should be the Team Grammarian. We’ll start out with intensive sessions at the beginning of the season to prepare players for early season interviews. It will go something like this:

Coach: “Okay, Johnny, after strength training, you’re doing a one-on-one subject verb agreement with the Grammar Coach.”

And

Me (conducting a mock interview): “Tell me what you hope for this season, Ben.”

Ben: “I hope to win a championship for my team and myself, oh I mean my team and me.”

Me: “High five and a gold star! You’re making improvements!”

As the season progresses, we’ll work on grammar issues that may occur in the locker room or on the court. We’ll cover sophisticated ways to deal with disappointment or disgust with another player or referee.

Once the team reaches the play-offs, we’ll talk about concise speech and using more exact words to convey the team’s goals for the games. We’ll eliminate phrases like “I’m playing within myself” and “at the end of the day” and work towards showing excitement and passion for the game with stronger verbs and phrases.

The team I work for will become grammar champions. They will be respected on and off the court; they will be ambassadors for correct speech all over the world.

I’d better get to work on that cover letter…

But I will never forget the 9th Ward. When I see the anniversary footage on CNN, I think, “I have been there”. And it’s not that same “I have been there” that I say when I see a picture of Niagara Falls or the Biltmore Estate. When you actually see those houses with spray paint on the door, it is chilling. It’s not a movie set or a tourist attraction; it is the daily being of this neighborhood. I saw houses with spray paint from inspectors and then a reply from the owners, a kind of conversation on the front of a building. “Do not demolition. We are coming back.” In some ways, it is a haunted place…not the kind of French Quarter spirit, though. Even for an outsider like me, the memories, the longings, the desire are apparent. I tried not to force my expectations on my experience; instead, I stood still in the Place several times while I was there and let the Place explain itself.

I confess that when Katrina hit five years ago, I didn’t give it as much attention as I should. I had a four month old baby and a few challenges of my own. But being there this year, I felt a need to know and understand as best as I can.

There are and will continue to be enough news reports and opinion pieces on the situation in New Orleans. The situation is used as a political blame game, and I don’t want to get into that. There are stories of hope; there are children like the ones I met who are being taught to desire for and bring about change. But just to know the place, to see it beyond photos online makes this day, for me, one of remembrance.

Like a filter. Like a safety net. Like an addiction. Like a good thing that won’t leave me alone. Like listening to “Recollections” from Davis’s Big Fun during a thunderstorm.

This blog won’t be a public space for poetry, for now. That was an interesting experiment. I learned that sometimes I wrote just to get response…any kind of response. I put poems together in hopes of comments, of traffic on the blog. That is not a good reason to write poetry, or anything else that matters. There are already lots of folks out there writing just to be popular; I’ll let them do that. So if you want to read my newer poetry, you’ll have to wait for the journals, or the chapbook.

There’s definitely a lot to write about. I still have lots of ideas buzzing in my brain. I’m still hoping to show more Love to the world. I am still mad about a lot of stuff I see and hear. So there is more writing that needs to be done.

More to come. But not just so you’ll look at me, I hope.

My understanding of your love feels like this.
I know it is there.
I tilt my heart to try to see it clearly but
I’m looking through an old story that needs a washing.

*******

I stand in the driveway and look up at the moon. I wonder, if 40 years ago, my mother did the same,
marveling at the newness of men walking on the moon.

Did she feel like the universe was becoming more clear
or did it just make things feel more infinite
for the girl about to begin her senior year of high school?
Did she understand political ramifications of the mission?
Did she take time to wonder or was she
sewing a dress for school
on a date with my dad
reading Jane Eyre?

******

At four years old, he has learned shapes by looking at the moon.
He knows crescent, semi-circle, and circle from
evenings in the driveway
looking up.
To make sure he sees, I ask “What shape is the moon tonight?”
Does he marvel that what we see changes?
Is he so innocent that it doesn’t matter?

Never mind that.
What happened for those of us lucky to see
 who had turned off the tv
                                        the phone
                                        the World
The Moment was there and so were We.

Not because of a chord
     or a drum solo
     or what you were wearing
It was in how you caught the groove:
 the bassist leaning forward and back
  the drummer nodding his head
 the lead guitarist looking at his bandmates instead of his shoes.
  the conversation was between the instruments
          and was in the subtext

The Moment was not in a tongue of fire from above
not a lightbulb in a dark rorom
but a Breath, a deep, lung-filling and exhale slowly Breath.

When I see art being made –
a spark of what the Father must know –
it is a glimpse of Eternity and I am blessed.

c. hcs 6 May 2009

Toxic city
you Unreal place
I’m breaking camp
from your limits

too long I have stayed.

My skin is a dull yellow from your fumes
the low sound of your deceitful hum
   bothers my rest

I’m pulling up stakes
taking only what I can hold in my hand.

Do You need an image?
Picture me getting up from the ground
brushing off your footprints –
   the footprints of these many years
                   the mud
                   the old gum
                   the squished bugs
     from the soles of your shoes
See my face fresh
You don’t know my name anymore.

And I’m setting myself free
Okay, yes, for the fifth time
but this time will stick…
it just has to.

c. hcs 4 May 2009

There’s no connection here
except maybe the way a mind goes
in circles.

For these many days now,
I’ve been thinking about the art of words…
today, juxtaposed with the meta-informative world
like a quilt
“See, these are my shared stories
of all the feeds I subscribe to. So
you could get a feed of my subscribed feeds
 and so on and so on.”

How much is too much?
Who has time for it all?

I choose Frost’s apple picking.
I choose Whitman leaving the lecture hall of the astronomer.

“This much madness is too much sorrow”
and the madness floats down like locust seeds
and stays
waiting for a shower of verse
something that is free
and the circle continues…

(c. hcs 28 April 2009)

On the driveway
you danced.

One foot on the ground
the other kicked high
both arms above your head
much like the dogwoods in the wind

“It’s spring! It’s beautiful spring,” you sang
spinning, arms stretched out and then back above
your head.

You jumped
    twirled
    jumped
“It’s so beautiful. I love spring!”

And I stood by and watched
not feeling worthy to interrupt your Moment
but rather allowing myself to see a glimpse of Eternity
before my eyes

You are beautiful, little soul.
Thank you for teaching me.

(c. hcs 22 April 2009)