Posts by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Dear Audible, if they are “recommendations based on past purchases”, why are they mostly books I’ve already purchased? From you.

Dear Amazon, I order things for myself, my mom, my sister, the kids, my husband, my friends and even my dog. You should probably stop trying to figure out what to recommend for me. I don’t really need the latest sci-fi romance starring a wise-cracking werewolf on a space Harley. Probably.

You’re right about the shoes though. I love the shoes.

Miranda, it would be great if you could stop telling me how hot I am. Frankly it makes me a touch uncomfortable. And while I think you’re cool, the truth is you’re better at lulling me to sleep than you are at waking me up.

To whoever does this to flowers, why? Have you not looked at flowers in nature? They’re kind of the greatest thing ever. This just isn’t necessary.

xo,

Sandra

*****

Photo and text by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

not to worry, not to stumble

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on May 17, 2014

So td and I have been busy with unwriterly things on our respective continents. The past weeks have been filled with managing life, as is sometimes necessary.

td and Robin have been packing up house (and office and business) and moving from the city to a smallish town about two hours outside of Melbourne. I’ll leave it to her to fill us in on the details, but it has been quite a lot of work what with the packing and cleaning house 1 and cleaning house 2 and unpacking.

I’ve been playing nursemaid and companion to my mom several days each week. Just a few weeks shy of her 75th birthday, she took a tumble up the back steps (because that’s how we do things), breaking her left wrist and left knee cap. Both required surgery and are in immobilizing splints. Needless to say, she isn’t going anywhere or doing much of anything for herself. Before her fall, Mom, my sister, and I had planned a couple of road trips for May and then Mom was supposed to come spend a few days with me.

Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid family vacations.

Having experienced a few family vacations, I may file that tip away for future use.

The good news is that td and I are excited about our new piece of fiction, which we are working on in tandem. It may be different from our other stories, but then again many of our other stories are different from each other. The story begins with two best friends on a road trip through the desert. If there are no other interruptions from life, the universe, or the like we plan to have it done and out this summer.

And we should be here more regularly!

Sheltered

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on April 26, 2014

Creo que si … I believe

it will rain

tomorrow … I believe

the son of a bitch

is going into the river …

I believe All men are

created equal–By your

leave a leafy

shelter over the exposed

person–I’m a

believer creature

of habit but without

out there a void of

pattern older

older the broken

pieces no longer

salvageable bits

but incommensurate

chips yet must

get it back together.

…

As it gets now impossible

to say, it’s your hand

I hold to, still

your hand.

from Creo by Robert Creeley

*****

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

13 Ways: Thursday afternoon, near the turtle pond

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on April 2, 2014

“You know when it happened, don’t you?” he asked. I just stared at him, my mind a blank. At that moment there was nothing in it except sunshine and wind and, in one tiny corner, the thought that I really did know where I had misplaced that green scarf. “You took your eyes off it and let it slip from your mind and, just like that, it drifted away. You’ll never get it back. It’s gone for good. You can’t do that. You are responsible for some things forever and it’s up to you to hold on as tightly as you can; as if your life depended on it. After all, someone’s just might.” If I had known him, I might…

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Frozen

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on March 4, 2014

The street was white again,

all the bushes covered with heavy snow

and the trees glittering, encased with ice.

I lay in the dark, waiting for the night to end.

It seemed the longest night I had ever known,

longer than the night I was born.

I write about you all the time, I said aloud.

Every time I say “I,” it refers to you.

~from Visitors from Abroad by Louise Gluck,

*****

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on February 17, 2014

The bud

stands for all things,

even those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing it’s loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing

~from Saint Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell

*****

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

and hope’s a reptile waiting for the sun

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on February 5, 2014

Lui et Elle

O Mistress, Mistress,

Reptile Mistress,

Your eye is very dark, very bright,

And it never softens

Although you watch.

~from Lui et Elle by D. H. Lawrence

February

The cold grows colder, even as the days

grow longer, February’s mercury vapor light

buffing but not defrosting the bone-white

ground, crusty and treacherous underfoot.

This is the time of year that’s apt to put

a hammerlock on a healthy appetite,

old anxieties back into the night,

insomnia and nightmares into play;

when things in need of doing go undone

and things that can’t be undone come to call,

muttering recriminations at the door,

and buried ambitions rise up through the floor

and pin your wriggling shoulders to the wall;

and hope’s a reptile waiting for the sun.

~from February by Bill Christophersen

Source: Poetry (February 2002)

*****

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

this happiness may not be joy

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on January 29, 2014

joy may be a more demanding mistress, requiring a novice’s passionate heart. but in this place of vulnerability and willful trust, i have found a happiness. is it less than the joy of the soul? or are they really one and the same? more likely they are both pieces of my puzzle.

i will carry on, fitting the jagged pieces together; not working logically from the outside edges in, but tinkering with those infuriating center fragments that alone make no sense.

*****

Photo and text by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

Unmarked

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on January 12, 2014

I know flowers to be funeral companions

they make poisons and venoms

and eat abandoned stone walls

I know flowers shine stronger

than the sun

their eclipse means the end of

times

but I love flowers for their treachery

their fragile bodies

grace my imagination’s avenues

without their presence

my mind would be an unmarked

grave.

~from The Spring Flowers Own by Etel Adnan

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

13 Ways: Pillow Talk

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on December 30, 2013

Morning comes in with a click, a sigh, an indistinct whisper. Nudges at me. I push night-sweat curled hair out of my face and pull the quilt over my head. Morning sighs again and whispers some indecipherable secret in my ear. Morning, tasting of sleep and coffee, kisses me. Twice quick and light and once hard and lingering. Kisses the bruise on my left thigh. I deny the urging and turn my back on morning. Pull the quilt tighter, squinch my eyes a little harder. I start to fall and then catch myself, nestled in a thousand quilts. A mechanical golden bird clicks its beak against the bedroom window, lets itself in, and traipses across the ceiling, its ticking feet leaving gold hieroglyphic markings…

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Posts by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Off My Chest

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on June 1, 2014

not to worry, not to stumble

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on May 17, 2014

Sheltered

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on April 26, 2014

13 Ways: Thursday afternoon, near the turtle pond

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on April 2, 2014

Frozen

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on March 4, 2014

sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on February 17, 2014

and hope’s a reptile waiting for the sun

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on February 5, 2014

Lui et Elle

February

this happiness may not be joy

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on January 29, 2014

Unmarked

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on January 12, 2014

13 Ways: Pillow Talk

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on December 30, 2013