Lightning flashes, thunder rolls, and the guy bagging my groceries jokes about it being the end of the world (what with the hail and flooding to go along with the storm).

It's always a surprise when the clear blue sky that winked and assured you on your way to the store has, once you enter and start to shop, abandoned you to the darkness of deep storm. What a bait and switch.

My main concern, as thunder sounds like canned goods on a conveyor belt and hail rattles the windows sounding like all the rice in the world dumped out of one gigantic bag, is making sure my daughter, who at fourteen is old enough to be left at home from this shopping trip, isn't frightened by herself in the midst of all this mercurial melodrama. Having done that (no she is not frightened — she is actually thrilled with the beauty of the storm as it flashes across the sky light and the windows), I turn my thoughts to the task of running through the rain with plastic bags of groceries in hand.

It's nothing really — the trouble of doing so — when you think that I do have food in these storm proof plastic bags and I have a car to run to and then a home to drive to after that. I sit in the car for a while, thinking of all the rain storms I have seen in my life (and being from Florida, I've seen more than my fair share) and thinking: what a gift it is to be able to see one again. Life is beautiful.

Flashlights and hurricane lamps are spectacles, necessary glasses in storm-prone Florida, if you will,  that I have put aside. I left them behind in my move to Minnesota. Now, I long to pick them up once more and use them to read the storm in the way I was once accustomed to. There is something primal and satisfying in riding out a storm and getting by without electricity — with a cold meal and candlelight — seeing everyday things transformed through the lens of storm illumination.

Once I get home and hug my daughter, the day couldn't get much better for me. We watch the sky with the lights out.

        

Image courtesy of Ellywa

In this month's issue of InTheFray Magazine, Imagine contributor, B. Tyler Burton, takes you for a walk you wont likely forget in his short story, The Stream.

Also in this issue, Stella Chung takes a journey through China's Hainan province in The two Sanyas. In An uncle breaks the silence, Michelle Chen tells of how her parents and her uncle live with the latter's diagnosis of schizophrenia.We finish this month's issue with Amy O'Loughlin's review of Eduardo Galeano's book Mirrors.

        

Prairie phlox and purple loosestrife, field thistle and bittersweet nightshade...

When I was a child bedeviled by freckles, I was told that they were kisses from the sun. I took that with all of the natural disgust that would come to anyone so patronized.

Now, all grown up and with most of my sun love-tokens faded, I am charmed by the description and can't help but think of it when I see the fields here in Minnesota sporting flowers like freckles — multitudinous and undisguisable — kisses from the sun.

My early morning commute includes rolling fields of purple flowers climbing up and down the hills that run alongside me like faithful hounds and the rush hour cars look like herds of mechanical animals in migration.

On this morning's drive, my daughter crows with triumph at having spotted (in her usual morning license plate game) a big point winner — a "whiskey plate".

She tells me that whiskey plates, she heard from her dad, are issued by the state to identify DUI/DWI drivers to make surveillance of them easier and that police are empowered to pull them over at any time.

A process by which the state issues a specially coded license plate to DUI/DWI drivers to make surveillance of them easier for law enforcement officers? Does that sound like an urban legend to you? It did to me.

Looking it up online with the intent to show her that whiskey plates are nothing more than an urban legend proved to be educational — for me.


Surprise!


Image courtesy of Examiner.com

Whiskey plates are real and have been around for a while. They have inspired discussion boards and debate, both online and in the real, legislative world. What do you think? Are they an invasion of privacy? A violation of rights? An ineffective slap on the wrist to  repeat offenders who should not be driving at all? A cost-effective way to monitor repeat offenders while allowing them the privilege of driving?


Links of interest

Minnesota Wild Flowers: Purple
What do whiskey plates in Minnesota look like?
Minnesota Lawyers: Whiskey Plates in Minnesota
Interesting discussion about Minnesota plates
Whiskey Plates, Public Humiliation?
Smiley face plate retired


Weird plates and license plate art:


Florida Jesus plate: Source


Kentucky "Teletubbies-look" plate: Source



License plate handbag



Superman license plate art



License plate map

        

By Annette Marie Hyder

latticework leaves tendril the sky
casting shadows
like the sly half-mast of lashes
curled against the soft cheek of the grass

the brook arches an eyebrow
and slips its arms around the whole scene
whispering to the woods and the field to come away
come away, on a sweet summer day

(It's not officially summer until the 21st but it feels like summer has arrived here in Minnesota .)

        

“Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery


The Cannon of Those Who Have Gone Down Before Us
Annette Marie Hyder

Our soldiers lie under blankets
that are made of hard cold ground
they rest their eyes on a dark-some sky
in chambers without sound.

The clean kiss of dirt
has swallowed them down and cast
from 'ashes to ashes and dust to dust'
to their final bed at last.

But it is still remembered
that theirs was the hero's way
The memory shines brightly
on this 31st day of May .

Remembrances are candles lit
against the death of being forgot.
These fighters of ours were flesh and blood
whether tin soldiers or not.
 
Every tombstone is a witness,
every flag a shout to those who can hear
that the dead are not forsaken
though buried now for years.

Those who have fallen in service
drum their names to us in the way
that they are in our beating hearts —
live on in vessels of clay.

We tuck them in close and tight.
We shoot fireworks off in the night.
We party and picnic and shout and cavort.
We celebrate and our day is a fort

that shakes with the gunpowder
of our feelings, with the cannon — louder —
of those who have gone down before us
to save the ones at home.



Memorial Day

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service.

Have you seen the many people out and about in the graveyards? I've had occasion to drive by three graveyards (none of these was a military graveyard) since this past Friday and in each one I saw graves being tended and cared for and mementos being left.

I don't usually notice graveyards. They lie quiet along the way, are empty of movement, avoid my gaze easily. So of course I can't help but notice when there are so many people thronging through a place usually desolate by day or by night. I guess Memorial Day leads people to think of their dead loved ones whether they were in the military or not. I think that is a good thing.

My sister tells me that red poppies signify remembrance for the fallen soldiers and refers me to a story about how Moina Michael, inspired by the poem, In Flander's Field, conceived of the idea to wear poppies to honor the fallen soldiers.

The Memorial Day History site reports:

In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem. She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it. 

So if you see red poppies being worn, that is the reason why.

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae, 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


Moina Michael's reply:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.


Links of interest:
American Widow Project  (This one is via my sister)
American Legion
Flag rules and regulations
Final Deployment (poem)
Headstones Are a Fitting Metaphor (poem)

        

Jasmine Rain's Poem
Storm blossoms pelt pell-mell
Then float away
Spinning like paper umbrella wishes

That lilt like lazy benedictions
On the breeze
And leave contrails

Of perfume lingering in the green
Freshly woken world.

        

tanka with kigo
Annette Marie Hyder

sunset paints windows
of the apartment building,
transforms rows of glass

into art on the tall walls:
a reflecting gallery


Windows

Windows: for climbing as well as looking out of, for closing against the cold, for fastening against the night, for surveillance out of and for peeking into. When the colors from a sunset dazzle windowpanes, transforming them into works of art hung on the sides of buildings, I always think of the origin of the word window:

From Wikipedia

The word Window originates from the Old Norse ‘vindauga’, from ‘vindr –wind’ and ‘auga – eye’, i.e. "wind eye". In Norwegian Nynorskand Icelandic the Old Norse form has survived to this day (in Icelandic only as a less used synonym to gluggi), in Swedish the word vindöga remains as a term for a hole through the roof of a hut, and in the Danish language ‘vindue’ and Norwegian Bokmål ‘vindu’, the direct link to ‘eye’ is lost,just like for 'window'. The Danish (but not the Bokmål) word is pronounced fairly similar to window.

Window is first recorded in the early 13th century, and originally referred to an unglazed hole in a roof. Window replaced the Old English‘eagþyrl’, which literally means ‘eye-hole,’ and ‘eagduru’ ‘eye-door’.Many Germanic languages however adopted the Latin word ‘fenestra’ to describe a window with glass, such as standard Swedish ‘fönster’, or German ‘Fenster’. The use of window in English is probably due to the Scandinavian influence on the English language by means of loanwords during the Viking Age. In English the word fenester was used as a parallel until the mid-1700s and fenestration is still used to describe the arrangement of windows within a facade.

From Webster's 1828 Dictionary, Window, n. [ G. The vulgar pronunciation is windor, as if from the Welsh gwyntdor, wind-door.] 

Links of interest

Throughout history, whether primitive holes in the wall,  mullioned lead and glass windows, paper windows (China, Korea and Japan), flattened pieces of translucent animal horn (14th century Northern Britain), or plates of thinly sliced marble, windows have protected the inhabitants from the elements and transmitted light. Wikipedia

The stained glass windows of a certain church came to life at night in George Macdonald's At the Back of the North Wind. Click here for free (in the United States) At the Back of the North Wind eBook formats at The Gutenberg Project, or here for editions through Amazon.com

According to Acts 20:7-12, during Paul’s third journey he preached an exceptionally long sermon in Traos. A young man, sitting in an upstairs window sill, went to sleep and fell out the window. He was thought to be dead, but Paul revived him.

The nine most famous windows in history
Windows on the World Restaurant
Images of famous windows

        

Artwork by EmilyHabermehl


The new issue of Empowerment4Women Magazine is up! Check out this awesome issue filled with wit and wisdom from poets and writers and art that kisses your eyes.

I have four poems in this issue: Branches fret, Dark Wings on White Skies, Spirits on the Wind and Skeleton Keys (photo credit Jasmine Rain Hyder), and a photoem entitled Spring Tanka.

There are new Facing Feminism: Feminists I Know photoems up:  78. Jessie, 79. Helen, 80. Nicole, 81. Michelle, 82. Ren, 83. Belinda, 84. Marysia, 85. Jane.

In addition to viewing their photoems at the Photoem Gallery at Empowerment4Women Magazine, you can view them at the project site at mnartists.org (just click on any photoem to enlarge and search by number) and check out these contributor's websites:

Jessie Carty's blog and Referential Magazine
Helen Losse's Windows Toward the World and Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Ren Powell.com
Belinda Subraman.com
Jane Ormerod.com

        

Image Public Domain, Gutenberg Project


RSVP
Annette Marie Hyder

this weather — so damp —
it's a postage stamp licked a little
too enthusiastically
and affixed to the envelope
that holds the letter
just begging Spring to come
her presence is sorely missed

roots are the sprawling cursive
writing that spells out her address
the smudges are impatience
red wax of hope's been sealed
and pressed


Link of interest:
Do I Need an Umbrella?

        

Some are just naturally happier about Easter than others:


Image courtesy of absentfromthepresent at Deviantart

Hope this day was a happy one for you!


tanka with kigo
Annette Marie Hyder

pagan beliefs line
the overflowing basket
like soft easter grass

filaments of heathen myths
cushion christianity