"Don't buy me pretty presents. Write a poem for me instead."
But nothing whispered in my ear, so out I went to clear my head,
Considering words to write her.

I found a mug from her alma mater, bound it in air wrapping,
A gift of love that might hold water, coffee (weak), or Christmas seasoning:
A cup of love and note of cheer.

So, Mother, Dear, this Birthday poem's for you, but just in part,
A poetic message from your Minnesota crew, to cheer you as you start
With vim and vigor, ninety years!

Love Always,

Don and Melody

After all the work of forming sprouts,
Calling out all forms of  leaves,
Beckoning grasses, inert, unseen,
HE turned browns to golds and greens.

After awakening from restful sleep
The slumbering, snoring bears,
The fidgeting squirrels,
The ball-coiled snakes;

After HE irresistibly wooed to life,
Fish, Fur, and Fowl,
Gave orders of procreation,
Set ardor in the *******
Of all living things,
To make them spawn and breed,
To make them stomp and howl,
Under the teeming blue of oceans,
Upon the verdant plains of grass,
Beneath the sun that holds us fast,
Fecundity blooming where HE passed,

After the world was teeming and alive,
HE left humans asking questions,
And a Serpent asking on the sly,
"Perhaps it's just another lesson?"

Suggested truth beyond the Truth might lie.
And she, Pandora's Mother, Mother of all men
Considered loss of innocence the price of "Why?"
And death a mystery to share with Man.

So Winter came upon the world,
So Death declared its right to win,
And Living Things upon the earth,
Discovered cold and death and sin.

He was five or six when he first challenged her
To play a game of checkers.
Fresh-faced and eager from battles with friends,
Young master of jumping and double-jumping,
Connoisseur of cornering and kinging.
Ready to wreak havoc on his grandmother,
A simple farm wife, unskilled in the battle of the board.

He didn't contemplate that the checker set
In the old farm house was hers....

Their battles raged,
Sometimes every day,
With, "Want to play again?"
His constant question.

I would watch her lose,
Seeing what my little boy,
The often conqueror,
Could not see in victorious glee.

Twenty-five years later,
We sit again at the old farm table,
And the two are pitted in their checkers game;
The same, but wearied box waiting
While the battle rages on the old scarred board.

Her hand, uncertain, moves the pieces slowly
As though she is off somewhere thinking,
And he, now patient, waits in a treasured time,
For her to contemplate and make her moves.

He is twenty-nine, and she is eighty-nine,
And though the opportunities rise,
Through my misty eyes,
I see my son, pulling punches.

The prairie sun hung low,
Slipping toward the hill,
Just touching the top of the lone cottonwood
Leaning away from the country road.

He stood in the doorway,
Removing the tattered chore coat,
Taking off his muddy boots,  
Saw his mother,
Standing, looking out the window,
Half expectant in her pose,
Half turning toward him,
Where he stood.

She'd looked out that window
More than 25,000 times, he figured,
Watching the ends of days,
Year after year,
Storms coming, or no,
Soft breezes blowing,
Opened, she'd listen to the prairie sounds:
Coyotes and owls at night,
Meadowlarks and roosters in morning,
Hawks shrieking and cicadas by day,
And people sounds:
Children and grandchildren laughing, crying,
Neighbors closing the latch and coming near,
Her husband, clearing his throat...
The memories returned at the window,
While she was standing there.

Through the galvanized screen the world filtered in:
Earth-rich scent of coming rain,
Strong tobacco smells of men lounging after lunch,
New-stacked hay beside the barn,
Springing grass and budding trees....

She'd waited at that window, too,
For her husband to return,
Or one of the ten boys and girls
She'd birthed and raised in this old house.
At 97, she was nearly blind,
Could only hear a little,
Spoke seldom now,
Covered her swollen legs with a woolen blanket,
Even in the heat of summer.

Her idea of exercise were precarious journeys:
The toilet,
The table,
The bed,
Her old easy chair,
And the western window.

He, the youngest son, a bachelor,
Comical in his words,
Steady in his ways,
Owned an easy-going laugh that set his friends at ease,
Careful in his manners, never meaning to impose,
Ever ready to lend a neighbor a hand,
Became the one to stay with "Mother,"
After his father died the lingering death
Of a man who'd lived to groan that he'd
Survived a bull's trampling.
(Well, "survived" was just a word, meaning
Prolonged misery preceding untimely death.)

"Mother, what you lookin' at?" he asked,
Fresh in from chores,
Wanting supper,
Knowing vinegar pie and hamburger hotdish
Were waiting in the oven
Because he'd placed them there.

"It must be time for breakfast!"
She turned from the window,
One frail finger pointing at the sun,
Struggling now in the branches of the tree,
"The sun is coming up!"

He stood behind her.
"Where does the sun come up every day, Mother?"
He asked softly.

She looked at him, confused.

"Yer lookin' out the west," he spoke again,
"The east is over there."
He pointed to the other side of the house,
And she, uncertain, looked again
At the dying sun, now setting,
Easing carefully into the western pool of night.

A few high clouds glowed red, tinging now in grays.

"Sun's going down, Mother, and nearly time for bed."

He put the plates on the table,
Walked her to her place,
Helped her sit,
Scooped their plates and cut slices
Of the home-made pie.

Red sky at night meant he might get the last
Few truckloads off the home place tomorrow
Before wind or storm flattened everything to the ground.

Tonight it was supper and settling his mother to bed,
Washing some dishes, and putting things away,
Before some reading and a solitary evening...
Before the coming of another day.

Stuck in the cloving of seasons,
Mourning the falling leaves,
The long, hot summer hours,
The dusty flowers,
Tired with their bee-filling,
Wanting only sleep.

I am torn for loving summer,
Regretting nothing:
The summer flings,
The two-up rides on tree-lined paths,
The running, ducking laughter in the summer rains,
The sparking, smoking skies of 4th July,
The too-warm walks and wanting shade,
The pleasures of a new-cut lawn,
And you, the constant sun-bather there-upon.
The sweet embraces you and I shared in the nights,
Knowing seasons last for just a while,
We celebrated summer through it all,
Not wasting time before the coming Fall.

00000
I love you, Melody Joy. db

Kathy Charmaz suggests that if
Grounded Theory leaves me stuck,
I ought to add an "ing" to all the memos
Of all the field notes of the scratch notes of the observations,
and the transcribed notes of the interviews
That I took a half a year ago,
And so....

I'm creating a list,
Starting with A
Accepting (criticism)
Adapting (to change)
Attending (to lessons)
Attributing (blame)
Attributing (success)

Skipping B
Which seems all alone,
I move to the Cs,
With a heart of cold stone....

Caring (from teacher)
Changing (to learn)
Collaborating (in learning)
Comparing (with others)
Connecting (key concepts, and ideas to life)
Correcting (one's errors in deeds or in thoughts)
Conferencing (to see what the good doctor thinks)
(Guess the Cs are nice to look at in my despair),

And on toward Ds,
Those diffident dogs,
Dialoguing (in classrooms, in memos and calls)
Differentiating (myself from the pack)
Disrespecting (my feet up on somebody's desk)
Dominating....(discussion in class or the hall)
(Careful, Ds, talk it out or you're gonna fall).

Es are Encouraging (the work can be done),
Enjoying (the tasks, alone or with you)
Engaging the students, (not too much to ask)
Excelling (the sense of, and actually, too)
(My sense is that E is a place to be dwelling)

F is still Focusing (on the specifics)
Then jumping to G,
Goal-setting (so needed, and powerful, too)
Graduating (the goal, so I've heard, how 'bout you?)

Then H is for Humor,
Amusing for sure,

And on to the I
Interacting (dialogue is our guide)
Identifying (the needs and the shame and the pride)

J stands with K,
Both empty and alone,

L is for Learning (adjusting in change)

M is for Modeling (Bandura's so proud)

N stands for "none" at the moment,
But O is for Organizing, (homework and my thoughts)
And P is Participating, (profs like this a lot)
Paying forward, (so noble, and so seldom done)
Persisting, (not quitting, as losers have done)
And Plagiarizing (May God help us all)
Praying, (we live through the work set before us)
Prioritizing, and
Finally, Progressing (Can we sing all in chorus?)

Q's pretty quiet just now,
But R is for Reading, and
Reflecting, (like mirrors or a pond)
Resigning, (accepting) or consider this,
Risking (daring to risk)

While S, Lovely S is all about Self,
Self-advocating (students)
Self-assessing, (too)
Self-deprecating, (but not much)
Self disciplining, (cool)
Self-motivating, (how often?)
Self-regulating, (we all should do this)
And last, some Struggling proceeds
Before we find ourselves Succeeding.

T is Threatening, (a sense of foreboding)
Teaching, (is harder under a threat)
Transitioning, (moving on, before we all rust)
Trying, (not tempting, but taking a try)
Tutoring, (If you need it, don't cry)

And U
Is alone with the flu.

So is V (guess it's viral),
But W's Writing, (the goal in this study, of course)

And so far,
X, Y, and Z
Are still hiding, no Ings in their view,
And it's back to my coding,
After I get back from the loo.