Author: Rae Spencer

Tornado Season

Rae Spencer3 Comments

Here in the mid-Atlantic, tornadoes rarely threaten. However, along the Tennessee/Alabama state line, where I grew up, spring routinely brings tornado outbreaks. These photos are from Easter morning 1984. That window, the one nearly hidden by leaves, was my bedroom.

There’s a pale blur of silhouette, in the back yard, that is one of our confused chickens. I don’t know where they were, when the storm hit, or how they survived. I was in bed. It was about four AM when the wind grew and grew and grew into a furious whistle and wail. I remember fear, and the wincing spasm of muscle and nerve when our roof shifted with a BANG.

After the storm, after it was too late to bother with safety, we gathered in the middle of our dark house. Despite having no warning, everyone was safe and unharmed.

Mother and my older sisters surveyed the damage, which was minor. I wanted only to check on my cat. Mischief had delivered kittens, days earlier, in one of the sheds. Mother made me wait until sunrise, which may have been the longest hour of my young life. When I opened the shed, Mischief greeted me with her usual cry and purr. I remember counting her kittens, even though it was obvious they were safe.

For that matter, all of the animals were safe. The chickens, whose roosts had been rearranged so rudely, gossiped and fussed for a few hours, then returned to their interrupted routine.

The peach tree (which had never produced peaches) was a total loss, and one of the small maples in the back yard. The older trees survived, survive yet, despite losing much of their upper growth.

Here in 2012, just this morning, a classmate from high school picked up her children after a tornado damaged their school. I don’t know how she survived the minutes between hearing the news and holding her kids. Simply reading her Facebook update, her few sentences confirming that the kids are okay, made my heart race.

And this afternoon my heart still races, because the day is not over. I want to curl, catlike, around my loved ones. Around all the ones they love, and everyone in the storm’s path. Please stay safe.

All These Lovely Weeds

Rae Spencer9 Comments

My husband mowed last weekend. It had to be done. The result is a fairly even swath of topped weeds, broken here and there by dandelions.

The mower’s blade shaved off an entire generation of henbit and purple dead-nettle. Taking advantage of their new access to sunlight, a shy crop of ground-hugging weeds have bloomed in unison.

I’m frustrated by the yard’s new blooms, but not because they are weeds. I’m frustrated because they are unknown weeds. Few things bother me more than not knowing.

While I’m reasonably certain that the white petals above belong to chickweed, my wildflower guide and online research have failed to provide a name for the pale purple flower below. I suspect it may be a type of speedwell, based on those four striped petals. But the hairy leaves? They don’t seem to fit.

What am I missing? Any ideas?

Thunder and Rain

Rae Spencer5 Comments

Morning rain escalated into an early afternoon thunderstorm, which, if the forecast is correct, will spawn more thunder and rain as the day progresses. The squirrels and warblers don’t seem to mind, so maybe I shouldn’t, either.

The Old Dog

Rae Spencer11 Comments

There’s no way around it. Indigo is getting old.

Time steadily steals her enthusiasm for tag, thwarts her agile leaps to catch a ball. Deafness eases her thunder phobia, but also ruins her nightly reunions with my husband. She no longer hears his approach, so misses his entrance. Failing eyesight slows her pace, and a few terrible crashes have turned her tentative in the dark.

Her age hurts. I ache when she stumbles on the steps or staggers stiffly through what was once an exuberant dance of greeting. I’m doubly wounded when she snaps in frustration, compensating for growing weakness with the only defense left to her.

It’s a dreadful miracle, this loving of dogs. Their lives are so short compared to ours, traversing so many different paths to inevitable loss. Even so, I’m not sorry to have loved this dog, to love her yet, despite her spectacular array of bad habits and neuroses. She’s a deeply flawed beast, but aren’t we all?

Poet’s Block

Rae Spencer10 Comments

Poet’s Block

An image of a weathered seashell
Keeps my monitor from standing blank
Like a cruel mimic of the blank document
That repels my words
They fall from it
Veer around its margins
Break their brittle syllables against the screen

Which is once more a seashell
I press my ear to the shell’s flat shadow
To hear my own intent
The low tidal ebb of phrase
Whispered in computer current
But there is only hum
And static-snap
And the odd warmth of waiting

The shell’s soul was stolen
Taken from the ocean
In proof of all the wisdoms
That counseled fear of cameras
Because nothing whispers from an image
Nothing breathes
And yet

And yet all is there
Every conch curve
And shaded whorl
And all my words that failed
To echo the ocean
Or uncover the cloud shrouded sky
Or mention how snails are never simple

Or charge their syllables with metaphor
To mean more than a word
More than a blank screen
More than a poem
I haven’t written
Lost for days
In the image of a seashell

Published in The Journal of Liberal Arts and Education Winter 2010