dAD's BooKS

i will write more about this soon... but here they are...dad's books..in disarray...in an internal order only he knows about...

he said he wanted me to organize them for him...but I couldn't quite start yet...wanting to organize and make it more tidy...and yet honoring the creative, organic disarray...just the way they are as well... I will find a compromise I know...and do some weeding...

but...here....now...a glimpse of the rich inner workings of his mind...as displayed in his bountiful book cases....

After the Bath

Dad's hair is wild and unkempt. He is unshaven and needs a bath. He has always taken great care in particular with his mane of hair. Wild root hair oil is his favorite.
Last week he received the first haircut I have even given anyone. It was hard, but his big white mane of hair had gotten out of control. So I clipped away.

I told him we would shave and bath. I was apprehensive about bathing my dad for the first time, but figured I could do it.

We went upstairs. There were not any new razors so I made do by cleaning the old ones with an old toothbrush. Dad lathered up the soap and lathered his face....deftly from years of experience. I lined up the razors on the sink and he started shaving. It goes pretty well and soon his clear jar line and handsome face appeared out of the scrubble of the grey beard.I help a little bit, but he knows what to do and moves ahead.And soon, there he is, all shaved and clean in the face. His handsomeness showing through again.

I ask him if he wants a bath.I draw the water, but do not have my sketchbook or camera to record this tender moment. Fragile and vulnerable. It is an intimate moment for both of us and we jump over our self consciousness well...it's not easy, but it is necessary.
He smiles as I spray the water on his head. He washes his hair. He washes all parts of his body. Praising me for being able to help him in this way. Gone is the gruff anger I have known.He is happy to be helped.
. Somehow this is healing and helpful.
I see the bulge of the pacemaker in his chest.Life depends on that and his medications and I suppose on nurturing moments like this as well.....
He lays there in the tub in his vulnerability. Laying in the water...He philosophizes and muses as I hand him soap and a washcloth.

I assist him out of the bath and find clean clothes for him to wear. Clean socks are the hardest, but I find some.

He puts on his diaper, the long underwear, his socks, and pants, with belt. Then his two shirts, buttoning them carefully. Then he brushes his hair. I blow dry it a bit and he is all ready. Clean and ready for supper. He carefully goes downstairs.He sits on the couch, radiant and happy to be clean again.

Shalom Home

Jim got a new pacemaker in late September. Just as the Jewish New Year 5771 had started. It was the holiday of Sukkot. After leaving Regions Hospital he was able to convalesce at Shalom Home. His first quip and reaction"

"It's like a small isle of Jerusalem....without the Arabs!!"

Through the Roses

Through the Roses

I look at my dad through the roses. Here are two photos I took of him. How the roses recall the sweetness of memory. How memory revealed now in the present moment has thorns. Thorns that prick. See now, there he is. Look carefully. There he is. With all the array of his brilliance, his jokes, his poetry, his lightening rod conversation that creates amazing and impossible intuitive jolts only he can fashion with his anvil. And yes, remember the thorn of his quick temper.
All there. I look through the roses, remembering. Honoring. All that was. All that remains. Memory, sweetness, thorns and the beguiling scent that remains

Seattle to Sitka (Poem)

Seattle to Sitka poem by James C.White

The ration stick on the Windshield during World War Two

asked: " is this trip necessary?" No- it's an impure pleasure.

I'm taking Amtrak to show you what a fine person

Your taxes support; I'm going to Alaska because

several old friends write they are too busy for me to visit.

Since they can't see me, I'll learn by heart:

"At destruction and famine you shall laugh,

And shall not fear the beasts of the earth.

For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,

And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you." 1.

I'll spend my time with warm glaciers and cuddly Black Bears.

I'll see the glaciers calve and pat the new-born icebergs

As they blink in the salt water for the first time.

Old friends, you continue to move across my memory

Like skywriting on a still day: the first word drifts west 2.

And the last letters dissolve:

What is left if the pure blue,

Without cloud or regret or that camel's hump of memory

We thought would last to the end.

1.Job 5: 22-3

2.This image from Linda Pastan

Blessing over the Boxes

A blessing over the boxes, the unruly boxes.

Hm........the boxes...yes...all those boxes of my Dad's. The one's with his clippings, his large 11"x17" papers that hold quips and quotes and favorite poems all crammed every which way into the space of that one page.Boxes that hold a mish mash of papers, some important some not..some gems, some bits of gold and my mother's poems all mixed in as well.

And then I too have one of those boxes...A box of papers marked Emily and Jim that I have been holding onto for years. It's like opening Pandora's box to even glance into it. I suppose I should organize it and eventually I will, but for now I just dive in, retrieve precious poems by my parents. I will share some of them now in the next few blogs...love poems from Jim to Emily. Poems about travel and more.

Yes, blessings on the boxes...precious boxes..

Old age takes what it will. I stand there with my parents at the edge of the ancient sea. Time is running out. I see with foreboding the tide of dementia that washes in around my father's feet and then rises up, starting to claim him. I feel so sad and helpless as I watch this tide sweep in..taking the best bits of his memory and then washing out back into the eternal sea, not to return.
What can I do??
I go through the boxes, retrieving his poems and finding all the wonderful anecdotes of his that I have written over the years. Funny, wise and honest things he's said.
These pieces, these moments, these boxes are like the bright beautiful shells I see floating all around him as the tide of dementia washes in..I gather them up quickly and hold them up to the light...for you dear reader to see....for you dear reader to
see...

a blessing over the boxes, the unruly boxes and the bright beautiful shells of memory that they hold....


hold fast, there is more...

a painting of my father

Here is a painting I did of my dad way back in 1972. I was living at the time with my friend and her boyfriend. It was over on Elliot avenue in south Minneapolis. I recall my parents coming by to see me, or perhaps give me some rent money. The apartment was only $100 a month, but I could not afford even that.

I recall my dad sitting in the dining room and the way the light hit his face. I was at that time influenced by the Fauves and wanted to add some emotional dimension to his face through color as well as show his finely developed features and natural intelligence.

As I recall I painted it in one session....but memory is fuzzy here and it could have been two sessions....

It has hung for years above my Dad's table just behind the kitchen door. I feel the painting has retained it's freshness and vitality. Like the painting of Dorian Grey, in a way it holds onto who my Dad was in his younger years and that vitality still comes through despite his gray hair and sometimes unsteady step and memory.

I will soon enclose two photos of the painting here. ( experiencing technical difficulities!!) One with my Dad peeking around the corner of the painting.

Remembering Dad's dear Friend John Macoubrie

John Macoubrie was a good, good friend of my Dad's. They spent many evenings sipping bourbon and reciting their favorite poets. They were each well read in their own way. My dad fit in his visits with John in between working at the railroad as a clerk for the Great Northern and teaching English at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Despite John's great intellect and formidable skills as a poet he worked menial jobs, often as a dishwasher. He published a few poems in his lifetime and died an untimely death of cancer, just a short while before my dad retired from both of his jobs. The irony was that he finally would have had more time to spend with John, but he was gone...and deeply missed.
I still remember the smell of John's pipe tobacco as he sat in our living room discoursing with Dad. Often he stayed so late that he missed the last bus home. We would come downstairs to find him sleeping on the couch, still wearing his inimical wool tweed coat.
John was like an uncle to the rest of the family. He was gentle and supportive of our inner gifts.
We miss him very much.
There are many, many stories of John from his Dinkytown days. That place just doesn't seem the same, now that he is gone....Tales of him biking down 14th avenue with a lit pipe in his pocket, billowing smoke as he rode by...

So, this piece of paper just appeared on the coffee table. I copy it out for you now.

Another good friend died of cancer: John Macoubrie. I wrote this for a memorial reading. But I read only his poems and poems he knew by memory.

Ladies and Gentlemen
It was not class or education--
and I'm not sentimental, blind, or senile--
There once lived people who had resolve,
Modesty, openness, and devotion;
Who did more than they promised and said less:
Soft-voiced, humorous ladies and gentlemen.
So you call them antique and obstinate?
Yes, I know their weaknesses.
They lectured for long moments and peddled
For short times the hysteria's of their day.
But they knew that honor and courage
Are the virtues that carry on after
Justice and reason are powerless.

James C. White

Hiking in the Cascades

1970

Each year I go to the Cascades to take young women
On botany hikes in organized tours of one-
A study of huge blossoms spreading from inner ovules,
Stamens with their pollen-sticky anthers standing
Big within the gaping pink orifice.
(Rated "PG" for poets, "X" for gardeners, "G" for O'K
But these women aren't nature-lovers at heart.
Some are wedded to senile astrology: they don't see
The Sun, Moon or Venus, or Mars but their instant of birth
That marks its influence; they chart their worth.
I, in the cold untuned sky, see the force that cast this
It guides me now. When a wind, not forecast,
Strips the Cascade boughs, we don't freeze. That same storm
Piles leaves and blossoms that keep us sane and warm.

1980

A decade ago, I had courage in mountain passes.
But I surrendered it in exchange for watchfulness
And woodland instincts: I circle, wary and slow,
What women in the center hide, reveal and know.
I look down, half hoping some tigers of ambition
Will turn into butter at the bottom of my tree.
It doesn't happen because they have skill and good sense.
They have gathered solar heat and starlight to burn.
They are ripe with assurance. It's their turn.

1988

Half way up the slope, we sit and read.
We nod over our book, whose fingers keep
Its single place as we sift down to sleep,
Marking the number and place of passion.

Petals on Winter Water

Do I brag when I say I'm mad?
I do when I call myself "a wild poet."
Sing, clatterbones of steel as my fingers dance
And my dollars slouch towards bandruptcy.
Critics say little, and friends say "Interesting"
But you nod with joy at my tacky pentameters.
I no longer rush out to read to strangers
Or join my fellow crackpots who collect rejection slips
From The New Yorker. Typing alone.
I hear your laughter as my pages hit the floor-
Like a Chinese poet who shook a branch
A thousand years ago and shouted downstream,
"Each petal is a poem!" But never in winter.
I am the shaking, dancing poet for this season.
Another Chinese poet withdrew from the battle,
His nicked and bloody sword left outside:
Within, he composed calm verses.
The wind now howls about my eaves:
General Winter assaults me on all sides
While I sit in my library with old books-
Portable moons glowing with unearthly light-
And my poems on the cold floor,
Resting like petals on winter water.

Love Poem

This short poem was in the folder I have of Dad's poems.

Since Valentine's Day is on the horizon I include it here. Jim loves his wife Emily so much. Even though they bicker and fight this poem expresses his deep love for her.

LOVE

Antique Darling, I love you with fumbling delight

As I strip off vanity and greed in the night.

Let us pretend our love is eternal

While time peels our life to the heart's kernel.

Laughter

Laughter!!

This short poem will open the James C. White blog. Humor and laughter are a big part of my dad’s life. He has had his share of challenges and sorrows, but he is really funny. His Texas humor comes through again and again. Also, as a consummate wordsmith he loves to hammer words together in such a way that they bring flashes of insight or just a good belly laugh, because what he has just said is so funny.

LAUGHTER

Laughter is the strong, shining fish, pulled
From waters of oblivion, springing, flapping
Until it dies, or breaks the line, and returns
To the mysterious depths from where it came.

Laughter is heat lightening-silly and harmless
But it becomes a thunderbolt from the sky,
A dangerous form of revelation, leaving scars
That remain after the storm has passed.

James C. White 1989

Introduction to James C. White'[s Blog

Greetings fan or friend of James C. White

Since my Father survived his car accident on icy roads two weeks ago I feel compelled to honor him through posting his poems, quips, quotes and of course jokes
(Texas humor!!) on this blog. There is a huge body of material to draw from and I will include drawings of him as well.

I set out to honor him in this way. He is alive and now we can celebrate his briliiant moments with JOY!!