What I Miss

The Roiling, Boiling Upper Iowa River, Decorah, IA. Copyright Diane Ludeking 2013

I miss the coyotes.

 

Her voices,

muffled

by the walls

that hold the roof

above me,

become clear

like spring water at its source

when I step into the night.

 

I miss the coyotes.

 

Her joyful cries

turned desperate

by men

with rifles

and grins.

 

I miss the coyotes.

 

Her predatory tension,

now absent,

becomes a void

in the night sky,

an empty den,

at-ease horses,

pleasant pheasants

and reposeful rabbits.

 

I miss the snow when it melts.

I miss the floods when they recede.

I miss the trees consumed by progress.

I miss the coyotes.

 

I miss the way I never used to miss things.

 

What do you miss?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.

I miss you, Reader, Friend & Journeyer.  I miss writing.

It has been almost six months (wow, that’s a long time considering I used to blog every week) since I have met you here.  I think I’m ready to get back to it.  Maybe not every week yet, but I’m ready to be back.

I took the time off to be with my ailing cat and horse.  Both have since passed.

I look forward to a regular rendezvous with you here again.  Blessings, Diane

These Sugary Words

Copyright Diane Ludeking 2012

The words, the words, the words.

The words are full of sugar.

These sugary words

fix my cravings

for chocolate and ice cream.

These sugary words

bred from crispy kale

and green smoothies

and cheese.

Sweet and true and scrumptious,

these sugary words

defy gravity.

Leave me hanging

naked

with views from outer space

a planet so strange and distant.

These sugary words

attract four eagles

and tears.

Two eagles remain

to circle and circle

to partake of

my sugary words

and give me more.

These sugary words exclaim

Welcome back!

as they slip away

behind the trees.

What Mysteries Await

Horse chestnuts
Copyright Diane Ludeking 2012

I discovered these exquisite gems a few weeks ago at a Women and Girl’s Night Out event.  Thirty women and girls gathered on a chilly, windy autumn evening to raise our voices together in song around fire.  Six of us stayed overnight, snuggling up in our sleeping bags out of the wind in a cabin with bunks.  After our morning closing celebration, three of us went for a walk to the swinging bridge nearby.  As we began our walk, I noticed hundreds of horse chestnuts strewn about the trail.  I met these nuts for the first time the night before, but to find them myself in the daylight tickled me like a girl in a horse barn.  How is it that I’ve never seen these before in my lifetime?  What other mysteries are out there awaiting my gaze?

Horse chestnuts
Photo credit Wikipedia

 

What Mysteries Await

by Diane Ludeking

 

Lime pufferfish

envelope

turns brown

fragile

 

Falls away

Reveals

 

Fine mahogany,

delicate cherry wood,

supple leather

exterior

 

Personas

I wear.

 

White chocolate

nutty meat

middle

 

My own sweet

nourishing

interior.

 

What flavor is your mystery

 

Would you be angry-looking

if I were angrily looking?

 

Would you be sad-looking

if I were sadly looking?

 

You are innocent-looking

because I innocently look.

 

 

Horse chestnut
Copyright Diane Ludeking 2012

 

Swinging Bridge Destination
Copyright Diane Ludeking 2012

 

Abandoned Horsepower

’58 Edsel
Copyright Doug Schmeltzer Photography 2012

 

A ’58 Edsel waits in a collapsing garage.

Mottled horse collar grill and

Pieced-together wooden hood

Weathering as best they can.

 

A stick props open the garage door

Just enough to steal a glance

At this beast of transportation.

 

It looks back with driver’s side

Bug-eye headlights.

The passenger side pair gouged out or

Tired

of clinging

To rust.

 

A ’58 Edsel bought to replace the

One that crashed on Easter 1962

On the way to church.

 

Gravel road, dust, oncoming truck.

Toddler

Toddling in the back seat.

Egg yolk and blood stained upholstery

Worn to the knackers.

 

Horseshoe shaped scar

From the rear view mirror

On the toddler’s face

Now five decades old.

 

A ’58 Edsel sighs in a collapsing garage.

Five decades worth of scars

From an accident it wasn’t involved in.

 

[All photos by Doug Schmeltzer Photography used with permission.]

’58 Edsel
Copyright Doug Schmeltzer Photography 2012

’58 Edsel
Copyright Doug Schmeltzer Photography 2012

The Caste of Cast

 

Molten Iron
Copyright Kelly Ludeking 2000

 

 

This is a poem I wrote for my husband, Kelly Ludeking.  He is a sculptor who works with bronze, aluminum and iron to create cast artwork.  This weekend is the Ninth Annual Down on the Farm Iron Pour on the Ludeking family farm in NE Iowa so I wanted to honor his work by sharing the poem.  If you ever have an opportunity to attend an iron pour, GO!  Describing it does no justice.  It must be seen.  Occasionally, I participate in these events, wearing the dirty brown leathers or the newer safety gear “silver suit.”  Standing in a shower of molten iron every now and again, seems to balance my water sign.

The Caste of Cast

Cast ironmongers

dance about me

They are rabid for fire

to melt the metal

that makes manifest

their sickness

 

This curious group of people

with dirty brown leathers

heavy steel-toed boots

and graphite war-painted faces

travel far and wide

to spy the orange glow

of liquid iron

 

They wait for the call to iron

They recognize it as goose bumps

crawling over their skull

To deny the query

Is to forsake their true inheritance

 

Cast ironmongers

dance about me

Alone in their iron tribe

Together in their aloneness

The temple of their

creative soulness

 

– by Diane Ludeking

 

Pouring Iron
Copyright Kelly Ludeking

Confidence

Beloved Steeds
Copyright Diane Ludeking 2009

 

Confidence

(buried)

 

A fleshy bone

for later

 

Lost for years

beneath weeds

 

Surrounded

by more weeds

 

Wading across the cold

spring-fed stream

 

A beloved horse attached

to a lead rope in each hand

 

They remind her

it is here

 

Confidence

(hidden)

 

Beneath weeds

on the far shore

 

Confidence

(reclaimed)

 

She mounts one steed

ponies the other

 

Walks into

her universe

and yawns

 

Where I’m From

Harvesting apple trees for fire wood from the defunct Art’s Orchard
Copyright Diane Ludeking 2010

Where I’m From

by Diane Ludeking

I am from apples,

from Barbies and Breyers.

I am from the perfect, orderly home.

I am from lily of the valley,

the strawberry vine.

 

I am from the confessional

and the marriage of death,

from Dan Dan the Boogie Man

and Dearest Sean.

I am from the salt of the earth

and the spark in the night sky.

 

From money doesn’t grow on trees

and work hard.

I am from purgatory.

I’m from a tribe,

kitty cocktails and Schlitz.

 

From the vacation destination of Yogi Bear,

the bruised cousin dying from a mysterious disease

and his anorexic sister.

I am from Art’s Orchard

my father’s lost legacy.

 

I have a few different versions of this poem as I tend to create one every year.  They are quite different from each other and lots of fun to write.  My Soulful Journaling participants created their own “Where I’m From” poems last week and enjoyed the process as much as I enjoyed hearing their finished products.  Many thanks to my teachers Julie Tallard Johnson and Prudence Tippins for introducing me to the process of poem writing.  The original “Where I’m From” poem was written by George Ella Lyon and is used by many poets and aspiring poets as a template for creativity and to lyrically document their lives.  Where are you from?

The Garrulous One or Gimme the Meat

Phelps Park, Decorah, IA
Copyright Diane Ludeking 2012

 

This little poem is the result of a writing exercise I gave myself: pick a word from the dictionary at random and write about it.  My screen saver is words and definitions so I picked the first one that caught my eye.  Can you guess the new word?

The Garrulous One (or Gimme the Meat)

In a mound of tomato sauce slathered

starchy spaghetti noodles

lies the meatball

 

Simple carbs

empty calories

trivial drivel

 

Surround the meat

 

And in conversation

like this meal

I desire the meat

 

Tell me your truth

Share your struggles

Experience the witness

 

Leave the conversation coma for another

 

I desire the meat

Woolen Argyle Woes

 

 

 

Under the bedroom chair

a single woolen argyle sock

looks back at me

 

wondering where

its black, white and grey

partner has gone.

 

Sometimes partners leave

for a while, get lost,

go on vacation or

work where work can be found,

 

so you can find

new perspective,

the latent dream

written within you.

 

Sometimes it takes

their void

to learn that

 

we can keep

feet fashionably warm

and dance

without them too.

 

Sometimes the

loose threads,

pilling and thinning

in the toe and heel

 

of your aloneness

make way for a new

possibility, fitted over

the nine iron.

 

You are not alone

when the wedge shows

up in the bag beside you

wearing your long lost partner.

The Weight of Winter

Taken Christmas Eve two years ago.

The weight of winter is a comforter of snow in the pasture and an extra blanket on my bed.

The weight of winter is pine scents in my house and Carmex fumigated scarves.

The weight of winter reveals eagle nests in the tippy tops of trees and conceals extra pounds on my backside with layers of clothes.

The weight of winter talks emphatically about holiday spirit and whispers about seasonal depression.

The weight of winter is a crisp snowball upside my face and candy cane fingers.

The weight of winter is heavy canvas winter wear and lightly whipped eggnog.

The weight of winter makes getting to work a challenge and friendly gatherings worthwhile.

The weight of winter is bright from snow reflected moonlight at midnight and burning light bulbs at suppertime.

The weight of winter reveals the barren wooded trail concealed in summer’s lusciousness.

The weight of winter is dormant seeds and awakened sloth.

The weight of winter is the Big Dipper in the North and snowbirds in the South.

The weight of winter is warm breath on an icy window.

The weight of winter is a good book in front of the fireplace and a mischievous cat lap warmer.

The weight of winter is big holiday debt and little promises of spring.

The weight of winter is childish sledding splendor and grown up stress.

The weight of winter cannot be stopped but will end your plans without notice.

 

I would love to hear how you finish the sentence “The weight of winter…” in the comments.