Shakespeare

This arrived in my mail box today, courtesy of Writers Almanac.

In his tragedy The Life and Death of King John, Constance gives this speech:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.--
I will not keep this form upon my head,
When there is such disorder in my wit.
O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!

Bouquet for Lizzy

Elizabeth's Channel

When she

finally

discovered

the channel that

her daughter used

to swim
upstream

she felt as if she had joined her

and found a way of countering

death
throwing herself

into her daughter’s skin

or was it

her daughter in her skin

the two

of them

working

furiously

to beat back

the waters that must go down.

Sitting on the rocks at the falls

water gushing over her body—

it is good to be alive.

Riverfest 2009

Went to Riverfest today, and remembered when Elizabeth and Ryanne and Cassie all performed the puppet show in the Kiddy Corner near the post office.  The children wore hand puppets of animals and acted out a play about the environment.  Her picture was in the paper.   There were children over there today.  

Some photographs she loved

In the book, Photography: Venice '79 in our living room I found an index card with pages listed in green ink, some of them double underlined (14, 17, 21, 53, 62, 64, 70, 96, etc.) (bold where underline should be since google doesn't allow underline font).

Here are three of the pictures that were double underlined. Elizabeth must have really loved these. The girl reminds me of her.




Eugene Atget, a door in the rue Eau de Robec, Rouen
She had an eye for great pictures. She trained herself to see by constantly amassing pictures of all kinds.



Lewis Hine, group of Newsies. Brooklyn 1908



Lewis Hine: Powerhouse mechanic, c. 1920

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth G.

Beauty

The bearded iris in bloom --
the leaves newly opened --
she cannot see these --
and her beauty we cannot see --
This is how we are all diminished
and almost crushed

Pictures

She left me notes that said:

I O U 20 hugs

Love,

Elizabeth

or pictures made with ink and paper

for example

This is one of my favorite pictures of Lizzy and me the year Richard had a bumper crop in cucumbers. It is in a frame that she decorated with sea shells she had collected on her travels.

What Branches Grow

Glenna Clifton is now a student at Columbia, but in 2006 she was enrolled at Smith College and lived in Comstock House with Elizabeth at the time she died. She gave me permission to post this recording of the dance she choreographed in Elizabeth's and others' memory which was performed this past fall. Thank you, Glenna, for creating this lovely and moving dance.


What Branches Grow from Patricia Markert on Vimeo.

Choreography: Glenna Clifton

Music: Metamorphosis by Philip Glass and Fix You by Coldplay

Columbia Ballet Collaborative

Laura Goodall, Dasha Jensen, Amber Matz, Marisa McKenna, Marygrace Patterson, Sara Paul, Mary Shorey, Eleanor Zeitlin.

In honor of Elizabeth Aakre (1988-2006), Aaron Anton (1926-2007), Max Brindle (1988-2008), and Will Christianson (1990-2008).

Performed at City Center by the Columbia Balet Collaborative Thursday, November 20th & Friday, November 21st 2008.

Sometimes when all three of them went to the river
and Richard fished, and Patty and Elizabeth swam
they were happy together, letting each other alone
yet staying together in an ideal place, with the rapids
not too fast, and the fish big enough to keep,
and when they grew hot they could cool off in the water.

I was dusting her room

and found the bit of green construction paper we had cut into strips then stapled into links to make a chain we used to rip piece by piece one link per day anticipating Christmas.

She loved making the chain with me. I hung it on the door in late November, just after Thanksgiving vacation when she was home on break. We had made origami at the dining room table too. I found the little whales in her backpack which still hangs from her door.

Christmas is over. But I let it in a little this year, when I sang my heart out at the nursing home with the ninth graders. It can't be the same as making origami with Elizabeth but I do love her and I love the young people in my life, who can never replace her but who keep growing up without her.

Happy Birthday, Shirley Jackson

It's the birthday of Shirley Jackson, (books by this author) born in San Francisco (1919). Her short story "The Lottery" made her famous when it came out in The New Yorker in 1948. It's a story about a small New England town where one resident is chosen by lottery each year to be stoned to death. She wrote the story in two hours.

Elizabeth loved Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Merry Christmas

Dear readers of this blog, and contributors, and friends.

It has been a difficult couple of months leading up to December 2, thinking of Elizabeth still not in the world to enjoy the world and the people she loved. And now that the holidays are here I am trying to think of a way to bring Christmas back to Elizabeth and my memories of her.

Why not spread the news of the book funds? The book funds were established to buy books for libraries where children as inquisitive and passionate about reading could find all sorts of titles to enjoy.

Here are the names and addresses of the funds. Giving a little something to the fund is like giving a Christmas present to Elizabeth.


Tusten Cochecton Library
Narrowsburg, NY 12764


CBA Library
6245 Randall Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13214

Photographs taken by Elizabeth

This is one of my favorite pictures of Elizabeth's. I feel as if she is waving goodbye but lingering. Her presence is there in the disembodied arm. She knows we are looking for her through the darkened window as we glimpse what once was, and the wreath of leaves that continue to grow.

Voting

Elizabeth's name is still on the voting registration rolls even though after she received a request for jury duty I sent in her death certificate.

I wish she could have lived to see this day. I am so happy for all the young people her age whose first presidential election was so historic and full of a feeling of liberation.

Looking for you in the Historic Preservation District

I wrote this when Elizabeth was sixteen.

I went looking for you after you exploded and left the house--
I started at the park where we would go when you were four--
The roses and their stray petals we’d bring home and put in a bowl--
the grass, all fenced off now--
-- in the gazebo, a Jewish wedding,-- in the heat,
people were holding up the canopy, everybody wore a yarmulke.

You weren’t in the gazebo of course, or lingering around the sand pit
now moved and painted blue.
A boy, wet from running in the sprinkler,
pulled at his shorts .
Of course you wouldn’t be here.
You had already finished revisiting this place,
and printing a photo essay of children playing,
capturing the pure attachments that form in an instant:
not knowing each other one minute,
then voila friendship!

You weren’t running on the loading platforms,
now stripped of their overhangs.
“The neighborhood’s gotten so fancy!” you noticed eight years ago
when you were eight and skipped up and down the steps of each platform, now all gone, none of that any more, just oversize housing for the rich and their children.
The weather promised rain but the heat just keeps steeping and the steam just keeps soaking us with sweat. If it were raining you wouldn’t ask me if we could
jump in the puddle on Harrison where the biggest pothole in New York City
used to make a splash basin. You are not there.

I walk down West Broadway and see the sign
--Paste Paper and Push for your business—
old and faded but not gone, a remnant of an age gone by.

Where are you my darling? My beautiful one?

Please come home and forgive me.



http://flickr.com/photos/indieink/573388546/

Salamanders, Nick and Lizzie

Since they were wee ones Nick always had an admiration for Lizzie. As they grew into young adults that admiration grew stronger. Nick is now a student at New Paltz and recently changed his minor to Photo.......this change as he stated to me was in honor of Elizabeth! I am so proud of what he has accomplished in his life, however most proud of his relationship with his special cousin and angel. She was his NYC girl that definitely taught him the ins and outs of actually living in the big city.

Well, Lizzie, here is a picture of you and Nick when you were around 8 or so. It is in our back yard in the suburbs of Syracuse (guess you could call this "country"). You both look a little "gooberish" and I can't help but smile when I see this photo that he was very proud to share his little bit of country with you as you turned each rock looking for the creepy salamanders.

Love mama and aunt Mary!

Looking in the window, Ackerman Road

Photograph by Elizabeth

The Sadness of Sullivan County

Palisades Parkway
in early summer. Second
summer without her.

Back then we counted
tag sales (once there were fifteen),
as we won’t again.

The cat circles us,
bumps his head into ours,
then turns. We’re not her.

Where are the kisses
she lavished on him as if
he were human?

She was pure light,
shining her life on others.
How can she be gone?

At midnight the moon
shone through the window. I sense
it is her spirit.