Missing Bill Moyers

Another Friday night has come and gone. Just as Bill Moyers and his weekly television show, Journal, has gone. I don't begrudge his wanting to let go of demands of a weekly television show - nor his desire to do some other creative things with the next years of his life. Afterall, I let go of one profession to take up another. I did not want to reach the end of my life and not have tried to see what I could create with words and camera lens. Perhaps Bill Moyers has the same feelings.

But just the same, I miss him. As if he had physically died and left all of us - even though he still prowls the canyons of NYC. I miss his wisdom, his humor, his delight in ever learning new things, his passion for justice, his keen intellect.

He would sit there and focus on his guest across the table  . As he engaged in the conversation, he often would lean forward, his face and eyes alive. His questions were always respectful, but after watching him week after week, his positions and perspective on the world were clear. And he could skewer someone as nicely as anyone.

However, it was his last choice of a person to interview that is a metaphor for what I miss most. He invited the writer, Barry Lopez to be his last guest. It has always been quite evident that Bill Moyers lived his life in the political world. But he also lived in the literary world. He knew the importance of the wisdom that poets and writers have to give us.

Wars, world hunger, climate change, politics, injustices, educational policy, technological changes, aging, immigration - the list is long. The Journal addressed all of these and more. Bill Moyers expanded the search for creative approaches to the issues of our day with a steady stream of writers and poets. No one else in the contemporary media  does what Bill Moyers is so skillful at doing.

In the last interview on the Journal, Barry Lopez said to Bill Moyers:  "Where I start from is ethical responsibility to an audience. The creation of something that is as beautiful as you can make it. And that ensures that what we dream, what we really desire, not for ourselves, because that's what you do as a kid, but for children - how will you ensure some possibility here by making sure we don't forget where we are going or what we are up to." Wise words that say it all.

I miss you, Bill Moyers!

Article Just Published

My article, "Can You Hear the Sight of Water?" has just been published on-line by the Loft. Go to the link for the Loft and click it. When the Loft website comes up, click on the View From the Loft. My article will come up - until an another article is published. In that case, scroll down to my article or put the title in the Search box. Or go to www.loft.org/view/

The piece grew out of ways that Clem and I have experimented with weaving the senses together. As poets, we would suggest that in many ways, poetry is foundational for all writing. Poetry arises out of nonverbal images in our mind - and the poet's work is to find the means to convey those images to other people. Although there is a place for poetry that is purely descriptive of something in our external world, much poetry is many-layered and relies on metaphor. And metaphor is what we use when we have difficulty finding words to express something within that wants to push itself out and onto paper.

An example: have you ever gone outside and smelled summer? Now really - try explaining to someone how summer, a season of the year, smells to you. Is it the smell of rain or the smell of sunshine. Sunshine? Now tell me, how does sunshine smell? Do you move into memories of past summers' good times, such as pictures in your mind, the sound of waves on a beach, the ice cream truck's bell, a worn softball in your hands . . .

Elizabeth

Denizens Inside Our House

This morning, I found it curious that two of the many plants in our house were blooming right next to each other . . . with the same pink color. In nature this would not be the case.

Denizens Inside Our House

In our cool, shady summer-house,
cyclamen and bougainvillea
bloom together.

One atop a towering vine,
the other from
a flowerpot on the floor.

Their waning flowers,
each two in number,
show off an indentical
hue of pink.

In the wild, one loves it best
in dry hot places;
the other in sun-filled
moist tropics.

Still -
both bloom here
where I too thrive.

Once Again

I pay attention to the sequences of the seasons. This July was the earliest I have ever heard the Lacewing.Usually it is late August before they begin their singing.    Clem

Once Again

For the first time this summer,

Just before

last night's storm -

I heard the Lacewing call.

The North Shore

There are those days when I yearn for Minnesota's North Shore. Days when the fog drifts in and the waves crash on its rock strewn shore. When gulls fly low over its grey surface. And when the fog drifts over the trees, my world becomes a cocoon as though nothing more exists than this small silent space. It gives me needed respite from the news of the day with its violence, wars of words, and starving people.

Perspective that allows me to return home from my beloved inland sea. Carrying the silence with me into a chaotic world driven by greed, power, and suffering. So that I might do my part with other compassionate people to find solutions in a time marked by rapidly increasing change.
                                                                                                 
 Elizabeth

Late May

One of my poems:

Cascade

tiny waterfall splash into

small garden pool

tinkling sounds echo

beneath dark rock ledges

droplets merge into

sunlit crystal liquid

               Clem

                          from Listen For the Silence:

                                                    A Walk Through the Natural World

Books and e-books

In an article in today's paper, there one a prediction by some "authority" that said within a decade, print copies of books will have almost ceased. I believe there was some references to books being musty. To which I uttered a "hurrump" and moved on to the comics.

I remember when Amazon.com and large bookstore chains appeared and other predictions predicted other demises of the world of books as we knew it. Hurrump.

Of course, technology is a rapidly moving target that is changing our access to information and the need to print everything on paper. This blog would not exist if it weren't for such technology. It behooves writers to get with it.

But the demise of our beloved books? Hardly. There is something about going back to an old friend, whose worn pages carry memories of earlier times in our lives. And there is nothing like opening a new book for the first time. My computer, beloved as it is is, will never carry the smell unique to books!

Elizabeth

Check out Clem's poem

One of Clem's peace poems Being Not Afraid was published on the online website Patch for Peace. It is one of Clem's favorite creations. It was written in response to seeing spring bunchberry flowers spread out on the forest floor along Lake Superior. It reminded him of white doves.

To read it, put Clem Nagel Patch for Peace in Google. Touch "poems" and there it is!

Santa Fe

This time, the plaza is
ready for summer festivals,
newly sodded thick green grass
covers the ground, keep-off signs
ignored by everyone seeking shade,
a gathering place for strolling teens
with cell phones and skateboards,
musicians, tourists, and food vendors
find their places among benches
that invite people-watching,
ice cream savored in the arid heat,
Native peoples hand-crafted jewelry
spread on blankets at the Governor's Palace,
art galleries radiate from the plaza,
filled with work generated by
the particular blend of artistic energy
pervading this northern New Mexico place

every time the question:
    what created this space like no other
    that fosters such extraordinary creativity?

Elizabeth

A Presentation by Patricia Hampl

Patricia Hampl, poet and memoirist, will discuss her writing at Southdale Library, 7001 York Avenue South in Edina at 7:00 p.m.

New Exhibit

Today we installed a new exhibit at the Mississippi Branch of the Anoka County Library. The exhibit has five black and white photographic images that are Elizabeth's work. The other nine pieces of art are collaborative work of Clem and Elizabeth. Each piece pairs one of Clem's poems with one of Elizabeth's photographic images. The intent of the two art forms is to have a conversation between them -and to engage the viewer in conversation. All fourteen pieces are from the natural world.

The exhibit will be up until the Tuesday after Labor Day. Stop by and have look!

Anticipating the 4th

All the past 4th of July celebrations in my life are rolled up together. Just like everyone else has a storage bank full of memories about this thoroughly American holiday.
here were the years when our family invariably were camping in Canada over the 4th - where our date has no meaning. (A reminder that the USA is not the only country in the world.) There were my childhood's BBQ chicken on the grill, repeated periodically over the years. There were firework displays over Lake Minnetonka in Wayzata.

Today I ponder - what exactly does this day mean? For some it is a time to party and gather together with family and friends. For others it is the 1812 Overture played full-blast on PBS and cheering with the cannons - no matter how anti-war one might be. It is flag-waving and remembering our history. It is reminding ourselves of who we are - in this time of unemployment that threatens to become chronic, this time of melting glaciers and rising average temperatures even for Minnesota's beloved north woods, and this time of exponential technological growth that shrinks our globe almost daily.

It is not the same country in which I grew up. My world then was the Minnesota prairie of white families dominated by men who were served by submissive women. My life today stands in stark contrast to the person I was brought up to be. (Ask Clem if I submissively serve his every need!). If I live long enough, being a white American will mean being part of a minority group.

Being in someone else's country is like a camera lens, a means to look at my country through someone else's eyes and and opportunity to catch a glimpse their country through my eyes. Those chance conversations (whether the person speaks my version of English or not) about our respective lives, our families, our politics.Yet I am thoroughly American, even with my love to travel in distant cultures.

What does it mean - this being American?

Elizabeth

Capturing Moments in Life

Years earlier, we went to Arches National Park. We tried walking through a narrow passageway to a canyon beyond. The wind was so fierce that it was blowing people over and we had to turn back. When we were in Arches in June we decided to try again.

The slot canyon was beautiful with wind-eroded rocks towering above us. The intense sun warmed the rock walls. We caught glimpses ahead of contorted pines against blue sky. Blooming flowers lined the trail. It was then that I saw the little lizard pressed against a rock and wrote:

Encounter Along a Path

A small, dull brown-green lizard

atop a sun-bathed red rock.

Motionless - almost.

It turns it head toward me - then

quickly away.

Motionless again - almost.

I hold my breath and watch

to see if it is breathing.

The lizard raises and lower

sits body in a pumping motion,

I see its bright green

underbelly.

It lowers itself to the rock -

again motionless - almost.

I step away and leave

a small, dull brown-green lizard

atop a sun-bathed red rock.

                Clem