Tag: Walt Whitman

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Flowers, by Gillian

I was going to begin with the words, my mother loved flowers. But love is such an overused elasticated word that we are never sure just what it means, so I’ll simply say, flowers were among the most important things in my mother’s life. She rejoiced in the look, feel, and smell of them; the art and science of them. She caressed them with her fingers, her eyes and nose, and her mouth as she whispered their names to them. Not only could she identify any flower with its English name, but for many, she also knew the Botanical. As she read endlessly and traveled more she began eagerly to learn their names in French, German, Spanish, or alternate identities assigned to them in other English-speaking countries.
Take just one example; the simple buttercup. Being water-loving plants, these thrive in Britain. Where we lived they grew like weeds but that did nothing to diminish Mum’s appreciation both of and for them.
The morning sun shone on a cluster of the creeping variety, highlighting their soft golden glow still brightened by the dew.
‘Well, good morning my Beautiful Buttercups,’ she might greet them, whispering so as not to disturb them, very gently caressing the velvet gold petals with the tip of her little finger.
‘How are my favorite little Ranunculi this morning? My Ranunculus repens?’
Then perhaps she would slip into an attempt at a French accent.
‘My bouton d’Or.’
‘Coyote’s eyes’, she might add, in dreadfully Humphrey Bogart American.
She had read, somewhere, that in parts of the Pacific Northwest of the United States buttercups are called “Coyote’s eyes” by the native peoples. According to legend, an apparently very foolish coyote was tossing his eyes up in the air and catching them again when an eagle snatched them. Unable to see, the foolish, but evidently extremely creative coyote, made eyes from buttercups.
She would even offer up poems. In the case of the buttercups, all I remember was one by A.A. Milne, famously the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories, which Mum quoted as –
Head above the buttercups,
Walking by the stream,
Down among the buttercups,
Lost in a dream.
Having just this moment looked up the poem for the purposes of this story, I see that she was misquoting. The original begins –
Where is Anne?
Head above the buttercups,
Walking by the stream,
Down among the buttercups.
Where is Anne?
Walking with her man,
Lost in a dream.
How typical of my mother, I think now, that she should leave out the part about a man. Had there been mention of a child, she probably would have suppressed that, too. For her, I see through the magic of hindsight, love of flowers was a way to forget all humans and the pain that relationships with them can bring. She was safe with flowers. I used to witness the look in her eyes when she caressed them, and ache inside. She never looked at me like that. She didn’t caress me like that. Looking back now, I wonder if my dad ever wondered why she never treated him to such adoration either.
My father was the absolute opposite of my mother when it came to flowers, as was the case with most things. To him, they all belonged in a few very simple generic categories. A red flower was a rose, a blue one a bluebell, a white one a daisy, and a yellow one a dandelion. I think he really did have a genuine disinterest in flowers, quite typical of men of his time and place. Vegetables were a man’s plants. Flowers were women’s work. What good were they? You couldn’t eat them. They were simply a waste of valuable space. They harrumphed at their beauty and trampled their delicacy. Dad didn’t want to destroy them, he simply had no interest in them. But I do think his extreme disinterest and feigned ignorance was at least to some extent simply to tease my mother. Referring to a beautiful bed of dancing daffodils, Mum’s precious narcissus, jonquil, daffadowndilly, as dandelions, or the papery translucent lily as a daisy, was inevitable met with a very irritated, ‘Oh, Edward!’ from Mum and a broad wink from my father to me. Did he persist in this as much when I was not there? I have to wonder now.
Whatever the human dynamics, flowers were a source of much joy to my mother throughout her life. My example of the buttercup was played out with practically every flower she ever encountered, whether nurtured in the garden or wild in the woods. The last time I saw her I arrived at the nursing home with an armful of lilacs from a friend’s garden. She reached out her arms; not to embrace me but to gather the flowers to her.
‘Oh, Syringa!’ she whispered: burying her face in the blossoms, burying her nose in the delicious fragrance. A young girl just bringing in the tea looked at me in puzzlement. She was the daughter of someone I went to school with and new my name perfectly well. She scuttled out as fast as she could when Mum broke into –
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
She had a remarkable memory. I do not. I had to look this up from what little of it I could remember, eventually tracking it down in a poem by Walt Whitman.
The second verse reads –
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
I had to laugh, even after all these years. Of course, it would be the first verse she quoted, ignoring the second where humans inserted themselves, again unwanted.
It’s OK Mum, I tell her now. We all hope to find whatever gets us through the night. And what could anyone find, in their hour of need, offering more uplift for the spirit, more peace for the soul, than flowers?
© February 2017 
About the Author 
I was born and
raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S.
and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder
area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised four
stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself
as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years.
We have been married since 2013.
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Flowers, by Phillip Hoyle

1915
I’ve watched the Seasons passing slow, so
slow,
In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune;
Primroses and the first warm day of Spring,
Red poppy floods of June,
August, and yellowing Autumn, so
To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow,
And you’ve been everything.

Dear, you’ve been everything that I most lack
In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books,
Music, the quiet of an English wood,
Beautiful comrade-looks,
The narrow, bouldered mountain-track,
The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black,
And Peace, and all that’s good.

Robert Graves
I
was never sure why the romantic tradition never set well with me. I read poetry
in high school and college that usually left me simply wondering what the poet
felt and meant. I didn’t really like romantic sections of books or movies; they
seemed like an interruption to a good plot. I had friends I found interesting,
boys who intrigued me, girls I wanted to date. For school dances I bought
flowers for the girls. For my girlfriend I bought a necklace with a fiery opal.
She was thrilled. But I knew I was following a form I had learned rather than a
feeling that called me into a world of romance. My deepest feelings were for
boys rather than girls, but of course, that attraction didn’t proffer any
romantic images. They just weren’t there; at least I couldn’t find them. In
those days I’m sure that had I read this Robert Graves poem “1915”, I would
have missed the “beautiful comrade-looks” he cited; for in the world in which I
grew up romance, such as was described in poetry, was meant for a special
relationship between a man and a woman.
My
introduction to Walt Whitman was given no homosexual slant. It was interpreted
by a minister/scholar whose enthusiasm for the poet’s work took a theological
slant, one that celebrated all creation. It was the first poetry I could
honestly admit to liking—well besides James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphan
Annie”, Henry W. Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha”, and Vachel Lindsay’s “The
Congo”. It took years to open myself to the idea that Whitman was talking about
romance between two men, like comrades at arms or friends lying together in
leaves of grass.
I
married at age 21. I deeply loved my wife and was so pleased to be entering the
life we chose together. But even after living together, I realized the gifts I
offered her were to her something quite different than they were to me. Her
view of our relationship was romanticized. Mine was enthusiastic and generous
and celebrated love, a la C. S.
Lewis’ writing, especially his book Basic Christianity. I found it so
helpful but eventually I came to realize his view was inadequate, the old Don
speaking long before he had the experience of falling in love, a thing that for
him came late in life.
At
age 30 I fell in love with a man. Then I began to know a bit of what romance
was about. But being such a late blooming flower in that field, it took
twenty-five years more for me to fall deeply in love. For that experience I
thank the most beautiful male flower I ever encountered, Rafael Martínez, whom
I deeply loved in every practical and romantic way the two of us could imagine.
He amazed me one night when he said, “You’re so romantic.”
Using his best English, Rafael wrote in a
card: “My sweet love; I can’t express in
full sentences what my soul and heart feel. My whole life has been changed and
you made everything spin around in me. I am overwhelmed.
“When
I express out and loud I love you, you don’t have any idea of how much I mean
it.
“I
am not just glad to have you. I am extensible and sensible over you (and deeply
in love).”
I
thought that card was better than any love lyric I had ever enjoyed or any bouquet
of flowers I had ever seen. And I too loved Rafael.
© 13 Feb 2017 
About
the Author 
Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his
time writing, painting, and socializing. In general, he keeps busy with groups
of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen
in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He
volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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The Solar System, by Pat Gourley

“If the Universe doesn’t care about us and if we’re an accident in a remote corner of the Universe, in some sense it makes us more precious. The meaning in our lives is provided by us; we provide our own meaning.” 

Lawrence M. Krauss

The last sentence of this quote, from the controversial physicist and atheist Lawrence Krauss, I think could be viewed as a synonymous description of the actualized queer person. We have had to, through our multitude of unique coming out paths, provide our own meaning. Many of us have started on our path of self-actualization feeling very isolated and alone wondering what is wrong with me. Most of us though eventually realize how precious we really are. We are the golden threads in the tapestry of humanity.

As modern astronomy has proven beyond a doubt our solar system is phenomenally insignificant in our own very insignificant galaxy. Best estimates from data provided by the Hubble Deep Space Telescope is that there are between 100 and 200 billion galaxies in the ever-expanding Universe. Our own galaxy the Milky Way is estimated to contain between 100 billion and 400 billion stars.

If there is a God, or sole initiator of this whole phenomenon, that entity surely must have a bit more on their mind than whom we, inhabiting the third rock from the sun in this miniscule solar system, are fucking. I mean really get a grip and begin to try and comprehend the mindboggling immensity of the Universe. It really implies an extremely exaggerated sense of our own importance to think the initiator of the Big Bang leading to the creation of 200 billion galaxies is preoccupied with our drama. If there were a hell this over the top human hubris alone should get us sent to hades for eternity.

I will admit that perhaps I have a very immature and un-evolved sense of the spiritual. I will concede there may exist an omnipotent source of direction running through the evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang to date, call it God if you want. Sorry but the comprehension of such an entity at this point in my life is way above my pay grade. It would require an amount of faith-based belief I find really unthinkable and quite frankly a lazy copout. Maybe I could be further along in actualizing the possible reality of this wonder and not having to rely on faith alone, if I spent more cushion-time but I don’t think that is going to happen either.

I actually am quite content thinking we really are the result of a bunch of lucky evolutionary “accidents” that have occurred since living things first appeared on the planet 3.8 billion years ago. When you look at all the countless evolutionary steps and cross roads traversed and we still made the cut it is really something. It is quite precious really.

I was at a very wonderful event recently when two dear male friends decided after 27 years of living together they should get married. Though the words marriage and God were spoken several times during the event it was actually billed on the program as a “Celebration of Love”. I think the institution of marriage was cooked up to control property and women and then their reproductive capacity. I do believe we queers are really bringing our own meaning to it all, to this age old and until recently heterosexual institution.

I was asked to participate by doing a reading or two lasting no more that a couple minutes. It did cross my mind that if there is anything to this God business my stepping into one of his churches might unleash a meteor strike ending the human race right then and there. That did not happen. I was able to read a poem by Walt Whitman and another by Rumi with no detectable dire consequences resulting.

So even if God doesn’t exist and the Universe doesn’t care a twit about us and we are just a happy evolutionary accident in an isolated solar system on the edge of an in significant galaxy it sure is still amazing. As gay people we also get to provide our own sense of meaning and that creative self-realization adds immensely to the human dance on this third rock from the sun.

© October 2016

 About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

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My Favorite Role Model by Phillip E. Hoyle

For many years my gay life was lived in literature. I read story after story, book after book, seeking to discover just what a gay life might look like. I read to find out more about and build an understanding of the lives of my gay friends. I read to find myself somewhere in that literature.

There I found many disappointing characters. I don’t mean that I didn’t appreciate their stories, but what they did in their lives was not what I would choose to do were I living as a gay man. Still I wanted to understand and kept reading, sometimes re-reading, sometimes discussing what I found with a gay friend. In this exploration I found an alien world filled with people I didn’t especially want to be like. Early on I read works of Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopalian priest. I was impressed by his book of poetry Are You Running with Me Jesus? and realized he was open, perhaps homosexual. Then I read a book by Rev. Troy Perry who started the Metropolitan Community Church. I didn’t like his theology but did think he was doing something very important. I read about the lives of characters in Patricia Nell Warren’s many novels. Some of them were nice people but their experiences of life didn’t really lead me into a world I could easily identify with. I read autobiographical novels of Edmund White and Felice Picano. In these I felt a kind of kinship but still wasn’t interested to live their lives. I kept looking as I read Forster, Vidal, Baldwin, Renault, Isherwood, Puig, Holleran, Maupin, Kirkwood, Rechy, Monette, Kushner, and many more. I appreciated the writing and sometimes identified with a character up to a point, but I couldn’t place myself into their episodes.

It’s plausible that I was looking for a role model although I didn’t or perhaps couldn’t think in those terms. I read the lives of characters in gay novels and stories like I read the characters in stories by the Nigerian Chinua Achebe or the Brazilian George Amado or the Osage Indian William Matthews, as if their characters were from another world or even galaxy. But there was something more important that I did appreciate. I liked especially the scenes in which two men really liked one another, deeply desired one another, and shared their thoughts, feelings and even secrets. I loved when two men lay together in Leaves of Grass. That I could imagine.

In those days I wore a beard because I wanted to; now I wonder if I was somehow emulating Walt Whitman. I visited many people in hospital; was I still Whitman? I cannot answer that question very well. I don’t think so. But I did feel a strong connect with Bud in Ethan Mordden’s series Tales of Gay Manhattan. Often Bud observed his gay friends. Often he was befriending folk who came off the street. He was all around Manhattan and Fire Island with his friends telling their stories. Eventually he lived with a younger man somewhat at the insistence of his group of friends. He seemed surprised at how satisfying it was. Now that I did identify with, even wanted. I suspect at an emotional level, Bud was my bud, my gay role model even though our lives were mostly different. I have made many gay friends in ways similar to his friendships. Like him I have written about them. I have lived with younger and older men. I have built a successful gay life and consciously have connected it to both the character Bud and his creator Mordden. So I guess I have had two or three favorite role model even though I had difficulty naming one.

Denver, ©23 February 2015

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot