The heartland is ablaze.
The five-o’clock news anchor tells us that Tower Mountain was kissed by lightning, that it went up like a harvest bonfire before emergency crews responded. “There have been more than 1, 000 wildfires in Arkansas this year, ” he says, “mostly in rural portions of the state.” He makes some awkward Smokey the Bear PSA about cigarette butts and camp fires, but I cannot imagine smoking in this heat — the clock at Pulaski Bank read 113 last Wednesday — and campfires are surely out of the question.
I look out the window at my browning summer garden. I’m running a deficit of national proportions to keep it watered. We haven’t had good rain in this part of the state since late June, and I suspect we won’t see any until September. The sun is sucking the life out of the heartland. In a more dramatic moment, I might mention John Steinbeck.
In seasons like this, I wish we could conjure rain. The Zuni, the Cherokee, tribes in East Africa, certain Eastern Europeans, they all had rainmaking rituals centered around dance. I suspect these traditions are ancient, fraught with meaning and complex.
I neither dance, nor am I ancient; I lament this. Instead of dancing, I stare from the window and dream of rain, how it comes in Autumn like an old earth-lover to germinate the fall seedlings. It pitter-patters on the tin roof of the carport, builds to a crescendo like miniature drums. Droplets splatter onto the old stone walk way, slide off into the dust of the earth leaving snaky trails until they are received into the waiting ground. Earthworms rise from the deep in a greeting, and robins swing from their waiting branches to feast.
All nature waits for rain.
I can’t dance, so I look to my bookcase remembering Glynn Young’s spine poetry piece and I figure on a different kind of conjuring. From the spines of the books compose a sort of cento:
Faraway Home
The Ceremonies
of longing (above
the river, the road)
cry.
The beloved country,
crude world, great.
With child, epic
love.
In the driest season things
fall apart–the Republic,
stone crossings, touching
wonder.
A river runs. Through
it, mercy rising. Faraway
home, the sun also
rises.
Rain on me holy.
The firm shadow
of Heaven,
miracles.
As I finished, a clap of thunder shakes the field. The sky opens up and I watch as the Italian zucchini leaves are pelted by precipitation. Perhaps it’s coincidence. After all, I’m no old-world conjurer. But then again?
Tweetspeak’s August Rain Project.
This month’s found poem theme at Tweetspeak is Rain. We’re compiling poems touching on the subject (no matter how loosely), and we’d love you to join with is. How do you participate?
1. This month, we will take our cues from book spines (see Glynn’s piece for more information). Look through your personal collection, the aisles at your local bookstore, or your neighbor’s bookcase and grab a few titles.
2. Arrange a poem completely from words on book spines, or use pieces of the titles to create your own found poem. Make sure your poems touch on themes of rain or water.
3. Tweet your poems (and pictures of the book spines) to us. Add a #tsrain hashtag so we can find it and maybe share it with the world.
4. If you aren’t a twitter user, leave your found poem here in the comment box (we’ll use our mind’s eye to imagine your book spines).
5. Each week we’ll share a few of the poems. At the end of the month, we’ll choose a winning poem and ask the winner to record his or her poem to be featured in one of our upcoming Weekly Top 10 Poetic Picks.
And speaking of winners, last month’s Mosaic winner was Grace Marcella Brodhurst-Davis. In “Change” she wrote:
She clacks and clatters
down hardened, dusty way,
hundreds of tiny seeds
spilling by her sway.
Strings of multicolored beads
encircle her weary neck,
muscled by heavy, hand-woven
basket, plopped atop her cinta,
worn like a million women before her.
She barters harvested maize
and the woman still at the conveyor belt,
whose fingers nudge factory-punched
gold medals that stray,
negotiates an exchange.
Her deal made -a fair trade.
Grinning, her teeth like chiclets,
at loggers moving big rigs
with mechanical arms
on her way home.
The universe has made its preparations,
swirling pigments of the old with
so-called new world.
Congratulations, Grace! We look forward to featuring your poem in an upcoming Top Ten Poetic Picks.
Now, go generate a new work and come back here and rain it on us!
Photo (top) by gogoloopie, Creative Commons via Flickr. Post and book spine photo by Seth Haines.
___________
Buy a year of Every Day Poems, just $5.99— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In August we’re exploring the theme Rain.
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Megan Willome says
Great poem! I noticed several of the titles (but not all!) before I read the spines.
Seth Haines says
This was a really fun exercise. It takes a little time and a bit of creative manipulation of punctuation, but I found it to be a really fun prompt.
Thanks for reading. Let us know what you create!
Darrelyn Saloom says
Seth, it rained after you wrote your lovely piece for TS Poetry? Because it poured for weeks when I finished mine. Conjuring with words. Love it.
Seth Haines says
Yes… it was absolutely crazy. Unfortunately, it only fell for about 30 minutes. Maybe I should try again this evening?
Darcy @ Message in a Mason Jar says
I was laughing a few weeks ago when we were doing our rain dance AFTER the rain instead of before. P.S. Beautiful book spine poem. My favorite part? Cry the Beloved Country is “lovely beyond any singing of it.”
Seth Haines says
Maybe your post-rain dance was a sort of quantum moment? Try again and see what happens. OR… compose a book spine poem and see what happens. 🙂
P.S. I love those words in Cry.
Grace Marcella Brodhurst-Davis says
I enjoyed your article and poem, Seth! Loved the creative usage of punctuation in the poem too! Thanks for choosing my poem to be featured:)
Seth Haines says
Well when you compose that kind of a poem? Grace… I really liked it. I could go on about the rhythm in it, but I’ll just leave it be for now.
Hope you’ll jot a bit of a book spine poem and share it with us here!
Dave Malone says
I’m not altogether convinced you’re not an old-world conjurer. 🙂 Great piece, Seth.
Seth Haines says
Maybe in another life? Thanks, Dave. And by the way, it looks like we live mere hours away from one another.
Dave Malone says
You’re welcome. I’m in south central Missourah, just 30 miles north of the Arkansas border. Where are you, sir?
Seth Haines says
I hold it down in NW Ark. Specifically Fayetteville. We say “woo pig” here, but we’re still quite civilized. Come down for the farmer’s market one Saturday and I’ll buy you a cup of joe. Thereafter, you can write a poem about the bluegrass bands with shaky cigarette stained fingers and shakier vibratos.
Dave Malone says
LOL. Ah yes. My grandfather was born in West Fork, so I know the area a little bit. The farmer’s market, consider it done. 🙂
Maureen Doallas says
Salt Water Amnesia
A thousand vessels
jam the city in which I love you.
Tell me
I have tasted the apple.
Tell me
the captain lands in paradise
where currents meet.
___________________
Title: Jeffrey Skinner
Poets, in order: Tania Runyon, Joe-Anne McLaughlin and Li_Young Lee, Kim Addonizzio, Mary Crow, Kim Addonizzio, Satah Manguso, Elizabeth Austen
Seth Haines says
I love the images here. They seem epic.
Jody Lee Collins says
from my small stack today
in (no particular order)
I wanted to write Poetry
In the Power of His Presence
(usually accompanied by living water—rain?)
So I looked for
A Way to Garden—
Praying for a drop
And possibly an
Animal, Vegetable,
Or Miracle.
there I found
One Thousand Gifts
Looking at
The Artist’s Way.
a small attempt…but fun. Thank you!
Seth Haines says
A great attempt! Keep them coming!
donna says
what if
the artists way
brought us safely
out of the woods?
what if
everything i need to know i learned in kindergarten?
what if
the places that scare you
are where there is light?
what if
everybody wins?
and
what if
we are all old world conjurers?
what if?
donna says
Seth, I loved your piece, and I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed a wee bit because I couldn’t resist trying it on.
donna says
reposted, with images and typos fixed, on my blog. http://thebrightersideblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-if-artists-way-brought-us-safely.html
alas, there is no rain in mine, but I am determined to find some WET titles at the library!
Seth says
Good work, Donna, and I never mind if you borrow a wee bit. We’re here to prompt!
Thanks for playing along.
Casee says
The World As I See It
Us, gypsies, wanderers of the world.
The sacred origins of profound things,
the things they carried, forgotten.
Magical beginnings, enchanted lives, separated.
Seeking Utopia with the praise of folly.
We exchange the living bible for fun with hand shadows.
Like water for chocolate, the God of small things
dispatches, from the war room, letters from the earth.
Adventures in gentle discipline for an ageless body, timeless mind.
For us, the birth of tragedy.
Living on earth, the weeping woman, must learn
the art of racing in the rain, struggling to touch the earth.
Religions of the world, searching for God knows what,
desire to be the know it all.
The paradox of plenty, the death of common sense.
The Alchemist,the reminding salt,
Crossing the water,piece by piece,
Nourishing traditions,
Turning to one another: simple conversations to restore hope.
You already know what to do.
Eat, pray, love.
Casee says
I immediately saw things I would change after I posted. But I LOVED this prompt. This was a lot of fun. Thanks.
Seth says
Casee, I really loved this line – “We exchange the living bible for fun with hand shadows.” It’s definitely a winner.
I hope you keep playing along this month.
Casee says
Seth, I will. I actually thought of you and Amber when I wrote “the reminding salt.” And “turning to one another: simple conversations to restore hope” has you guys and group all over it. Y’all have sure felt like shining lights and ‘salt of the earth’ to me. 🙂
Daniel says
Hey, here’s my book spine poem (photo here).
Truth and Method
Off the beaten track,
the garbage eater
at Lake Scugog
refusing heaven
bird by bird,
being given
the best of it—
seeing the invisible
God without being
Paul.
Seth Haines says
“refusing heaven
bird by bird…”
Very well done.
LjDowns says
Seth, I’ve really enjoyed your writing this month. Not just this article but the ones you’ve written since (I’m commenting here several days after this first posted because it’s taken me that long to craft my first poem!). TSPoetry will be blessed if you keep writing here.
I hope I’ll have a chance to write at least one more, but here’s a crack at #tsrain
http://bit.ly/NwJOBn
Seth Haines says
Thanks for the comment and I hope you keep coming around. I loved the creativity and effort you put into that piece. The result was very nice.
And as an aside, All is Grace? That book wrecked me.
Sandra Heska King says
I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. Yet.
http://sandraheskaking.com/2012/08/behold-the-dawn-after-all-a-book-spine-poem/
Seth Haines says
Sandra,
Great poem. You say a great deal through combining your book titles. I hope you keep dropping in here… hope you keep submitting.
Thanks.
LjDowns says
A new poem on rain/water, here is the link:
http://leahjoinerdowns.blogspot.com/2012/08/one-thousand-gifts.html
One Thousand Gifts
The night I fell from the sky,
the dog star shone
on a temple of trees; dovekeepers,
they came from a lineage of grace.
Where the red fern grows,
wild apples lay on leaves of grass.
A deer hears rumors of water,
and follows the stone crossings home.
The barn owl coos about the
secret life of bees to an
elegant gathering of white snows.
Over the sounds and silences,
the last coyote calls the
song of the blood orange moons
to the princes of the Milky Way.
The Good Earth is a holy mount
where every bush is burning.
It is a moveable feast
of bread and ashes,
the thistle and the rose,
and dawns mistaken for dusk.
The night I fell from the sky,
a dog star shone
on a temple of trees; dovekeepers,
they came from a lineage of grace.
As I lay dying beneath
a blossom rain,
tender is the night.
From across the ancient waters
comes the weight of glory and
the allure of hope, of necessary endings
and final beginnings.
Grand Weaver, whisper my name,
of you my heart has spoken.
Monica Sharman says
Love how you worked in Cry, the Beloved Country! One of my favorites. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it.
Grace Marcella Brodhurst-Davis says
Well, this was quite a workout for me since I had so many books to dig through! Yep, I’m a book hoarder:) Here’s the link to my poem (with pic of book spines):
http://gracebrodhurstdavis.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-childhood-biography-of-place.html
A Childhood: The Biography of a Place
Belize…
Unlike the wide Sargasso Sea
(its fertile underground),
lies in the seat of the soul
No rumors, of water it abounds
Its birds of paradise,
the sounds of poetry
in your dreams,
belong to me
My borderlands -la frontera
The violent bear it away
I taste the wine of astonishment
Such free fire –a raisin in the sun
Things fall apart at
the dyer’s hand
Brother, I’m dying
I see the forgotten waltz
The sugar solution:
three cups of tea, as
fair and tender ladies
praisesong for the widow –Belize
Little big minds rise above
incidents in the life of a slave girl,
member of the whipping club,
in search of lost time
A return to the native land
through the book of awakening
Geography III on the banks
of Plum Creek -I’m freed
A new dawn on rocky ridge
opens the kingdom of this world within
-not unlike a history of Latin America
My childhood: A history of Belize
Mark Ettinger says
June 2009
” Rain’s Symphony ” Mark Ettinger
When I feel the rain upon my face
I feel Your mercy and Your grace
As the rain falls all around me
The countless sounds surround me
The sound of the rain’s symphony
Lord, it’s Your majesty
The leaves of the trees become instruments
As the raindrops play their song
A melody from Heaven, rains on and on and on
The softest song I’ve ever heard
Rain falling through the trees
Unlike a song you can only hear
God lets this song be seen
The drops of rain that sound surreal
A song that Heaven lets me feel
As the rain falls all around me
The countless music surrounds me
The sound of the rain’s symphony
Lord, Your melody rains upon me
The most beautiful love song