Poem of the Week: The Weeping Dragon

I wasn't going to do Melli's dragon hunt meme since I don't really have any dragons to photograph, but then when I was looking for the poem of the week in my collection, I found this one and even though I'm not that fond of it as a poem, I thought it might be a way to join in the dragon party. But or course there has to be a picture and I found this wonderful paper dragon head from an American Museum of Natural History exhibit. I didn't want to break any copyright laws, so I messed with it a bunch of times and made a collage of those efforts. If you click on it, you can see the real thing, which is quite beautiful. I found a very nice quilt too at another site.

So that's my dragon art and below is my dragon poem. I wrote this when I was pretty young.

THE WEEPING DRAGON

Weep, sad dragon,
Whose hollow belly holds fire,
Whose legend is mystery and fantasy

Weep, sad dragon
For you are forgotten.
Like all the flowers of ignorant imagining
We have vanquished you and left your bones
In a desert we no longer visit

Weep, sad dragon,
Not for yourself alone
For dying you were revenged
And took from us both dread and awe,
Hollow victories all around

Weep, sad dragon,
And may your ghost cries
Wake again our sleeping souls.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

As I was reading through the poem I remembered that it was written in response to a small brass dragon I had seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I tried to find a picture of it but this is the closest I could come. It might have been this one, but I don't think so. I'm going to risk copyright violation and just post the picture untouched.

Poem(s) of the Week: Five Short Poems

Just five very short, unrelated poems this week.

So much sound
Without meaning
So much meaning
Without sound
Tangled in words
Thoughts are lost
Or else, wordless,
Pass unheard

FRAGMENT

Daughter of my soul
I cry for you in the long dark night
Ache with an incompleteness
That takes not from the joy of life
But yearns for more

Seeker after blind dreams
And happy unrealities
Dreamer of dark scenes
In love with the shadows
My mind casts against reality
I cling for a few desperate moments
To you.

Remembering childhood days in the park
I wish sometimes
To have those moments back
Of trust
And smiling eyes
And no conscience

THUNDER SHOWERS

After singing sweet songs
Angels clear their throats
And weep a bit
Upon the tone-deaf world

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Poem of the Week: The Rock and the Dead Child

This is the first poem - and one of the first things - I posted when I restarted this blog a little over six months ago. I wrote it following a therapy session back in 1999. My little voice absolutely insists - against all argument - that I repost it today. I don't know why that is, but usually when my little voice is this loud there's some reason for it. If not, I apologize for repeating myself. I think this is one of the best poems I've ever written. I hope it speaks to you.

THE ROCK AND THE DEAD CHILD
October 5, 1999

In my throat is a rock with a dead child inside
Like the petrified fist of some giant god
It wraps around her small corpse
Her legs stick out, limp and dead
And the rock wonders what she is doing there
And why she died
It does not mean her any harm
It does not understand, even,
How she came to lie dormant and frail in it’s grasp
It does not understand, even
Who IT is
It remembers vaguely as though from some dim dream
That she needed to keep quiet
And stop struggling
But struggling against who or what
It cannot say
And it is frightened
By a vague sense of somehow having done wrong
It wishes she was gone
And then wonders who IT is without her
Maybe they are one being and not two
And it did not exist first
But slowly grew around her
Day after day after day
And year after year after year
Never noticing
Until in this moment
Suddenly awakening
It finds her long dead
It keeps thinking of the Wicked Witch of the East
And wishes some Dorothy would come along
And make those legs
So limp and dead,
So small
Shrivel up and go away.
But this is not Oz
Or Kansas either
But some no man’s land
And this body is not some evil witch
But a small child
She can’t be more than four
Silenced in a tomb of oblivious stone
That wishes
With whatever dim heart a stone can hold
That it could let her go,
Could bring her back to vibrant life
Wishes too somewhere in it’s confusion
That it knew how to cry
And wash itself clean
Of this child who holds it as captive
As it holds her.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Poem of the Week: Skeletons

Please scroll down for Project Black

If you are having trouble reading this, you can click on it for a somewhat larger version.

Poem of the Week: Sixty One!!!!!!

(Please scroll down for Take One of Project Black.)

Well, another year has passed and I am now sixty-one. I wanted to write a poem about it - and I did, but I got unexpected company and they stayed quite a while. My wonderful new friend Shannon - I'm not sure of her exact age - between 10 and 12, though - signed me on at Supermodel.com.... Oh my... It was a nice visit, but I didn't get to finish the poem I started this morning. I hated it anyway, so I wrote a new one. Kind of sucky, but it is a poem and it is my birthday, so you have to cut me some slack, right?

Not to toot my own horn - but look what my wonderful, mangificent, niece did for me over at her blog. Am I not the luckiest aunt in the world?

SIXTY ONE! AGGGGGHHHH!

I wanted to write a poem about being sixty-one

But I didn’t know what to write

I don’t like the number sixty one

The birthday’s fine with me

But I much prefer sixty or even sixty-two

No idea why I feel this way

I didn’t like being 33 either.

Silly, I know

But here it is.

Another year passed

I don’t feel any older

Or worse, yet

Any wiser

But the clock has spoken

I’m a year more senior

Hopefully this will win me some respect at least

I’m hoping I can persuade my achy knees

To lighten up on me

“I’m old,” I tell them.

Be kind.

I know it doesn’t work that way

But it can’t hurt to ask

And meanwhile

I’m doing what I can to milk the event

And get me some attention

My inner child seems to like the older me

She’s stepping out a bit more

I’m happy for her

It’s about time she had some fun

So that’s my birthday poem

Sometimes the best things in life

Start out unwanted

I’m hoping sixty one will be that way

A great year… even if it is a creepy number

Hope you'll pull up a chair and have some cake, ice cream and coffee.
Wish I could make it magically real for you.

Poem of the Week

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this poem. It was written in 1969 when I was twenty-one or 22. I hadn't looked at it in a long time. I guess maybe I'm sharing it because I still feel most of these things 40 years later. Little did I know in 1969 that things would just get worse and worse and worse and the days when I wrote these words would seem like the good old days. Boy. Now, I'm depressed. But I'm sharing it anyway. The little picture at the left is how I looked in my naive optimistic days in 1969.

I AM TOO YOUNG TO WRITE A LONG POEM (1969)

I am young and do not know enough to write a long poem
I do not understand the evils that men do
That they see each other only cruelly
And thereby justify their own injustices
I do not understand why cages are so necessary
To protect us from each other
Or why, locked in those cages
We put on masks to keep back even those we trust
At the same time pleading to be loved
I do not understand what I can do in so big a world
Where we are all crowded so far apart
And where we talk, not to each other,
But to audiences, and majorities, and minorities
Where awareness and humanity are catch-phrased out for us
By mass media and men with charisma
I do not know what I can do
And I do not understand why even though I don't believe in fear
I sometimes feel it surging up inside me
So that I want to run and hide, to get away
I do not understand that I am useless
In a world that has so many problems left to solve
Yet I have no solutions
Easy answers, yes,
But I am just old enough not to believe them
And just young enough to still have hope
But still in all, I do not understand why fear can conquer trust
Or greed abolish dreams
And so I am too young to write a long poem
Which ought to have answers.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Poem of the Week: The Dream

You can click on the image for a larger version.

Poem of the Week: Called by the Spirit

CALLED BY THE SPIRIT


Called by the Spirit
We back away
For fear of being burned, consumed
We let the holy fire within us die
Called by the Spirit
We do not hear
That the voice cries from within
To be set free
To set us not afire but alight
And bring us to communion
With our God.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

This doesn't really have much to do with the poem but I always like to have something visual and not just text and I think these photos are very cool so I'm adding them. And they do kind of show the fire within... In the summer of 1996 a friend and I did a healing workshop in New York City. We had made friends with a woman who did aura photography and as part of the workshop everyone - including us - received before and after aura photos. I think the workshop had about 12 or 15 participants and I was doing reiki on all of them throughout the evening, so I was really on fire so to speak. I just think these are amazing.




















I'd like to ask a favor of everyone. Part of what made me think of these photos is that my niece, Diana has been trying to improve my reiki site. This weekend she offered to move it onto a much slicker wordpress website than my geocities site that I made myself. I'd love to know what people think. (I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but... ) Diana is still working on the do-over site since I was all freaked out about my tree when she broached the subject with me and I'm not that good at change anyway - even good change. So anyway. What do you think?

Oh - and if you think of it. The aforementioned Diana and her significant other have started their own web design company called Xondie. They are pretty darned talented in my opinion. If you know anybody looking for web design help, they are the best. While I'm bragging about her, maybe you could check out Diana's Foodscout website too. It's an awesome source of information on nutrition and food.

Poem of the Week: Waiting for the Unicorn

WAITING FOR THE UNICORN

Always in my mind
Rides the dream
Silver light and darkness
Diana in the moonlight
Stalking shadows
Bow and arrow poised
Waiting for Apollo
To drop burning from the sky
Revealing unseen beasts
And beauties
Waiting
Eternally waiting
For the arrow to fly
And waiting too
For the unicorn.

Katherine E. Rabenau

Poem(s) of the Week: Love Poems

I'm kind of especially insecure about these, but I'm posting them anyway. Fortunately, nobody much reads the poems of the week. That makes me sad and also relieved most weeks.

Your back looked so lonely facing me
But still, I thought I might offend it
If I moved (ever so softly) close
And so I lay there
Stopped
Because your back
Looked as lonely as my arms . . .
Which just didn't seem possible

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Moving through the uncharted jungle
Of your moods
Your mouth, arms, and chest
The close, fierce embrace
Which threatens to erase all sign
That I have been here beside you
I am afraid, so afraid
That like some evil snake
You will swallow me and go your way
Forgetting that I ever was

I lie here
Still
Beside you in the thickening grass
Which seems to grow between our resting bodies
Camouflage my thoughts in silence
While instincts too strong for mind's control
Prepare, defend, attack
I will not die so easy in this love as you may think
King of the jungle though you be.

We neither of us want, I think,
This secret war we wage
We do not mean to stalk ourselves like beasts of prey
Or hide within the thorny deeps of our own fears
Alas we do not die within out loves, they die in us
And we are left to chart our jungles alone.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Poem of the Week: A Silly Poem Today

Well, I've been all grim and political of late, so I thought maybe I'd post something totally silly for today's poem of the week. I wrote this about 15 years ago, I guess while I was in therapy. There may be a few made-up dreams, but most of them I really had. I don't know why I haven't been carted away yet. I guess because I have locked myself up voluntarily....

Having a hard time making this look right. The lines are too long for the narrowness of the blog format and I can't think of a solution. Does anyone else have bizarre things happen in Preview? My type changes size and it never looks like it actually looks. Strange. Anyway... Hope this makes you giggle. Couldn't think of any good decorative art this morning either. I may add something later if I get a good idea.

The time has come her psyche said to talk of many things
Of toilets, birds and pregnant cats, of icky, wormy things
Of course, my dear, you can't expect the message to be clear
A psyche works quite subtly one's consciousness to steer
And so she sighed and dreamed again of toilets large and small
And once she almost fell from off a precipice quite tall
She dreamt of cats in closets, cats peeing in the hall
She dreamt of great big mansions and houses very small
She dreamt and she remembered, she dreamt and she forgot
Some images were vivid, some images were not
But the more that she remembered them, the stranger they appeared
Yet also she began to sense they were nothing to be feared
In fact, in time some symbols began to make clear sense
And she smiled and thought quite smugly, "I'm not so very dense."
And hearing this her psyche, from its vast creative plane
Drew forth some brand new symbols to befuddle her again
And now she dreamt of prisons and towns with funny names
And she dreamt of pigs and horses and playing silly games
She dreamt of feathered slippers and banking in the park
Some dreams were full of colors bright and some were very dark
She dreamt of popes and Chinamen, of ceilings falling down
She dreamt of being lost and scared, she dreamt that she might drown
She dreamt of taking buses, she dreamt of riding bikes
She dreamt of riding space ships, she dreamt of taking hikes
Sometimes she dreamed in series; some dreams were set apart
Some dreams seemed kind of foolish and some like works of art
Some dreams were full of mystery, in rich exotic places
Some dreams were very commonplace and she knew the people's faces
But few of them were boring, and she never, ever knew
What new peculiar happenings her psyche would bring through
And so each night she closed her eyes and journeyed deep inside
To the world of her unconscious where lost fears and hopes reside
And often in these travels, with sweet visions she was blest
That would help her in her day-life, would guide her on her quest
To heal and gird and strengthen her sometimes fainting soul
As she struggled first to find herself, then to touch the Greater Whole
But whether one is questing, or only in a doze,
The clever, witty, psyche, will keep you on your toes.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Poem of the Week: The Answer is Believing

If you click on the picture, you can see a MUCH larger version that may be easier to read.

Poem(s) of the Week

I had an email conversation with my friend Joan this week. She said something along the lines of "I have no answers... only questions," which made me think of this first poem. I told her I'd try to find it and post it. So here it is. I added the second one because it seemed to sort of "go" with the first in some way. No idea why. They are both quite old. Unfortunately, I never had the good sense to date my poems, so I'm not sure when they were written. Before some of my readers were born, I suspect. God, I'm old.

It is not the knowing which matters
But the seeking after
The need to see the dark side of the moon
To touch the bottom of the sea
The answer always seems a little pale
A little disappointing
Beside the miracle of curiosity
But the riddle teases on and on
And we forget
That only the questions are real.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

~~~~~~~~~~

My reality is of my own making
But I forget, being human,
And wandering in vanished universes
Become confused
Succumb to moments
Instead of eternities
Believe in limits
Not limitlessness

My reality is of my own making
Moment by moment
I create my self
In shades of light and dark
Joy and sorrow -
But like an artist blindfolded
Refusing to concede her skill

My reality is of my own making
I sculpt my life
From thoughts and hopes and hidden fears
Molding and remolding
In search of some as yet unknown perfection

My reality is of my own making
A play continually in progress
Each actor working with a different script
Improvising as she goes along
To make the plot more interesting
Until some denouement can be achieved

My reality is of my own making
Although I close my eyes
And try to abnegate my power
It will not leave
But like a faithful lover
Awaits the ecstasy of mutual embrace.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

I added one of my favorite pictures of Angel here just because it seems in an indirect way, to go with the first poem. She is, after all, seeking answers.... seeking something, anyway...

Poem of the Week: Magnetic Coffee Mug Poem

Centuries ago, before I had turned into the old fart I am today, my nieces and nephew gave me one of those magnetic coffee mugs with all the little magnetized words in it. I wrote two poems with it. (Not as easy a you might think, by the way.) I somehow lost track of the second one, which adorned my refrigerator for a while, but I still have this one. Since Paint Shop Pro has not been raised from the dead yet, I borrowed today's graphic from the foodnetwork and hope they won't notice or care. If they do, I'll remove it.

Shake me awake

Invigorate and fill my life

I need to taste sacred desire's

Magic, full-flavored brew

Pour vital power, like hot liquid cream --

Steaming, calming, strong.

I drink in the fresh smell of you

Weak as mud, I give ground

Black ice breaks up

And morning is fueled

With love's delicious, potent aroma

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Poem(s) of the Week: The Elder Kitty PoemsProject Green (see photo below poems)

These poems were not written by me but by the late great fur-person, Abigail the Wonder Kitty, also known as the Antique Kitty or the Ancient One (among her many titles). Abby was a teacher to me in many ways, including the gentle nobility with which she left this life at the age of 21 plus. (I wrote a piece about her death at the time for my column on Suite101.com. Anyone who is interested can read it here.
This photo was taken in Arizona when she was 19. I think she was quite beautiful. But I digress. In the last six or seven years of her life, Abby found not only her physical voice, but her poetic voice. She was not prolific - she only wrote three poems - but I think she had a thing or two to say. I have chosen to share my two favorite Abby poems today. The sister she refers to in the first poem was my first cat and Abby's life-long companion Katrina, who died at 16 while we still lived in New York. I had intended to post something else today, but something (or perhaps someone) insists on these.


SONG OF AN ELDER-KITTY

They are who they are
And I am me
Abigail, Elder Kitty
I have no regrets
I have lived my life my way
Kept mostly to myself
Enjoyed the simple pleasures
Of hugs and food and a good brushing,
An afternoon of sleep twined against my sister’s soft purr
Or scrubbed meticulously by her fierce, determined tongue
That was how she finally received me
Those many years ago when we were young –
With a bath –
After she hissed and snarled and acted gruff
But I knew better
Saw at once her tender heart
She’s a little older, you know, and puts on airs sometimes
But mostly you couldn’t ask for a better friend
She’s so smart and sure of herself
I watch in awe sometimes
She and Person are close in a special way
I know I am loved – deeply loved,
But I do not hold the same place in Person’s heart
my sister does
It used to bother me
Once, a long time ago
And not so long ago, really.
It bothers Person
But I have learned, somehow, that it is not against me
It is not that I am loved less
It is that the bond between them is primal,
time-worn across the ages
They have know each other since time began
And I am a new arrival
Now that I understand, I am learning to let the love in
And life is truly grand and blessed
I can no longer jump as high as I once did
But I can still do a good zany run
And now I sing my heart’s content
Loud howls.
Person says it is opera
And sometimes she laughs and smiles at my songs
And sometimes she shouts and acts quite fierce
But she is funny that way.
She snarls so grim and in the next breath
She is all apologies and love
And good, strong tender hugs
And sometimes she sings to me – to us
And tells us all our names
For me there is Dougie and Abby-Dougie,
And Dougal MacDougal, and Wandagail
And Wanda the Wailer and Munchkin
Or Dumpling.
I am also known as Wanda the Wiggler
And Princess Furry Face the Second
And Munchkinetta
The list is long
I like that.
I like my life
I am Abigail the Elder Kitty
And I have found myself at last.
May your lives be as blessed.





THE ELDER KITTY SPEAKS AGAIN

I think my person is going deaf
I talk to her at the top of my lungs
And she just doesn’t seem to get it
Perhaps she is just slow in the way these humans are
They are remarkably clever sometimes
And quite the dullards at others
But I digress
Our new home is cold and damp
But I am glad to have the desert behind me
We are on our own again, Person and I,
And it feels good to be free to be ourselves
To have my freedom back is worth a lot
Person tells me that I’m very old
She seems quite obsessed with it
Like age is some kind of talent I possess
Me, I just take things one day at a time
And find what solutions I can to my troubles
It’s a bit embarrassing not to jump so well any more
I used to be quite the leaper once
And now I’m forced to pull myself up most places
Frustrating, I can tell you that - and embarrassing too
But Person roots me on and tells me I can do it
And so I can
You wouldn’t think it would make a difference, really,
But it does
Wanting someone you love to be right
I love snuggling up against her now,
Though I didn’t always – not in the same way, anyhow
I’m not sure sometimes, who is comforting who
And maybe it doesn’t matter
As long as we are both at peace
I speak my mind these days
I’ve given up on being shy
It’s quite a relief, really to just be me.
Age has it’s privileges after all, I guess
And I’m learning that
I’m learning too to enjoy the simple things
A patch of sunlight on the floor
A soft blanket
A tasty meal
And of course the sound of my own voice
Pitched loud enough for all to hear
I am Abigail, Elder Kitty
Hear me roar!

Ever the over achiever, Abigail is mutli-tasking from the great beyond and has entered herself into Anna Carson's Project Green with this photo of herself with her (and my) favorite blanket.

Poem of the Week:Poem for my Mother and Father

I was going to post something different this week but something made me think I should post this one.

My mother and father were born 5 days apart in 1910 and died three months apart in 80 years later, my father in October 1990 and my mother in February of 1991. My mother after an illness that lasted between 15 and 18 years. You'd think I'd know exactly, but I don't. The poem says ten, but it was longer than that. It was a long, long time. I read a number of posts this week about people losing their parents. I guess that's why it feels like this is the time to share this poem. It's a loss we are never ready for.


POEM FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER - APRIL 25, 1991

I want to bury my parents' ashes
Quietly
In an un-grave
A sweetly flowering tree peacefully renewing the earth
I want sunshine and blue skies and butterflies
And maybe an angel or two
To sing a silent, magic song and hold my hand
I'd like some wildflowers -- yellows and purples
And maybe some blue as well
And a mild, gentle breeze to kiss my cheek
I'd like greenness and laughter,
Some children playing, maybe, to remind me there's renewal
And then I'd like a picnic
Full of laughing and remembering the happy times;
The sad ones too, but gently, with sunlight on them
And maybe we could sing a song or two or share a favorite poem.
These parents are my babies now
And I want to protect them from any more pain
Because their dying wasn't sweet.
Ten years coming, it was long and slow and hard,
Their dying one death, though two events,
My mother, slowly/quickly fading
Body and mind failing in a subtle and coordinated dance
My real Mom disappearing way back,
Spirited away somewhere, herself and not herself
Each sad replica dying in turn,
Replaced by a paler, sadder clone
My father holding on,
Clinging vainly to those rare, cruel flickerings
of who she was once
Clinging too the false hope that he could somehow have her back
Trying to will her with the force of his love
Once more into the fierce, proud, vital soul she once had been
That struggle sometimes costing him the magic that was there
His eyes so focussed on a distant past
That he missed the sweeter moments of the now
Hard not to do it --
So confusing to have someone change so much,
and not change, too
It must have broken his heart; finally did, really...
But what I want to say is:
Her illness had them both
It does, I think, with couples so close
It may be only one body dying, but the lives and souls are joined
And everybody's got the disease
That's why we grieve so hard,
Because our way of being in the world gets lost
We lose each other and we lose ourselves, too
But sometimes, also, we're re-born
And that's scary and joyful and sad
And it's always lonely, because it has to be
Even if you have the best company in the world,
Even if the Universe is giving it's all to push you from the womb,
Still, it's a different universe, even though it's the same
And it's hard to share it
And that's why I'd like to bury my parents ashes quietly
In an un-grave
Because living and dying, alive and dead
We gave and still give birth to each other
And that's a very private thing
It's pain and love and creation all mixed up
And it's awesome
And terrible
And wonderful
And holy
And I don't understand it, but I know it's true
I've lived their death and been reborn
Each and both
Life and death, vastly different but the same
A circle, whole, unbroken and eternal
And that's why I'd like to bury my parents' ashes
Quietly,
A sweetly flowering tree peacefully reminding me
That they're not gone.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

***********

I hope you will all take a minute to remember that this is Autism Awareness Month. The following blogs and posts offer an opportunity to put a human face and heart on something which for most of us is just something we have heard about but don't really understand.

These are the Days
Forks Off the Moment - We are All Unique
Mother of Shrek
Full Soul Ahead
Down River Drivel
Look Me In The Eye

Poem of the Week

***********

I hope you will all take a minute to remember that this is Autism Awareness Month. The following blogs and posts offer an opportunity to put a human face and heart on something which for most of us is just something we have heard about but don't really understand.

These are the Days
Forks Off the Moment - We are All Unique
Mother of Shrek
Full Soul Ahead
Down River Drivel
Look Me In The Eye

Poem of the Week

Years and years ago, when I visited the Frick Gallery in New York City and saw this painting, I changed my mind about reincarnation. Until then, I was pretty skeptical about the idea. But when I saw this painting, I KNEW - I absolutely KNEW that I had known this person. My connection to the painting was so intense that it stunned me. It wasn't a feeling. It was a certainty. In those days in particular, I was not a person who was certain about anything much, so this was a pretty life-altering experience.

At some point not too long after seeing the painting, I wrote today's poem. Then a few year's after that, I had the opportunity to have a session (another life-changing experience) with a not yet famous psychic named Pat Rodegast who channeled a spirit named Emmanuel. I highly recommend Emmanuel's Book. It is one of my all time favorite ever books. It radiates love and healing truths about life. It doesn't matter what you think about channeling or reincarnation... it doesn't matter whether it's channeled or made up... it's a beautiful book and the material reads like poetry. I wish everyone on earth would read it. How's that for a statement. Back when I read it, I kept giving it away to people and buying replacement copies. I love that book. Think I'll go pull it off the shelf if I haven't given it away again and look through it again. It has been a while.

But I digress (what else is new?)... I took a postcard copy of this painting with me to the session with Pat/Emmanuel and asked if her what she felt about it. She said this was me in another life. I don't know if that's true or not. I kind of liked the idea of having a great romance in some other life since there hasn't been one in this one. Still out of luck. But I love his face, so I'm guessing it must have been a pretty good life. Anyway, I guess that's probably more than enough of an introduction. Here's the poem.


MEMLING'S PORTRAIT OF A MAN

I see your face

Staring across centuries of canvas

And I am drawn through time by your magnetism

I know I loved you once, or would have,

You look so much a part of me

With that quiet fanaticism

Maybe we were lovers in another incarnation

And it was so fine that neither of us has forgotten

In the five hundred years since you were you

And I, whoever I was then.


- Katherine E. Rabenau

***********************************************************************

Just a reminder to everyone that this is Autism Awareness Month. The following blogs and posts offer an opportunity to put a human face and heart on something which for most of us is just something we have heard about but don't really understand.

These are the Days

Forks Off the Moment - We are All Unique

Mother of Shrek

Full Soul Ahead

Down River Drivel - this site will lead you to a dozen more...

Poem of the Week: Ode to a Bat

I picked this week's poem because I happened to catch a conversation on Charlie Rose the other night about the troubling and potential environmental crisis involving huge numbers of bats in Vermont and upstate New York (not far from me, actually) dying of something they are calling "white nose syndrome," because many of the dead bats they are finding have a white fungus on their noses. Scientists have yet to discover the cause. This could have a serious impact on the environment because bats do a great deal to control the insect population. This is nice for those of us who don't like mosquitoes and flies, but beyond that, it's important for farmers and crops.

Anyway, thinking of bats took me back to my time working in the mammalogy department of the American Museum of Natural History. Except that it didn't pay enough for me to live on, it was a pretty cool job. Working in the big musty rooms beyond the visiting areas felt special. The museum is in an exciting part of the city - near Central Park - and in those days I'd walk either all or half way from 18th and 1st where I lived to Central Park west. It was good for my health. My office in the museum... I was a mere secretary - with three bosses - but I had my own huge office which I shared with the dead bodies of hundred of bats and rats from Indonesia. Because I worked fast, was easily bored, and could do it, I ended up editing manuscripts and (this was so cool) numbering and cataloging specimens. This entailed writing 8 to 10 digit numbers onto bones, some of them extremely small. It was interesting in a strange way and quite a challenge at times to fit all those numbers onto those tiny little bones.

But back to bats. One of my three bosses was the the late Karl Koopman who was at the time the world's foremost expert on bats. He loved bats way more than people. If some poor soul called in asking for help because his/her house was infested with breeding bats, Koopman told them they should learn to live with it or move. He sang the generic names of bats to the tunes of Gilbert and Sullivan songs. He even looked kind of like a bat. I didn't really know him very well, but he did change my peceptions about bats and I wrote this poem for him.


ODE TO A BAT
dedicated to Karl Koopman


Little bats, Bella and Boris

Winging softly through the forest

On your wings of silent leather

Unadorned by fleece or feather

Doing no one any harm

Yet driven off from hearth and farm

You who have since ancient times

Been the butt of unkind rhymes

You, who unlike men and birds

Hark the sound of your own words

You are not that nasty creature

Oft portrayed in double feature

Drinking blood and spreading fear

No! Gently do you twitch your ear

And listening for an echoed sound

Eat bugs and fruits which do abound

Then flutter home to cave or tree

And hang there, resting quietly

We're sorry for the fear-filled lies

That haunt your passage through the skies

And maybe as men grow less foolish

Our stories will become less ghoulish

And furry bats hung upsidedown

Will not be scorned in every town

Nor virgins wear a cross at night

To save them from your dreadful bite

And man, with realistic eye

Will watch untrembling when you fly

Nor will he pause this time to curse,

But knowing nature is diverse

He'll smile to think in yesteryear

Men looked at gentle bats with fear

Or thought you worked for evil ends

You kindly bats who are our friends.


- Katherine E. Rabenau


As long as we are on a semi ecological theme - I wanted to post a reminder that on March 29th there's something going on called the "Earth Hour." The idea is for people all over the world to conserve one hour's worth of electricity by turning their lights off for an hour at 8:00 pm on the 29th. For more coherent information on the subject check out Earthhour.org.