Tag: Jessica Jacobs

Poetry Friday – Our Wabi-Sabi Home

Denise Krebs9 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday and Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect is hosting today with an interesting poetry form and some valuable wabi-sabi questions. 

At the June Guest Poet presentation for the Stafford Challenge, I heard Jessica Jacobs read her poem “Primer.”

PRIMER

A Florida child knows the safest part
of a lake is the middle. That gators
and moccasins shade in the lilies, hunker
at the shoreline in the muck right past
the trucked-in sand. Knows a baby snake
means a mother’s nearby, angry.
That to kill her, you must bring a shovel
down just behind her skull—leave
too much tail and the headed half will
keep coming at you. To run zigzag if a gator…

Thank you, Poetry Sisters, for the invitation to join you in this month’s wabi-sabi poetry writing. Jessica’s form loosely inspired my wabi-sabi poem today. As I learned about wabi-sabi, it kept reminding me of the place I call home, a home we have gradually and frugally made into a place we love (in no small part, thanks to my talented sister who lives next door).

Wabi-Sabi

Our home knows the hands of the Martin brothers who skillfully built her seventy years ago. Knows the power of quiet living, even when the wind is so strong she thinks she’ll blow away. Knows the heavy work of being moved from her first foundation a hundred yards across the desert. Knows how it feels to grow to the north, west, and south with room additions to make her a home. Knows the most-of-the-year-snow-capped San Gorgonio will be there long after she’s gone. Knows the 40-year-old tiled living room floor is as sturdy as it needs to be. Knows the cottontails, the jackrabbits, and the coyotes of home. Knows each of the hundreds of generations of quail that have skittered and scattered, communicated, and raised ever more babies around her place. Knows, inside and out, the wooden cabinets that the brothers built. Knows how we lovingly extended the kitchen by building more cabinets from the wood the brothers left in the shed.

Knows imperfection.
Knows impermanence.
Knows incompleteness.

Our home has new tile floors in the kitchen and bathrooms puzzled together with tiles respectfully gathered from here and there. Has sweet basil hanging in the front, enough for us and the occasional critters who nibble it. Has yard sale treasures to make her comfortable. Has a counter made from a dying Jeffrey pine tree, with bark beetle history prominently displayed through its lifelines, now suspended in time. Has a bar that serves up smiling sunshine from the skylight overhead, bandage on an archaic evaporative cooler wound. Has chipping paint, cracks, and weathered boards. Our home has had poems written in her honor.

Our home has imperfection.
Our home has impermanence.
Our home has incompleteness.

And in honor of the value of wabi-sabi in relationships, please listen to / read Alice Walker’s “I Will Keep Broken Things.”

Poetry Friday – Clunker Exchange Poem “Unchained”

Denise Krebs14 Comments

It’s Poetry Friday, and Patricia at Reverie is hosting. She has a sweet poem about one of the sugar pine seedlings she planted in the forest. Thank you, Patricia, for your lovely invitation to new and old Poetry Friday people.  

Here is my clunker poem, thanks to Linda. As soon as I saw her list of clunkers, this line jumped out at me: “only sure of light pushing her brush.” I thought of this painting my mom made when I was in college. It has always held mysteries and some answers for me about my mom and dad’s relationship. She did tell me the dark square represented my dad’s death. (He died when I was seven.)

Unchained

She was unsure
before her partner
of the double chain broke
She didn’t put the darkness
into many words
only into paint
only into life and love
only sure of light pushing her brush
ever upwards

And here’s a golden shovel with the favorite part of Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day” poem I shared on Jone’s blog last week:

I am here today and I
don’t know when I will go.
Know this: I am
exactly in the time and place of
what is graced in
a full and favorable life. A
prayer is what I give, a prayer
is an upward awe-gaze.
I am here today to rest and
do nothing better than to
know, really know, God is
how I have peace
to live the days left, to
pay homage in rapt
attention.

Sibling poems, one line, more or less (continued).

The Poetry Marathon is coming up! Write a poem an hour for 12 or 24 hours. It starts Saturday morning, June 15. Sign up here.

Finally, have you heard of Jessica Jacobs and Peter Metres? They each published a book of poetry with almost the same cover. When they learned of the other’s book cover, they started a conversation and realized they and their books had a lot more in common than just their covers. I’ve ordered both of their books after reading and watching their conversations.