tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89050067782476530132024-03-19T03:40:20.526-07:00Seeking WingMartie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.comBlogger273125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-21983765078906777332023-03-08T10:36:00.000-08:002023-03-08T10:36:34.394-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-38741881694491770062019-11-30T16:52:00.002-08:002019-11-30T16:52:46.381-08:00The Sad Dance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Sad Dance </div>
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They say you can’t remember things that happened to you when you were an infant, but I can. I remember lying safe and warm in blankets looking up at the stars. When I asked my mother about it she said, "How could you remember that far back Janette? I used to take you out in the back when you were fussy. You would cry and cry, it drove me crazy, until I found out about the night sky. As soon as I took you out there, you stopped."</div>
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I’m still that way. I remember stars were like pretty baubles to my baby eyes. But when I was in elementary school, I learned about the solar system and I couldn’t believe how such a big thing could have happened. I would go out on the front lawn and lay on the ground and watch the sky in awe. </div>
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"Janette, come in here right now," my mother would call.</div>
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"Just a minute," I’d reply, hoping for just a little more time. I whispered my wonder into the cool grass. Looking up, the big fingers of the elm tree seemed to hold up the firmament. </div>
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Or she’d say, "It’s time for bed, Janette, I swear, I don’t know what you find so interesting out there in the dark." </div>
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When I would try to tell her, saying, "Mom, did you know that the earth rotates? Right now we’re turning around," or "Mom, I saw the Milky Way." Her reply was always "hummm." </div>
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When I was in bed later, I’d sing every song I knew at the top of my lungs until she would call, "Go to sleep, Janette, stop that infernal singing." </div>
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The lace curtains on the window sent a pattern hop-scotching across my bed. In the mirror at my dressing table I would look at my face and wonder who the girl with the curly brown hair and green eyes was. The moon made my face into a beautiful orb of light, different from me as a pale daytime child. "Why doesn’t my mother love me?" I asked my reflection. </div>
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I’d pretend I was a princess in a castle being held prisoner by a wicked step-mother. Later I’d dream of dancing in moonlight in a dress that moved like grasses in the wind. I could leap and twirl in the air and fly across the night sky like Tinker Belle, trailing sparklers of light. </div>
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On the windowsill my elbows were bleached bones pointing away. "I want my father," I said to the strong and sturdy truth of the Elm. "Bring me my father," I wished on the flickering promise of the stars. </div>
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"You don’t have a father," my mother said, her words angry exclamation points, spoken in a staccato shrill. </div>
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"Everyone has a father," I said.</div>
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"Don’t get sassy with me young lady," she said, then looked up from her magazine and right into my eyes. "Janette," she said, "don’t ask me again about him. Lord, sometimes I wish you’d never been born."</div>
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My mother would have been a pretty woman if she had cared about how she looked and if happiness was somewhere in her heart. Her hair was dark brown and curly like mine, with hints of reddish gold that you could see in the sun’s light. She did her best to pull the grace from the curve it sometimes made against her cheek, coming loose from clips and bobby pins in protest. </div>
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I resigned myself to the straight line of her lips and the spittle of anger that struck my hand that day. Her mouth was taunt and a crease had formed between her eyebrows. There was anger in the gray of her eyes and it frightened me. The cold and forbidding signal on her face was "stop". </div>
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I wondered constantly about my father, but after that time, I never asked again. I wished I had a mother who would dance with me like I danced in my dreams, but our dance was graceless. As I took one step forward, she took one step back. It was a sad dance. </div>
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Since I didn’t know my father and my mother didn’t want me, I stayed away as much as possible. As the years past and I turned fourteen I was allowed to go places by myself. I found the library. Books took me out of myself and into other lives. </div>
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Words, were also magic steps to power. I would sit for hours with the dictionary, reading the meaning of unfamiliar words. I used these words as ammunition. Each time I used a word my mother didn’t understand I felt better about myself, but bad too. I could see under the stern exterior of my mother’s face at those times, and what I saw was vulnerable and unsure. Her face would soften and a flush appear on the paleness of her cheeks. Something in my heart told me that I was as mean as she was. </div>
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I would see her try to gain control of her feelings and when I was about to put my arms around her she would shake her head and say, "Who put all that nonsense in your head, Janette?"</div>
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I met Jake in high school. He was my good buddy before we fell in love. He listened. We became inseparable. He was the blond and sunny opposite of my darkness. He taught me about jokes and laughter. We would sing together and best of all he liked the night sky. Jake had a mother who hugged him and a father who clapped him on the back and they both had love in their eyes when they looked at him. We were married soon after we graduated. That day was the first time I ever saw a touch of pride creep from hiding and capture my mother’s face for just an instant. </div>
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She lived alone in the cave. That’s what Jake and I jokingly called her house because it felt so cold and empty. Later, when she got sick, I became her nurse. The physical closeness of moving her body made my skin crawl at first. I wasn’t used to touch between us. I remember being surprised at how soft her skin felt as I applied lotion to her hands and face. That fragrance of Pond’s cold cream became a part of her, sort of an olfactory signature. </div>
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One night she looked at me and I saw something I had never seen before. I saw compassion. "I’ll come back, Janette, I promise," she said. "There’s something I have to tell you. Watch for a sign." That was the night she died.</div>
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I had been watching ever since. Last night Jake and I were in the living room. The television was on the old movie channel. All around were the cushions of an ordinary life. </div>
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Even after seventeen years of marriage, Jake has a way of making me feel beautiful. "Girl", he said—he always calls me girl even though I’m thirty-six, "you’re so lovely and you smell so good." He took deep breaths into my hair</div>
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as if he wanted to inhale the essence of me. </div>
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He is not an old movie fan like I am. I was completely absorbed in the drama and tears were beginning to dam up behind my eyes. Jake tried to distract me by breathing into my ear and whispering, "let’s go to bed." When he exhaled I smelled chocolate pudding. </div>
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"Stop it Jake, this is the best part," I said, trying to ignore his advances. </div>
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"Okay girl, you’ve had your chance," he said and kissed my cheek and headed toward the bedroom. </div>
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I lay down on the couch and pulled a blanket up to my chin. It was then that the soft night fragrance of Pond’s cold cream settled around me.</div>
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After Mom died, I had found a jar of Pond’s behind the bottles of medicine in the bathroom-one that I had never used. When I opened it I saw the gouge her fingers had made into the cream. The fragrance and that small evidence of her life made me cry for the first time since her death three months earlier. </div>
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I took some deep breaths, thinking hazily that maybe the fragrance was the sign I had been looking for. Then, when I looked back at the television, the color movie I had been watching had been replaced by black and white and a beautiful, clear-skinned woman of about nineteen was looking directly at me from the screen with just a twitch of smile. Her hair was bobbed as was the fashion of the l920’s. She looked just like the photograph I have on the piano that was taken of a nineteen year old girl, nick-named Bucky by all her friends—before she was my mother. I closed my eyes feeling dizzy and disoriented and when I opened them again she was still there. I looked over at the piano and saw the empty frame. This can’t be real, I thought. I must be having some sort of crazy dream. The image still filled the television screen and now it had movement and dimension and sound. I sat up and pushed the remote control button to off. Nothing happened. My heart was racing as I watched my mother look down to adjust her silk stockings. </div>
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I could see out her window to a rose garden. I could hear the birds singing and see three girls sitting on a porch-swing, talking. From somewhere in the house music was playing. "Bucky, hurry up," one of the girls shouted. "We’re going to miss the first dance." </div>
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Their laughter drifted in the open window where Bucky was getting dressed. A black Cocker Spaniel danced around her feet. </div>
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"Get down, boy," she scolded, as he attempted to climb her leg and bury his nose in her lap. </div>
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She stood in front of her dressing table and closed her eyes. She was beautiful I could tell that her beauty at that moment radiated from happiness. When she opened her eyes again, she spoke. The voice was my mother’s voice but not her voice. It had the lilt of youth in it. "Bucky," she said to her reflection, "you look like the cat’s meow," then she pinched her cheeks and pulled at the curl that crossed her forehead like a letter "J". She lifted her arms and danced with a pretend partner, fox-trotting around the room with closed eyes singing, "If you knew Susie, like I know Susie, Oh! Oh! Oh! What a girl!" Then I watched her slip into the soft fabric of a dress, tie the sash at her hip, and admired the curve of her ankle. She dusted powder over her long neck and down over the rise of her breast, turned and moved away from her mirror. As she did this, she looked over her shoulder and frowned.</div>
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Someone knocked softly and looked in the door. "You look enchanting," said the woman I knew had to be my grandmother. I had seen pictures of her once that mom had kept in box in the closet. I had never known her and mom didn’t like to talk about her. She just said that they didn’t see eye to eye. </div>
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Bucky twirled around in front of her. "It’s impossible to dance the Charleston wearing a girdle." She complained. </div>
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"Nice girls do not go out without proper undergarments," her mother replied. "Why, when I was your </div>
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age, my mother cinched me into a corset. You’re fortunate that all you have to wear is a girdle."</div>
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When her mother left, Bucky made a face, then stuck her tongue out at her reflection in the mirror and left the room. I watched the dog sniff the floor where a trace of powder lingered, sneeze, then curl up on the braided rug.</div>
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The screen went blank for a moment and filled with static, then a new scene rolled for a moment then stopped.</div>
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Bucky and her friends were in front of a house where a party was obviously going on. The porch was washed with light and the sky had darkened into evening. I could </div>
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hear a piano as I watched them climb the stairs. A couple sat talking on a bench, and three or four young men leaned against the porch rail, blowing smoke into the evening air. "Hi, Bucky," one of them called out to her. She waved a greeting as she opened the front door, then immediately turned down the hall and headed with her friends to the lavatory. There, they quickly discarded their girdles and giggling, stuffed them into a carpet bag. </div>
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In a large sitting room a group of people stood around the piano singing, and several couples were dancing. </div>
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Bucky went to the kitchen where there was a big glass bowl of punch. A boy in the kitchen spoke to her as she filled her cup. "Be careful," he said, "that punch has more in it then just sugar and water." </div>
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Bucky returned to the sitting room and stood sipping her drink as she watched couples dancing. One of the boys that had been standing around came up to Bucky and took her hand. "Hi, my name is Vinnie. Come on, dance with me," he said, as he pulled her out to the dance floor. As they danced around the room, I watched Bucky look up and into his eyes and smile. He was very good looking. I could tell he knew his way around. He had the unabashed confidence of someone who had been with more than one woman. His hair was dark and wavey and was combed back from his face. His slacks eased over his waist and hips and his white shirt was rolled up enough to see the muscle of his arms. I watched his hand at the back of my mother’s dress, leading with the pressure of his palm and finger tips. I was drawn to the grace of his movement as he danced. </div>
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They had done the Charleston until breathless and as Bucky sat down to rest, Vinnie rushed to the kitchen to refill her cup. She finished her second drink fast as he pulled her back to the dance floor and the fox trot. I watched as she staggered a little before he steadied her with a hand around her waist. He kept his hand on her waist after the dance and lead her out onto the porch. I could hear the crickets singing as they kissed in the moon-glow. </div>
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"You have the most beautiful, soft skin," he said, touching her cheek with the palm of his hand. He pulled her to him and his hand moved down her back and curved around her un-girdled bottom. </div>
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My heart was racing. I wanted to warn her, to tell her to be careful, to remind her that she’d had too much to drink, that she was vulnerable, but the scene kept playing out and I was just an observer.</div>
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"Your hair smells like flowers," he whispered, burying his face in the soft waves. Her eyes were closed and she was holding on to Vinnie’s neck as though she might fall if she let go.</div>
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He put his arm around her waist again and led her down the steps and into the yard where she leaned against an oak tree. I could see the back of the tree digging into and catching at the soft material of her dress as he pushed himself against her. Then his hands were on her breasts </div>
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and all I could see was the oak tree and all I could hear was their breathing and the wind. Then I heard my mother’s voice, insistent, but as lost and unnoticed as the crickets hum. "Stop Vinnie," she said.</div>
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I tried again to turn off the set, thinking if I turned it off I would stop the situation that I could see happening to my mother before my eyes.</div>
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I watched helplessly as he pulled her to the ground beneath the tree and the next thing I heard was the pop, pop, pop of the buttons on his trousers. They seemed as loud as cannons on that quiet summer night. "Vinnie, no, help me," came my mother’s voice now, louder and full of fear.</div>
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The scene faded and a shot of the big yellow moon filled the television set. I could hear, as if from far away, the sound of the piano and many voices singing, "If you knew Susie like I know Susie, Oh! Oh! Oh! What a girl!"</div>
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Suddenly, the television switched off. All that remained of my mother was a lingering scent of Pond’s and my heart trying to separate from a young girl’s life, beating in a crazy kind of fear and exhilaration. I put my feet on the ground, like a drunk trying to steady the turning of the room. I fumbled into the dark, stubbing my toe on the coffee table and touched the cold glass of the television screen.</div>
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I turned to look at the photograph on the piano. "Mother," I said, as she looked at me with just the twitch of a smile.</div>
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Jake heard me crying. He found me curled up on the couch. He held me, and the warmth of his body brought me back to my own place in time.</div>
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I think about my mother all the time now and the feeling I get is no longer sad. She took a step toward me for the first time and the grace of the truth she gave me has freed me from the bitterness I felt for so long.</div>
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As for my father--I had begged the Elm, wished to the night sky, insisted to the silence of my mother’s knowledge, and finally got an answer--it came from somewhere beyond the complexity of the earth and stars and the turns that led me to that place in the heart of their youth, and that makes me feel really good. </div>
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Yes, I still go out at night and watch the sky, and although I don’t know where my mother’s spirit is, I like to think of her up there near the stars looking down on me. </div>
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Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-47729019206792829862017-01-20T16:13:00.003-08:002017-01-20T16:13:40.368-08:00Falling into the Bend of Flight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The sky is soft<br />
like lace in catch of someone walking,<br />
A fold of fabric that makes song<br />
and glances across hair.<br />
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I hear it now like blue ice cracking,<br />
touching the tops of things,<br />
falling onto the sweet smell of rain.<br />
It moves around the wind chimes<br />
and nestles on the open leaf.<br />
<br />
You touch me this way,<br />
like a pierce of fine thread sewing drops,<br />
little pieces of me together fill a leaf,<br />
diaphanous longing touching tender making wonder skin,<br />
finally building a drop blossom curtain of feathered lace that is capable of<br />
falling into the bend of flight.<br />
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<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-6321428570901954182016-12-05T16:43:00.001-08:002016-12-05T16:43:49.959-08:00Don't talk to me of December<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<br />
Don’t talk to me of December<br />
when the trees<br />
oh the trees color me<br />
the way I am brown and gold<br />
and I fall still through the air<br />
waiting for wind<br />
<br />
The sky is melting<br />
see how it passes the fold<br />
and eases out the wrinkle<br />
like time<br />
swift the night falls<br />
<br />
Sundown is like wings now<br />
scraping the edge of the ocean<br />
I can see it beginning the curl<br />
and then darkness haunts the edge<br />
and I wonder where the warm is<br />
hear it slip and unfurl<br />
sail into summer and strip the gauze<br />
from nighttime’s cover and mirage<br />
<br />
Sing me spring<br />
skip February this year<br />
lay me across a desert mound<br />
I’ll not breathe until you wrap with web the storm<br />
then glove and pen erect<br />
whisper midnight into warm<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-67248286684963747952016-08-23T11:13:00.000-07:002016-08-23T11:13:05.508-07:00Through Imagination's Eye<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Through Imagination’s Eye</div>
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<br /></div>
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Where across the landscape</div>
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is the blunt protruding object</div>
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that trips our vision,</div>
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where is the truth </div>
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that captures people</div>
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and wraps them in gossamer?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Words are so mighty</div>
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they can string an ache</div>
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on the line of a heart,</div>
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let it absorb all the nuance</div>
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of a minutes captured view</div>
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and like a painting of a backyard fence,</div>
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rickety becomes romantic.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The imagination</div>
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is free to create any patina</div>
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it chooses,</div>
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a finger, a dimple,</div>
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the sleek slide of a shoulder,</div>
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can become blemish free</div>
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and more fertile and tactile then reality. </div>
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The allusive is so alluring.</div>
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Like a butterfly</div>
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it darts past the corner of our eye,</div>
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flits nervously around the halo of our</div>
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freshly shampooed hair</div>
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floats nebulous and free</div>
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on a tide of air,</div>
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then leaves us to </div>
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our purple haze of memory. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We have not been there</div>
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for the agony of birth</div>
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from the chrysalis of change</div>
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nor do we even know if wings</div>
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hurt when stuck together with</div>
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the glue of beginning.</div>
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What if, that day it is storming </div>
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and some errant rip of air</div>
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tears the gossamer fluid grace</div>
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of wing, before it can fly? </div>
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We float with the butterfly,</div>
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across a vision that we can build or shatter</div>
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to our choosing</div>
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and leave the sad and broken body</div>
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of reality to turn to dust.</div>
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<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-38064315537864891582016-07-21T10:32:00.001-07:002016-07-21T10:32:47.528-07:00Out of Line<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s been a long time, she said<br />
into the dull phone,<br />
the phone that had been waiting,<br />
waiting for just this call.<br />
<br />
Where are the dreams we had, she thinks.<br />
You were going to bring them to me.<br />
Remember how, when you left<br />
you turned against the sunset,<br />
I saw the tear.<br />
<br />
You with your bright star.<br />
I saw it first<br />
before you even knew its name,<br />
it was your future.<br />
Far, far it would take you and stake you,<br />
I could feel it when I fell<br />
and tried to keep from looking into you,<br />
down into the brown eyes of your growing.<br />
But I did fall and your arms measured me<br />
and I could see that I was not quite right.<br />
<br />
His voice sucks her into the wire<br />
across the lines that dissect the sky<br />
and makes lives accountable with it whispered answers.<br />
She can see him hunched into his shoulders<br />
delaying truth with pretty words,<br />
looking across the yard where a cat sits somnolent<br />
in the doorway and perfume invades the room<br />
seeping from the closet.<br />
<br />
He is saying good bye now,<br />
the shattering is too loud.<br />
She cups the receiver to keep it<br />
from finding her ear.<br />
<br />
The phone drops for a moment<br />
from the grasp of his shoulder,<br />
as he types answers that are important<br />
into the glass eye of his future.<br />
<br />
Good bye, she says<br />
into the dangle of line<br />
that lays broken and betrayed on the desktop.<br />
<br />
And all he can hear is a dial tone.<br />
<br />
(a story poem from the good old days)<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-57460985014175636462016-03-08T16:16:00.000-08:002016-03-08T16:16:25.264-08:00Her Song<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
See that girl all blush and thin<br />
See the sky that dangles<br />
At the edge of her whim<br />
Blue dress exploding all around her<br />
Hear the galloping of her youth<br />
<br />
Hear her song<br />
Of heart so long the sound<br />
Held in dimming light<br />
Covered with a flannel gown<br />
Hung in the sun to flower<br />
<br />
She walks where eyes watch<br />
And melts as she passes each whisper<br />
Her colt legs strong in root take note<br />
Of each cracked sidewalk cloaked<br />
With her impatience<br />
<br />
She is falling in love with a love song<br />
That plays her each night in dim<br />
Her skin like angel dust when touched<br />
Leaves a pattern laced with trust<br />
<br />
See this woman strong yet fragile<br />
She who walks the road less traveled<br />
Dusted off from many falls<br />
The girl still sings within her walls<br />
Her songMartie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-61518630355837464502016-03-01T09:17:00.000-08:002016-03-01T09:17:26.871-08:00Gone Now<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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February is gone now, <br />
with her quick, clean lines <br />
and tilting globe of determined sky. <br />
<br />
She hung her skirt out wantonly <br />
on the naked open neighborhood, <br />
dark with clouds and pink with dawn, <br />
I listened as her tongue licked trees. <br />
<br />
No need for solace in her rain, <br />
my weeping chalice is gone, <br />
where winter skies and dappled roads <br />
flush the aching river in me <br />
to the sea. <br />
<br />
A tree was made so love could stay <br />
and blossoms gamely on that day <br />
with pink peach petals weeping down <br />
where tears have not an opening found. <br />
<br />
February is gone now, <br />
with her quick, clean lines <br />
and tilting globe of determined sky. <br />
<br />
I have fondly said goodbye. </div>
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Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-54746805186757298532015-12-18T12:53:00.002-08:002015-12-18T12:57:54.036-08:00A Question of Belief<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I’ve wondered since I was a child<br />
Where butterflies go when they die<br />
Thinking someplace of peace not wild<br />
Softly floating in the whim<br />
Of a breeze not tearing leaf or wing<br />
<br />
The old cigar box where I kept a collection<br />
When I was nine with pin and wing in place<br />
A callus lack I can’t believe was me<br />
Closed that box and left it in the attic free<br />
<br />
Until I returned up ladder to the loft<br />
Afraid of what I’d find or what the cost<br />
to find ten pins gathering dust in gleam<br />
No fragrance of spring or wing remained<br />
<br />
And then today as if in answer to my question<br />
Long ago asked to some one up in heaven<br />
Where have they gone all color muted frail<br />
when I had placed them so carefully in this cardboard jail<br />
<br />
Today<br />
<br />
On the front steps of a house in different town<br />
A wing and then another had fallen down<br />
No body held together the colors mighty chorus<br />
But it seems like they were sent this day<br />
with a definite purpose<br />
<br />
The question asked so long ago must finally be<br />
That given time an answer comes eventually<br />
<br />
I’m saving them the wings like time<br />
With feathers I have many now<br />
Perhaps to test the strength of fragile things<br />
Or more certainly to bless this heart of mine<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-70817605718661689322015-12-10T14:29:00.001-08:002015-12-10T14:31:31.673-08:00Searching For the Wand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I see the open door, come two, come four,
the dry dirt holds its tender cover<br />
where leaves all color and blushful<br />
dot the floor.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Thatched with muscle from the pine,
I pull the plug on holding back<br />
and cuddle up within me,<br />
a tree so high
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">my sky is colored green,<br />
and under me a bed too soft to lay my head
is for dancing instead.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">(Dare I ignite the muffled laughter<br />
of the critters all scurry run beneath me?<br />
After all, I’m standing on their pine needle rafters.)
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">One after another day, (should I weep?)<br />
as the fabric not tatted falls around my feet?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">No downpour from this leak
can awaken youth;<br />
yet, I see another truth.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Ardor in blood is born<br />
and I am torn; each piece must consider
how the wind sweeps the needle’s path
onto a canvas without brush or paint,
knowing that nothing lasts....or does it?
</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Something wild and wet in loving<br />
can be made fertile again by mulching;<br />
to faint upon a ground so considerate
merits knowing who held the wand<br />
that wonder made it<br />
and also tracked the lines across my face
and with one finger traced the fragile lace. </span>Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-53526978395916874722015-07-29T19:11:00.001-07:002015-07-29T19:11:53.068-07:00The Children of Wednesday….For Sam and Ellie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb16s8PhUTAoHaAo1qLuTDx0c-34IzuFdsZulG1jSbfLkdW9S8h7pfzVpR60dGeDgyfwvV-lqzCAAgJY2yE3jM5qDERN1W52M7zrV2tStV0PkRbSRVn72jcYMdveSxokEsHxp4LOhYEgjS/s1600/makelove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb16s8PhUTAoHaAo1qLuTDx0c-34IzuFdsZulG1jSbfLkdW9S8h7pfzVpR60dGeDgyfwvV-lqzCAAgJY2yE3jM5qDERN1W52M7zrV2tStV0PkRbSRVn72jcYMdveSxokEsHxp4LOhYEgjS/s400/makelove.jpg" width="391" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The Children of Wednesday<br />
<br />
Around and around they go up down<br />
walls with stairs and pools<br />
carpets of grass the pond all laced green<br />
and the ladder to the slide<br />
put aside until the sun days of summer coming<br />
call the birds the cat the dog <br />
just any bug in some delight<br />
especially worms will be alright<br />
<br />
On the swing a song is running<br />
push rewind and play<br />
hold me past the time of naps<br />
past playgrounds and sand and the perfect shovel<br />
sing with me your susurration’s best<br />
we’ll make the shadows dance fast<br />
<br />
The tree is opening leaf and my balloon’s all up and bloated<br />
Squeeze the monsters from the clay and hold my hand<br />
the inches wave goodbye at the door <br />
and I will love you again on another Wednesday<br />
or more<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-616730430745646482015-06-25T15:22:00.000-07:002015-06-25T15:22:59.361-07:00 She, Hope and the City<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px;">
7 lines (or maybe a little more) from my current work in progress</div>
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Juliette is a grown woman now and her memory of the house is clear, but her surroundings have grown. The timber of the staircase she can still count with her girlhood footsteps, but now she lives in a city, not just a house. Her brother lives in another city far away and her grandfather and her mother died years ago. She thinks of freeways and roads like veins and arteries. She sometimes wishes for the sidewalks of her youth, where the innocence of her relationship with the supposed inanimate things around her, was pure. Those things were safe and couldn't hurt her, though they overpowered her a few times with the depth and breadth of their cold steal and concrete. When they did she would turn to the other place inside her. In that place there was sun and shadow, color and movement and the fragrance of life. A seed had fallen and a crack opened in time and a yellow flower took to calling the rain and the sun its lovers. She knew these things but still could not say them out loud.</div>
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Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-52716581795488050022015-05-07T11:48:00.000-07:002015-05-07T11:48:35.611-07:00Tender Certain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
Tender Certain<br />
<br />
In the mirror of today<br />
a thin veil whispers separation<br />
for I saw her in my eyes<br />
her curve of hip turned inspiration<br />
‘til I was bloused and breasted light<br />
with her younger woman's delight<br />
<br />
From the corner of my glowing<br />
behind the flowing silk of day<br />
she turned like sunshine in my haze<br />
no need for words just wave of knowing<br />
she knew my heartbeat felt her gaze<br />
<br />
Though this was only sway of curtain<br />
it laced my fabric tender certain<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-18297465818219155792015-02-01T08:50:00.002-08:002015-02-01T08:50:51.815-08:00Hello February<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Welcome to my life this day is blue<br />
and I have learned a thing or two since last we met<br />
though snow lays grounded in some places tease<br />
the dappled sun in me feels blessed and pleased<br />
<br />
Don’t try to freeze me till I break<br />
I am most sure and filled with light<br />
even in the night I dream of lavender wings<br />
in joyful reminder that I no longer ache<br />
<br />
She decided long ago to go<br />
and I've mourned my love to show<br />
for many years I looked at February<br />
as a month of fearful tragedy<br />
now I see grief as a learning tool<br />
one must pass through like any school<br />
and I'll no longer show my love with sad<br />
but rather in understanding love is glad<br />
<br />
How about this<br />
I let February be a place to see<br />
a new flow within my stream<br />
where loosened the rage of loss explores<br />
the rippled lake of Evermore<br />
<br />
not because I have forgotten Michelle<br />
but choose to feel her love's warm spell<br />
all the time<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-89406730219460870422014-12-31T17:32:00.000-08:002015-12-31T11:48:07.129-08:00A Walk With the Clock<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Tender torn our feet all walk this path</div>
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For the street is dense but made of glass</div>
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And how it shatters if you trip and fall</div>
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It breaks like speed bumps on a freeway fast </div>
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Alone each moves along times fragile dock</div>
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With time though blurred veracious and so steady</div>
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If you jump it waits just up the road</div>
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With its magic pocket opening ready</div>
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Ease me over the rim of this feared place</div>
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Bring me the grace to read your open face</div>
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Don’t try to hold my youth within your arms</div>
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truth tells me that a lie is so embraced </div>
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Lover take me in your sweet delay</div>
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Usurp the movement forward to that place</div>
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Let me steady be in tide that takes</div>
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Each grain of sand to sea without a trace</div>
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--------</div>
Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-56061641785626657662014-12-04T13:31:00.000-08:002014-12-04T13:31:45.812-08:00Close up of Napa from the 101<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Wait past the redwoods of the morning mist<br />
the smoke of chimneys rising and caught within the gist<br />
the unseen force of air is there and the repair of boulders<br />
holding in the fall of land so saturated its true<br />
<br />
<br />
Behind the wire fence stuck with bags of plastic<br />
taking the breeze with sound of modern elastic<br />
on a stage the soldiers upright and still<br />
are tethered to the stake their arms reach up the hill<br />
<br />
I watch<br />
<br />
Them protect the clumps of yellow mustard<br />
with their ready can’t wait to be wine<br />
and if you stop for a minute you can hear<br />
the pouring of the sweetest tease of vine<br />
<br />
No cannot stop the day is fast progressing<br />
<br />
I am zip tied and back seated certain<br />
that if I look away someone will pull the curtain<br />
the trees and telephone poles are fast by my eyes<br />
and along the curve a cow misunderstood why<br />
<br />
and then<br />
<br />
the slope of the hills with green so rain induced<br />
that a large fingernail of dirt fell for proof<br />
<br />
and the city is so vein across the bridge it’s glass eyed watch<br />
ripples within the ocean water a half past sunset clock<br />
<br />
so seen the going home is treat of passing time<br />
with someone in a different place with eyes asleep not mine<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-66163692822878733372014-11-09T09:03:00.001-08:002014-11-09T09:03:28.529-08:00I Would Explain the Sky<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
There are so many big things,<br />
and yet I squint<br />
and catch some small winking<br />
just waiting for explanation.<br />
<br />
I would explain the sky,<br />
yet one small star holds me<br />
and whispers of shadows<br />
that stars make<br />
on night sky’s dark plane,<br />
and the music in the void<br />
that causes angel’s to weep.<br />
<br />
It whispers of treasure<br />
and to imagine an opening<br />
where brilliance falls all around<br />
like marbles gay and melting color.<br />
<br />
There are so many dusty roads<br />
and this one time I found<br />
a dull stone<br />
shaped like a heart,<br />
not perfect but obvious,<br />
and it enlightened me<br />
and quenched my romance<br />
in a perfect minute.<br />
<br />
There are questions popping all around<br />
like bubbles,<br />
the big hand blows sweet wind,<br />
wild wind, hot wind, treacherous wind;<br />
and I lean into truth<br />
as if I could see it there<br />
with some enormous righteous intent,<br />
displaying obvious answers,<br />
invisible answers,<br />
that I have to walk around<br />
and study with creased and pressed thought.<br />
<br />
Because,<br />
sometimes simple seems so complicated.<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-28058784145775869082014-10-31T10:34:00.000-07:002014-10-31T10:34:55.864-07:00I Am From<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am From <br />
<br />
A slow dance on the shoes of father <br />
into the ocean’s
crashing waves <br />
baskets of peanut butter and jelly <br />
and the sand of warm
days <br />
<br />
The man hiding behind walls <br />
where dimension's invisible hand
<br />
weaves lines across a meadow <br />
to my heart that understands <br />
<br />
A
woman’s still simple warmth <br />
holding porridge with grape jelly <br />
four leaf
clovers in her hand <br />
to show me the magic bone from which <br />
my cheek and
chin and smile began <br />
<br />
The silly shingles of a roof <br />
outside my
window’s openness <br />
where I hid my precious things <br />
don’t tell the
rain <br />
forgotton now the darning egg <br />
not watching rocking chair
take age <br />
<br />
From each tiny blade of grass un-kept <br />
as morning glory’s
crept along the fence <br />
with continuation circle’s way <br />
regardless of the
weather<br />
I came from that kind of day <br />
and midnight's petticoats around
the room<br />
ballet dancers as I slept<br />
<br />
From the sky laced with wings
<br />
gliding on thermal highs and lows <br />
dipping into the pictures in my mind
<br />
that grant passage into a poem’s flow <br />
<br />
I am from a peacock’s colors
<br />
and the sound of doves on phone lines <br />
the cozy keeper of the children of
the children <br />
and the soft hand of a teacher <br />
<br />
I am from the number of
stairs in a house <br />
the timber of their music’s rhythm <br />
the piano of my
shouting spirit <br />
and the view from the upstairs window <br />
<br />
I am from a
grandfather with hair thinning <br />
that loved with unwholesome hands <br />
and
sent me wondering into the stars beginning <br />
why <br />
<br />
I am
from Sunday questions and gold stars <br />
games of canasta and paper dolls
<br />
hand made kites and scooters <br />
flapping sheets and running boards
<br />
skate keys and Lassie Come Home <br />
<br />
I am from lollygagging and that’s
not like you <br />
the ice cream man and Saturday Matinee <br />
coloring turkeys
with no feathers <br />
and rubber band fights for play <br />
<br />
I am from stick
horses plum trees <br />
and wrong choices <br />
from late night wetting <br />
dreams
of tidal waves <br />
and loud voices <br />
<br />
I am from the time before I was
<br />
and in charge of every minute’s <br />
layers of poetry and music <br />
and
creating myself within itMartie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-79400334208620629222014-10-30T12:17:00.002-07:002014-10-30T12:17:23.327-07:00The Magnitude of her Unfolding<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
She stayed out late one day in spring<br />
whispering sighs into the fragrant sky<br />
for she was sixteen and dreams danced<br />
down the dusty weed choked path with her.<br />
<br />
It was dinner time<br />
and the air had cooled<br />
but her pounding heart and footsteps<br />
blazed in youthful ardor.<br />
<br />
She turned and was bathed in twilight’s glow<br />
floating down a street oh it seemed like floating<br />
of houses stained pink and mauve<br />
against the light of sunset.<br />
<br />
She could feel the secrets<br />
that touched her from the window’s glow<br />
of mother’s rocking children’s laughter<br />
and those nesting families touched her soul.<br />
<br />
She could feel the undertow<br />
pulling her up into a woman<br />
and she couldn’t say why<br />
she cried into the darkening sky.<br />
<br />
A girl is a mighty strong thing<br />
she thought and started running<br />
her bright hair dancing back and forth<br />
and her feet echoing fast go fast.<br />
<br />
Her breath felt clean<br />
and her colt legs leaped bursting<br />
bursting was her spirit<br />
on that evening in early spring<br />
<br />
the night she glimpsed<br />
the magnitude of her unfolding.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-4316596386508301472014-10-23T15:43:00.001-07:002014-10-23T15:43:55.502-07:00The Wall of Time ( in memory of my mother and father-in-love)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
They are sitting on black and white<br />
stairs made of ordinary cold cement,<br />
their faces turned towards each other. <br />
Her bare legs in shorts are a dancers<br />
and a scarf only partly hides pin-curled hair.<br />
His pompadour turns up as does his mouth.<br />
They are in love and it is 1951.<br />
<br />
Fifty years have passed since that day<br />
that hangs with other years in the hall.<br />
<br />
The creak of the floorboards calls out the change<br />
in the way they walk in the morning,<br />
changing, changing from nylon stockings to slippers,<br />
work shoes to sensible, eager to tired.<br />
They wear it with pride. <br />
They wear it with contrition.<br />
<br />
The basement echo saddens this listener<br />
knowing time gives and takes,<br />
and holds love accountable for each gruff word,<br />
each wild embrace, every I’m sorry.<br />
<br />
The skin grieves, cringes and curls,<br />
and they weave lotion into what might seem harsh<br />
until softness sits with them into the evening,<br />
watching the flickering living room walls<br />
lit by television and the steady rise and fall<br />
of falling asleep early.<br />
<br />
On her way to turning down the sheets<br />
she touches his hair and says, “come now”<br />
as he smiles into a dream<br />
and she straightens his black tie on the wall<br />
on their 50th anniversary,<br />
knowing it is more than the walls breathing<br />
that makes a picture crooked,<br />
and much more that straightens it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-83531854121101681012014-10-01T10:45:00.002-07:002018-10-26T11:44:11.681-07:00The Loss Ladder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
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<br />
The ladder is lost in the slow creep of vines<br />
laced to the seasons with rain keeping time<br />
forward the laying of names and their place<br />
enhanced with engravings that memory has traced<br />
<br />
Reminders drift down from the trees each new year<br />
delighted the waiting is no longer for tears<br />
change turns the leaves of October to blazing<br />
and the sadness of mauve has fallen out of my daydreams<br />
<br />
I remember the feel of the brush in my hand<br />
down her tangle of curls in the dampness of morn<br />
still the length of her smile in my dreams after midnight<br />
can still open the time of that long ago storm<br />
<br />
Now smoke and ashes dig into the hillside<br />
and fasten the rocks from out of my past<br />
yet will always be present in my still breathing chest<br />
where the cradle still cuddles with my once aching breath<br />
<br />
I can see now how dying is another beginning<br />
the song sung within life's cadence is a test<br />
as a lullaby bubbles and rock a byes others<br />
I've learned each new step on the ladder is the best<br />
<br />
---------<br />
With loving thoughts of my daughter Michelle who died of Reye's Syndrome in 1974 when she was 8. October is her birth monthMartie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-78025815597219292502014-09-13T12:15:00.000-07:002014-09-13T12:15:21.610-07:00Lesson from Rock and River<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Color the canyon walls<br />
warm adobe<br />
fire hearths of brick<br />
warm<br />
places in the heart<br />
<br />
listen<br />
<br />
The river flows<br />
past hard and stable rock<br />
two different forms of matter<br />
each by uniqueness<br />
gives importance to the other<br />
a perfect relationship<br />
<br />
Harmonize with things<br />
that flow by you<br />
like the rock<br />
<br />
sweep gracefully past<br />
the stunning fact<br />
impeding<br />
gesture with sound<br />
that delights <br />
<br />
then<br />
<br />
Sky dark<br />
clouds dense charcoal<br />
the rain stitching lines from sky to earth<br />
in the canyon,<br />
next to the river<br />
<br />
Thunder trembles<br />
the sky to open<br />
the flowing current<br />
steady<br />
pounding<br />
the river surges<br />
sending hard and stable rock<br />
careening<br />
far<br />
<br />
The rock<br />
as others catch against it<br />
changes the path<br />
of the river<br />
flowing<br />
growing<br />
flooding<br />
<br />
The world's ever changing<br />
nothing stays the same<br />
<br />
-<br />
<br />
<br />Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-35632800830046728892014-09-02T17:21:00.002-07:002014-09-02T17:21:52.775-07:00To Find Marian and Vin<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzdYnurI9rtKQcVLYlA0CGCJB9ian54Z-8f2FuTsHHiKhmuJTcDiZtacQFt2Ve6YeynbfDDIWHfQPJudJVa6v8_V-0oscGwynC0l27p4vXFlcXDbPJT_ivty_0P7a63u6UaAOCi-GbKryM/s1600/The+Courtship+of+Marian+&+Vin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzdYnurI9rtKQcVLYlA0CGCJB9ian54Z-8f2FuTsHHiKhmuJTcDiZtacQFt2Ve6YeynbfDDIWHfQPJudJVa6v8_V-0oscGwynC0l27p4vXFlcXDbPJT_ivty_0P7a63u6UaAOCi-GbKryM/s1600/The+Courtship+of+Marian+&+Vin.jpg" height="366" width="400" /></a></div>
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I almost passed by you</div>
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your proudly waves</div>
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the allure of bare feet</div>
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the first rush of letting go of skin</div>
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the sin of salt</div>
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little pins on pressed sand</div>
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where sun's reflection plays catch and drown</div>
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then draws breath again</div>
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<br /></div>
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I had to pull away to see</div>
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your mouth all spray with wind</div>
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your rounded clean line embraced by sky</div>
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to find the turn of curved arm where I am</div>
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still waiting wet and wild with sand</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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(with loving memory of my mom & dad and how they loved the ocean)</div>
Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-32681365893485391622014-08-20T13:03:00.000-07:002014-08-20T13:03:00.118-07:00It Came on Wing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DjiRn2URbaiLRI4V8r_tO7zHCm7EZWvKcL3qy7O3PmcBbczhnFZDDfUxtN4mlVy60Oi3s0Tk29itekHXX6S61HaHpa1Y5zK_PQwXg9G9_xIoXRWPCaJzbIug3ju9oi7H9SgREqPKmOmO/s1600/IMG_7613.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DjiRn2URbaiLRI4V8r_tO7zHCm7EZWvKcL3qy7O3PmcBbczhnFZDDfUxtN4mlVy60Oi3s0Tk29itekHXX6S61HaHpa1Y5zK_PQwXg9G9_xIoXRWPCaJzbIug3ju9oi7H9SgREqPKmOmO/s1600/IMG_7613.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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It came on wing of air soft-tuned</div>
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waif of thought </div>
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loomed by mother’s willing knot</div>
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and the minutes daring sky dark tossed</div>
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Saying now is in between of see</div>
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a place of dream and slanted time</div>
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and if you open mind of eye</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
past goodbye to winged caprice</div>
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where peace holds eager at arms length</div>
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you’ll see around the curve of grace</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the lovely of a missing face</div>
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<br /></div>
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I know this thought is fulsome want</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and bids to see past seem of real</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to peel the skin between the strands</div>
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such faith is hard sometimes to feel</div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ve seen this bless of rip in fabric</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
all stitched down with stretch</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
elastic</div>
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to leave the room of bright lit tone</div>
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to find a song no not alone</div>
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but filled with fabric cinched not severed</div>
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between the clouds I’ve seen forever </div>
Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8905006778247653013.post-16139827837652270112014-08-17T14:23:00.000-07:002014-08-17T14:23:07.951-07:00On the Cement at Sunset<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOmLNKu9GqyIDsiIiPmc-EvWhfLHR0GLmBg2DHHHC3OWFmK-fvPYT6vBwSzzqkimbytYvfEMiZh21bG7XC6DuFZDXcL5VSZbgAUW3ZgjS0r62Kol2gpsYrYNsn1WqxtQHXD8rKTYtE6Sy/s1600/IMG_6245.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOmLNKu9GqyIDsiIiPmc-EvWhfLHR0GLmBg2DHHHC3OWFmK-fvPYT6vBwSzzqkimbytYvfEMiZh21bG7XC6DuFZDXcL5VSZbgAUW3ZgjS0r62Kol2gpsYrYNsn1WqxtQHXD8rKTYtE6Sy/s1600/IMG_6245.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
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The fingers of her heart<br />
tap out the measure of her feeling,<br />
fragile tapered candles they spark<br />
on the cement at sunset.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
All around her<br />
is a garden<br />
growing so much whatnot,<br />
lavished with wings,<br />
bees and hummingbirds<br />
surround her hair of dusk<br />
where embers glow<br />
with cinnamon.<br />
<br />
Listen to the sound<br />
of the stretching of her mind,<br />
it is stitching now a minute,<br />
growing colors,<br />
see there the lavender of abandon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPxYzlI7IUBiD352y1hop7srUIyqtzOb3bWKbdT2OPE2deT3M4APzC7dPV2KprWFNMZA2XxrenYvFZlmZbv7CUFwG-C0WoHoHDaqc7tyEuEL0zgRSCv22klCXwVsJDZ3JzrLGeBrFTJdx/s1600/IMG_6243.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPxYzlI7IUBiD352y1hop7srUIyqtzOb3bWKbdT2OPE2deT3M4APzC7dPV2KprWFNMZA2XxrenYvFZlmZbv7CUFwG-C0WoHoHDaqc7tyEuEL0zgRSCv22klCXwVsJDZ3JzrLGeBrFTJdx/s1600/IMG_6243.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I can see her from this window<br />
that distributes time<br />
wrapped in parchment<br />
and tied with twine.<br />
<br />
Her wings are splendid<br />
and her eyes are prisms<br />
that cast a shadow that burns,<br />
burns the quiet heart,<br />
torches the waiting pulse,<br />
breaths air into the coals.<br />
<br />
She is watching me,<br />
across the chasm of my vestibule<br />
she paints me with cinnabar<br />
and waits for me<br />
to walk with her<br />
out into someplace else.Martie Ingebretsenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11125842598453740569noreply@blogger.com0