Fall Equinox 2019

19" x 22" Untitled (The Good Enough Life)

Mixed Media on Paper by Ruth Ann Howden

This is the only painting I’ve done this year. I do have a piece of wood that will one day be a block print, when I get around to it. That task hasn’t even made it to the To Do list, but I’ve left it sitting out where I see it everyday. The artist of good intentions . . .

my good enough life

nearing the last soft hurrah

scattering of whims

 My paternal grandfather was a poet, musician, wanderer. When he lost his farm during the depression he was already a widower twice. I knew him in the 1950's, as happy, playful and great fun to hang out with.

He had eight children and when he could no longer work as a hired hand on other people’s farms he did the family circuit and stayed with one of his children and then another. He slept on our living room sofa when he stayed with us. I remember him playing banjo and we would sing and dance to She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain, Clementine, and my favorite, Red River Valley, which was very sad, filled with his longing for home.

He taught us to braid four strands of leather into lanyards, and how to make slingshots, both the forked style and the sling that you spun around your head. He built a swing for us in an old oak tree up on the hillside. An all-around delightful companion. Grandpa used snuff and to cover the odor he would eat sen-sen, little bits of dried licorice from a tiny box. He would share some of his sen-sen with us kids, and though I don’t think I cared for the taste, licorice still hits a nostalgic spot when I smell it.

While he was living with us he self-published a chap-book of his poetry, 49 of his poems plus one anonymous poem titled "The Deadman's Journey" that is three pages long. He apparently had memorized that poem. Grandpa worked with the local newspaper to get the book type set and printed. Titled “Thoughts Along the Way” by S. G. Howden, subtitled Prairie Poems by a Pioneer with the price of $.65 on the soft cover but no date. Clues within the poems indicate they were written from the 1920’s to mid-century and give an idea of what his life and his world was like almost 100 years ago.

I am impressed by his effort, but as I recall he was not successful in selling them, and my parents were embarrassed by his trying. A box of these books were found in my uncle’s basement after he died. I am very glad that I have one. For a couple more samples of his work see my blog dated spring 2019.

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I have been reading my grandfather’s poetry again, seeing that he survived very difficult times and that he also let out a rant now and then, but he kept his sense of humor as seen in the following poem.

THE RUNT OF THEM ALL by S. G. Howden

My eldest boy found pleasure and joy

In wielding the gloves with me,

When he was yet small, I, being too tall,

I then would get down on my knee;

But the last time I tried I had to decide

That he was too much for me.

Now I used to play on the fiddle – –

My daughter she plays the violin,

She doesn’t play in my old fashion way,

She holds it up under her chin; 

She stands when she plays, fixes her gaze,

On notes that are Latin to me. 

I do not object – – she must be correct – –

For she plays so much better than me.

Well I remember one December

Of teaching the boys to skate,

For the last time I tried

I had lost that stride – –

I found I was twenty years late.

Children have kept an old record,

Their markings are there on the wall – –

Now when I step under that chalk mark,

I find I’m the Runt of them all.

  S.G. Howden on right, North Dakota ca. 1945

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This year when I try to write poetry it often comes out as rants — skip this if you wish to avoid negativity

Madness

The one-man militia comes to our festivals

He comes to our churches and schools

He comes to temples, offices, shopping centers and bars

Multiplying the grievers and also deceivers

Politicians claim they care but do nothing

The Second Amendment was a promise for security

With a well regulated militia

Now a loophole for arms dealers

We scatter and hide

Parents die on top of their children

Nowhere is safe

Marketers already sell bullet resistant backpacks

Slip into a crevice and hold your breath

Cower into nonexistence

Leaders who flaunt the law send

Messages that an individual’s belief and desires

Outweigh the unknown victims right to life

Random mass killings, more than one a week

Madness to accept this equation

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