As we return to normal, I’m seeing lots of signs of people forgetting. It’s human nature, of course, to want to forget pain and sorrow and fear. Part of our makeup as a species. But I had big hopes we could come through this more together than ever. That’s the poet in me, always wanting to be optimistic even when reality nips my heels like an annoying chihuahua.
Anyway, this poem has been on here before, but never like this. It’s in my book of illustrated poetry UnSong, also.
Merry Christmas
By Michelle Garren Flye
Merry Christmas we cry,
Admiring our tree,
Wishing we could fly
But there’s nowhere left to flee.
The soft glow of white light
Illuminates our night’s work:
Vision of loveliness to our sight
While we ignore what’s in the mirk.
It’s the last of 2020,
The year everything went berserk.
We know that our fates
Rest on whatever comes next,
On untested dates
That still may be hexed.
Maybe, just maybe, our lives will get better?
Maybe we’ll get past this year that was cursed?
Whatever lies in wait is just round the corner—
No time to waste, we plunge in headfirst!
Never mind, doesn’t matter; this year’s a goner.
I’ve been studying haiku and how to write it, what it’s supposed to mean. It’s interesting. Haiku used to seem like an incredibly easy format to me. It doesn’t have to rhyme. It’s just a certain number of syllables and lines. Turns out that’s not really all haiku is.
By reading some original Japanese haiku from Matsuo Basho, I’ve learned that there’s more to haiku than just counting syllables and lines. It’s more about the feeling you are left with at the end of the poem. So haiku isn’t so much about what’s there as what’s left. If that makes any sense.
Anyway, here are thirteen haiku I’ve written over the course of the last few days. I’d love to know if you have a favorite. Do any of them leave you with anything?
#1
The gardener prunes
But new growth won’t be restrained
Bright green emerges
#2
Fireworks entertain
But divisive words excite
Rebellion looms near
#3
Stained glass wings hover
Glory in the hot summer
Swoop fast, stop away
#4
2020 sucks
plague, famine, deluge and war
make a new start now
#5
it’s the halfway point
the race isn’t won yet
can we just restart?
#6
Heartfelt empathy
Pain from any side will hurt
Shut down the spirit
#7
No lightning tonight
Just rain falling in the pines
Sounds lonely alone
#8
Dark voices cry out
I search for them in the sky
Black wings spread, take flight
#9
Crows call murderous
Shrieks splitting the morning light
I listen and smile
#10
Desirous waking
Leads to newspaper reading
This day just the same
#11
Stay home to be safe
Wear a mask, don’t go out there
Life is lived this way
#12
Spiders don’t frighten
But dark doubts creep up on me
Fear takes over life
#13
Disaster movie
Background characters await
Saving grace. The end.
Today is, in a very real way, a very big day for me. It’s my 25th wedding anniversary and the day I officially release my 18th book.
Thank you.
It’s hard to celebrate right now, as I have good reason to know. My 50th birthday fell right at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. My son and my daughter also have celebrated birthdays. Today I have no actual plans to celebrate. I once envisioned a busy day full of well wishing friends for both my book and my marriage. I mean, not as many people make it to their silver wedding anniversary as used to, right? And quite a few authors never see 18 books with their name on the front.
But celebrating is hard right now. People are still sick, still dying. I’m working hard to make sure I’m not one of them. I have nightmares that my family is. And life goes on.
And still, I am happy to announce the publication of my 18th book, Magic at Sea, the seventh book of my Sleight of Hand series (and still a standalone, so you can read it even if you haven’t kept up with the series!). And I am happier still to be married to the same wonderful man for twenty-five years. Rain or shine, we’ve had them both.
Rain or Shine
By Michelle Garren Flye
When did it rain?
I never heard thunder
Or wind or raindrops.
When did they fall?
It must have happened
Behind the scenes
While we were busy
Doing something else.
Something important.
Raising kids, living life,
Paying bills…surviving.
I didn’t know it rained.
Just like so many other
Things have happened
In the background.
It’s funny how you start:
Focused on each other,
Certain nothing will change.
But then it does.
Work and family and life
All change you.
And rain falls unnoticed
Until you see the puddles,
And then you notice the wet
And open an umbrella.
I do live in a fantasy world a lot of the time, so I know what I’m talking about here. Writers mostly do. You may see us grocery shopping or taking our cars for service or dropping the kids off for school, but that reality doesn’t mean we’re not living in our fantasy world, figuring out plotlines, talking to our characters, considering story arcs…
Until reality impinges on fantasy and we have to face it.
Recently I’ve felt more and more that it’s the opposite in my corner of the world, at least. Fantasy is impinging on reality. Because we don’t want to deal with reality, we create fantasy. Covid-19 doesn’t exist. It was made up. It’s not going to kill anyone we love because so many people survive it, it’s just like the flu. There are only 40 or 60 or 100 or 200 cases in my community, and nobody I know has it, so I won’t get it. Masks don’t protect you. It was 5G that caused it.
Reality is scary right now, yes, but not facing it is scarier because you know what I’ve found from living in a fantasy land a lot of the time? Reality will force you to face it eventually. You do have to come out of the clouds and pay the bills or your power gets turned off. You gotta scoop the cat litter or it gets stinky. Right now I’m wearing scratched glasses because going to the eye doctor is too much reality.
And if we don’t face the frightening reality of covid-19 as a community, we’re going to regret it. All of us.
Wisdom of the Baby Bird
By Michelle Garren Flye
Like an eagle or hawk soaring
We want to leap into the sky!
We don’t know what waits;
We just know we want to fly.
Hawks dive onto their prey,
Seagulls wheel above the sea,
Eagles may drift along drafts
Our senses cannot perceive.
Maybe turn our eyes instead
To the baby bird in the nest.
Standing precariously on the edge—
He’s waiting, not taking a rest.
Take a leap of faith—oh yes, let’s do!
But only when the time is right.
Stretch the wings out first—
Take a short practice flight.
Only then will we grow stronger,
Only then will we avoid a plunge
Headfirst into a maelstrom
Of dangers we cannot dodge.
My bookstore has been a lot of things for me from the time I took it over in January. The realization of a lifelong dream. A haven. A happy place for me, and I hoped, the art community and book lovers in my town. One thing I didn’t want it to become was a place of negativity, and I refused from the beginning to allow politics in the door.
COVID-19 has changed a lot of things, but the worst for me so far is that it has taken that from me. In order to preserve a healthy workspace for myself and avoid the potential of taking home something horrible to my family, I asked that my customers wear masks in the store. When it became obvious just the asking wouldn’t work, I began requiring them. If a customer arrived without one, I provided a simple handmade one to them. My customers were very agreeable about this. I began to relax. I began to believe that the people in my town, regardless of personal beliefs, were well bred enough to honor my rule.
Yesterday, that belief was shattered. A customer turned away when I told them masks were required in the store. Another argued with me that masks did no good, using talking points I’ve heard on conservative news outlets. The CDC has an agenda. Cloth masks are useless and will only hold germs against your own face, not protect you. I didn’t tell him that was the point, that I wanted him to keep his germs to himself. I asked him to leave.
And that’s when my store stopped being a refuge. I went home and cried because I’d never intended for this to happen there. I hate that it has happened. I hate that potential customers who might enjoy the otherwise welcoming atmosphere in my little store may now just go to Amazon or Books a Million. I hate it, but I can’t help it.
And so today I mourn the loss of the chance to share my refuge. I will continue to require masks until the danger of COVID-19 is gone. I realize many won’t come into the store if I do. I will miss them.
It’s Magnolia Time
By Michelle Garren Flye
Yesterday she was just a bud,
But today she’s purest wonder
against leaves of darkest green—
out of reach of all but the worthy.
It’s magnolia time now, folks,
and she knows what that means.
She’s got the strength she needs
to survive the stormiest weather.
The toughest of flowers, nothing
easy or giving in her breast.
She reigns above your head
because magnolias won’t be plucked.
A gale won’t blow her down,
no man’s hand can push her around.
She’s here to stay, so get used to it
because it’s magnolia time.
Well, this is it for National Poetry Month 2020. I had hoped my bookstore would be full of poetry all month long. And in a way, it has been. I’ve certainly written a lot of it. And read some (including by NC Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Greene—and you should too!). And a wonderful friend brought me several new poetry books to read. It’s been…not quite what I wanted (poetry readings and fun times with fellow poets), but I’ve celebrated my love of poetry the best I could in the confines of coronavirus quarantine.
And with that, I leave you with this. Stay well, my friends. And keep reading poetry, and writing it if the spirit moves you. Remember: “To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.” Or so said Robert Frost.
(Note: This is for all the parents and grandparents whose visits from family have been put off because of COVID-19.)
Through the Window
By Michelle Garren Flye
Through the window, I see the squirrels play
I hear the birds singing about the new day—
And you say you’ll be coming to see me
When the world makes travel for you easy.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
Looking out the window doesn’t tell me a thing.
The traffic flows past, and I sit alone.
And your voice sounds weak on the phone.
Watching does no good, I know.
Nothing I do makes time slow.
The world continues to spin on its way
Even if I sit here watching all day.
We could do this, you know. Normality as we once knew it is gone. The slate really could be wiped clean (with a Clorox wipe) and we could begin something extraordinary, if we wanted to do it. I don’t think we will right now because you need a visionary leader to accomplish such a thing, probably more than one. And I haven’t seen many visionaries recently. But right now while the slate is erased, I can’t help but contemplate the possibilities.
Normality is Too Normal
By Michelle Garren Flye
Normality is too normal for me.
I have no wish to go back there.
What’s so great about normal?
Extraordinary is better.
Rainbows and butterflies
Are not normal at all.
Last year, small toads
Hopped through our yard
All spring.
That became normal.
It wasn’t great, though.
We ran over them by accident
And felt bad when we saw it.
Normal. Not good.
Definitely not great.
Roses and daffodils aren’t normal.
Not really.
You have to wait for them to bloom
And then they’re only here for a while.
They are extraordinary.
What’s normal?
If you think about it all the great moments
Aren’t really…normal.
So why go “back to normal”?
Forward to extraordinary, instead!
Everything feels wrong now, and it seems that everyone is trying to quantify it and box it up and make it what they’ve always known. “Don’t judge people if you see them not wearing a mask or taking their kids out or trying to go back to work—you don’t know what they’re going through,” say some. This is true. But it does not escape my sense of fairness that some of these people are the same ones who are quick to judge those who take their families and flee from death and poverty in other countries. Don’t judge them, either. You don’t know what they’ve gone through.
We all want to go back to “normal”, but I don’t think we’re ever going to get back there from here. We’ll go back to some semblance of day-to-day life, but I believe what scifi writers have been warning us about—that some event would come along eventually that would change us forever—has finally happened. Where we go from here is really up to us. We can remain politically divided with half of us in denial about our doom and the other half constantly lecturing about it—or we can unite and fight for survival. I pray we opt to find the best in all of us when we declare victory over this virus…and return to “normal”.
When We Return to “Normal:
By Michelle Garren Flye
“I like that lady’s mask, Mommy.”
The little boy doesn’t wear a mask.
His face bare, he points at me.
Why is he here, I’d love to ask?
But life now is far from easy;
You can’t judge or take to task
Those whose differences you see.
Maybe we will remember this lesson
When we can declare our battle won.
When the world returns to “normal”
And we look each other in the face again
We may remember we are all mortal
And not judge each other by colors of skin.
Maybe we will recall we’re all one world
And where we come from is not our sin.
Maybe this can be done because it’s natural
When we survive a crisis with our fellow man.
Yes, let’s look at each other and see only “us”
When we stand on the battlefield victorious.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 