I’m tired of Old White Men Everything. Old White Men talking. Old White Men posturing. Old White Men slithering. Old White Men….

There. Got that off my chest. The fact is, I grew up with the words and even wisdom of Old White Men burned into my brain cells. Some of it still matters to me. But ever since I woke up and smelled the coffee as a young woman struggling to be herself, I’ve realized that making the coffee wasn’t my lifelong vocation. I’ve spent a lifetime—a pretty long one by now—exploring other paths and listening for other voices. My deepest goal has always been to connect with the nature of the universe in which I live and move and have my being, to reach for a relationship with whatever unnameable “that” (to grab a word from an ancient text) put all of “this” within reach of my human senses.

From childhood, I’ve been taught the names, and assured by the presence, of a Spirit, if you will, which I believe is common to all humanity. My earliest theology still pertains: God is Love. And, furthermore, I know it because Jesus loves me. This fundamental pathway to personal and universal meaning provides more than enough wonder and work for a lifetime. I’m on it. But there are a great many Old White Men words (in English, my native language) to sort through.

Setting aside for the moment the word “God,” the word “love” holds a barrel-full of meanings. Lately, I’ve come to appreciate a different word used more often in ancient wisdom which has an even bigger embrace. The word is Compassion. Let me try this out:

“I may speak in tongues of [humans] or of angels, but if I am without [Compassion], I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” Read the rest of this if you will in the New Testament scripture called First Corinthians chapter 13, with the substitute word. The guy who presumably wrote this passage wasn’t exactly an old “white” man. He did well writing this. I like it even better with the word change.

Compassion. Any voice in the world which does not carry with its every utterance a heartfelt compassion for the whole universe of people, plants, animals, thoughts, and things must be drowned out. Not silenced, just overwhelmed. I think it’s happening, Old White Men.

A woman in a bright blue suit is pointing a finger of truth and accountability at you. Women in space suits are breaking into the pure light of space and science (not to mention the one in—don’t you love it!—Mission Control). Women are stepping up to defend and support the importance of children, their health and education, and the communities they grow up in, all over the world. Women are answering to the cries of Compassion.

Old White Men, better start listening. I think your day is over.
 

 
JUST MAKE THE COFFEE
 
for Jodi
 

You have to get over it, being a woman and all,
that history turns on the sayings and doings of men.
The tears and the trials of women, we cannot recall.
The trail of her story will never be traveled again.
 
Even the Marys were speechless for most of the book.
Mother and friend and the lover anointing his head
had little to say. But consider the courage it took,
giving birth, being loyal, reporting the words of the dead.
 
We just have to be there, intelligent, practical, mute,
while men with their pencils are busily spinning the tale.
But dogma and ritual, bluster and bloody dispute
will not–over listening and touching and loving–prevail.
 
Barbara Loots

Published in Windshift
 

Near my home there’s a beautiful park where I love to walk.  Actually, it’s a parkway—part of an extensive park and boulevard greenway through the heart of midtown Kansas City.  Created beginning in 1895 by distinguished landscape designer George E. Kessler, this preserve of natural beauty was promoted by local visionaries like August Meyer and William Rockhill Nelson.  Today it holds secure a breathing space for busy urban dwellers.

What I love most about my park, besides the comfy rubberized walking path, is the trees.  I can imagine that a few of these sycamore giants might have hung over wagon trains that used to stop at a spring (now directed underground) not far from my house.  Gnarled and leaning, old trees line the path I walk, and call me to reflections on time and timelessness.

At the cottage, I enjoyed a book of meditations by Richard Wagamese, a Canadian of Ojibway heritage writing out of his everyday practice of traditional spirituality.  The book is Embers.  I commend it to you for the thoughts as well as the beautiful photography.

As suggested by the dab of information in the poem below, perhaps the trees in my neighborhood speak to each other, under the ground.  For certain they speak to me as I observe their changing seasons and living and dying.  A fascinating book I’m in the middle of is The Overstory by Richard Powers.  Trees figure pretty big in his stories, too.

I’m not yet satisfied with the poem, with its abrupt and perhaps puzzling ending.  It waits in my notebook for revision.  Your comments are welcome.  But I do imagine and even believe that trees and people and all creation interconnect in both physical and mystical ways. Taking time to be quiet in my green breathing space puts me in touch.

The photograph: an old oak tree in Ohio where I walked awhile ago.

INTERCONNECTED
 
Tree talk, tree people, as my own people say.

                        Richard Wagamese, Embers

 

We hear a siren screaming through the trees.

We thought we’d left behind emergencies

that startle our sleep so often back in town

where gritty things are always coming down.

 

Will help come soon enough for something dire?

A heart attack? An injury? A fire?

Or God forbid there might have been a crime

out here in our retreat to the sublime.

 

I’ve read that fungus spreading underground

connects the roots of trees for miles around

with tree talk that Ojibway people know

helps all tree people harmonize and grow.

 

But what about the cedars we can see

dying around us, one by one, one tree

sick at the root?  Whatever the paradigm,

that siren stops at someplace else this time.

 

 

Barbara Loots
 
 

I’m persuaded that some people are born to write.  No one “becomes” a poet or novelist or journalist: one merely follows the spirit and learns the craft that comes naturally.  Some people write successfully in several genres.  I marvel at famous writers whose skill embraces novel, memoir, essay, poetry. Whenever I pick up a copy of, say, National Geographic or Smithsonian Magazine, I’m altogether impressed with the research, scholarship, and adventuring spirit that produce this avalanche of intriguing information. At our house, these are coffee table magazines: here today, gone tomorrow.  For that matter, every article in the morning papers or weekly news magazines has been produced by a writer putting his or her talent and integrity to work. How casually I toss them in the recycle bin.

So it seems especially ridiculous at this time in my life to realize that I once wanted to be “known” as a serious poet.  Known by whom?  What for?  Well, for one thing, if you’re a writer by calling, you hope to have readers.  Finding readers for poetry has always been a bit of a mystery, ever since popular magazines mostly stopped publishing verse.  You won’t find a Dorothy Parker or an Ogden Nash, a Phyllis McGinley or a Robert Frost drawing national attention anymore.  A few poets today are well-known.  Mary Oliver and Billy Collins come to mind.  But can you name the current U. S. Poet Laureate?

So when I first began trying to publish my poems back in the 70s, I aimed for a literary audience, with the hope of piling up some credibility, or merely some credits.  I discerned that a long list of literary publications was essential in the climb to compile a body of work, perhaps a book, and to gain recognition among peers. Literary journals had a ranking of prestige.  So, naturally, I always submitted my poems first to The New Yorker and to Poetry Magazine.  I mean, why not?   You never know what an editor will do.  Rejection piled upon rejection.

Eventually, I found a kind of niche with my poems appearing in so-called little magazines where the poets—who were also the main readers and subscribers—were people I thought I’d like to be friends with.  Indeed, I did become friends with many, most marvelously with Gail White, a Louisiana poet who has by now been my friend for more than forty years, thanks to our meeting up in the pages of The Lyric.

Most of my education as a poet came through books.  No university had yet invented an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree in “creative writing.” I was on my own and adopted my own teachers, some of whom I met in person at workshops and conferences.  Gradually, I came to balance with my abilities and aspirations.

I have long since realized that the poems I made through the years were not so much about the audience out there as the audience within:  my spirit speaking to the deepest values and beliefs of my own self, and bringing out the words.  That body of work reaching back to my 20s reveals things I knew before I knew that I knew them.  The poems, published or not, are the philosophical journal of my life.  Turns out that’s all the reason I need for having written them. (But publication is still very satisfying.)

There are thousands of poets out there, writing in thousands of voices.  I read poems every day.

My favorite feeds (you can find your own way to the URLs):

Garrison Keillor’s Writers’ Almanac

Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry

Enjoyable online literary magazines:

LightPoetryMagazine.com

Better Than Starbucks

So…dip in.  Poetry needs readers like you.

P. S. Early on, I aimed to be a “serious” poet—or at least to be taken seriously. It was tough enough being a professional writer for Hallmark, that notorious vendor of lugubrious sentiment.  Happily for me, I fell into the coterie of serious poets who realize that it takes brute cleverness to write humorous, light, and lively verse.  So-called light verse can serve up profound insight.  Who knew?

Pictured: Serious poet at work in the early morning hours at the cottage.  Not exactly by candlelight, but close.

You’ve probably heard that the worldwide population of bats has been in serious decline, owing to disease and habitat destruction. Bats hold a significant place in a healthy ecosystem, and the loss of them holds consequences yet to unfold. So Bill took on the task of furnishing a home for bats on Dickinson Island, just in case.

From an approved bat-friendly pattern on the internet, he designed the bat house, cut the parts, and added a finish according to specifications. On the island, he put it together and placed the Bat Mansion in a superb location under a southern eave of the cottage. Now…we have only to wait for the bats to arrive in the spring when they are seeking their summer homes.

There are a lot of “ifs.”
…if there are any vagrant bats in the vicinity
…if any of them happen to be passing by a small island in the middle of a small lake
…if they happen to notice a likely accommodation
…if the bat house meets with their approval

We have our own interests in mind. Bats are known to eat their weight in mosquitoes every night. Have we got a feast for them! The dragonflies can’t do it all. Perhaps a little bat guano would be good for an herb garden? We hope to welcome such helpful neighbors.

INVOCATION FOR THE INSTALLATION
OF A BAT HOUSE

1
Built to specs we hope you will approve,
the bat house sheltered underneath an eave
on the south side of the cottage near the peak
awaits you on the island at the lake.

We lift this invitation on the wind
that you, our furry flying cousins find
a home here in the spring, your ample food
mosquitoes surfeited on human blood.

2
O Bats
flying fur
brothers and sisters,
come by here.

Here’s home and haven
under the eave,
warm room for you and
your children to come.

Come by here.
Some April
sometime to come.

 

Barbara Loots

Bill and I have just returned home after seventy amazing days on the island in Canada. I say returned “home” meaning Kansas City.  However, the island is every bit home to us as well, and we feel the pull of it year-round. The next few blog posts will unfurl a few of the reflections inspired by this retreat to the bosom of Mother Nature, taken from my daily journal.  To begin…

Here on the island, one becomes acutely aware of something we American city dwellers mostly take for granted:  abundant, accessible water.  Water for drinking.  Water for washing.  Water for wasting on lawns and flushing down toilets. Only two summers ago, Bill installed a water pump to bring up water from the lake to fill a cistern on the kitchen porch. In former days, lake water was safe to drink, but no longer.  From the cistern, we fill a couple of buckets under the sink, ready access to wash water for hands or dishes.  Two or three times a day, we fill an old beat-up kettle to heat water for dishwashing or a quick personal clean-up or an occasional shave. Also, directly from the pump, we fill our washing machine–a plastic trash can with a human-powered plunger for agitation.

On the kitchen porch, we keep three large containers of drinking water, drawn from the free spigot at the Orrville Library about six miles away by boat and car. (We are Seguin Township taxpayers, so this isn’t exactly “free” water. Also, neither the island nor its mainland properties where the landing is has utilities or public roads.) From these jugs, we pour clean water into the teakettle for coffee and the pitcher for drinking and ice cube trays. Yes, we enjoy the luxury of a propane refrigerator.

All day every day feels like a constant transfer of water from one container into another.  This is not exactly as handy as turning on a tap, but it’s infinitely less work than hauling water in buckets up the steep rocky embankment from the lake, as had been done for decades.  So water we have, and plenty of it, with very little effort.  Naturally, I think often of those places around the world where this is not the case. Indeed, I’ve read that all too soon, the greater waters of the world may shift from fresh springs to salty oceans. A serious downside for every human being.  For now, please be grateful for every daily drop, and mindful of how you use it.

Some of my literary experiments this year were founded in a 2002 book, An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, edited by Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes, from the University of Michigan Press.  I won’t be reproducing here most of the poems from this year’s island inspirations, as I’d like to try them out on the literary press first, and editors are fussy about having “first publication” rights.  But here’s my terza rima with a nonce metrical pattern (look all that up if you care to) from early days on the island 2019.

 
ANOTHER SUMMER

 
We seem to assume the island will merely wait

for summer when we return with our loads of gear,

the time of the solstice. Thus we anticipate

 

the coming again of us for another year

unchanged.  Yet nothing stays as it was before,

the paths overgrown, the neighbors no longer here,

 

the ravel of memories locked by a cottage door,

whatever survived the siege of wind and ice,

whatever a nail or screwdriver might restore.

 

We settle ourselves, and settle for beans and rice

we left in the cupboard, thankful to celebrate

what hasn’t been nibbled away by ants and mice.

 

The winter comes soon enough.  It is not too late

to love what we find for now on the sparsest plate.

 

Barbara Loots

Blackwater Lake, Ontario

June 2019

 

Welcome to our table, Mr. Trump.  Please sit anywhere you like.

Where’s the guy with the money?  Julius Chariot.  Something like that. I’ll sit with him. 

That would be here at my right, Mr. Trump.

On the right.  That’s important.  Important people.  I’m very important.

Yes, Mr. Trump. Everyone at this table is important. I invited them.  In fact, everyone on earth is invited to sit at this table.

That reminds me.  Sorry I missed your picnic up there in Galilee. Had a big event myself that day.  Huge crowd. HUGE.  They wanted me to be king probably.  I’m more of an emperor.  There’s a lot of people, many people, say I’ve done my share of work with a shovel. You know, ground-breakings all over the place. Thinking of building a dam across that little river. The Jordan.  Build a big resort.  Wall all around it. Golf courses. What’s your handicap, Jeez?  Okay if I call you Jeez now that we’re friends?  How about Jeez Louise?   Jeez Louise.  That’s good. People will remember that.

It doesn’t matter what you call me, Mr. Trump.  What matters is that I called you.

Called me?  Oh yeah. I remember now.  Follow me. You were fishing or something.  I had a meeting to go to that time. Tax collector.  Had to take care of business, you know?  Made a great deal.

Will you share some wine with us, Mr. Trump?

No. No.  I don’t drink.

Some bread, then?

Is it white bread? I only like white bread.

Well, we like to think of it as the bread of life.  Our common humanity, our spiritual unity.

Unity. Is that like Unitarian?  I know a Unitarian. And a Mormon.  Fine people. Not criminals from somewhere else. I hate criminals.  Lock them up. 

I see, Mr. Trump. Actually I’m more about opening a door to freedom for everyone.

Sure, Jeez.  But like they say, Freedom is not free.  Need more soldiers, bigger weapons.

Well, Mr. Trump, according to my plan, nation shall not lift up sword against nation nor ever again be trained for war.

I think I showed up at the wrong party, Jeez.  Can’t wait to hear the fake news about you.

My neglected blog does not reflect an empty life, but an engaged one, as you might guess.  Docent activities at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, an out-of-town wedding, a rewarding four-day Poetry Conference on the coast of Connecticut:  all these things deserve space on my blog. However, today I want to document a project that began in the fall of 2018:  The Great Wall of 3867 Holmes Street.

At that time, with the design guidance and physical assistance of Ann the Garden Gal, Bill created a beautiful new landscape across the front of our home. He does not shrink from heavy labor, and the result came close to his original dream.

14,000 lbs. of Missouri rock

Work in progress

Earliest plantings

Then…disaster.  Last month, water in the basement indicated a problem.  It was a problem beyond the efforts of Bill with his huge inventory of equipment to resolve, so professional plumbers were called in.  Major digging ensued.  Especially heartbreaking was the destruction of much of the wall on both sides of the yard in order to admit the backhoe.  Backhoes are not delicate, and their operators neither.

A rude intrusion

As of now, the repair has been completed and order restored.  More backbreaking work for Bill.

Order restored

As any woman will tell you, the beautification of aging bodies is time-consuming and expensive. For my part, I remain profoundly grateful for my tireless and visionary husband and partner in the upkeep and enjoyment of our home.  We hope that hospitality in this home might include any reader of this blog at some time.

Here’s a happy postscript.  After the recent renovation of the bell tower at Second Presbyterian Church, we were delighted to purchase one of the spires which had been replaced.  Now it adorns the Bee Garden in the backyard. How did Bill transport this 400 lb. hunk of concrete from the church to the garden? He’s an engineer and he never gives up.  All’s well that ends well.

The Spire

After more than two years in the dreaming, planning, studying, creating: Bill’s Bees have come home. It was one of those random moments of inspiration: “I’d like to have some bees in our backyard.” With typical energy, Bill began to learn beekeeping from scratch.

The preparation included constructing hive boxes in the shop; joining beekeeping organizations at meetings and workshops; collecting a deep stack of books and magazines for study; fostering relationships and apprenticeships with local beekeeping experts; recruiting teams to help with the hives at two sites; and not least, creating a Bee Garden in the backyard, with nicely designed gravel paths and bee-friendly plantings.

As it happens, even with permission from the neighbors and the city, introducing bees to our beautiful backyard garden in Hyde Park proved impractical, as our summer travels might preclude proper care. So Bill proposed a deal with the nearby urban farm created by CultivateKC to install his new hives just a few blocks away. They agreed enthusiastically, and volunteered to participate in beekeeping as a team.

May 4, 2019 saw the first two hives of Bill’s Bees arriving at their new home, transported under wraps (we hoped!) in the back of the SUV from a farm sixty miles SW in Kansas countryside.

Here’s how it happened:

Situating the hives at Cultivate KC

Unwrapping the box of bees

Unboxing the new bees

Finding the queen

Placing an entry ramp

Climbing the bee ramp

Almost all inside

Some of the Bee Team

A whole bunch of bees!

As beekeeping goes, the above activities are a mere Introduction. The encroachments of human habitation worldwide, not to mention climate change, have made life difficult for bees, and that’s why bee survival now involves human intervention. Bees have their own precision culture, and cooperation is the key.

I’m proud of Bill for his dedication to the art of beekeeping. Getting educated; applying a myriad of skills from woodworking to team-building; and simply following through on the many challenges to bee happiness are just a few of the amazing talents I admire in him.

As chief cheerleader and occasional recorder, I wear my own Bee Suit with an air of authenticity. I like coming alongside Bill and the bees, with fearless admiration. I hope the bees know what a great friend they have. Perhaps the reward of honey will come along someday.

Please wish the bees and Bill good weather and good luck!

There’s no better anodyne for the morning news than a walk in the neighborhood, glorious this year with an especially colorful springtime.

I walk in gratitude for all love and goodness and in prayer for the world that “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”–Julian of Norwich.

 

What We Are Here For
 
To turn gradually from doing
toward being: effort
translated into sheer effect
like the energy of light
posed
as a flowering tree.
 
Think of water
that caresses
into existence
a canyon.
 
Of wind gently kissing
a passage through stone.
 
Of time
not happening
but there.
 

Barbara Loots
 
Published in Potpourri 1994
 

Finally get there. April 2019

No, not the ones from Greek mythology, although those Sirens may perhaps be lurking in the background of the poem below. I’m talking about real sirens, the kind that call my attention frequently to the fact that life in the neighborhood where I live may be more or less in a constant state of crisis. We hear sirens night and day.

I’ve been reading my way slowly through a lovely book of reflections by Vietnamese Buddhist monk and scholar Thich Nhat Hanh, nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has written many books. This one is Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers. As a Christian, I find this title, and the book itself, compelling.

Hanh writes, “When I was a small child I used to go to the village Buddhist temple…I heard the sound of the bell a lot….I became a novice monk at the age of sixteen, and at that time I had a chance to discover what role the sound of the bell really plays in the practice of Buddhism.” Hanh goes on to speak of “inviting the bell to sound” by reciting a poem while breathing deeply in and out. I made up my mind to remember, and perhaps practice, saying these lines of the poem, though, in my case, without the sound of any kind of bell. Then it occurred to me.

The “bell” in my neighborhood is…a siren. Hardly the sweet, peaceful invitation of Hanh’s Buddhist bell. And yet, in those sirens I hear the reality of suffering. I remember my human connection to everyone and everything those sirens signify. So I have revised the monk’s poem by one word. You’ll know which word that is.

Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness.
I send my heart along with the sound of this siren.
May the hearers awaken from their forgetfulness
and transcend the path of all anxiety and sorrow.

I wish I could claim the calm mindfulness that the remaining few lines of the Buddhist poem lead into. For now, I’ll settle for mindfulness of where I live and who lives there and what is happening with them and with me.

Below, you will find a poem I wrote about the sirens.

On a brighter note, Bill and I bought a tree to be planted in our front yard. The picture shows the tree as it might someday look. For now, ours is simply an expression of optimism and hope.

Happy Spring.

      Japanese Maple Orangeola

 
SIRENS
 
On 39th Street, screaming east or west,
the sirens rip the air apart and make
a whorl of purpose, fading in their wake,
the destination sure, the fate unguessed.
Something gone wrong, an accident, a crime,
has summoned them, a heart attack or fire.
With help or hindrance as it may require,
the sirens strive to interfere in time.
 
Safe in my room, and startled out of sleep,
I can’t prevent the circuits in my head
from spinning out scenarios of dread
and accusation, all the fear I keep
well hidden, listening with the certainty
that sirens coming on will stop at me.

 
 
Barbara Loots