Author: Joanne Corey

Please come visit my eclectic blog, Top of JC's Mind. You can never be sure what you'll find!

Binghamton Poetry Project Spring 2019

I actually managed to attend all five weeks of Binghamton Poetry Project this semester and decided to submit to our anthology, even though I could not make today’s final reading. I generally post the poems that I put in the anthology after the reading.

The first two poems were actually written in the summer session of 2018, but there is no anthology in the summer, so I decided to publish them this time. A note on “An American Family”:  I want to acknowledge that indigenous/First Nations people are the original Americans; this poem refers to the vast majority of people in the United States who are either descendants of immigrants or immigrants themselves.

Enjoy!
*****
At Thirteen Months

My granddaughter grabs
at the floor lamp again
knowing that it is forbidden
but not that it is dangerous

looking at the adults
in the living room
knowing we will say
no

will pick her up
take her away
set her down
in the middle

of the room
where her toys
are scattered only
to have her rush

back to the lamp
look to make sure
we are watching
repeat the scenario

I finally resort
to what I did
with her mother
take her away

but hold her
in my arms instead
of placing her on the floor
she squirms and cries

a bit but
thirty seconds
is a long time
for a 13-month-old

she toddles back
to toys not lamp
a tear glistening
on her cheek

*****

An American Family

We are an American family
but people stare.

At the park, they assume
my sister is her children’s nanny.

I worry about my brown-skinned
nephews being stopped by the police,
but not my blond one.

Most Americans have roots
in Europe, Asia, or Africa.
Why is it so hard to accept
our family’s roots in all three?

What could be more American?

*****

We always wanted to roast marshmallows

after the hot dogs and hamburgers
had been grilled
and the charcoal glowed
red, under its ashen coat

We cut green sticks
whittling them down
to a point
ready to pierce

the Jet-Puffeds
We didn’t want
them to catch
fire, to burn

black, just a nice
golden brown
soft and sweet
as we three

girls, protected
from charred
bitterness
and burnt tongues

JC’s Confessions #3

On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert does a recurring skit, now a best-selling book, called Midnight Confessions, in which he “confesses” to his audience with the disclaimer that he isn’t sure these things are really sins but that he does “feel bad about them.” While Stephen and his writers are famously funny, I am not, so my JC’s Confessions will be somewhat more serious reflections, but they will be things that I feel bad about. Stephen’s audience always forgives him at the end of the segment; I’m not expecting that – and these aren’t really sins – but comments are always welcome.
~ JC

When Stephen does Midnight Confessions, in his lead-up he often says that he doesn’t get to go to church as often as he would like and he misses one of his favorite things, going to confession. At which point, I usually think, “Said no Catholic ever!” Everyone with whom I have ever spoken about it feels that it is a stressful situation, even with a good confessor (and downright terrifying with a poor one).

For the last several years, our diocese has had a day during which every church is open for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as confession is more properly called. I confess that I find it very creepy that they advertise this on television and with billboards, as though mercy and forgiveness are commodities.

It also makes it seem as though forgiveness is only available through this sacrament, even though the church recognizes many other routes for this, such as the penitential rite during liturgy, asking for forgiveness from someone whom you have hurt, prayer, making reparations, and receiving the Eucharist. Indeed, individual confession is only required in the case of serious sin, one which fractures the relationship of the person with God.

I admit, not confess, that I haven’t gone to individual confession in years. This is partly due to a priest from my past who was so unstable I was afraid to be alone with him. Even though he is no longer a threat to me, it makes the thought of going to confession even more fraught.

What is even more difficult is figuring out how to confess my own part in social sin. I grieve that the United States is participating in violence and injustice, degrading the environment and the climate, and lacking in compassion and assistance for those most in need. We are called in our Constitution to “promote the general welfare”; my faith tells me to love and serve my neighbors near and far. Even though I try to oppose what is unjust and to help those in need, I still bear guilt for being part of an unjust system. Seeking forgiveness for these social sins feels hollow, because I am no less a part of the social system after confession than I was before it.

Wow! When I said in my standard introduction to this series that my reflections would be “more serious,” I didn’t mean to make it quite this serious.  Still, we are living in very serious times with many very serious problems confronting us daily. I can only hope that my trying to do my part in repairing the damage will join with the efforts of other people of good will to improve our country and our world.

One-Liner Wednesday: spring

“Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems.”
~~~ Rainer Maria Rilke
*****
Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/04/10/one-liner-wednesday-waiting/

SoCS: more things on my walls

A while back, Linda’s prompt had to do with things that we had hanging on our walls – or art we owned or something like that…

At any rate, I didn’t share some things I have hung that are made of fabric.

In the living room, I have an art quilt of trees that I really love:
tree-quilt.jpg

In the dining room, we have framed some piecework that my husband’s great-grandmother had done. She was planning to make them into a coverlet, but never got around to it. His mom had the top piece in her cedar chest, and we cut it into pieces that worked with frames. The cloth she used was very interesting. It came from sample books from Arnold Print Works, where B’s grandfather worked. I love to look at the different fabric prints of the time. It is a bit strange to see some swastikas, though. The fabric is so old that it was well before the time of Hitler when the symbol was called a Teutonic cross, among other names.
dining-room-quilt.jpg
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “fab”. Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/04/05/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-6-19/ 

One-Liner Wednesday: a sad anniversary

Remembering those killed or wounded in the shooting at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York ten years ago today.
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Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/04/03/one-liner-wednesday-will-ferguson-you-should-read-his-books/

JC’s Confessions #2

On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert does a recurring skit, now a best-selling book, called Midnight Confessions, in which he “confesses” to his audience with the disclaimer that he isn’t sure these things are really sins but that he does “feel bad about them.” While Stephen and his writers are famously funny, I am not, so my JC’s Confessions will be somewhat more serious reflections, but they will be things that I feel bad about. Stephen’s audience always forgives him at the end of the segment; I’m not expecting that – and these aren’t really sins – but comments are always welcome.
~ JC

I spends bunches of time playing mindless computer games, most often when I am watching television. Theoretically speaking, I could be doing more constructive things, like catching up on correspondence or writing posts or poems.

Theoretically.

The truth is that I use games as a distraction or a calming mechanism when my mind isn’t capable of creative or deep thought.

As I have often said, it’s not that I don’t have time for writing, editing, submitting, etc., it’s that I don’t have brain.

SoCS: dough

Today, E and I took ABC to her first theater experience, a performance of Sesame Street Live. The theme was magic, but a lot of the story revolved around things that turned out to be science. One of those things was making cookie dough out of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar and adding heat to make it into cookies.

My other dough experience of the week was making pie dough for a birthday pie for Paco who turned 94 on Tuesday. I wanted to make him a prune-apricot pie. Unfortunately, it had been a loooong time since I had baked a pie from dried fruit. And I was super tired because I had been up at night with ABC and then had trouble getting back to sleep. I realized too late that I had forgotten the salt in the crust. D’oh! I also didn’t put as much water in the fruit when I stewed it as I should have, so the apricots didn’t soften as much as I would have liked and I didn’t have very much juice to thicken. Still, it all worked out okay as Paco enjoyed it very much.

I thought that doing an unsweetened pie might also appeal to Nana, who hasn’t had much appetite lately, but it didn’t sound good to her. She is still eating breakfast, but usually not much for lunch and supper and she doesn’t like things that are too sweet. One of the hospice rules is that she can eat whatever she wants and we are following that. We have gotten some coffee ice cream to keep on hand because it was always one of her favorites, the bitterness of the coffee cutting the sugar. We’ll see if she wants to try some someday soon.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “dough/d’oh”. Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/03/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-30-19/

One-Liner Wednesday: change

The key to the passage of time is change.
– Abyssbrain of mathemagicalsite.wordpress.com

(This has been sitting in my drafts folder for a loooooong time. The site has since been deleted.)

Come join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday!  Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/03/27/one-liner-wednesday-spring-is-sprung/

Lent in my church

Many Catholic churches use bare branches instead of flowers during Lent. In recent years, my church has used small trees instead of branches. This Lent, the church environment committee went one step further.

img_20190309_165820503.jpg
It’s the first time I can recall seeing the corpus removed from the cross.

I find it very striking. It reminds me of some of the Lenten hymns that speak of Jesus being hung on or nailed to “a tree.”

Some people may find this too unusual a presentation.

Feel free to share your comments below.

beverage of choice

I have been (perhaps inordinately) happy with my choice of milk lately.

Because the other adults in the house are all lactose intolerant, they drink Fairlife ultrafiltered milk, which has a good taste, unlike milks with lactase added, which I find too sweet.

However, when my doctor recommended that I increase my calcium intake, I decided that I would save the Fairlife for others in the house and choose a less expensive option for me. The problem is, though, that I don’t like to drink milk from the standard plastic jugs that are most common here in the US. It tends to taste a bit plastic-y to me, so I thought I could buy milk in cartons.

This was easier said than done.

It turns out that few milk producers use cartons anymore, but, at our local Wegman’s, I found another solution.
milk bottle

It is so much fun to have milk in a glass bottle, as it was usually distributed before they went to paper cartons. This dairy also vat pasteurizes their milk and even offers non-homogenized milk so that a layer of cream rises to the top of the bottle.

I have chosen to drink 2% milk, as a compromise between those who think one shouldn’t have dairy fat and those who think dairy fat is helpful to your diet.

A bonus is that the dairy is relatively closeby, about 120 miles from where I live, which is close enough to qualify as local in locavore terms.

Another bonus is that the bottles are returned and reused, cutting down on the waste stream or the processing needed to recycle.

The milk is delicious! It somehow seems colder when it is poured fresh from the fridge. Research shows that that is all in my head – or perhaps in my fingers as the difference in conductivity of a thick glass bottle versus a paper or plastic container is going to make the glass bottle feel colder. Glass is also good because it doesn’t transfer flavors into the milk as some plastics can.

I am drinking more milk than I was, which is helping my calcium intake go up. I am also taking supplemental vitamin D, knowing that light can degrade it, although, once I get the milk home, it is in the dark most of the time.

Unless that little light is not going off when the refrigerator door closes…