Confessions of an Unknown Poet

            Times Were Simpler

We like to imagine

Times were simpler then.

We brag to grandchildren,

Honey, when I was your age

I walked a mile

To school every day,

Barefoot, through the snow,

Uphill both ways. They laugh.

We romanticize the past,

Ignore ugly parts, piece a mosaic

Of what we wish to keep.

If only we could turn back

The clock a hundred years . . .

Times were no different.

Wars, inequity, cruelty,

Hatred, disease . . . The same.

We were simpler then.

                        Confessions of an Unknown Poet

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            Poetry? Ewww. Not that awful incomprehensible stuff we were forced to read in high school and try to niggle-pickle a meaning! Not that!

            Not that, but what? My poetry is simple, accessible, gritty, honest, evocative and seldom rhymes. It is not loaded with Latin phrases nor multi-syllable obscure words. Okay, so a few are incomprehensible, even to me. But not painfully so.  I’ll stick my neck out and (gulp) say, there is something for everyone.

            All writing is autobiographical but my poems are not autobiography.  A story I heard, a birdsong, a butterfly wing, a broken tree; any might trigger an impulse to versify.

            I’m not a “real” writer. I don’t set aside scheduled hours to write daily, so many words, so many pages a day, locked in the bathroom, fingers hammering keys on a manual typewriter while my toddlers whimper and bang on the door. Those messy years, I wrote only during naptime.

            I write at my convenience. At my whim. Whims come and go, messy things they are too.

            My friend Charlotte said I wrote poetry in high school. I don’t remember. But in the ‘70s I began writing again. Ah, yes, the 70s, a prolific time for poetry. I bought writer’s magazines, mailed poems to “Little Lits,” very small publications, mostly quarterly, which paid in pennies per word, or, most likely, a “free” copy of the publication.

This will not make a lick of sense. Of every four poems I submitted, three were printed. I was so disappointed. I figured the mags must be a scam (they were not) because poems are extremely difficult to publish (all the articles said so) and I did not have an MFA nor any credentials as a poet. So much for that.

But I continued to sporadically write. While I lived in Washington, I had the opportunity to attend weekly writing sessions with other writers, to hone my skills, to give public readings. That made me feel complete. It was enough.

In this digital age, the world of publishing has changed.  But publishing still requires time, money and marketing (energy, travel, more money).

I know myself quite well. I have none of the necessities with which to publish and market my work nor the ego need to see my name in print.

Friends ask me why I don’t self-publish a collection of my best. Oh, sweet friend, I’d spend maybe $5,000 plus for a small stack of books which I would give away to a few friends while the remainder of my brilliant work would mildew in a corner of my bodega.

Others tell me, Amazon is the answer. Same difficulties. Costs a lot of money. And I’d be their best purchaser, buying books to give to my friends.

Nevertheless, while in Montana in June, my daughter Dee Dee helped me begin a poetry blog where you few brave souls can read my poems in secret; nobody will know. No messy books to be hidden, shoved beneath the mattress.

We started the blog with about forty selections. I will add to these from time to time. I won’t dump 300 in all at once. I promise.  It is not an easy site to follow. Neither of us were skillful enough to make the site exactly what we had envisioned. Only the latest posts show.  At the bottom of the page click on “older posts” to carry you back, again, and back, again.

So if you are a secret reader of the forbidden (What would your friends say if they knew?), in the bathroom or under the blankets with a flash light, a reader of that strange genre known as “Poetry”, please take a look at http://montanatumbleweedpoetry.blogspot.com.  Thanks.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 15, 2019     

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________     

            Skywalker

I walked the sky last night,

Tangled my feet in treetops.

A pair of doves nested in my hair.

I sneezed and built a cloud cumulus

From which soared hidden dreams.

Leaves of other times

Obscured the way ahead.

Be still, I nodded my drum.

The quiet of questions unasked,

Hot and cold, fell like fog,

Into the fiery sunrise.

Strange Days and Strange Ways

            Strange Days and Strange Ways

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            Do you ever wonder if the big ol’ sun up there looks down and thinks, “Those are some mighty strange beings down on that little ball of mud, especially that one there, standing by the mango tree, looking up in the sky and trying to puzzle out the unfigurable”?

            (Not only can I anthropomorphize with the best, I’m good at making up words.)

            I can smell the moisture in the air. Morning is heavy with fog. The afternoon hot and sticky. The clouds split and gallop along the mountains on either side of our valley.

            Sultry and humid it is, but a gal has got to eat. As long a chicken breast is simmering in the oven, I’ll whip up a mango cheesecake, modifying a favorite recipe from a hippie cookbook, published back when the glaciers were receding, that is, the time before this time.

            This entertaining book is chock full of good recipes along with sensible ideas on how to live on little. I make a few substitutions and leave out such disgusting items as brewer’s yeast. Oh, I tried it. I’d rather eat fried worms.

Speaking of worms, what if we have it all backward? What if those which we call the lower life forms are, in reality, the higher life forms? Think about it. They came first. What gives me a right to think that a being with which I am incapable of communication, is a lower life form?

Communication? Heck, we are incapable of communication with one another.

What if Fido, the family pet, voluntarily sacrificed his true heart’s desire to hike the Appalachian Trail, in an attempt to prevent his “Master” from undertaking too many utter stupidities?

What if one loving service of the Jacaranda in my back yard is simply to try to keep me, his own human, on an even keel?

What if, since we seem to have evolved last in a long line, we are the lower life form and those which evolved first have continued to evolve into highest intelligence?

I’ve spent the week hovering over ironing board and sewing machine, creating garments to protect me from extreme ultraviolet rays and other indignities. Meanwhile, on beaches the world over, other creatures of my ilk, strip their clothing and sacrifice skin layers to the sun rays.

The iguanas on top of my brick wall, all in some phase of slithering out of old skin into new, neither reap nor sew. Which of us is more intelligent? Who is to say?

Speaking of ranking intelligence, I notice things. My iguanas, I say “my” as if I own them because they are in my yard, lounge on the wall yomping hibiscus flowers at will. Drives me nuts. I stomp around, shoo, fie, off with your heads. Iguanas do not bat an eyelid, but gaze at me with utter disdain. Continue yomping. Which of us is smarter?

Here’s another thought. (I’m full of them but I promise to stop before I blather out my take on lower intelligence, shopping malls and shooting galleries.)

What if the only differences among me and my iguana and an amoeba are the containers which define our edges? I have questions. No answers.

Does a rock have imagination? Does a leaf-cuter ant have philosophy? Is the ground squirrel biased? Is the moon in love with the Pacific Ocean? Who knows what the creatures get up to when nobody is looking.  

But, what do I know?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 8, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Color of Laughter

            The Color of Laughter

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            Yesterday my computer went strange on me, would not let me make any of my usual connections. So after trying everything I knew (not much) I phoned my son for help. Ben was at work, so said he’d call me to fix it when he got home. A few hours later, I thought to give it one more futile try.

            Obviously, the dang bugger heard me make the call to Ben, quaked in its reboots and fixed itself.

            My errant computer was a small glitch in my day. Even with the importance my computer has assumed in my foreign life, my world does not turn on whether it works or doesn’t work. That is what I try to tell myself.

            But once my service was restored, I giggled and privately celebrated and shared my good news with friends—via internet.

            It’s been a rugged week for me. I had one day I called in sick, so to speak. The rest of the time I felt mildly depressed beneath gray and weepy skies.

            I suppose life experiences form my philosophy or belief system. I like stories of those who have clear moments of epiphany.  For me, I think eye openers have been longer, drawn out processes, many of them.

            One certainly occurred when, during prolonged hospitalization from a car wreck, my doctor told me I might not live. He wasn’t one to mince words.

He also said I’d never walk. At any rate, since I was heavily drugged when he declared those ominous words, I didn’t believe him on either count and went on to have fifty years of walking without aids. So these past five years walking with a cane are no great burden.

Through all this, and more, I have come to know that I am insignificant. And that makes me smile. It is a great freedom, I think, to be of little account.

Because of this, and who is to argue, I find moments of pure joy in other small and insignificant things, such as finding computer service restored without great effort.

Or sitting on my patio watching lizards perform rites of fertility.

Or harvesting mangoes from my own backyard tree and making marmelada to share with my neighbors.

Or breathing deeply of the aroma of flowering ginger which I planted in the back southwest corner of my garden, this year mature enough to overwhelm all other scents. The white flowers are more beautiful than orchids. And hardier.

             Or when I found a real paper letter in my mailbox in the post office above the Mercado.

            Or when Lani and Ariel took me along to El Parrel in San Marcos for lunch, good friends, excellent food, lovely music and an introduction to natilla, beside which traditional flan pales in comparison.

And I know how to make natilla. So do you. Easy, courtesy of Mama Google. Use the recipe with vanilla bean and stick cinnamon.

            Or when Leo brought me a stalk of fingerling bananas when he noticed my empty fruit bowl.

            Or when Josue unloaded his shirt lumpy with Granada fruit for me to make aqua de Granada. Pomegranate by its Mexican name.  

            Or when the vibrant yellow bird, four times the size of a parakeet, landed for a moment on the edge of my patio roof, posed, poised and took off again. It’s a new bird to me, in this land of many yellow birds, the gorgeous vivid yellow of laughter.

            Or when English tea with sugar and milk cured my depression.

            Or when I awoke this morning to a bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight.

            But if I were rich and famous, if I were a real somebody, then I’d be telling you how important it is to have a good investment team, a McMansion on the Pacific, a plastic surgeon on retainer, and a private jet in my back yard.

            If I were rich and famous, I’d tell you to buy one hundred rare yellow birds.

            I’m satisfied with being a dust mote in the grand scheme. But then, what do I know?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 1, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________