Author: Deb Zuroski

If The Fates Allow

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As I stood at the window a little after noon today, a tufted titmouse landed on the sill. We looked at each other for a moment before he warbled a sweet note and flew off, leaving behind only two small bird footprints in the snow that has been falling steadily for several hours. 

I’ve been thinking about friends and family. Certain lyrics — “…we all will be together, if the fates allow” — resonate. I miss my distant family deeply. More than once this year, I have had to argue myself out of going to events that I wanted to attend with a longing that nineteenth century writers expressed so well because they knew what we’ve forgotten, that sometimes you cannot be where you want more than anything to be.  

Although we are not religious, we decorate a tree every Christmas. Many of the ornaments are pictures of family or are handmade, like the pictured snowflake from my mother-in-law. We bought this year’s tree from Gene, a veteran who sells fresh cut trees in a small parking lot behind a gas station in the East Liberty neighborhood. 

It’s as seedy as it sounds and Gene may be the nicest man you’ll ever meet. In his 70s, he’s tall with the ramrod spine of a man who spent some serious time in uniform and he barks orders like he’s still wearing the insignia of a leader. My kids aren’t used to authority figures and they were delighted by his “you do this” and “you carry that” teasing demands. Perhaps we would not have made particularly good soldiers but we jumped to obey his commands as though we were. We talked about him the entire ride home and agreed that, if the fates allow, we’ll buy from him again next year. 

If the fates allow … 

Tristan’s 2020 Wreath

A week before the zoo was shuttered by the new closure rules, we were blessed to make our annual wreaths at their fundraiser. They changed the structure this year, reducing attendance to 3 masked families at a time and using their auditorium to ensure that we had a lot of social distancing. The four of us shared a big round table, laughing and teasing each other while we decorated our wreaths.

Haley’s 2020 Wreath

I took lots of pictures of my three blessings as they leaned into each other and discussed their creations. Then, we squealed (okay, Haley and I squealed) over the prehensile-tailed porcupine named Rianna who was happy to eat her dried mango and pose for pictures (per the handler, don’t touch her tail unless you want to spend the rest of your day pulling quills from your torso). 

Ian’s 2020 Wreath

Ian’s wreath is a treatise on the failures of capitalism in a pandemic. It’s not outdoor-friendly so we’re using it as a table wreath to maintain its quality. Also, it can’t hang because it’s very heavy!

Might have a poem to share before year-end. It depends a lot on my brain which is a dangerous thing to rely on these days.

Wear a mask. Stay safe. Don’t let your guard down; we still have months to go before the vaccine is widely distributed. 

Wishing you all the best.

If The Fates Allow

A Different Thanksgiving

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Today, I will not think about the hurdles I have missed, the losses that I have experienced, the abiding sorrow that has rooted in my soul. Instead, I will cultivate peace and consider some of blessings of this year: 

I am thankful this year for the time I spent watching hummingbirds while my youngest snoozed in our hammock and our pups sprawled on the warm sun-spotted deck, feet twitching as they dreamed their doggie dreams. 

I am thankful for good health for myself and my family and for whatever good fortune has allowed us, thus far, to avoid the catastrophe of COVID-19. 

I am thankful for the many, many people working in hospitals who have sacrificed their physical and mental health, their time with family, their personal safety to care for the hundreds of thousands of people who have been hospitalized with this mysterious disease. 

I am thankful for honest public servants who have done their best — with little guidance — to keep us safe. 

I am thankful for Zoom calls, text messages and emails with friends and family.

I am thankful for Animal Crossing and Breath of the Wild and virtual Jackbox game nights and Discord Terraria with my kids.

I am thankful for grief abated by joy and for hope.

It will be a difficult Thanksgiving for more than 260,000 families who have lost someone to COVID-19. Take care of yourselves so that it won’t be an even more difficult Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, 2021 for your family, without you.

Stay safe. Stay home. Wear a mask.

A Different Thanksgiving

BOO!

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I woke up at 5:30 in the morning recently with two phrases swirling around in my brain. One of them, “mourning for one’s self,” is from the poem “Melancholia” by C. Dale Young. The other, “slip this skin,” is from the Bruce Springsteen song, “Streets of Philadelphia.” Did you make the same connection I made — growth, change, fear? I wrote most of the poem right then, in my phone’s notes app. It still needs some polishing but I like the idea it represents. 

The last month has been busy. I’ve been submitting poems to a variety of poetry festivals and literary journals. In addition, I’m STILL editing the novel I finished. Plus, I just finished the first draft of a picture book. I’m absolutely in love with the main character so I’m going to put the story away for a couple weeks. I can’t edit my little guy until he’s no longer in my head. 

Like poetry, picture books rely on a small number of words to convey their message. Having grown up as a writer in the minimalist writing movement, I really appreciate the goal of requiring every word to matter, every word to carry a significant amount of the weight of the idea. Have you ever listened to an audiobook and been suddenly yanked out of the story by a word that is just wrong? When you’re writing 100,000 words, an untidy word here or there is pretty easy to miss and less impactful than in a story or poem that’s 100 words long. 

I’ve been working on sestinas lately. The form is really challenging: six stanzas of six lines each and a final tercet, which is a three-line stanza. 

That isn’t what makes it challenging. The six final words of the first stanza are the final words (in a changing order) of each stanza of the poem. For example: 

Apples red (A)
Sunshine yellow (B)
Leaves green (C)
Sky blue (D)
Clouds grey (E)
Puppy brown (F)

Earth brown (F)
Blood red (A)
Eyes grey (E)
Sunshine yellow (B)
Ocean blue (D)
Grass green (C)

Motion-sick green (C)
Chocolate brown (F)
Depression blue (D)
Flame red (A)
Butter yellow (B)
Stone grey (E)

Do you see the pattern for the next three stanzas? The ending tercet is usually AB, CD, EF, though it’s a little more flexible than the overall form. The challenge of a sestina is conveying the idea without becoming repetitious or overly rhythmic. My first try at this form was almost a chant and very frustrating. 

All poetry forms take a lot of practice honestly. I’ve said before that Jericho Brown’s Duplex form, which involves a word re-use somewhat similar to the sestina, is wrenching to work in. The Duplex form is two-line stanzas which, according to my son, is so fast-paced and immersive the reader can’t catch their breath. Jericho Brown deserved the Hell out of that Pulitzer.

One of the forms I find immensely frustrating is haiku, which I may have mentioned before. My  husband was particularly good at it and, worse, he made it look easy. Some people describe the form as “single breath poetry.” For example, here is a haiku I wrote recently:

Autumn leaves falling
To a migrating wing beat
Wintersong calling

I’m annoyed by the rhyme of the first and third stanzas but I like the staccato sound, which matches the rhythmic imagery of leaves falling and wings beating as birds fly south. 

Speaking of migration, we have a problem in our house: migrating critters. I’ve found four mice and a chipmunk on the first floor in the past month. I’m sorry to report that I was not alone in the finding. There were two pups (the third disdains hunting rodents) and three cats involved. No critters survived the event, unfortunately. 

Finding five leads me to a passionate interest in knowing how many small creatures have successfully moved in. We’ve not previously had unauthorized tenants. I have thus informed the pets that they are failing to cover the cost of their residency and that I expect better work from them. They have all responded with wags but I am not optimistic since they immediately went to sleep after our discussion. 

It’s time to get back to work. I’m writing a middle grade horror short. It’s a commissioned project that doesn’t pay particularly well but I am enjoying the exercise of writing horror. 

Have a delightfully spooky day and, please, wear your mask….

And, you know, VOTE.

BOO!

Hell Has Karaoke

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It is, apparently, karaoke day at the university across the street. To be fair, I’m not a karaoke fan and thus a poor judge of the relative merits of watching other people sing poorly in front of a microphone. For the past three hours I have been listening, as if they were screaming from my front yard, to a variety of skill levels belting everything from Justin Timberlake to Green Day. A criminal effort at Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” was by far the worst karaoke experience so far today, with the exception of an excruciating effort at “No Diggity.” 

I’d like to attribute my karaoke criticism to a “Get Off My Lawn” middle-age curmudgeonliness; but in fact, I truly believe that whoever felt authorized to belt out Eminem before noon, and completely sober, on a Wednesday, deserves retribution in the form of multiple compulsory hours listening to Steve and Eydie (a favorite of my maternal grandmother). 

We (not the royal we, the entire neighborhood) are now listening to Black-eyed Peas, “Let’s Get It Started In Here,” and I won’t accept your reassurance that it could be worse. I doubt that “My Humps” is included on the karaoke playlist. 

The music is so loud that it’s hard to concentrate. What are people on conference calls doing — “Uh, excuse me. Could whoever is playing that Camila Cabello ‘Havana’ song please go on mute?” The weird thing about this is that I feel strongly that there are live musicians playing along because someone is drumming the heck out of the Havana song right now and someone else just jumped in with a very off-key saxophone.   

I blame Glee and Pitch Perfect for this. We’re now singing “Price Tag,” which is the third Pitch Perfect song. Do these folks not realize that Pitch Perfect didn’t actually spontaneously bring a couple dozen really good (Broadway level) singers to the SAME college for extracurricular acapella singing? 

Aaaaand now we’re on to “Cake By The Ocean.” It wasn’t a good song on the radio. Let me assure you — the karaoke version is much, much worse.

Please, send help. Or earplugs.

On a side note, I am still writing like mad. I have poems submitted to several contests and am still editing a book ….Hold on; they’re singing Taylor Swift right now and I hear sirens. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks there is a crime in progress across the street ….

Anyway, I just finished a poem that I’d love to share (I’m really happy with it) but it’s designated for a publication that doesn’t accept anything posted to social media. If it gets rejected, I’ll post it for your enjoyment.

Despite the smoke haze from the fires, it is a glorious fall day. I hope you have a moment to enjoy it.

Stay safe. Wear a mask when you go out for the same reasons you wear shoes, to keep other people safe (alternatively to keep from being thrown out of the store).

And sing in the car, in the shower, in the kitchen, just not in front of a microphone … unless, of course, that’s Gretchen Wilson currently singing Gretchen Wilson’s “I Want You To Want Me.” (It’s not.)

Also, please VOTE early.

Much love….

Hell Has Karaoke

Take Up Space

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In 2013, Terry Tempest Williams wrote a book called When Women Were Birds. I haven’t read the book (I’ll get to it but the “to be read” stack is already going to kill me if it falls over while I’m sleeping) but the title cries out to me. It swirls in my head like windswept leaves taunting the freshly raked lawn. I have started so many times to write a poem using that imagery that each version now has a numbered title. They are collected in their own folder in my storage. I keep telling myself I will wrestle this poem into some shape. However, what I actually need to do, I think, is give it time and space, let it take flight. And I mean that in both the most pun-y and literal way.

I’ve been following, over the last 24 hours, an interesting and sad example of erasure of women in power. Having myself struggled both to be heard and to be given credit in past leadership roles, I feel a lot of empathy for Nandini Jammi, co-founder of Sleeping Giants. If you aren’t familiar, it’s worth looking into it just to read her article and her co-founder’s shameful “life is really hard for me” non-apology.

Anyway, for all the women and girls who have been told you are “too bossy” and that you “will get recognition, we promise” and that your male colleagues are “more relatable” and, my personal favorite, that “you’d be prettier if you wore makeup,” I’ve been working on a poem. Tell me what you think of it.

Take up space
Oh, you beautiful girl
Spread your arms
Widen your stance
Lift your chin
Choose your place

Raise your voice
Oh, you warrior queen
Call your truth
Speak your song
Spread your words
Live your choice

Dance your dance
Oh, you wondrous woman
Mark your time
Set your beat
You are those who came before
You are all who take the chance 

Wear a mask because you’re not a monster.

Much love.

Take Up Space

Nightfall

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I sat outside at dusk last night. The sky was so clear that, even in our light-polluted city, the stars began to present themselves as the daylight faded. 

I’m thinking of you
As the waxing moon rises 
Bright white in the early evening sky
A sparrow issues a single
Mournful cheep from the roof
Three bats swoop and circle
The breeze flips the leaves 
With a gentle rustle, soft
Like your hand on my cheek
A firefly flashes once, twice
In my periphery, gone though 
When I turn to look
A catbird mews in the distance
A cardinal calls to his mate
The catbird mews again
And again and again
Its harsh cry reverberating
In my lungs, in my heart
I miss you
I miss you
I miss you

Nightfall

Thanks, Sam Neill, For the Inspiration

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Sometimes, I’ll read or hear something that takes root in my head. Maybe a week ago, Sam Neill — yes, that Sam Neill — posted a video on Twitter about his Gran. Several times during the 2 minute video, he called her “a lovely old thing” as he talked about how blessed he was to have lived with her briefly when he was about 7 years old. This poem is about my “lovely old thing,” my paternal grandmother, Myrtle, who died when I was 17.

She Was a Lovely Old Thing

She never walked when she could
Stomp or glide or march, mowing down
Every obstacle, physical or mental
No doubt or hesitation, ever 
Stayed her hand or her feet 
Or her voice 

If there was music she was dancing
And when there was silence she was still dancing
Though you probably wouldn’t know why and
She wouldn’t tell you because 
Your opinion didn’t matter and  
She would even say that if you asked

When she walked in the room
People sat up straighter and
Waved, even if she wasn’t looking
And if she stopped beside you and
Put her hand on your shoulder
You knew what a blessing was

So far as I know 
She was never afraid of anything
Though of course she was 
But she would never, ever let it 
Change her or alter how
We were allowed to see her 

She lived fiercely and when she got sick
I didn’t know what that meant and
Then, when she died 
The sun fell out of the sky
And I finally understood 
What she’d been saying all along
Thanks, Sam Neill, For the Inspiration

ConGraduations

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Today would have been our final Kennywood picnic at the school we’ve been a part of for more than 19 years. Of course our sorrow is as a paper cut to the gaping wound that is 2020 for many people. It is unfair, though, not to recognize the reality and truth of our own grieving. We join with many graduates who lost the opportunity to say good-bye to their younger, fully outgrown selves as they look toward whatever comes next. 

It was a complete shock when a group of teachers showed up at the house this afternoon with an air horn, balloons, a gift, and a graduation sign, personalized, which they stuck in the lawn. Secretly, I think my son was pleased, though his demeanor was … er, understated. 

I was thinking, last night, about our years at that school and I wrote the below short poem. There’s another thought about this bereavement floating around in my head like Emmet’s double-decker couch but when I try to grab hold, it slips away. “Pazienza, Bella,” my mother-in-law would say. She would nod as she said it and, maybe, pat the back of my hand. 

Time has stepped 
Into its wing-ed shoes
And flown
Leaving behind 
Only the deepening bereavement
Of memories

The helicopters aren’t circling outside my window today, the first time since the protests started. There were two, one higher in the sky and one low enough that sometimes I could just spot the pilot. I’ve gotten so used to their chop-chop-chop that the absence of their sound feels like a warning. I hope the rain, and not something more sorrowful, is what keeps the protesters away. Things became violent here on Monday. We could smell the smoke on the breeze as the police used gas and smoke canisters and rubber bullets on members of our community. 

Stay safe.

ConGraduations

Hummingbird

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As I sat on my little deck in my tiny backyard Friday morning, the early sun shone in a stripe on the bright pink-red flowers of our weigela bush. I looked up as I finished reading aloud a poem I had written about a hummingbird. There, hovering above the flower cups of the weigela in that brief strip of sun, was a little gray hummingbird. I watched as she lingered for a moment, sipping from various flowers, before darting off to parts unknown. 

I can’t share the poem. It’s part of a book that is currently with an agent; fingers crossed, my friends. Most of the work I’m producing right now is for specific projects and I can’t share it … this after setting myself up on Instagram to highlight some of my work, though I did post the hummingbird spoken word below that is not included in the book. 

My name is hummingbird
And I’m here to say
I don’t flap my wings 
In the usual way

I make a figure eight
Which is kinda cool
It helps me fly and hover
Yo tiny birds rule 

Most of my children’s poetry is written in quatrain, some of my more adult stuff too. If you are looking for a brain exercise, I recommend giving it a try. (It’s not hard!) Don’t try to be prophetic or deep. Just pick a subject and give it a go. I like to write poetry that makes me laugh, though, unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I end up writing is pretty sad. I think it’s just the nature of the path my feet tread. 

We had a dog guest for a few days last week. She did not enjoy her stay. My dogs didn’t enjoy her stay either, to be honest, though they accepted our guest much better than our guest accepted us. She went for walks, growled at my dogs, napped on the sofa, and tried to jump onto the kitchen counters/ dinner table. Her efforts to steal food caught me a bit by surprise. My expectation that she would eat the dog food I gave her caught her by surprise so, overall, I think we can call the experience a draw.

Although my plans went awry, I did, initially, expect to make one of my mom’s signature dishes, German potato salad, over the weekend. My kids have never had it but it was a staple growing up. For almost every picnic we ever attended, Mom made German potato salad and lemonade cake. 

In my memory of cutting up the onions for the potato salad (my least favorite childhood job, perhaps tied with grating cabbage for coleslaw), my mom is still younger than I am now, teaching me the difference between onions for meatloaf and onions for potato salad. “Don’t chop,” memory Mom says. “Slice them thin so the warm sauce coats the onions and makes them soft.” 

Saturday, late afternoon, I discovered a tiny bunny who had somehow gotten herself trapped in the window well. The kids took charge and, after putting on gloves, they rescued the baby, who screamed like she was being targeted by a hawk. She has a paw injury so we’re currently keeping her safe in a pet-free area while we await the re-opening of our local wildlife rehab center.  I must say: she has absolutely the best ears I’ve ever seen. 

One last thing: For many of us, today is a day like any other. That, my friends, is privilege.

Stay safe. 

Hummingbird

Making the Shift

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I had an idea this morning for a story in verse and I really, really want to work on it right now. Not possible though. I have a lot of writing projects in flight at the moment and I’m also trying to write a poem a day (still going strong!). On top of that, I’m super excited to be attending a virtual writer’s conference in July. I will be meeting telephonically with an agent through the conference — this is a big deal and I need to be at my best. Gulp.  

I have to give the agent my revised first chapter in a couple weeks. And Jooney is NOT behaving. We are going to have a falling out because I’m going to speak to her very sternly about her recalcitrance. Jooney is, unfortunately, a typical teenager so she’s absolutely going to half-listen to my scolding and then completely disregard everything I said. Maybe she’ll nod and agree during the discussion but I know that she’s secretly rolling her eyes, EVEN if she admits (unlikely) that what I’m saying is true. So, anyway, I’m devoting myself to polishing her story until it is so high-gloss that the agent is absolutely blinded by its brilliance. HA

It’s time to start marketing my work. Many years ago, I was a self-employed writer and editor. The work was fun and (mostly) interesting, though it was in the time of desktop publishing and every single customer thought s/he was an undiscovered design genius. The two things I hated about that life were: billing customers and marketing myself. I got lots of word-of-mouth business but that isn’t an effective operating model. The need to market myself didn’t disappear when I entered the corporate world and I was equally bad at it then! However, it is one of the most critical components of this new career I’ve chosen. 

Therefore, I’m going to market the heck out of myself in all my weird … er, glory. Yes, yes, glory. That’s what it is. Anyway, after Jooney and I have a chat this afternoon, I’ll be posting some poems to my Instagram account. If you feel some slight seismic tremors, it might just be me making a social media impact (I’m so sorry). Or, you know, it might be an earthquake, in which case you should find somewhere safe to shelter. 

Either way, I would appreciate your continued support. I hope you’ll keep following the blog and that you’ll hop over to Instagram, @BuffySlayer579, to read my poetry. (Yo, vampires rule!) Followers are important metrics in the publishing world; so, please also consider following me on Instagram if you like what I’m doing; and you know, you can tell your friends how awesome I am too, if you’d like.

I’ve got a couple new poems lined up so I can publish every few days in the beginning. Even when the poem flows out of my brain and onto the digital paper, I like to let it sit for later tweaking. I think I mentioned that one of my favorite new authors, Kwame Mbalia, (Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky) tweeted that he wrote a chapter one day and still liked it the next day. Talk about achievement unlocked; my gosh, I dream of that moment.

Okay, enough procrastinating …. Hey, Jooney, it’s time for that talk.

Much love. Be safe.

Making the Shift