Honoring Michael John Kelly, casualty of Vietnam

Whenever we do the rounds to clean off family graves, my husband takes the clippers and brush to his family's markers and I use whatever's at hand to uncover the markers of whichever of their "neighbors" have been  left long unattended. Today my hands were sore (darned arthritis) by the time I reached a very special overgrown marker. Unable to uncover it completely, I now feel the need  to share a remembrance of a young Marine killed in Vietnam.

Michael John Kelly was only 20 when he was killed by "an explosive device" in Quang Tri in South Vietnam. He now rests beside Sean Patrick Kelly, whom I assume to be his younger brother, and who, in turn, rests beside a couple I assume to be their parents. It looks like  their father was also a Marine who survived WWII, and was awarded the Purple Heart.

Thank you to the Kelly family for your sacrifice.

http://vietnam-casualties.findthedata.org/m/l/26818/Michael-John-Kelly

My heart also goes out to yet another Michael, who was visiting his father and sister, and preparing for the imminent passing of his mother.

What do I think of smoking?

What do I think of smoking?

It stinks.

But not the smoke
those diaphanous tendrils
that tease thoughts of other days
longer days
quieter days

days when time couldn’t move fast enough

when dreams were focused
on a far distant future
where life would be in my grasp
and the world would be mine to conquer

days when worries were spent
on returning home in time
to catch a new episode of Bonanza
or the once-per-year showing
of a favorite Disney movie

days when treasures awaited
around every bend in the road
and fears were erased
by simply pulling a blanket over my head

days when I could curl up
into a soft, comforting lap to fall asleep
with one ear tuned to an Errol Flynn movie
and the other to my grandfather’s heartbeat

days when the smell of cigarette smoke
mingled with coffee
and hot bread from the Italian woman next door
slathered with fresh sweet butter
--the kind that comes in chunks
rather than neat rectangular cubes--
and the sound of my grandmother’s voice
her soft Norvegian accent
arguing about long dead presidents
and then laughing
as though she had never been arguing at all

days when the lingering smell of cigar smoke
meant the milkman had come and gone
and the more gentle smell of a pipe
meant someone special was visiting, still

It’s strange to realize how much
I hate the smell of cigarette ashes
how cigarette buttes make me gag
how anxious I am to flee an elevator
after being trapped inside with a smoker
--that fact obvious by the odor on his clothes

and yet the smoke itself spurs memories
that can make me almost believe
I can curl up in my bestefar’s lap
and hear him call me karesta
while I fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat
and my grandmother’s laughter
and the smell of hot buttered Italian bread.

Ojibwe: "Woman of the Sound Rushing through the Stars"

Fascinating information about Ojibwe history & language

Preserving & teaching the language efforts of University of Michigan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaDcg5-K1Oo

Jane Johnstone Schoolcraft, aka Bamewawagezhikaquay, or "Woman of the Sound Rushing through the Stars," biography: http://nativeamericanencyclopedia.com/jane-johnston-schoolcraft-ojibwa/?fb_action_ids=10201142028625845&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

mp3 of one of her poems being sung in Ojibwe: http://www.umich.edu/~ojibwe/songs/nindinendam.html

intheend_trailer

Poem: Bawating (Ojibwa/Chippewa word for "Gathering Place"

Bawating*

A chill air wakes summer warmed waters

into a weave of mists

as tentacles of time

tempt the ghosts of a thousand yesterdays

to rise up and greet the dawn.

Warriors in wisps and white feathers

and slivery maidens

with hair of corn silken silver

milked from the moon

join in a dance of remembrance.

But their fires burn cold

and soft

with flames of quicksilver

like minnows swimming skyward

and smoke of earthbound clouds.

XxXxX

*According to Wikipedia and a Sault St Marie casino’s web site (?) Bawating is a Chippewa word meaning “gathering place.” I will investigate further…. But I chose that word for a title, because the area that inspired this poem is in Hamburg Township, Michigan, which near as I can tell was a Chippewa gathering place and hunting grounds. To my understanding, this area was not a place of permanent residence until the current townships were formed in the early to mid 1800s.

Prophecy's Drum & Clarion Write-A-Thon

I've been working on my novel, working title "Prophecy's Drum" in conjunction with the Clarion Write-A-Thon. You can read chapter one at http://bit.ly/19SG4ny (consider sponsoring me to read more?)

Dedicated readers have access to my private Prophecy's Drum blog. For you folks, I've got 12 chapters posted now (I've reposted 1 through 8 because I've made some revisions and have adjusted chapter lengths.

Blank page words

This is a result of #BlankPage writing, an exercise through which I clear my mind and write words as they come to me, with no plan at all. I never know what might result. A poem? A story? A blog post? A jumble of words that make no sense at all?

Here is today's result:

There is emptiness

complete

filling every fiber

every pore

It seeps and binds

and winds its way in

Fuel for dark rapture

Emptiness that clings

and forms

and locks in the cold

the old

the unwanted

forgotten

abandoned toys of childhood

joys of youth

ancient longings creeping in

under the floorboards

beneath rusty nails

a holy grail of

Emptiness