A few years ago, when my sweet Grammy was negotiating the maze of Alzheimer’s Disease, I wrote a whole series of poems about it and about her. I didn’t do anything with them because, although they were written with bald and unflinching love, I thought they might hurt my grandfather. Just the simplicity of them on the page when nothing felt simple at all.

Now, both my grandparents are gone, and one of those poems has seen the light of day in an anthology from Kent State University Press called Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease. It is a rather lovely and tender book, filled with heartbreak and humor and all sorts of amazing writing by folks you’ve never heard of and folks you have. It turns out Alzheimer’s Disease is kind of like cancer. Everybody knows somebody…

My poem in the anthology is called The Suitcase Propped Open, and it’s about helping my grandmother pack for a summer at their cottage on Lake Michigan. The one I’m going to share today is another from the same series, later in the progression of the disease.

The Slow and the Sudden

   December 26, 1999

Breakfast is a quiet, subtle meal –

last night’s fatty lamb still rich in the air –

and yet, the simple textures of soft boiled egg,

of plain toast on her tongue are excruciating.

The melony walls, everyday china, her own

daughter’s voice – everything glares unfamiliar

and threatening as a foreign alphabet.

The shift to this moment is invisible – newspaper

on the table, coffee milky and warm, a single

cardinal keeping chickadees from the suet near the glass.

And then, an ordinary exhale and she is on her feet,

loud and panicked. “Somebody help,” she calls, moving

quickly through the kitchen and into the garage.

“Somebody help. They’ve got me in here.”

Yelling again and again into the hollow air

and out the open door into the snow – her husband,

daughter and son-in-law trying to catch up, to reassure

her they are kin and are where they should be.

But with a sibyl’s insistence she keeps on, her voice box

divining what nobody else yet knows: she will leave today,

fighting and terrified in the back seat,

 and won’t call this place home again.

Yesterday I spent some fabulous hours with a vivid, wiggley, eager, slew of kindergartners.

Here are some of my favorite moments.

"We are authors, too. All of us!"

"How about ‘a tree is a pocket for a cat?’ Shouldn’t that be in your book?"

"So every book was written by somebody like YOU?"

Yep. Pretty much…

I’m celebrating Children’s Book Week by doing a library visit tomorrow, a school visit on Wednesday and… oh, heck… buying some new books. In particular, I’m on the lookout for Linda Urban’s Mouse Was Mad, Kristy Dempsey’s Me With You and Francisco X. Stork’s Marcelo in the Real World.

This also happens to be the last week of the semester at Austin Community College, which means wrapping up both of my classes, reading portfolios and, in my Advanced Children’s Writing class, hosting an awesome panel discussion with these very talented and generous local authors: April Lurie, Joanne Whittemore, Debbie Gonzales, Jessica Lee Anderson and PJ Hoover. Thanks, guys!

My friend Sara let me know about today’s online Haiku Festival — especially appealing to me since I just finished up a month straight of writing daily haiku. There are lots of lovely links here for  you like-minded fans…

My next picture book has been given an official release date of September 8th (which just so happens to be exactly one day after my eldest daughter’s 11th birthday). All the World is out there on the virtual bookshelves already… here and here and here. There was also a lovely ad that ran on Shelf Awareness for a week.

As you know, yesterday was Mother’s Day. From Tall One I got an acrostic poem that included all of my names (some of which are lengthy). A few of my favorite descriptives? Loving, Intelligent, Bendable, Radiant, Ommmmm and Nobody-like-Mama. Oh, also, apparently I’m a "Nice-y-ater". That’s good, right? From Small One, another one of her woven-with-love potholders and a darling little book in which she declared that I am "nice to animals, a good cook and pretty." Also that I "like" her and her sister. So. At least we’re all clear on that.

We spent the day on the Lampasas River, with hawks and snakes and wet ol’ dogs. It was lovely.
Getting outside is always, always a good idea.

slipping down slick bank
landing right where I want to;
floating like a fish

— Liz Garton Scanlon
    5/11/09

Hello again, friends.

I’ve been away for a week.
National Poetry Month came to a close.
My family came to visit.
And this week has been all madness all the time.

The end of the semester (for me and for my students and for my daughters) is so full of celebration and responsibility, my knees buckle a bit. And when you add in the fact that it is school visit season (I’m on my way to one this morning), blogging and breakfast dishes take a back seat.

It’s no wonder that what I wanted this morning was a quiet poem.
A lovely, leaf- and rain-filled quiet poem.

I found one:

The Copper Beech

by Marie Howe

(Read the rest here…)

I worship Marie Howe.
Here’s a little more about her, and here, too.
Oh, heck. Here, too.

Happy Friday, folks.
Namaste.

Today I got to talk to my daughter’s 2nd grade class about reading poetry aloud.
Because tomorrow, they’re hosting a Poetry Reading (capital P, capital R) in the library — the culmination of National Poetry Month.

Small One tells me she’s reading her Free Verse (which still sounds like Fwee Vewse, even though she’s in speech therapy) and her Diamante (which I guess is about Dumbledore and He Who Must Not Be Named).

I really think I’d rather go this poetry reading than see The Rolling Stones.
For real.

So, we talked about speaking loudly, slowly, clearly.
And about how you can look at the top of your audience members’ heads and it’ll seem like you’re making eye contact.
And about how important it is to really know the piece you’re reading and, at the same time, to remember that your audience doesn’t know it at all.

Then, some of these smart, funny, rascally, eight-year-olds volunteered to practice and they brought down the house.
We all nodded and laughed and mm-hmmed at appropriate times and then sent up a roar of finger-snapping at the end.
And this was just the rehearsal.
I’ve got to go set my alarm right now…

But first, I have to say, as we close out National Poetry Month and put April to bed for another year, I love poetry.
I love it for children and I love it for beauty and I love it for grief.
I love it for meaning and for humor and for relief.
I love it for it’s roundness in a linear and chronological life and for it’s sensuality in a technological age.
I love poetry.

And, specifically, right now, I really love haiku.
I’ll admit that I set out to write one haiku a day this month because haiku are short and I figured I could handle it.
Really. I admit it.

But I didn’t realize how much more than that the practice would become.

So, here’s the deal.
I cannot stop.

I am not making any promises right this minute because, instead, I want to see what I feel like doing.
But I will say that even though April’s over, my haikuing days aren’t.

Thank you for joining me this month.
Namaste…

Haiku 30

— Liz Garton Scanlon
    04/30/2009

Happy Birthday, Honey….

Haiku 29

I’ve been thinking lately about how much effort we’re meant to put into things — or how little.
When should we be really proactive and when should we let life flicker?
How do we know when to energize and when to surrender?
What’s the role of intuition and what’s the role of training?
What difference does it make, whether I’m leading or bringing up the rear?
Etc….

The answers, of course, are circumstantial.
But today I’ll take my cue from the squash blossom out front.
Because why not?

Haiku 28

— Liz Garton Scanlon
   04/28/2009

I guess it’s the barometric pressure or something, but you know those days where you can just tell that everyone’s walking around with a lump in the throat?

It’s like we all notice on the same day that our hearts are spongey and our kids are moving through the world without us and our dogs are old and our words are inadequate and trouble is brewing.

It’s like we all notice we’re human and that the earth is spinning and keening and paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that we’re this close to flying off.

It’s like we all notice that we’re utterly alone and, yet, in it together.

It’s just a little much sometimes, don’t you think?

Today was like that and I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who was madly relieved when the sky just cracked open and let it rip.

Haiku 27

— Liz Garton Scanlon
   04/27/09

Haiku 26

Haiku 25

— Liz Garton Scanlon
    04/25/2009