Judy at a reading in Goldsboro in 2015,
taken by Mary Susan Heath

***
Full Bloom 22  December 25, Christmas Day, 2016

Full bloom is sometimes heavy.
You can't go back. You've become
the person you wanted to be, but
not everyone likes it. You have
authority now as well as confidence,
and you're not hiding your light
under a bushel, but there are rebels,
critics, and scoffers. Even friends
can be jealous.
--- Full Bloom 4

***
 Over the door in Dante's Hell is written
"Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here."
Hope carries us forward when we feel
blind. It's obvious in plants. What gives
us hope? That second sight sees the
hidden yearnings, past the fear that
won't deter the seed. All we have to do
is let it rise, enjoy its blooming, dine
on its secret fruit.
---- Full Bloom 5

***
I might fail, but given who I am,
it's unlikely. I accomplish miracles
by moving one step at a time, one
task at a time,one day at a time,
and by trusting that fabric of 
connection I feel to all the people
around me and all the wisdom
stored in my depths.
----  Full Bloom 8

My life will be what I asked for.
I  may suffer, and I will lose strength,
wits, and power, but the Spirit of Love 
that lives  in me will live on, now and
afterwards.
----Full Bloom 18

----
Do we ever know what our life means
before it's over? I do. Not completely,
but I see where I've been and where
I'm headed. There are others also--lights
in whatever darkness falls. I'm one, but
each light-carrier, or, say, catalyst, is 
a gift the universe gave to humankind 
to guide its feet, as much as any Star
of Bethlehem. It's simple enough. We
listen. We see inside other hearts,
notice gestures of welcome, eyes that
speak of gratitude, recognize fear in
the body's stiffness, hear trust in the
whispered words "We won't go back."
We witness enemies transforming
themselves into friends; a few simple
words of welcome become a magic
wand. We are not alone though we
may be the only one within our four
walls. We are so small, one among
so many. The grand power of the Universe
accompanies us wherever we go, or 
to whomever we speak. If this is true,
you will recognize it  and be changed.

WE MUST SUMMON COURAGE

My grandmother Grace Roys, Nanking, 1911

Full Bloom  21

This book is my tribute to my grandparents, 
a gift my maturity and sanity can give. I'll 
find the answers, and then my feet will return 
me into the light, with Grace, redeemed, beside me.
Full Bloom 10.

I did what felt impossible. I agonized:
so many computer tricks I could not do.
Yet I had a publisher. I could  not refuse. I 
must learn and seek help. I learned. Help 
came. Other women wanted to read this story 
of my grandmother Grace--gifted, lively, 
funny, and fragile. Even in doing this work 
of manuscript preparation, I proved I was
tough. I worked through my panic, gave
myself courage. I learned beyond what I
had believed myself able to learn. All the
pieces are in place but one. I long to
receive it, but someone else must provide
for this one piece, this last gift. Now come
two warm days into our winter life, with
more Arctic blasts to follow. We live
in perilous times; more storms, more
pollution, more hatred, more power
plays. It's tempting to turn away, throw 
up  our hands, say we're too busy, too old,
too scared. That way lie nightmares.
To turn those fearful ones around, we
must summon courage. It begins in terror,
inches slowly forward. We do the easy things 
first; ask help; move through one more
nightmare. People begin to follow, summon
their own strength and resilience, learn that
acting silences terror. There was once a
woman who danced on the way to the gas
chamber. We remember her. Here we may 
come to that last brave act. How many 
of us will dance? If we all dance, no one
will die. Dancing is more contagious than
submission to what we know is wrong.
Human beings know how to love. Isn't it
time we obeyed our inside law to love
our neighbors as ourselves?

We Shall Overcome

A wise man said that we are in the midst
of a cultural revolution.  Once only white
men with property could vote. Then slaves
were freed, but there were poll taxes and many
ways their votes were suppressed. Women won
the vote nearly a hundred years ago, then those
with darker skin, then eighteen-year-olds. Some
old white men got scared When we with the
vote put a black man in the White House, they
got angry, and set out to take rights away
from all of us. So now they mimic the Nazis,
going after blacks, gays, women, even clean
air and water in a frenzy of freeing polluters
from restraint. It doesn't occur to them that 
they'll kill off their descendants. Meantime 
we are not idle. We who hold the majority of
the votes now are re-grouping, re-assessing,
teaching democracy. Remember our pledge?
"With liberty and justice for all"? We renew
our promises, take our stands, work quietly.
We are a democracy, not a Fascist state. We
form a circle, holding hands, standing firm.
We shall not be moved. Skin color shall not
separate us, nor sexual orientation. We know 
He or She has the whole world in Its hands.
We may suffer, but so have those who came
before us when they fought for freedom of
speech, freedom from having our homes
invaded, our lives discounted. We were raised
to believe in our human rights to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Hold tight. 
Don't ever let go. We shall overcome.

An age of miracles

Full Bloom 19  December 4,  2016

Focus on keeping your petals open 
to passing butterflies and honeybees.
Your immortality is already promised.
--- Full Bloom 4

The work on the new  book about my Grandmother Grace
has been all-consuming these months. It set off panic to
which I'm rarely subject. When I called, help came.
Now I see the end point coming. In ten days I can send
it to the publisher. Once more I stayed the course.
Anne says courage means you were vulnerable. I
learned to do what baffled me. Awake at 3 a.m.,
I wrote to re-find my courage. I even pulled the staff
of  the big New York and London publishers into
helping me. As I struggled for footing in a strange 
formatting world, and then my computer died, 
angels began to appear. Three knocked at my door. 
Doug came to set up a temporary computer so my 
book work could continue. My student Shirley,
gone a year for back surgery, stopped by, her hands 
full of egg boxes, soup, and honey. My neighbor Kevin, 
working with others next door to cut down trees and 
undergrowth, comes to show me how they cleared 
my land,too, and they want to do more, even cut 
firewood. Gratitude is inadequate to express what I feel.
I've lived within a gift-giving universe a long time, 
but now I'm in an age of miracles. 

We will fight if harm threatens

Full Bloom 17, November 20, 2016

There's color in the treetops now,
though fading.  Arctic air reminds
me that winter won't be denied us
who live in the temperate zones. I
walk the dog early to let her continue
her winter nap. There are wings in
and out of the feeder.  I mix sponge
for bread, light the fire I laid a week
ago. Sun was stronger then, and its
heat against the storm door warmed
me. The dog curls tight, hides her
nose; the hens, oblivious of cold,
rush into the orchard. Bach's music
lulls me to sleep. I have climbed
that sharp curve the publisher of
Grace gave me.  Voices comfort me.
My daughter wants me to come for
Thanksgiving dinner and bring
pumpkin pie. Women in my 
community agree: we will fight 
if harm threatens.  We won't be pushed
back to the fifties and its many
discriminations. We remember "with
liberty and justice for all." Never
perfectly  kept, but not denied either.
Our enemies will learn humility
at our hands or at Someone Else's. 

Gene Dillard, Mosaic Artist 2016

My friend Gene Dillard, once in my poetry classes, began working in mosaic art a few years back, and having covered his garage walls, he began on the inside of his house, and now is working on the outside.  These mosaics take about a year to complete a side, and mean piecing tiny pieces of tile or glass patiently hour after hour. He finds it a way to meditate.  What do you think?  Back in 2004, he spent a year in Honduras with the Peace Corps, building things--water systems as I remember--and writing poems in his spare time.  I've added in a few poems.  Aren't these beautiful?  Judy Hogan

***

The right side of the front of the house.

***
After only one week,
routine is sneaking
up the valley
like a cloud band,
seducing my mind.
Too soon I forget
how the new Honduran culture
embraced my heart
in its strong Latin hands,
then tore it open,
exposing me to new houses,
foods, cobblestone calles.
Everything attained a new height.
For a brief time
I had slipped

my cultural bondage.

***

Driveway side of house, recently completed, with sun on its mirrors.

***

Inside of Gene's house, with ceiling, doorways in mosaic.

***

           BANANAS

I saw his bent frame

walking toward the Mercado,

across his shoulders

a large pole with

huge bunches of bananas

hanging from each side.

Images rippled 

through my mind 

like corrugated sheet metal

used for roofing

in the third world

I thought he was a troubadour

carrying many fascinating

odes encased with

a protective outer skin,

waiting for a chance

to recite.

***

Front of garage was his first wall mosaic, but he has also done the side you see to the left.

***

Here is the new tree, with mosaic leaves, house behind it.

***

                        CEIBA TREES

In the silence of Copan Ruins

the wind blows

through the Ceiba trees,

a symbol for the Mayans

of the ever present

spiritual world.

I am reminded

 by the moaning wind,

as I view the deserted temples

that I am alone.

My loneliness forms itself into

dew droplets on the Ceiba leaves,

drips on to the stone reliefs

that make up this city.

***

Don't forget the chimney, and see if you can find Gene up there!

Making Grace Immortal

Margaret Roys Stevenson, my mother at age three on their cottage steps in Kuling, the resort for missionaries in China, 1915.

***
Full Bloom 7 September 11, 2016

Summer wanes at long last.
I will be eighty next spring.
September lets in cooler air.
The hill I climb is steep.  A gift
to publish Grace’s diary after
years of digging out its secrets.
In some way I fulfill her and
give away all she lost.  Then,
after these eighty days of work,
I can turn back to my life story
and my Russian love.  Now 
Grace comes first–impulsive,
elusive, funny, unpredictable,
and ultimately unreliable for
her children and her husband.
So, confined, declared insane, 
operated on as a means of control:
shock treatment, hysterectomy.
Yet she still loved to play the piano
and laugh.  As she lay dying of
cancer, Mother reported that she
was sane. She took her a rabbit, 
offered a ride wherever she would 
like to go.  Grace chose the mental
hospital to see her friends.  She had 
loved China; Norman, Oklahoma 
was never home.  When Gracie
died, she was inconsolable and 
ran away, looking for a stricter
faith, a strait-jacket that would
hold her together, and then was 
found wandering along a railroad 
track. My grandfather never tried 
to stop her, so the looney bin was 
where she lived too many years.  
She was sixty-four when she died 
and left fear behind for other people:
my mother, her brothers, and their
children.  Now I give her early,
happy life away to others.  The gift
she had was too heavy for her, too
hard to balance.  Now I carry it,
must let it lie lightly on my shoulders,
not heavy on my heart.  I’m stronger,
wiser, and people have helped me, will 

still help me make Grace immortal, too.

***

Christmas 1913, on the steps of their Nanking home:  left to right, Grace, Jeanie, her younger sister, holding Margaret, Charlie, Grace's younger brother, and Samuel Isett Woodbridge, her father.