I Grew Up Painting Bricks

I grew up painting bricks with water when I was younger; and, I learned to paint them with paint as I got older.  The practice of painting bricks with water began when I was five and six years old, waiting for my father to come home from work on Saturday. I was waiting for him to get done so he could take me fishing.  

The waiting was hard for me and so my father and mother devised a practice that would become a profession. It started with a Maxwell House coffee can, water, and a three inch wide brush. They would fill the can with water and tell me to go paint the brick wall on the side of the walkway up to the house.  

There was a wisdom in their prescription. By the time I would get to the end of the brick wall, the beginning of the brick wall would be dry and need water again. I would start all over again without skipping a beat.  So whether they planted an OCD pattern in me, or were simply maximizing on an OCD pattern they saw, I cannot be completely sure. But, I could not stop painting the wall with water.  It was a drive.

Later in life, when I was between careers, I had my own painting business for several years. I had painted a lot in the summer during high school and college days. But, just before our first son was born, I was painting houses in an historic borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania - and all around the county.  It was what my father did for 30 years of his life.

Painting bricks with water was the first inkling I had that there is often a natural hunger built into the work we do. A hunger that would allow us to keep going, to keep doing, until we achieve what we set out to accomplish.  A hunger that sustains itself, even as we grow weary. Some would call it an obsession.  But I think they only do that because they fear the hunger. Those who understand the hunger do not need to call it an obsession at all.  They just listen to its urgings.

Hunger can root us in our daily lives and look like habit. The learned behavior that allows us to return to the same activities day after day after day.  This hunger drives communities as well as individuals. It moves history across time. It is responsible for all the great developments we love; the culture and art and science in living itself.

It is hunger that gets me out of bed in the morning.  That calls me to hike three miles before work.  It is hunger that helps me to overcome the difficulty of working with the dying - day in and day out. And what begins me to long for the sweet creams and crepes of sleep.

Hunger is the very pulse that moves all life forward; evolving into the next way we will be.  And the next after that.  I love that longing ache to move ahead and grow.  I am enchanted and haunted by that hunger.

Collaged Gelli mono-print accompanies piece

Across the Trail

 

Across the trail of time I go

to the place I had once found 

my pace in hiking - the first

time.  Hiking the Horseshoe

Trail, each step reminds my me

where the gentle portions of my

soul had picked out the way a 

footfall feeds a heartbeat; and a

heartbeat lulls the soul to 

sleeping while yet wide awake.

The scent of the earth here is

made up of hickory bark and black

walnut shells.  The sight of humus

is fraught with worms determined 

to consume every nutrient at 

their surround.  So pebbled is the

dirt it crumbles as I pull out 

strands of Canary Grass - in

great clumps - fistfuls at a time.

How can so much from the past

be laced into my very steps today.

Does not the earth herself re-

member me from passing this way

more than once.  She must.  But still

my life has meanings here, if she does

not.  Meanings bent on giving me 

over to the grandeur of becoming 

more than a man.  But, less than a 

god.  Pure spirit, yes spirit. Hope.

After

 

After placing the final stitches                               on the denim patches of your poem,                   try it on. Wear it for a week. 

Make sure you have it on when you  

go out in public. Have it on when you hike 

the trail.   Even when you sleep.

Wear it inside out to make sure it is versatile 

and capable.  See how it looks on you when 

you wear it backward.  How about wet?

Study each stitch to see if it will bear up 

under long wear.  Are the threads showing 

integrity and truth?  Will they last? 

If your poem can bear up under such 

regular scrutiny, it may be a good one.  It 

may move people to satisfaction.

Listen to the sounds it makes as you walk.  

Try to hear its unique tones while sauntering 

in it, and then again at a full run.

Is it a pleasing tune?  Or, perhaps it is an 

alarming melody?  Does it ring true with a 

clarity that makes folks hungry for more?

After placing the final stitches  

on the denim patches of your poem,  

try it on. Wear it for a week. 

It Matters How We Do This

Stand here in the heat, in the hot and blazing heat of morning that feels as if it is ten times hotter than it should be.

Stand here in the smoke that is as dense as fog; that flies south from the Northlands which seems are all on fire. 

Stand here and hang your head in silence. Open your heart to the anguishing world that is coming undone - COMING UNDONE.

In this same space remember with joy, the countless days you have stood here with rain and foxes, and spindly legged fawns.

Times before the troubles.  But know this.  It matters how we do this.  Acknowledge the anguish; and acknowledge the joy.

For grieving goes this way.  To ignore the sharp pain of loss would not be kind to the owl, the bear, and the ginseng; nor the fireflies.

It would be an affront to the children born this day.  An outrage to all our relations.  It matters how we do this.

Start ‘Em Off Young

I can remember trying to catch

the screen door with my foot

before it would hit the aluminum 

frame and announce it’s having been 

opened and closed one more time.

For some reason, there was a rule 

about comings and goings and 

how many could occur.  Which, by 

the way, was never discussed 

with me.  But don’t cross the line.

“Tommy Medland, if you come in

from outside one more time today

you’ll be stuck inside the house

for the rest of the day.  You’ll not

be allowed to go out anymore.”

With the stalwart innovation of the 

explorers I read of at the age of seven, 

I thought it within the rules laid 

down that if I should need to pee 

that outside is where I should go.

And so, to the tallest of the poplars

I went.  It was the last of four that would 

die and need me to cut it down and

into pieces to burn.  I peed on it and as

the Ackers drove by, I waved to them.

And there was my one flaw.  As still today. 

In the social kindnesses expected and shown,  

with my right hand I did my business; with my 

left I acknowledge our neighbors driving by.  

Who knew they’d call?

Mixed messages.  Everywhere.  Waiting

to confound the logical constructs we

thought we knew.  Adult-speak always changing 

into something we never heard before.  

Neighbors betray us, as we wave.

It’s so treacherous to be so young!

WITH NO CARE

 Sometimes a morning poem emerges from behind the scenes you are seeing just this

moment, but has been simmering from a life; a lifetime.  Such was what I wrote this fine day:

"I give you the end of a golden string, 

Only wind it into a ball: 

It will lead you in at Heavens gate, 

Built in Jerusalems wall." Jerusalem, 

by William Blake

Without a care the deer

sauntered casually across

the backroad and ever so

gently into the woods - like 

through a door that did not

exist and was gone - all gone.

Like what I remember of the

crossing out of mid-life.  It’s

time to trace those steps and

see where I have been - where

we have been.  Pinsky of Dante 

was spot on: 

“Midway on our life's journey, 

I found myself in dark woods, 

the right road lost. To tell

About those woods is hard—so 

tangled and rough…”

Step back out my soul, onto

the road that was yours, before

you did what we must do to

live and survive amid the masses.

Find that golden thread and follow

it back to the ball wound up and

in the center of your you - in

your heart space, and weave the

blanket you will share and some

day leave to warm your wife and sons 

and all they bring into this world - both 

now and when you are gone.  It’s what

we do - we men - when we find our

road - again.  We weave; we wind and weave.

The Dandy-Lion

 

Billions have been

trodden under barefoot

toes, in just my humble

life alone.

Weed, weed decry

the masses of

suburbia.  Jealous

they can spread so

easily on just the wind.

Dandelion, oh the flower

of our youth.  When we were

yet able to forestall the

judgement that a thing could

itself be worthless through and

through.  This herald of glory 

picked by chubby hands. 

While toil we must from 

sun to sun to make a 

simple meager wage to 

tend the need of all our 

days we pass upon here

from cradle to grave.

Sacred flower picked endlessly

by the harbingers of whimsy

and delight.  Might I never lose

my infatuation with your downy

flower and bitter leaves; the purple 

in your stem ever the vein of joy. 

Arise each year, again and again,

and cause the miserable to grumble.

As If In Stone

I love the gentle viscous 

flow of the blueberry ink 

across the page with a 

squirrel tail Sumi brush.

And the staccato, grainy 

feel of the Applewood cinders 

mulled so small for the crow 

quill pen to scratch out words.

But the greatest joy comes from 

writing life with you across the 

wrinkles of our aging skin and in 

the chambers of our hearts.

As if in stone.

As if forever. 

The Taste of Morning

 he Tastes of Morning

A Pewee and a Bunting

just over there, in the high

branches of the neighbor’s

tree - just out of sight.

A sampling of words

going this way and that

down sentences that

may or may not come to be.

A chime in the wind

tinkling and gonging out

notes that lull me into more

birdsong just beyond view.

So many broken threads

line the walls of morning.

Each a possibility of Blake’s

winding ball of Jerusalem.

Perhaps Frost’s road not

taken was one of the many

tastes of morning that assail

us - each a possibility.

I’ll take these all on my

walk, and look for something

on which to dwell, before the

sun rises and I need to look busy.

First Taste

 I want to get 

back to origins. 

To the first taste 

of color on papyrus. 

Back to when berries 

hit the cave walls 

in Lascaux, waiting to

hear the squish of fruit,

the tussle and snort of 

the bison before its 

rusty pigments set. 

How long did they 

soak the walnut husks 

to make the eternal 

ink that covered so 

many scrolls and 

vellum sheaves? 

What sound did the 

words create as 

they were scrolled out 

fresh and new on 

the virgin page? That 

is the un-struck sound 

I want to know and feel. 

True poetry;

true art.

Outset

 From the outset

of the day, there

may have been

another day I would

have wanted if I 

knew how this day

would turn out.

Just sayin’.

Finding a Way

 The small yellow

guidebook for the

Horseshoe Trail looks

the same, a little worse

for the wear from

sharing and all

of the years.  I

turn the page and

forty years fall away.

It is Monday, 1986.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

We found pounds and

pounds of Day-Lily

bulbs in the Spring.  And

would fry them up

in butter when we got

home.  Took thousands

and thousands of black

and white photos on 

our little Tomato

Camera by Konika.

Walked over footbridges,

through streams, and on

horse trails following

the yellow hash marks on

trees and poles.  Three years

of Mondays, 8 miles a week,

out and back - sometimes 

hitching back to our car

if we walked too far.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

We wrote hundreds of

first lines of poems

and pages, to the rhythm

of the seasons and the

boot-fall on dirt.

“Bury my heart in

a Sassafras grave.”  

“Hear my foot-fall

on the damp wooden 

bridge.”  Talked over

the details of newlywed

drama, argued, and laughed,

and stopped often to write.

Backpacks and journals,

hotdogs and brownies, and

oceans of water in our

old tin canteens.  Toting

along labs Rebecca

and Isaac - if not on 

the lead, somewhere

after the deer.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

I think that  I’ve learned

to sometimes lead, and I 

also learned to sometimes 

follow.  To sometimes walk

side by side.  To sometimes

wait for the other - behind.  

The measure of life’s wisdom, 

comes from attention to what 

is needed right now, not what 

you did the last time around.

That moving on through often 

gets you ahead.  And that rain 

and snow are a part of it all.

Horseshit, and muddy paths

hold sway o’er my heart and

linger so lovely in my mind.

Thunderous and Wee

 

Lingering Forever

 Her fingers worked the needles and yarn

like she was kneading bread dough blind.

Looking up to gauge my response to what

she had said, she’d knit and knit without pause.

It was not long before I realized that my

mother used to do the same.  And somehow

as I sat with this hospice patient, listening

to her tell her tales, one by one I saw the 

women of my life enter the room.  Mom,

Mom-mom, Mimi, Nanna, Mertz, Karen and

Ruth, Aunt Pat, Aunt Norma, Aunt Betty, Dawn 

and Pat joined her, knee to knee, needles tapping out 

their cloth.  It was then I first knew - deep down -

I carry those women with me - EVERYWHERE.

Those first and powerful women of my life, 

they have knitted themselves an endless

blanket of my days even as they were 

nowhere in view, just always under the

chatter of knitting, behind the threading of

a needle, or beyond the cutting of their

cloth.  Somehow connecting me to

who I would become.  Really, no words.

Just their ghostly appearance doing what 

they did, all the while as I listened to this

woman slowly dying.  And the others.

All the others.  Slowly leaving through the years.

They are all in there, in me, lingering forever.

our stories

 our stories are what 

feed our souls - deep

and on the inside.

in our story we 

eat the broken one;

we throw him up on

the table first, divide

his flesh from his blood

and we eat him - after of

course we mumble a few

words.  we grind him up

and swallow him and then 

he is ours.  and then we, we

become the broken ones.

this is to remind us that

we are broken ones and

not worthy to judge 

anyone else - we are

unworthy and we are

as I said before and up

above: broken ones.

the end 

the hands of time

 sometimes

when i look at

my hands

a weeping wells up

within me

a hoard of hands of

those long gone

display themselves

across the corners

of my mind

sometimes

the hoard of hands 

are mine, all mine 

from across the sands

of my own time

has the remembering 

of my mind left go of 

all the countless hours

of joy held near by all

the hands i have known

or, is it just 

that all that joy contains 

each o’ their meanings

as grains in an endless

hourglass of feeling

so much, so full,

so tenderly eternal

that all the emotions

well up as water across 

the lids of my life

 sometimes

when i look at

my hands

a weeping wells up

within me

the beauty

the glory of it all

at once

here 

and yet not here

 

Slow Pulling of Air

  The slow pulling of air

into the still small space

of the heart, brings a

dropping of all the world

save breathing.  Let it fall

to the wayside, to the path

of our own existence.  In.

Out.  In, again.  Mark your

life in inhalations, count

your joy in the departure

of what you just brought

in.  Let it go, let it go,

again, just let it go.  Ahhh.

Birch-Song

 I have seen the birches

just over the hill, as they

line themselves up to

talk among the copse.

They whisper a song on

the morning, and one 

again on the setting of

the sun.  A song that we

would do well to learn.

Listen closely and you may

pick up the cadence, strain 

to make out the meaning

of their lullaby.  The secret 

of our own future may be

woven within the words.

Listen. Listen. Listen.

Bathed In Words

 I’ve been bathed in words.

Surrounded and covered

with all their meaning,

fed and nourished on sound.

From my earliest days

I have escaped into pages

which have led me out of

the chaos and turmoil of

what we called home.

Words have always lifted

me above the fray of human

suffering and angst and into

a world of adventure and 

delight.  The Scholastic

Book Fairs and the Weekly

Readers were in league 

with the library to form

the essential cartographic

tools I would need to craft

the maps and take to flight.

Words are the key for any

one individual to gain the 

understanding to be set free;

if not in truth than in point

of fact for their own self.

I am broken by the cheapening

of words I see afoot these days.

Words use to malign and destroy

and not to open us to grandeur.

The silence of the Meetinghouse

has burned the worth of words

into the cells I bear each day.  “I

hear an echo in my soul, how can

I keep from singing”, or speaking,

signing, or gesturing to those near

by who need a word of comfort

and repair.  Words.  Words.  Words.

Such a cascade of loveliness and

kismet is possible on opening each

new book; such a hope and exhilaration 

with each new journal.  “Moby Dick”

the first novel I read in third grade still

portends the rise of hairs on my neck

at the sound of “Call me Ishmael.”

The names De Soto, De Leon, Crockett, 

and Boone presage a richness of desire 

for new lands and exploration.

I’ve been bathed in words and “THAT 

HAS MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE.”

I Saw It

 I saw it 

in your eyes,

mostly.

That you didn’t 

understand

exactly what 

I was saying.

And then,

all of the sudden

you emerged again,

like you were all

those years ago.

The silent tear

running down

your cheek

let me see

you remembered.