February Snow

Monday Morning Musings:

^{Sunrise in January, Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield.©️Merril D. Smith, 2021}

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  Sunrise over the Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield ©️Merril D. Smith, 2021

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  Morning Moon over the icy river ©️Merril D. Smith, 2021

In this winter of confinement
in grey, I look for color and light
of moon and sun, a feathered message

or fairy glow

the still quiet of snow.

• 

• 

I cook and bake,
think how I will celebrate
in future days—
now I huddle and with cat-cuddles
dream, write, read

^{You can tell this photo is from the summer since I’m not all bundled up in layers of clothing.}

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  Challah

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  Shakshuka

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  Mandelbrot

and watch the river rushing go
noisy in the quiet falling of the snow.

^{Delaware River, West Deptford, NJ. The start of the February snowstorm. 2021}

So. . .it’s still a pandemic, and I haven’t gone anywhere or done anything special, and there’s nothing much to muse about that’s new. It’s been cold and blustery, so we haven’t even gone for walks somewhere new. Right now, the news here is of the snow. Last year we didn’t have any snow at all, so this snowstorm is a big deal. We had some snow yesterday afternoon and night, and now we’re getting wind and sleet, but we’re supposed to have heavy snow (and wind) this afternoon into tomorrow.

Merril’s Movie/TV/Book Club: We watched the movie Herself (Amazon Prime). My husband and I both enjoyed this movie of an Irish mother who flees an abusive relationship and literally fights to build a home for her daughters and herself. The performances rise above what could be cliché and melodrama (and convenient circumstances); the scenes of domestic violence are handled sensitively. The way the two daughters played together reminded my husband and me of our daughters when they were little girls.
We’re part-way through Season Five of The Expanse (Amazon Prime). It’s a wonderful series. It’s the kind of sci-fi that I like, in that there are real plots and believable characters. It’s a much grittier than the Star Trek world. It’s about colonies and empires, and what happens to Earth’s colonies—Mars and “the belters”—those who have and those who have not. Season one begins with a mystery and a detective, and it goes on from there. It’s a complex show with lots of plot lines that intersect. I highly recommend it.
I’ve read some of Kate Atkinson’s more recent books, so I went back to read Case Histories, the first in her Jackson Brodie series. It’s excellent (though I’m not a fan of Brodie’s sexist comments)—but her writing is just so good, and I love how the cases come together and connect.

February Birthday Roses: Haibun

A memory. His birthday falls over the long Presidents Day weekend. We wander through greenhouses where orchids and roses bloom, scenting the air with summer perfume. We stroll about the gardens without jackets, enjoying the taste of spring. The next day it snows.

 

February moon

hovers with uncertainty–

mist turns to snowflakes

 

This year, the morning sun gleams on the bare and budding branches. Birds flock, seeking sustenance, as the skies grow cloudy, and in the evening white flakes drift down to cover the emerging green sprouts. We wrap ourselves in blankets, eat birthday cake, and laugh.

 

Hands together grasp

wine and roses, youth and age

following the heart

 

At Longwood Gardens, February 2011.

Sunny Day; snow at night. February 17-18, 2018.

 

I’ve combined challenges for this Haibun: Frank’s hazy moon challenge from last week, his current rose/Presidents’ Day challenge, and Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday challenge.   The words we’re supposed to use synonyms for are character and affection. I don’t know if it’s correct to use both a haiku and senryu in one piece, but I did.

 

 

 

 

 

February Changed: Tanka

This Tanka is for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday. We were asked to use synonyms for the words destiny and challenge. Today is the beginning of birthday month in our household–both daughters and my husband.

 

Fate may have spoken

in winter’s chill, buds blossomed,

February changed

 

forever hearts call—testing–

love answers without a doubt

 

 

Between Here and Always

Monday Morning Musings:

The Oracle gave me this poem over the weekend.

 

Between here and always

is light–

vivid soul-blossoms living wild,

secret garden from dark night,

world was and is

 

In February, this month of birthdays,

time moves backward and forward,

fluid

here and always

what was, what is, and what will be

 

even the weather seems confused,

time and season changing from day to day

light and dark

warm and cold

flowers bloom,

secret gardens amidst leaves

covered as snow falls

 

here

always

 

We celebrate my husband’s birthday with Pakistani food,

the owner remembers him and my son-in-law

they picked up food there on the day my daughter and son-in-law

moved into their house,

yes, they looked tired that day, the man says,

(he is pleased we’ve returned)

the food is delicious,

we eat flaky samosas with yogurt sauce and green chili sauce

then our various entries—slow cooked beef, lamb, chicken,

and vegetarian dishes of eggplant and moong dal with palek,

the chef comes out to meet us,

we tell them we’ll come back

here

 

We have wine and cheesecake afterward at my daughter’s house,

 

 

the house crackles and creaks a bit as the heat of the gas fire warms the room,

ghost sounds,

my daughter-in-law mentions a John McCain poster figure

her father used to hide it around their house to startle people,

I recall the mannequin my sister and a roommate had in their apartment

they used to dress her for different events,

one daughter says she saw a woman on the T carrying the arm of a mannequin–

silence,

there must be a story,

then, other daughter asks, “are you sure it was a mannequin’s arm?”

 

here and always,

food, love, and stories.

 

Later, I pull out tablecloths

they’ve been buried at the bottom of a cedar chest

almost two decades now,

once a special part of our daughters’ birthday parties

years of drawings and comments,

words written by children

now grown

scribbled messages,

ghosts of the past,

each daughter takes a tablecloth

Happy Birthday, I say.

They are always in my heart.

 

 

I make a photo/memory album for my mother-in-law

I have an assistant.

 

born in 1937,

the middle of the Great Depression,

1937,

Amelia Earhart disappeared, Japan invaded China, the Nanking massacre took place, the Hindenburg exploded,  the Golden Gate Bridge opened,

Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves premiered, and Of Mice and Men was published–

my husband says, yes but the most important thing is that my mother was born

and of course, to her, to him, and to me, it is

without that,

he would not be here

and our children would not be

perhaps there is another timeline,

perhaps there is another always,

ghosts that flicker

just out of sight

another story

but not here

 

We celebrate her 80^th birthday

at our house

 

a friend of hers stops by,

an eightieth birthday party surprise

(“I won’t stay long,” the friend says,

“I’ve just had a heart attack,”

a story I could not make up)

daughters and I have made enough food

to feed twice as many people,

 

Hummus

Mango salsa

Mac and Cheese

Meatballs

 

enough for more surprise people,

or any strangers who might wander in,

we eat and talk

and memories flow–

what was, what is–

my mother-in-law’s wish–

to see my nephew, her grandson, grow up

What will he be?

(What will be?)

At some point, we will look back

at this moment

in snapshots

time frozen

what is now will be then

this warm sunny day,

filled with light,

here and always

our souls blossom

with love

here

always

 

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

 

If you are in the Sicklerville, NJ area, I highly recommend Mera Khana restaurant. It’s a small, unassuming restaurant in a strip mall–but such delicious food and wonderful people.

 

February Hearts and Lions

Monday Morning Musings:

 

“And February was so long that it lasted into March

And found us walking a path alone together,

You stopped and pointed and you said, ‘That’s a crocus,’

And I said, “What’s a crocus?” and you said, “It’s a flower,”

I tried to remember, but I said, “What’s a flower?”

You said, “I still love you.”

–Dar Williams, “February”

 

“This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?”

–Henry David Thoreau, Walden

 

February grayness brightens with a flower

teasing us before the snow.

The snow moon haunts and taunts

the wind blows,

wild wolves howling in the night,

winter darkness,

and yet dawn comes,

and so will spring.

First Crocus, National Park, NJ

 

Watching the February snow. National Park, NJ

 

My daughters and I,

in separate locations,

celebrate our snow day

(though the inch or two in New Jersey

does not compare to Boston’s blizzard)

we share our thoughts,

in text messages

(technology that did not exist when I young)

throughout the day,

as if we were wondering in and out of rooms—

separated by space,

but instantly connected in time,

what we are cooking and baking–

meatballs, lentil soup, artisan bread, sweet potato nachos–

deciding banana bread with added chocolate chips

makes it both bread and cake,

suitable for breakfast or dessert,

one daughter says she just watched, Finding Dory,

and cried,

but then we cry over everything,

TV shows, books, commercials,

other daughter says, “I cried when I burnt toast the other day,

but the point is that you should watch the movie.”

My husband chimes in with a message that he is saving this conversation,

“It is SO my family.”

Snow day cooking.

 

A few days later my husband and I see the movie, Lion,

and my tears flow,

I think it is good I’m not watching it with my daughters,

all three of us sobbing in the theater,

though I notice my husband discreetly wiping his eyes.

I think again about technology,

the nineteenth-century invention, the train,

that separates the five-year-old boy from his family,

that little boy with the heart and spirit of a lion,

a twentieth-century plane separates them ever father

across bodies of water to Tasmania

how a twenty-first-century invention, Google Earth,

brings them back together

It turns out that we see the movie in February,

and it was in February that Saroo Briefley reunited with his family.

 

On a February night I gave birth to one daughter,

and on a February night three years later, I gave birth to her sister,

and so, we celebrate birthdays

with wine and chocolate

around the holiday of love

hearts and love

chocolate and wine

Heritage Vineyards Wine and Chocolate Event

 

I think of the brilliant February moon,

its light shining through the kitchen window

making me stop and stare,

and gaze at the sky–

technology leads us out to the stars,

to our moon’s craters

and to Saturn’s rings,

Valentine’s love from Cassini

 

“Splendid Saturn,”NASA Image, PIA06594/ NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

 

I wake during the night to hear

February’s winds,

wild horse gods,

stallions that gallop in

and seed the ground,

for spring

will come again–

until then, there is chocolate, wine,

and memories.

 

A number of New  Jersey wineries have special wine and chocolate events close the weekend before Valentine’s Day. This year we went to one at Heritage Winery in Mullica Hill, NJ.

Trailer for Lion.

Leap: Another Lantern Poem

 

Something fun to make up for my heavy Monday Morning Musings today!

Leap

extra

day surprise

the earth rotates

March