Corinne H. Smith: Poetry

Find peace in nature
And anywhere you can:
In long-distance mountain views
Or in a grain of sand.

Pure miracles surround us
On each flower, bush and tree.
We can catch them every day,
If we just stop to see.

Sure, sometimes Nature is unkind,
With storm or fang and claw:
But lessons lie in every act;
And most leave us in awe.

So as we all move forward
In these tough times and beyond,
We’ll need the peace that nature brings
To help us carry on.

Yes, find peace in nature,
And not just lines on leaves.
Its gifts are wrapped and hiding
In each sunrise, bloom, and breeze.

We need to be connected to
The world outside our door,
For it rejuvenates our souls:
It’s what we’re set here for.

So bundle up and head on out.
Find your connections, too.
Allow the universe to touch
The nature that’s in you.                

Corinne H. Smith
December 2016

Find peace in nature:
You can reach it any time.
And you can reap its benefits
Without spending a dime.

Just get yourself a special space
Where you can sit and stay,
And push your worries, thoughts, and cares
Aside … and then, away.

Allow yourself to open
To the wonders that abound
And take a big old wide-eyed view
From sky down to the ground.

You’ll have to put some minutes in.
But Wait until you See!
The coolest things simply appear
With sudden clarity.

Make this a frequent practice,
And you’ll see more every time.
Grow deliberately mindful,
And you won’t be nature-blind.

The plants and rocks and animals
That you meet far and near
Have stories that they’d like to share –
 If you would only hear.

Yes, find peace in nature.
 It’s not a background set.
Tell others what you’ve seen and learned,
If they’ve not found it yet.

We can all connect with nature.
It takes little to no fuss
No “others” live on this good earth:
Everything is “us.”

Corinne H. Smith,
December 2017

Most people mispronounce it —
At least, at first —
Because the double Ns should shorten the I
And make the name rhyme with “begin.”

Or they look at the letters too quickly
And reply to my messages with, “Dear Connie –”
Ick.

I’ve learned to cope by just answering correctly,
Spelling it with one R and two Ns;
Pronouncing it as though
I’m coming too fast around a corner,
And I “careen” toward you.

Why?
Because “Aunt Corinne” says it this way.
She was one of my mother’s roommates
Back at Penn, in nursing school,
Where they had the kind of adventures
Young women could have in the big city
In the post-war ‘40s and ‘50s.

Then they moved apart for the Real Life ones:
Corinne, to a nursing career in Buffalo;
My future Mom, to a marriage in the outer suburbs.
Two years later, I showed up.
My parents both liked the name.
Now the world had two of us.

In the 1960s, our families visited;
And we once posed
With two of Corinne’s three boys
In front of Niagara Falls.
Our mothers caught up again at Penn reunions.
And we would call Corinne on cold winter nights
Whenever we heard it was snowing big in Buffalo.

The decades slipped by.
We fell off to Christmas cards.

Until a few years ago, when I stopped in Buffalo,
And Corinne and I met for the first time as adults.

We had thirty years between us
And we were very different people.
But we still found common ground
And much to talk about,
As we shared our professional successes
Made good, in spite of personal challenges.

We could smile and look at each other
As new old friends;
And know without saying it
That we were proud of each other,
And that we had both done our best with the name.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Having an uncommon name means never finding personalized key fobs or notepads on any gift shop kiosk. Or emitting squeals of surprise and delight, if you do.

“Great Horned Owl, Male, Bubo virginianus”
Read the sign on the large cage.
Inside, a layered stack of gray-brown plumage
Sat perched on a wooden post.
A sudden disruption
From the other side of the nature center
Roused the napping nocturnal one
And caused avian lids to lift.
At once, the mass became a bird:
With a beak designed solely for ripping
And tripled talons that, if not for their grip on the bar,
Could otherwise shred me like junk mail.
His white bib and upright ear tuffs brought to mind
A number of tabby cats in my past.
As if to banish that thought,
The owl ruffled his feathers
And stretched his wings – even the injured one –
And left no doubt as to his identity.
A visitor to the side coughed gently,
And the animal’s head swiveled toward the sound
Like the lid on a mayonnaise jar.
No one moved.
We were statues in his fancy garden
Spying nothing of interest,
He turned instead to face me.
For an instant our pupils locked
And I was invisibly eviscerated by a predator’s scrutiny.
Meeting that amber stare (somehow both aloof and intense),
I could only stand frozen, my spine quickly fused,
Insecure in the knowledge that bigger did not mean stronger.
And in that moment, a measure of wildness passed between us;
Dissolving the thin wire mesh dividing “free” from “not”
And making us temporary equals on Planet Earth.
Those seconds became eons,
And the history of the world flew past, fast-forward,
Culminating in that nature center court,
Evolving into human and bird.
Seeing no worthy prey,
His gaze grew drowsy,
And he settled again into a daytime doze.
With our connection cut,
I was released from his hold
And could stumble the rest of the way down the path.
He had already forgotten me.
I was just one of the blurred hundreds
That passed by him this year.
But I will not soon forget him.
Whenever I walk in the woods at dusk
And hear his cousins call —
Hoo, hoo-hoo-hooooo —
His eyes will return to bore into my soul,
And I will be relieved, once again,
To not have been born a mouse.

When I was young and winter came,
I longed to go outside
And play and scamper in the snow
And sled and slip and slide.

My mother bundled me all up
With coat and hat and boots,
Some mittens and a thick-knit scarf,
And I was set to scoot.

I bounded out into our yard —
The funnest place to be!
I trudged across the new snowscape
And squealed with winter glee.

But once that cold air hit me,
My whole body said “Uh-oh.”
Immediately and urgently,
I knew I had to “go.”

I couldn’t turn around and march
Right back inside the door.
My mother would have had a fit
And given me what-for.

It would take much time and work
To peel off my cocoon.
But what else could I do?
I had to think of something soon.

Here was all this luscious snow,
Almost heaven-sent.
I picked a drift to settle in
And sat down, and I “went.”

I went right through my underwear;
I went right through my pants.
I went while no one else was there
Because I had the chance.

Before you wrinkle up your nose
And look quite mortified:
Please realize that before I sat
I moved my coat aside.

My bottom got real warm at first,
And then it got real cold.
I knew I had to jump right up
Before that ice took hold.

I wasn’t proud of what I did.
But really: Who would know?
My coat and pants got just as wet
From playing in the snow.

As I rolled snowballs into men,
My seat became quite stiff.
My secret was still safe, I thought.
I even took a whiff.

My Aunt Bert knew and told my mom.
“You know, she ‘goes’ out there.”
Mom never asked or scolded me.
I’m glad she didn’t care.

Fifty years have come and gone
Since I last “went” in snow.
I almost can’t believe I had
The courage then to “go.”

Today, if I’m out shoveling snow
And that old urge begins,
I either hurry back inside
Or try to hold it in.

So here’s a tip to girls out there
Who want to play in snow:
Go to the bathroom first — Or, SIT!
No one will ever know.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:  I’ve always been a fan of winter. I love how snow softens the ugliness and sharp corners of everyday life. Even with a small dusting, I’ll go out and clear the sidewalk, just to be busy in the midst of the flakes. Winter and I have shared a dirty little secret since my childhood, however. It didn’t occur to me to make it public until the “Me, As a Child,” prompt and poetry challenge came to my attention. Surely I can’t be the only girl who ever did this.

When the one who is gone
Lies before the first pew,
Our tears come.
Not for him, who has passed from our lives.
(We are mistaken to believe this is the reason.)
But instead, for ourselves:
For the new empty spaces,
For the lost conversations,
For the missed chances,
For the unsaid goodbyes.

His work is done.
Action and time
Have tied his loose ends.
He needs no tears.
It is we who remain –
We who must change –
We, who need them.

When others approach with wet faces,
Fumbling for suitable condolences,
Our tears come again.
Not for him, who has passed from our lives;
Not for ourselves, the empty spaces and missed chances;
But instead, for these others in front of us
Who are new to the loss,
And who have suddenly seen its reality
And have joined our club of sorrows.
And we hug them, hoping to pass on the silent scepter of acceptance,
Which we found ourselves only a few days earlier,
And which we alone have the power to bestow.

And when the cards come in the mail
With pastel flowers and swirling fonts,
And the senders say “Thinking of You,”
This is only partly true.
They think of him, who has passed from our lives.
They think of themselves, the empty spaces and missed chances.
They think of us, as a third choice,
Knowing that social graces require sympathetic cards.
And since they cannot reach out to him,
They instead reach out to us,
The next best people.
For when we next meet
Next week, next month, next year,
It will be with wet faces.
And we will cry for each other
And for the marvel of Life going on.

A hibernator in another state
Awoke this morning, took a look around,
And had some time to duly contemplate
The varied light and shadows on the ground.
His inner instincts led him to believe
The opposite of what you might expect:
Those sunbeams brightly shining did deceive
And meant we’d have six weeks of winter yet.
We Yankees to his north and to his east
Don’t need a rodent’s nose or pair of eyes.
Prognostications don’t change in the least
Our seasonal existence compromise.
It really doesn’t matter what he claims;
Our snowplows will keep busy, all the same.

It’s just a glacial lake, the experts claim.
T’was formed by eons-old retreating ice:
A kettle hole with walls of drift remained,
And no one would have called it Paradise.
Because the soil was unfit to till,
A stand of pines grew up on either side.
The oaks and shrubbery had space to fill,
And all of it, the water magnified.
But when a man arrived in ’45,
He nudged afloat a series of events.
With words and deeds, he set the place alive,
And countless pilgrims come as consequence.
His high regard for ev’ry tree and frond
Confirmed the sacredness of Walden Pond.

We walk in silence 'round the rim
Of this fair pond, this glacial lake,
Just as the morning rays begin
To jostle other folks awake;
And places where Thoreau had been
Are measured by each step we take.
We keep the water on our right
As Pradakshina bids us to.
We marvel at the play of light:
The Walden green, the Walden blue;
And think of Thoreau’s line of sight
As his small cove comes into view.
Although we honor those now gone,
We can’t help seeing ones still here:
The chickadees and jays sing on
From limbs above us, spreading cheer,
While chipmunks scurry at the dawn,
Across faint tracks of white-tailed deer.
The woods are filled with oaks and pines,
And hemlocks guard the southern span.
We pick up cones and stones designed
To join the cairn, as if by plan;
For history has deemed it a shrine
To Nature and not just one man.
This hallowed ground on which we meet
Was once the site of his homestead.
We pause and nod, and then retreat,
Hoping to spot an arrowhead;
And trust the heaven at our feet
Is somehow also overhead.

Suddenly
I hear them everywhere –
Sharp pointed pops
Made by sharp pointed pumps
Measuring off a determined pace.
Each time, they turn out to signal
A power march
Made by a woman
In a blue or black suit,
As if by punctuating the air
Above the concrete sidewalk
Or throughout the hollow hallway
She can tell the world,
"Don’t mess with me, babe;
I’ve got spiked heels
And I’m not afraid to use them."
With toes pinched into a crevasse
They were never bred to fit,
Each subsequent stride must surely be
More painful than the first.
And yet they tramp on:
Assuming that the anguish
Is worth the effort; and that
Image trumps Substance, hands down.
What drives someone to choose
Such a transparent method
Of announcing an entrance?

I move aside in bewilderment
And to avoid possible collision.
They pass me by
Without missing a beat,
On their way to what can only be
More vital appointments
Than I have ever had to meet.
They leave me in their wake,
Thankful.
I amble along in my hiking boots,
Showing the universe who I am
By the smile on my face.

New beings eventually arrived on the scene:
Ones that didn't migrate and didn't hibernate,
But built sturdy homes & lived off the same piece of land year round;
And, except for some routine warring against others of their kind,
Made every effort to live in harmony with the other creatures & plants
And hoped that their own supplies would last through the long winter.

But Spring came early to the Maples.
And after watching the squirrels, the Native Americans
Cut gashes into the bark during The Sugar Moon
And collected tree teardrops in woven birch baskets,
And gave thanks to the forest that fed them when game became scarce.

They showed the colonists how a chance drip of the ladle to the pot
Could make lines of molten candy in the snow.
And when it became unthinkable to buy Southern sugar,
Many a Northern table went without and served in its place
This local confection, crystallized topaz perfection.

To the settlers, the rushing river meant power;
And halls of brick sprang up along the shorelines in each town.
Irish, French-Canadian and European immigrants
Began making toys and tools, tapioca and paper.
And they had church groups and clubs and societies and socials
To while away their scraps of free time when the snowdrifts grew.

But Spring came early to the Maples.
And a mile north of the booming town center,
Solomon Johnson had bought the old Jones farm
On the road to North Orange, in the lee of the Tully Mountains.
Both he and Anna knew that it wasn't quite like their native Sweden.

Income from dairy cows supported their growing family,
But they also learned how to tap the trees on the property
Setting up an operation that made one luscious amber gallon
From every 40 gallons of transparent nectar the children gathered.
The community maple sugar suppers were not to be missed.

Now as our slow cold winter days drag into infinity,
Men in top hats rouse the dozing groundhog;
Store clerks silently trade crimson hearts for emerald clovers;
Motorists mutter while scraping ice from windshields -- again;
Snowbirds mail us annoying beach postcards from Florida;
Gardeners sigh as they turn the pages of colorful bulb catalogs.

And Spring comes early to the Maples.
And after a few cold nights and crisp blue-sky days,
We spy whiffs of steam rising from the sugar house chimney
As members of the fourth, fifth and sixth generations of Johnsons
Hook up their pipes and empty the contents of 3,000 buckets.

And like those old Russian canines, we get our mouths ready
As we take our seats at the breakfast tables,
Bumping into flannel shirts scented with wood,
Ready to accept the gravy of the gods, that golden liquid joy
And the knowledge that Life does indeed go on.

She stopped at the place when she came back to town –
Almost drove right past it, in fact,
For the years had made it barely recognizable.
After she rounded the curve and hit the brake,
She pulled over and got out to take a closer look;
And leaned against a post with a rusted sign
That at one time must have read “For Sale.”

The place was not as she remembered it –
And she found herself too startled to take it all in,
For she was used to a memory drawn by younger eyes
That smoothed out every wrinkle and turned old into new.
But its history was one that she knew by heart:
A century and a half’s worth of names and dates
And descendents who had all left to find success elsewhere.

It began with a tale of tradition: a man back from war
Who proposed and then built a house for his bride.
While he tended the fields and the livestock,
She saw to the vegetable garden and the children
And planted wisteria that hung from the tin roof of the porch,
Creating a cool respite from the hot Southern sun:
A space to snap beans, shuck corn, or to just sit and rock.

Now the woodlot that was once a working backdrop
Marched ever closer toward the buildings.
The barbed wire which had once kept in the animals
Was one trespasser’s misstep away from a tetanus shot.
The acreage that had once gone on forever
Had been sliced along each one of its edges and auctioned off
Until all that was left was this: the piece that no one wanted.

Yet Nature was reclaiming what man had abandoned --
New residents used paws and wings instead of calloused hands.
The purple vine did its best to hold the place together
Even as the west winds off the ridge tried to tear it apart.
It had grown tired, this once wonderful homestead;
And perhaps it wanted nothing more than to follow
In its creator’s path, and to lie down and sleep.

She visited the place several days in a row --
Watching from a distance, from the roadside:
Considering the past, the present, and the future,
For they were all laid out for her here, facing her.
How long she looked and thought, she could not say:
It was time enough for her tears to dry and her heart to burst.
Then she took the pen, and she signed the deed.

I played some ball when I was young
Thought it was hard but a whole lot of fun
So when I got to college I decided to play
We practiced and practiced and practiced all day
The coach was tough and we hated his guts
But I have to admit that he really trained us
He made our team the best it could be
Though the first three years saw little action for me
The summer before my senior year
I realized that I couldn’t come near
To the guy who had made records before
So I drilled and drilled and I drilled some more
As a wide receiver I could never run well
But now I could run just faster than hell
I played better than I ever dreamed I could
And the coach knew too that I was good
He put me into every game
Pretty soon all the fans repeated my name
If you’d ask, they’d say I was the best in the land
When I walked on, they all gave me a hand
That was the season we were never beaten
And all the other teams thought we were cheatin’
They said that I was really too old
And that this was somethin’ that had been untold
But they were wrong, those were just excuses
‘Cause the best team wins and the other one loses
And they were mad to admit they were wrong
They just couldn’t believe I was really that strong
They doubted me and some even laughed
When I was picked in a pro team draft
For me it was a far-fetched dream come true
But I felt that it was somethin’ that I could pursue
So I boarded the bus and headed for the town
I knew I couldn’t let my reputation go down
During our training I worked harder than ever
And I just kept gettin’ better and better
By the first of the season I could really fly
Do the 100-yard dash in the blink of an eye
But I wasn’t a starter, wouldn’t be for a while
(And the coach had to tell me this with a smile)
Tom “The Bomb” played my position
And this became my “Dethrone Tom” mission
He was good, and I guess I knew
But I thought I was pretty good too
Every week I sat alongside on the bench
I had a thirst for action that I just couldn’t quench
Though the team was superb without yours truly
Except at some times when they got unruly
And that season we went straight to the top
Seems Tom “The Bomb” just couldn’t be stopped
Until we got into the championship
When Tom got tackled and did a flip
And landed on a sore left knee
The coach had to put in little ole me
This was my big chance, ‘cause Tom was in pain
And I knew how much we had to win this game
With one minute left in the final quarter
I proved that I was no amateur
We were five points behind; a 40-yard pass
Came my way; I caught it with class
And ran all the rest of the way downfield
When I made the touchdown, my head just reeled
I had finally lived my life-long dream
And I was so happy I wanted to scream
Poor Tom just sat and watched me run
He congratulated me when it was done
But I was dazed, my thoughts beyond reason
And I thought it was the perfect end of the season
To Tom “The Bomb” it was the end
He was told his knee could not mend
As well as it had been before
He would never again be able to score
I was the one to take his place
But he made an impression I’ll never erase
I admired him and I always will
He was a man of undeniable skill
For exactly six years after that
I was the one who left men flat
And the fans just loved it and began to write
To say they’d seen me on Monday night
I had a string of followers a hundred miles long
In their eyes, I could do no wrong
Once I went back to my old high school
All the kids there thought I was real cool
I told them how they ought to begin
To have the power to run and the will to win
Just like I had done ten years before
And when I tried to stop talkin’, they pleaded for more
It was then that I knew I was on the upclimb
As a football player, I was in my prime
When I went back to the team that year
I knew this game was my career
But a punky little college kid from the East
Who weighed about 150 pounds (at least)
Came to the team and could take my place
If it happened that I got smashed in the face
I told him to get lost and when he asked me why
I told him I could throw him higher than the sky
‘Cause Tom told me that a long time ago
When I was just a punky kid that he didn’t know
But this kid was different, this kid named Jim
And, well, I had a long talk with him
I saw a lot of things that looked just like me
I knew he’d do well if I had an injury
And sure enough, his time came
My fourth time in the championship game
When all my fans the whole world over
Could feel that guy as he crunched my shoulder
For Jim, this was his first real test
And I was sure he’d give it his best
I watched him and knew how Tom had felt
‘Cause I saw my image start to melt
But to me Jim had really become a friend
And when I needed, I could count on him again
For a couple of years after that, we both played
Till Jim was the victim of a trade
The year after that, I retired
Now Jim was the guy who was greatly admired
And I was in the background, all alone
I remembered my mission of wanting to dethrone
Tom “The Bomb” and now I was out
And Jim was Number One without a doubt
All those many years of football I will never forget
The great plays I’ve run, the great people I’ve met
But it still just seems like some wild dream
The days I reigned over that football team