Sunday, February 13, 2011

My Swimming Valentine

     I swim at the Pojoaque Wellness Center, not enough of course, but I swim.  I arrived for laps several Tuesdays ago and the lanes were full so I swam next to the rope on the non-lap side.  There was a group of swimmers in the pool, adults with different mental wiring. I'm not sure what the P.C. term is, but in New Mexico the parents of such children know they are special and gifts from God.  This is a landscape of faith so thick the air is Catholic.
     As I was gingerly entering the water a woman with curly brown hair said to me, Are you ready for Valentine's Day?
     I said, "We have three weeks, but I am getting ready."  I went to the rope to begin my laps, hopeful that my precious exercise wouldn't be interrupted.  As I came back down the lane she asked again, What is your name?
     I told her Joanie. The name Joan really confuses people here as there seems no Spanish equivalent. And she asked what I was doing for Valentine's.  I said I was making Valentines and taking them into nursing homes.  She wondered if they were in Española, and when I said, "No, Santa Fe" I felt a bit the traitor.
     Every time I came down to her end of the pool she was waiting and almost every time she asked, What is your name?  Often she'd inquire about my Valentine's plans and I'd say she must be very excited.  Her name is Shelly and I asked her to see if she could remember my name till I came back.  Once she did remember but mostly I was met with, What is your name? And more discussion of the Big Day.  I lost count of my laps, and just enjoyed the back and forth, the give and take, and the pleasure of our odd and splash punctuated meetings, each time as if by chance.
    I thought the conversation might distract me from my sacred swimming, but I came to look forward to her waiting at the shallow end. I swam more laps than I usually do, spent an hour in the pool to my usual restless 30-40 minutes. Towards the end of my swim she asked if I had bought my candy.  I told her, no,
I better remember to do so. She advised very seriously, Write it down.
    When I went into the locker room, stretching and floating until the group had time to shower and dress, she sat on the bench in bra and jeans.  She seemed to have no recognition of me in this non-watery element. As she was leaving I said, "Happy Valentine's Day, Shelly" to her, and the group helper said, "Oh, she has been talking about Valentine's Day for months."  Of all the love I receive, this one was Valentine of the Year. I will be curious to find her in the pool now that the holiday is passing.  Will we be on to Easter or still obsessed with hearts?

Put on Your Love Dress


 DRESSING DOWN FOR LOVE

Put on your love dress
take off your other garments
the ones that cost you most.

Wear your heart out.
Become a transvestite
for love. Dress as a heart.

Establish a municipality
with eyes you meet on the street.
Enter the election for darling.

Let kindness reign.  Put on
no airs. Be plain as feet
which can also carry you away

along the love highway.
Hello. What is your name?
I have forgotten it again. Remind me.     JSL 2.13.11

Poetry å la Heart
Visiting four area nursing homes
with poems and love songs
Tomorrow, February 14 at 2:00 meet at Body and deliver valentines, recite poems, sing a little.
my cell is 505-459-3482

Friday, February 18, 7:00-9:00, Center For Spiritual Living on Camino de los Marquez w/ Mirabai Daniels 
this will be an evening of music, story, and poetry with Mirabai, Michael Kott, and Joan Logghe....divine cello, poetry of Rumi, Kabir, and yours truly.

Come, come whoever you are!!


Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Snow Day

DELAYS TODAY


Prince of Peace delayed two hours,
Crownpoint and Gallup Public, Hobbs Municipal
all delayed.  Pecos Valley closed.  Battaan, Mountain
Academy, Bernalillo, Bosque, all delayed. 


School of Dreams Academy, I did not make this up,
Sierra Blanca, Hope Christian, Horizon West.
Silver Consolidated School, Immanuel, Jemez Valley,
two hours.  Sky City Community School, South Valley.


Academy de Esperanza, Laguna all delayed two hours.
Saint Bonaventure, Thoreau, buses delayed, Lovington,
Saint Michaels, Saint Pius, Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Sunset Mesa, Taos Day, the schools scrolled across


the bottom of the screen.  Tatum Municipal
staff must report. The Tutorial, Mora and Moriarity,
imagine the students dreaming late, Tierra Encantado,
All staff report.  Tohatchi, Village Academy.


West Las Vegas closed.  Wagon Mound no evening
activity. Santa Fe delay. Institute of American Indian Arts
delayed.  Luna Community College, Albuquerque 
Academy, Albuquerque Public and Sandia Prep.


But nothing about my sweet Pojoaque or Espanola,
So I scrape the ice, sweep the snow, and go.    2.1.2011

I got to go and teach poetry to two groups of seniors at the Pojoaque Valley High School.  It is the school where my two oldest children attended grades 6th through graduation. All the students showed up, 11 at the early morning hour of 7:40 and 18 at the second period class.  Last week I'd told them a Grimm's fairy tale, The Devil's Sooty Brother, and we had a common experience, the image of the young soldier sweeping the shavings behind the door, scraps and detritus which later in the story turned to gold.  I felt the day unfold in a simliar way, the tatters of a frigid day they all wanted to be a snow day became the gold of poetry.  Teens in the teens, they wrote pantoums. Even the hip hop guy, Forest, who doesn't write in forms, wrote one.

Here is one student poem and one the teacher wrote. Here's Patrick's:


Exhilarating cliff faces in the sun
Random thoughts entering my mind
Deep breaths of the early mountain air
Info pumping through my digital veins


Random thoughts entering my mind
The mezmerizing smell of roasting chile
Info pumping through my digital veins
Half my life livingin the cloud


The mezmerizing smell of roasting chile
Mouth watering sensations of Christmas
Half my life living in the cloud
Helping others wth my knowledge


Mouth watering sensations of Chirstams
Deep breaths of the early mountain air
Half my life living in the cloud
Exhilarating cliff faces in the sun



And by amazing teacher Kerry Benson who keeps chewing gum in his desk
and laminates the student's drawings of cars:


Black Mesa rising up out of a morning fog
I drive down the hill into the valley
My beautiful girls- wife, daughters, grandchild
Run through my mind as I cross the Rio Grande


I drive down the hill into the Valley
The Jemez behind me pink in the early sunlight
Runs through my mind as I cross the Rio Grande
It's like living in a painting, Que no?


The Jemez behind me pink in the early sunlight
A stray beam catches the vanes of a windmill off to the south
It's like living in a painting, Que no?
A driver ahead pulls out of El Rancho without looking, swerves into my lane.


A stray beam catches the vanes of a windmill off to the south
The driver slows down- no brake lights reveal his plan
The driver ahead pulls out, swerves into my lane
Hey bro, you got turn signals on that pickup?


The driver slows down- no brake lights reveal his plan
My beautiful girls, wife, daughters, grandchild
Hey bro, you got turn signals on that pickup?
Black Mesa rising up out of a morning fog.