"...to carry away memories brought for the forgetting
on one thousand one auspicious origami birds
whispering over chilled salmon, ripe fruit
suggesting the fertility of the afternoon."
from the poem, "One thousand one wedding cranes" 1998
Mooney's Poem of the Month
being known
i have prayed holy words in sacred chapels
sang praise in languages i didn’t know
knelt on wooly carpets in response to Morning Call to Prayer
danced in circles of devotion to the pulsing music
of gimbri and bindir while chanting universal love
i’ve sewn images of mystery into poems of unspeakable words
at times, i stumble and cannot remember the steps
cannot find the melodies nor remember Your names
often my feet can no longer move
nor am i able to bow double any longer
still, my yearnings are heard, my heart is known
and i am reminded i do not need to struggle
to be with You
Copyright © Sharon Lopez Mooney, “Being known”, originally published in Midwest Zen Magazine, ed. Mark Howell, Great Wind Zendo, Winter 2023 http://www.greatwindzendo.org/mwz
Literary Hero of the Month
Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash, 1902-1971, was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by The New York Times the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry.He is also one of the most widely appreciated and imitated writers of light verse.
His poems also had an intensely anti-establishment quality that resounded with many Americans, particularly during the Depression. Nash was a keen observer of American social life, and frequently mocked religious moralizing and conservative politicians. His work is often compared with other satirists of the time, including Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, and H. L. Mencken. He appeared regularly on radio and on television, and he drew huge audiences for his readings and lectures.
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A Caution To Everybody
Consider the auk;
Becoming extinct because he forgot how to fly, and could
only walk.
Consider man, who may well become extinct
Because he forgot how to walk and learned how to fly before
he thinked.
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One From One Leaves Two
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Higgledy piggledy, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Gentlemen come every day
To count what my black hen doth lay.
If perchance she lays too many,
They fine my hen a pretty penny;
If perchance she fails to lay,
The gentlemen a bonus pay.
Mumbledy pumbledy, my red cow,
She’s cooperating now.
At first she didn’t understand
That milk production must be planned;
She didn’t understand at first
She either had to plan or burst,
But now the government reports
She’s giving pints instead of quarts.
Fiddle de dee, my next-door neighbors,
They are giggling at their labors.
First they plant the tiny seed,
Then they water, then they weed,
Then they hoe and prune and lop,
They they raise a record crop,
Then they laugh their sides asunder,
And plow the whole caboodle under.
Abracadabra, thus we learn
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you’re given,
The less you lead, the more you’re driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need,
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take
If the tax-collector hasn’t got it before I wake.
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Sharon Lopez Mooney
I have been a poet & writer for over 40 years in different genres and different jobs – focused on clear person to person communication. Now, retired, I sit here at the foot of the sacred Mt Tetakawi, happily living in Sonora Mexico, on the shore of the bahia / bay to the great Sea of Cortez. Poetry is my primary interface into the world.
I was born a midwesterner, and then at 30, moved with my young family to rural Northern California where I lived for 40 years. My grown children and grandchildren still thrive there.
In 1978, I received a California Arts Council Grant to establish a local poetry reading series; I was a co-publisher of a small regional arts journal, 'Fallow Deer', while being a partner in 'Straight Talk Distributing', an independent, alternative literature service.
It was after that my sites set on "being a poet" publicly, and by then some of my poems had been published in journals and anthologies. But a profound quiet settled on my creativity when my love and partner died at forty-four, after we had spent twenty-eight intimate years together loving, growing playing and raising our amazing family.
After almost three decades of organizational writing and occasional jpurnal writing, my poetic voice wanted to speak out loud again about women, hate and fear, the Beloved, and the profound daily life of the natural world and the ordinary and extraordinary people around me. My intention in writing is to share the perspective and wisdom I’ve been given, and to lay my shoulder to the wheel of change with all I write. My main life focus is aging with grace, breathing, writing and loving.
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