Post 199

Thursday Treasures

Try to Capture September

Thursday Treasures – a Series

by Lynda McKinney Lambert

I’ve spent days thinking about September. How can I write a poem about her? Rapid changes are occurring all around me this month and I’m getting dizzy! I’m downright giddy with bursts of nervous energy. This zest charge was unexpected, hidden in the mists of the crisp early morning. I floated, it seemed, at the crest of September with my feet stretched downwards to dig into the sands of its shoreline. I have been unsuccessful!

Since the beginning of this fast-moving month I tried to pay attention to the small nuances and living details I experienced. I moved carefully, even cautiously, from day to day through the month of Ever-changing September. Yes! I am standing at the mid-point of the month and I still feel like I am lost at sea.

I took a deep breath, held it in for a couple of seconds as I remembered my fingers. I looked at the computer screen. I exhaled.  Nearby, my sleeping dog shifts in his black furry bed. In his sleep he snorts, and my leather chair squeaks as my fingers pound out some letters on the stiff keyboard. I move my body forward again, and bring my mind back to September. The sun streams through the dusty window. My back seeks the stability of my solid chair.  I raise my hands to my face, close my eyes and think about my breath. As my chest rises, I become aware of the sharp, piercing call of the eagle flying above the trees outside this window.

At the beginning of the month, I took short walks in the woods.

I saw subtle changes, My two dogs stopped and sniffed the breeze. They tried to catch the news of the day, to bring it home and share it with me. We paused on the path and I watched them stop and stare into the thickets, then up into the trees. They paid close attention to all the wild flowers as I touched them. I tried to concentrate on the details – to memorize each little fine distinction of a Yellow Crownbeard or leaf of the White Snakeroot plant.  I asked, “How does it look in the shade?

How does it feel to the touch?  Try to remember it all!”

I reached out, touched the trunks of trees as we traveled together in the afternoon sun. I recall the feeling of textures and the girth of a tree in my arms as I tried to encircle it. I needed to touch the overlapping surface of the Locust tree, put it in my memory bank where I can retrieve it when wintry days become anxious and lonely.

Eventually, I realized what I searched for in September. Every new day in this quest twisted and turned in on me as I searched for the form that would be perfect for my September poem. I began to visualize myself as a whirling dervish. I swirled in circles, round and round, and my feet were on sifting and shifting sand all the time. My thoughts raced far faster than I could ever write. My entire body quivered inside because of all the raw sensations that this month gave me.

I realized September is the one month of the year that is a charade. She is undependable, captivating and quixotic. She cannot be captured in the Pantoum I had intended to put her into. I thought, “I’ll catch her by a sliver of one of her yellow petals! Then, I’ll flatten her out between the pages of a Villanelle.” But as it turned out, she became a book of sand, and I simply could not get a grasp on her!

This morning I tried to put some words to my paper. I had to step over obstacles of images and feelings. I said, “I have to just go after a little piece of September. I need to catch her unawares, and grab what I can. It might be just a fragment, or an adjective. Do it quickly, and run fast, bring that piece to my paper and slap it down with glue. I’ll have to use E-600 for this job! What will be large enough to hold uncooperative September?”

“Yes! I’ve got it now. My tribute to September will be an ODE. It will celebrate precocious September perfectly.”

My “Ode for September” must be hefty and as unsettled as she.
My 10-line stanzas will be a passionate song about September, the Whirling Dervish!

Photos by Lynda McKinney Lambert.

Copyright, 2018. all rights reserved.

Photo: Yellow Crown Beard in bloom. September.

this essay was published in Walking by Inner Vision Blog, Sept. 15, 2014

Published in Magnets and Ladders Literary Magazine,” fall/winter edition, 2015.

Note:

This creative non-fiction essay is included  in my book, Walking by Inner Vision: Stories & Poems. DLD Books, 2017:

You can buy this book through my Author’s site at:

Visit my Author’s Site – Click Here.

Thank you for visiting with ME today!

Lynda in her Meditation Garden, Wurtemburg, PABio:

Lynda McKinney Lambert divides her days between writing projects in creative non-fiction essays and poetry, as well as making mixed-media fiber art for fine art exhibitions. She retired from her position as Professor of Fine Arts and Humanities at Geneva College (Beaver Falls, PA) in August 2008.  She lost most of her sight due to Ischemic Optic Neuropathy in October 2007. Since that time all of her art and writing is created  via the use of adaptive  technologies for the blind,. Despite this challenge, Lynda continues to win awards in both writing and art.

Lynda married Bob Lambert fifty-seven  years ago and the couple lives in the rural Village of Wurtemburg, in Western Pennsylvania. Bob, a retired fitter and welder, is recovering from AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) since the beginning of 2014. Lynda has been his caregiver since that time.