Viewing Genevieve's Poems in a Literary and Historical Context

Poetry presents a spirit-voice that orders reality around it. The poet both apprehends reality as it is and projects his or her own inner state onto the external world. In her poems, mom weaves, tucks and tufts her mind into images of the world around her. She presents situations that reveal the inner beauty and essence of things, as, for example, in The Mystery of Spring when she writes of a tree coming alive again in May after a long cold winter on the harsh Minnesota prairie:

Its arms to the dancing blue and its eyes to snow-capped heights,
And toes deep clinging to the prairie soil,
It grew—a radiant Peach Tree—in tender tones singing
The mystery of spring, the beauty of love,
‘Til everyone could know,
The joy of a peach tree aglow.

Through her poems mom expresses her relationship with herself and her world, a relationship of intuitive creativeness, where her poetry serves as both a vehicle for bonding and communicating and as a device to protect. She can hide her true feelings in poems, conceal her thoughts in images neatly arranged to stand on their own—stand even as they have in her case silent on scraps of paper for over 80 years!

The American poet, Marianne Moore, said, “Poetry provides a place for the genuine…creates imaginary gardens with toads in them.” In general, mom’s poems present two general outlooks: the devotional sentiments of her Catholic faith and the creative free-wheeling imagination of her poetic spirit. Although mom’s poems were written just after WWI, during the wild, rebellious jazz age of the Roaring 20s, through the Great Depression years, and during and after WWII—a period when many prominent British and American poets were expressing uncertainty over a cold tension-filled universe bereft of order, design and purpose—mom maintained an unwavering faith and optimism in God and the natural order of things. If she felt any doubts or ambivalence, it was only about the decisions of human leadership, particularly political and military leaders who were too willing to send our nation’s—or any nation’s—young off to war, as expressed in Mark Ye, Men of War and Political Fame and Between Two Fronts.

For her there is always a logical structure and explanation to things. She expressed and reinforced this belief through the themes, structure, diction, settings and imagery of her poems. These are not the expressions of someone whose soul is wracked by doubt and anxiety and who is now drifting without purpose or destination, as many young restless writers her generation—called “the lost generation”—became when they gathered in Paris after World War I in a desperate search for a fun and a faith to believe in. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, was one of these restless souls. So was Ernest Hemingway, who wrote about them in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Rather, mom’s poems are the statements of someone very clear about who she is, where she is and where she is going. Raphael, Gifts of a Woman and Song of Life are just three of several poems that articulate her clear sense of identity, place and direction.

Mom’s poetic spirit was akin to that of Emily Dickinson's, a 19th century poet who lived in solitude and wrote lyrically of love, nature, death and eternity, and whose works weren’t published until after her death and Robert Frost, America’s most popular poet of the 20th century. Frost found inspiration in the ordinary things around him—the landscape, a stone wall, paths in the woods, a snowy evening, a farmhouse—and regarded poetry as something that” begins in delight and ends in wisdom—is a momentary stay against confusion.” Though Frost’s style of poetry reflected the romantic style of the1800’s, whose themes depicted man and nature living in harmony with each, his actual themes depicted more of a split between man and nature. Nature’s meanings and secrets remained mysteries to man, so serenity was achieved, not in understanding nature’s secrets but in simply appreciating them and toiling productively and usefully amid the external forces of nature. To Frost, we are sustained and nourished by “significant toil.” Mom’s poem, Be Strong, captures this work ethic:

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift.
We have hard work to do and loads to lift.

Like Frost, mom highlighted her relationship with ordinary things. Her poetry advocates an active life over the passive and suggests the tenacity necessary for victory over life’s struggles, a tenacity equal to the iron grip of a honeysuckle tendril. It conveys an attitude of someone in complete touch with her environment, complete absorption in the moment, and complete acceptance and enjoyment of the absolute. It presents an affirmation of life’s mystery and beauty, and not an attempt to understand it. Again in The Mystery of Spring, she captures this Frost-type element:

Still, no one knew from a mere glimpse of this tree
What sort of friend it might someday be.

Though mom knew struggle from her years growing up on the farm and raising a family through the depression, the dominant feeling of her poetry is optimism and appreciation for life and the life potential of nature. She saw images and heard sounds of beauty all around her, as expressed in these lines from Sunset:

Warm downy clouds aglow with light,
Above and beyond green lacy trees
Ever shading from greys to purplish –pink to white…
The chirp, chirp of a bird/
And a dark flash ‘gainst the sky
The crying laughter of children
In the yard nearby…

Mom’s response to nature was visceral and spiritual. Her poems about nature, like her devotional poems, were expressions of faith in the purpose and design of the universe, of a belief that God guides all living things—man and birds alike, flowers, trees and the ebb and flow of the sea. Her belief was not a blind, mindless one, but a philosophical questioning and wondering, a philosophy of being part of the earth, one based on the premise that nature is truth. If she had a wish to escape or retreat, it was to this aspect of nature, and not simply to be free of suffering and pain. For mom a visit to the sea is a return to our origins. We leave our troubles behind, are comforted and awed by sea life, regain on the dunes and the edge of the surf our true perspective. This was the attitude behind her spending days upon days with us at the beach: keeping herself and her sons and daughters connected to their place in the universe. She knew the practical value of a day at the beach, too. After romping all day in the sand and surf, we ate well when we got home and slept well at night!

For mom as for many poets, the physical world corresponds to the inner world. Her life is bound with the life of nature. As a child growing up on a farm, it is natural for her to feel the mighty power behind life’s shifting scenes and mysteries….the ebbing and flowing, waxing and waning, being born and dying. Her poetry is marked by the language of yearly decay and the yearly renewal of life. If she felt inner turmoil and restlessness at night, she expressed this mood through the image of shrouded red beacons of lights passing through the pulled curtains from the distant shore, as in her poem Perspective:

Through the darkened curtains of night,
Two red beacons of the air,
On the distant shore,
Keep their lonely vigil with my fingers,
While I “tune in” with God.

Mom believed in the larger and enduring unity behind the specifics of life and death. For her, death is the point at which we pass into the eternal spring, the eternal now, the world of infinite life and eternal affirmation and splendor. It is a return to the source of all beauty. Her poetry, however, is not just serious or prayerful or political. There is a light and playful side, too, perhaps the natural Irish wit and humor, the twinkle in the eye, that we all enjoyed along side her sense of devotion and discipline. This playful, free spirit is captured most beautifully in the poem, The Little Knife:

I’m a powerful thing,” said the Little Knife.
“How is that?” asked the Oak’s jealous wife.
“While others must sing and dance for their life,
I just cut and cut,” said the Little Knife.

“You silly thing!” sang the tree so tall.
“How could powerful be such a thing so small?
You’re not strong or big like me,
Nor up in the winds and always free.
You can’t wave your arms or bend your knees.
You can’t dance with the wind whenever you please!
What a powerful thing, indeed!” laughed the tall tree’s wife.
“You’ll know when I cut!” warned the Little knife.

This poem moves on, logically, lyrically, delightfully to a fitting end. It provides in combination with the poems below a rare glimpse into a perspective that bridges and transcends nearly forty years.

Since most of mom’s poems were undated and written on fragments of paper, it is impossible to place them into an exact time frame. Collectively, however, they provide an inspiring view of the spirit of a remarkable person who, in the midst of keeping step with the events of her time, moving from house to house and city to city, and raising nine children, found a way to create, over the years, maybe one day between kitchen chores or one evening after the children were asleep, “a momentary stay against confusion.” In putting down her thoughts neatly into words and rhymes and sentences and lines, mom ordered her world. She found in that order reflections of the love and beauty and peace and purpose that already existed deep within her, and all around her, from her days as a child on the prairie in Minnesota in the early 1900s to her very last days in California in 1997, where, alongside a rose garden, beneath a towering eucalyptus grove, amidst the vast and beautiful and fertile fields and orchards of California’s Central Valley, in the shadows of the spectacular High Sierras—where giant Sequoias really do “dance with the wind” whenever they please—mom passed into her Eternal Spring, returned to the Source of All Beauty.

Song of Life

Dearest forever, I’d give my life away,
I’d ask you never, for e’en one little day,
Yours just to do with as you pleased,
Yours til the life in it has ceased,
For I trust you in everything you do.
My strength—I’d give you all I have,
My heart for only you would beat,
And all my prayers be your retreat,
For all my love then to atone,
For I trust you in everything I do.
(Early 1920s)

This undated poem was typed with a stanza format, internal and line- ending rhyming, plus two conventional poetic word usages, (“e’en” for even, “til” for until), that makes me think mom wrote it while she was a student studying poetry (or music, since she called it “Song of Life”). Its theme is the classic “Bride of Christ” theme, expressing the total commitment and trust and devotion to Christ, to be and live as He, the Son of God, would want her to be and live. This attitude reflects her devout Irish Catholicism. Regardless of when she composed it, she never wavered from this attitude of devotion, but seemed rather to grow stronger in it as the trial and tribultaions wore on. For mom, spiritualty infused and surrounded everything we did. It emanated from nature itself. It seemed to me, as a child growing up under her wings, that it was in the natural order of things that mom found reinforcement for her faith. Her attention to the events of nature--the sun rising and setting, the seasons coming and going, plants springing up each spring, the phases of the moon each month--these were all aspects of God's power and love for man. Our task was to respect and trust in His power and love and to return these through our everday actions. She offered everything up to God, living out as well as anyone I've every known the words of Saint Benedict, "To work is to pray." Her very life was a song of praise written for the glory and honor of God. All who met and knew her seemed to sense this humble yet powerful and radiant nature of her personality.

Be Strong

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift.
We have hard work to do and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle.
Face it. ‘Tis God’s gift.
(Early 1920s)

Mom scrawled this on the inside of the back flap of her composition notebook from Loretta Heights College in Denver, where she was studying to be a nurse. Eventually, she left her studies to return home to the farm in Heron Lake to help her family, becoming a teacher in a local school. The little poem captures her philosophy of working hard, not complaining, seeing every struggle as an opportunity given by God, bestowed on us by Him, to carry out His will. All her life, through every household move, every child pushing inexorably toward his or her own independence and suffering inevitable setbacks and disappointments, she never wavered from this attitude.

Once when I was trying to tuck her into bed a couple of years before she died (about 70 years after this poem was written!), I was trying to get her into the middle of the bed so she would be more comfortable and not roll off. She was kind of stiff-bodied then and hard to move. It was a struggle. I got her head on the pillow but, lying on her side on the edge of the bed, she looked like she was uncomfortable and might easily role off. I was worried and asked, “Are you comfortable, Mom?” She answered, with that Irish chuckle of hers, ”I didn’t know that was the goal.”

That was a profound moment of insight for me and an object lesson in life. In an instant I got the point: embrace what is, accept it and go on…in this case, discomfort and to sleep. “Face it.” Of course, I was at that time in the middle of having to face horrific personal struggles of my own, but the lesson was there, right before my eyes. Mom was strong, stoic, accepting, uncomplaining, never shunning the struggles given to her. There it all was, lying like a lump under the covers, a spent and wracked 92 year old body, long past trying to be comfortable, just happy now to have a warm place to rest her head, and a son to tuck her in. “Good night, Mom,” I said. “I love you.” “Good night,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I love you, too.”

I walked out of her room that night, shutting the door behind me, tears welling up inside, thinking how lucky I was to be around a mother so strong, so loving, so accepting, so much at peace with herself. I was 50 years old then and living with her in the Fedora Street house in Fresno. Within a year or so I had to face the decision, with the help of the family, to put her into a 24-hour care residential facility. That was, ultimately, one of the five or six most difficult struggles of my life. I searched around for months. Found one close by, but it was eventually unacceptable to us. We looked so more, lways struggling against ourselves, until we finally got an interview with the highly regarded Armenian home. She had to interview for this “position,” not being Armenian and not having any money or inside connection. Once I realized she was going to be interviewed, I knew inside that we were in luck: How could anyone not want to take care of her once they meet her? I thought. I was right with this feeling. They accepted her on the spot!

“Be strong.” Good advice, but to feel it deep down in your bones, all the way to your toes, that takes years and years of practice. She had it…the strength…and I was still just learning about it.

Dreams of a Blind Man

I strayed away one summer day
from the land of bustle and noise.
My thoughts?
They wandered far away to play

with their dreamy toys.
The shore was cool, but the sun was bright;
I felt the day and thought not of night.
My dreams! How they sparkled in rainbow hues,
And brightly danced in grays and blues.
And colors sublime? I saw them, too.
I know ‘twas so.
But now…now …Where did they go?
‘Tis dark! ‘Tis dark again at night,
The dark without a ray of light.
The green of the trees, the blue of the skies,
Have gone with my dreams.
To Paradise?
Ah, Yes! I’m sure! I’m sure ‘tis so!
And now I pray through everyday

that I again to them may sometime go.
(1922)

Here mom shows her knack for escaping into her rich imagination and enjoying, at least for a moment, its “rainbow hues” and brightly dancing “colors sublime.” She is the dreamer, the “blind man,” speaking in the masculine voice, and I can’t help thinking that, though she never stops or stopped believing in her dreams, there were moments of melancholy, moments she kept to herself, when she wondered, “Where did they go?” In those moments, her faith kicks in and she realizes that all dreams end in “Paradise.”

This is not only a sample of her early sophisticated poetic skills (she was 17 in 1922) but it is a profound statement of her faith. WWI had been over only a few years. A wave of cynicism had been sweeping the country and the world because of the vast devastation in lives and the disillusionment in institutions. The Roaring ‘20s were just beginning as an escape from the war. Mom shows her deep sense of optimism here, of coming out of the dark and, eventually, into the light of paradise. In literary circles, there is a tradition of blind poets (for example, Homer and Milton) who are inspired by their suffering and who also espouse the sanctity of nature. Mom alludes to that here, at least unconsciously, indicating she had studied or been aware of this tradition. After WWI, there was a general sense of tragedy lingering in the consciousness of people, but poets often asserted the idea, as mom does here, that even within tragedy the life that is nature (and super-nature, i.e., “Paradise”) will reassert itself. As a foot note: In 1990 my sister Julie’s daughter, Jennifer, was studying Helen Keller. Jen memorized this poem and recited it for her class.

I remember when we first took mom to St. Agnes Hospital in Fresno after her first major stroke. It was sometime in the early 1990’s, I think, about 80 years after this poem was written. She began hallucinating in her room because of her medication. She told me to “get the spiders” off the wall across from her bed and to “turn the water off’ on the faucets which were also on the wall. At first I was frightened and tried to reason with her, bring her back to reality, then I realized that for her, she was in her own reality. To her, the spiders and running water really existed! So I entered into her world, her “belief system,” went over to the wall and pretended to wipe off the spiders with some Kleenex and turn off the water faucets. She felt better then, even smiled. I didn’t feel like a professional entering the mind of a patient, which is a technique I teach to students, but like a child believing with his mom that this is what’s going on, this is reality, this is the way things are. I was prepared, conditioned all my life for this moment!

Throughout her life, mom maintained her sanity by moving in and out of her imagination at will, crossing back and forth between the actual and the imagined as if they both exited on one plane. Working about the kitchen or the living room, she talked incessantly to herself. She lived in overlapping realities. This poem is an early indication of the deep structure of her faith and her imagination. She was healthy that way, though most of us could only follow her for a little while into the rich and colorful world of her dreams and visions and imaginations. Most of us did not have that deep spiritual infrastructure. Maybe we were more spiritually “frail,” which is why we so idealized her and regarded her as a “saint.” In our experience, she was one, though we hardly understood how deep her spirituality really was. Few of us could truly follow her there though we are grateful to have her as our model of strength and character.

Song of the Heart

I sang a song as I passed along
Of the one I loved most dear.
I sang a song midst the thick of the throng
Of the one I longed to be near.
Not a melody rich with cadences
Nor trills and heart-rending runs,
Nor a rhyme in step with the dances,
Nor a technique which dazzles and stuns.
Just a simple little tune, I sang—
“Two steps to a stride” marking time
While the tinkle and merry laughter rang,
singing the light of faith in rhyme—
‘twas a song of the heart, I sang!
I sang a song as I passed along,
Of the one I loved most dear—
I sang this song midst the thick of the throng
Of the one I longed to be near.
(1920s)

Since the original is typed and has only one correction on it (fourth line “longed” was originally “loved”), I have a hunch this was written by mom in her earlier years, maybe during college. It has the musical motif, which suggests to me she was still playing the violin, maybe, and the fact that it has a theme of “longing” for someone suggests she was not married and this may be a romantic sentiment. Or, could it even be about dad during their courting days in 1929-1930?? We did not see much of this side of mom, the romantic or outward display of affection. She was a more reserved cultured woman and this controlled poetic expression is probably her best way of expressing this side of herself. I don’t remember mom ever saying “I love you” to me or dad or anyone else, but I never gave this much thought. Her love was so deep and real it was experienced directly in her eyes, movement and tone that he words just weren’t needed and, maybe just weren’t much a part of her prairie culture's vocabulary.

My Dream House

It isn’t, of course, and it shan’t be,
For years and years where passing eyes might see.
Yet deep in the depths of will be, must be,
Already it stands complete—
Pine trees hiding the drive,
Sheltering the doorway and nooks,
Rugs on the floor—dishes, pictures and books,
A wide fireplace and a winding stair for looks.
Surely you’ll love it, this Dream House of mine,
And visit it often any season or time,
When drowsy south winds hum prairie tunes,
Or biting north gales tempt fireside runes.
In summer a door open wide—
In winter a lantern outside!
My Dream House, come true!
(1920s)

Technically, this is one of mom’s most complete and perfected poems, I think, each word working well to flow with the next, sketching out the colorful, concrete details of the dream, each line building the theme. The poem was typed with only four small corrections and three phrases added in pencil, which suggests that she had worked on it by hand several times before finally typing it, and then made a couple of changes. This was probably written while she was in college or just afterward, in the early 1920s. It shows her romantic nature and deep sense of home and hearth, of having a warm place where others are welcome, a place with mature “pine trees” hanging over the driveway and the house, with “pictures and books” and a “wide fireplace.”

Mom kept this dream alive throughout her life. She seemed to literally will it onto each home or apartment we moved into—and there were dozens! Each house or apartment was to her, “not just a house, but a home,” (her words, always!) and she made certain that we hung family pictures and set out the books in the bookcases. She was always looking forward to anyone who came to visit. She wanted to share, not just her physical space, but her entire dream of place, the feeling of being “at home.” The phrase “fireside runes” is significant. “Runes” is an old word and it means poems, verses or songs. Only a student of poetry or a literate person would know this word and be capable using it appropriately, as she does here. It conjures up images of people coming in out of the cold, warming up next the fireplace, and sharing stories of the day—maybe as mom remembered her father and brothers doing during the cold winter months on the farm in Minnesota. Since her grandfather was an Irish barroom balladeer, the singing of Irish runes had to be part of the family mindset. Symbolically, she re-enacted this scene every time a visitor came to the house—preparing warm tea or coffee, cookies or cake, and sitting at the coffee table, visiting, attending, listening—and, if we had one and it was winter, near the fireplace with the logs burning! Overall, the poem captures mom’s eternal optimism and hope and the intricate detail of her imaginary world.

The final line is a poignant and sad one for me. In 1989 when I visited mom in her first convalescent home (St. Francis Home) in Orange county, I knew I had to do something to get her out of there and into a real home again. Though it was a nice Catholic home with a large garden and the nuns were friendly, mom had to shuffle her way down the long corridor to the chapel (Bob had done his best to get her into this home). Her feet hurt her immensely by then. When I saw that she had to sleep in a narrow room with a bed four feet from a stranger and her feet hurt her every time she went to eat or to visit the garden, I set out to buy a home through the VA in Fresno. I brought her up within a month or two to live in an apartment wiwth me until we could move into the home.

The home on Fedora Avenue was my final effort to get mom into, if not her Dream Home, a comfortable home for her last years. The move worked, I think, for she loved the grape vines and the pomegranate tree and all the shrubs. We planted pines in the front that did hide the front doorway and the small porch. She’d sit there among the geraniums and watch the neighborhood kids pass by on their way to and from school. All the family came over to help to make the place comfortable for her. Don built a long ramp so she could get out into the back yard easily. Jerry and Bob put some special hand bars in her bathroom, and the girls all helped to get her room and the kitchen organized so it looked homey. And the bookcases—we had several in each room, a large window looking out into the gardenesque back yard where one summer we tried growing corn and peas and beans and carrots and strawberries. The “we” was always me by then, though, for mom was too unsteady to do any gardening. The dog I got from the pound ate the corn (Bob called him Corn Dog!) and most of the vegetables didn’t produce much, though each day we’d check to see how they were doing. Mom put her statue of St Francis in the corner under a tree so she could see it from her window.

We only lived there a few years, mom and I and Cory and Devon, when they came over, but it was “home,” her last in her fading years and one that left her with good memories. When we finally moved her to the very nice Armenian Home in the countryside of east Fresno, she had a spacious room with a bed by a large window. Outside was a lemon grove. There the “bird with the red eyes,” which she said had followed her from the Fedora home, perched on the branches everyday and looked in on her. That was the same bird she saw flying high overhead the afternoon before he died. She stayed in the Armenian Home for about a year before passing away February 24, 1996. The staff there loved her and respected her as very unique and uncomplaining. They missed her when she finally passed away. Though it wasn’t exactly her Dream House, the Armenian Home was ranked as one of the best rest homes in the state and, in the end, it did get her back into the country, which she very much appreciated.

God of My Heart

Oh, God of my heart,
Give me strength and the power to live,
Lend me love and kindness others to give,
And with Thy children so far apart,
Bless them today, Oh God of my heart.
(Late 1920s )

This was penciled as is next to the poem Rapheal. It is a little prayer, a simple expression of mom’s faith, asking for strength, love and kindness, so that she may be able to give these to others, and asking God’s blessing on all children who were “so far apart.”

Bondage

Whirling, swirling
Into the lives of men,
Brick on brick, plaster on steal
Girded and crowded and held—
Bonded are we!
God of my heart
Give me strength to fight
to the freedom somewhere,
Give me strength to withstand
This clutching and jolting,

to breathe without choking,
This murky stifling air.
(1920s)

This poem was typed without any corrections on 61/2” by 81/2” notepad paper, which makes me think it was written while she was a student in the early 1920s, either in Denver or St. Paul/Minneapolis, where there must have been much construction going on. In a revision entered into her composition book in ink and dated 1928, she changed the last three lines to: Give me breath to withstand/This clutching and jostling/Give me Light! Either way, I imagine the poem originally reflected a moment when she missed the clean country air and open skies of the prairie back home. The image of the suffocating steel-girded, polluted urban industrial city is presented carefully and then, centered in the middle of this image, a prayer to God for strength to endure. The line “Give me strength to fight to the freedom somewhere” is ambiguous, for it is not clear to me what freedom she’s referring to (Woman’s rights? Suffragettes? Child labor?) or where exactly she wants to carry out her fight. Since mom was always keenly interested in social issues and saved newspaper clippings regarding subjects of interest to her, I can imagine her thoughts here being aimed at social injustices and her request to God to give her the continued strength to carry on the fight against them. Not knowing the exact date of this writing, we can only guess at the historical context. But the theme clearly echoes an attitude mom held all her life: fight, with God’s help, to improve social conditions.

Builders

To help someone?
Is that our aim in life?
To help another find his peace

and brave his daily strive?
To find the kinks which others make,
And smooth the paths which they must take,
And just help along with a singing song—
Could that my mission be?
Perhaps ‘tis so…
To walk beside a Builder,

yet not the Builder be.
Tis thus, then I shall gladly go.
(1927)

Mom wrote this in her college composition book at Loretta Heights. It shows the young adult’s searching for clues to there own identity and direction. Here she weighs the purpose of her life as being that of a helper, perhaps even help by cheering up “with a singing song.” I’m guessing the word” Builder,” since it is capitalized, refers to God, the Creator and Maker, and her wish is to “walk beside” him in her journey through life. As Leretta Heights College is in Denver, I'm sure she sought inspiration and guidance about her future through the natural beauties surrounding her in the mountains of Colorado, as well as through prayer and her trust in the "Builder" of all things, including mountain streams, waterfalls and our own pathway to the future.

Friendship

Oh, Friendship is a funny thing!
You never know “for sure.”
It keeps you always wondering!
This doubting, fearing, hoping
and worring to endure.
But still, my friends, I’ll never give up,
Though sleep awake I must.
I’ll listen til the wonderings stop,
Or till they turn to dust.
Pensive One
(1927)

This was written in November 1927 in mom’s college composition book while she was at Loretta Heights in Colorado. She signed it “Pensive One.” It reveals her understanding of the mixed feelings we often have about our friends and ourselves in friendship, our doubts and fears and anxious, sleepless nights. I can imagine she was struggling with meeting new people, students from around the country, for the first time, and like many college students struggling to determine how to establish intimacy and trust with people she was meeting in college. I like the last two lines, “I’ll listen till the wonderings stop, Or till they turn to dust.” This reveals her deep commitment to stay with others until she is satisfied she understands them or can no longer go any further with them. It is her sense of determination applied here to interpersonal relationships and gives a glimpse into her core value of long-term commitment to others.

You Are So Many Miles Away

You are so many miles away,
And yet so close, My Dear.
I cannot quite just understand,
That you really are not here.
I do not try to understand,
I am much too glad, you see,
That things are now just as they are,
and wish that they could always be!
(1928)

This poem was dated May 28, 1928. I don’t know if this is a love poem written to dad during their long distance courtship when he was in Boston and she still back in Minnesota. I don’t think it could be. They met on a blind date, but I think it was a year later in 1929.They weren’t married until June 16, 1930, two years after this poem was written. The poem may, therefore, have been written to a family member, probably one of her sisters, or could just be mom playing with the sentiments and words of love. Regardless, this is an expression of real love. Mom has shifted in these eight lines from a level of wishing things were other than they are to accepting, even embracing them, at a higher, deeper level, as they really are….true love that knows no boundaries, no distance, no miles, no time. This is a statement of a transcendent, mature love, which, at age 25, is pretty remarkable.

Little Knife

“I’m a powerful thing,” said the Little Knife.
“How is that?” asked the Oak’s jealous wife.
“While others must sing and dance for their life,
I just cut and cut,” said the Little Knife.
“You silly thing!” sang the tree so tall.
“How could powerful be such a thing so small?
You’re not strong or big like me,
Nor up in the winds and always free.
You can’t wave your arms or bend your knees.
You can’t dance with the wind whenever you please!
What a powerful thing, indeed!” laughed the tall tree’s wife.
“You’ll know when I cut!” warned the Little knife.
So with one sharp blade did he cut and he saw,
‘Til the oak tree’s trunk was as thin as a straw.
Then down came the oak with a dreadful crash,
Her arms and her knees broken in a flash,
And she learned for herself, did the Oak’s jealous wife,
What a powerful thing is the Little Knife.
(1928)

Mom’s skill with words and rhyme and her creative, playful mind are very evident here. This rich imagination allowed her to make fresh connections and associations to ordinary things around her (a knife, a tree) and to make poetry out of her ordinary life. I think this is why she was able, even content and happy, to be so home-bound all her life. She didn’t need outside stimulation to stay interested in living, to stay alive, to keep from getting bored and depressed. She never stagnated because her mind, each day she awoke, worked creatively with the things around her…the pots and pans, the children, the news, the sights and sounds outside, the school and play activities her children brought home and shared with her. She lived totally connected to her world and, through her children, connected to the outside world. She didn’t need a driver’s license and a wardrobe to go places, outside friends and clubs and hobbies to keep her interested. She didn’t want them because she didn’t need them.

Mom was self-contained, caught up with raising children and managing the household in her early years, but still living out a vivid inner life and exclusive family life. Even for the 25 years she lived as a widow after dad’s passing away, she lived with family and through family, experiencing what we experienced, sharing what we shared, enjoying what we enjoyed, struggling with what we struggled with. If we kept distant from her or tried to be independent in any way around her, she tried to respect that, but invariably worked her way into our lives.

For me when I lived with her after my divorce, it was always a balancing act to keep my independence from her and my connection to her. “Do you need a new jacket?” she asked one winter evening, as I was leaving to teach a class. I was 50 then! “How was your day today?” she always asked, for as long as I can remember. She was always listening for the door to open, always there to greet me when I came in. And always suggesting a warm cup of tea or cocoa, even though, by 90, she couldn’t really get all this organized, so I had to warm the water, get out the cups and tea bags and sit down for a visit about my day. She was there, connecting, being part of, organizing her day around a cup of tea and her son coming home. It would be easy to misinterpret this straightforward love and interest as being overly mothering, but one reading of this poem alone reminds us that mom possessed a level of connectedness and insight that far surpassed our own and saw in the little things far beyond what we were able to see.

Alone

Alone, alone—
He is always alone, it seems to me.
A friendly nook with others he cannot see.
Alone was he destined always to be?
Perhaps a friendly hand,
Just touched in passing now,
Might hold a cheering thought,
And give the friendship sought.
And then perhaps no more
Alone would he wish to be…
I wonder!
(Spring 1928)

This poem was in mom’s composition book as is. Several things strike me about it. Mom was twenty five at the time, a young adult for whom, from a developmental standpoint, intimacy is a major concern. Young adults who fail to connect with others suffer loneliness and feelings of isolation. This poem shows mom’s empathy and compassion for this state, her natural feeling for the importance of connection with others, achieved perhaps even by just “a friendly hand, just touched in passing, that might just hold a cheering thought and give the friendship sought.” It was her nature to be sensitive to others’ feelings, to be cheerful toward them, not let them feel alone. Each day I knew her, woke her up, shared her space (home, nook), she was this way—reaching out with a touch, a smile, a friendly word, an encouragement, a cheerful spirit.

Another theme in this poem that is characteristic of mom is the thoughtful, wondering, questioning tone—“Was he destined always to be?” “It seems to me.” Perhaps a friendly hand” “I wonder!” These are the phrases of an inquiring, thinking, wondering, concerned, problem-solving mind. They suggest not just mom’s high IQ but her incredibly high EQ (emotional intelligence), her interpersonal sensitivity, intuition and capacity to connect to others’ feelings.

Sunset

Warm downy clouds aglow with light,
Above and beyond green lacy trees,
Ever shading from greys to purplish –pink to white, Announce now the approach of night.
The chirp, chirp of a bird,
And a dark flash ‘gainst the sky,
The crying laughter of children
In the yard nearby,
Herald nighttime’s nigh.
Oh! Warm by your hearth,
Ye tiller of soil.
Gather your fond ones, large and small,
Rich in their blessings at the light of day,
Shaded in peace and mist:
Let them now feel their day.
(1928)
Mom was always connected to her environment, aware of the season’s changes, the phases of the moon, the shifting of the clouds in the sky, the sounds around her….birds, children, people talking… and she always appreciated these all as parts of the larger design, the larger blessing of life. This poem was written in the spring, May 1928.

Little Burgler

Oh, Tell me Little Burgler, the secret of your charm,
You who steals all work-thoughts
from my studious arm,
You with eyes like garden pools in sunlight and in rain,
Reflecting the magic of growth, in laughter and pain.
You’re a Cherub and Prince and Beggar,

all wrapped up in one,
And each day I live with you,

it appears my life’s just begun.
Alone to the world we may seem to be,
But your Father, you and I,
Love has made into one on into eternity.
(1929)

Though this poem is dated fall 1929, it seems to refer to an experience of mom’s relationship with her first child, Mary (pictured here), a “little burgler” who steals her attention from her chores (“studious arm”) and has “eyes like garden pools in sunlight and in rain reflecting the magic of growth, in laughter and in pain.” I can imagine her writing this feeling that, in living day-to-day ith her first newborn child, her life would seem to begin anew—“Each day I live with you, it appears my life’s just begun”—and that together with dad, love has made the family cemented permanently together as one for all eternity. This would be her philosophy of family, of being a part of creation. On the left is another picture, this one showing Mary (standing) and Mike, mom's first two children, and her "studious arm" reaching out to steady Mike, who seems to be just learning to crawl.

The Mystery of Spring

Many, many years ago, in the Land of the Sky Blue Waters,
A tiny seedling began to grow.
For years it grew—a slender stalk, an eager young tree—
inhaling the freshness of spring and the early morning dew,
through many suns, and many moons too,
fresh leaves unfolding each spring, strong limbs baring each fall.
Still, no one knew from a mere glimpse of this tree
What sort of friend it might someday be.

It was one May day in the afternoon, that finally appeared its first bloom—
a delicate pinkish glow.
Day upon day, in ecstasies, raising its heart to its Maker,
Its arms to the dancing blue and its eyes to snow-capped heights,
And toes deep clinging to the prairie soil,
It grew—a radiant Peach Tree—in tender tones singing
The mystery of spring, the beauty of love,
‘Til everyone could know,
The joy of a peach tree aglow.
Though warmed by the sun, day after day,
No fruit did this peach tree show.

So autumn and winter came its way, to strengthen,
to rouse its deep slumber,
Then springtime again, and buds without number,
And summer once more—
With a glimpse of a Pine Tree, stately and somber,
Ever-living, you know—
Its leaves shed again, with arms holding warm flakes,
A tinge deep within, beneath the snow,
Where the roots of the peach tree continued to grow.

In early spring, a deeper and stronger glow,
Did the peach tree show—
A Sanctuary Lamp—
But days and days of clouded sun and breezes damp
Retarded its warmth and arrested its bloom—
Touching the Pine tree, too—
And then, another winter…
Biting and frosting its earliest spring bud…
(1929)
Though this poem is undated, it is written in ink (a different ink) in mom’s note book on a page following a 1929 poem (Little Burgler) and preceding a 1945 poem (Perspective). Since its setting is Minnesota (“Land of the Sky Blue Waters”) and it refers to the “prairie soil” and a severe winter, “biting and frosting the earliest bud,” I suspect this was written while she was still in Minnesota, probably 1929. The poem is incomplete, ending abruptly and having only a few corrections on the original, but its theme is unmistakably one of mom’s favorite: the close attention and reverence for nature, for the seasons, for weather, for warm sunshine and biting winters, and for how all this reflects God’s power and is, in fact, a tribute to His Majesty (“The Maker”). It reflects mom’s strong connection to the land (having grown up on a prairie farm) and her religious faith, both of which are intertwined and central to her identity, to how she defines herself and the world around her. Her technique of using physical descriptions of nature as objective correlatives for spiritual reflection is a technique used by professional poets, including Robert Frost, a poet of New England, whom I’m sure she studied.

Another theme that reflects mom’s deep sense of awe and acceptance of struggle is the fact that the Peach Tree never really bears fruit, is thwarted from realizing its true potential by the severity (and the sheer arbitrariness!) of the weather: “another winter biting and frosting its earliest springtime bud”…days and days of clouded sun and breezes damp retarded its warmth and arrested its bloom.” This is the realism of someone who understands the harsh nature of life, who as the daughter of a farmer, has seen her father and mother worry (and suffer?) over many winters and springs and disappointing harvests. Though the poem begins with optimism and a romantic view of the tree, even personifying it (“What sort of friend it might someday be”), it progresses through a series of disappointments and ends abruptly in defeat, the bud succumbing again to “another winter biting and frosting.”

All of us know and love mom for her inner strength, love, goodness and compassion. This fragment reveals that long before she ever married dad, had nine children and was forced to constantly struggle to make ends meet and to move from place to place, she forged her character and sense of life’s harshness during the cold winters with her brothers and sisters on the farm in Heron Lake. Hers was a deep faith and devotion forged through struggle. She did not deny or distort reality, but understood and embraced it for what it was: seasonal, mysterious, sometimes bitter, always hopeful. For her, it was always possible that “next spring the Peach Tree might bloom!” I will never forget that look of strength, acceptance and calm on her face as we all greeted her at the airport when she returned from Minnesota after dad’s sudden death. She had felt it before—“winter biting and frosting spring’s earliest bud…”

Life Everywhere

Mother Dear—
And it’s spring again,
New life budding everywhere—
In the treetops, and the bushes at the curb,
Down the street—
A peony sprouting under the ivy,
And a rose peeping up through our pansy bed,
And a downy-white cherry tree glorifying
The “Guest Room,”
Awaiting that precious life to bloom when the cherries ripen—
There’s awakening this spring,
Both inside and out!
(May 1931)

This poem was clearly written in Beverly, MA, while mom was pregnant with Mary, who was born just two months later on July 1, 1931. This is truly a beautiful expression of mom’s devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus (“Mother Dear”), after whom she named her first child, and of her deep sense of being a part of nature, of the creative process. She and the trees and flowers around her are one! This poem brings the essence of her personality together better than any other of her poems, I think. In 65 words, she has interwoven the major themes of her life: love of God, Love of Mary, love of family, love of nature, love of home, and love of her role as mother and as homemaker. This is the beauty of the poetic mind—to condense so much meaning into so few words.

I can only imagine how excited she must have been, how respectful she was of this gift awakening inside of her, her first child, paralleling the awakening of the life outside—the trees, peonies, roses, cherry blossoms, even the ivy and the “bushes at the curb!” She was so connected to the life around her, so much a part of it, so aware of the details around her. And the idea that she called the baby’s room, which she and dad must have gotten all ready for Mary, the “Guest Room,” conveys her deep sense of being honored to be a caretaker, a host, not to her own children, but to God’s children given to her to love and to nurture along until they too, like the trees and flowers outside her window, can stand on their own as part of God glorious creation.

I Found My Horse

I found my horse with its back to the street,
Neat and quite discreet.
One eye winking toward the sea,
There it sheltered me.
High on my perch in the old birch tree,
I can watch the summer-folk stroll along,
And sleep with the pounding surf-cliff song.
Oh, Sea! Lick your sand endlessly!
Lash at the rocks with foam!
Landlocked dry on the cliff am I,
Where the gas lamp glows on my step ‘til morn,
I’ve found my haven from stress and storm.
(1930s)

This sounds like it was written during the time the family lived on the rocky North Shore of Boston, just blocks from the ocean, or farther in town in Somerville. The nature images here are central to mom’s thinking and the theme of finding a haven from stress is a key to her personality, her ability to take things in stride, to find calm and stay steady in the midst of crisis and chaos and uncertainty. The horse, birch tree and cliff are all sheltering, intertwined concrete images symbolizing her “haven from stress,” the actual abstract emotion she is feeling. They are also images and memries from her childhood on the farm on the Minnesota prarie. This use of imagery and repetition shows a fairly sophisticated, conscious sense of poetic style and technique. It is not just a casual blurting down of words and ideas. She is “landlocked dry on the cliff…where the gas lamp glows on my step til morn.” Could this be the house on the hill the family moved into in 1936 in Somerville that overlooked parts of Boston, or the second- and third-floor home they moved into in 1940 to be closer to St. Catherine’s Catholic school? While there is no sure way to accurately identify the source and inspiration and meaning of the imagery of this poem (or most of mom’s poems), the poem stands on its own as a coherent piece of poetic sentiment. Mom’s imagination could easily turn a bedroom window high on a hill into a “cliff” or a “perch in an old birch tree.” Her love of the sea, of its power and majesty, is clearly captured here in words, as she personifies it, makes it a living companion: "Oh, Sea! Lick your sand endlessly! Lash at the rocks with foam!" This sense of the wonder and awe of nature, this deep appreciation of and closeness to it, was an essential and daily part of mom's life, even to her very last day as she marveled at the roses all around her and the eucalyptus branches waving high above against a backdrop of deep blue sky. To her very last moments, she was totally attuned to, connected to, resonating with the natural world around her.

Between Two Fronts

Abroad awaits the cry:
“The Second Front is opening—Stand by!”
At home, already two fronts we stand between—
The front of today and the front of tomorrow.
Our perspective must be clear-cut and keen.
When the detonation of Pearl Harbor blasted millions of ears
And closed the senseless front of yesterday,
Like empty urns along the curb we passed them by,
Those beautiful babies of yesterday.
Battered and smudgy and hardy they grew,
Like empty urns now they gathered rust
With every wind that blew—Protection they never knew—
Push or be pushed—survival now—
Instinctive nature’s cry.
It’s God’s world and no man lives for himself alone.
God’s spirit must survive.
We’re duty-bound to serve our Father’s will.
The curtain rises on the Lost God of this Tragedy of the Age.

1941

What strikes me most about this statement is its deep anger and sense of senseless tragedy. It is a fragmented grouping of ideas, probably written just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. There is no attempt to revise or re-order it. I imagine mom wrote it down to express her strong opposition to war as a way of dealing with conflict, seeing it as a clear violation of acting in accordance with God’s plan. Everything was measured against the backdrop of her religious faith. I’m sure she knew, too, the U.S.’s long-standing official policy of trying to stay out of the war, though that policy was becoming increasingly untenable as Japan continued its march across Asia and "a second front was opening."

Ironically, this poem has some inner chaos in it, reflecting the chaos on the ground and ships during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Technically, I don’t think mom meant it to come out that way. However, this bit of fragmented thought must reflect her fragmented feelings at the time, being so close to the Navy personnel through the USO at Newport Naval Station. That had to be a shocking time for everyone, especially there in Newport which was so dominated by Navy families. Dad, too, as Director of the USO, had to be very worried, for he was close to so many of the officers and sailors stationed at the base. The “battered babies of yesterday” were the 2,300 soldiers, sailors and civilians killed at Pearl Harbor, as well as the tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians that had already been killed in the war up to that point. Also, I imagine she had in the back of her mind the thought of her own five sons: that someday they, too, might have to go to war. She had lived through WWI and knew the costs in human lives: 37 million casualties, military and civilian (15 million dead, 22 million wounded) and was now seeing America enter another major conflagration. Her phrase, “This Tragedy of the Age” echoes President Roosevelt’s words about Pearl Harbor: “This is a day that will live in infamy!”

Before it was over after the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, WW II would prove the deadliest war in history: 66 million deaths worlwide, including 37 million civilians and 22 million military. One can almost hear her sense of these numbers, which she couldn't have known yet at the time of Pearl Harbor, the shocking senselessness of them, in her final line: "The curtain rises on the Lost God of this Tragedy of the Age!" When I think of the "less deadly" (to dare to use such a phrase) conflicts that followed (Korea, 54,000 dead, 103,00 wounded; Vietnam, 58,800 dead, 128,00 wounded; and now Iraq, 2,842 dead, 21,077 wounded, all U.S. military personnel only, not counting the millions of other military and civilian casualties), I can only imagine the horror mom (and all mothers) must have felt, knowing the nation was about to crank up its military operations and send over a million of its sons and daughters into combat. Over 350,000 women served in the military during WW II.

I was born a year after Pearl Harbor, but I do remember hearing mom express her opposition to war as a mean to resolve international conflicts during the Korean war, when my oldest brother Mike entered the army, and throughout the Vietnam War, especially when I went off to boot camp in 1966. I remembered from my studies in English literature a statement of the British writer, G. K. Chesterton, that seemed to echo mom's sentiments about speaking out against war even as we are waging it and going forth to fight in it: "A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over...is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen." I knew her to be a solid patriot as well as a thoughtful person. Afterall, one of her heroes was Eleanor Roosevelt! She knew of the cliffs that lay ahead, for both her and her sons and daughters. As I left home for boot camp, not knowing whether or not I'd be sent to combat in Vietnam, I saw a tear in my mom's eye as well and a look of sheer strength and resignation, a smile even, of pride, hope and encouragment. It was this look, this look of strength and faith in the face of the unknown, that I carried with me and still carry today, have recalled in times of my own turmoil and drawn strength from for forty years now. In it I have come to understand the multiple meanings of mom's words: "...no man lives for himself alone." (On the left is a picture of mom helping me collect seashells on Newport Beach. This was 1944, a year before WW II ended. I was two years old.)

Juvenile Delinquency

How can we face our Juvenile Delinquents with a steady eye,
We who so blindly passed them by?
How can we condemn their parents and their spirit,
When we forced their pride to die?
With Patience we must labor to undo,
In Charity we must Faith instill anew!
(1940s)

This statement was scratched in pencil on a small USO note, probably in the early 1940s. It shows mom’s compassionate liberal social point of view, which sees juvenile problems as the result of a systemic failure of the adult establishment to heed the early warning signs in childhood. It calls for an attitude of patience and charity, versus judgment and punishment, for the rehabilitation of youth who’ve gone astray. Mom maintained and espoused this attitude throughout her life.

Please, God!

Please, God, help us find our way back.
We’re lost in the noisy city streets.
Maybe You forgot about Dopey:
He’s dashing about whither and thither!
We don’t dare let him out alone.
He needs wind and weather,
You know—that’s all his own!
He won’t grow on what he eats,
So many things to see and do,
He scarcely sits one meal through.
It isn’t much to ask for Dopey—
One spring and summer by the sea
To crunch along the drifting sands of Manchester Where everything’s so clear and free.
We never could take him to the flinging sands of Rivere.
He sure be trampled in the crowds
Stampeding in a Lachemere.
Sneezy’s voice is low and hoarse.
Happy doesn’t mind, of course
And Grumpy and I know what it’s like
to be shoved and pushed andjostled about,
And Bashful, too.
We can shout our way out!
But Dopey—we never know what he will do!
God, can’t You see your way through?
(1940s)

I’m not sure who “Dopey” is here. Could it be her, or one of the children? This was written on a scrap of paper in ink. Several words scratched out, redone. It shows her constant communication (prayer life) with God, as well as her love of words, her playful spirit, and, as always, her sensitive lyrical poetic frame of mind. It is in this poem that we see what most people never saw in mom, her very versatile, articulate, artistic, verbally skillful mental flexibility. She had such a rich inner life, very much like Emily Dickenson, the famous American poet who hardly ever left her house, that she didn’t need much outside stimulation. She could keep herself entertained for hours on end, days upon days, in her own kitchen, talking and whispering and singing to herself, so rich was her mind.

Mark Ye, Men of War and Political Fame!

Mark ye, men of war and political fame,
Who burn the midnight oil over maps and blueprints,
Don’t lose your way, counting your spoil while others also toil,
Whose dollars buy the bombs, which mount up steadily with weekly bonds.
If it isn’t the steady fathers who don’t miss a day—
Socks and groceries what they are, keeping them on their way— It’s mothers laboring until midnight beckons the new day,
With mops and needles and gay prints,
Preserving, too, what they can to buy more “Bonds”.
All over our nation’s soil—from Washington to Maine,
Down the coast, over the hills, over rivers, deserts, mountains and back again—
A silent army of workers is preserving the real American Way!
How can you threaten them?
Where are the women who cherish you to let your minds so stray?
Yes, you may squander our money. This we’ve learned to endure.
But don’t squander our blood, our children!
Social Security in dollars may look fine in print,
But what good is a cold dollar on Johnny’s coffin?
Or on a newborn baby in her crib?
Or during poison-gas attacks and air raids?
Or to a father who’s not home ‘cause he’s got to do his stint?


War is wrong today!
You can’t give us dollars and call it “Security.”
Your headlines may dazzle youth,
Your radios thrill the young,
Your propaganda stuff the immature,
But wisdom knows true courage and to live for a true cause.
Our fathers found the way when our homes were threatened.
As our forefathers did before them: they led in a true affray.
I’m surprised at you, Lean Old Uncle Sam!
Or am I simply talking now to Old Chubby Johnny Bull?
(1940s)

I reconstructed this poem from an old torn fragment of faded paper. Mom wrote on anything she had handy when she had a spare moment. This was not titled and had many scratched out words. I’m guessing it was written sometime in the early 1940s. Mom had 8 children by then. Unlike most of her poems, which reflect themes of nature and the inner workings of her imagination, this poem reflects her outrage over war- mongering politicians and their policies. She always maintained, alongside her spiritual and religious consciousness, a social consciousness that was quick to scold politicians who put political expediency above the welfare of the common people. Since dad’s first job was as a social worker with the Agency for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Boston during the Great Depression years and his later work was as Director of the USO servicemen’s clubs during WWII and the Korean Conflict, she shared through him a deep concern about the discrepancies between the ideals politicians espoused and the actual policies they developed and forced others to follow. Social justice was her lifelong concern and Eleanor Roosevelt her social-political role model. She even wore braided hair like Eleanor Roosevelt and seemed to me as a child indistinguishable from her. So complete was the identification.

The term “Johnny Bull” in the final line refers to the conventional personification of England. Uncle John Bull is England’s equivalent to America’s Uncle Sam. It is clear that as a woman raised by hard-working, devout, educated, family-oriented parents, as the fifth of 12 children who now had eight children of her own, as someone whose husband worked with the poor and with young soldiers and sailors, and as some one who came of age during The Great War (WWI) and has now seen the even-greater horrors of WWII, mom is scolding the “hawks” of her day and the weak-kneed politicians who are trying to “dazzle the youth,” “thrill the young,” “stuff the immature” with their “propaganda,” . She is holding them accountable to a higher standard, the standard of their forefathers who knew the difference between a legitimate “fray, a “true cause,” when “their homes were threatened,” and an unjust, unnecessary, wasteful, politically-motivated, expedient set of policies. I know this is a condemnation, not just of American leaders who march the young too quickly off to war, but to all leaders worldwide who send the young unnecessarily into battle. Given the wars of more recent years (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq), the latter which is the most blatant example of a “preemptive” war, were she alive today at age 100, I think mom would be happy to send “Mark Ye, Men of War and Political Fame” to the current administration.

The Value of Time

The value of time.
The success of perseverance.
The pleasure of working.
The dignity of simplicity.
The worth of character.
The power of kindness.
The virtue of patience.
The wisdom of economy.
The obligation of duty.
The influence of example.
The improvement of talent.
The joy of originating.
(1940s)

This is an amazing expression of art and philosophy. It was written on a small jagged piece of cardboard, above, that looks like the corner of a laundry detergent box, in ink, and looks like it was written hastily. The parallel syntactical structure, the repetition of “the” and “of,” interlocked with 24 separate words that spell out mom’s ideals or principles for living, truly create a mini-masterpiece. I can imagine her having this inspiration while doing her chores, maybe just emptying out the soap box and tearing off the corner, and then sitting down for a moment (only a moment, for she never wrote long epic or two page poems!) and jotting down these lines, then tucking them away somewhere later that evening. I know that is how she went through her day, working and thinking and “originating” all day long and, lucky for us, putting some of herself down on scraps of paper or cardboard for us to have sometime way down the line. Important, too, is the fact that there are twelve principles here, twelve very positive statements about how to view life. I don’t think this is accidental. Twelve is a significant number and mom was very conscious of its many associations: moons, months, apostles, hours in a day, children in her own family, etc. She thought in these patterned yet multi-layered ways. The multi-leveled symmetry here is remarkable and, I’m sure, deliberate.

Things to Keep, Gifts to Make

Things to Keep
1. Your temper
2. A sunny disposition
3. Secrets
4. Promises
5. The Sabbath
6. Your hair

Gifts to Make
1. To your enemies: Forgiveness
2. To your opponents: Tolerance
3. To a friend: Friendship
4. To a child: A good example
5. To all men: Charity
(1940s)

This was neatly written in ink on a small paper and glued to a piece of cardboard, shown above, which makes me think it was special enough to preserve and keep handy as a reminder for mom to stay on track. If so, this writing shows mom’s commitment to self-improvement and growth, a commitment that I witnessed throughout her life. She was always interested in keeping up with new developments in the sciences, etc, and loved learning through books and the newspaper (always clipping out articles) and TV shows like travel shows and National Geographic.

Equally important here, though, is the clear sense of moral and social values that mom had. She exemplified each of these, taught them to us both implicitly and explicitly all her life. That she wrote this (as opposed to copied it from somewhere) is suggested by item #6: “Keep you hair.” This was mom’s trademark. It symbolized her utter sense of discipline. She always “freshened up” before dad came home for dinner, and, until she was well into her 70’s, braided her own hair and kept it neat. I don’t know exactly when she first stopped this and began going to a hair salon, but that head full of long black neatly braided hair was a constant for us. It was more than a fashion statement: it was her philosophy—clear, straightforward, simple, neat, direct, unpretentious.

She literally lived this code of life, these eleven principles, and did her best to pass it on to us. There was really no mystery to mom, no misunderstanding her, no ambiguities, no double messages, no inconsistencies. She was totally congruent, was on the outside what she was on the inside. It is this level of wholeness and integrity that made it hard for all of us to emulate and perhaps, when we chose our own mates later in life, in some way, hard to really know and accept them for who they were, unconsciously measuring them against our own idealized parents, especially mom, in this case. Just a thought, though one with psychological support: It is difficult for sons to differentiate from such powerful mother figures and for daughters to find in men the qualities they see in their own idealized fathers.

Today Belongs to the Future

We give it all.
We never know what time will grow.
Today we sow,
Tomorrow reap—
A little seed cast here and there,
And tended with our loving care.
No one plants all he can keep.
(1940s)

This was scratched out in pencil on the back of a White Plains Corn Flakes Shopping items note sheet, probably in the 1940s. A few words have been changed and a line torn off at the bottom. Probably a thought mom had as she was working in the kitchen. Her connection to the soil, her farming background, and her scriptural mindset are all presented here in a statement that reflects her philosophy that we do things today in preparation for tomorrow. Mom always looked forward to the spring, even when we lived in small apartments and could only plant flowers in little pots or flower boxes on the patio or next to our door. All she needed was a sliver a space where the sun shined. She made that her garden, even if we just had a few pansies.

Each spring we had to plant something. That was in her fiber from her days growing up on the farm. Once (1991?), when we were living in the Villa Apartments in Clovis, I planted a few pansies across the sidewalk outside our kitchen window. She enjoyed watching them every morning while she had coffee and toast. Just two or three purple and yellow flowers, maybe, 10’ square at most. I imagine, symbolically, she saw in them a whole field blooming, watched the sun bring out their colors, the breeze move their pettles. These gave her a focal point, a familiar grounding and center. Of course, the true flowers were her children, and through them her grandchildren, which she attended to and “tended,” each one as she could, with “loving care.” Giving completely of herself, whether parenting or gardening, was her trademark. She knew what she was doing was for the future, not just her selfish gratification. And she knew that it is the nature of both growing flowers and raising children that we must let go: “No one plants all he can keep.”

My Soul Shall Be Serene in the Blessing of the Mourn

Hour after hour,
through torment and searing pain,
God of Calvary, help me to endure,
That I might know, Oh Master,
your dignity in pain.
Oh, God,
If once again I walk into the dawn,
My soul shall be serene in the blessing of the mourn.
(1940s)

This poem was penciled onto a scrape of paper, probably in the 1940s. It is an elegant prayer reflecting, perhaps, a low point for mom and her turning to God for the strength to deal with life’s hour-to-hour, day-to-day struggle. Her life became increasingly stressful with each additional child and each new move. I can imagine her feeling overwhelmed at times were it not for her faith, which allowed her to face each day with strength, serenity and gratitude: “If once again I walk into the dawn/My soul shall be serene in the blessing of the mourn.”

Perspective

Beyond my narrow window lies a world of things,
Beginning with this tree which gives my soul its wings:
From deep within the silent sod
The sun has drawn its hidden life to God.
(While the usually noisy street still sleeps,
The majesty of early dawn
Quietly rustles through her green leaves.)
Through the darkened curtains of night,
Two red beacons of the air,
On the distant shore,
Keep their lonely vigil with my fingers,
While I “tune in” with God.
Though root-bound to home and homely chores
My hands and feet may be,
My soul now soars with God eternally.
(June 1945)

This poem is another prayer. It was written while we were living in the housing project in Newport. Mom had eight children then. Mom had eight children at the time, ranging in age from 3 to 14. She wasn’t yet pregnant with Julie. I can imagine, then, that she looked out her window often, both before going to sleep at night and on awaking in the morning, and in this looking-out put her life in perspective. She did this every day that I can remember…pull open the curtains, look out the window, connect with the stars, the moon, the night, the sun, the clouds, the blue sky, the trees, the birds, etc. It was her way of being part of life, of connecting to life outside the home, and of being connected to the larger Creation of God’s world. It was this perspective that kept her going, helped her transcend on a daily basis the feeling of being “root-bound to home and homely chores.” It was, in her own words, how her soul “soared eternally” everyday. This prayerful existence went on right before our eyes, unpretentiously, subtle, imperceptible. We considered her “saintly,’ but our understanding barely scratched the truth of her deeply spiritual inner world, so connected was she to God and His Creation: “this tree which gives my soul its wings.”

In the Armenian Home, when mom finally got her bed by the window looking out over the lemon and eucalyptus trees and open fields near the orange orchard, I felt so much at peace, finally, with myself, knowing we couldn’t ask for anything more at this time, that the Hand of God had intervened, in her final days, to give her what she most loved and needed…that window out onto His World. It was there each morning, and throughout the day, that she connected to the tree (Nature) and through it felt drawn to God:”From deep within the silent sod the sun has drawn its hidden life to God.” Mom was the tree and the bird and the lemon—was one with all these, a part of the natural order.

I like mom’s reference in this poem to the “two red beacons of the air on the distant shore.” I guess that these might be lighthouse beacons guiding the ships at night, and that, as she “tuned in” with God by moving her fingers through her rosary, she connected to the sense of guidance these beacons symbolized, guidance she sought through prayer. This is another example of how sensitive her mind was. As she did with the beacons in the night, she could turn nearly anything into a part of her relationship with God: “Keep their lonely vigil with my fingers.”

The word “perspective” is an abstraction. It never enters the poem. Instead, the imagery carries the thought. The window, of course, is an obvious metaphor. Though it may be “narrow,” a narrow window, even a slight crack in the door, a simple ray of light, a mere shadow showing through a curtain, the quiet rustling of leaves, is enough to awaken the poetry of the creative mind. Abstraction here is expressed in the concrete, displaying the force of mom’s poetic imagination. Philosophically, Mom understood that if we could just get a little bit outside ourselves, we could go the distance, transcend self— “Beyond my narrow window lies a world of things”—which is why she encouraged us to work hard, do our homework and chores, use our talents and skills, care about others, plant trees and flowers, say our prayers and stay close to one another. Being self-centered and closed-minded was unacceptable. Being open to the world and embracing life and others was the ideal. Throughout her poems mom expresses a sense of both social and spiritual consciousness.

Hands of a Woman

Hands of a woman,
your finest tools may be,
To serve, to mold, to cherish,
God’s humanity.
Heart of a woman, beat with loyalty,
With love and sympathy,
To fire the sparks of life for God’s eternity.
Soul of a woman, radiate sorrow,
With courage and faith,
To lift above today, God’s tomorrow
(1945)

Judging by the way this poem was first scribbled January 2, 1945, in pencil on the back of a tattered envelope, mom jotted this poem down quickly. She crossed through three words and blotted out four lines, then later revised it and entered it into her notebook in ink on June 8. This is a clear statement of her sense of her own feminine identity and her role in God’s eyes. She sees herself, all women, as having been given gifts “to lift above today God’s tomorrow,” that is, to use for God’s ends, not her own. Her view of her hands as “tools” to shape God’s humanity, her heart as a source of warmth, loyalty and nurturing, and her soul as a source of courage and radiance to light the way, gives three powerful positive images of her sense of who she is, who all women are all over the planet, and what her and their purpose in life is.

I don’t think she ever veered from this center point of her existence, for even on the day before she died, as Asako and I sat with her in the afternoon sun, in the rose garden of the Armenian home in Fresno, she looked up and saw a bird flying against the blue sky far above the eucalyptus trees waving in the wind and grabbed my hand. She fixed her eyes on mine and squeezed my hand tight in the way she did when she wanted to get your attention and teach you something. She was predictable that way. You knew she was in her “molding" mood. She then spoke of the bird as a messenger from God watching over her, as she had several times, saying the bird had followed her from our backyard on Fedora Street and perched often on the branches outside her window looking in on her. She lived this poem out, literally, her soul always radiating, lighting, lifting, brightening, never burdening or weighing heavy on anyone at anytime. This poem is her philosophy of life.

A Woman's Hands

A woman’s hands,
finest tools may be,
To serve, to mold, to teach,
God’s humanity.
A woman’s heart,
Glowing warm within,
To care, to cheer, to love,
Whichever man may need.
A woman’s soul,
Radiant torch within,
To light the darkness,
To lift above today,
To light tomorrow,
To brighten up the way.
(January 2, 1945)

Judging by the way this poem is scribbled in pencil on the back of a tattered envelope, mom jotted it down quickly. She crossed through three words and blotted out four lines, but his is a good example of her clear sense of her own feminine identity and role in God’s eyes. That she few her hands as “tools” to shape God’s humanity, her heart as a source of warmth and nurturing, and her soul as a “torch” to light the way, gives three powerful positive images of her sense of who she is and what her purpose in life is. I don’t think she ever veered from this center point of her existence, for even on the day before she died, as Asako and I sat with her in the afternoon sun, in the rose garden of the Armenian home in Fresno, she looked up and saw a bird flying against the blue sky far above the eucalyptus trees waving in the wind and grabbed my hand. She fixed her eyes on mine and squeezed my hand tight in the way she did when she wanted to get your attention and teach you something. She was predictable that way. You knew she was in her “molding” mood. She then spoke of the bird as a messenger from God watching over her, as she had several times, saying the bird had followed her from our backyard at the Fedora Street home and perched often on the branches outside her window looking in on her. She lived this poem out, literally, her soul always radiating, lighting, lifting, brightening, never burdening or weighing heavy on anyone at anytime. This poem is her philosophy of life.

Insignificant as a Grain of Sand

How glibly we chatter on of the old and the new,
With laws antiquated, pray tell, as 1852!
But what’s a hundred years
to the ocean or the sky?
Or the God who made you? Or I,
Who feel as insignificant
as a grain of sand,
And knows well His Law rules both
the sea and the land?
Now where would we be
with the tide rushing on,
If not held by the Law of Command?
His Only Son suffered for all,
And raised woman above the earth,
Freed by Love from the passions of man.
This 20th Century on the edge of space—
Mary, protect us from Eternal Disgrace!
(1950s)

This poem was written in red ballpoint pen ink on a small torn scrap of paper, with just two word changes scratched in. Since it mentions the year 1852 and “a hundred years,” it was probably written in 1952 in Columbus, GA. It conveys mom’s strong opinionated side regarding frivolous talk and human political and military arrogance. I can only guess here, but I know that later in life, she was a strong advocate of woman’s rights, which may be the idea hinted at in the lines: “…raised woman above earth, Freed by Love (Jesus’ sacrifice) from the passions of man.” The Korean Conflict was occurred the early 1950s and there was much talk of the space race between Russia and the U.S. Mom kept abreast of the news and had (and voiced!) opinions on current events, especially wasteful and destructive ones! She contrasts the natural law (Law of Command) and eternal power of God (the sea, the sky, the rushing tide) with the feeble and insignificant efforts of man to reach out into space. She is scolding our leaders, charging them with hubris (the Greek term for pride and arrogance, which tragically brought down all grasping kings and leaders), and asking the Mother of God to intervene on our behalf to keep our leaders from falling into this age-old habit of folly and arrogance.