Author Archives: Mary F. C. Pratt

BELL CURVE

BELL CURVE

Small at the beginning;
a journey, perhaps on a donkey,
some strips of cloth,
a few people unaccustomed to fuss.
A startling angel,
a baby in a trough,
and peace on earth, good will.

And small begins again:
an entrance on a donkey’s colt, 
peace in heaven and glory on high,
some strips of cloth,
some women torn by grief,
perhaps another angel,
and no one in the grave.

WEATHER: A Zuihitsu for the end of March

WEATHER:  A Zuihitsu for the end of March


It has rained too often this month and um. . .then we had a late snow storm which is not uncommon in March and um. . .it’s a good thing I didn’t plant peas yet, and um. . .I’m pretty sure the drought is over, and  um. . .I’m a little worried about the tulips but my friend Tony told me that, um, this climate is similar to Holland where the tulips come from, and, um. . . 

I hate March. Too much wind. Too much rain. Too many clouds. Too little sun. Not enough green. No green. Just gray. Puddles. Mud.

I like March because I never know what will happen next, like will it be sunny or will it rain and will it be windy because I like to fly kites like the orca one that I have in the back of the closet, at least that’s where it used to be, but I haven’t flown it for, like, years, not since the neighbor kids were still kids and now they’re, like, engineers and physical therapists and things.

The things in the yard that resemble  snowshoe tracks are not snowshoe tracks. They are dog’s body tracks, made not by a person who does the kinds of boring jobs no one else wants to do, but by our small yellow dog porpoising through the deep March snow in pursuit of a March Rabbit. There are no hares in this valley.

This morning while walking the dog, I passed a field in which turkeys were trying to scratch food from under the snow. The toms were also displaying to the hens: Puffing out their chests and making wide fans of their tails. The hens seemed to be ignoring them; they were more interested in finding something to eat.

Three-quarters of writing is about listening. Three things to listen for:  the rhythm of events, the patterns of speech, the idiosyncratic vocal tics. One thing not to listen for:  content. You already have enough.

March is like being old: You never know what will happen. Of course, you never do know, but when you’re old, you know that you don't know. When I was young, there were no turkeys here, and in the winters, it always snowed. Maybe this spring all fifty red tulips will emerge, and bloom. Maybe someday there will be a hare here, in this valley.





SERENITY


SERENITY

I can’t change the shape of my fear
or the shape of the world
or the coming eclipse
or apocalypse.
I can’t change the patterns of death
coming to our ancient white cat
and to everyone I love
and to me.

I can make dirty rooms clean 
and wrinkled shirts smooth,
mail letters and purchase bread,*
pour water into the cat’s dish,
play with the dog in the scanty snow.
I can say I love you to everyone
as long as we last.
And to the world.

What’s the difference?



.*from Naomi Shihab Nye's essential poem "Kindness."

Elegy for a New Friend

Elegy for a New Friend
--because we didn't have time to become old friends

Maybe if they are right
and afterward there is a there
and we are somehow in it
we can finally go for a walk.

I hope the sun shone on you
and that your dog was beside you.
I hope the last thing you saw
was a clear sky.

A ZUIHITSU FOR THE WINTER SOLSTICE

A ZUIHITSU  FOR THE WINTER SOLSTICE

Once, the Christmas cards were organic: potato prints, pasted trees, stamps sealed with spit. Friends who wrote letters summing up their activities had many activities. The list of friends was long. On occasion, an elderly uncle was deleted or a distance grew too great. This year I noticed many changes. Some addresses are longer: unit names, apartment numbers. We all send simpler cards and the list is shorter. More occasions. Greater distances.

Many years ago, I attended a little church that has since been converted to apartments. One Christmas Eve, when the church was lit only by candles and smelled like balsam and frankincense, a friend with a beautiful soprano voice sang “How Far is it to Bethlehem?” unaccompanied. Last spring, her funeral was an occasion. 

I have never abided in a field by night, watching a flock of sheep. I have been struggling to think of an equivalent: weeding the garden, perhaps, but I've never done that in the dark. I’ve decided that the best I can come up with is ordinary work, work that is somewhat tedious and common, but necessary. Picking up the living room, washing dishes, changing sheets, hanging clothes—that sort of thing.

Five animals that I know are passing through the scrap of woods on the north and east side of our house: gray fox, common raccoon, American black bear, deer, bobcat.  Seventeen birds that I know are in the woods, or in the back yard:  red-bellied woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, goldfinch, junco, chickadee, mourning dove, blue jay, raven, house finch, cardinal, tufted titmouse, crow, barred owl, and the great horned owl who was calling the other night, when I brought the dog outside in the moonlight. 

I have never been serenaded by the Heavenly Host. But now and then something, perhaps somewhat angelic, has broken through the darkness, or the tedium:  An oriole singing by the roadside, two owls on silent wings swooping close over my head, a coyote watching me from the edge of the woods, two deer running toward me in the fog. It’s interesting how often those experiences involve animals. Perhaps all of them do.

In The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite Christmas books, Death (who has been substituting for a Santa Claus figure) says, “HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. . . YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.  (“So we can believe the big ones?” asks Death's granddaughter Susan.). . .YES. JUSTICE, MERCY, DUTY, THAT SORT OF THING.”

I find it interesting that the sign that a savior has been born to the shephers is a baby in a manger. Really? The story is so familiar and common, and even tedious, that it’s hard to remember what a very strange thing that would be.




GETTING BEETHOVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

GETTING BEETHOVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS	
	

When I was young, I loved him, but
somewhere around menopause
I started finding him annoying.
(Wasn’t everything annoying then?) 
Bombastic was the word I used. 
I thought him a show-off 
like those high school boys 
revving their engines, and grown-up 
men trying to impress with Rolexes
or rockets—the kind of men
who make deals on golf courses.

So when something of his started up,
I turned off the radio 
like I always have when I hear 
some tenor singing Schubert
or anything by Schoenberg--
things I ought to like but don’t,
along with Whitman and goat cheese.

But the other night, I couldn’t help listening
when for the first time in ages I got stuck
in the Pastoral—remembering the place
in Fantasia, when the sun comes out 
after the storm and the centaurs 
watch Iris make a rainbow.
The next night, by accident, I heard the Ninth.
I listened through till after the Adagio.
I stopped so I wouldn’t have to
hear the chorus screaming away because

I’ve come to believe that Joy isn’t loud.
I think it’s more adagio, something
that sneaks up like the sun after rain.
And it occured to me that poor Ludwig
could rarely rest, couldn’t stand in the light
and admire the world and hum a pretty tune.
Not unlike myself—
so full of sturm und drang
until now and then, like a rainbow,
something tender and all unbidden fills the sky.

THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING A FILM OF DANCERS IN A QUARRY*

THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING A FILM OF DANCERS IN A QUARRY*	

right now, in my rose-colored room
I cannot tell you where my feet are
I suppose on the floor am I wearing
shoes probably since I put some on
this morning and presumably socks
am i sitting straight the way the physical
therapst told me to so I don’t hurt my hips
wherever they are as i watch the dancers
leap and run and teeter along the edges
of platforms in deep water they are wearing
dresses colored like flame and no life
jackets sometimes they close their eyes
one of them rolls fast to the edge where
two others run and leap and catch her
keep her from falling in if i don’t know
where my feet are or find the edge
of this stage will anyone catch me?



*The Quarry Project