66

 

 

           66

Along Route 66, connected by

a stretch of seven miles, two towns align;

one bears his family name, the other mine.

A geographic fluke? Perhaps. But I,

far-flung, uprooted, off the track, embrace

this synchronicity, this table scrap

of happenstance – two dots upon a map

forever linked in existential space.

 

The decommissioned highway’s gone to hell;

and so before it all but disappears,

a faded US atlas, dog-eared to

the State of Oklahoma, guides me through

divergent latitudes and hemispheres

and universes spinning parallel.

 

 

 

 

A wound that never will heal . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay (from her book The Harp-Weaver) stands as a testament to the enduring power of grief and the profound loss that can accompany the end of a love.

 

 

Here Is A Wound That Never Will Heal, I Know

 

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far Underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

 

Analysis (ai): This poem explores the enduring pain of a lost love. Unlike the healing wounds of physical loss, the emotional scars linger indefinitely. The poet employs the metaphor of a barren acre, where no amount of time or nurturing can heal the devastated landscape.

The poem's imagery is stark and unforgiving. The loss of love is equated to the destruction of nature, as April and August, symbols of life and growth, are shattered and leveled. In contrast to the brevity of physical pain, the pain of a lost dream is an eternal torment, an unbearable thrust between the ribs.

Ovillejo: For My Granddaughter

 

 

 

 

 

For My Granddaughter

 

Moriah holds my hand in early June.

Though soon

the lilies we admire will wither, still,

she will

be happy in our fugitive vignette.

Forget-

me-nots we’ll pick, blue thistle, fern rosette,

hawkweed, trillium, wild columbine:

an afternoon perennially mine,

though soon she will forget.

 

 My first grandchild, my granddaughter Moriah, will turn thirty years old this month. I wrote this ovillejo years ago, and it appears in my first book, Lines of Flight.  

 How true -- time really flies!!!

The ovillejo is a Spanish poetic form consisting of ten lines, traditionally structured as three rhyming couplets followed by a quatrain. 

The first line of each couplet is 8 syllables long and typically asks a question, while the second line responds with 3-4 syllables. The quatrain, or final four lines, often summarizes or amplifies the preceding couplets, and its last line combines the shorter lines from the couplets.

 Here's a breakdown of the ovillejo's structure:

• Stanza 1 (Sestet):

  Three rhyming couplets.

  • Lines 1, 3, and 5: 8 syllables, often posing a question.
  • Lines 2, 4, and 6: 3-4 syllables, providing a response or echo to the preceding line.
• Stanza 2 (Quatrain):

  • Lines 7, 8, and 9: 8 syllables, often reflecting on or expanding the first stanza.
  • Line 10: Combines lines 2, 4, and 6, creating a "redondilla".

The ovillejo was popularized by Miguel de Cervantes in his work, "Don Quixote". The name "ovillejo" is derived from the Spanish word "ovillo," meaning a ball of wool or a spool of thread, which reflects the way the poem knots together its different parts. 

 

I've Been Away . . .

Amalfi, Italy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Torricella Peligna, Italy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baia delle Zagare, Italy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rome, Italy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No posts in June or July. I was in Italy (Naples, Pompeii, Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri, Positano, Baia delle Zagare, Torricella Peligna, Rome) for most of June, and was hosting a friend, as well as myself having several medical issues in July.

I hope to post more often in August and beyond.

Mother's Day

Garnet. The January birthstone. (stock online photo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My sonnet, "Mother's Day" was first published in First Things (Number 167, November 2006), and reprinted in Grace Notes Anthology, 2010; Quill and Parchment, May 2012; Cradle Songs Anthology; and Living Faith, Fargo, North Dakota, May 2021.

 

It was reprinted (with my permission) on a pamphlet distributed  at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. several years ago. 

It also appears in my first book, Lines of Flight.

 

I did not have an abortion, but I know women who have. Everyone has to make their own decisions and choices in life. I wrote this poem from the viewpoint of the baby, who had no say in the matter.

 

 

Mother’s Day

 

 

On Sunday evening after the party ends

and family have gone, you ache to say

how you can’t bear this gathering each May.

Your thoughtful husband usually sends

a rose bouquet, but changed his mind this year:

a special gift, it makes your finger shine

with emerald and ruby. Too much wine,

he banters as he wipes away your tear.

 

But you and I know, Mother, what he can’t –

your April foolishness; how bit by bit

they sucked me out of you, “took care of it”;

how through the years I’ve been your confidante,

the reason for this night’s unraveling –

the garnet missing from the mother’s ring.

 

"The world goes on despite us and our poems."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notwithstanding

 by Catherine Chandler

“The world goes on despite us and our poems.”

                ― David Mason (from his poem “Winter 1963”)

 

 

Keyboard strokes replace the fountain pen

and voices yield to verses on the page―

so have the poets sung from age to age

devoted to their vital art. 

                                                         But when

the audience for truth and beauty fades,

replaced by fandom of a looser form

whose stale epiphanies become the norm;

and AI scatters reams of ready-mades;

when deconstruction proves it vain to find

meaning; when an old philosophy

conjectures on the use of poetry

as pure abstraction of an idle mind,

I offer up a faithful antiphon

although the world goes on. And on. And on.

 

 

 

 [First published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, September 2024]

An April Poem: Setback

 

 

 

 

Setback

by Catherine Chandler

I’d seen a robin, days were getting mild,
the crocuses were up, and I could hear
the wild geese honking on the pond. Beguiled,
I’d set the garden chairs in place, in sheer
delight. The northern winter-spring transition
is never easy, but I’d hoped this year —
with father’s cancer gone into remission —
that April would be kind. Then we had snow
this afternoon, a boreal admonition:
Not so fast. Not so
fast.
                    Oh, to be the quiet sort
who bow their heads, accept the status quo,
conceding there’s a God, and we’re his sport,
that winter is so long, and life so short. 

 

 

 

[First published in 14 by 14, Issue 4, June 2008]

Modern Haiku Publication - "Spring"

 

A snowmelt river in Japan

 

 

 

"haru" is one part (Spring) of my poem Haiku originally published in Modern Haiku, Volume 37.1, Winter-Spring 2006, and subsequently in my second full-length poetry collection, Glad and Sorry Seasons (Biblioasis 2014).

The other three seasons haiku are available in both of the above mentioned publications.

HERE is an article (from 2015) about El Niño's effect on winters in Japan.

 

haru

 

a bush warbler sings                                       

beside the snowmelt river                                          

through mist-muffled air                                            

 

 

[Translated by Google below] I wish I could speak/write/understand Japanese . . .

春

雪解けの川のほとりで

ウグイスが鳴く

霧に覆われた空気の中

[Yukidoke no kawanohotoride uguisu ga naku kiri ni ōwa reta kūki no naka]

 

What To Enter and When To Exit

"Close enough."

Just saying.

If you would like an explanation for why I posted the above cartoon, please feel free to contact me by email at the following address:

 catherine.chandler.poetry@gmail.com

Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HERE is the Wikipedia page for Catherine Chandler.

Please note: the photo they used is quite out of date!

Ending

 

 

Guettarda uruguensis/jazmín del Uruguay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this sonnet, each line ends in "ve" which in Spanish means "go."

"Ending" was first published in 2017 in Alabama Literary Review (volume 26, number 1) and appears in my collection Pointing Home (Kelsay Books, 2019).

 

 

Ending

                                               

 

Nothing to reproach or to forgive.

Nothing to unwind or to unweave.

No arguments to prove or to disprove.

No wrongs to right. No rights to claim or waive.

In retrospect, it’s all so relative—

seasons, space-time, truth and make-believe.

I’ve left the northern hemisphere, but you’ve

a motto: Plus ça change . . . I hear you; save

that here the jasmine is in bloom. Above,

Crux reappears to complement a mauve

and apricot tableau. The men arrive,

back from the long November cattle drive,

while in a nearby eucalyptus grove

a golden-eared paloma coos his love.