Jam for the Fans Information

Jam for the Fan tickets will go on sale Tuesday March 1st around lunch time. We will first put out a Facebook and Twitter announcement with the information you will need to order tickets, and we will then send a mass emailing a few hours later. (On Facebook, make friends with NerissaandKatryna Nields, or you can "like" The Nields. To follow us on Twitter, follow NerKat.)

Dates: June 10-12 2011

Package includes:


Friday evening: Registration and happy gathering time (snacks included)
Friday night: *Open mic (package purchasers will have first option to sign up)
Saturday Morning: *Family show
Saturday day: Scavenger/ Treasure Hunt
Saturday Evening: *Iron Horse show- 20 Year celebration. ALL members of the Nields will take the stage at some point!
Sunday Morning: Gospel Brunch (show only, food can be purchased separately)

Tickets for the whole package include a goodie bag with super fabulous (high quality) premium items and a BINGO card for a special round of Nields Bingo before the Iron Horse show!


Adult tickets will be $100 plus a $5 processing free.

A word on children: We have decided that the best way to deal with ticket prices for kids age 10 and under is to allow you to buy their tickets a la carte. There will be a VERY limited number of a la carte kids' tickets to the Sunday morning Gospel brunch so if you want those, order immediately.

Here are the a la carte Kid prices for Jam for the Fans:
Friday Night- Open MIc and Welcome Party free for kids accompanied by adults who have weekend passes
Saturday Morning- Family Show $5 for kids accompanied by adults who have weekend passes. Without the weekend pass, tickets for the Family show is $10 for adults, $5 for kids, babies under age 1 are free.
Saturday Evening- Iron Horse $20- limited supply
Sunday Morning- Gospel Brunch $10- VERY limited supply

If you buy the WHOLE kid package for $35, the child will get a special Nields Goodie Bag, Jr.
We are going to compile a list of babysitters for the weekend for you out of towners, but we cannot guarantee you a babysitter.

There will only be 90 adult tickets available.


* some tickets will be available for these events separate from the package, with the exception of the Gospel Brunch which will be for Full Package purchasers only.

Muse Food

It's Day One of our Mid Winter/Almost March-Spring-Can't-Be-Far-Off Retreat. Our theme is Feeding and Nurturing Your Muse. I have people writing in every corner of my house. We just had a nourishing meal of Butternut Gruyere Tart and Roasted Corn & Kale Soup. I stayed home from yoga today to focus on the theme, the food, the house, madly tossing huge pieces of furniture into closets so that my writers would have clear spaces on which to sit. I consulted recipes in cookbooks and then did what I usually do--wing it. I had some interesting food allergies to work with: a no-onions vegetarian, someone who is gluten-free, not to mention the hostess who is sugar and flour free. Tom had hidden the blade for the Cuisinart, so the ingredients of the soup which I'd intended to puree came out fully intact, which ended up being better anyway.

Things usually are better when I let someone other than me into play. Why do I forget this over and over again? It's the lesson God's been trying to teach me ever since I was a kid and didn't think it was such a great idea to have a little sister. You can see how that turned out. Good thing I wasn't the boss of that. And this is lesson #1 in Feeding the Muse: let the muse in. Don't doubt. I have observed, in years upon years of running writing groups, that we writers almost inevitably think that our work is bad as it's coming out of us. Oh, sure, every once in a while we have a Nanci Griffith moment where a song pours out of our mouths into our pens on onto the page in ten minutes, but more often than not, it's a tortuous process where the draft feels like it's all hemless and hopeless. It's not. Trust. Have faith in your own process. Also, you are not necessarily the best judge of your own work. In an interview with Matthew Sweet I read in the 90s, he said something to the effect that some other, more experienced and celebrated songwriter had said to him, "Just wait till you get a hit. You will be shocked which song it turns out to be."

What is Muse Food?

Well, of course, it's different for everyone. Just as each of us has our own particular food predilections, aversions and allergies, so do our muses. Some like to go to art museums. Some NASCAR races, Some use Libraries. One writer friend I know gets inspiration from really junky TV.
My favorites sources these days are:

Long walks and talks with Tom
My minister Steve Philbrick's sermons
Self-righteous documentaries that tell me the planet is going to hell because of corporate greed and quarter pounders with rBGH cheese
Bob Dylan albums
A daily run
Yoga practice
That book (whatever is currently compelling me)
Ted Talks
Taking a bath with my kids
Doing a puzzle with my kids
Prayer
Meditation
Cleaning out a drawer
Tidying a room, especially the sorting, dusting, arranging
Cooking a meal from scratch
Having a frustrating conflict and talking it out
Making a themed snack for my kids. The picture above is from a snack entitled "White Plate Snack." Very popular.


When I go too long without these things, my lens shrinks. My mind is less a glittering room full of color and texture and bright natural light and more a dull, depressing studio whose one window looks out on its neighbor's brick wall.

One way to starve my muse is to give me something to count--like calories, or items in my budget--or something to worry about--like where my daughter is going to kindergarten (and therefore, naturally, where she will go to college; who her friends will be, how mentally healthy she will be, etc.). The other way is to make me extremely busy. Though it's not the regular busyness that throttles the muse. My muse actually likes a busy Nerissa. The kind of busy where the laundry sits on the bed for an hour or so while I'm making the yogurt, and there are forms to fill out that get mailed, and the trip to the bank gets wedged in after child-pick-up and we stop at the co-op to get bananas, and then I race home to coach a client, make dinner, tidy the house for the writing group, write a song, fill the dishwasher, kiss Tom and go to sleep--that kind of busy is fine. It's the kind of busy where I notice I haven't spoken to my parents in weeks, I tell Katryna "I can't talk right now, sorry, overwhelm" and I miss evening meditation--that kind of busy does me and my muse in.

What are some of your favorite ways to feed your muse?

Fun Family Music Links

Wonderful interview of Katryna by our friend poet and mom Amy Dryansky on her great blog Pokey Mama.

And....drumroll please.. announcing our new blog, Singing in the Kitchen!

Savoring: Another Artist/Mom Post

It's Tuesday afternoon, which means I am writing with my Tuesday group, a delightful group of woman (and man) who travel as far as the Eastern part of the state and as near as down the street to exercise their "show up" muscles and visit with their muses. I am so grateful for these fellows on the writers journey I almost don't know what to say. I love the moment when we shut our lap tops and pause before we take turns reading. I am constantly amazed by what bubbles up in these fifty minutes sessions.

Today I re-read an email from a former client, asking when I would teach a workshop called "Guitar Chords for Dummies" (twist my arm--sounds like fun) and noting that she is off taking her son to visit colleges. "Time flies," she wrote. "Savor every minute."

That was helpful. As I sat down with Elle to practice her little violin, I got as present as I could, pushing from my mind all the things I wanted to jump up and do (such as sort through the gigantic tub of her drawings and paintings, none of which I seem to be able to part with) and instead let her practice at her own speed. She wants to play her "Twinkle" variations as fast as she can; when do I interrupt to encourage her to refine her pitch or draw her awareness to her wrist alignment? Today I said, "Let's let the CD play the harder variations and just listen to them go by." "Yes," she agreed. "Then we can just, you know, relax." As she said this, in the timbre of a tweener, bobbing her head side to side and gesticulating with her wrists. "Sometimes it's fun to relax."

Out of the mouths of babes.

Savoring is my creed. And most days, with savoring--being present, being attentive, being grateful--it goes pretty well. But there are times when the old anxiety dragon yawns, and its loud hot breath prickles the back of my neck, and I start to think I should be doing something more...important. Timeless. Making something that will last. Writing a classic song. Publishing my poor neglected novel. Inventing something that will save the planet from climate change, or at least make the life of a mother with small children easier.

Oh, and bring in huge amounts of income so I never have to wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things like burial insurance and other morbid-flavored thoughts.

One of the pratfalls of parenthood is that one can mistake the real and practical need to make a living to support these blessings we call kids with the delusion that our kids (or we) will die if they
-don't go to private school
-don't have iPods
-don't have dance classes
-don't get to play video games
-ever utter the phrase "I'm bored"
-don't go on a trip abroad before they are 18
-don't get squeezy yogurts in the lunch bags "like all the other kids."

I am sure, if you work closely with kids, you have your own list. When I am not in my savoring mode, I get hooked into believing that I need to run around acquiring all these desires (and many of them are mine, not my kids') and that if I do, everything will be OK. They will grow up happy, they will be high functioning, talented, socially integrated adults and most importantly, they will love me and never fail to mention the word, "Mama" without that soft, dreamy far away look in their eyes.

And I still want to be an artist on my own terms, which means, most likely, never making a higher salary than that of a (private school) kindergarten teacher.

As I am sure I have written here before, Katryna and I are gearing up for our big Twentieth Anniversary weekend called Jam for the Fans, June 10-12, here in Northampton. It's going to be a Nields reunion of sorts. My ex husband David is flying up from North Carolina to play a few songs with us ("I'm rusty," he cautioned me. "So it really has to be just a few songs.") I ran into Dave Hower, our drummer, in Thornes Marketplace last week. He is about four weeks away from becoming a new dad himself. He will be onstage with us at the Iron Horse as we blast through our 20 year repertoire. I am excited, terrified, in denial, dissociated and curious about the whole weekend, even as I try to market it and build it and manifest it. Which is pretty much the way I have lived my whole life.

But most of all I want to savor it. And to that end, I am going to pace myself, just as Elle paces herself with her Twinkle variations. I will gear up, and I will stay present and witness. I will show up for myself and my family and my bandmates.

My Grandmother's Couch

After our gig in Watchung NJ last weekend, Katryna and I spent the night for the last time at our grandmother's apartment in Manhattan. Readers of this blog will recall that she died at the age of 103, in her home, last July. Since then, her daughters have been painstakingly going through her effects and trying to decide what to keep and what to throw away. As you might imagine, there is much to keep, even if it seems of no value. I don't know how they are doing it. Every third item they pick up is drenched in history, significance, some kind of import connected with a woman who outlived a century, and who happens to be their mother. Even the shoelaces seem to hold value. As someone who hates clutter (and yet can't let go a single paper I wrote even a line of lyric on, let alone a drawing by one of my children) I do not envy them this task. I have a rule: I can't bring anything into my house unless I give something else away. And as the recent beneficiaries of several lovely pieces of furniture from my mother-in-law, we don't have a lot of space anymore. As my mother and aunt ask me what I would like to take from the apartment, I feel as stymied as they do. What do I really want? What will bring my grandmother to mind in a lovely quotidian way? And what is just 80-year-old clutter?

Even the things of value are suspect. The books, for example. Actually, the books are the perfect example: they pain me so. No one wants them. What of the Encyclopedia Brittanica? I lusted after these volumes when I was a high school student, begging my parents to buy me a set only to be told they were too expensive. Now I can have my grandmother's--but why? Who needs 120 pounds of dusty old books when there's Wikipedia? And the books are dusty. My eyes water when I get near them. Will my kids really read them? Will their information from 1945 even be accurate?

And no one else wants the books. They are not worth that much, and do I really want to box them up, lug them down seven flights, pack them into the van and drive them home, and then search for space on our limited shelves? I can have the complete collection of Shakespeare on Kindle for free, after all, and that weighs about four ounces and takes up approximately one centimeter of shelf space.

But I haven't quite cottoned to the Kindle I was given for Christmas. After the initial excitement--and a week of the stomach flu during which time the only thing I could figuratively stomach was reading snippets on the Kindle of books on the Amazon website, which sadly led me to inadvertently purchase Portia deRossi's memoir on anorexia (oops) --the device is shoved into my book shelf next to the real books. I love real books. I have way too many. And so I stood on the stool next to the bookshelf, hovering. Should I take the Shakespeare? The Dickens? The Encyclopedias?

The apartment is a mess. When I talk to my mother about the huge task she has been involved in since last July, I want to swoop in and support her, wielding boxes, sharpies and packing tape, me a whirlwind of efficient helpfulness. And yet when I enter the space myself, I am overcome by a powerful inertia that is hard to explain. My mother and aunt had eleven days to empty the apartment, and the last time we were all together, I found them sitting on the floor each going through separate photo albums, exclaiming about their tiny young selves, their adventuresome mother (who traveled to every continent but Antarctica, I believe), seemingly oblivious to the enormity of their task. And yet I too felt suspended in time. I too couldn't figure out whether we should keep the yards and yards of raw fabric my seamstress grandmother had piled in one of her closets. "Here's a half knit sweater," my mother said, her voice pleading over the phone. "You are our knitter; do you want to finish it?" That time, I was paralyzed with indecision and left carrying just a paperback volume of the Upanishads from the seventies.

This time, we took a top hat that had belonged to my grandfather, and a tiny blue tulle ball gown. I will have to alter it; my grandmother weighed about 90 pounds for most of her life. Katryna and I are going to dress up for a photo shoot to commemorate our 20th anniversary of being professional musicians.

It takes time to make these decisions. The articles I kept from the estate of my other grandmother who died in 1996 are still precious to me; even such things as the cheap aluminum stew pot and the circa 1972 spatula, and the cracked unmatching china pieces. Every time I use these things, I think of her. Grief takes up time; books take up space. And for me, both are worth it, even when I think otherwise and want to barrel through with hard nosed efficiency.

In the end, I took the Shakespeare and the Dickens and left the rest. All week, my writers used the old volumes for prompts. On the inside cover of the Shakespeare, reads This is a limited edition of which 500 were bound. You are holding," and in red handwritten ink, "No. 158." They were published in 1899.

Today the rest of the furniture arrived. The weather is finally thawing up here in Massachusetts, and my kids danced on the porch and sang songs of joy to Shane and Miguel, the moving men who brought us my grandmother's couch, her bedroom rug and some other pieces. My mother got on a train this afternoon, and when I spoke with her, she was more tired than I have ever heard her. There is a second death in the releasing of these things that bind a person to the earth, and in letting them go, it can seem as though we are abandoning the beloved. I am glad we did the sorting, and tonight Elle and Jay bounced on the new (old) couch which I had bounced on as a child as young as either of them. Maybe one day one of them will claim it for his or her own and my grandchild will be bouncing too.

How to Launch A New Blog When You Already Have a Blog You Love

When I started this blog in 2004, my impetus was the immanence of Katryna's maternity leave and the resulting fact that I was losing my platform. I needed a way to blather without being on stage, and someone (I think Meth) suggested a blog. As an avid journalist (the kind who writes 3 pages a day in a composition book, not the kind who write for a newspaper)I was used to baring my soul on the page, and I figured blogging would be a nice synthesis of my daily pages and my songwriting.

I was hooked pretty quickly. What's not to love about writing in solitude and then publishing it right away and then getting feedback in the form of comments?

Pretty soon, I saw the pitfalls. A blogger who only blogs when she feels like it doesn't usually sustain an audience. Common wisdom dictates bloggers should post at least daily. And write short posts. And respond to all comments. And stick to their subject.

I broke all these rules. What was my subject? Usually just my life, prompting a couple of readers to label me narcissistic. Yes, well.

And yet, the blog goes on. There was a period of time readers might recall, when I blogged every day. This was in 2009, when my son was about six months old and my daughter almost three. It was fun to be so connected to the "page" when I was at the same time so deeply immersed in my babies, but the directive to post every day meant that my pieces lost something in terms of length and quality. I have not mastered the art of the short post.

But now, Katryna and I are getting ready to launch a new blog. And here's the truth; after blogging for going on seven (!!!) years, I still don't know much about the art and craft. This new blog needs to be about short posts. Titled "Singing In the Kitchen," it's to be an adjunct to our book which is coming out in September (All Together Singing in the Kitchen: Creative Ways to Make and Listen to Music as a Family). Our mission is to provide young families with ideas and stories and resources to be better able to bring music into their families, to make it a wonderful source of relationship building, bonding and community building. We hope to post several times a week; to recommend other artist and books and programs; to occasionally sing a lullaby via a podcast or YouTube video. We want to start a conversation with families about the many ways they incorporate music into their lives; how it can be a source of inspiration as well as immanently practical. And yet we don't want this blog to be a big corporate affair; after all, we are the Nields. It's going to be homemade, personal, imperfect and --it is to be hoped--lovable.

And so I need your help. What are your favorite blogs? Do you read any blogs about family or music to which we should connect and reference? Do you think it's necessary for a blogger to post every day? Do you hate reading long posts? (I guess you can't hate them too much, since you are reading me.) What about the look of the blog? Should we switch from Blogger to WordPress? Any tips you can give me will be helpful!

I forgot to say that another bit of conventional wisdom I hope to flout is that one should never write two blogs at once. I hope to keep May Day Cafe alive and strong, and make Singing in the Kitchen a success, and I really want to thank all of you who read this blog for sticking with me over the years. You have taught me much. Please continue to.

Optimal Blueprint and How I Found My Tibia

Yesterday just before dinner, I came home from a weekend away and scooped up my four and a half year old daughter, kissed her, listened to her adorable recounting of the day. I cuddled her up and said, "Oh, Elle, I just love you so much. Let's be best friends forever and never ever fight."

This is a line we have been using on each other for a year and a half. But today, she just smiled as if she were the mom and I were the kid and said, "Oh, Mama, I don't really think that is possible."

I burst out laughing, hugged her again and marvelled at her maturity. We agreed that it would be OK to fight as long as we made up and forgave each other; and that that, in fact would be even better than not fighting at all. Fighting, it can be argued, can be sort of fun.

Five minutes later, she was lying on the floor having a tantrum because her dad was serving edamame for dinner and this was unacceptable. Twenty minutes after that, she was sitting in my lap gobbling up that same edamame and declaring it the best meal ever.

I spent the last weekend at the Yoga Sanctuary in Northampton, where readers of this blog know that I have been doing an Immersion in preparation for a teacher training for the past year and a half. The workshop I just attended, taught by Martin Kirk, was on anatomy. I wasn't sure what to expect--after all, anatomy has never been my strong suit. I could never remember which of the six bones in the arms and legs were which. (I think maybe I knew that the femur was the thigh bone, but humerus, tibia, ulna--whatever.) But from the moment I took my seat in that gorgeous orange room on Friday night, I knew I had come to the right place.

Martin started with a discussion of what Anusara yoga founder John Friend calls "The Divine Matrix." "There is an underlying Source that directs this dance [of creation, of life] called the Invisible Matrix. It is unseen, unmanifested energy that is you--the you that is you before you were you. That Invisible Matrix is always still there. In Anusara we are trying to line up to our individual matrix [or what is sometimes called our 'optimal blueprint'] But we are all connected to a Supreme Matrix."

I am not sure what exactly prompted me to push aside so many projects last year to focus on yoga. In many ways, it seemed a strange choice. I whittled down my coaching practice to make room for yoga classes and trainings during a year when I was under pressure to deliver a book to a publisher by a certain due date. I proceeded despite an injury to the wrist. I studied the Bhagavad Gita when I should have been blogging or writing songs. And even though the benefits of yoga for my mind and body have been abundant, I remained unclear about what inside me was so dogged in my pursuit.

And here we pause for some amusing Before and After pics.

After one month of yoga:

After 10 months of yoga:

After 15 months of yoga:

The discussion of the optimal blueprint answered my question. This was why I was here. The number one guideline for Anusara yoga teachers is to help students "Align with the Divine;" and that alignment will be different for every single individual on the planet. My job is to align with the optimal blueprint of me, and to thereby be the Nerissa-est Nerissa possible; yours is to be the Elizabeth-est Elizabeth possible, or the Fred-est Fred possible.

This is exactly what I tell my clients and the writers who write with me. The hairs on my ears and arms, not to mention the back of my neck all rose when Martin reminded us teacher trainees of this number one directive. And this: When we're injured, we ask "let me see if I can line up again." When we are off track in our lives, don't we ask ourselves the same question? What worked before? Where am I now? How to I get back to home/back to wholeness. When we find ourselves, our true path, we feel as though we have come home. When we heal, we become whole. We become holy. We return to our individual matrix.

I had a client recently who was in deep despair because he believed his whole life's work up to this point was a reaction to what his father wanted him to be rather than what his own dreams were. "And now I think that even though he was a bastard, my dad was right. I should have gone to med school. I should have become a doctor. Instead I am a failed writer who can't stop watching Grey's Anatomy. I cut off my nose to spite his face. Only it was my face."

There is a Tantric sutra that translates "Even the individual whose nature is consciousness in a contracted state embodies the entire universe in a contracted form." The laws of physics tell us that if you cut a hologram in pieces, you still retain the entire image, though it does weaken in its resolution as it gets smaller and smaller. Martin called these pieces "God molecules," and insists that "It takes pure light to project the fullness of each piece. Only you are your frequency. Refine the pure light of your own frequency and you will be luminous and unstoppable. Even the parts of you you don't like are God. It's all condensed God."

He was preaching to the choir. This is right in line (in line!) with everything in my understanding of late; that God is in the sweetness and the bitter. That everything we live through is allowed. AND that we can get closer to our own individual matrix, our optimal blueprint. Which reminds me of that old aphorism, "God loves me just the way I am and too much to let me stay this way."

But how do we refine the pure light? What is the pure light? What if we wake up on a dark snowy day with a head cold and a pipe has burst and it's negative two outside and our spouse is in a bad mood and the news on the radio makes us want to vacate the planet? And I'm not even mentioning the writer's block.

Another aphorism: "The greatest gift we can give someone is our attention." So far, this is my version of turning on the light. I give myself my own attention for starters. Instead of turning on Facebook (not that I don't love it) or the TV or reaching for a donut or a beer, I sit quietly and listen to myself whine. Sometimes this takes a long time. But it works.

When my daughter was apoplectic over her dinner selection, I just held her and let her moan. Sometimes I repeated back to her what she had shouted to let her know I heard her. Eventually she cleared up, just like the sun coming out from behind the snowfilled clouds and wiped her eyes and took a bite. And remembered she liked edamame.

I listened to my client complain about his dad and his "bad" choices for a long time too. Sometimes I repeated back what he had said to make sure he knew I was listening. I try to be like a good yoga teacher; to offer support where needed, especially when I hear a painful unnecessary thought. I offer an adjustment. I point out when the form is gorgeous and right. But mostly I give my attention. In the light of pure attention, something miraculous happens. The client begins to heal himself. Yes, I definitely point this out, encourage the healing path. But, again, like a good yoga teacher, I am not the healer. I just make the space, offer the simple instructions. Then I let him work through his own possibilities. Should he at the age of 47 go to med school? Should he become a body worker? Or maybe send his resume to a medical journal for an editorial position? My job is to listen and ask him how each of these possibilities ricochets around in his body. What feels exciting? What feels deadening? What thoughts are contributing to each feeling? It is painstaking and delicious work. And nothing is lost from the process except a bunch of used up stories that he finds were not serving him. He finds himself a free man, free to rejoice in his past, and free to make new choices for his future.

There is a phrase in Anusara, an instruction a teacher will often begin with: "Inner body bright." Martin's version of this instruction was: "Let the sun shine in your heart." I, of the notoriously slumped shoulders (which are getting much better!) notice that when I hear this instruction, I naturally lift the sides of my body as well as my rib cage. This small action not only erases the slump, it raises my spirits. I can't help smiling and feeling hopeful, even on the darkest of snowy days. And I dare say, I think this is the way we shine that light to reconstitute our God molecules into so that we, in turn, become luminous.

Here's to the return of the light.

Jury Duty

I have jury duty tomorrow. I am terrified I will fall asleep on the bench. That is my number one fear. Other fears:
2. I will starve to death between breakfast and lunch.
3. I will know the accused and be embarrassed for him/her.
4. I won't understand the trial.
5. They will explain it to me and I still won't understand the trial.
6. I will have to admit that I am a Yale graduate who doesn't understand the words of lawyers whose main communicating mission is to explain civil matters to folks who may or may not have graduated from eighth grade.
7. I will surreptitiously multitask while on the bench and get publicly scolded for it.
8. I will end up on a trial that takes 3 months and therefore go broke and miss HooteNanny and my writing groups.
9. Did I mention that I have to be there at 8 and not get to eat lunch till 1pm?
10. I will get there and the trial will sound absolutely fascinating--better than Dallas or West Wing or Friends or ER or Mad Men--but that I will be rejected for all the above reasons and regret it for the rest of my life.

Winter Greens Soup Recipe (From Fields of Greens)

This is an amazingly nourishing soup! Cure all that ails you. I modified it slightly, but it comes from the wonderful world of Greens, a vegetarian mecca of a restaurant in San Francisco where Tom and I went for our honeymoon. I don't have a picture of the soup, but here's a picture of me having just eaten dinner at Greens.



@ 4 cups vegetable stock
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced, about 3 cups
salt and pepper
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup chard stems, thinly sliced
1 medium potato, thinly sliced
1 large carrot, thinly sliced
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 bunch kale, stems removed @ 8 cups washed & packed
1 bunch green chard, stems removed @ 8 cups washed & packed
1 bunch spinach, stems removed @ 8 cups washed & packed
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Make the stock, or buy it. Either way, heat it up and keep warm over low heat.
Heat the olive oil in a soup pot and add the onions, 1/2 tsp salt and several pinches of pepper. Saute over medium heat until the onion is soft, 5-7 min. Then add garlic, chard stems, potatoes and carrot. Saute until the vegetables are heated through, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup stock, cover the pot, and cook for about 10 minutes. When the vegetables are tender, add the white wine and simmer for 1-2 minutes until the pan is nearly dry. Stir in the kale, chard, 1 tsp salt, a few more pinches of pepper, and three cups stock.Cover the pot and cook the soup for 10-15 minutes, until chard and kale are tender. Add the spinach and cook for 3-5 min, until just wilted.

Puree the soup in a blender or food processor until smooth. Thin with a little more stock if you like--here's where I departed. I left it thick, almost like a paste. (People actually could ladle it onto a plate as opposed to a bowl and eat it like a green stew.) Season with lemon juice and more salt and pepper. We ate it with garlic bread and optional parmesan cheese. Makes 9-10 servings. From Fields Of Greens cookbook.

On The Dreaded WB (Writer's Block.)

I just finished running a writing retreat here at my house, affectionately called "Big Yellow" by the marvelous cast of writers who have been coming, practically en masse, since 2005. I love retreats. I love these people, first of all, and I love having them in my house. My kids love them too, and refer to the front room of the house as "the writers's room." They also like that whenever we have a retreat, Tom makes a batch of what he calls "crack brownies" because they are that irresistible. My kids agree. On Friday, we pulled out new candlesticks. We found our favorite Bali blue tablecloth and waved it till it settled on the dining room table. We cooked spiced lentils in butternut squash and made Tom's excellent winter greens soup from the Field Of Greens cookbook. (This soup is like drinking pure health, by the way. Ask, and I will post the recipe.)

Selfishly, I also love the opportunity to write. The method I learned for running writing groups comes from AWA--Amherst Writers and Artists-- and it demands that the leader write along with the attendees to show that the method works. In the past, I have gotten huge chunks of my books written; songs have come to me (most notably "Endless Day") and I have generally left retreats feeling refreshed and inspired.

This weekend, one of the retreatants, Ashley King, sent us all a link to a fantastic TedTalk by Dr. Brene Brown, which thoroughly primed the pump. Dr. Brown spoke movingly and sometimes humorously about her research which involves figuring out why some people have trouble with connection and others don't. It comes down to a quality she calls "wholeheartedness," and what she means by that is something we might more easily recognize as "courage." The word courage has its roots in the Latin "cor" which means "heart." ("Core" is a cognate of this word, and I love that at our core is our heart.) Courage is heartfulness, leading with the heart, with the feelings, with the emotions. In other words, courage is not so much about bravery as it is about vulnerability.

And what is more vulnerable than writing? What is more courageous, for that matter, than writing? What indeed, especially when one has what writers dread more than any affliction, even bad reviews: writer's block.

Rewind a few days. Katryna and I met with our friend Beth Spong for lunch to discuss ways in which the organization for which she is executive director--MotherWoman--and we, the Nields, could join forces. MotherWoman is a fantastic organization that creates support groups for women who have postpartum depression. Actually, their full mission is this:

MotherWoman supports and empowers mothers to create positive personal and social change through: powerful mothers groups, innovative programming to confront the feminist crisis of postpartum depression, and effective political action. Mothers face enormous challenges, including unrealistic expectations, isolation, depression and appalling family policy. By valuing and supporting mothers, everyone benefits.

Yeah. Right on! So up our alley to get behind this! And so we are and we will, but one of the tasks Beth gave me was to write "a song about motherhood which we will videotape and release on Mother's Day. Our aim is for it to go viral."

And I said, "I am up for the challenge! I will start to write it today!"

That was Wednesday.

I poked at the topic. I journaled about my own mother. I wrote a poem.

Then the retreat began. Before my writing pals arrived, I went for a walk, searching for inspiration. The sky was that kind of ice blue that you only see in January. A foreboding sky that you could almost skate on. I got lots of ideas about the song. I could see the video. I could see Katryna and me singing it. I could hear it, in a way. Oh, wait--that was the Ingrid Michaelson song I had on my iPod.

I came back and we all talked about courage, vulnerability and telling the truth about ourselves. The truth is, what keeps us from being courageous is the fear that we are not good enough as we are: that WHO we are isn't good enough, and that if the others could only see what a fraud and excellent faker we are, we'd be kicked out of the nest. This leads to more obfuscation of our true selves and therefore to more disconnection--it's a vicious cycle. But what we find out when we write together and share what we have just written is something quite different: the more truthful we are about our so-called faults--our fears, quirks, addictions--the more easily others can relate to us. While our strengths, our beauty, our kindness, our intelligence, our fashion sense might attract us to each other, all too often, it is our broken parts that connect us to each other. They seal the deal. They help us to bond. (Usually when I bond with someone it's by sharing some deeper part of myself, while the other does the same.) And it is in that connection that we begin to heal, too, or at least to laugh; and laughter is the best healing agent of all.

That was all well and good. Everyone in the group wrote brilliantly, full of courage, full of wisdom, vulnerability, exuberance, grace. Meanwhile, I took my guitar up to my bedroom with my notebooks and MacBook and wrote about seven different completely unsatisfying mother songs. (I am trying not to call them "suckitudinous.") Or at least the beginnings of suckitudinous mother songs. I was like a posterchild for everything I encourage writers not to do. I started something, then my wicked inner critic who had somehow gained access to the process, said, "That is just suckitudinous! Or, maybe it's not so bad, Maybe it's OK. But it could never go viral!" Waiting just outside my door was a parade of all the rejections I have had in my entire life, dressed for Mardi Gras, 8 weeks or so early.

I haven't had WB (writer's block) in about nine years. The last time was after I had finished recording our album Love and China and had no earthly idea where to go next. So I was caught off guard by how truly terrorizing it can be. But this time there was a new twist.

"If you were still on caffeine, you'd get the song," sneered the voice.

Oh, right! Caffeine. And thus began another parade outside my door, this one of all the New York Times articles I have read over the past ten years about how caffeine is great for brain connections, people with ADD (I am certainly a candidate) and overall heightened mental alertness. Oh, how I craved a cup of my strong black tea at that moment! I remembered back in college, my friend Leon Dewan teaching me that whenever he wanted to write a song he brewed himself a huge pot of strong Keemun tea.

What was the point of giving up caffeine if it robbed me of my muse? Was I really going to choose some principal like my health over my mission in life?

The timer went off for the fourth and final session of writing. I had something--probably nothing that would go viral, but something. I packed up my guitar and trudged down the stairs. And because, as I said, the AWA method requires the leader to show up creatively too, I started the sharing session with my bit of song. I figured at the least, I could practice courage. The retreatants were kind and supportive. And I reminded myself that it took me a year to write what is our number one song now on iTunes, the song I got a book deal for, called This Town Is Wrong, and that if it takes me that long to write a great song for mothers, so be it. It might take even longer. But I am not going to give up trying, because I really do have a lot to say.

And I am also not going to pick up caffeine. At least not today.

Instead, I am going to rely on my many WBB's (Writer's Block Busters) that have proved themselves in the past. I would love if you would, in the comments section, post your own WBBs. Here are mine:

1. Let the song go. Keep the spirit alive, but let the body go. Wait for it to come to you. It will. Trust that it will; invite it in. Treat it like a cat. Seduce it at 45 degrees.

2. Listen to lots of music. Notice that many songs you love have not gone viral.

3. Go for lots of walks and runs.

4. Every now and then, remind yourself of a nugget of the song that you like. Hum it.

5. Take lots of naps. Before you take the nap, ask the muse to help you with the song. I often wake up with a tune in my head.

6. Write a different song.

Peter Pan and Caffeine

Lately, it's Peter Pan all the time in our house. Jay insists on listening to the Mary Martin soundtrack every night before bed. Actually, technically, during bed, as we turn it on and let it play him to sleep. "Dat's my number one," he says when the song "Neverland" comes on. "Oh, ya, dat's my number one." He recently informed all of us that we should call him Peter. Also that he is from New York. He forgets the rules of the game, though. Elle wants to be referred to as "Baby Bop," but Jay will enter the room and wave casually and say, "Hi, Peter," to her.

Speaking of Neverland, in 2011, Katryna and I will turn 20. In June 1991, we played our first show for money, billed as "The Nields." That summer we got a regular gig (at the Williams Inn in Williamstown, MA) and put together a press kit (with an article from the Berkshire Eagle by Seth Rogovoy which read, "Come see the Nields. There's never any cover.") We went to music biz seminars and learned the Golden Rule for new bands: Say Yes To Everything. We did this, and it lead to us playing in the lobby of the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, playing to attendees of a benefit. We had the idea that we could put "Bushnell" on our resume and get lots of fans. Instead we played "Closer to Fine" at the very moment a Channel 22 News camera happened to catch us in action. We also lost the local talent show to a teenage KISS cover band.

We had a lucky break and got booked at the legendary Bottom Line, recorded our first CD (66 Hoxsey Street, now out of print and doomed to stay that way, as long as Katryna and I have any say in the matter.) We got our first radio play (on WWUH in Hartford, thanks to Ed McKeon) and the rest is history. Or geometry. Or paleontology.

The rest has been a really great 20 years.

Katryna and Patty and I met early this week to talk about details of the big celebration we plan to throw for the fans who have been coming to see us lo these many years. Though I cannot divulge much of what we discussed or they will cut off my caffeine supply, I can tell you this: it's going to be remarkable. Meaning you will remark upon the happening for years to come. It will be a happening. it will be June in Northampton, and you will be there. Need I say more? OK, I will say this: We are playing the Iron Horse on Saturday night (June 11) and we have thoughts to play one song from each year we've been together. That means, unfortunately, that we will be playing material from 66 Hoxsey Street.


We all got sick at Christmas time. It wasn't the fault of the barnyard animals we serenaded. Jay threw up in Dave's face on Christmas eve, and after that, we fell like dominoes, one after another, until the only one standing was Tom. He was in such excellent health that he went ice skating several times and built Elle and Jay a double loft bunk bed.



That thing about them taking away my caffeine? was a joke. Because part of the fallout of the stomach virus was that I gave up caffeine. This was no small feat. I believe that I am hard wired to be addicted to caffeine. My whole life, BC (before Caffeine) was one long snooze. I slept through pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school and the first two years of high school. I remember many a teacher picking me up by the scruff of my neck and shaking me as I tried my hardest to use my desk as a pillow.

Then I discovered Diet Coke. I woke up! School made sense! I got good grades! I wrote long poems!

In college, I found my true love: dark black thick coffee, the kind a spoon will stand straight up in. I bought a hot pot and a filter. I lived at Willoughby's in New Haven. I became a morning person.

Sadly, I learned what all lovers of the brew learn: that caffeine stops working after a month or two, and you have to keep drinking more and more, not even to replicate your buzz, because baby, that's long gone. You have to keep drinking more to stay awake, and if you miss a cup, you're headed for the worst headache of your life.

I tried to quit. O, foolish girl! But I couldn't. Something always brought me back, usually the headache, but sometimes just the desire to feel happy. Caffeine made me happy. Like Peter wanting always to remain a little boy, I wanted always to remain up. UP! Even when it stopped working, I kept drinking it, searching for that elusive high.

Once, I gave up caffeine for Lent. Those 40 days were the longest and most dreary of my entire life. I sucked on sugarless cinnamon mints to try to extract some kind of jolt out of them. On Easter Sunday, I was in Pittsburgh, the day after a gig, on my way home. I got out of bed, threw my suitcase and guitar into my car and made a beeline for Starbucks. There I bought: a grande Americano, a venti Awake tea and a cup of decaf just for old time sake. As I drove, and drank the assorted beverages, I became a genius. Again, I wrote long poems, I had huge epiphanies about spiritual principles, I solved all the problems of each of my family members. I think I also painted in oils as I drove along Highway 80, but I'm not completely clear on that. I was pretty high.

After giving birth twice, I switched to black and green tea, also so thick a spoon will stand up in it. In order to get enough caffeine, I had three huge mugsful a day, each one with two or three teaspoons of loose leaf Peets tea (really good tea! Keemun and a fine green called Lung Ching Dragonwell.) I would have two cups in the morning, then eat lunch, make a third cup to bring up to my bed, take a nap (because I was always tired despite the tea) and revive myself with the lukewarm tea. But it doesn't work anymore. It doesn't revive me. It just makes me revved up and anxious. I have been hoping for an opportunity to quit. Who says stomach bugs don't come with unexpected bonuses?

So here I am, January 4, eight days off caffeine, titrating my daily dose of ibuprofen and feeling my own nervous system for the first time in maybe twenty seven years. For the first three days, I slept, on and off for twelve hours a day. The second three days, I needed an hour and a half nap (which, honestly, was true when I was on caffeine, see above). Then one day, I woke at 5am, went to a yoga class, had a meeting, ran for 25 minutes, picked up my kids and went shopping for dinner, fed my family, ran a writing group and went to bed at the normal hour. All by myself.

I am all here. And giving up caffeine makes me think that I can do pretty much anything. Time will tell if I can keep this resolution, but for now, nothing feels as good as my own wakefulness. I am going to miss the highs, but they may be in the past anyway. Far sweeter to face the day clear eyed and ride the waves of my own energy.

Just don't go waving your Americano under my nose. For now.

A Little Christian in my Christmas

Early Snow by Mary Oliver
"Amazed I looked
out of the window and saw
the early snow coming down casually...
...I might have joined in, there was something
that wonderful and refreshing
about what was by then a confident, white blanket

carrying out its
cheerful work, covering ruts, softening
the earth's trials, but at the same time
there was some kind of almost sorrow that fell

over me. It was the loneliness again. After all
what is Nature, it isn't
kindness, it isn't unkindness."

Sometime in the last few weeks, I have pulled my gaze up from the manuscript of the copyedits of our book, realizing that this strange year is almost over. The horribleness started about a year ago, when on Dec. 27 we learned of eleven arsons in our town and had to figure out how to explain to our kids that we might be yanking them out of their beds and throwing them out the windows at any given time. I am glad I did not know at any point in the year that it would continue to pummel the people I love (not to mention a building I love) throughout 2010. It's better not to know these things. And anyway, there was much to love in this year, much to be grateful for. One night recently we lit a candle for National Children's Memorial Day and wept with gratitude for our own healthy babies, and with sorrow for all the ones lost, all those mothers and fathers with empty arms.

I had a hard time gearing up for Christmas this year. I wanted to. But I really hate that my mother-in-law is gone. It's completely wrong. She loved Christmas; she made Christmas. I don't want to have to pretend for my kids that everything is all right, and yet, that may be the best way to get through the day. I don't want to spend money we don't have on presents my kids will play with for just a day or two and then leave in the back of a closet. And I also don't want to deal with their disappointment when they don't get the pink sparkly barrettes and the five outfits from Hanna Andersson and the Tinkerbell sneakers and the pink crazy straws. (OK, only one of my kids is lobbying me full time, but it won't be long until the younger one catches on.)


We did a show one Friday in New York City. A new fan approached me.
"There's a lot of Christianity in your music," he said, nodding.
"Yes," I agreed. "that's the tradition we grew up with. But I also love Buddha and Krishna too, if you know what I mean."
He did. "Well," he stuttered. (He was drinking a big glass of white wine. Earlier he had downed a big glass of red wine.) "It is the season of Christmas, you know. And when someone dies for our sins, it seems kind of wrong to not give them their due, don't you think?"
I smiled at him.
He looked away. "Maybe I'm getting a little heavy for a music show."
"Maybe," I said. Then: "God bless you."

I just can't get with the idea that there is one way to God. That one tradition got lucky enough to be saved and all the others are doomed. It makes no sense. This is as true for Christianity as it is for Islam or Tantra. I love the Tantric teachings I have been learning all year in my yoga training, but what I love about them are first of all how unique and wonderful their stories are and second how their truths connect to the truths I have already known and loved and understood from other traditions. As the Buddha says, "One always knows the water of the ocean because it tastes of salt. One always knows the truth because it tastes like freedom."

And yet, I do miss Jesus, especially this time of year. And so, partly to honor my Catholic mother-in-law, partly to fill a part of me that was thirsty, I set about to find some Christian in the Christmas.

We set up the amazing rubber creche our (also Catholic) uncle Brian gave us last year. It is SUPER AWESOME! It looks like this:



And for Christmas, Elle got the three wise men, who truly rock.



I gave my dad and his sister, the Amazing Aunt Elizabeth each a copy of Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Bhagavad Gita. In turn, my father handed me a slim volume of a story he tells at Christmas: Henry Van Dyke's The Other Wise Man. This little book is a treasure in our household, though this year, I had forgotten why. When I was laid low with the inevitable stomach flu the last week in December, I picked it up and re-read it. The story goes like this:

A true Wise Man from Persia, wealthy, a healer, and astrologer, beloved in his community, becomes convinced that the stars are telling him that this is the once-in-anyone's-lifetime opportunity to seek and find the King. So he sells everything he has for three jewels: a sapphire, a ruby and a pearl which he plans to bring the baby King, in the same way his bretheren will bring gold, frankincense and myrrh. Off he goes on his horse, to meet up with the three more famous wise men. But en route, he comes across a dying man. Rather than pass him by, he tends to the sick man and heals him. But this causes him to miss his caravan. He has to sell the sapphire to purchase a camel which will allow him to traverse the desert alone.

He misses the holy family by a day. And he gives his ruby to a Roman soldier to keep him from killing a young mother and her baby. He spends the next thirty years seeking his King, only to miss him again on the night he is crucified. But during those years, he makes himself useful, healing the sick, ministering to the oppressed. He sells his pearl to save a young woman about to be sold into slavery. In each of his crossroads--at the moment when he must decide whether to keep the precious jewel for his king or to give it away to help someone in need--he agonizes.

Was it his great opportunity or his last temptation? He could not tell. One thing only was clear in the darkness of his mind––it was inevitable. And does not the inevitable come from God? (p.68).

I love how this unfolds: that even a good man, a Godly man, who sets his sites on something as selfless and pure as seeking the king would have his will thwarted. God is not a jukebox. We don't just stick in our coins and get back what we want. But even more significantly, the ways of Love are mysterious indeed. This moment of ransom marks the end of the Other Wise Man's life, and as he is dying, he finally finds what he has been seeking. He seems to the ransomed young woman who is cradling his dying body, to be in conversation with someone, asking "When did I see you hungry and gave you food? When did I see you sick and healed you?" And in response, a voice says:

"Verily I say unto thee. Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it to me."

Totally Tantric, and totally Christian. In fact, this is what makes Christianity sing for me. This notion that we are all Jesus, and all our sisters and brothers are Jesus, and that we do good to others as we would have them do to us. That it is our responsibility to feed and clothe and heal those in need way before any other kind of worship.

Christmas ended up being sweet, fun, radiant and full of music, family and even presents well given and well received, even as we grieved our missing ones. My highlights were a Solstice party at our children's school, and our impromptu serenading of the animals at Smith Voc Ag.




This year ends. We will mark it by taking down the dry old fire hazard of a tree (grateful that this year we do not live in the daily fear of waking up to our house aflame), doing some shows at First Night, and gathering together with friends for more singing to ring in the new year properly. And my new year's resolution is to post shorter but more frequent posts.

Those Years on the Ship

I don’t like to look into the trunk in the attic
The one behind the dirty plastic baby toys
The one with the rounded top
Manufactured for long trips on steamers during the gilded age
Rounded like the shells of mussels
Lovely but useless for a coffeetable
I don’t want to unpack it
I don’t want my kids to find it
And see that girl
Dancing in a white dress with a strange man
Not their father
Not their friend

What is it about the nature of desire
That makes it turn on itself
Chasing its own tail?

There were no steamer trunks on our ship
But every time we circled back home,
We each procured some necessary artifact
A stuffed animal
A first edition
The CD with the song that jumped from ear to ear
Like a flea
I want to love those years.
I want to squeeze the sourness out of my muscles
And memory
And feel again what it felt like
To fly
Or, short of true flight
The illusion of it.





Nerissa Nields
Nov. 16, 2010

Celebrating the Poetry of Others: Wallace Stevens

This is from my friend and fellow poet/songwriter Whitney Hudak. We share a love for Wallace Stevens (who inspired the Nields song "Snowman.")

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself
-Wallace Stevens



At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.

That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

One by Mary Oliver

Hi all,

This came from my friend Sarah this morning. Enjoy!

Nerissa

Still, what I want in my life
Is to be willing
To be dazzled-
To cast aside the weight of facts

And maybe even
To float a little
Above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

Into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing
That the light is everything-that it is more than the sum
Of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
-Mary Oliver

I Saw Peter on the Street Today

I saw Peter on the street today
Older, with a young woman
Just like always
His hair still long but thin and grey,
Fly-away
Loose curls like clouds
Cheekbones and shoulders all angles
Small Lennon glasses, still
Looking a few feet in front of his trajectory
Just like always.
Of course I felt it
Right in the solar plexus.
I didn’t used to feel like that.
Today I cry at the drop of a hat.
(Did you know that they dropped their hats
To signal a fight?
That’s where the phrase comes from.
We dropped more than our hats.)
I wanted to stop the car, stop the trajectory
Chase after him and tell him about the hats
-Just like always-
Offer him my newest packet of information
The gift that pleased him most.
Instead I watch the young girl
Craning her slim neck up
A crescent-moon smile on her lips
Perhaps she too is making such an offering
Up to that head-in-the-clouds.
Let her.
Meanwhile, I will keep driving
Following my trajectory
Keeping the gift for you, instead.
There: you have it.
Just like always.

Nerissa Nields
Nov. 17, 2010

House of Bourbon (Notes for "Tomorrowland")

House of Bourbon
(“Found” poem from about 1998; revised 2010.)

What if I don’t want to be a princess?
My precious face. My beautiful face.
It’s not all I have.
Alternatively, you might see me as just another
Angry Cinderella who leaves her shoe
The way you leave a footprint:
To prove that I was there.
(I was there. I was there. I was there.)
Like a record album
Or a child.
I left that ball. True.
I walked out. Also true.
Just know the shoe you found
Was not by clumsy mistake
Nor left as a tease
but as a statement.
And after the anger
Which will fade like the red of my lips
There will remain this
My footprint.

I Wake a Little Off Center

I wake
A little off center
As if I am only able to inhabit
The left side of my body.
My skin itches
I am afflicted like Job
And sleepy like a bear
In late November.
Craving a cave instead of the sunlight.
The winds rise up as I set forth
Blowing debris out of their carefully raked piles
Into my face.
I raked those piles.
Is it my fault because I left them,
Foolishly thinking they would stay the night?

My only job to rake these leaves.
Give me a different job.

My heart is heavy these days
Too much death,
Too many fallen leaves.

And remains so
Until a friend calls,
Laughing
To say,
What I wouldn’t give for a rake
What I wouldn’t give for a tree.
You are so lucky.

“It is better to do your own duty
Badly than to perfectly do
Another’s”

And so I pick up the rake
Tidy the piles
Toss the fragments of leaf
Into the compost pile.

Perfectly at peace,
Even as I know
The winds could still come up again
And this time the fragments will be even smaller,
Mere dust
More painful to the eye.
Even so, Oh Lord,
I rake them again
For the love of you.

For Joan

I have nothing to say. I am empty. And anyway:
“Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord.”
So why should I write? Why should I speak?
Apple-cheeked, you were here last month, last week, yesterday
And raised your fist in victory
When the doctors said you could go home.
It’s all backwards.
You knew you were going home to die.
You welcomed it.
And we coaxed our faces into reflected, refracted smiles.
In the Bhagavad Gita
Krishna tells Arjuna, “They will all die anyway
May as well be by your hand.”
My daughter writes the alphabet over and over in purple magic marker
The words to her favorite song
She knows language is not life.
It’s an overlay at best
But it does coax the tune back.
I keep returning to my desk
To see if there is a new message from you
Your family found your account
And sends emails to us
I see your name in my inbox
The overlay of you
Still sweet as honey in tannic tea
Before a word is on my tongue
You know it completely, O lord.
And still, I would hear you speak once more.
-Nerissa Nields
Nov. 15, 2010

What I Wonder about Prometheus

Why his liver?
That’s what I want to know.
If it had been me, I feel sure
That God would’ve taken my voice.
And it wouldn’t have been a violent desecration, either, with the mysterious restoration
In the night while the victim slept, wiped out, from the brutal operation
No, more like a borrowing—a book from the library, slyly
Returned with a different page dog eared each day.