Today is the second national Poem In Your Pocket Day!

The idea is simple: select a poem you love then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends

To prepare for our soon-to-come summer in the desert, here’s a tanka-style exercise I recently penned and will carry in my pocket for the day:

A humming desert

Lifts its skirt of sand to kneel;

Its prayers scorch the eye.

Rabbits run from grazing hawks,

Scorpions waltz in the moon.

Morning comes early.

Midday wears its beggar’s coat,

A dirt rag of sky.

Summer’s so close I can feel

It’s breath going up my shirt.

My skin is a heat;

Air thermals rise in the throat.

Orange blossoms dangle

Hope, yet midnight I’m shaking

Those scorpions out my shoe.

Auburn McCanta

Last Friday … before Bunco night with the girls, before I got sick later that night, before spending the next days in bed doing battle with a very obtuse and stubborn flu bug … I went to Costco.

I loaded my cart with the requesite Bunco items — a bag of organic tortilla chips, Costco’s hip bulging, yet oddly satisfying six-layer dip, a bottle of Chardonnay, a tray of assorted muffins (guaranteed not to be lard-laden).  Of course I added a number of other essentials:  a pair of cute little capris, two new light fixtures for the master bath, a giant supply of toilet paper (little did I know), two jars of Gertie’s Artichoke Tapinade, other odds and ends, what-nots and whizits.  Of course, I browsed the book aisle.  Of course!

I checked out and turned toward the exit.  Just ahead of me was an elderly woman, obviously fragile, barely able to push her own enormously-laden cart.  I probably might have noticed how tender she looked, but all I could focus on were her pants — pink sweat pants.

Emblazoned provocatively across the seat were the words, Pink Power Baby.

I’ve never loved anyone like I loved that woman in that moment.  Pink Power Baby.

Her tiny bottom barely filled out those sweat pants, but in spite of her frailty, her significant years, that lovely woman was everything that causes people’s heads to turn.  For all her grey hair and hesitant gait, she still had that “It” factor.

She was the ghost of Marilyn Monroe.  She was future Madonna, Britney Spears, every little girl who wraps herself in Pink, Pink, Pink.

She was who I hope I’ll remember to be when I reach her age.  Her vision is memorized into my psyche now — The Pink Pants Woman from Costco who told me to remember that beauty walks the Costco aisles if only I’m available to notice.

I’ve discovered that part of being a writer is to foster one’s opinions to a fine degree.  Dan says I’ve got a lock on the highly opinionated part, but he doesn’t know so much about the fine degree part.  I have an opinion about that, though I’ll save my thoughts for another post.  Just know that the Mister of the House is hiding behind his newspaper right about now.

Many of you know that I served as an Election Correspondent for the Huffington Post prior to our recent national election.  The journalistic bug, once it bites, is hard to shake off.  Just to keep my chops up, I’ve added blogging on the Arizona Republic online newspaper to my list of daily writing duties.

Click HERE to read the post.  (Sorry.  I’m not nerdy enough to know how to do anything but add a simple “click here” link, but if you know how to pretty it up, I’d sure appreciate the help.)

Now, maybe you don’t want to increase your workload, but if you feel so inclined, please feel free to drop by this AzCentral blog and leave a comment.  I’d love to hear opinions from my DancingBird writers … and the nice folks at the newspaper would be especially delighted to have your opinion.  Someone told me that AzCentral.com is one of the top 20 online news outfits in the country.  If you leave a comment, you’ll be able to perhaps mention in your resume that you provide comment for a nationally-prominent news source, without stretching the truth too much.  Smiley-face, smiley-face.

Remember, one man’s opinion is another man’s opinion … or something like that.

The point is that we’re living in a unique time when we are being encouraged by our top leaders to express our thoughts, offer solutions to some unprecedented issues, rant and rave if we must, but then turn ourselves toward the notion of listening intently to the wisdom of others.  Somewhere within our wildest disagreements, there resides lovely kernels of inspiration.

When we offer our opinions, we open ourselves to the possibility of learning from others.

Also remember:  We’re writers!  The words we receive in return for allowing others to hear our thoughts often become fodder for characters, story lines, conflict, drama and magic.

So, come on, folks!  I need you — Come on … Become a character in my next book.  I dare ya.

I’d have been home well before now, had I not been so very, very late for lunch with two friends I hadn’t seen for nearly a year.  I circled the mall parking lot more intent with the ticking time on my watch than the location of the space I scooted into.  The mall is one of those outdoor sprawls with parking nooks and crannies that can swallow a car the moment you exit and turn your back.

As an aside, it’s also the mall where I broke my leg last summer.

We were to meet at the fireplace (in Phoenix, a fireplace?) located in the center of the main mall area.  Walkways from the giant parking lot circle the main area and spiral inward like a concrete spider web.  Checking my watch, if nothing more than to confirm what a crud I was for being so late, I located my friends and off we went for two hours of iced tea, the best Cobb Salad in town and conversation more delicious than lunch.

Promising to meet more than once a year, we hugged and went off in search of our respective winding walkway back to what shall henceforth be known as the car-eating parking lot.

I wound my way to the lot only to discover my car wasn’t there.  Ah … wrong pathway.  Backtracking, I found another spoke within the wheel-o-parking-lot-fortune.  Nope.  Not there.  Again.  Once more.  It took a good half hour on a nearly one-hundred degree day to finally locate the right path where I finally found my car.  I hope no one watched as I slid in and kissed the steering wheel.

Did I mention this is the mall that broke my leg?

P.S.  Happy Earth Day, to all my Dancing Bird friends!

“A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer.  A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.”

Ernest Hemingway

I’m not sure our friend, Hemingway, carefully thought through this statement.  In fact, none of my writer friends are either hawks or buzzards, nor do I know any bloviating popinjays except on the teevee machine.

If you could be any bird, which bird might you be?

Me?  I think I’d like to be a bluejay — vocal to the point of annoyance, but darned striking while being so … and with a hint of wild, green vocabulizing parrot useful for dialogue and descriptive scene.  Also, go ahead and give me a touch of that solemn owl for sensitivity, yet add in the enthusiasm of a hummingbird.  I might look a bit odd, but I’d be a useful writer.

So, which bird do you envision yourself to be?

After a week of unpacking, sorting, putting away — today we’re less apt to say, “It’s in a box somewhere” and instead marvel at our progress.  The important things have been located.  We’ve unpacked our spoons and bowls now which means Ben & Jerry’s after dinner.  The teevee machine now lights up our evening lives (after a frantic rustling through boxes looking for the remote).  We found the toilet paper and the shower gel.  The toothpaste wasn’t far behind.  We’re set with the essentials; we’ve only the flotsam and jetsam left to arrange.

Midway through this past week, I was struck by how the evidence of one’s life can so easily be wrapped in newspaper and placed in a box, only to be discovered anew several days later.  If you ever want to see your soul, put all your stuff in boxes and forget about it all for a couple of weeks.  Then slowly unpack.  You’ll find it’s not what you have that’s your true treasure.

In a few days when we’re done with all the unboxing, we plan to have a big garage sale.  We figure it’ll be a good way to meet our new neighbors.  I suppose they’ll be able to determine the kind of people we are by the things we discard.  There’s nothing like judging a person’s character from their garage sale items.  I suppose I’ll have to mix in some nice things so they don’t think we’re trying to pawn off all our ragged and tacky stuff.  It’s that old “What will the neighbors think?” mantra that was so carefully placed in my childhood head.  Nevertheless, first impressions are lasting and it’s important to be a good neighbor … especially in the desert where snakes aren’t far away and scorpions hide in your shoes.

Yes, we’re nearly done.  Dan and I are the sort of people who will keep at it until it’s all tidy.  Dan says he’s never moving again.  I agree!  Never again do I want my ice cream spoons to “be in a box somewhere.”

P.S.  For anyone who might be following, my dear friend is okay with nothing more than a nasty scare and a couple of biopsy stitches to show for it.  Maybe lighting a candle works after all.  Stay well, all my friends.  Don’t make me light my candle — the poor thing is nearly down to a nub now.

We met when she was going through a divorce and I’d been single a number of years.  A mutual friend brought her to a jam session.  Back in that day, if you could bang pots and pans together, you could call yourself a musician.  We used the equipment of a local church (I think the pastor thought he was saving our poor souls).  On the third Saturday of every month, we’d set up microphones and speakers and then just have at it for a couple of hours.  Sometimes I’d thump away on a keyboard, but mostly I sang.  We did the old classics … James Taylor, a little Stevie Nicks, a lot of the Eagles.  We were worse than any teenager’s garage band — too old to be wanna-be’s, too horrid to be has-been’s, too enthusiastic to do anything but have fun.  The “band members” were a revolving sort; we never knew who would show up.  Sometimes we had nothing but electric guitars, sometimes three drummers taking turns on one kit, usually a keyboardist or two would arrive, and there was always at least one beginning acoustic guitarist.  The rest of us were all singers of some sort and range.  Some could even carry a tune.

That particular Saturday, after our mutual friend introduced us and the woman shyly shook my hand, I suggested we sit in the pews rather than storm the stage.  That was the ticket!  At the start of the first song (most likely one of our twelve versions of Hotel California) the quiet woman with thick dark hair and that freshly-wounded look of the newly-single began to sing.  It was like I was hearing my own voice!  We were … beat for beat, measure for measure … indistinguishable from the other.  Soon, we were laughing about men and high-fiving our way through song after song.

At the end of the jam, we exchanged work emails and, not long after, began a friendship like no other.  We discovered we both wrote poetry and soon collaborated on the worst collection of “hurt-dumping” poetry ever contrived.  We listened to each other through our “getting-back-on-the-horse” days as we tried out our meager dating skills.  We moved states away, only to return, then move again.  Regardless the distance, we’ve always stayed in touch via email or phone.  She was my maid of honor when Dan and I got married.  When she at last found the love of her life, she made certain I approved before she moved forward.

We’re now crazy happy with our respective husbands and families.  She became a successful executive.  I went on to write things.  We still sing …..

… Except for today.  Today my friend undergoes a very scary biopsy for breast cancer.

We’ll sing again tomorrow, but today — just for today — I’m lighting a candle and holding my breath.

I stopped this evening to grab a salad at my favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican place.  It’s my favorite.  It’s one of those little joints where you walk down the line and supervise what goes onto your plate.  I always order the Ensalada Bajia.   I walk along asking for a little of this … a lot of that … more cilantro, please.

I paid for my meal to go and walked out of the restaurant only to stop dead in my tracks.  At a small table just outside the restaurant was a woman.  Obviously homeless.  Certainly hungry.  I asked her if she liked salad.  “Yes,” she said quietly.  “Well, here.  I got this for you,” I smiled.

I went back in the restaurant, ordered another salad to go and stopped briefly by the table where I had earlier left the first salad.  “I hope you have a great night,” I said.  “My name’s Gail,” she said.  She asked my name, then said she would pray for me, “it being Easter and all.”

That was nice.  That was really nice.

As I turned out of the drive and onto the main street, I noticed another woman … again obviously homeless … hurrying toward the restaurant.  I envisioned her a friend of Gail’s, two women sharing a lovely salad on a beautiful spring evening.

Yeah.  That was nice.

She shakes her dust rag sky at you, this place does.
She keeps your hands busy with your own dust rag.
Dueling dust rags.
First a shake of hers, then a wipe of yours.
It rained once here.
No one dusted that day; we, instead,
Stood in our doorways, chattering on about a different
Color on the sky.

–Auburn McCanta

The picture above is of the town of Maricopa, thirty miles south of Phoenix.  If the wind blows up from the South, the dust only gathers into a larger cloud by the time it reaches us.  We usually only have these dust storms during the August monsoon season.

Other days of the year … like today … the dust stays pretty much ear level and we can easily gather it onto our cloths every morning.

Some places rain liquid.  We have dust.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

— Maya Angelou

You can go here to read about one of my favorite living poets … one who’s birthday just happens to be TODAY!!!

Born in 1928, Ms. Angelou is most known for her autobiographical books, most notably her brave and honest, I Know Where the Caged Bird Sings.  She’s been nominated for the National Book Award, as well as, the Pulitzer.

Her poetry is stunningly lovely and startlingly honest.  I wish her great health and longevity, because in my mind, she may well be the original Dancing Bird.

I don’t know what we’d do without her.