The calendar says winter is over. I'm hoping it is.

 

  On the sidewalk to the mailbox one morning, I looked down into the teeny tiny blue faces of what I call Johnny-Jump-Ups, or bluets. They are a sure sign that spring is here. 

                Returning from posting mail that morning, I stopped, looked around and noticed that blobs of white dotted the edge of the yard that fronts the street. White irises! All up and down the perimeter—under the sassafras, in the yucca bed, near the redbud, and even down the concrete-block wall that delineates the old driveway.

Also, near my feet was a clump of the white daffodils that I’d moved from the lower yard several years back. Their fragrance was strong––second only to the aroma of hyacinths. I plucked a couple to add to the bouquet on the dining table. They went into the small green vase that’s shaped like the Eiffel Tower. With two sprigs of spirea, voila! Now, when I sit to read or eat, they assail my senses of sight and smell, and I sigh, contented, thankful.

As if that weren’t blessing enough, Sunday, the first day of daylight saving time, I worked outside during the extra hour of daylight planting part of the flat of dianthus (pinks). 

The next day, I planted the others, plus the pot of non-running monkey grass. I might even get back into the southwest corner and tackle more overgrown privet.

            Spring brings many blessings and I have renewed energy to get into the huge yard. So, now, I dedicate at least the evening hour from 6 to 7 to work in the yard. It's the least I can do. And I love doing it. I hope you find blessings in your yard, too.

c 2026, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

WHAT I’VE READ IN 2025

 

Dena Gorrell – Lanternes

J. G. Whittier – Snowbound

Faulkner – As I Lay Dying

Winter issue – CALLIOPE

Joan Baril – The Art of Burglary

Adelaide Crapsey – Verse

Raymond Carver – Essays, poems, stories

Jane Hirshfield – Come, Thief

J. Toobin – Pardon

Charlotte DeGregorio – Ripples in Air

Eric Ambler – Here Lies

CALLIOPE – Spring issue

J. Capehart – Yet Here I Am

John Han – Coming Home

C. Cep – Furious Hours

M. Grunwald – We Are Eating the Earth

S. Kierkegaard – Fear & Trembling, and Repetition

Joe May – Ink By the Barrel

CALLIOPE – Summer & Fall issues

Dot Hatfield – Advent Booklet, ‘25

Joyce Vance – Giving Up is Unforgivable

Jonathan Karl – Retribution (carried over to 2026)

c 2026 PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

On Rick Bragg's "All Over Byt the Shoutin'"

 

 During much of my reading, I take notes, especially when sentences and paragraphs relate to or remind me of situations in my own upbringing and experience.

 My essay, “On Reading ‘The Belle of Amherst’—a one-woman play by William Luce about Emily Dickinson”—was full of personal remembrances, and was accepted to effusive praise by the editor of a regional magazine.  “On Reading a P. D. James Novel: Notes, Underlinings and Comments,” appeared in the same publication a year later. “One Thing Leads to Another,” observations from Iris Murdock’s The Black Prince, was published by CALLIOPE, a small press journal based in Arizona.

   Now comes Rick Bragg with a memoir about his family. Describing his deathbed visit with his “mean and hateful, and hated father,” he says, “He never said he was sorry, he never said he wished things had turned out differently; he never acted like he did anything wrong.”

            My dad didn’t either. He even bragged to his sons, sons-in-law and his grandsons that he was smarter than the lot of them.

I picked up ideas for essays, articles and my own memoir from Bragg’s writing. What would it feel like to never own the roof over your head since you lit out from your old home place? I know, because from the time I married in 1960 until 1980, we rented someone else’s roof. And walls and floors.

   What would it be like to have never had a doll? What would it be like never to hold, open, or be able to read a book? That I can’t imagine.

C 2025 PL dba lovepat press, BentonAR USA

RUMINATIONS? NO, EMOTIONAL PROCESSING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While folks like Joyce White Vance keep pounding on all online readers to “talk with your family, your friends, your neighbors” about how to ward off the fearful ramifications of dictatorship, monarchy, and autocracy. Some of us don’t do this. Me, for one. And not because I don’t interact with others, but in some places—Dollar General, the pharmacy, the grocery store—it’s not appropriate. Nor does it come up unless you meet a fellow partisan down one aisle and begin to discuss the state of affairs with them.

I could not participate in any conversation about the two-day’s prior Democratic election “blowout” with a group I have lunch with. After one month’s admonition from one of them: “no politics,” that pretty much left me out of any meaningful conversation since I spend most of my unstructured time reading various pundits who analyze the polls, any scoops they can get or read from another pundit. And commenters, opinionators, political data specialists, etc.

Two of the others read mystery series, and other light (to me) books found at second-hand stores, Goodwill or flea markets. Then they trade books. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and sometimes, one of them will glom and enthuse over a TV series, usually domestic arts. Having no TV, I’m completely left out of that conversation.

The one with the caregiver doesn’t talk unless spoken to. I always—for some reason—get to sit next to her; she was my best friend in school. I try to hug her when we meet, and when we leave, but sometimes Daughter leads her out before I can. This time, I asked her what she’s been doing. “Been busy,” she answered. Later, I asked her, “What you been busy doing?” She hesitated. “Whatever comes up,” she said. End of conversation.

I did begin one conversation: “Every time I write a check, I’m thankful I took bookkeeping.” The two others chimed in, “Who taught bookkeeping? It was a man.” None of us could remember his name. “It started with an H,” I offered, still (to this writing) unable to pull his name out of the brain. Guess I need to find a yearbook, but I have only the 10^th grade one where I was one of the (ahem) “Most Beautiful’ (3^rd place). The others agreed that Miss Doak taught typing and shorthand.

Another time, I added to the conversation. B. said something about one of our women classmates, whom I thought had died, being “Crazy as a Bessie bug!” That reminded me of one of the Bombadil’s poems about “a well-thought-of, educated woman after a stroke, asked the poet to get her a scholarship. Naturally, the poet was non-plussed. She finally asked the woman why she wanted a scholarship and the lady replied, “To blow my nose on.” Silence. Duh! I don’t recall any comment, or sniff, or pfuff—nothing. I don’t know what I expected them to do or say.

We did have a close encounter with John, the waitperson, when it came time to pay. He muscled in between me and the wall to begin the process on the apparatus designed for knowledgeable folks to take care of. Someone on the other end of the table made some snippy remark about folks not knowing how to do such simple things.

As for talking politics, I often tell MY daughter about any IMPORTANT thing that had happened while she was working. And one of my sons has lately been taking the opposite position if I happen to bring anything political into the phone conversation. So I’ve quit talking politics. Sad. My siblings are all on the same side as I am, thank goodness. I wonder what Thanksgiving will bring in that arena.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, my youngest sister is back to hosting the extended family at her condo in Hot Springs. Another sister’s family from up east—her estranged husband and their three adopted grown children––will fly in for two weeks, the second week to be spent with the long-separated wife.

Host sister asked me to spend Wednesday and Thursday nights with her since her Portland daughter and granddaughter won’t be coming, and she’ll be alone. Billy and one other grandchild will be flying in on Tuesday. That is, if their flights are back to normal after the shutdown.

I agonized over her invitation, now proclaiming to myself, ‘I MUST go.’ And alternately whining, ‘I don’t wanna go.’ Not to Thanksgiving, but to her two-night invitation. Finally, I took the plunge and called her. Straight to voice mail it went, so I told her I was declining her kind invitation, but would bum a ride with our brother down on Thursday. But I DO have a ride down for the gathering.

Lately, online folks are advising seniors to “get out and socialize; visit your neighbors; have friends over, etc.” But I want just the opposite: staying at home when I can, working in the yard when it’s nice out, filing papers in the office, working on the jigsaw puzzle an hour before nap and an hour before bedtime, reading, working on a family-history scrapbook—stuff like that.

 Oh, and thinking up creative ways to use leftovers, like those au gratin potatoes. I went online and produced a great soup today: a chicken-broth cube (one cup liquid), diced cherry tomatoes, one-fourth a red sweet pepper, a little onion, bacon. Mix, put in a Corning ware dish and cook at 350 until needed. Wonderful! No more leftovers.

c 2025, Pat Laster, dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

 

Pundits Find Poetry in the Prose of Politics

 

As a writer and poet (redundant!), I have learned a myriad of ways to get an idea, work up an introduction, add three points, then end with a summary. This is our retired-English-teacher-member’s construction of an essay.

                Here’s the idea I’ve had of jotting in my journals (one for the office, one for the dining table) what I call a clever use of poetic devices in the news-commentary-analyses-opinions and sometimes, ranting. It’s as though these folks took a class in poetry, or were taught that alliteration and assonance (what??) always elicit a positive vibe from the proofreader or editor.

                Around three months ago, I began noting phrases I thought were from the poetic-devices-catalog, citing the journalists from whose mouths came these potentially poetic thoughts.

                Now, the trick is how to paragraph them into what might pass as an essay. Let’s call the preceding verbiage the introduction and what follows as the three points of my subject.

ALLITERATION seemed to be the most used. I’ll bullet each example and cite its source.

·      “Books, bathrooms and Bibles: – these state-approved bills were thought to be counter to their purposes and it was a sub-hed to “New Laws Concern Library Director” by Grace, Hurt and Thompson, from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

·      “The answer . . . appears to be a toxic blend of profits, politics and purposeful cruelty.”  –– Thom Hartmann.

·         “ . . . tariff-turvy country.” –– Frank Bruni

·         “ . . . gluttonous Gotrocks. . . –– Ibid

·         “The presidency . . . isn’t a privilege, it’s a profit center.” –– Ibid

·         “ . . . trickle-down triumphalism.” –– Ibid

·         “. . . too minor to matter.” –– Experts on finding Hegseth’s plagiarism, Raw Story

·         “. . . callously and carelessly . . . “ –– Maureen Dowd, NYT

·         “. . . more volatility than value.” –– Ibid

ASSONANCE, HOMOPHONES, INNER RHYME

·         “ . . . swirls of uncertainty . . .” –– Economist Lindsey Owens, Raw Story

·         “ . . . perverse dissonance . . .” –– Frank Bruni

·         “ . . . armed with charm . . .” –– N. Allinson, M Birnbaum, J. Stein on UK’s Starmer

·         “All gilt and no guilt.” –– F. Bruni

·         “The Trump slump is upon us.” –– Lindsey Owens, Raw Story

·         “. . . groused about . . .” –– Adam Nichols, Raw Story

·         “. . . performance of governance without substance.” –– Democracy Index

REPETITION AND RHYMING

·         “The least informed, least curious, least logical, least credible, least responsible [president] in history.” –– Jen Rubin, The Contrarian

·         “ . . . where the conflict of interest becomes a confluence of interest.” –– Maureen Dowd, cited by F. Bruni

·         “ . . . the times are flush/ and the digs are plush.” –– F. Bruni

·         “The world may be going to hell/but don’t worry, the president’s doing well.” –– Dana Milbank, Washington Post

METAPHOR

·         “. . . leaving his demolition derby of DOGE.” –– Democracy Index

·         “. . . the lug nuts on the wheels of the White House bus continue to loosen.” ––Heather Cox Richardson

In summary, these selections seemed to be right out of the poetry clinics I’ve attended, including the two online MFA poetry classes from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Though I worked hard on those class poems, this compilation was a similar situation. Online news, analyses, commentaries, opinions are my conduit to the world sans TV and a smart phone. And it’s a lot quieter, too.

Viva la poetry! Especially in prose!

 c 2025, PL dba Lovepat Press, Benton AR USA

Waiting for the long-predicted winter event

 

From another year's snowfall

2:45 p.m. CST Tuesday, February 18, 2025, and I look out the south window to see if I can detect anything falling. Earlier, as I schlepped the recycle bin to the roadside for Wednesday's scheduled pickup, it showed rain on the border bricks of the sidewalk but, since I was covered from the cold except for my face, I felt nothing. Soon, the drops in the birdbath stopped and nothing has happened since. Old Gray Ford Taurus sits under the shed porch out of the precip. Daughter has taken a room close to her work site so she won't need to drive on any ice that accumulates. Smart woman, right?

I have a pitcher ro catch the drips and the "Dripping tap" note at hand: to activate during the next four nights, if the lows drop as predicted. With gas heat and two electric heaters, this big old house is warm enough if one wears four layers on top and two on bottom. Myriad throws are handy if needed.

Stay warm; stay dry' stay; inside if possible. The mail may stay in the box for several days if and when the winter storm emerges.

I DO have pansies blooming, and I picked the open jonquils last night as Ms. Carson suggested.

C 2025, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

On second thought, how about a "Second Final Column"?

 

January 30, 2025, Thursday night

The late Dr. Paul Root of Arkadelphia, (22 years at OBU, untold years in the music program at First Baptist Church,and a founding member of a quartet, The Four Jacks) had a habit of putting on several "final concerts." And since Editor May offered me the opportunity to write an occasional guest column, why not?

But I sent it only to the writers group I belong to. Earlier in January, I was lucky enough to receive a visit from a writer friend from Ann Arbor, MI, who has a son and grandchildren in this area. We'd met in Piggott at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Educational Center for a writers retreat. At the same time Joe stopped by, a closer neighbor (two streets over), who walks by daily and--with permission--cuts through my yard to avoid the dog on the next street, appears. I'm already streetside and I get a hug from both men, but one at a time. "Joe, meet Ed. Joe's visiting family from Michigan. Ed's a neighbor," pointing westward.

Inside, anticipating his visit,  I'd pulled a rocker over facing my sitting place, brought a TV tray beside it in clase Joe wanted coffee. He did. We caught up with the news; I offered him my last copy of a hand-produced book, A Year's Worth of Selected Haiku. "Happy 70th birthday," Friend and neighbor Lydia, who'd edited Joe's new book of poetry, Slow Rivers had only corresponded with him via email and phone, so I called her to come over and meet Joe. She did.

  As we visited, Joe said, "Behind you, I see a Donald Hall book." I twisted around and pulled out the thick hardback poetry book I'd read recently. In his earlier years, Joe had some interaction with Mr. Hall and expressed an interest in his work. "Here, happy birthday twice." I signed and dated it and gave it to him. 

And now, it's nearly February. Where DOES the time go?

c 2025, PL, dba lovepat press Benton AR USA

No more STANDARD columns so perhaps I'll blog more often.

 After more than 25 years of writing a general interest column (500 words) for the SOUTHERN STANDARD, a regional weekly based in Amity, AR, and begun while I lived in Arkadelphia AR, I decided to quit. But I kept the poetry column, and I will get a copy of the paper each week. I loved doing a general interest piece each week, but as I aged, I needed time (ha) to continue my memoir that my editor and I decided she would not continue. Also, there are myriad containers of loose papers and photos that need corralling before my time is over.

As I write, snow that's been predicted for at least a week, isn't yet here, but son Eric reports sleet in Hot Springs moving this way. My concern is for my daughter's safety in getting home from work, though we live within walking distance. But she assured me she could manage the short drive. Let's hope so.

Hello especially to Sue Goldberg of Australia, a faithful reader and commenter. I'm back, Sue!

c 2025, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA 

Post-hurricanes, the needed rain didn't get up to central Arkansas, alas

 

 

                Already Saturday night. Looking out the window, gloom is palpable. The darkness, really dusk, is black beyond the maple tree. The foreground is a carpet of fallen, shriveled leaves hiding the grass beneath. It’s time for me to go out into this scene and retrieve the squirrel-proof-but-not-racoon-proof bird feeder. Racoons can sit on the crossbar of the rusted swing set form, reach out to the feeder, shake it, and soon the wire holding it to the iron latch comes loose the whole thing falls, opening all the feeder squares to the marauder(s). After two nights of this behavior, I bring in the feeder and return it when I arise.

                Now, it’s pitch dark outside, but light inside, what with four lamps in this sunroom-cum-office on the southeast side of this old house. 

                Milton, the ferocious hurricane that followed Helene through Florida had diminished to a Cat 3. When my Gulf Breeze daughter-in-law complained via social media, I answered her, “But you live in Paradise, right?” She answered quickly, “They paved over that a long time ago.”

                The grandsons from Sarasota drove two hours north before the storm, but were back home in two days. Haven’t yet heard about the granddaughter from Tampa who fled to friends in Savannah.

While an MFA online classmate who lives on the east coast of the assailed state prepared, she was not hit except with a little rain and a little wind. “Little” in the sense could be anything short of killer winds and rain. Relatives in Georgia and other southeast states hailed an “all-safe-but-the-yard” message.

While the extreme south’s getting more rain than it needs, we in central Arkansas are thirsting for the liquid stuff. Not that we don’t have access to water, but the plants and trees need some in a big way. I fill pitcher after pitcher to keep the new celosia and pansies watered, plus the mums and what few dianthus plants are still green. I figured out a clever way to keep the two pots of pink petunias blooming: When one pot looks puny, I sit it down in a galvanized bucket that holds the end of the hose, run a bit of water in the bucket and voila, it revives and blooms happily. Same with the other pot.

c 2024, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

Summer's sameness and differences

 

 

The first cooler days of August last week—and the rain, plus a dose of nutrients––prompted a rejuvenation in part of the flora that surrounds this Saline County Couchwood. Showing WHITE were abelia blooms, an airplane plant blossom and a recent yucca torch.

Tiny RED cypress vine blooms run up the lattice on the shed porch. Also, tiny red blooms on the Crown of Thorns on the front porch. PINK turned up in the Encore azaleas, crape myrtle, oxalis, two pots of petunias, althea and three of Mom’s old begonia plants.

BLUE wandering jew, PURPLE monkey-grass blooms and beautyberries, FUCHIA dianthus, YELLOW lantana, orange cannas and bronze mums complete the rainbow of colors. The yarrow’s once-white blooms are now brown, and I’ve begun pulling them up.

Everything in this hilltop acre survived the days with no rain. It was easy to water the front and porch plants, but also the back where cannas are still green and have bloomed—not like last year when goldenrod took over the bed. This year, we got ahead of the invader so that the main plants thrived. Oxalis and monkey grass planted around the yellow-ash stump (the round bed) pretty well went dormant/brown or the foliage disappeared, leaving bulbs stacked like miniature minarets.

Grandmother’s rock garden/our pet cemetery under a three-tree sassafras grove, is no longer out of reach of a hose since Plumber Dyer added a faucet to the north side of the house. Two hoses mean that even the far live fence of roses and Russian olive, red bud and crape myrtle can be watered when needed.

The pear tree, which did not bear fruit last year, is loaded again. This tree does its thing without the benefit of pruning—except what nature does––or spraying. A couple in a red truck caught me out by the roadside, stopped and asked about the pears. “Take what you can use,” I said. “Don’t you like pears?” she asked. “Yes, but I still have two freezers full from earlier years.”

The south mum-lily-iris bed is the hardest to keep clean. Located under the breakfast room windows, and close to the only outside faucet, it is built up a foot high with rock-and-mortar—Dad’s doing, I suppose. Though I’ve moved most of the mums into the Inset bed, the ever-browning iris foliage means more attention.

              The late summer colors are always the same. The next two months will bring the oranges of pumpkins, more bronze ‘mums, the multi-colors of oak and maple and sassafras leaves.

                Earlier this month, on the second night of wind-and-rain storms, a huge maple limb fell in the north yard, as did a smaller pecan limb in another area. As of this writing, we’ve clipped the smaller branches and lopped the larger ones, then hand-sawed the even larger ones. It’ll take another week of such ministrations to get the entire mess out of sight and onto the burn pile.

                Happy Labor Day.!

c 2024 by PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

FAMILY GATHERING USHERS IN JUNE

 I like Eli Cranor’s ubiquitous opening lines: “I’m writing from . . .” Likewise, I like to open with when: I’m writing at noon on Saturday after an early-morning trip to the nearby Dollar General. We were the third vehicle there but by the time we left, cars were parked everywhere; one even outside of the parking area in the driveway!

                Everything on our shopping list was available except a one-pound box of Velveeta with which we make cheese dip. Additional hang-ups were aisles blocked by stockers. While I unloaded the buggy for the checker, AM put the filled bags into an different buggy making it quicker than if only one were doing it. But, she said, “you bought a lot of that stuff for me.” That I did. Thank goodness for Discover.

                During the long weekend past, the brush got burned, the trust got amended, the pizzas got eaten and everyone got back home safely, even if the Florida trip took longer than expected. Gordon got home at 12:20 a.m. Tuesday morning. The plane landed at 11 pm, but he had to drive from the Destin airport back to Gulf Breeze.

                Eric of Hot Springs took back a sack of purple-blooming irises from the front bed and this morning, he sent email photos of them in the ground—some at their house and more at what he calls “Amityland,” their property off Amity Road.

    A great weekend with all my children. Thankful. Blessed. Have a good rest-of-June.

c 2024 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

Welcome to the 21st Century, he says . . .

   . . . this nearly-ready-for-Social-Security second son of mine, after I phone-describe the new, larger (handicapped, the plumber called it) toilet. No handle: just a circle on the lid split into “1” and “2” sections to push when flushing. Even my son hadn’t seen one that advanced!

        So, since the siblings were coming for lunch on Sunday, I scrubbed the tile floors before replacing the rugs, took off the lower shelf of the tall metal rack over the “throne,” and moved the towels up one shelf. On one side of the lid, I placed the plant-in-a-pear-motif-ed vase over a tiny circle of embroidery done by others. On the other side of the flusher circle, I placed the squat, square-glass dish full of Florida shells, on top of a multi-colored five-sided doily. Already for company, including four others who, as I did, grew up in this house. Can’t wait to hear their comments.

                The 500-piece jigsaw puzzle is finally finished. As of last Wednesday night, at 10:59, I put the last of 33 pieces left when I began at that sitting. Whew! Now, it’s elevated at an angle as supposed to be and ready to show my siblings when they come Sunday after church. I also took a flip-phone photo to the other son who gifted me with the items. He said it was blurry, but he could tell I’d finished it.

                For a week or so, the puzzle replaced my reading time, but now I’m back. Mitt Romney’s biography by McKay Coppins is my current book. After that, I’ll begin on Kai Bird’s “The Outlier:  The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.” A grandson gifted me with this book at Christmas, bless ‘im.

                The siblings lunch went well. Guy brought a fruit and cheese-crackers appetizer served from the front room coffee table. After singing (our custom) the Wesley Grace, we ate pizza, hash-brown-potato casserole, a green salad, deviled eggs and peanut butter pie.             Afterwards, we gathered in the living room and visited until mid-afternoon. Two of the sisters, both of Little Rock, had dogs to get back to and naps to take. The rain had ended by then, thank goodness.

                Afterwards, AM and I cleaned up the kitchen, loaded and started the dishwasher, then retired to our napping places.

                An hour-and-a-half later, after a sleepless but restful spell, I arose, went into the kitchen for coffee, and noticed the dishwasher light was still blue, meaning it was still washing. No way! It should be showing a white light meaning finished. I opened the door to find the soap dispenser was not released, but there were suds in the bottom of the machine. Hmm. I started pushing the buttons as I usually do, and the light stuck on “sensor.” Nothing could happen until it gave me the strength and length of the cycle. Finally, finally, the sensor moved on to my selection; the washer began and worked perfectly. 

                All’s well that ends well, right?