photo by Ronald Edwin LaneTO LOVE THE SHADOW OF A HUMMINGBIRD
—Ronald Edwin Lane, Weimar
If I was nectar
Then I could be right next to her
To look into her eyes
While she samples
Of my soul
But I know
That I will never hold her
For there’s nothing more elusive
Than the shadow of a hummingbird
—Ronald Edwin Lane, Weimar
If I was nectar
Then I could be right next to her
To look into her eyes
While she samples
Of my soul
But I know
That I will never hold her
For there’s nothing more elusive
Than the shadow of a hummingbird
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Thanks, Ron! Good to hear from your neck of the woods!
NorCal poetry calendar additions for this week:
•••Friday (4/11), 7:30 PM: Grass Valley Symposium: Listening to the Wild, A literary gathering around the theme, "Listening to the Wild". Sacramento novelist Bill Pieper will be the evening's master of ceremonies. Other reader/speakers will include poet Julie Valin, novelist Wylene Dunbar, novelist Elizabeth Appell, storyteller Doc Dachtler and some particularly literate students from the Nevada Union and Bear River High Schools. Poet and writer Jonathan Kiefer will read some of his essays from the Sierra Club Books anthology, A Leaky Tent is a Piece of Paradise. Center for the Arts, Main stage, 314 West Main St., Grass Valley.
•••Saturday (4/12), 6-9 PM: The Bonefolders: Poems-For-All Building Party. Help Richard Hansen’s Poems-For-All crew build the hundreds of poem booklets they want to put on the streets for Poetry Month. Each little booklet made as part of the Poems-For-All (PFA) Series goes through the same ritual: Cut. Fold. Staple. Bonefolders are the small tools used to make a neat fold in paper. The Bonefolders are those kind souls willing to come out and help PFA build little booklets to be given away for free. Care to be a bonefolder? Join us anytime between 6 and 9 PM in the relaxed atmosphere of The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Come to fold poems or just hang out and enjoy the light refreshments. There are jobs for any skill level. Building little poem books is theraputic and you're welcome to take some with you!
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Speaking of Grass Valley, here's one from SnakePal/rattlechapper Bill Gainer:
NOT THAT KIND OF CROW
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley
It’s that time of year,
the crows are up there
doing their sky dance;
he’s high,
she’s low,
he cuts left,
she cuts right.
You can almost
hear him
trying to bust a move—
“That a new shade of black?
It looks sharp
on you, baby.”
And her,
“I didn’t ask you
to touch me.”
But he’s smooth,
“Come on over to my tree,
I got some shiny
stuff:
a little gold spring,
someone’s lost earring,
a chrome button
and a Coors bottle cap.”
She’s weakening,
“Oh yeah,
well maybe,
but you keep that thing
in your feathers.
I’m not that
kind of crow.”
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Seed of the Week:
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THE EAGLE
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
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BONE POEM
—Mary Oliver
The litter under the tree
Where the owl eats—shrapnel
Of rat bones, gull debris—
Sinks into the wet leaves
Where time sits with her slow spoon,
Where we becomes singluar, and a quickening
From light-years away
Saves and maintains. O holy
Protein, o hallowed lime,
O precious clay!
Tossed under the tree
The cracked bones
Of the owl's most recent feast
Lean like shipwreck, starting
The long fall back to the center—
The seepage, the flowing,
The equity: sooner or later
In the shimmering leaves
The rat will learn to fly, the owl
Will be devoured.
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WILD GEESE
—Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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Today's LittleNip:
Art is the conversation between lovers.
—Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz
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One more thing: SnakePal and fellow poet Carol Frith took a nasty tumble on Saturday and is recuperating at Eskaton Greenhaven, 455 Florin Rd., Sacramento, CA 95831 (Wing B, Rm. 3B) if you'd like to drop her a wee note.
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—Medusa
Here's Medusa's new weekly menu of features. Contributors are welcome to submit to any and all of these!
Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar
Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.
Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing. Favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorites.
Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy
Friday: NorCal poetry calendar for the weekend
Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily food for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration. Yet another way to feed our ever-hungry poetic souls.
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SnakeWatch: News from Rattlesnake Press
The latest Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. If you'd like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Next deadline is May 15 for #18, due out in mid-June.
Coming April 9: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing his Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series of photos and prompts for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS (For Capturing Creative Thought). Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.