On The Day We Honor Those Who Labor

“To our sages who toiled -
To the one who chopped wood; to the one who raised cattle
To the storekeeper, the cobbler, and the one who sold salt
To the one who brewed beer and the one who filled casks of wine
To the tailor; to the teacher; to the dealer in cotton
To the one who scrubbed clothing; to the keeper of vines
To the merchant of silk; to the one who plowed fields
To the builder of houses; to the doctors and scribes
To the blacksmith; to the tanner; to the digger of graves

Let us give thanks for a tradition that sanctifies work.
Let us honor those who toil and sustain the world
in noble and humble ways.
We acknowledge those whose labor goes unnoticed.
We praise the strength of their hands,
and the dedication of their hearts.”

~ From the Mishkan HaNefesh, 2015
Published by CCAR Press

U2 on the Couch

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon launched yesterday and it was fantastic!
As I Tweeted last night: "Jimmy Fallon could have done a Mic Drop at the end of the show and retired! Thank Heavens he didn't!"
This moment was one of many exceptionally fine ones.
Enjoy!



Or go here to watch the video: U2 On Jimmy Fallon - Ordinary Love

Litany Renewed

I love former Poet Laureate Billy Collins’ poetry and his Poetry 180 Project.
This video takes his poem “Litany” to another level - a delightful level at that.



What is even more spectacular is that little Samuel met Billy Collins! Read and listen here.

Then go read a poem aloud to yourself, then to a child and then write one of your own...

One House

The house at the end of our street was torn down. We heard a few different versions of how the lovely, mid-nineteenth century farmhouse had been abandoned or maybe the folks had moved away because of work or perhaps the wife had gotten sick or, well, it didn’t really matter. Gradually, the house fell into disrepair.

A silly woman called it haunted which was disrespectful of a house that was simply full of memories and sounds (laughter; tears; muddy boots stomped on the porch; mice scurrying in the walls) and smells (strong coffee; wet wool, roast turkey; lilacs) and seasons upon seasons of children and pets and young couples and widows and widowers.

Even after people and animals stopped living there, our neighbor and friend continued to hay the fields every summer. He plowed the driveway in the winters until the shed, that doubled as the garage, slowly gave in to the snow load on its punctuated roof.

Word went round town that the house would finally be sold. We heard it was part of an estate and we felt a sadness at the distant loss. Our friend and neighbor made an offer, then another. But a fellow from out of town swept in, made his case and met the price. Before the truth of it all could even circulate, the man had a crew in who wrapped the place up in yellow caution tape; harvested the gold in the form of mouldings and chestnut beams; stripped it bare he did.

Then the chug of a tractor in the field was replaced with the sound of more fearsome equipment, as the big machines pushed and pulled; strained, shattered and finally felled the once fine old home. The sound was terrible; rending in its truest form; a kind of keening that wrenched your heart. Bricks crumbled; joists snapped; horsehair plaster and lath rained down and the dust rose up in clouds. Smoke from the funeral pyre and all the sounds and smells and memories from a century and a half of living went with it.

The corner is empty now. They filled the cellar hole and smoothed it over in a sort of slap-dash way so you can still see the ruts the big treaded tires made. Spring came early after a worrisomely warm and dry winter. A plucky little forsythia burst open in a yellow cascade at the foot of what was once the front walk. I’m hoping the lilac near where the old shed stood does the same in a few weeks; flowers at the grave of an old friend.

Digging

Seamus Heaney is brilliant. This clever video presents Seamus reading his poem “Digging” in a marvelous and engaging way. If you are tempted to move on because poetry isn’t your cup of tea, please don’t. Take just one minute and thirty-seven seconds to enjoy every word, every image.



Happy Poetry Month!

Shemira

Similar to the Irish tradition of remaining with the body of a loved one until burial, Shemira is the Jewish ritual of attending or guarding the body. The difference is that the Shomer or Shomeret usually sits and prays alone and may never have known the deceased in life. The Irish tradition is one of family and friends being with the recently departed. Although when Tanta died Chuck and I did go to the funeral home and spent a few moments with her and with the Shomer who was attending her at that time.

It was a comfort to us to know that from the moment we escorted Tanta’s body to the funeral van, throughout the process of taharah and until we helped bury her body next to her parents and her brother, that she would always be accompanied. It was especially comforting to the caregivers who had been with Tanta around the clock in her final months to know that she would never be alone. For them it meant that their work would be carried on.

Growing up, my Dad would often tell us that when his time came he wanted to be laid out in the living room. He thought the sofa where he would stretch out to watch the eleven o’clock news followed by “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” would be just the right spot. Dad was of Irish and Scottish descent but even his Scottish side had come from Ireland originally, so the roots ran deep. I wish we could have honored his wish. But by the time his parents passed away decades before him we were already bringing our dearly departed to funeral homes or funeral parlors - named with a nod to the time when families were at the heart of the process - and that’s where they “went out of”.

The first funeral I remember was of my Dad’s mother. I was just eight. There was some discussion in the extended family that I was too young to attend the open casketed wake. My parents disagreed and I attended. I’m so glad I did. I could see Grandma, kneel down and say a little prayer and begin to understand the rituals of death and burial.

Today is my Dad’s yahrzeit. As I write this, his memorial candle burns brightly. Twenty-four years ago today Dad died. He had been surrounded by his wife and three daughters all day. Late in the evening my mother sent us home from the hospital. While I was driving home in the cold and dark from Massachusetts to Connecticut, Dad breathed his last; his wife of nearly forty-two years by his side. I wondered about so many things that night. What I never questioned was that Dad’s death was a release and a relief for him. He had been so very ill for so very long. The Alzheimer’s Disease had cruelly robbed him and all of us of the warm, intelligent, funny man who worked hard, sang beautifully, told a great story, and loved his family above all else. At times in his life Dad struggled - as do we all - but his love for all of us never wavered.

Dad wasn’t laid out in our living room. He and Mom had sold that big old house a few years before and Mom was living alone in a condominium. Dad went out of the funeral home his father-in-law had gone out of. There was no Shomer in that tradition, but we did have an open casketed wake in the front parlor of the funeral home and his children and grandchildren were there to visit and attend. We said our goodbyes, had a proper funeral mass in the church Dad helped bring to fruition and buried him next to his parents and brothers.

Zichrono liveracha ~ His memory is a blessing.
And it always shall be...


You can read the story behind how a Catholic daughter came to light a Jewish yahrzeit candle for her father by clicking here. My poem, “Your Yahrzeit” can also be found there.

Not A Creature Was Stirring

...He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight -
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Whether it was written by Clement Clarke Moore or Henry Livingston, Jr. “Twas The Night Before Christmas” has a special place in my heart. Less as a poem and more as the beautiful musical arrangement by Harry Simeone and sung by his Chorale. I can still see my Dad standing in our living room in Warwick, Rhode Island. The room was illuminated by electric candles in the four windows, wax tapers on the mantlepiece, the crackling wood fire below, the twinkling lights on the Christmas Tree and the single golden bulb inside the manger. Dad would be singing along with the album, as it was spinning on the stereo. All was calm, bright, safe and right with world.

May we all know such peace and joy again...

Merry Christmas!

To Remember & Honor

This New York Times article reports on the efforts of the Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project. Over the last six years, the group has provided nineteen headstones for Negro League players with unmarked graves.

________________________________________________

When my father died in 1988, he was buried in the same plot with his parents and two brothers, one of whom had died in infancy. Seeing the headstone was painful for me because it was inscribed simply with our family surname and my grandfather’s full name. It frustrated and even angered me that there were no other names and no dates at all, to acknowledge and remember who was buried there.

From a genealogical perspective, the lack of information on the stone was also hard to accept. Many times Chuck and I have gone to a cemetery and been able to add more information to the family tree and even detail to family stories. But it was through my genealogical research, my imagination and my poetry that I was finally able to make peace with my Dad’s headstone and his father’s decision, made nearly a century before.


In Rhode Island, 1910

He was a young man
younger than I am now
Married to a woman
who was not warm and funny
which in courtship
somehow suited him
and suited her
He knew her past
and she his
But back then
self help
was an odd grammatical construction
for what one did to live a life
not what one was told to do
to live it well

So when their first child
a son –
the special pride and blessing
of any man
to have his first born be a son –
when that child died
a babe in arms
a piece of him died too
A piece of her as well
But as the man
he had the job
of going to the bank
and riding to the churchyard
and picking out a plot
and then a stone

He was not a man of means
though he had hope
He chose a smooth flat marker
the color of lead
the weight of his heart
one to lie firmly in the ground
It was all he could afford
but it was sensible as well

And what to put upon the stone?
He stood there
looking at the slab of granite
polished high
with flowers swirling in the corners
in the center
the Sacred Heart strangled with thorns
thorns he felt in his heart
Saw the stone was bigger
than his son had been
thought about how the plot
was fit for four
and of his grieving bride at home
wondered if the next child -
for surely there would be another –
would survive
and said, no dates
just “SMITH - John L. Smith Family” *
and wondering too
how swiftly would the plot be filled
he headed home
to a house thick with mourners
and muffled tears


- LMR/Pink Granite

*Name edited

We Lost A Star

Thelma Lucille Sayles Clifton passed away on Saturday at the age of 73. She was a brilliant, powerful poet.

Thank you Ms. Clifton, for your words, your courage and your heart.

Look Ma - No Hands!

My Mom doesn’t have a computer, nor does she want one. When I started this blog three plus years ago, it was a little difficult for her to wrap her mind around the concept. Heck, it was a little hard for me to explain in the beginning! She finally settled on the notion that it’s like a diary and my readers and fellow bloggers are like pen pals. Not bad! And she has picked up enough computer lingo and information to advise her friend on how to begin researching a medical condition: “Just go to that Google place and type it in!” Two thumbs up Mom.

Today we went to Rhode Island to visit with Mom, have lunch together and run some errands. (Mom stopped driving back in August.) I decided to bring along a copy of last week’s Worcester Magazine. I wanted her to see where an excerpt from Pink Granite had been published in lovely, tangible, non-digital newsprint and ink in their Blog Log column. I showed her. She read it. And she seemed decidedly underwhelmed. Ummm... Mom? Something I wrote is in black and white in a genuine, honest to goodness newspaper! This is the moment when you’re supposed to clip it out, stick it on the refrigerator and leave it until the edges curl and it yellows - aren’t you?

To be fair, Mom was ridiculously proud when my poem was published. And she often leaves my greeting cards up well past their expiration dates as if they were on loan from the Louvre. Actually, she liked an abstract mother and child print I made so much, she framed it. So it’s not like I’m lacking in appreciation from the woman. I guess I thought she would naturally feel the same dizzying rush of excitement I felt when Chuck brought our copy of WoMag home. It’s good fun to write and post here on Pink Granite. It’s great when SiteMeter shows visitors popping in from all over the world. And it’s absolutely fabulous when readers become regular readers and commenters. Nothing can beat that community and friendship. But holding WoMag and seeing Pink Granite in Blog Log, I have to admit, I did a little happy dance.

So, in the spirit of fellow Rhode Islander George M. Cohan, may I say to Worcester Magazine and Pink Granite’s readers and yeasty commenters:
"My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you and I thank you."

And thank you Mom - without you (and Dad) I wouldn’t be here doing my little happy dance...

Thoughts On Style

I’ve always worn my hair long. Well, except for one disastrous home “trim” my mother gave me in fourth grade, which required an emergency trip to a hairdresser for salvage work. Then I made a rash decision in the early 1980s which also involved a complete and equally disastrous dye job. Back in 1979, when I turned twenty-one, my mother told me it was time for me to get my hair cut. I was unaware of the you-must-get-a-short-haircut-at-age-twenty-one-rule and “declined”. Now I am 51, turning 52 in May. I continue to wear my hair long enough to pull it back in a braid. The older I get, the more I recognize that my female peers have short haircuts. And it seems that the older women get, the shorter their hair gets. Sitting at a large meeting several weeks ago, attended by many folks in their 70s and 80s, the vast majority of women around me had hair nearly as short as the men. No thank you.

As I grew up, my personal style was somewhere between preppie and hippie. When Midi-skirts made their appearance, I was an early adopter. As a result, some younger kids in my high school thought I was a student teacher! In college I wore farmer overalls with shitkickers, long skirts with Frye boots and business suits with pumps. As the years have gone by I now wear Birkenstocks and Smartwool striped socks whenever possible. I’m happy in quarter zip sweatshirts and henleys. I carry vintage purses by Walborg, JR and Margaret Smith or an L.L. Bean Healthy Back bag. And I always have a folding Asian fan in those purses. I wear the same gold jewelry nearly every single day, along with a mans Timex Expedition watch. But I sometimes like to add a vintage and over the top Eisenberg pin.

For many years, I have been taken with Jenny Joseph’s poem “Warning” which begins: “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple; With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me.” However, I am decidedly not taken with its commercial corruption into the Red Hat Society and their over boa-ed tea parties. Ms. Joseph’s 1961 poem deserves better than that. Written when she was 29, published when she was 42, the poem imagines the freedom of the future compared to the responsibilities of the present. It ends on a wistful note of the possibility of being just a wee bit less sober now.

It is said that as we age we become more like ourselves. O.K. But I am committed to becoming more of the better parts of myself. I wish to become braver, kinder, freer, more generous, less worried. When I look ahead - ten, twenty years and beyond - I do not wish to look in the mirror only to find I have morphed into one of those cookie cutter women I sat with at that recent meeting. No thank you. I would rather grab onto the pendulum and fling myself out to the opposite side of the spectrum, to fall in among folks who look more like this - all verve and flair and most decidedly free!


Thanks to Ricë of the Voodoo Cafe for alerting me to “Advanced Style”.

Words

There’s a good television show on the USA network called “In Plain Sight”. It focuses on a couple of U.S. Marshals who serve in the Federal Witness Protection Program. The lead character is Mary Shannon played by Mary McCormack. Her partner is Marshall Mann, played by Fred Weller. At the very end of this second season’s opening episode, entitled “Gilted Lily”, Mary speaks in a voice over as her sister says goodbye to her deceased boyfriend in the morgue. In the background Alison Krauss, along with a chorus, sings “Down In The River To Pray” a capella.

The voice over was so striking, so poetic, we tried to find it online. No results led us to transcribe it. I’m sorry I can’t credit a specific writer, but here it is:


My addled brain tries to connect the dots
wondering how it is we’ve come to this place.
Cold, stark, blue-light lodging
indifferent to hope, desire, love;
lacking all but the most basic amenities.

Perhaps this stainless steel and formaldehyde rest stop
stands as a post-mortem reminder.
A kind of finger-wagging refrigerated warning
hung for all to see:

“For those inclined to feed the bears,
beat the light,
traverse thin ice,
run with scissors,
get rich quick:
Here but for the grace of God goes you.”

Yom HaShoah

Shoah is the Hebrew word for whirlwind or destruction and has come to be the word which describes the Holocaust of European Jewry from 1933 to 1945. This date was established in Israel in 1951 as a day of remembrance for all the Jews, approximately six million, who were murdered during the Holocaust by the Nazis.

Within the vast horror of the icy cold number ”six million” are individuals: men, women, children, babies, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, families, friends, neighbors, citizens, laborers, rabbis. Every single person had a life; a past, a present and a future destroyed.

We were first told to undress
clothes on one side, shoes on other
then we entered the room,
naked as the day of our birth.
It was here that we were given a number
and heard the Konzentrationlagerfuehrer 
[Concentration Camp Commandant] say:
“From this day forth, you are all numbers.
You no longer have names.
You have no identities.
You have no nationalities.
All you have is your number,
and besides your number,
you have nothing at all.”

- Excerpt from the diary of Jacob, age 17


During the remembrance services on Yom HaShoah names of the dead are read along with this poem:


Unto Every Person There is a Name

Unto every person there is a name
bestowed on him by God
and given to him by his parents.

Unto every person there is a name
accorded him by his stature
and type of smile
and style of dress.

Unto every person there is a name
conferred by the mountains
and the walls which surround him.

Unto every person there is a name
granted him by Fortune's wheel
or that which neighbors call him.

Unto every person there is a name
assigned him by his failings
or contributed by his yearnings.

Unto every person there is a name
given to him by his enemies
or by his love.

Unto every person there is a name
derived from his celebrations
and his occupation.

Unto every person there is a name
presented him by the seasons
and his blindness.

Unto every person there is a name
which he receives from the sea
and is given to him by his death.

- Zelda (Zelda Schneersohn Mishkovsky, 1914 - 1984)


May we always remember.
May we never forget.


Resources:
Wikipedia Article on Yom HaShoah
The Israeli Knesset on Yom HaShoah
Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Memorial
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Warming

in just spring
when the world is mud-luscious...
when the world
is puddle-wonderful...
- e.e. cummings ( 1894 - 1962)

The snow is receding and our front lawn is emerging - replete with lumpy, bumpy mole trails. First time we’ve seen that green/brown grass since last December. The track at the high school is now completely free of snow and ice. Calendar Spring will officially be here in just a few days. While we haven’t quite reached mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful, I think I’m ready.

After

Today is my father’s yahrzeit; the anniversary of the day he died. Dad passed away 21 years ago today. Just typing “21 years” causes me to shake my head in disbelief. How could that many years have gone by without him in this world? This year, Dad’s yahrzeit feels a little sharper, likely because of the recent passing of Chuck’s Dad, Milton. Milton’s memorial or shiva candle burned for a week until last Friday. Now my Dad, George’s, much smaller yahrzeit candle, which we lit last night, will last one day, until this evening.

I have searched in vain for a particular quote. I remember having read something by Isabella Rossellini, something to the effect of: “There are two stages to a woman’s life: before her father passes away and after.”

This is after.

You can read the story behind how a Catholic daughter came to light a Jewish yahrzeit candle for her father by clicking here. My poem, “Your Yahrzeit” can also be found there.

Love Endures

“I believe that if I should die
and you were to walk near my grave,
from the very depths of the earth
I would hear your footsteps.”
- Benito Perez Galdos (1843 - 1920)

Praise Song For The Day

Praise song for the day.
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other,
catching each others' eyes or not,
about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise.
All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din,
each one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem,
darning a hole in a uniform,
patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky;
A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words,
words spiny or smooth,
whispered or declaimed;
words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone
and then others who said,
"I need to see what's on the other side;
I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe;
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain,
that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks,
raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce,
built brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle;
praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign;
The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm,
or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love,
love beyond marital, filial, national.
Love that casts a widening pool of light.
Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle,
this winter air,
anything can be made,
any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp --
praise song for walking forward in that light.

- Elizabeth Alexander, Poet

The poem written for the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama and read on January 20, 2009. (Transcription from the New York Times via Congressional Quarterly.)

OCD? Not Me!

I have reached the point of being truly frustrated by and therefore obsessed with making this audio clip work easily for you all. It was very cool that a few of you could listen to me reading my poem, but it bummed me out royally that so many of you were thwarted by technology. Or, more accurately, thwarted by a blogger who ran right up against the limits of what she understood about that technology!

So today I applied myself to the challenge once again. I was able to get a flash player successfully embedded and to work (big happy dance - thanks Jeff)! Then I read a notice on the media storage website I just started using (MediaMax). As of tomorrow, they are becoming another company and that’s the end of their free storage. Everyone who has files stored with them for free, must upgrade to their fee-based service or those files will be deleted.

Since I don’t want to pay their new monthly fees, that means I no longer will “control” server space. That means I can’t direct the the nifty flash player where to go and what to do. It also means that I need to take down all of the links in the previous posts which connected to this storage company, because as of tomorrow, my files will disappear from their site!

Abrupt end to happy dance.

I’ll still leave the audio bar up (in the earlier post and on the sidebar) which connects successfully to Archive.org.

Thanks for your patience and your advice!

Once More - With Feeling!

This Post Has Been Edited!

May 8, 2008 - Well, this is a first for me on this blog. I’ve had to radically edit this post due to some technology snafus! Here’s the explanation.

Sue stopped by this morning and was unable to listen to my audio clip. Because this has been the case for many of you - including both of my sisters - I decided to try a different hosting service.

I hope this allows you to easily listen to my poem: “Two Days In August”!

Still no little audio bar visible to you? If all you see is a big blue Quicktime “Q”, try reloading the page. Or here’s the direct link. It should bring up a new screen and the audio clip will load and then begin playing.

Let me know in the comments section which one of these worked. Thanks!

UPDATE 5/7/2008: Inspired by a suggestion from Jeff, I’m trying another change to this audio clip. Fingers crossed...


I can't put in a direct link to this version. When I do it automatically downloads the file to the computer!

Poetry

On this, the last day of National Poetry Month here in the United States, I encourage you to read a poem.

Or write a poem.

Or read a poem aloud.

Or do all three.

Or go to the library and run your fingers over the spines of the poetry books until one tugs at your spirit and demands to be taken home, read and savored.

Or invite a child to write a poem.

Or go to a poetry reading and know that the poet is most likely scared and delighted to be sharing their poem with you.

Or do all of the above.

And tomorrow, do it all again...



Here are some places to begin:

Poetry 180, a poem a day (not just) for High School students
Poetry Daily, a new poem every day
Favorite Poem Project, videos of people saying poems they love
The Writer’s Almanac, Garrison Keillor chooses a new poem to share seven days a week