Poetry Friday: Calm before the Storm

Last month I experienced, literally, the calm before the storm.

On Friday, October 26, I left for a writing retreat with my friend, poet Virginia Crawford. Ginny and I co-edited Voices Fly: An Anthology of Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Program.(Get the free PDF here. It's chock-full of poetry lessons and student responses.)

Michael S. Glaser, a former Maryland poet laureate, and his wife Kathleen led the retreat. It was held at Kirkridge Retreat Center, on Bangor Mountain in the Poconos, Pennsylvania. The title was "Returning Your Heart to Itself: Poetry and the Opening Door." I learned a little bit about Kathleen’s work with Courage Renewal, a program based on the fascinating work of Parker Palmer.

All weekend, we talked about the weather. Sandy was already approaching. How bad would it be? Would everyone make it home safely?

Of course, we didn’t spend the whole time panicking about what might be. Michael and Kathleen led us in discussing our creative work, how that relates to our day-jobs and our lives. We also had time for writing, and we had a chance to visit Columcille, a megalith park, just down the hill.

During our free-writing time, I drafted a couple of quick poetic sketches in response to the photos I took at Columcille. Here is one of my favorites, followed by an in-progress poem:

View from the Bell Tower at Columcille.

Window

The view is shaped --

a pointed steeple

without brick or slate

or people, no

weather vane

to top it off

or give direction.

Strange to call

an opening barren,

too small for all

but a leaf or two

stuck to stone.

Through this

narrow hall,

that tree alit

with brackened bark

red, orange leaves

in motion. A window

is a curse I think

for those who wish

to hide. Every time

I look, it calls,

“Outside! Outside!”

by Laura Shovan

I wish I had a good shot of the moon we saw on Saturday night. Not only was it full, and visible in spite of the gray weather, but it was surrounded by a huge ring of light – far distant from the moon itself. The ring made a giant circle in the sky. Remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it.

By Sunday night, the rain was falling. Most of Maryland was spared the worst of Hurricane Sandy. However, the area where I grew up – northern New Jersey – was badly hit.

I hadn’t thought of this poem as a response to the storm (or even to the weekend, despite the word "opening" in the retreat's title!). But the poem does deal with that outside/inside pull those of us who live urban and suburban areas often feel. We certainly felt it when my family spent those two stormy days stuck indoors, thankful we had power.

Family and friends in the area now have power and are back at school, but many people are still homeless. You can donate to the Red Cross here.

This week's Poetry Friday host is Anastasia at BookTalking. I'm grateful to our host -- and sure you will find more poetry to be grateful for at the Poetry Friday blog roll.