Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life
February 24, 2020

On a cold morning

Like clockwork
On a cold morning
in February
the air comes alive

Fluttering wings
and hopeful
wannabes
strut their sweetest songs

A maybe pair
of small song sparrows
flits from twig to twig
male in patient pursuit

While nearby
streaking through air
landing on a dime
and taking off again

beak stuffed with
twigs and detritus
a tireless common pigeon
weaves a crude nest

Fragile hope springs
from the ground
sending up small fireworks
of purple and gold

All seen in my backyard this weekend and this morning. I think I’ve got the pigeon nest spotted, just outside my kitchen window. They’re not the most exotic of birds, and their offspring look like awkward adolescents. Still, I’m won over by the parents’ loyalty and their remarkable ability to endure all kinds of weather without abandoning each other. All in my backyard.

Happy Monday!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 February 2020
Photo of wood pigeon nest found at commons.wikipedia.com

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February 22, 2020

I believe in god | Dorothee Soelle

Here’s one of the most compelling personal credos (statements of belief) I’ve ever read. Soelle wrote it after World War II and during the Vietnamese War. Even if you’re not an outwardly religious person, I hope you’ll give it a read. It’s down to earth and challenging no matter what your beliefs might be.

Credo

I believe in god
who did not create an immutable world
a thing incapable of change
who does not govern according to eternal laws
that remain inviolate
or according to a natural order
of rich and poor
of the expert and the ignorant
of rulers and subjects
I believe in god
who willed conflict in life
and wanted us to change the status quo
through our work
through our politics

I believe in jesus christ
who was right when he
like each of us
just another individual who couldn’t beat city hall
worked to change the status quo
and was destroyed
looking at him I see
how our intelligence is crippled
our imagination stifled
our efforts wasted
because we do not live as he did
every day I am afraid
that he died in vain
because he is buried in our churches
because we have betrayed his revolution
in our obedience to authority
and our fear of it
I believe in jesus christ
who rises again and again in our lives
so that we will be free
from prejudice and arrogance
from fear and hate
and carry on his revolution
and make way for his kingdom

I believe in the spirit
that jesus brought into the world
in the brotherhood of all nations
I believe it is up to us
what our earth becomes
a vale of tears starvation and tyranny
or a city of god
I believe in a just peace
that can be achieved
in the possibility of a meaningful life
for all people
I believe this world of god’s
has a future
amen

Dorothee Soelle, Revolutionary Patience, pp 22-23, 3rd printing May 1984
English translation © 1977 by Orbis Books
Published by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY

Wishing each of you a thoughtful, challenging day.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 February 2020
Image found at cia.gov

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February 20, 2020

The distance between then and now

The distance between then and now
Boils down quickly to a handful of
Opportunities lost in translation

Heavy baggage dumped in swamps
Still unopened and never claimed

On-demand smiles of yesterday hidden
Beneath faces lined with sadness and grief

Moments of vulnerability unexplored
In favor of stiff upper lips and privacy

The openness of childhood and youth
Shut down in favor of family reputation

Yet miles of heart-stopping space open
Like the Grand Canyon between us and
old photos tugging at our lonely hearts

I feel sad and happy every time I look at this old photo. I’m sitting on the bench surrounded by my mother, her father, and her father’s mother. Four generations. The poem reflects how difficult I find it to become a human being. Especially when working on family-related issues.

Becoming human may be our greatest achievement. Not wealth or happiness or helping people all over the world, but the ability to become who we are from the inside out. Sort of like the velveteen rabbit, so that by the time we leave this world, we’ve become Real human beings.

Here’s to heaps of practice and a few great breakthroughs every now and then!

The photo at the top was taken by my father in 1944. We’re in California, visiting with my Grandpa Gury and my very proper Great Grandmother Gury (an immigrant from France). I’m sitting in the middle; my beautiful mother is on my right.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 February 2020
Photo taken by my father, JERenich in 1944, California

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February 19, 2020

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper | Poet and Abolitionist

Thanks to Poem-a-Day for introducing me to Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s poetry. And thanks to Black History Month for bringing it to mind. My comments follow.

Aunt Chloe’s Politics

Of course, I don’t know very much
About these politics,
But I think that some who run ’em
Do mighty ugly tricks.

I’ve seen ’em honey-fugle round,
And talk so awful sweet,
That you’d think them full of kindness,
As an egg is full of meat.

Now I don’t believe in looking
Honest people in the face,
And saying when you’re doing wrong,
That “I haven’t sold my race.”

When we want to school our children,
If the money isn’t there,
Whether black or white have took it,
The loss we all must share.

And this buying up each other
Is something worse than mean,
Though I thinks a heap of voting,
I go for voting clean.

First published by Ferguson Brothers in Sketches of Southern Life (1891), now in the public domain
Published online by Poem-a-Day on 23 June 2019, by the Academy of American Poets

“Honey fugle” means to deceive by flattery or sweet talk, to swindle or cheat. Click here to see the full definition.

I love Aunt Chloe’s straightforward language. Rigged voting machines and gerry-mandering didn’t begin yesterday. Nor did pie-in-the sky promises and ‘street money’ handed out to influence our votes. As Aunt Chloe points out, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is if the money isn’t there to fund those lovely promises. Everyone loses, no matter the color of our skin.

Aunt Chloe nailed it decades ago. Her words are presented in a no-nonsense voice that invites us to believe her and do something about it. Maybe it’s as simple as getting off our political bandwagons and taking a look at ourselves.

So….The next time you hear politicians making promises too good to be true, think of a flugel horn (profuse apologies to lovers of flugel horns). It may sound sweet and mellow. Nonetheless, sweet music and stars in our eyes won’t buy groceries, pay for medical bills, or turn manipulation into truth. Instead, the cost will continue falling on all of us.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 February 2020
Image found at Wikipedia.org

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February 18, 2020

Sunday morning musings

Sunday morning
Sitting near the back row
In a neighborhood church
Pondering the reality
That I am now one of the
Old Folks at Home
An aging white woman
Wondering what on earth
I have to offer this generation
Drowning in possibilities
I never dreamed about

A life —
That’s all I have
A life already lived
Partially grieved and celebrated
Now halfway resting
In this odd space
Called retirement with
all the time in the world
yet no spare time to be found

So what’s left to offer?
Just one thing comes to mind —

Smiles
Free smiles and maybe a kind word
No manipulation
No smirking
No hesitation
No holding back
No looking away
No pretending not to see
the child or young person before me
carrying an invisible cup running over
too often with confusion, self-judgment or worse

Smiles
That’s all I have to offer
Smiles that say
With or without a word
I’m so happy to see you today!
Smiles that reflect our Creator’s delight
in each child or young person’s beauty
whether they get this yet or not

Simple things. That’s what I can do. No promises made. No lists of things to do after this moment. Just a smile and a silent prayer for that child or teenager already dealing with the heaviness of being in this world. Who can’t relate to that?

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 February 2020
Photo found at pinterest.com

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February 17, 2020

February’s lightness of being

Looking for just the right words
To convey lightness of being
Descending through rainbows
To the ground of our heaviness
Bent beneath cares and sorrows
Though the sun shines brightly
This first and only Monday morning
Of week three and counting down

How do we live with sinking feelings
As friends and strangers known
To us if not by us wither and pass
Beyond veils of mist and ashes
Dying quickly as lines form
At the rear and out of control
If not out of mind and time
Waiting to hear the bell toll

This isn’t directly about the latest virus. It’s about how we get through one day at a time in a world that seems to be falling apart. Virus or no virus. I vote for rainbows and the Creator to whom they point. How about you?

Here’s to a Happy Monday, no matter the circumstances. Not because it’s cheery, but because this day belongs to Someone Greater than ourselves, who loves us and wants nothing more than our faithful presence. Especially when things seem to be falling apart.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 February 2020
Photo found at orcaissues.com

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February 14, 2020

Valentine’s Day at Longwood 2016 | Photos

Happy Valentine’s Day! Here are some flower children to brighten your day, chosen because my eyes love looking at them. The couple above make me laugh. Creatures from another planet welcoming us with open antennae and open arms. Or are those gullets? And how about those imposing hats?

All photos in this post were taken at Longwood Gardens by D, my partner for over 54 years. Sometimes I ask him to take a particular picture. Most of the time, though, he just shoots away, and I post whatever strikes my fancy. A fine arrangement.

Here are two photos in gorgeous pinky tones. The second may look like it’s upside down, but I don’t think it is. The small, single-petal blossoms seem to be hanging down on stems, floating in the air.

The next plant, not an orchid, has beautiful pink and orange tones. Muted cool-blue/green background and foreground colors make it a standout. Not a stunningly beautiful plant, but serene and sure of itself. What’s not to love?

Next we have three members of the orchid family, each different, and begging for attention. I’m torn between the first two. The first is rather imposing and sure of itself. Just below, we have a quiet, gentle type. Which shows how little I know about orchid anatomy. In the third photo, we seem to have a family competing for attention. Or maybe they’re celebrating someone’s birthday? Or Valentine’s Day?

Finally, perhaps my favorite. It’s totally calm, serene, and happy in its subdued non-orchid outfit. Elegant. Not flashy.


Wishing you an elegant day no matter how messy things get from time to time. Thanks for visiting!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 February 2020
Photos taken by DAFraser in February 2016 at Longwood Gardens

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February 13, 2020

At loose ends with myself

I posted this poem with brief comments a few days after mid-term elections in November 2018. Now there’s another election coming up in November, with large stakes for all of us. My biggest challenge today is to stay on target. Not just with my health and well-being, but the reality of our current state of our disunion. I want to ignore it, and cannot. My poem and earlier comments follow.

At loose ends with myself
Wandering up and down
The stairs of my distraction
Overturning this and that
Within my overactive mind
A clock ticks relentlessly
Counting down the corridors
Of tasks undone and words
Never recorded yet dissipating
Into a gray atmosphere silent
And secretive not yet menacing
Though the thought occurs
to me that I am being unraveled
strand by limp strand falling
to the floor of unknown reality

Unraveled. A word rich with possibilities. Terrifying and welcome all at the same time. Loss of control. Change of direction. Once-blind eyes coming out of misty half-truth and patched-together personas. Fragility unbound and hanging out there. Human. Vulnerable. Out of control in the best possible way.

All this and more went through my mind today. It isn’t just about getting older. It’s about getting real. Becoming a real rabbit, a real human being, a real baby. Not just a make-believe look-alike.

Here’s to more loose ends of the fruitful kind. Those that lead to something greater than you or I could ever become on our own.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 November 2018, reposted 12 February 2020
Image of unraveling butterfly found at movestrongkbs.com

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February 12, 2020

A Visitor | Mary Oliver

This haunting poem by Mary Oliver comes from a 1986 collection called Dream Work. My comments follow.

A Visitor

My father, for example,
who was young once
and blue-eyed,
returns
on the darkest of nights
to the porch and knocks
wildly at the door,
and if I answer
I must be prepared
for his waxy face,
for his lower lip
swollen with bitterness.
And so, for a long time,
I did not answer,
but slept fitfully
between his hours of rapping.
But finally there came the night
when I rose out of my sheets
and stumbled down the hall.
The door fell open

and I knew I was saved
and could bear him,
pathetic and hollow,
with even the least of his dreams
frozen inside him,
and the meanness gone.
And I greeted him and asked him
into the house,
and lit the lamp,
and looked into his blank eyes
in which at last
I saw what a child must love,
I saw what love might have done
had we loved in time.

c. 1992, Mary Oliver
New and Selected Poems, Volume One, pp. 116-117
Published by Beacon Press

Mary Oliver left home early in life to get away from an abusive situation. Now, years later, wild knocking in the dark of night reminds her of what she ran away from. If she opens the door, she must confront the man she remembers having a “waxy face” and “a lower lip swollen with bitterness.”

She ignores the pounding on the door. The knocking persists at all hours of the night. And so she “stumbles down the hall,” and the door “falls open.”

In an instant, Mary Oliver knows she has nothing to fear. In fact, it seems she’s surprised to discover her father is “pathetic and hollow.” Even his smallest dreams have frozen, and his meanness has vanished.

She greets him, invites him to come into her house, lights a lamp, looks into his “blank eyes” and sees what was needed when she was a child, plus what might have been “had we loved in time.”

The poem isn’t about Mary Oliver’s father; it’s about Mary. In the end, It affirms her decision to leave home, and acknowledges the high cost she and her father paid. With grief, and without apology.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 February 2020
Book cover image found at amazon.com

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February 11, 2020

Outcomes predetermined

Outcomes predetermined –
No need for witnesses

News cameras keep rolling —
Capturing unwillingness
to accept self-evident truths

We have not administered
justice for all with an even hand

We have not allowed freedom for all
in this land of the free and home of the brave

We have not believed
Each person of any color or religion
is created equal and entitled
to full protection under the law

Nor have we been able to stem
today’s flood of party-line mantras
and childlike temper tantrums
from The White House

Welcome to Trump’s world and
the world in which brothers and sisters
now celebrating Black History Month
have lived all their lives

Thank you Mr. Trump
for this unexpected opportunity
to move beyond our current state
of habitual denial and fear

Now playing in your city or town
Every night of the week
No tickets needed

Several days ago I read a news report from CNN. It was about the farce of Trump’s impeachment trial. The message from black folks for white folks: “Welcome to our world.” Ironically, this is Black History Month. What will we make of it?

The meaning of justice has always been skewed against black people in this country. The movie Just Mercy shows how difficult it is in this so-called ‘enlightened age’ for black citizens to get justice. The so-called impeachment trial simply used the same tactics, this time to the advantage of a white male President.

  • a pre-ordained verdict
  • jury nullification (deliberate rejection of evidence or refusal to apply the law)
  • the judge as a prop, offering a pretense of impartiality
  • one of similar trials in which white men are favored

This is a rare opportunity for all of us. Especially, but not only white citizens. It’s still Black History Month. What better topic than the state of our union?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 February 2020
Photo of Lynching Memorial found at heraldnet.com

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