Mary Fumento

Kindling

September 23rd, 2008

The birds told me before the sky or air that fall was here. Their songs changed. The leaves are probably the last sign that autumn is upon us, and yet they get the hallmark of the season’s change. Birds deserve a bit more credit.But the moon and the stars have been subtley changing, too, and that is what I love about fall. It meanders in and lingers as it expresses its many moods.

The leonids will come soon, and I anxiously watch the sky for their explosive, short-lived statements. But they move me so, and keep my eyes riveted high.

Fall to me is about passion and yearning, and it kindles like a chemical reaction deep within me. I felt it start almost a month ago and for me it will last until late November. Glorious time!

Colorado falls last about 3 weeks: vibrant, strong-willed until truncated by an unexpected snowfall. No such worries in Virginia, where the passion and yearning can twine and intertwine for months. They are both about savoring and longing, but at different speeds and perhaps in different directions.

I have never felt such a satisfying feeling as the passionate yearning autumn combusts in me. I want to bottle it, study it, imbibe it, inhale it, understand it, although it cannot be contained or defined. Ingestion is purely intellectual.

And it feeds my very soul, the core of who I am, the foundation upon which I stand.

Autumn Change

The autumn change
Brings out the range
Of colors bright and bold
A dying flicker of shiny gold
Before the hue is dead
Out springs Indian red
A scarlet so serene
Overcome by olive green
When the molten colors turn over
The time is now October
Orange speckles to the ground
With traces of hickory brown
Colors so simple yet also strange
Reflect the mystery of the season’s change
- Mary O. Fumento, 1981

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Treachery

August 27th, 2008

Mountain water is treacherous. It seems so calm and tame, an unbridled power and an internal rage deep within it. And I came, as a child, to respect it, to fear it, and to love it.

I slept nights at my parents’ cabin with Fall River pouding in my ears. It was right behind the cabin, and rang with such force it was scary. Except in summer when it slumbered and spat out only a trickle, in which we would wade and laugh and play. But never, ever otherwise.

Ironically, the sound of running water (even a faucet) to this day relaxes me, and unleashes something primal deep within me. I feel it, and I hear it so many miles away and feel like I am home.

As I child, I once came upon people with big microphones just recording Fall River’s sound. I was so intrigued. The idea of capturing its mere sound and taking it home. Wow! I wish I had recorded it and kept it forever with me.

The river was so massive it even broke off into a parallel stream by the cabin, and we could play in the stream but were forbidden to go to the river. We doused ourselves regularly in the stream with its icy torrents, picking up stones and plunging them back in. I wrote a poem about those stones many years ago (and many poems subsequently). And I still recall the wonder of the water and the mystery it instilled in me.

And the incredible landmarks in the stream are forever etched into my brain. We lived by them. One was a giant rock that was in the shape of a sombrero. We called it the Mexican hat because in grade school we learned folk dances and loved the Mexican Hat Dance. One rock was covered in mica, and we worshiped at its shiny glory like a cathedral.

There were places to cross, places to avoid, and places to sit and admire. Summertime pools with tiny life swimming about were enchantments of a lifetime.

In 1982 a giant flood ripped the landscape a new seam. The river is closer to the cabin now. Sadly, the stream is gone. The magical places I remember are committed to memory alone. We never even took photos…

Many things about that flood erased a part of my childhood. It hurts to recall the loss. But I remember the scenery the way it was. It is equally beautiful now, truthfully. And life is about resiliency and forging new paths. I try to remember that, and swallow the pain of the present and know the past had its suffering as well. The stream bed was not always there. Another flood must have cut its path.

Change is hard, painful even. But the beauty of the present is meant to be embraced. It becomes our future, and from there we grow the roots that sustain. Everything is ultimately anchored in the past. Our strength is in those roots. But every hope resides in the future. And to there we cast our gaze.

Here is to futures. To landscapes undefined, to streambeds uncut, and to rivers that find their path, no matter what we, ignorant people, care or control.
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

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Delicacy

July 20th, 2008

Indeed the finest pastry
Was right inside my hand
Amidst the fancy paper
Such delicacy to be had

But having would not do
For a luxury such as this
The magic of his texture
The alchemy of his kiss

His lips, most divine
Eyes into which I sank
The bounty of his beauty
A font from which I drank

Satisfied, over and over
In my eyes, lips, touch
Gentleness of his person
And I never felt so much
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

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Carnage

July 13th, 2008

I needed something mindless to do today, so killing my garden was top on the list.

What carnage!

I know.

It really wasn’t a garden, but a jungle refuge for butterflies and birds.

And my wild vines made the neighbors start complaining that ants were using my vines for transport into their houses. I was compelled to respond.

I still loved it, however uncontained it was. My row of townhouse neighbors are all bricked over sensibility; they fucking look like a parking lot collectively.

My vines flowered most of the year in yellow, pink and white and even had fragrance.

Bees loved my backyard. I even saw hummingbirds.

I started small with a few potted flowers like geraniums, but the beastly sun ate everything I planted. Even cactus died.

There is no topsoil, just whatever remains of the neighborhood that died before mine.

But the vines lived, flowered, and would not be put down.

With my one good hand, I will put their hospitality down, like good neighbors do.

And secretly I hope they survive, for birds, bees and butterflies.

Who needs another driveway?

- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

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The Hun: the Hardware Store Experience

July 13th, 2008

I can laugh at myself. Bare minimum.

My anecdotes help me find the humor flavor in life. They
may be inconsequential, but their narrative helps me find me as a person.

So I talk. Even if no one listens.

Self-help and all…

Our dinner table was overturned in my husband’s overwrought emotional (redundant?) condition. He was alone in the room at the time and very frustrated with a minute detail external to anything relevant to his current life.

So over the table went; one futile attempt at unleashing internal demons.

The result: one broken table leg. A dinner table can only withstand so much.

Something has to give. I feel fortunate it was only one leg.

So home repairs have been underway.

Somewhat.

For two people who only know how to break things, we are not the best candidates to make anything whole again.

But varsity effort, we try. In vain. Like idiots. To do the mundane things for which we have no skill set. We are creative people, after all.

So with a broken wrist, I attempt to assist in overturning the great table for repair, resulting in more bruises on my horrific forearms (long sleeves for me all summer). Just try carefully overturning one end of a heavy table with one feeble arm = disaster.

But the table is indeed up-ended. And broken.

Lovely.

Many hours have been spent attempting to fix. But, again, who are we to embark on such an industrious course?

Alas, alone today I venture out for perhaps the right drill bit to give us new holes to secure our fractured table. Super glue has already been purchased (I feel queasy already).

Knowing nothing, I the brave-hearted venture to the hardware store to discover how one might reattach a disassembled, reluctant leg.

Like a hun, I bring the freaking table leg with me, laden over my shoulder of the good arm (no broken wrist). Literal me, I figure it is best to bring the offensive leg with me so the experts can reckon.

Like a weakling, I can only carry it by laying it across my shoulder.

I feel like such a moron.

I hate home projects.

I really don’t even understand them.

But brave soul that I am, I carry the dead wood into the hardware store and muddle my way to drill bits and stand there, sullenly.

Good thing I looked pathetic, lest the staff would have never noticed me.

I at least knew what I needed.

But I never could have chosen.

The hole, the options, the hardware. Such stress.

I just would like a leg reattached, if possible.

And a brilliant employee addressed me, sought my concern, and went straight to the screws.

The trick, so I have learned, is in finding the right screw (go figure!) which tells the size needed.

Now I know.

I hope it works.

I have yet to try it.

But I am amazed at problem solving that, honestly, never would have occurred to me.

Experts reign in their own arenas. I am happy to give them that, for novice I would have floundered for days.

I do not need to know all. I need to know that others know whatever it is they know.

I am humbled.

And thankful.

- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

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Meticulous Business

June 5th, 2008

Coming clean. I have been trying for weeks on this. I have hard copy to prove it (you could sell them on e-bay) for I compose best on paper even when I cannot read my writing (what extra intrigue? what did I ever mean?).

It’s meticulous business: writing poetry. Words must be exactly chosen, purposefully and carefully, while sentiments can be evasive, suggestive, practically not there and still as omnipresent as air around us, however unseen but throttling, stifling, strangulating in their absence.

Secret: sentiment moves poetry more than words. I dare say sentiment moves people more than biology, theology, physiology, psychology, criminology. I digress.

Sure, we know some words, define their meaning, lean on their semantics as ways to get more mileage out of certain terms. It’s how we relate.

But sentiment says it all. It always has, even without speaking.

One simple action can cause an incredible chain reaction. If words could only have such power.

So a draft for you, despite the lofty introduction.

Only a draft because the particular part of me has not had final say on what stays in the poem and what goes. Much will and won’t. I am terribly indecisive about poetry. I like trying out the combinations for different effect until I sometimes, alas, forget what I was orginally trying to convey.

But here’s the start. I will improve it for the experience deserves a better memory. I am experimenting with format. Please be patient. I’ll get it down. (I want to mimic the stroke of fingers with words, down and around; what a lovely feeling. Ears might like it, too.)

Imprint

The tactile touch of you
Against the whole of me
Covered by warm, gentle hand

A sheath into which to slip
A haven in which to be found

The fingers explored around
Absorbing complete complicity
A license for self to expand

And express, receive a tip
A mere thumb, here or there

Feelings a brain can feel
Emotion a body will expound
Meeting explained explicitly
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

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Lecture on Love

April 23rd, 2008

(when don’t I lecture? News flash: never.)

What I have found…

(no big scientific study to back me up, though)

…is that we love anyway.

In spite of ourselves. In spite of our rules. In spite of society.

Our hearts know what we want.

We turn them off and listen to Dear Abby, Dr. Ruth or whatever expert.

Hearts are honest. And omniscient. They know.

Perhaps hearts don’t make practical or economic sense, but they make great emotional sense. If we listen.

We follow the heart’s siren song anyway, despite our rules and regulations.

I don’t think we can really help it.

Instinct drives us more than anything.

And I think that is honest; not bad or weak or selfish.

Just honest.

And it has a virtue all to its own.

It’s a good thing we love.

And perhaps even better we don’t really choose who we love.

I think we love them because we need them. But that is another lecture…
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008