Who is telling me a story?
Whose legs wore the paint so thin on that rounded oak edge?
Who sat for breakfast in these chairs?
Who listened to family stories?
Now that our histories are linked by chance
I want to know who you are.
I’ve been working out in my back yard where the forsythias have leafed out after the blooms have faded and these two chairs have weathered two more years outside in the weather. The two painted chairs were plant stands at the ends of my driveway; the unpainted chair fell to pieces and, any finish on its surface washed away by weather, is headed to the bottom of the compost bin to decay like any wood, and one day become a part of my garden.
I remember this poem when I look at them. This year I decided it was no longer in progress. I thought of many more questions as I considered making changes but the ones in this poem were the first ones that came to mind and I’ll go with that.
I have a fondness and also a certain protectiveness for older things that have been discarded. I’m always pulling chairs out of others’ trash, seeing they still have some use, and I don’t want them to spend the end of their useful lives in a landfill. I’ve often used them in my house for a while, then when their joints begin to loosen and paint begins to peel, they have their next life in my garden, often for a decade or so, as decorations, plant stands, even actually sitting places.
Cleaning out under my deck this spring I knew I had about six of them under there, and I’d blocked them in with garden hoses and such. Time for them to get back to work. I decided this was a great spot for these three chairs to at least spend some time, and after I’d walked back to my work area and turned to look at them, these three old oak chairs, their loose panels, peeling layers of paint in colors through the decades, the front edges worn smooth from legs, started telling me a story. So I wrote a poem.
Actually, I recorded my thoughts on my phone, and this little poem is exactly what I recorded. I find I often do better speaking my thoughts as notes than actually trying to write things in moments like this.
Four years ago who would have thought Ukrainians would still be suffering under bombardment in Putin’s military invasion and continued attempt to own Ukraine? He wants to take the world back to previous centuries of continuous warfare of one country against another, not stopping until enough people have been killed, killing whole generations of youth in both countries.
With their innovations Ukrainians have changed the way battles are waged with drone warfare, but the bombs still fall, now from drones instead of planes and ships and on the battlefield.
Ukraine cannot and will not give up because she is a sovereign country and the land and all that is in it belongs to Ukraine. Ukraine cannot and will not give up because that would mean consigning a portion of her population to Russian rule.
The Ukrainian people are intensely creative as artists, musicians, writers and performers who turn their feelings into art. I feel that creativity is my heritage for all I do today.
I actually took the reference photo for this while walking on a local trail in 2020, but even then I wondered, as I always have, why one of the places I have always sought has been an open field of ripe grains with a big blue sky above.
I had intended to paint from the photo I’d taken in 2020, but I had no time for painting that year. But when the war began in Ukraine I knew the time had come and I painted this at the end of March 2022, a month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I wasn’t sure what I would do with it or even what I’d title it, but it was such a strong visual I practically had no choice but to paint it. After a few weeks and the war continued on I decided I would title it by the phrase that began and/or ended all remarks from Ukraine, and a phrase I’d heard growing up among second generation Ukrainians: Slava Ukraini, Glory to Ukraine.
A heritage stolen from me
The Ukrainian people are intensely creative as artists, musicians, writers and performers who turn their feelings into art. I feel that creativity is my heritage for all I do today. But I will never know my Ukrainian ancestors or their lives because the areas where my mother’s parents, both orphans, emigrated from were torn apart in WWI, starved by Stalin then torn apart again in WWII, then hidden inside the USSR until 1991 when Ukraine gained its independence. My aunt, their daughter, traveled several times to the approximate areas they came from but was always uncertain about the people she’d met being actual relatives. Today on ancestry sites the best I come up with is fourth and fifth cousins who all seem to be dead ends in trying to find family.
But still, from the time I was very young, before I even had any concept of country or heritage, that field, that big blue sky, somehow spoke to me and let me know where I somehow belonged.
Where did I see that field? In my thoughts, I’m sure, but our homes were built on an old farm, the center of which still existed across the street from us. Beyond that was a hillside pasture, golden grasses as tall as me in summer, and the blue sky above. As soon as I was permitted to leave the yard I was there, and spent hours there in all seasons with the wind and the wildlife. I felt it was infinite, yet it was surrounded by homes and roads.
Strength and Independence
1911, my grandmother on the right in the darker dress, as a young teenager soon after arriving here.
My mother’s parents emigrated from Ukraine and while I never had the chance to get to know them I have always felt a connection with the country and her people.
In 1910 my mother’s mother, Paraskewia Swentkowsky, on the right in the dark dress in the photo above, emigrated to America from what was then called Ukraine. She came from a village near Lviv, in an area that in any given minute in that era between Czarist Russia and WWI could have been ruled by Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Austrians or Germans.
If not for the courage of that young teenager sent over here for a better life than what that turbulent country in that violent era could offer, I, or some version of me, might be in the midst of a Russian invasion right now. That is, if we had all survived being in the stomping ground in WWI, starved and slaughtered by Stalin before WWII, being stomped on again during WWII, and living imprisoned in the USSR until the early 90s when the country broke up and Ukraine finally became an independent country.
She had lost both parents and as an orphan been moved around from one relative to another on the small plots of land they farmed. As a young teenager someone packed her off to the land of opportunity, alone, to meet up with a few relatives who had already emigrated. I know nothing of her life before she emigrated aside from that legend, and nothing of her journey, except that she had had her long blonde hair shaved off at Ellis Island because of lice, and it grew back in strawberry blonde. That was apparently a more interesting detail to my mother than how a 13-year-old got from Ukraine to Carnegie, PA to join up with distant relatives and start a new life, not speaking English, with no education, and probably very few skills that matched with jobs in this land so very different from the one she’d left.
But she did, and lived as full a life as one could live in America in the aftermath of WWI, the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, WWII, and the Happy Days of the 1950s. She died when I was very young so I never got to know her or hear her stories.
But I know that Ukrainians, and Poles, the other side of my family, having lived through generational traumas of wars and famines for centuries, are strong and determined people, and have fought for their independence as individuals and as nations every time the invading force looked away for a moment. As they watched this act of war become a reality, they could have looked at the overwhelming monster coming to stomp on them and either run away or capitulated, but they did not. This act of war will not end well for anyone, but my bet is that the Ukrainians, especially with the support promised by the rest of the world even without the United States now that this administration has found it not in their interester (though it is still fully in the interests of we the people) will have their freedom, and their country, at the end.
Some of my thoughts over the years from when it all began…
I drafted the poem on the trail on a Saturday in early March, what happens when I come face to face with nature on a trail feeling the earth beneath my feet and the sun and breeze filling my head and my thoughts. I have been singing the song since the invasion began and was singing as I walked along, and every so often wrote another line of my thoughts.
Someday They Will Sing
where have all the flowers gone,
long time passing,
young ones have picked them,
every one of them
gone for soldiers,
returned to graveyards
everyone,
and graveyards gone to flowers,
long time ago,
and again and again
and again
when will they ever learn,
why did they never learn
(#SlavaUkraini, and for all other people oppressed by war.)
The song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” was inspired by a traditional song of the Cossacks, Slavic peoples who lived in rural regions of both Ukraine and Russia, though the source of the song is Ukrainian. Pete Seeger adapted some of the lyrics and wrote the first three verses in 1955, Joe Hickerson wrote the rest in 1960.
It once was that men marched off to war while women stayed behind and tended the flowers in the graveyards, but I have heard a few folk singers (can’t remember) who have sung lyrics updated to reflect that young women become soldiers as well as young men, in fact, young people of all sorts become soldiers. With both society’s norms and folkways and beloved folk songs, breaking the mold can be difficult, but I could finally feel an update was natural.
I watch the creative soul of Ukrainians in this fight, so many musicians, artists, poets, writers, playing piano at the borders, making art to describe the conflict and their opposition, making Molotov cocktails instead of beer, a brass band of soldiers standing in fatigues to play the Ukrainian national anthem around the spot where a Russian missile hit, and the least I can do is awaken my own, possibly my inheritance from my Ukrainian ancestors, to reflect my support.
When I took this photo it was not lost on me that the sky is blue at the top and yellow at the bottom, and as I searched for a metaphor the 1969 anti-war song came to mind:
Day is Done
Peter Yarrow -Silver Dawn Music – ASCAP
Tell me why you’re crying, my son
I know you’re frightened, like everyone
Is it the thunder in the distance you fear?
Will it help if I stay very near?
I am here.
Refrain:
And if you take my hand my son
All will be well when the day is done.
And if you take my hand my son
All will be well when the day is done.
Day is done, Day is done
Day is done, Day is done
Do you ask why I’m sighing, my son?
You shall inherit what mankind has done.
In a world filled with sorrow and woe
If you ask me why this is so, I really don’t know.
(Refrain)
Tell me why you’re smiling my son
Is there a secret you can tell everyone?
Do you know more than men that are wise?
Can you see what we all must disguise
through your loving eyes?
Black velvet draped land yet colors awaken from deepest soot through cool blue through violet to magenta yellow glaring white waits for that moment last sliver of sun on the horizon laughs with warm colors in that dark sunset
Who is telling me a story?
Whose legs wore the paint so thin on that rounded oak edge?
Who sat for breakfast in these chairs?
Who listened to family stories?
Now that our histories are linked by chance
I want to know who you are.
I have a fondness and also a certain protectiveness for older things that have been discarded. I’m always pulling chairs out of others’ trash, seeing they still have some use, and I don’t want them to spend the end of their useful lives in a landfill. I’ve often used them in my house for a while, then when their joints begin to loosen and paint begins to peel, they have their next life in my garden, often for a decade or so, as decorations, plant stands, even actually sitting places.
Cleaning out under my deck this spring I knew I had about six of them under there, and I’d blocked them in with garden hoses and such. Time for them to get back to work. I decided this was a great spot for these three chairs to at least spend some time, and after I’d walked back to my work area and turned to look at them, these three old oak chairs, their loose panels, peeling layers of paint in colors through the decades, the front edges worn smooth from legs, started telling me a story. So I wrote a poem.
Actually, I recorded my thoughts on my phone, and this little poem is exactly what I recorded. I find I often do better speaking my thoughts as notes than actually trying to write things in moments like this.
I drafted this about a week ago when I posted this photo, just as a sentence, knowing I wanted to work with it. The photo was a difficult catch, the flurries in movement and the rose hips holding still and glistening. I tried to capture the feeling of the movement and contrast that I remembered, and that still inspire me.
I composed the first draft poem in the past tense as was the original statement.
Then I felt it would work better in present tense.
I think I’ll leave it here for today, and I know I’ll come back to it.
This was just a quick realization while standing in my kitchen one afternoon: five and five and five and stars. I wrote it down and stuck it on the refrigerator and today, January 1, I decided I would write at least a few words each day, aiming for five days a week. This little scrap has been waiting. So we’ll see how I do with that goal.
I don’t know when I will close the door
for the last time
long days of summer freedom
endless open windows as if
outdoors was in
warm days, birdsong, butterflies
cool nights, lightning bugs, crickets
storms
heat
days and nights of sundresses
my bare feet on the tile
on the wood
on the concrete
on the grass
on the soil of my garden
warm, nourishing
sundress now dropped in the laundry
days brief and shadowed
quick change through shorts and tanks
and tees and capris
to pants and long sleeves
socks between my feet and the Earth
I close the door
envision one of many bright spring mornings
I was not originally a lover of summer, preferring the quiet solitude of winter. At some point when autumn arrived I felt a pang of something…regret? loss? I realized I would miss the freedoms of summer: the open windows, easy cool sundresses, bare feet, even in hot weather days were less complicated by working for comfort. And once I began working at home I realized that the long afternoons of summer were just as quiet as I worked in solitude. Maybe, in some ways, better than winter?
No need for comparison. I still love winter. And I love summer too. And spring and autumn, the lead-up to each one, eases that transition in the most joyful way in spring, and the most solemn and contemplative way in autumn.
Summers are overly busy when I am a vendor at various weekend or even weekday events, though I still enjoy the long days of solitude in between. But writing time is scarce, though the inspirations are not.
When September arrived and I decided I would quit the events for the work I had in hand at home, I also decided I would at least take some notes on my thoughts and draft quick poems or essays and develop them later if need be. I used the “notes” application on my phone to record my voice as my hands were busy much as I once used my little tape recorder as I drove to work in the morning.
I pledge to myself to develop these ideas and get myself back in the habit of writing. I hope you enjoy!
Just past snow
through the detritus of last year’s final folly
faded brown and crackling beneath my feet
you reach a slender tendril of faith
to bear aloft your flag of conquest
a complementary flower
arms open wide
let the rain fall soft on our faces
herald the joy of spring.
I’m always happy to see the periwinkle flowers, and this year I haven’t yet had the chance to move all the leaves so they display their soft blue-violet in front of reddish-brown leaves, a color complement.
Usually I’ll run my mower over the yard to pick up and mulch the leaves and let them fall back where they were, and the vines grow atop the mulch. But this year they’ve had to push their way through the maple and mulberry leaves that fell last autumn.
This is what happens when I wake up and the snow is enchanting and I hear that a maternity hospital in Ukraine was bombed by Russia and I have to do something with all of it.
Someday They Will Sing
where have all the flowers gone,
long time passing,
young ones have picked them,
every one of them
gone for soldiers,
returned to graveyards
everyone,
and graveyards gone to flowers,
long time ago,
and again and again
and again
when will they ever learn,
why did they never learn
(#SlavaUkraini, and for all other people oppressed by war.)
I drafted the poem on the trail on Saturday, what happens when I come face to face with nature on a trail feeling the earth beneath my feet and the sun and breeze filling my head and my thoughts. I have been singing the song since the invasion began and was singing as I walked along, and every so often wrote another line of my thoughts.
Someday They Will Sing
The song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” was inspired by a traditional song of the Cossacks, Slavic peoples who lived in rural regions of both Ukraine and Russia, though the source of the song is Ukrainian. Pete Seeger adapted some of the lyrics and wrote the first three verses in 1955, Joe Hickerson wrote the rest in 1960.
It once was that men marched off to war while women stayed behind and tended the flowers in the graveyards, but I have heard a few folk singers (can’t remember) who have sung lyrics updated to reflect that young women become soldiers as well as young men, in fact, young people of all sorts become soldiers. With both society’s norms and folkways and beloved folk songs, breaking the mold can be difficult, but I could finally feel an update was natural.
I watch the creative soul of Ukrainians in this fight, so many musicians, artists, poets, writers, playing piano at the borders, making art to describe the conflict and their opposition, making Molotov cocktails instead of beer, a brass band of soldiers standing in fatigues to play the Ukrainian national anthem around the spot where a Russian missile hit, and the least I can do is awaken my own, possibly my inheritance from my Ukrainian ancestors, to reflect my support.
I turned off the lamp
but light still shone,
my bed awash with cool blue
pulls my thoughts to follow a path
up toward the full Wolf Moon
the imperative solo light of January nights;
I hear her distant howl across the valley
and feel her pull on me
to follow her path
past the effect of old wavy glass
through the tangled branches of the spruce
to the clear cold blue night of adventures
that might have otherwise been mine.
A poem in progress inspired by the actual nearly-full Wolf Moon that shone in my bedroom window last night, so bright I could do nothing but watch her slowly move past the branches of the spruce, distorted by the wavy glass of my old windows, and think. My camera had captured the distortion in even more depth as it always does, as if it either wants to prove to me how my vision had dismissed the distortion of the glass as a mistake yet I should see it as it actually was, or show me how distorted my views really were. Those long, cold, quiet nights often bring reflections of could have beens and should Is, especially when the Wolf Moon howls for my attention.
My daily photos often inspire poetry or prose that I try to get back to and develop into something more finished. That’s what this site is for. So my hope is that I can collect these thoughts here and find an easier way to get back to them.
