Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Imprint

you know it was deep
when the sound of a bull frog reminds you
a certain shade of grey in the clouds sparks a feeling
the current dew point bringing a familiar sensation from the past

you know the imprint was made cellular
this time last spring
if nature holds the key to unlock memories
surprising you in a bird song

there was that giant tent you erected streamside
heaped inside with pillows and so many blankets that he got hot
how the sound of pig hooves could be heard
running hard on soft soil in darkness
just beside you both
only thin tent fabric between you and he
and the grunt of a mama with her baby

when the campings over
and he’s ready for the plane
you step into the utility closet
and sob into a towel
but the crying is so loud
you know he heard you anyway

he leaves  clothes for ‘next time’
but your heart knows he won’t be back
there’s wildness in paradise
it takes work to live and love here
return flights are reserved for tourists
bringing home snapshots and a new sarong

back home for you is an empty tent down by the water
you see the ants are moving in
funny how he didn’t help dismantle it
as you pull thick tent stakes
and wrestle collapsing arms back to compact
trying to fit its greatness into a small zip up bag

you clear all the tarps and bungees
walk away
from the big brown square
of deadened, flattened grass
a tangible tell-tale
that he really had been there
and now is all
but gone

you know the grass will grow back quickly
last traces will disappear
except for the low baritone of bullfrog
in the rushes
steady still
this year

photo by Jessica Dofflemyer - all rights reserved

 

 

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Wow wee!

This morning there’s a missing goat in the neighborhood.

The plant beside my desk does well, but seems to remain static in its size.

I’ve got written works in the works but nothing ready to be shared.  (As if lost goats and small houseplants are noteworthy.)

As I seek words that evoke magic, my eyes rest on the few random quotes staring at me from my desk.

On a card from a friend:
“Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch” – Walt Whitman

On a bookmark from Big Sur:
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

From a sound therapy website I stumbled upon:
“That which you seek, is not outside of you!” – Zacciah

Like shelling on the beach, I gather these finds into my container.  Then reach for the treasured conch – The Gift from Hafiz – open to page 259 and trust in serendipity to speak to my soul.

photo by Jessica Dofflemyer - all rights reserved

 

Wow

Where does real poetry
Come from?

From the amorous sighs
In this moist dark when making love
With form or
Spirit

Where does poetry live?

In the eye that says, “Wow wee,”
In the overpowering felt splendor
Every sane mind knows
When it realizes – our life dance
Is only for a few magic
Seconds,

From the heart saying,
Shouting,

“I am so damn
Alive.”

~ Hafiz

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Crumbling Empires and Parked Cars

I’d been dreaming of escaping the land locked San Joaquin Valley since I was in grade school, collecting shells in jars at the age of seven.  By high school graduation, I’d been accepted at two colleges but my long-time boyfriend (one year ahead of me) was not at my school of choice. Tearfully, I chose to forgo the giant Redwoods along the ocean, so I could stick with him in the asphalt apartment complex of Bulldog Lane Village, Fresno, California, USA.

image courtesy of Fresno State University

I knew it was a gamble, but I was willing.  I tried to make the best of it.  Got a job at Naturalizer Shoes in the mall, grateful for air conditioning in 108 degree heat, especially since I was donned in the required pantyhose.  I even hooked my boyfriend up with a job at the same shoe store in the neighboring mall, which was the beginning of our demise.  Romance struck when he bonded with the goth-fashioned clerk down the way at Waldenbooks.  He broke up with me and started reading “Geek Love”

.

courtesy of Wikipedia

I was devastated and stuck in Fresno.

Around this time, I found myself in a Political Science lecture where the professor reminded the class, “Throughout history, all empires have fallen.  Who is to say that the United States is any different?”

The suggestion shattered the bedrock of a foundation I had never questioned.

Still needing to finish up the school year, I took a short story fiction class, read Chekov and met a fellow student and brilliant writer (and, by chance, the son of the Political Science professor).  I still remember that first story I read of his.  A man and woman, oranges and chocolate and plenty of pregnant pauses.  I was enamored.  He took me to San Francisco where I wore red lipstick in the day time.  We ate Vietnamese food, perused bookstores and I bought a copy of  “That Which You Are Seeking is Causing You to Seek.”

I tried to make the best of my Fresno time.  I wrote a lot in my journal.  Found off-the-path nooks on campus where I’d sit in the shade of a big tree and read about the act of peeling a tangerine as meditation. Saw Ramblin Jack Elliot perform at a small bar in the Tower District with my father.

One weekend I took a road trip to Humboldt with my girlfriend, where a kind, handsome man in Buddy Holly glasses read me Richard Brautigan poetry at 2am in his studio by the railroad tracks.  I swooned to the sound of

“I want your hair
to cover me with maps
of new places…”

Foundation had been shaken.  The light was spilling forth.  Back in Fresno, I was standing in the displays of white, soft-soled shoes reading “Death is a Parked Car Only” with skipping heart beats.  I would no longer be confined to used peds and Orange Juliuses.  I would not end in Fresno.

Richard Brautigan

“You joyride around for a while listening
to the radio, and then abandon death, walk
away, and leave death for the police
to find.”

Sometimes the greatest gift is to lose the thing you wanted.  That which I was seeking, was causing me to split.  I finished that semester, left Geek Love and the Bulldogs behind, and headed for the ocean.