Growing Beanstalks

Here is the link to my new blog, Growing Beanstalks. Feel free to follow or bookmark it.

A Poet in Zion will remain online until June 1, 2013.

The End

I started this blog almost two years ago—April 22, 2011, to be exact. I’ve enjoyed posting here, but I think this blog has pretty much run its course. At least, my personal interest in it has waned to the point that I’m calling it quits.

Before you get all sad (ha!), you should know I will start a new blog before the end of May. It won’t be  specifically a poetry blog, and it won’t follow a regular schedule. You might get three posts a week, you might get none. To keep everyone in the loop, I’ll share each post on Facebook. If you aren’t my Facebook friend but would still like to follow, I’ll put up one final post here with a link to the new blog once it’s ready. I’ll leave this blog online for several months before I archive and close it down.

What will I write about at my new establishment? Pretty much the same stuff, except it will be more like a journal than a weekly essay or column. I won’t try so hard to tie things up nicely, but just record my thoughts as they occur to me. Yes, that’s risky (considering I think really stupid things sometimes), but I hope it will encourage more comments and informal participation from you. I think it will be fun.

I wouldn’t dream of leaving without providing a healthy dose of poetry first. So here is a limerick that James Goldberg wrote at my request. I warned him I would post it here:

Merrijane was a wonderful writer
and also a decent cage fighter
she knocked out five lines
and beat two Argentines
(but only because she’s a biter)

Just to be clear, I have never bitten anything that might bite back. Click through for another questionably accurate limerick about Thomas Acquinas.

Below are a few more poems by me. The first one was written for a contest that required me to include the following words: red, capital, bite, hair, stake, seam, beat, pare, prints, bread. It was a challenge to use the words in a meaningful way without letting them disrupt the flow. What do you think—did I succeed?

          Mother Eve

           Sometimes things shout
           so soundlessly,
           you must listen—
           like when fragrant red fruit
           ripe with promise
           hangs within reach,
           woos you in capital letters,
           JUST ONE BITE.

           Then reason hisses:
           Wisdom liesin the hair-breadth between

           shalt and shalt not.

           You could almost fall

           into it.

           Only hindsight’s naked eye
           sees what was at stake,
           the seam split wide
           between death and life.

           You’ll want to hide,
           to crawl between one beat and the next
           of your own thudding heart—
           but don’t.

           Instead,
           pare out experience.
           Carve this lesson in the prints
           of your hands and feet:

           Eat first to learn hunger.
           Hunger will soon teach you
           to yearn for
           bread.

I wrote the next poem to kill time while watching Jacob at an outdoor basketball practice. I’m not athletically inclined, so I get bored easily at these sorts of things. I try to be a supportive mom, though.

Watching My Son Play Basketball on a November Afternoon

As I bench-warm at playground’s edge,
the woman next to me
drums delicate finger rhythms
on her newborn’s back,
counterpoint to percussive thump
of ball on blacktop.

I rest my chin on fists,
consider colored chalk drawings
littering the ground like leaves
of leftover summer.

Warm sun persuades over my right shoulder;
chill shadow undercuts from the left.

Beyond the empty soccer field,
across fenced-out seas of gray-green weeds,
yellow poplars point emphatically up to blue,
unswayed by autumn wind’s insufficient argument.

To the east,
rust-gold mountains recline,
wait for the inevitable.
Together we ponder the hustle and hurl
of rubber spheres across vacant sky.

The occasion for this poem is explained in the opening epigraph.


           To a Planet with Four Suns

           Citizen scientists and professional astronomers
           have discovered the first reported case of a planet
           orbiting a pair of twin suns that in turn is orbited
           by a second distant pair of stars. (Futurity.org, Oct. 19, 2012)

           We are always searching:
           hunter-gatherers of the heavens,
           we scrape for crumbs
           to fill our hunger.

           We found you tucked
           in God’s black pocket,
           jingling like a lost button
           with four forgotten pennies.

           Across five thousand light years
           of dark, empty desert,
           we yearn to see solar quaternity,
           thirst for your blazing oasis—
           but you remain
           distant.

           So we search on:
           upend the sky,
           sift through spilled stars like sand,
           look for other suns, worlds,
           souls who yearn back.


This final poem resulted from random thoughts about the Second Coming, plus a lot of playing around with certain word sounds.

           Morning Comes

           Isaiah 21:11-12:… Watchman, what of the night?

           The watchman said, The morning cometh ...

           Stretched on shadowed bank
           beneath brooding trees,
           I wonder: when He comes,
           will heaven slowly ripple
           open like this weeping
           willow sweeping in the breeze,
           filter through like yellow
           sunlight winking in and out
           of green and silver leaves?

           Scripture says
           He’ll come sudden, surprise
           like thief or thunderclap,
           lightning strike from black
           to bright in an instant.

           But surely that’s for sleepers—
           heads that bob and nod
           while fires burn low,
           while soft, seductive night descends
           warm and heavy—

           not for watchers, sky gazers
           who wait in the dark, staring
           at ceilings, who count
           signs like stars and fireflies,
           who feel drifts layer deep
           around them, building
           line by line from black to gray to
           white—until the perfect
           day.

Mission Accomplished

The long-awaited vacation is over! Overall impression: it was a resounding success, generally free of the whining that usually torpedoes even our most well-planned outings. If you saw my facebook photos, you got a broad outline of our comings and goings. In this post, I’ve included some extra photos and fleshed out a few of the more memorable events that will go down in Rice family history.

Me on Tom Sawyer Island, approx. age 4

Nathan on Tom Sawyer Island

Big Learning Experience #1

We left early Friday (March 29) because we wanted to arrive in California by evening. Our Suburban was packed and ready to go by 8 a.m., complete with a jerry-rigged movie player/TV system that would make any high-tech redneck proud. It involved lots of bungie cords.

About two hours later, the Suburban died 30 minutes outside of Fillmore, Utah. Even though a very nice, knowledgable man stopped to help us try to restart the engine, we were forced to give up and call emergency service. After a tow into town, we learned it would cost at least $2,500 to fix. Surprisingly, it was a bent rod and not the entertainment system that killed it.

We were planning to buy a new car, anyway—but what to do in the meantime? Hard to believe, I know, but there’s no place to rent a car in “Utah’s First Capital.” Jason considered hitching a ride to Cedar City to get one, but discovered after several phone calls that there were no available rental cars anywhere in southern Utah. Easter weekend and spring break had depleted all resources. We were beginning to wonder if we could even get home, much less to California.

As I so often do when stuck in a mess, I called my dad. He was able to rent a Dodge Journey from an agency in Salt Lake—the last six-passenger vehicle they had. He then drove it all the long way to Fillmore, while my sister who lives in Orem made a similar long journey to pick him up.

In the meantime, we had a few hours to kill. The men at First Capital Repair recommended Cluff’s Carhop Cafe for lunch, followed by a tour of the Territorial Statehouse State Park Museum. When the two ladies who worked there heard our plight, they told us about the time Parley P. Pratt was forced to spend the winter in Fillmore after his wagon broke down. Now it’s tradition for anyone who breaks down in Fillmore to record their stories in the museum journal, so we added ours. Apparently, Fillmore is a popular place for folks to break down.

Afterwards, they let us hang out in a multipurpose building they called “The Pod.” It had electrical outlets, a large gym, a kitchen, and bathrooms. We charged our cell phones, roller-skated, played basketball, and ordered delivery from 5 Buck Pizza for dinner. Before the kids had time to get bored, my dad showed up with the car and we were on our way.

Lessons learned: (1) A dependable family is one of the greatest blessings you can have. (2) Kind, generous people are everywhere around us. (3) A detour needn’t change the destination; it just enriches the journey.

Me with brothers David and Jim on Olvera Street, approx. age 16

Parker in his Olvera Street hoodie

Big Learning Experience #2

It’s funny how we never plan for illness while on vacation, as though normal biological processes will somehow take a break from us as well. But no such luck: Nathan got a 24-hour flu bug on Sunday. Luckily, he was over it before we left for our activities the next day. Then Joshua felt stomach-achey on Tuesday when we visited Olvera Street, but he quickly recovered.

Parker, on the other hand, came down with a full-blown case of chills, fever, stomachache, and fatigue on Thursday—smack-dab in the middle of our second day at Disneyland. Even the Jungle Cruise made him queasy. I dosed him with Sprite and $6 of Advil purchased from a gift shop, which is not nearly as many pills as it sounds. Then we snagged a bench on Main Street where he napped for a couple of hours. Before he lay down, I asked if he wanted to leave early so he could sleep in a bed. “No!” he said.

“But what if you spend all day feeling crummy?” I asked.

“Then I’ll spend all day feeling crummy at Disneyland,” he replied. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. A few hours later, Parker was up and ready for action—and really, really hungry.

Lessons learned: (1) Even if you aren’t a Boy Scout, it pays to be prepared. (2) Disneyland is expensive in ways you don’t expect. (3) Determined kids find ways to enjoy even the thoroughly unenjoyable.

Joshua at the Monsters, Inc. snack machine

Jacob enjoying the bright lights of Paradise Pier

Big Learning Experience #3

After an extremely fun and exhausting week that included trips to Disneyland, California Adventure, SeaWorld, Universal Studios, Olvera Street, and Chinatown, we began our trip home to Utah on Saturday (April 6). By lunchtime, we arrived on the outskirts of Las Vegas and decided to stop at one of the more “modest” casinos to take advantage of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Here’s an interesting experiment: Try taking four freshly scrubbed Mormon boys (five if you count Jason) into a seedy dive like the Gold Strike WITHOUT getting stared at. We made a beeline for the restaurant, but still had to wait several minutes in line. Meanwhile, my sons gazed out on the smoky perma-twilight of the gambling hall, trying to process all the blinking lights and commotion. While Joshua peppered me with questions about how the machines worked and whether or not you could actually win a million dollars on slots, Jacob’s face grew darker and darker. I finally asked him, “What’s the matter?”

“I just don’t feel comfortable here. I don’t want to stay,” he said. I hugged him close, reassured him that he would be safe, and promised we would leave as soon as we’d had lunch. But he was so repelled by the atmosphere that he could barely eat. Even Parker was having trouble. I sat them both facing the opposite direction from the gaming floor so they could relax and focus on just our family. Also, I plied them with dessert. Jacob grew significantly happier after his second soft-serve ice cream cone.

Then we finished lunch and left, and everything was good again.

Lessons learned: (1) Even little children can feel and recognize the Spirit’s presence or absence. (2) Sometimes you don’t notice how the Holy Ghost is always around until he’s not. (3) Family can create an island of peace in an ocean of disquiet.

Bonus lesson: soft-serve ice cream is a soothing balm for temporary emotional distress.

***

Though I missed General Conference on Saturday while we travelled home (no local radio stations carried it), I enjoyed the Sunday sessions. But can I just say that I really miss hearing President Hinckley speak? Every once in awhile, I read a quote by him or see his picture and I feel sad, as though I were mourning the loss of one of my own family members. I never met him ... but maybe one day.

Old Man

“I am the last leaf on the tree, and the wind is blowing.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

Youth is hidden in your skin,
gangly strength in your bones.
Age hangs from you
like a too-large sweater
swaying open as you walk,
showing quicker steps
under the shuffles.
Your eyes glow with quiet fire,
still-burning coals muffled in ash.

One day,
you’ll shrug off senescence
like a winter coat,
step out of heavy boot feet,
spring to the flame that lit you,

and I will recognize you
by pictures I glimpsed
around your edges.

Happiest Place On Earth

First things first ... next Friday there will be no new post because my family and I will be in Disneyland. But visit again on April 12 for a new poem and quite possibly some pictures.

By the way, if you are planning a vacation to any Disney theme park, check out the planning guides and touring plans from The Unofficial Guide series. Authors Bob Sehlinger, Seth Kubersky and Len Testa update these guides every year with new ride, restaurant, and lodging information. They even have a website to help personalize your plans, and an app to provide up-to-the-minute line wait times. As a person who rarely travels and likes to leave the planning up to somebody—anybody—else, I found this guide to be very helpful.

Next things next ... a scripture. Because I’ve been feeling faint of heart this week:

“I tell you these things because of your prayers; wherefore, treasure up wisdom in your bosoms, lest the wickedness of men reveal these things unto you by their wickedness, in a manner which shall speak in your ears with a voice louder than that which shall shake the earth; but if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” (D&C 38:30)

As part of preparation, the Lord tells us to, “seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom” (D&C 109:7). Here’s something to help in that endeavor: starting today until April 1, you can get a free Kindle copy of James Goldberg’s The Five Books of Jesus from Amazon.com. Don’t miss it! Especially if you are in the Old Mill Village book club, because we will be discussing it at our May 7 meeting and James has agreed to come speak to us. Aside from the scriptures themselves, I can think of nothing better to read over the Easter weekend. (Even if you miss this offer, note that Amazon Prime members can still borrow the Kindle version for free.)

And last things last ... I received this poem by email from the Academy of American Poets. Lots of organizations provide weekly or daily poetry to email subscribers, but the Academy has a knack for sending out poems from a wide range of styles and eras that somehow manage to be universally well written. This one is by Robert Frost, one of my absolute favorite poets. When I read it, I imagine not just a passing encounter or budding romance, but the daily meetings and passings we experience as we interact with one another and how we enrich each other’s lives in the process. I am so grateful for the ways in which my friends and family have enriched me. I marvel at your strengths, talents, and wisdom. May you all enjoy a happy, blessed Easter and a spiritually regenerating General Conference weekend!

Meeting and Passing
by Robert Frost

As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less than two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met, and you what I had passed.

Musing

This has been a busy, busy week. Somehow, I became the go-to gal at work for learning how to make bar charts in Adobe Illustrator. After a full 10-minute training video on youtube, I imparted my vast store of knowledge to a co-worker who then helped produce 15 graphs for the company annual report. We have six more to finish before an afternoon deadline.

So I don’t have many of my own thoughts to share today. But I do have a really great article my dad showed me in the Winter 2013 issue of Humanities at BYU magazine. The article, titled “Coaxing the Muse: Thoughts on the Creative Process,” was adapted from a devotional talk by Lance E. Larsen, a member of the English department and current Utah State Poet Laureate.

I remember Professor Larsen delivering a similar speech to the Utah State Poetry Society at our annual convention a few years back. I highly recommend you click through and read it in full. He includes six points for developing creativity in writing: read, write daily, let the writing lead you, revise yourself into eloquence, fall in love with the world and take notes, and immerse yourself in other disciplines. But the thing I remembered best about his speech after all this time is the following story:

“Some twenty years ago, while teaching a sophomore literature course at the University of Houston, I met a student named Ethan, whom I liked instantly. Not only was he inquisitive and articulate, but he had gorgeously messy hair and dressed in Salvation Army castoffs, which added a welcome aesthetic uncertainty to class. One day he asked me to comment on a handful of his poems, so I sat down with him after class. I read the first poem—bad. Thumbed to the second—worse. The third—no better. Five or six poems in all, all mediocre. By mediocre I mean undistinguished, highly abstract, vague, preachy, clichéd, boring. But what to say to Ethan? Remember he’s right at my elbow, like a hopeful beagle eager for praise. After fishing around for a diplomatic preamble, I finally hit on the following question: ‘So Ethan, who have you been reading, who are the poets that keep you up at night?’ 

“He beamed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I want to avoid being a copycat.’ Good, good, I thought. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I  don’t read poetry at all. I don’t want anyone’s style rubbing off.’ Not so good. What Ethan failed to grasp is this: if we don’t consciously seek the best models in the canon, we unwittingly put ourselves at the mercy of the most banal-sing-songy nursery rhymes, drippy greeting cards, fast food jingles, polemical political slogans, the saccharine cooings that leak into our brains when we turn on our car radios.”

If we don’t seek out the best, we are at the mercy of the worst. Think how many things that can apply to besides poetry: media and art of all types, food, personal habits, relationships, even thoughts and attitudes. 

“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so ... righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one ...” (2 Nephi 2:11)

It’s truly impossible to maintain a neutral, vacuum-like state in our brains from whence will spring our authentic selves. Not even Adam and Eve could keep up that sort of existence forever. So let’s not put ourselves at the mercy of the worst. I have a sneaking suspicion that the worst has no mercy, anyway.

Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule)

Abrupt gear shift. One of the most endearing things a child can do is pick “flowers” for his mother. My youngest son did this on a regular basis, bringing me impossibly tiny and/or hay-fever-inducing weeds that I couldn’t keep in the house. I wanted to find a way to save the memories if not the actual flowers, so I wrote this poem.

Jacob brings me weeds,

flowers, he says,
sheltered in cupped hands
like snowflakes on death’s edge:

white bindweed trumpets, bright
as thoughts popping,
winding vines that cling
like anxious fingers twisted
through mine—

yellow dandelion puffs, dusty
as mote-filled sunbeams,
heavy tops that bob
like drowsy heads dipped
nose-first into dreams—

purple henbit pixels, scattered
as random patches of forgotten fury,
scarlet buds that blush
like hot cheeks rashed
with frustration.

Too limp to prop in porcelain vase,
too small to float in crystal bowl,
I tuck these treasures into memory’s tissue,
press them under leaves of leaden time
to fill empty space—

buffer
between now and when
he brings me other things
I don’t know how to save.

Digging Deep

Tuesday night we had a wonderful Relief Society activity where all the sisters divided up into groups and went to different homes for dinner. One group came to my home, and we had a fun evening visiting and laughing and getting to know each other.

After dinner, my neighbor Misty shared a message on deepening your discipleship. As preface to her message, she noted that she and her husband get nervous whenever they consider accepting whatever the Lord may require of them, because they worry it will be something really bad, like job loss, cancer, or death.

That really resonated with me. I have this deep-seated fear that, no matter the promised spiritual reward of any situation, it will inevitably be accompanied by pain. I don’t know why I should think this—my actual life doesn’t reflect it at all. Maybe it’s because contemplating the unknown is scary. Or maybe it’s a reflection of the pain I cause myself when I face challenges.

“The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.” Marjorie Pay Hinckley

So true. The problem is I do most of my crying when I’m touched by someone else’s personal testimony, or when I’m watching an inspirational movie or TV show, or when I read an uplifting news story. And guess what? Crying over good things gives me just as big a headache as crying over bad. I think the unfortunate result is I brace myself against spiritual growth and tender things instead of opening my heart to welcome them.

“But behold, because of the exceedingly great length of the war between the Nephites and the Lamanites many had become hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God, even in the depth of humility.” Alma 62:41 (emphasis added)

Lately, I’ve felt that I need to be softer and more accepting of things, not hardened and distrustful. I need to accept whatever the Lord has in store for me and trust that it will ultimately lead to good. I need to do more than just show up to church on Sunday, be generally polite, and not break the law. In short, I need to deepen my discipleship.

***

What happens to the works we perform in this life? Will they live on in some form to inspire and uplift others, or will they crumble to a dusty mockery of what we had hoped they would be? Today’s poem touches on this theme. It was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in competition with his friend Horace Smith, who also wrote a sonnet on the same subject.

The title refers to the Greek name for Rameses II (1303 to 1213 B.C.). He once built a towering statue of himself near Memphis, Egypt. The following was inscribed on the pedestal: “King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.” Shelley’s poem describes the statue’s shattered remnants thousand of years later.

Ozymandias
by Percy Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Imagination!

My children have been playing a new game recently that they made up. That is, Parker and Joshua play while Nathan and Jacob sit on the sidelines and provide color commentary. Currently, the working title for this new pastime is “The Imagination Game” (pronounced with SpongeBob-like inflection).

The rules are as follows:

1. One player is the story master. The other is the quester.
2. The story master sets up a scenario: “You wake up in a dark forest with nothing but a treasure map and a potato peeler. A dangerous-looking old man is standing nearby.”
3. The quester decides how to act: “I attack the old man with my potato peeler.”
4. The story master relates the results of the action and adds to the story: “The old man deflects your attack with his magical spatula. Attack not, he says. Help you find the treasure I will.”
5. Play proceeds back and forth until the story master decides to either kill off the quester or let him successfully complete his mission. Or maybe both.

It’s a hybrid of campfire add-on story and Dungeons & Dragons ... sans board, dice, and figurines. Sans flaming marshmallows. It’s like a free-form, evolving episode of Adventure Time, complete with crazy crones, giant bouncy houses, and offbeat side-quests—like finding a way to make bread in the middle of the wilderness from a crow’s egg, wild wheat, and pond water.

Normally, I would expect something like this to devolve into heated debate, à la Calvinball. But for some reason, they can play the Imagination Game for hours without any conflagrations. Maybe it’s because they get such a kick out of trying to crack each other up. As far as I can tell, that does seem to be the primary goal.

At any rate, I enjoy hearing them talking and laughing with each other. It develops creativity, yes, but more importantly it develops amity. I’m grateful that they’ve learned to get along with and love each other instead of pick at and tear each other down.

Since we’re talking games today, I thought this children’s poem would be fun to share. It’s a fairly realistic picture of at least two of the bedrooms at our house.

The Collector

I like collecting little things
like cat’s-eye marbles, click-pen springs,
and buttons made of shiny brass
or bits of broken windshield glass.

I’ve got a giant sneaker box
that’s spilling over Lego blocks.
Another box is heaped again
with plastic ninja army men.

Ten zillion Matchbox cars or more
are parked across my bedroom floor,
stuck in a rush-hour bottleneck
because Darth Vader caused a wreck.

This corner holds six whittled sticks—
fine wizard wands for magic tricks.
That closet harbors hand-drawn clues
on treasure maps stashed in my shoes.

At least two drawers are packed with rocks
like robin’s eggs in nests of socks.
So much more stuff than you’d suppose
can hide in freshly laundered clothes,

like playing cards and good-luck charms,
my sister’s missing Barbie arms ...
but if dead beetles raise your hair,
then don’t poke through the underwear.

Mom frowns and wrinkles up her nose
as my collection grows and grows.
She scolds, “This mess has got to stop
or else your room is going to pop!”

Within sky-scraper piles, I say,
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll clean today.
I’ll organize each drawer and shelf—
as soon as I can find myself!”