Cups

Posted on 07/13/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

We’re near the end of the remodeling project.  Heather’s been busy unpacking all the boxes and I’ve been moving heavy things.  We’re just about back to normal in this house.  Just a few light fixtures left for the electrician to install.

Here’s a short list of what I really like:

  • I can now make tea and toast at the same time (officially tested last week).
  • We no longer have this conversation in the kitchen: “Let me know when you’ve finished making your coffee, I want to start the tea kettle.”
  • Ice – you can get ice right from the refrigerator door.
  • The kitchen cabinets – every time I look at them I just want to say, “wow, these are so cool.”
  • Lights, everywhere.

As the remodeling completes my mind starts to turn back towards other creative endeavors and I am itching to do more writing.

So let’s write a poem following last week’s instructions.  First, take a word, any word.

Cup, I’ll take a cup. Spin the synonyms:

Glass, container, pot, vessel, tumbler, jar, mug, chalice, goblet, stein, grail…

Walk around the image:

Tall, short, clear, blue, green, wide, narrow, sitting upright, tipped on the side, turned upside down, flying through the air, smashing across the floor, lips touching the cool rim, steam rising from the hot tea, handles, round, square.  Glass, metal, plastic and wood, see the world through a cup.

Listen to the old cup:

He is in his cups.
My cup runneth over.
Take this cup from me.
I take this cup.
The cup is half full or half empty.
Seek for the cup, the grail.
Rise your cups.
Turn the cup down for the fallen.

What do cups do?

Cooling water down weary throats.
Warms hands and bellies on a cold day.
Holds the medicine.
Giver of life.
Taker of mind.
Shattering all.

Step lively over the rhyme:

pup, sup, yup, it’s up and you can see it close up.
grass, kras, lass in mass sometime will pass.
The mug held a bug which we wouldn’t chug like a drug so smug – only a thug would slug such a jug.

Consider a juxtaposition:
A cup and a mountain.
A glass and a hammer.
A goblet and a bee.
A stein filled with sand.
A mug of mud.

now quiet and listen.  Hear the wind.  Cup.

…

…

The poem —

Cup

Sitting on the table
Cool water within
Cold soothes the aching hand
Lips touch the brim
From the tongue to toes relief flows
Refreshing the mind and cooling the soul

The cup made from glass
To me has passed
The bite of alcohol
Cut by sweet
Diluted with ice
Taking reason as the world blurs

We raise our cups in friendly toast
We raise the glass to the fallen
We take this cup as burden
This grail starts the quest
Turn the cup down to remember those we left behind

Gentle hands offer the warm mug
Take and feel the warmth fills the body
Warm, sweet, thick, passes lips
Eyes relax
Sleep takes the worries away

Cup
Half full
Half empty
Full of promise

——————–

Well that’s it for this week.  I am taking some vacation for the next couple of weeks just to rest and play and recover from the remodeling.  Likely I won’t be posting much until August when I get into some of the follow-up projects I’ve been thinking of.

Till next time,

Andrew

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Dance

Posted on 07/06/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

How to write a poem:

Dance with words
Lyrical steps
In time and space
Flow and spin letting the words dance

Dance to the beat
Measure the steps
Find the words that span
meter and rhyme across
dance

Dance, dance
short steps
repeat the steps
find the movement and let it flow

Release the mind and see the image
Hold the world in a word
Spin your partner
and see the word
Dance.

See the old prose
sitting on the bench
too large for its pants
stand and shed
reduce and free
and dance

Let your fingers dance across the keys
Don’t fear the music in your ears
Ignore the critic and just let the words
across the keys dance.

Move forward and back
and round and round
Take the idea in hand
and spin it round your back

Quiet now and listen
Hear the words whispered in the wind
Half-formed
Half-known
Half-yearning
listen and take up the word
and dance

Dance to your tune
FInd the word the is the rhythm
Tap it out
build on the beat
Add a juxtaposition

Dance to the meter
and let the melody
rise and take its voice

Now sing
and the poem takes form
———————————–

Today in church we sang the song, “The Lord of the Dance.”  I’ve been unable to get the tune out of my head.  It just keeps starting, “Dance, dance wherever you maybe…” and the repeating.  It’s something I am supposed to learn.  I think I know but am afraid to say out loud for fear I might have to actually do something about it.  If I keep my brain ignorant, I can stay as I am and not,

Dance.

Joy isn’t something that comes naturally to me.  I don’t play much, mostly I work.  I work with tools and words.  I build things.  I make things.  I support people who work.  I enable work.  I am known to have a bit of a sense of humor which I like to think of as playful.

But,

Often it is just a defense – a way to get you to back away laughing and not get too close to the real me.  The real me is sometimes not a joyous outburst of energy.  It is more often a long todo list – of work.  It doesn’t dance.

Sometimes it sings a sea shanty – a working song – but it doesn’t dance in the rigging.

Tonight’s writing was supposed to be serious.  I had this long piece planned all about my need for creativity and the need to make things – work by another name.  There was this subsection in my head about how I write poetry and instead the above weird poem came out.

After months of work on the house and intense work at the office I find the need to play and dance.

Perhaps next week I’ll write that serious work on growing up in the cold war and how that experience has shaped my life.

or perhaps we’ll just dance.

Till next week,
Andrew

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Moving Wednesday

Posted on 07/02/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

The remodeling here is drawing to a close.  The work now is to get the house back in order along with a little electrical work that we’re waiting for the last parts to be shipped out.  We’ve emptied the storage unit on the driveway and have scheduled it for pick up this weekend.  Here’s what empty looks like:

empty unit

empty unit

Of course that means that there are boxes stacked all over the house and I still haven’t gotten to any woodworking while doing all this.  Kind of like this:

Boxes in the atrium.

Boxes in the atrium.

While Heather works on emptying the boxes, I’ll be working to finish the office shelves and putting back up some of the cabinets we took down.  There are a bunch of other projects on the plans for the house – new office furniture, built-ins for the living room, storage unit for the atrium and major reorg in my shop.  Should have that all done before I retire.

If you need me – I’ll be in the closet putting up the shelves.

Andrew

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Feeling Old While Watching Kittens

Posted on 06/29/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

My body is tired.  My brain is sluggish and my soul is weary.  The house is nearly done but the work seems endless.  Details, decisions and deadlines still rule the day.  The puzzle that is our home slowly takes form.  Small comforts creep back in to life – a stove, lights, a chair – simple pleasures and small respites from constant need to rebuild the home we tore apart.

Then, in the midst of all the work a new luxury appeared – a refrigerator with an ice maker.  I’ve never had one of those before.  Just press the button and ice fills your glass.  In a moment a cold refreshing drink is in my hand, cooling my mind and renewing my strength.

During the last three weeks, Heather and I have been painting and tending to the last details of our remodeling project.  The kitchen is now complete with appliances and granite counter tops.  Now we’ve moved to the task of unloading the storage unit and bringing our belongings back into our home.

It’s a lot of work and this afternoon the work has gotten the best of me and I am tired, bone weary tired.  A cold drink and a hot bath have failed to renew me.  In my head a half written poem about being old fights for completeness, but my mind fails to find the connections between the dots.  Fragments.  Visions of days gone by.  Hopes for the future fade into the need to work – to empty the unit.  To bring home life back to normal.

I want to be done with this project.  My back is sore and my creativity ebbs.  My soul wishes to soar again but every keystroke is a chore and eyes are too heavy to look upward into the clouds.  Every thought in my head wishes to just rest – to seek the sweet oblivion of sleep, of feet on the couch.  The mind wishes to be numbed by an old comforting movie.  Perhaps Kermit the Frog will sing me a song.

But there are the kittens.  Yes, real kittens.  About a month ago one of my contractors noticed a litter of kittens nesting in our front yard.  I went to investigate and found a mama cat and five cute kittens.  She didn’t seem like a lost house cat and her manor was aggressive.  She is one of the many feral cats in the neighborhood.

By the next morning mama and kittens were gone.  Just as I thought might happen – once the nest was discovered, mama moved her kittens to a safer place.

I didn’t see them again until Heather returned from England and then without mama cat.  We thought they might just move on and then thought that mama had abandoned the kittens so we decided to feed them while we got ready to trap them.  We couldn’t just let young kittens like that be left to fate.

Well, wouldn’t you know it – a few days after we started feeding the kittens, mama reappeared.  Either she was sick, hiding, or maybe someone had caught her for a while.  Who knows.  What we do know is that we’re currently responsible for a mama and five kittens.  They’re still fearful of us and won’t get too near but are willing to take the food.  We’ve got a trap for the kittens but not mama, we’ll have to get one from the city.
Yes, we’ll trap them, get them to a vet, spayed, neutered, shots and hope we can find homes for the kittens.

New life.  Joyous to see.

Now it is time to stop feeling old and weary and go tend to the new life in the garden.

Till next week,
Andrew

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