Judy opening first shipment of her Russian book Baba Summer
***
The Late Years Twenty-Six April 28, 2019
What no one said about aging
was that it takes courage.
Your mind says, “At any moment
you may die.” You know it’s
unlikely when you sleep well, have
good blood pressure, and can still
wash dishes, sweep the kitchen
floor, get in and out of the tub,
feed the lively hens and not fall
down, but some reminder stays
in your mind, saying, “You never
know.” That’s where the courage
comes in. “Do it anyway,” says
your inner voice. Don’t be a coward
now. You never were. You always
ran toward what frightened you.
If you want to live another decade
or longer, keep moving, keep doing
all you can do. You’ll be glad in
the long run. Keep getting out
of bed; keep walking. Keep writing
down your gifts from the Deep
Self. It’s not only still there, it’s
more ready than ever to speak
your truth. As before, and for
so many years, all you have to do
is listen.
Judy congratulating Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina's poet laureate whom she first published in 1977. Photo, August, 2018.
***
The Late Years Twenty-Five April 21, Easter Sunday, 2019
When you grow old, even though you still do
most things, the important things: write and
publish your books, make bread and pizza,
spaghetti sauce and fresh egg omelets,
and walk without a cane, don’t be dismayed
when people have forgotten about all you
once did and got away with–opening so many
gates to let more people in–at the councils,
in the literary community, publishing poets
no one ever heard of, and now they’re famous–
more famous than you are. But it wasn’t fame
you were after but opening doors by challenging
the authority of the state, even of the nation.
Don’t let it get you down when they close you
out, can’t see how you could draw an audience
to a book reading. They don’t see the tree you
are, how wide under the earth is your root
system, how high are your branches, shading
the earth, succoring birds, keeping the air
clean and sweet where your love gives shade.
Remember that you’re a tree, a huge, two-hundred-
year old white oak, standing through generations
beside the road where so many cars and long-
haul trucks pass daily and scarcely notice you.
It’s part of life, to be loved and treasured by a
few but ignored and then forgotten by the ones
deciding things now. Go where they want you
and have felt and loved your ability to make a
new community out of a handful of strangers.
Do what you do best. Tell the whole story
of what you life has been like, of those who
treasured you, of those who do remember.
In time, they all will.
Judy by Emma Tobin late 2018.
***
The Late Years Twenty-Four April 14, 2019
I lost and then I found part
of my life story–those winter
months in Kostroma near
my beloved and yet far. I made
my own life there, visited my
friends and entertained them,
wrote poems and shopped at
the big daily market for fresh
cheese and butter, rode the
trolley bus, fell on icy sidewalks,
heard the symphony orchestra,
celebrated now painter exhibits.
I could speak Russian which
few Americans could. I hunted
through my boxes and filing
cabinets for the second half
of Frost and Sun. No sign. I
couldn’t lose it. Those pages
were so completely missing.
I remembered how in 2017 I went
several times to the Hospital
Emergency Room. I found the
title but no book on the computer.
Then I looked at all the files
stacked on the floor: coal ash
records, recently held classes,
new published books. Could the
missing chapters be there? I’d look.
I sat near the stacks and began
to check them. I set aside ones
I’d give to Duke as archives,
others I’d need to keep, and then
I reached for the file on another
stack. Two fell loose as if looking
for me. I saw the words Frost and
Sun. Could it be? It was. All ten
chapters of my winter in Kostroma.
For my friends it was a hard time.
They couldn’t predict their future.
They didn’t even try. “We don’t
know,” they said. Their children
were sick. Some of the food they’d
saved for the winter had spoiled.
Their salaries would barely feed
them, yet they lavished feasts on me.
They gave me clothes for the bitter
winter. I was cherished. I knew I’d
been right to go. I’ve never regretted
that love or the risks I took. It was
the way I lived my life when I began
my full adulthood, my own claim
on this earth, my own choices, and
the consequences that followed.
I’m glad I was the way I was and
did the things I did and took the
risks I took. Mine was and is a life
with one overriding purpose, to be
the human being only I could be,
to find that simple courage:
to be myself.
This was a CCACAD victory party back in 2017, when Judge Fox ruled for us in our court case to stop the coal ash dumping. Johnsie to the left in front, John Cross, third back on the right, and other coal ash fighters. We lost John in late 2018, and Johnsie now suffers from cancer and many chemo treatments, but these, folks, are heroic people.
***
The Late Years Twenty-Three April 7, 2019
Most of what we’ve tried to do has
proved futile, if not impossible.
We took on a giant public utility
and lost to the tune of seven million
tons of coal ash. It could have been
more. They promised us twelve
million. Oh, how they lied. How
falsely they attempted to reassure.
“There’s arsenic in apple juice,”
they said. But we didn’t want it in
our air, in our water, in the air we
breathed, the water we drank. Now
they want to burn the coal ash again.
“To make it clean,” they said. It still
poisons us. We sicken and die.
Already we lose our justice fighters.
Two lost: Terica and John Cross.
One more still fighting, still alive
after the twenty-third chemo
treatment: Johnsie. What does it
take for you to see the people, the
little children, the unborn babies?
Why don’t you wish us to live and
flourish? Your hatred is palpable.
In the name of Terica and John,
and Johnsie, we fight on. Stop
your poison now. Change your
tune. You, too, are only human.
You, too, can sicken and die.
