"This Is the Real Thing": THRESHOLDS, an Exploration of Transitions

My new book of poems. Available in bookshops and online.

My buddy B and I shared a long lunch at a community restaurant today, and wrapped it up with identical slices of coconut cream pie. It was very satisfying, as we talked about wide-ranging topics that matter to us.

Running through much of the hour and a half was a repeated theme: If we're not looking into mirrors, we forget that we've become "old." Of course, it depends on how you define that -- but we're over 70, and when we were young adults, 70 was the edge of Old Age, something that seemed foreign and even spooky. What if you fall down and break a hip? What if your mind starts to slide? What if your relatives and friends think you are boring?

None of those have happened to either of us (*yet*).  But we walk in a landscape that can be mysterious, baffling, and hard to predict. And yes, we watch our footing literally. I climbed a steep ridge before lunch, and on my way back down, I held my arms out to both sides, for better balance.

Aging as a transition is not as drastic as leaving home for college, or falling in love, or experiencing pregnancy or (gulp) loss of a child at any age. It happens that B and I have both experienced loss of a much-loved spouse, to a fatal illness. Time has passed since those losses began, and we mention our husbands' names with affection, more often than with sorrow or pain.

Transition. With it comes the magic of the "liminal," the borderland where things aren't quite confirmed. In poems I often pull up imagery like mists, rivers, boundaries. This is what it is to walk forward into change. To walk up to, and then across, a threshold.

What have you learned from facing and walking into transitional times in your life? This is open for your comments (although they get screened, so you won't see them post right away). Conversation.

Thanks, B, for today's shared and sweet adventure. 

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A bit of the poem "Wilderness" from the book:

 There could be worse

wilderness to walk, you know; others have had it hard too, and
they didn't have such good boots to wear. The little things.
Let's count them now, together. 

Some Days Are Meant for Poems

I have a new routine that I call "Tuesdays are for poetry." It's a way to break the hold that "paid work" has on my schedules, and admit that I need, for all my soul, to spend enough time writing poems. Yesterday was Tuesday, and that's what I did with the time.

But even though today is Wednesday, this poem came along as I paced the wet sidewalks of a nearby town, waiting for my car to be ready at "the shop." You'll see things in this one that may become themes of many poems ahead. Thank you to this day, and to Emma, for starting this rolling.

I Remember: for Emma

 

When I slipped (again) to your sister’s name it was only because

those memories were laid down when I was a young mother—

a time so fraught with peril that hypervigilance felt normal

(there must have been ways to stay safe)

 

and I hope you can forgive me (again) for what must seem

like I do not know you for who you are: But so many times

each year now, as I scan the images of who I’ve been and where

this aging brain is headed,

 

I’ve seen you again in your leather chaps, chainsaw ready,

your confidence on a mountaintop and the carefully blank

gaze you gave to some demanding young man, bare chested,

muscles rippling,

 

who practically dragged the saw out of your hands, started

showing off with the fallen trees. There were reasons we had

for not shouting at him. I remember those, too. And the moment

I pulled my supervising motif

 

up from my boots, interrupted him, said “I am paying this woman

to do this job, give the saw back. Now.” Plus your calm patience

guarding the lake (its wide waters ample as a woman’s hips) from

invasion at the boat dock. See?

 

Now every morning through an Alice-in-Wonderland view

I marvel at your blossoms, herbs, eggs, invitations to strangers

as well as friends, the way you share your journey in biscuit-

sized morsels, feeding the world.

 

You will understand, on this cold and rainy Wednesday, how

my mind goes to biscuits, and lighting the oven, making magic

with flour and cream: Baking may become my enduring skill

as bits of thought crumble behind me

 

trails laid out for grandchildren to follow if they are quick

because there are always crows ready to sample what’s left

behind. Crows recognize faces. The ones around me call out

when I pass, walking briskly,

 

trying anything and everything that may maintain my mind.

Aging comes with funhouse mirrors, thickening the waist,

creasing the face, tugging at eyelids that never will go back

a quarter century and more.

 

I am willing to give up youth and nimble knees. To wake

repeatedly each night, rolling the seized-up shoulder muscle

easing the hip, taking care not to think in the darkness

(because it triggers insomnia)

 

and then to meet the stranger reflected in the bakery window,

telling her she looks seasoned, capable. I talk to the crows. One day,

I may not notice when I mouth the wrong name. But today

is not that day. I do remember, Emma.

 

BK 10-8-2025

 

Combining Vermont, Love, Loss, and Literary -- It's Been a Big Poetry Month

My short haircut from Dec. 2017, when I didn't know whether breast cancer surgery and treatment might make it too hard to wash and brush my longer (and increasingly silvered) curls.

 

As a person with decades in recovery from alcohol abuse (it's a long time ago now, but I have no intention of picking up a "first drink" even though time has passed), I'm especially impressed with the online literary magazine Anti-Heroin Chic. It's an "anti-drug addiction safe space" where writers can express pain ... and of course, relief. So I'm touched and honored that the winter issue features two of my poems: "From Nails to Screws" reflects part of the journey I've made to set aside my Dad's well-meant but very dangerous instructions for life as a woman. And "In the Very Air" brings you first to Harvey's Lake in Barnet, Vermont, where I finished raising my sons, and then to my front porch "now" -- the place where I can see both the land's beauty and the tragedy of climate change. 

Here's the link to those two poems.

Another online magazine that's become a favorite of mine is Persimmon Tree, which offers space especially to older women writers. You can find my poem "Breast Cancer, 5 Years After," which is pretty fierce -- click here and scroll down quite a ways, browsing other intriguing work along the way.

The winter issue of Persimmon Tree also includes a "likes/dislikes" list of mine, in the fashion launched by Susan Sontag. Because there are a lot of those, they are being rotated day by day, so if you don't see my list when you first click here, take a look at some other time. Or, if you don't have time to visit twice ... here you go, without the attractive graphics of the magazine:

Things I like: hard rain on the roof, new snow, bonfires, fresh cinnamon, pillowcases, signed books, watercolors, chipmunks, Star Wars music, double rainbows, nickels, dark chocolate, globes, rowboats, comb honey, toast.
 
Things I dislike: an empty mailbox, stale mushrooms, herbicides, crumbs in bed, pigs, cheap cheesecake, splinters, garlic before breakfast, collapsed barns, diesel fumes, hammers, nylon petticoats, socks that slide down, malice.

 

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This month also includes publication of "Crossing Over the Moose," as an honorable mention by Raw Earth Ink and therefore included in The 2023 Northwind Treasury, an anthology coming from Alaska. I'll post a photo when my copy arrives!

 

I've also settled into writing about one segment per week for my "story of my life" (aka memoir), on the platform Medium. You should be able to see a few of these chapters when you first visit; after a bit, Medium will ask you to subscribe to the platform. That will give you access to thousands of authors, and you'll recognize many of their names right away -- as well as getting acquainted with rising stars of the literary world.

 

Now I've got to get back to some holiday baking. May your browsing give you a break from your own stresses, and maybe some hope and pleasure as you go.