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.
