He stirs the batter,
Makes fruitcakes with Great-Grandma,
Building memories.
(This Thanksgiving break, Zakiah our grandson helped AL’s mom make her annual fruitcakes she gives out to all the families. She makes chocolate ones, apricot, ones with white and what flour. She is too weak now to make them by herself and use the electric mixer. Zakiah, age 10, did that and built a relationship with her.)
I sit, at my desk,
after 10 hours’ sleep
where I tossed and turned all night,
my body, settling,
my brain, active,
thoughts of my students raging aloud,
The morning sun streaming,
my coffee, strong,
it comforts me as I take it in,
For the end of a race,
you must save energy
for the final sprint, where you give it all,
Knowing this balance makes all the difference
and determines who wins the race,
My final sprint is a thousand emails,
a hundred papers to grade,
Notebooks filled with assignments
from anxious students on the last day,
… but a crisp, Fall morning beckons
for a leisurely walk around
my favorite park, with trees still standing,
as their beauty falls to the ground.
cfblack, 12-03-2016
I don’t know why, this poem came to me tonight. To understand it, you have to know the story of Baha’u’llah, Founder of the Baha’i Faith, who spent 12 days in a garden before being banished from his native land, for teaching principles such as unity of God, His religions, unity of humankind, equality of men and women, education of all children, spiritual solution to economic inequality, agreement of science and religion.
In the Garden of Ridvan
I stand outside,
the breeze picks up,
His tent flaps in the wind,
I stare at the ground, ask why I’m here,
My heart sinks
With unworthiness.
His presence
fills the air with joy,
a perfume like honeysuckle,
The birds know, and respond with song,
This is the Day of reunion.
And I know, this moment,
this is the time
that Poets prophesied,
This is the New Jerusalem,
This is the Dawn of Wisdom,
I stand in complete and utter awe,
My heart is lit aflame,
My spirit thankful to be this near,
And then He calls, my name.
cfblack, 12-01-2016
The time of Ridvan in the Baha’i calendar is April 21 – May 2nd.
I can hear sounds of highway traffic from our front yard. It has become louder as the trees lose their foilage, but it somehow doesn’t bother me. It reminds me that I am home and not out on that highway.
Sounds of highway traffic,
Trucks are rolling swiftly past,
I am safe at home.
cfblack, 11-28-2016
Half conversations
People coming and going
Waffles for breakfast.
Noise, I hear noise,
like shattered glass,
I turn on the news,
and hear his name,
his voice saying words
I want to forget,
now enshrined, historic,
their hateful tones repeated,
turn all our frustration into hate for each other,
And I want to tell my daughters
they are never second best,
and my granddaughters, to never let
their hearts be afraid,
I want to tell the people
that our power lies together,
as one voice, rolling down
like a mighty stream,
They will play upon our fears,
they will break up and divide us,
they will plunder what is left
of the beauty of the earth,
for as long as we are blinded,
they will rake up the profits,
and leave us all to fight
for little scraps they leave us,
We need to build connections,
coalitions and alliance
Not another Berlin wall
to separate and divide us,
Holding hands in a vice grip,
supporting one another,
Our fears can never be
what makes us whole,
The earth is one country,
and mankind its citizens,
We are leaves of one branch,
Different flowers of one garden.
cfblack 11-16-2016
This little haiku occurred to me this morning while driving to work at 7:30am:
The Sun pierces night
everywhere sends beams of light
at the horizon.
cfblack, 11-07-2016
The wind never stops,
It blows like a fan on high
With no off button.
South Carolina–
Cockroach strolls across the floor
to escape the flood.
His joy is short-lived,
Unfortunately for him,
he has met his match.
— cfblack, 10-08-2016
You have to live in the south to understand the last two.
Unable to sleep
steady blowing of the wind
Matthew overhead.
800 lost souls
mixed with salty ocean waves
swept up to the sky. *
Swirling with the wind
They have traveled many miles
looking for their home.
I have never heard
winds of rain and hurricane
knocking at my door.
It is hard to sleep
knowing a tree may enter
through my bedroom wall.
cfblack 10-08-2016, 4am
* More than 800 died of this hurricane in Haiti this past week. It struck me that this same wind was now above my house, still dropping rain. Some of it may have been ocean drops from Haiti.
Did research using city directories tonight, need to write out some of this stuff.
Samuel Agnew is the elder. His two sons, William b.1806, and James b.1808. James is my GGGrandfather. Samuel first appears in the Cincinnati directory in 1831. According to the 1850 census where he is listed with James & family, he was born 1778 (this may be incorrect).
Samuel M. Agnew is listed as a shoemaker quite a few times, a tailor, was made postmaster of Fulton, a part of Cincinnati, in 1836; and lastly, a bartender in 1855, which is the last time he shows up in the city directory. Probably he died sometime shortly after that, but no burial spot or obituary has been found to date.
William is a carpenter, blacksmith, has a coffee business, and his most stable job seems to be “hatter”.
James is most of his life a “joiner” which is a specialty finishing type of carpentry, probably in his case for ships. They live on Front St., which is ON the riverfront on the Ohio river. James has a number of children with Mary Ann Freeman who he marries in 1848. My grandfather was his son James, b.1841. Still haven’t figured out who is mother was, or if by chance he was adopted (?).
James is also listed as carpenter, and lastly “conductor”in 1866, perhaps for a railroad. There is also a “David Agnew” who is around later, and at one point in 1869 is a clerk for the O&M RR, I don’t know if he could be a child of William.
James & Mary’s children were: Alfred b.1851, then Mary, Lizzie, Florence, Herman, Sarah “Sallie”. They adopt a Helen, but she is actually the daughter of James, the first son of James, also my GGrandfather.
In the city directories, the only Agnews showing all the time are Samuel, William and James, so I think they are family, & census records point to this also.
Doctor Grandma 