tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59357374069522710502024-02-08T08:27:53.110-08:00Where Bears Run FreeJoanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-66630102216714023432013-10-25T21:16:00.001-07:002013-12-01T03:56:30.150-08:00October Street<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'; font-size: 12pt;">It's raining copper in the sun!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Pouring gold and amber!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Dazzled by the riches,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">I scamper through the wealth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">breathe in the smoke<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">of the leaves lying down,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">life dying down for the winter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">A dervish whirling on a vibrant pyre,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">laughing down the darkness <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">in an avalanche of fire!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><br /></span>
<pre style="background-color: white; margin: 0.1pt 0in; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">©</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2013 Joanne Tenenbaum</span></span></pre>
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><br /></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-85511248782162022712013-09-30T21:25:00.000-07:002013-12-01T04:01:14.385-08:00Haiku<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-size: 16px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Those who loved me are dying</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">falling like dry leaves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">in the autumn of my life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<pre style="color: black; margin: 0.1pt 0in; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">©</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2013 Joanne Tenenbaum</span></span></pre>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-48272994843042388812013-04-22T19:19:00.002-07:002013-12-01T03:58:18.143-08:00Chimera<h1>
</h1>
Icons of commerce have supplanted<br />
<div>
the enchanted pigs and random bananafish</div>
<div>
that once demarcated one realm</div>
<div>
from another.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Homespun mystics, once solitary,</div>
<div>
chant panting prose, tartly and smartly.</div>
<div>
They are now jumbled up with</div>
<div>
gift-giving children who, evading</div>
<div>
aftershocks and playing concertinas,</div>
<div>
take flight with silk parachutes</div>
<div>
and swim through the air.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Two doorways intersect:</div>
<div>
one leads to mermaids,</div>
<div>
the other to the street. Sweet.<br />
<br />
<pre style="background-color: white; margin: 0.1pt 0in; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">©</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2013 Joanne Tenenbaum</span></span></pre>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-31328973074552689082013-04-14T11:24:00.000-07:002013-12-01T03:58:38.969-08:00God Smites me and I Reel<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am a bell ashiver at the clapper’s thud</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a door flung open to the swimming stars</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a silver ribbon dancing in invisible wind</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a footfall stamping the earth in dance</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am that place where hand and drum collide</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am the eye of the cat in which resides</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">An image of the allinall</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">dancing singing birthing bleeding</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">growing, groaning, dying, and whole.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am a breath.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am darkness cracked open to expose </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the light the light the unquenchable light </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">inside the most charred or bleeding heart.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am the light gushed forth from the Ark first seen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Silenced by its golden fire, newly sacred,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I move carefully, trembling lest I spill the light </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">that filled me then and sings in me still</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">thirty years and so much darkness later.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<pre style="background-color: white; margin: 0.1pt 0in; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">©</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2013 Joanne Tenenbaum</span></span></pre>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-12720019589141952662013-04-14T10:47:00.000-07:002013-12-01T03:59:27.337-08:00Missing GeshelaWhen I see photos of Tibetans<br />
I scan them for a glimpse<br />
of my teacher's face<br />
hoping to stumble across<br />
a face in the crowd<br />
a lama at the table<br />
some image from the past<br />
to comfort me.<br />
<br />
Empty exercise.<br />
My teacher is no more.<br />
Useless to seek him now<br />
Whose face I could not see<br />
before.<br />
<br />
<pre style="background-color: white; margin: 0.1pt 0in; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">©</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2013 Joanne Tenenbaum</span></span></pre>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-90336961182669688012012-12-22T16:57:00.000-08:002012-12-22T16:57:44.109-08:00Strange Christmas: Remembering the Newtown ChildrenStrange Christmas. Twenty-six beloved little ones are being buried in Newtown, CT, where a madman whose name should be consigned to oblivion ruthlessly gunned them down. I want to know everything about these children.<br />
<ul>
<li>Their full names</li>
<li>Their birthdays</li>
<li>Their favorite colors</li>
<li>Their favorite story</li>
<li>Their personalities</li>
<li>Their hopes</li>
<li>What they wondered about</li>
<li>What they loved</li>
</ul>
I want to remember these children always. I pray that their horrific loss will be the turning point in the fight to get automatic weapons off American streets and out of the hands of civilians. <br />
<br />
I grieve with their parents, whose pain I cannot even imagine. <br />
<br />
How strange and terrible it is that in a free society our children are not safe, despite the best efforts and personal sacrifices of their parents. <br />
<br />
This is a Christmas for mourning and remembering this outrage. This is a Christmas for blessing the families of these little ones and the journeys of their children, who are also our children.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-32859719714384191232010-10-01T23:34:00.000-07:002010-10-01T23:46:59.348-07:00Bicyclists and FearI wonder whether people who ride bicycles ever think about how frightened some of us drivers are of hitting them. I can understand that it's harder to stop and start up again on a bicycle than it is in a car, but most bicyclists I encounter don't follow the traffic laws at all. They don't signal, and they don't stop at stop signs. Hence my fear.<br /><br />A person I know just had the terrible misfortune of accidentally killing a bicyclist who careened around a corner and into his windshield despite the stop sign that would have protected the bicyclist had he heeded it. This is a grievous loss of a human being, and a terrible burden for the motorist who now has to live with having killed someone. <br /><br />If you ride a bike, please be mindful of the traffic signs and laws. We'll keep watching out for you, but please help us out by watching out for yourself as well.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-60872577610594745422009-10-27T09:01:00.000-07:002009-10-27T09:06:09.096-07:00RepriseSince I last wrote, the economy has tanked and the world as we know it has changed. Many empty storefronts, many foreclosed homes. I have been out of work for five months now, and I'm running out of resources fast. I have applied for countless positions with nary an acknowledgment. Millions of people are out of work, and the competition for jobs is insurmountable, or so it would seem. In this situation, it's hard to think about anything else, like the war in Afghanistan or the status of "Don't ask, don't tell" here at home. I hope, though, that Obama succeeds in changing the health care system.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-48844779401961390202009-02-04T16:30:00.000-08:002009-02-04T16:34:47.383-08:00Riverbank UpdateLast week was surreal. Some people turned up with trashcans and dismantled the makeshift dwelling of the homeless people on the riverbank. At the same time, a canvas teepee appeared in the neighboring vacant lot. By the end of the afternoon the people had removed everything but the nailed down tarp and carpeting on the pilings; these are all that remain of the shack. <br /><br />The next afternoon, I finally got around to looking out on the watery landscape (it was a rainy day), and I saw that the teepee had also disappeared and the lot had been entirely cleaned up. I don't know where the dwellers went. I'm told someone in a suit turned up and persuaded them to go. Hard times, these. Hard weather too, even here in Northern California. It's started to rain again finally and it's cold. I can't help wondering where the homeless people are sleeping these days.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-13241567001587430172009-01-26T15:34:00.000-08:002009-01-26T15:35:55.277-08:00The Truth About HibernationPeople have the notion that bears sleep all winter when they hibernate. This is a myth. The truth is, bears lie around in their caves, snacking on treats, reading trashy novels, and doing crossword puzzles. They also take lots of naps, which is probably how the sleeping myth got started.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-34920120280275956622008-11-10T16:56:00.000-08:002013-09-30T21:36:10.824-07:00November MondayThe homeless woman who lives on the riverbank opposite my office window has brought in more junk--cardboard boxes and plastic sheets--probably to get ready for winter. The space is just big enough to scrunch into and lie down in and it's right on the mud that tops the pilings. I can't imagine anyone sleeping there, but this woman does and has for a long time. Apparently, the police come in and roust her out occasionally, but she always comes back again, and they have better things to do than to keep an eye on her. Sometimes she appears to have roommates, as it were, and I picture them all sleeping head to toe to head to toe.<br />
<br />
It's an odd scene in the middle of urban renewal and picturesque coastline. Yuppies jog by in their running gear unaware, and cars park in the neighboring lot at $35 each. Meanwhile, here on the sixth floor I look out the window at the pelicans and the seagulls wheeling by.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-55696717589934217882008-11-10T16:09:00.000-08:002008-11-10T16:16:09.085-08:00Post-Election ThoughtsWell, Obama's won, and I'm hugely relieved. I'm even proud. Proud of all the Americans who voted for integrity and sanity and intelligence, for judgment and prudence in a multicultural package. It is like the dawn of a new age, a more accurate reflection of the America we've become. At least I hope so. Heaven knows Mr. Obama has his work cut out for him. The economy is in shambles and so is the infrastructure. I find myself wanting to ask him to tell us what he needs from us, how we can help him with the monumental task he is undertaking. He has the potential to be a remarkable president.<br /><br />The country heaved a huge sigh of relief when he won; I swear you could almost hear it, and certainly you could feel it, a lifting of shame and helplessness and a new feeling of pride and hope. I am looking forward to Michelle Obama, too, as an unusually articulate, confident, and educated first lady, and I think those little girls will enliven the White House and all of us. It is good to be able to look forward to what's coming next. It's been a long time since I've had that feeling in any national sense.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-55212094348774738762008-10-08T12:25:00.000-07:002008-10-08T12:34:04.616-07:00Pre-election ThoughtsIt's presidential election season, and we're currently in between debates. We're also in the middle of watching our economy, and the world's generally, crash and burn. It seems that George Bush finally found a way to empty the rest of the treasury on his way out of office.<br /><br />I wanted Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic presidential nominee, but the Republicans played chess far too well to allow that to happen. There was scarcely a murmer out of them about Obama throughout the entire campaign--until Obama won the nomination.<br /><br />Why would I choose a relatively untried candidate over an extremely experienced war hero? Simple. Obama's values are in the right place, and while he is inexperienced, he is eminently teachable. I believe he will surround himself with sane people who will inform him sufficiently for him to lead according to our common values.<br /><br />McCain, on the other hand, used to be a war hero, but it's a long time behind him. I am old enough to know that none of us is who we were thirty years ago. The McCain I see before me now has nothing current to say about the world's mighty dilemmas, not the least of which are global warming and the economy, to say nothing of the health care crisis. I am tired of hearing McCain dredge up his ancient laurels as though he possesses now the qualities he perhaps had then. Now, he is 72, extremely wealthy, and patently ignorant about economics for the middle and working classes. Nor does he seem teachable. Finally, his choice of an unqualified, rabidly rightwing vice-presidential candidate seems to me the last straw. It is unlikely that McCain will live through eight years of presidency. Who does he propose to leave the country to? An ex-beauty queen with little else to recommend her and values that make every ecologist's hair stand on end.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-67823286730478045402008-08-06T11:43:00.000-07:002008-08-06T11:47:41.997-07:00Chauncey's BirthdayIt seems appropriate to begin this blog on the birthday of my main character, Sir Chauncey, who is (technically) 46 today. His character, however, is five and always will be. That's the advantage of living in literature. Chauncey's birthday is fraught with his worry that no one else will remember it. To find out how it turns out, you'd have to read "Big Day," which is a story all about the events of Chauncey's day. Not published yet, but I hope it will be forthcoming soon.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935737406952271050.post-18463452298385915582008-08-06T11:32:00.000-07:002008-08-25T12:06:11.312-07:00Da CapoSummer. A good time to begin something new. Hence this blog, a place to share thoughts, the occasional poem, the odd flash fiction piece as it hurries through my mind.Joanne Tenenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002156649808180166noreply@blogger.com0