August 8^th

^{Jade DeFehr}

Would it be

okay

if I opened

my own word shop?

Each word payed

with something

good.

A smile,

a dance,

a hug.

Or would that

make the people

poor

of good things

poorer,

because they don’t

have

anything

to

say?

CONFESSION

Lisa Siemens

Today I am

one of them

the wordless

poor, empty

bowl in my lap

tilting towards light,

filling up with the silence

of green leaves listening.

Silver Sky in a Cooking Bowl

MONDAY 3^rd

- Jade DeFehr

If one thing

in this world will still

be here

in ninety years,

it’s gonna be

chocolate chip cookies

and baking them

yourself.

Flour falling,

down past the silver sky

of a cooking bowl.

Water dribbling,

creating a tiny pool

at the bottom.

Chocolate chips rolling,

quickly coated with

a temporary bitterness

until warmed in the oven.

And then . . .

the first bite.

FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS

- Lisa Siemens

Two days ago, you told me

to read to the flowers.

So I did.

Yesterday, you said, Step outside.

Look for water.

So I did.

And today, you suggested I follow

a recipe: chocolate chips

in the silver sky

of a cooking bowl.

And now, there are cookies

cooling on the counter, each one

touched by the sky. It was not the desire

to eat them that sent me to the kitchen.

It was you and your words

and my need

to be fed.

Not a Poem (maybe)

The August 2nd poems - Jade's and mine . . .

SUNDAY 2nd

- Jade DeFehr

This is not a poem!

(maybe)

However,

participating in the following actions

is . . .

Step outside –

it doesn’t matter

where

you are, so long

as you really are

outside.

Think about the doorstep.

Walk around the block,

trying to concentrate

on only

what you hear, feel,

or smell the entire time.

If you aren’t in the city,

walk for 1 or 2 minutes.

When you’re finished,

hug a tree.

Then, walk around a different

block and hum

a cheerful tune like “Mushaboom”, by Feist.

Find water

and think about

the water.

Do whatever

else you want

for the rest of the day

or two more minutes,

but do it with care

and thought.

When you return

to your doorstep

and go inside,

the poem is finished.

THE POET AS A MUDDY RIVER WITHOUT A PEN

- Lisa Siemens

She is a river (sometimes)

green reflections floating

on brown water, white

clouds, moving molecules,

hydrogen and oxygen. The sky

lives on her surface and underneath

where you cannot see, the light

hides in the spaces between

the words she thinks

and the words she says.

Even in the deepest

part of winter, fish sleep

somewhere near the bottom, waiting

for the ice above to thaw.

Reading to the Roses

At the end of last summer, in September, I found, between my front doors, a collection of poetry written by one of my former summer camp students. For months and months, I carried her collection in my bag - all through the fall, and through much of the winter. Although I was not writing myself, she was an inspiration. Each day, all through June and July of 2009, she opened her eyes and ears and heart to the world. She paid attention and she wrote. She never missed a day. I knew nothing of this until I found her book at my door - 61 poems for 61 days. William Stafford would have loved her. These poems were written the summer between her eight and ninth grade. She was 14 years old at the time, amazingly present in the world.

For a long time, I have been walking around rather blindly, not seeing, not receiving, not feeling Jade's sense of wonder with the world at all. Last week I decided that beginning August 1, 2010, I would wake up and try to write responses to Jade's 2009 poems - one each day in August. She is much more proficient than I am in all regards - vision, voice, presence. Still, I plan to try to emulate her. I will try to post her poems and one in response. Sadly, I am already behind. But one poem for two days is a start . . .

Here is Jade's August 1st, 2009 poem:

SATURDAY 1st

- Jade DeFehr

Someone once taught

me how

to read to the roses,

or any deserving flower.

Alice in Wonderland proves

they can hear and taste and analyze

the words

tumbling out of

my mouth.

One day I might

even come across a flower

of "The Golden Afternoon"

herself.

I'd sit next to her

all day

to talk

about poetry

and the Queen of Hearts

and such.

I really would learn

a lot of things

from the flowers.

August 1st, 2010

Lisa Siemens

At fourteen, she decides to write

a poem each day and then

proceeds to do so.

Nothing stops her. Nothing

is undeserving of her attention, each day

an open invitation to small celebrations.

For the flowers, she writes – the roses,

the hollyhocks, the fields of blooming

clover; for the green doors

of summer, the lost and found

stars in the sky, the choirs

that sing in her head,

the crickets, the sun, the solace

of one lonely beetle

climbing his own little mountain,

again and again. For all of us, she writes

and writes and then,

when summer is over,

and fall creeping in, she wraps them all up

like a gift, ties them together

with words and leaves them behind

in the doorways of the lucky unsuspecting few.

Spring is blooming everywhere - lilacs, bleeding hearts, irises, lily of the valley, honeysuckle. I go on long bike rides weaving my way down side streets with my camera in my pocket, looking for what is blooming now. Each week it is something new. At school, Raphael, six years old, tells me each morning that the sun is blooming. And I believe him. I think that is what it does in his language. And now, in mine, too. It blooms! When I was small, I trailed my mother through greenhouses in the spring - deciding the flowers I liked best by their names. Bleeding hearts always scared me - not the hearts themselves but the little tear drop at the bottom and their name. I thought they were weeping. At some point, between now and then, I fell in love with them, and with every other sign of summer's arrival. I wait all year long for it to come.

New Blue Bike

My new blue bike, I think I am in love with it - something new, something blue. Sky above me.

Ground beneath. Me in between, connected to both, balanced, kind of floating on thin silver wheels that shine in the dark. In early April, when the snow had just gone, I met a little boy on the sidewalk, maybe 5 years old. He introduced me to his bike: "He's four days old," he said, patting the handle bars, sitting on the seat, stretching his legs, balancing on his little toes. Such joy! A new bike! I just had to have one. And now I do. I want to stop strangers on the street and say, "She's fourteen days old today!" I had forgotten how good new things can be. Particularly when the world is green and blooming, which it is right now. In spring, I always wonder how we can possibly call what we do all through the rest of the year, "breathing". I think what I do all year long is hold my breath and wait for spring! I am breathing now . . .

I'm Back

I'm back. Don't know exactly where I have been, but it was not a green place. And now the world is getting greener each day. Spring! My favourite season of the year. The tulips my mother planted at my backdoor last fall, on the last sunny October day, are blooming - seemingly brand new, although, I think, each of those bulbs had a long history of birth and rebirth. The sedum beside them is a thick and sturdy green. April was warm - sunny day after sunny day. And now May has arrived with showers. Cool and damp, but just what all the growing things need.

The flowering shrubs all along back lanes, are blooming, and soon my kitchen window will be filled with the blossoms of my neighbour's apple tree. Can there possibly be a better time to walk through the world with wide open eyes, to have them opened again? So much to see and love! Each time Spring happens it is like the first time - "the leaping greenly spirits of trees," the "blue true dream of sky," "the birth/day of life and of love and wings." Spring is back. I am back!