Face to face with a fox

I wrote about my face-to-face encounter with a fox in my suburban back yard for the first time several years back in a writers' group that met in my home.

It was just a few days after I heard one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, speak at Clowes Hall through the Butler University Visiting Writers Series. Oliver often writes about nature, and hearing her inspired me to try to write about my fox.

Since then, I've written about this encounter on several different occasions, always trying to "get it right" and figure out what he meant for me, in much the same way the poet Lucille Clifton did in her poems about fox sightings. Her fox was female; I felt sure mine was male. Don't ask me why, but at the time I felt as if he came for me, to show me something, though I didn't know what. He was beautiful enough to write about in and of himself without making him into a metaphor, but I never gave up on the idea to do so.

I hadn't thought about that fox in a while but woke up today with the thought that he meant grief. I laid in bed awake for a half-hour while this new version spun itself inside my head before I decided to get up earlier than I'd wanted to and write it down. The poem seemed to want little punctuation, so I tried to construct it in the manner of W. S. Merwin, whose perfected lines make punctuation superfluous in showing the reader how the poem should be read.

Anyway, here's what I came up with...

The Fox

who bounds toward me so silently
across the intersections of
sleepy suburban backyards that

the down on the back of my neck pricks me and
whispy arm hairs snap to rigid attention as if to shout
turn your head and I do

who skids to a halt where grass meets gravel garden path
where my body waits in shoshin and locks eyes
with something dark and wild and other

is so like grief

smaller than I thought he would be and
he seems to cede me the shortcut 

with his careful circle of the garden perimeter

then stops across the street
and waits
and watches while

this fresh prey who
doesn’t know she’s caught in his
makeshift snare

presses hands over heart

as if to capture the gift of
its pounding

My experience this morning also called to mind a poem by Ted Hughes entitled The Thought-Fox, assigned reading in a long-ago graduate class. The professor contended that Hughes' "thought-fox" was just as real as a flesh-and-blood fox, and that in writing about it Hughes gave it a distinct life. That's what I wanted to do with my fox. Hughes got the idea for his poem from a dream. (Listen to him discuss the dream and read his poem here.)

I think I've come close this time to conveying what my fox meant, though I have a ways to go before I can give Hughes, Merwin, Clifton or Oliver a run for their poetic money.

Jot down a few of your own "up close and personal" encounters with nature and/or wildlife. Go ahead and write about them, whether or not you think you already know their "inside" meanings. But pull the experience out of your writer's bag of tricks again and again and see if time gifts you with new insight.

Enter the world of the surreal

Photographer Diane Arbus focused on traditionally marginal or disenfranchised populations--circus performers, nudists, the transgendered, the mentally retarded, dwarfs, giants--people whose everyday normality might be regarded by some as ugly or surreal. 

A print of Diane Arbus' Tattooed Man at a 
Carnival, Maryland 1970, sold for $50,400.

She always shot in black and white and generally composed her photos square in shape. She believed the camera could be "a little bit harsh, a little bit cold," but its scrutiny revealed facts: the difference between what people want others to see and what they really see. 

Consequently, her photos make excellent prompts for writing exercises. Techniques I've suggested in other blog posts about photos work here as well: Begin with what's in the photo itself, then write toward what's "beyond the frame." Plug her name into any search engine and come up with enough surreal photo prompts to keep you going for the rest of the year, or buy one of the books listed at the end of this post.

Writers at my March 9 group selected an Arbus photo to write about from a display on my kitchen table. The photo I chose is pictured here, and the poem I wrote that day appears below.

The resulting poem, story or essay should still "work" for the reader without the photo that inspired it. Does my poem pass that test? Here is a link to another poem I wrote based on two Arbus photos.

Tattooed Man

I carry with me this man

written on, drawn on by

all the world (you carry him too),

whose balding head sports

the smoking skull

of shame.

Eagles and bats, fists and stars,

tridents and roses, nets and thistles—

he gives his whole body over to

the needle and ink of

rapprochement.

So many colors of pens, so many

designs signed by those who

haven’t understood us.

Sometimes this those is

ourselves.

His eyes lock onto the road ahead and

never blink. He takes on what

others throw and makes

a master work only he can see—

always changing,

always changed. 

 

See beyond the photo's borders

PROMPT: Choose a photo from your personal collection that you have a strong emotional reaction or attachment to. Write first about what's IN the picture, then about what's beyond its borders, that only you see and know, then move back to the photo for some new insight into its contents.

I used this prompt in the Jan. 19 meeting of my Saturday writing group. First, we read The Invention of Dragons by the late Sandford (Sandy) Lyne and noted how this wonderful writer and teacher of children did the very same thing. Click on the poem title so you can read it too and on the poet's name for more information about him.

The poem I wrote while my group was writing is posted below. The inspiration for it is the photo at right. I waited a month to post this because today is my mother's birthday. If she were alive, she'd be 86. I still miss you, mom, will always love you and know now how much you loved me.

What I especially like about Lyne's poem is that we don't have the actual photograph that inspired the poem, but we can still "see" it. Does my poem stand up to that scrutiny? Does yours?

Susan 2 mo.

Wilma, 29 years,
holds her baby girl up to the glass.

Wilma smiles broadly.
Susan squints and looks down.

The glare hurts her eyes.
It’s the first day of school for her

two big brothers. They wave

bye and board the bus but are

invisible from this angle.
The world outside is

reflected in the storm door
that stands between them.

Wilma and Susan have clouds
for hair, and a hill in the distance

furrows their brows. They have
a whole future together ahead of them

to ruin, to rise to, to remember, someday.
This daughter will disappoint her mother.

This mother will fail her daughter but
not in all ways. The end will

bring them together again. It’s all
right there—

reflected in the glass
that stood between them

a whole world.

My Dad: No Major Goof-up

Gunner Jack Clark
in the turret of his half-track
 "Any Gum Chum?"

My dad--Jack Meredith Clark Sr.--turns 91 today. In his honor, I wanted to call attention to the story of his experiences in WWII and the role played by his unit, the 474th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons battalions. This group of men landed at Utah Beach in the first wave of D-Day, marched through France to Belgium and Germany, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and, eventually, served in the Army of Occupation before being discharged and returned home.

I began work on this story with dad back in 1994, the 50th anniversary of D-Day. I remembered from my childhood dad joking about his life in the Army, but as more specials came on TV to honor the anniversary of the event, he began talking about it again, but in a more factual AND emotional way. I decided to take notes.

This led to writing a letter to the one Army buddy dad had kept in contact with, Ray Bilicki. Ray has since passed on, but before he did his legacy to me was a treasure trove: a commemorative troop movement map of the 7th Corps, of which dad's unit was a part, and a privately published book about the unit, The Maverick Outfit by Frank Spaletti. I also dug out all dad's old photos from this time.

The book gave me a guideline for formally interviewing my dad about this monumental time in his life and in world history. We also went through the photos, and he told me all he could remember about who was in them and where they were taken. Then I put all the pieces together into three-ring binders for each member of our immediate family.

Through the years cousins, aunts, uncles and acquaintances have asked for copies. And five great-grandchildren have joined dad's list of offspring since then and may someday have questions. So in May 2012 I converted the book to a website, No Major Goof-up. Follow the link to read where the name came from. It will give you a chuckle over dad's sense of humor and Susan's naivete.

I've also added a permanent link to dad's blog in the sidebar of this blog, just below a listing of my other posts. I hope you'll take time to check it out. Everyone who reads it tells me it's a compelling story. And if you've ever wanted to write family history of any sort, it may give you some ideas. I put it together on Google Blogger, which is free and has a wide range of design templates available. I have a background in publication layout, so I modified a basic template to get the look I wanted.

This year dad will spend his birthday in rehab, following a hospitalization for pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He navigates life from a power-chair and needs to regain some strength for everyday tasks so he can return to his assisted living apartment. Though his days now consist more of Bingo, physical therapy, stamp collecting and emergency rooms, he always has a clever comeback for anything his caregivers throw his way. And he can still beat all comers (including me!) at Checkers.

Happy birthday, dad! I'm glad you made it back from the war, and I'm glad you're still fighting the good fight!!

To know or not to know?

I believe in mystery.

I don’t know who or what created the heavens or the earth or me, and I don’t need to know.

In fact, I do not want to know. The world doesn’t need more people who think they have the inside scoop.

There’s something, yes, mysterious about experiencing the world through the eyes of ignorance, free from the clouded lens of traditional belief. If I begin by knowing I don’t know, to paraphrase Socrates, I learn more, see more, do more. To embrace mystery is to stay young, to be always a child on the inside, regardless of gray hair, wrinkles or creaky bones.

The mystery of what lies ahead wakes me each morning and carries me through each day. It makes me savor the feel of the bed against my body at night, the slow drift into the world of sleep and dreams, and the return trip toward another mysterious day.

I don’t want to read any book that claims to give me all the answers. I want to read lots of books and let each one reveal to me a mystery new to me. Why does my husband love me? Why does the moth fly into the flame? Why is falling asleep outside on a summer night so fine?

Am I destined for hell then? Could be. Some people probably think so, but who really knows for sure? It’s a mystery, and I’m okay with that because I want to experience as much of mystery as I can and write about it. 

Not to solve anything, mind you. None of us ever really solves anything. All we do is leave breadcrumbs for someone else. And the most we can hope for is to find the crumbs someone left for us. They may be hidden in a dream, pressed between the pages of a library book, dropped along a gravel road. They may be contained in a shard of sea-blue pottery, a feather, a mangled wrapper, a pressed leaf—each one pregnant with the secret of how it came to be where we found it.

This is what it is to be human. 

To me, this is religion. 

In fact, when I dream about writing, the setting of the dream is church because this is a holy thing.

I lead writing groups, and I tell those who write with me that it’s a writer's job to embrace mystery and get comfortable with not knowing. It’s a little like getting lost on purpose and learning to like it. Writers must make certainty their enemy and their senses their best friend. What does the mystery look and feel like? How does it taste and smell? What is the sound of it and how does it move across the pages of our lives?

Writers should do this so that those who hide behind certainty—which is all of us at least some of the time—will know that it’s okay not to know. Because too much certainty smothers possibility.

Because mystery, if we let it, can grow and open inside us, like a flower. 

Like a flower in nature, it opens so wide that it wilts and seems to die. It gives everything in a splurge of beauty and pain just so it can make the seed the wind sows.

And that's why mystery is the only resource that will never run out. 

PROMPT: NPR ran a series of personal essays on the topic "This I Believe," which are archived online here. Read a few, then write your own. Mine was written in my Saturday morning writing group today, Feb. 2, 2013, Thank you to Mark, Miriam, Sadie and Linda for your comments and encouragement.

Below the surface, beneath the snow

Once upon a time in spring, down on my knees, yanking weeds, I found a perfect rabbit skeleton sprawled on the rock edging of my garden.

I almost missed seeing it, hidden as it was by the low-hanging boughs of an eastern white pine tree.

I guessed the rabbit sought shelter there during a winter storm and drifted into its forever sleep protected by the curtain of soft needles and a hedge of drifting snow. My husband and I had seen other animals do as much during wind and snow and pelting rain--squirrels, birds, raccoons, even possums.

I thought about this discovery again on this wintry day when I saw this photo by ALWARDii Photography. It brought back the sense of wonder I felt that particular spring day, that I could be so intent at as mundane a task as pulling weeds and stumble upon evidence of a life lived. That I could be tearing out something that spoiled my idea of nature--my garden--only to come across Nature herself, in all her raw beauty and mysterious terror. 

Days like that one--discoveries like that--are why gardeners garden, I think. It's good to be reminded of what's real about nature and what we just invent. Not that gardens or invention are wrong--certainly not! But friendly reminders of how life and death continue on with or without our conscious participation are something I think gardeners are on the lookout for. 

I know I am. Not to mention that the endless digging and pulling and planting gives a person time to sink into a slim, silent moment.

I remember how the rabbit's jaw was open--as if in a scream, I thought at first. But maybe the mouth opened as a reflex to collect one last taste of this world. 

I searched my garden bench until I found a long, flat container, then I placed the skeleton in the same arrangement I'd found it on the rocks. Later I cleaned the bones. Then later in the summer I buried them in the tomato patch, something I thought the rabbit would appreciate, food for the journey into the next life. 

More than once I'd found a plump, over-ripe tomato with a bite out of it, often on the ground, but now and then still on the vine. I never minded much because I always planted more than I needed so I could share. Perhaps it was my tomatoes that rabbit opened its mouth wide to taste one last time before it dozed off into the sleep that melted its fur, long ears and fluffy tail into pale outlines on the stone.

I hope so.

A light blanket of snow dusts the ground this bitter cold day outside my home in central Indiana. Tomorrow, the blanket is expected to thicken. This photo reminds me that so much goes on beneath the surface, and I should always remember to look for it. That I should never forget to open my mouth wide and be ready to bite into each moment as if my last.

PROMPT: What does the photo call to your mind? Of what experience of nature or of an animal does it remind you?

Annunciation

Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the 2006 edition of the literary journal Peregrine. I've posted it on my web site before, but not since converting to the blog format. Hope you enjoy!

When your Red Ball moving van pulled up in front of our house on West Clinton Street in Elmira, New York, and you honked its horn because you liked making people jump, our family’s way was to grin and bear it.

The Virgin Annunciate by Carlo Crivelli

You had at least one run a year between your house in Emporium, PA, and ours. My folks pretended you were welcome then complained about you when you left. When momma and her sisters got together back in Dayton, PA, they made fun of you, called you “boisterous” and swapped stories that always ended with “If it wasn’t for Aunt Minnie, we wouldn’t put up with that Roy Beck.”

Momma told you after your first visit she didn’t mind you and your son Richard, but she wasn’t feeding and making up beds for your other movers—quieter men than you, some with better manners, but not relatives and so people we didn’t have to take in.

I remember you as plenty rough around the edges but never mean. You laughed a lot and said things to kids other grownups wouldn’t say. Your big voice hurt my littler ears. Your plow-horse shoulders and arms squeezed me hello and goodbye hard. And you kissed my cheek with too much suction but, thankfully, no drool.

Once we visited you in the hospital in Sayre, PA, just over the state line, and you untied your robe and showed us the feeding tube planted in your stomach. Daddy said you didn’t know what you were doing because of the pain medicine. Momma said if she stayed any longer she’d have a stomach ulcer too. And you said the doctors took out three-quarters of your stomach. I wondered what was left for a tube to go into and couldn’t move my eyes from where it disappeared in folds of belly like the roots of the red rose that twined around the paper-bark birch in our front yard. Nobody said why you were in a hospital so far from home.

Once we came back from grocery shopping and saw your semi-trailer idling in front of our house, parking lights awinkin’. You couldn’t see into our car in the dark, so we drove on past. We circled ‘round to the street below and parked at the Young’s house. Mrs. Young—momma called her Bobby—stowed our milk and meat in her fridge for a while. And when us kids got sleepy and you hadn’t budged, all five of us tiptoed the groceries across the lawns and up the hill to our back door. We put everything away without turning on lights, changed into our jammies, and still you hung on, hoping we’d come home and save you a few dollars on a motel.

Finally daddy gave up and flipped the switches, and in a few minutes you rang the bell and we took you in. Momma told you we’d been to dinner at the neighbors and just got home. She always told me not to lie, so I stayed suspicious of you because where you were concerned she broke her own rules. Did you really believe her? Was my momma a good liar?

Annunciation by Fra Angelico, 1450

When momma’s sisters visited a year ago June they said Aunt Minnie was still alive and alert, in her nineties. You passed over a long time ago, and none of us noted it. Richard runs the Red Ball now and doesn’t pay much attention to his stepmom, but his son and daughter-in-law look after her. She still lives in that rambling pink house with all the stuff you loaded into the moving van when her momma died. One of my uncles said you and Minnie fought with her brothers over the roll of toilet paper on the holder in the bathroom. And the last time I saw your house—thirty years ago or better—I figured you won the lion’s share of those battles.

My aunts talked again last summer how Minnie spent time in Torrance. Torrance! They still said it like it was tornado! Once I asked momma what Torrance was and she said, “an asylum.” When I frowned, she added, “a mental hospital” and spun one finger in a spiral at the side of her head. No one ever said why Minnie went there, but daddy always made sure to mention you were the one who sprung her. They said you wanted to marry her—your wife had died and you needed a mother for your boy—but no one wanted to let you because you were cousins and it wasn’t civilized. Then you showed ‘em a place in the Bible where it said it was okay as long as the light of life had gone out, and they had to let her go home with you. I didn’t know what any of it meant, though I was sure a place named Torrance could douse anyone’s light.

Aunt Minnie made you a good wife, I expect. I could tell by the light in her smile when we visited even so. Now that I’m getting to be the age she was when she was in Torrance, I dream about her. And in my dreams she is called crazy, even though she acts just fine. In one dream I live with her, except we have made the house bigger and built it around the little pink one. The living room is an auditorium with a stage for performances and bright red couches for watching. She leads me into our kitchen—tidier and bigger than hers in real life (mine too)—and shows me shelf after shelf full of bowl after bowl of beeswax—all lined up like sunny soldiers at warm attention, the smell sweet and wild. And then I dream she really is crazy, that I’m crazy too, and a voice says crazy is sacred and protects us both.

After that I asked my momma, getting up in years herself, the why of Great-Aunt Minnie. Why was she in Torrance? Momma said when Minnie didn’t marry, she lived with Gramma Thomas, her momma, looked after her, but started acting funny. I remember my Great-Gramma Thomas—stern and still, stone deaf—and I shudder to think about sharing a house with her. Still I ask, Whaddaya mean, funny? And momma said one day Minnie went into her bedroom and turned on the gas heater but didn’t light it. They put her in Torrance before she blew up the house, and she was in there a year or so. You visited her and told ‘em Minnie wasn’t crazy, she just needed someone to make a home for her and care about her, and then you did and she never acted funny again.

Annunciation by Salvador Dali, 1956

Weeks later, you popped into my mind’s eye, middle of the night when I was drifting back to sleep. I didn’t know it was you at first—it’s been a while since I’ve seen you or thought about you, and you looked out of place in my living room. But it hit me later that it was you who took a seat at my writing group, as if a regular. And you sat on my sofa where Sandra always sits—the petite lady with the short silvery hair who fits that corner like a crisp marker in the dog-eared leaves of a much-read book. But your ungainly body called out for a bigger space as you slung your left arm across the back and shifted sideways. I bet you carried sofas bigger than mine on your back and up flights of stairs, lugging, lugging, all your life until your heart exploded.

Then my living room fell away, and you stood beside a field, newly planted. You wore the same baggy rolled-up jeans, T-shirt and red-heeled Rockland socks, their thick oatmeal cuffs turned down over the tops of mud-caked Wolverines. The wide brim of a tattered straw hat blocked the glare from the setting sun. And I watched as you knelt on one knee, opened your arms to the tumbled earth and invoked the seeds to grow.