New Poem

Particulates

10/9/17

Ashes to ashes, they

fall from the sky-

coat the car hood, the inside of

the nostrils. Dry & oily at once.

Contained in each ember, each powdery grey flake or

black shard-

a story, a life.

The motorboat & the bassinette,

the hot pulp of pumpkins simmering in the garden,

the pop of their exploding seeds.

The fire consumes it all-

not just the wall marked

with the child’s height every Passover, but the ingredients in the pantry,

& the pans used to

make the meals.

How many framed photos of lovers at sunset? How many trophies and blue ribbons? The wooden rocking chairs and heirloom desks:

kindling.

And not only the two fig trees gone,

 but the hammock strung between them.

The books loosen as they heat up, opening like an accordion.

The fire gobbles enough Christmas tree ornaments to festoon

a forest, when the forest was still standing.

Lost are guitars and pianos-

the French Horns emitting a drawn out moan

as they melt.

And the oil paint on

the art work bubbles then ignites.

With each breath, the intake of stories, histories.

We breathe in all that was lost, all that lived there:

frog/coyote/deer/possum/rat/mouse/fox/mountain lion/skunk/horse/sheep/cow/goat/snake/lizard/raccoon

all that

could not outrun the flames.

And the singed birds, unable to navigate their way

through walls of smoke,

succumb,

falling from the skies

like dropped handkerchiefs.

Ashes to ashes/dust to dust.

But there, on the hill, the orange light

that I took for more fire

was not flame, but butterflies.

Monarchs-

in the thousands.

& not

descending, but rising

in a great, living plume-

as if fueled

by their  own beauty,

exultant in their own survival.

New Year, New Poem, New Newts

Winter Estate

By Jill Koenigsdorf

The mist was a tease today when

what was needed, was rain.

Is it the same as passing through

a cloud?

The newts here

wriggle onto their backs

displaying yellow bellies,

playful & twisty,

before lumbering, dinosaur-like,

off the path,

& the Poison Oak, devoid of its greasy, warning

leaves,

more deadly, here, just bare sticks.

Fog makes everything more mysterious, therefore more

beautiful-

the slack phone wires vanishing, becoming

trapeze lines into infinity, or else

the wires of a swinging bridge over

some fern-choked chasm miles below, maybe in

a tropical locale.

The woods grew darker, became an estate, 

a mansion of rooms needing exploration,

My friend Marian lived in a mansion.

There was a dumbwaiter that fascinated us, 

a travelling box that would deliver

toys to the foyer closet,  soiled clothing to

the basement, &

her mother’s many empty highball glasses bleeding

their own, melted ice

to the kitchen.

We sent each other things,

from floor to floor,

toast, wildflowers, the family cat,

using the dumbwaiter. We wanted to climb

aboard, shape shift, travel

inside the walls, be

in a place no one else had seen,

but were already too big.

This mansion was her home, 

lonely and strange, a place

of experiments-

of no father-

of secret nooks and crannies-

like the forest today.

I do not feel too big for this place, 

my skills proportionate

to what light remains.

The booming of a Great Horned Owl 

to his mate resounds and thrills,

amplifies 

in my chest.

When she calls back to him,

it is like a great gust of wind-

making the shaggy locks of

Spanish Moss tremble,

the branches they hang from

all but invisible.

New Poem & Year's End Musings

Is the California drought over? Judging from the greening of the hills, the hopeful sight of bulbs poking through the soil, and reports that this last bout of storms brought nine inches of rain in 24 hours (!) I would venture that this has certainly made a dent in the harrowing lack of water in our state. It feels like a true Northern California Winter's day here today, a week from Solstice, the soupy grey light a sharp contrast to the dazzling green fields, the crystalline beads of water clinging to the tips of every branch and leaf and bough, . We have not had a hard freeze here in The North Bay yet, so some soggy flowers persevere. A good writing day, short on light, big on quietude. It is a glad sight and makes it truly feel like the holidays, the end of a very full and varied year.....that and my annual Wreath-making pre-mega-storm yesterday. Wishing everyone a Yule season with much to appreciate, brightness, and a healthy, joyous 2015. I am never sure who actually reads these blogs, but every writer is told to "amp up the social media," so I contribute to this page from time to time. Often, with poetry, as in the following I wrote just now:

Fern Lake

Witnessing Fern Lake 

recede 

these many dry months has hurt

my eyes.

I watched 

on each outing as

it went from 

healthy oasis, antidote to

the brown hills-

The electric cackle of a Kingfisher

as it zeroed in on a fish, dives-

& amorous duets of Mallards as they sleekly parted

its surface,

the “V’s” of their wakes forming

a second set of wings,

to a mere puddle as if someone

had pulled a plug, leaving 

gaunt Egrets and angular Herons to stab

at the muddy banks

in vain.

Now it is two weeks before Yule & 

the rains, at last, are back.

From my perch/my porch

the persimmons become ornaments

glossy orange 

against the wet, black, bark.

The birds here, closer

to Home

are giddy, shivering

with delight

in new pools.

And the pomegranates 

split wide, their

gory jewels exposed

Gape at the

drenched reveling

open-jawed,

another glistening

offering.

Autumn 10/26/2013

I have not added to this blog in a ridiculous amount of time, but not because of idleness. In truth, I would rather be working on my new novel, or a new story than on my little blog.  And yes, I am the first to admit that the jury is still out in my mind as to the value of social media for authors. But more than that: time feels sped up. It is early morning and there are the rituals there, the yoga and the walking of the dogs & the writing & the pruning of the suckers on the olive tree, then in no time, as if in those old films where there is a full-screen shot of a timepiece whose hands are wildly moving clockwise,  it is suddenly 3 p.m.! Perhaps I am not alone in this phenomenon? But when life gets juicy, with highs or with lows, I am always drawn back to poetry. I find it to be the most immediate and arrow-to-the-heart form of expression in words. Here then, a freshly minted poem:

Falling

By: Jill Koenigsdorf

And so it begins-

the cracking open & path

clearing-

Your eyelash found,

a fine sickle, dark

against the surface

of a new stick of butter.

The sawdust you made first,

then the ashes.

Spring has the reputation

as the time of awakening-

                         rebirth

But I say it is Autumn.

So much urgency-

a quickening before

the journey inward.

The earnest impossibility

of preparedness.

Squirrels bury the neighbor’s walnuts

in every pot they find,

making a mess of what

was carefully smoothed &

patted down-

nudging aside old roots.

The last figs

dry

on the branch.

The last tomatoes

puckered

as the faces of old women, cling

to the vine.

The last, the last,

but also the sweetest.

And all the showiest flowers

a study in duality-

half in their vibrant, summer glory

the other half

brown & rich

with seeds.

They too long for surrender-

to close the distance between themselves &

the fertile soil below.

They lean forward-

teetering towards that contact-         

then

coming to rest there

where they await the rains

that will make them green

again.

Poem In Your Pocket Day

Today is National Poetry In Your Pocket Day. I have chosen the 4th portion of beloved Frank O'Hara poem "Alma" which goes like this:


4
Onward to the West, “Where I came from,
where I’m going. Indian country.” Gold.
Oh say can you see Alma. The darling
of Them. All her friends were artists.
They alone have memories. They alone
love flowers. They alone give parties
and die. Poor Alma. They Alone
/She died,
and it was as if all the jewels in the world
had heaved a sigh. The seismograph
at Fordham University registered, for once,
a spiritual note. How like a sliver
in her own short fat muscular foot.
She loved the Western World, though
there are some who say she isn’t really dead.

1953

from Lunch Poems

I began my writing life as a poet, my first poem at age ten having something to do with moths. I think the first line was "There's moths a-plenty by my bedside now...." I recall also as a young thing looking at the Redbud trees starting to bloom in the neighborhood and writing: "Who knows if these/rows of trees/are really large curd/lavender/cottage cheese?"  I was so proud that it rhymed and was going for the look of the buds on the trees. That's still what I see when I look at a Redbud.

As a rounded peg in the square hole of Kansas Suburbia, I always took great solace during my stormy adolescence from those pleasing, small, transporting poetry books that City Lights put out. They were perfect, the size of a sandwich, and that too made them seem slightly subversive & outré. And man, I was hungry for outré.

On the ladder of writing genres, even though I write primarily fiction now, I have always placed poetry on the top rung. It speaks volumes that at the end of a particularly powerful poem at a reading, audience members emit a sound, something between a moan and a sigh and a whew and an oomph of surprise. I love that this low short guttural sound happens spontaneously and universally, as natural as breathing. I always feel moved to write after reading or hearing poetry. I still write poems myself, but it now it seems saved for the larger events in life: heartbreak, Spring, love, death, longing. When I need to express something and crystalize the verbiage, poetry is the means to get in touch with the essence of things. I admire the distillation and focus that requires.

I always recall what a fellow workshop attendee once said at the Napa Valley Writers Conference years ago. He was a poet and I was in the land of fiction. We got the chance to rub shoulders while waiting in line for a buffet lunch. I said:
"I always try to guess which ones here are the poets and which writers are in fiction."
"Well that's easy," he said.
"How so?"
"The fiction writers are talking about agents and the poets are talking about the food."

AHH, The Eiffel Tower

"Ray was herded into a bus that took such an exhilarating route from the airport into the city that a hush actually fell over all the passengers, and people pressed against the windows and made those little spontaneous “ahh” sounds one hears after a great poem at a poetry reading. There was the Eiffel Tower, flashing its diamonds in the night, and then all the magnificent statues illuminated along the Champs-Élysées." 
Phoebe & The Ghost of Chagall, Chapter Nineteen