Happy New Year

When I was three I got a baby doll for Christmas - or it may have been my birthday which is right before Christmas. I already had one baby doll that I had cleverly named "Dolly", so I named the new doll "Big Dolly". My mother told me it was nice to have two dolls, but that there was a little girl she knew who didn't have any dolls at all and suggested that I give my old doll away. We washed and dressed "Dolly" and set off up the street. I remember very clearly a thin woman in a housedress with a little girl behind her skirts. I gave the little girl "Dolly" and, after some prodding from her mother, she thanked me. Then my mother and I walked home, me clutching "Big Dolly" to my chest. I had lots of dolls through the years, but have never forgotten the first one.

When my children were young I asked them one year to clean out their toy boxes between Thanksgiving and Christmas and to donate any unused toys to the Salvation Army so that there would be room for new toys from Santa. I found out later that my son went to school and told his teacher, "My mother says if I don't give away half my toys, Santa won't bring me anything." I hope she understood what I was trying to teach him.

I still get bouts of nervousness when I think I have too much stuff, or too many unused items around the house. Having is nice, but sharing is nicer.

I went to my diabetic education class today, and found the following poem on the door:

To leave the old with a burst of song;
To recall the right and forgive the wrong;
To forget the things that bind you fast
To the vain regrets of the year that’s past;
To have the strength to let go your hold
Of the not worth while of the days grown old;
To dare go forth with a purpose true,
To the unknown task of the year that’s new;
To help your brother along the road,
To do his work and lift his load;
To add your gift to the world’s good cheer,
Is to have and to give a Happy New Year.

---Author Unknown

The Library of Congress

When my son was in high school he was given an assignment to "shadow" someone at work for a day and write about the experience. Most of the students followed a parent at work, which is what my daughter had done a few years before. David, however, chose to spend the day with the owner/manager of a small, used-book store where we frequently buy books. He got along well for the day, and Edie enjoyed his company so much she offered him a job. He ended up working there on and off for about eight years.

Now in his last year of college, David needs to complete an intership before he can graduate. He applied at the Library of Congress, because that seemed like a good fit for him. He loves books of all sorts, and is really quite organized. This week they called and offered him an internship with their Folk Life Project. It's not a paid internship, but you never know. Maybe it will be like the book store, and eight years from now he will still be there.

And now a couple of poems about work:


Like the star
Shining afar
Slowly now
And without rest,
Let each man turn, with steady sway,
Round the task that rules the day
And do his best.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


To Be Of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

We Won

I dragged my son out of bed Tuesday morning to vote. He didn't want to vote, didn't like either of the candidates, was tired of voting for people who didn't win, etc., etc., being his usual Mr. Contrary Man. I drove him to the polling place and threatened to leave him to walk home unless he voted for the right man. Now that control of the Senate has come down to who wins the Senate race in Virginia I'm telling my son that it is his vote that made the difference. His, and the votes of 7000 other good citizens who maybe didn't think voting was worth the trouble, but who voted anyhow.

So, I don't want to gloat, but my spirits were definitely lifted by the election results.


By Robert Browning:

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!


Siegfried Sassoon
Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark green fields; on, on, and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears, and horror
Drifted away…O but everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Some Poems

Three poems today, two for Halloween and one for the midterm elections.
(I realize I posted one of these poems recently, but I like it, so I'm using it again.)

Don't forget to vote!



Karl Krolow

Someone
translated by Herman Salinger

Someone, in the twilight, is taking a walk
And singing.

The wolf from the fable
Is in flight.

The wild plum thickets
Hover before him.
The man in the moon
Starts up out of the yellow straw
Whenever anyone goes past.

The wind’s hand rubs
The hazel nuts
Whenever the darkness
Likes anybody.

Somebody takes the night
Upon his shoulders,
Gives love her names,
And the hands of the dead
Begin again in the dust
To stir.



Charles Simic
Something Large Is in the Woods

That's what the leaves are telling us tonight.
Hear them frighten and be struck dumb
So that we sit up listening to nothing,
Which is always more worrisome than something.
The minutes crawl like dog fleas up our legs.
We must wait for whatever it is to identify itself
In some as-yet-unspecified way
As the trees are rushing to warn us again,
The branches beat against the house to be let in,
And then change their minds abruptly.
Think how many leaves are holding still in the woods
With no wish to add to their troubles
With something so large closing upon us?
It makes one feel vaguely heroic
Sitting so late with no light in the house
And the night dark and starless out there.



Sheenagh Pugh
Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave a stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Make It Work

I hired a new secretary last week. She is a strange, sad soul. She possesses neither beauty nor brains not the social skills that would make her likeable. What else can I say about someone who wonders if Thanksgiving will be on a Thursday again this year? What can I say about someone who breaks down in tears and leaves the room when asked to introduce herself at a staff meeting? We want to like her. We want to clasp her to our collective bosom and make her one of our own. But so far she is giving us very little to go on. Well, as Tim Gunn always says on Project Runway, we will just have to make it work.

You may wonder why I hired her. I had a lovely secretary, a delightful, intelligent woman, but she moved on to a better job, and I can't blame her. I advertised for a replacement and fate sent me Sharon as the only candidate.

I could have non-selected and tried again, but I heard a rumor that another manager was leaving and his secretary Evelyn would be given the next available vacancy.

I'll take Sharon, thank you very much.

Sharon may be out in left field, but Evelyn is up in the bleachers laying religious tracts on seats, unaware that there is a game in progress.

Purple Cow: Reflections on a Mythic Beast Who's Quite Remarkable, at Least

I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

Frank Gelett Burgess

There Once Was a Guineable Ami-pig

Yesterday at the Hole-in-the-Wall used book store I found a copy of Beatrix Potter's Nursery Rhyme Book. This was a favorite of my daugher's when she was very young. We used to read them together until she knew them by heart. She liked to say, "There once was a guineable ami-pig." instead of "There once was an amiable guinea-pig" and it cracked us both up. Is there anything more fun than discovering your child has a sense of humor?

Two poems for my daughter:


There once was an amiable guinea-pig,
Who brushed back his hair like a periwig—

He wore a sweet tie
As blue as the sky –

And his whiskers and buttons
Were very big.

Beatrix Potter


Appley Dapply, a little
brown mouse,
Goes to the cupboard in
some-body’s house.

In somebody’s cupboard
There’s everything nice,
Cake, cheese, jam, biscuits,
-- All charming for mice!

Appley Dapply has little
sharp eyes,
And Appley Dapply is so fond
of pies.

Beatrix Potter

The Sunday Paper

I was going to write about the plumbing leak that ruined my kitchen ceiling, but after reading the Sunday paper I don't like to complain. Most of the world is so much worse off than I am.



Charles Simic
Something Large Is in the Woods

That's what the leaves are telling us tonight.
Hear them frighten and be struck dumb
So that we sit up listening to nothing,
Which is always more worrisome than something.
The minutes crawl like dog fleas up our legs.
We must wait for whatever it is to identify itself
In some as-yet-unspecified way
As the trees are rushing to warn us again,
The branches beat against the house to be let in,
And then change their minds abruptly.
Think how many leaves are holding still in the woods
With no wish to add to their troubles
With something so large closing upon us?
It makes one feel vaguely heroic
Sitting so late with no light in the house
And the night dark and starless out there.



Wislawa Szymborska
The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.

Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.

Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.

Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.

No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.

The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.

Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.

But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.

From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.

Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.

The Maple Tree

I have a maple tree in the front yard. It's too close to the driveway and to the power lines. The roots come up through what's left of the grass. It doesn't shade the house, only the yard, preventing me from growing grass or anything else. And, the bottom limbs are too low so I bump my head on it when I'm trying to mow. So I should have it taken out.

I know some tree guys who would be happy to remove it (for a price, of course). The main tree guy says maple trees are just the weeds of the tree world anyhow. But still, it's a tree. It's a living thing. Can I really just have it chopped down for my own convenience? What would the other trees think?

The Hawthorne Tree

Side by side, not
hand in hand: I watch you
walking in the summer garden—things
that can’t move
learn to see; I do not need
to chase you through
the garden; human beings leave
signs of feeling
everywhere, flowers
scattered on the dirt path, all
white and gold, some
lifted a little by
the evening wind; I do not need
to follow where you are now,
deep in the poisonous field, to know
the cause of your flight, human
passion or rage: for what else
would you let drop
all you have gathered?


Louise Gluck

Three Poems

I get some of my best poems from the Sunday Washington Post Book World. Here are two I found recently and loved.

The first makes reference to "folding chairs":

Moving Day

Scraps and small reminders said the scissors to the shelf
Why do I feel empty said the oven to itself
Some of us are hungry said can opener to tin
Tell me said the radio how much you want to win
And take us along when you go.

All the way from Thailand said the topmost row of cans
Rise and turn around again explained the standing fan
None of us are broken said the tumblers to the towel
Scratch me up or polish me said banister to dowel
And take us along when you go.

When they come to get you said a carton to its box
Count your lucky hours said a doorjamb to its locks
Will she will he will she sang the plumbing to the void
Did you mean to build me will I ever be destroyed

Carpet said to ceiling Can I offer any more
Nothing I can give you said the lintel to the door
You always overlook me said the baseboard to the stair
Board games valise said the attic and a folding chair
And take us along when you go.

Stephen Burt

Don't think about this next poem too hard - just enjoy.

Pumpkin Envy

How many hours did I lie in bed, thought stapling
my sixteen-year-old arms to the sheets,
thought’s curare, when I finally did dial Tami Jamison,
numbing my lips too much to speak?

How often did I think, “I’m dead,” feeling
my strength leak away, phlegm drown my lungs,
sarcoma thrust like red toads up out of my skin
in the three days between the blood-drawing

and the doctor’s benediction: “Negative.”
Thought is a rope that pulls the kite out of the sky—
a cramp that locks the boxer’s chin as fists hiss
toward his head. “What sharks?” my friend demands,

launching the sea-kayak that gives him so much fun.
How many odes would Keats have traded for one
night with Fanny Brawne? What did understanding do
for Nietzsche, but make him more insane?

Thought is more deadly than crack or heroin.
Its pipe to my lips, the needle in my vein.
I loll in my dark room, and envy pumpkin vines.
Whatever’s in their way, they overrun. Unafraid

of blight, birds, drought, or humans’ being
they stretch out in the heat, let their roots drink deep
and—never giving a thought to anything—
make a million copies of the sun.

Charles Harper Webb

And one final poem from Billy Collins.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

Instructions

I read two books recently by Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere and Stardust. They were rather sweet fantasies, with a touch of whimsy, and I enjoyed them very much. Thank you to my daughter for sending them to me. Nowhere was the darker of the two. I enjoyed the author playing with the names of the London subway stations, and with the homeless who seek shelter there. A man falls into an alternate reality where he becomes part of the community of street people living below London. He is suddenly invisible to those in his previous life, including his former co-workers and former fiance, even when he is standing right in front of them. At the same time his life is more real than it ever was before.

Just in case you ever drop into another reality:

Instructions
by Neil Gaiman

Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never
saw before.
Say "please" before you open the latch,
go through,
walk down the path.
A red metal imp hangs from the green-painted
front door,
as a knocker,
do not touch it; it will bite your fingers.
Walk through the house. Take nothing. Eat
nothing.
However, if any creature tells you that it hungers,
feed it.
If it tells you that it is dirty,
clean it.
If it cries to you that it hurts,
if you can,
ease its pain.

From the back garden you will be able to see the
wild wood.
The deep well you walk past leads to Winter's
realm;
there is another land at the bottom of it.
If you turn around here,
you can walk back, safely;
you will lose no face. I will think no less of you.

Once through the garden you will be in the
wood.
The trees are old. Eyes peer from the under-
growth.
Beneath a twisted oak sits an old woman. She
may ask for something;
give it to her. She
will point the way to the castle.
Inside it are three princesses.
Do not trust the youngest. Walk on.
In the clearing beyond the castle the twelve
months sit about a fire,
warming their feet, exchanging tales.
They may do favors for you, if you are polite.
You may pick strawberries in December's frost.
Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where
you are going.
The river can be crossed by the ferry. The ferry-
man will take you.
(The answer to his question is this:
If he hands the oar to his passenger, he will be free to
leave the boat.
Only tell him this from a safe distance.)

If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.
Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that
witches are often betrayed by their appetites;
dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always;
hearts can be well-hidden,
and you betray them with your tongue.

Do not be jealous of your sister.
Know that diamonds and roses
are as uncomfortable when they tumble from
one's lips as toads and frogs:
colder, too, and sharper, and they cut.

Remember your name.
Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found.
Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped
to help you in their turn.
Trust dreams.
Trust your heart, and trust your story.
When you come back, return the way you came.
Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid.
Do not forget your manners.
Do not look back.
Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall).
Ride the silver fish (you will not drown).
Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur).

There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is
why it will not stand.

When you reach the little house, the place your
journey started,
you will recognize it, although it will seem
much smaller than you remember.
Walk up the path, and through the garden gate
you never saw before but once.
And then go home. Or make a home.
And rest.

And, another bit of fantasy:

Song
by John Donne

Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me, where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’ stinging
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’est born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet,
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come to two, or three.

Father's Day

I don't have many poems specifically for fathers, or mothers either, for that matter. Do poets not have parents? Do they not love them? Maybe loving parents just make boring poetry - not enough angst. I tried Googling mother +poetry, but the results were more greeting card verse than anything. So I am posting a couple of poems that sort of relate to fathers, and that will have to do.

My own father is wonderful. The greatest gift he gave me was an ability to be myself. He always said I could be anything I wanted if I worked for it. He expected the same things from all his children, son and daughters, except in one area: He always told us girls, "Put a little lipstick on before you go out. You never know who you might meet."

My husband is also a wonderful father, but that is a blog my son or daughter must write. Liz?

Poor children, with such stable parents, can they ever be poets?

This first poem is about a father "dancing" with his child, something I remember my father doing with me.

My Papa’s Waltz
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Theodore Roethke

I love this next poem. The poet does not actually have a child, so he holds on to his "inner child" and shows it the moon.

Moon
The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.

It’s as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby’s face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth’s bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.

And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.

Billy Collins

Three Poems for Memorial Day

The Bivouac of the Dead

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

Theodore O'Hara




Not for a Nation

Not for the flag
Of any land because myself was born there
Will I give up my life.
But I will love that land where man is free,
And that I will defend.

Edna St Vincent Millay


War Song

Soldier in a curious land
All across a swaying sea,
Take her smile and lift her hand—
Have no guilt of me.

Soldier, when were soldiers true?
If she’s kind and sweet and gay,
Use the wish I send to you—
Lie not lone til day!

Only, for the nights that were,
Soldier, and the dawns that came,
When in sleep you turn to her
Call her by my name.

Dorothy Parker

Love Your Neighbor Part 2

Interval of Joy

just as I was saying I would stop writing about love and lust
and write something instead about the unhappiness of my neighbor
I met you and fell into complete confusion
and all my resolutions went up in air
now see where I sit and write songs again
burning for your somewhat green eyes
thirsting for your saliva
recollecting our one love-walk in the country
when the mosquitoes bit us in confused bewilderment
at this incomparable devotion of ours
and the thorns pierced into our bodies
astonished at the extent of our indifference

it was an interval of joy

may the unhappy forgive me for it
I have not yet suffered enough
for the pain of my neighbor to touch me

Dinos Christianopoulos

Love Your Neighbor

We are to love God above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If you don’t know who your neighbor is, I refer you to the parable of the Good Samaritan. I refer you to my parents.

If you needed help, my parents would give you help – not always money, which wasn’t plentiful – but certainly a bed to lie in and a place at the table.

When I was quite young a woman and her two children came to stay with us for a couple of weeks while she was getting a divorce. My father worked with her husband, which made it kind of awkward for him, but “He was abusing them”, my mother said, and that was enough.

A young woman living next to us had two illegitimate children. The oldest, a boy about two, was taken away from her for neglect about the time the baby was born. My mother thought she was neglecting the baby, too, so she told her, “If you don’t want to take care of that baby, give it to me.” The baby came home with her. She got the crib and bottles out of the attic, and the baby stayed for about three months before the woman went to court, got both the children back, and moved away.

Foreign students stayed with us, sometimes for only a few days while they were touring America. One, a college student from Zanzibar stayed a year. He was a dark skinned Muslim, rather quiet and modest. He was afraid of the family dog. My mother, never one to turn down an opportunity to learn something, studied the Koran with him.

We lived near the state fairgrounds, so in August we sometimes had workers or entertainers stay with us during Fair Week. I remember one summer a group of acrobats stayed. I don’t think my parents even charged them room and board. My mother said they had a hard life.

My sister broke up with a guy one time and when he lost his apartment, my mother gave him a room until he could find another. My sister was pissed, to tell the truth.

Then, after I left home and got married, my folks gave shelter to a family of Laotian refugees and their blind baby. They gave my mother parasites.

A Vietnamese high school student stayed for two years.

A Chinese college student stayed for about six years. My parents loaned her money to start law school so she wouldn’t have to go back to China. She is still close to the family. My father gave her away at her wedding.

This all in addition to various family members who stayed for varying lengths of time, Democratic campaign workers who stayed during the Iowa caucuses, and people they invited home from the soup kitchen they cooked at on Thursday nights.

My parents knew who their neighbors were.

Geranium

Last week I forgot the word "geranium." I plant these flowers every summer in the planter box by the front stoop. The seem happy there, and bloom very nicely all summer long. Last year I put a couple of geraniums in an open-work bronze pot lined in moss. They bloomed so well, I took them inside before the first frost and put them on the counter top in the kitchen. They stopped blooming inside, but I fed and watered them and they stayed healthy looking. This spring I went to move them outside again and I could not remember what they were called.

I've always had trouble remembering names, and I have no musical memory at all. I still forget the names of people I've worked with for years, and I can hear a song 10 times, and still say to my kids, "That's a nice song. What's it called?" But I don't usually just forget a common noun like geranium.

I asked my husband what they were called, but he didn't know. We saw them in hanging pots at the grocery store and both snuck over to look at the label to see what they were: "Hanging Pot". That's a big help. The Safeway doesn't have to label them because everybody knows what they are, except my husband and me.

After about 4 days it suddenly came to me. I was thinking about something else and the word geranium popped into my head. Where had it been? Memory is a strange thing.

I think Billy Collins sums it up nicely.

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses good-bye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of you spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins

It's possible I have used the Billy Collins poem before. I can't remember.

I don't think I've shared this one:

Gardener

Under the window, on a dusty ledge,
He peers among the spider webs for seed.
He wonders, groping, if the spiders spun
Beneath that window after all. Perhaps
His eyes are spiders, and new veils are dropped
Each winter and summer morning in the brain.
He sees but silken-dimly, though the ends
Of his white fingers feel more things than are.
More delicate webs, and sundry bags of seed.
That flicker at the window is a wren.
She taps the pane with a neat tail, and scolds.
He knows her there, and hears her – far away,
As if an insect sang in a tree. Whereat
The shelf he fumbles on is distant, too,
And his bent arm is longer than an arm.
Something between his fingers brings him back:
An envelope that rustles, and he reads:
“The coreopsis.” He does not delay.
Down from the rafter where they always hang
He shoulders rake and hoe and shuffles out.

The sun is warm and thick upon the path,
But he goes lightly, under a broad straw
None knows the age of. They are watching him
From upper windows as his slippered feet
Avoid the aster and nasturtium beds
Where he is not allowed to meddle. His preserve
Is further, and no stranger touches it.
Yesterday he was planting larkspur there.
He works the ground and hoes the larkspur out,
Pressing the coreopsis gently in.
With as old hose he plays a quavering stream,
Then shuffles back with the tools and goes to supper.

Over his bowl of mil, wherein he breaks
Five brittle crackers, drifts the question: “Uncle,
What have you planted for the summer coming?”

“Why – hollyhocks,” he murmurs, and they smile.

Martin Van Dorn

Something There is That Doesn't Love a Wall

Beth's quote reminded me of my neighbor (Kenny, not Tex).

Kenny bought himself a riding lawn mower last summer. He has no need for one, really. His front lawn is small, and his back yard not much bigger. He cut down all the trees in the back yard, and ripped out all the ivy to plant grass. After he went to all that trouble, I guess he felt he needed a riding mower.

At any rate, he parked this mower on his front porch for the winter to keep it out of the snow and rain. Then, this spring, he hired some guys to build brick planters all along his front porch and front walk-way - nice little knee-high brick walls.

That's when he noticed that the front walk way is now narrower than his riding lawn mower.

I'm picturing him and 5 friends lifting the riding mower over the railing on the porch and over the brick planters to reach the front lawn. It should be fun to watch.

Good Neighbors

Someone on Dailykos posted this poem: Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

Thought you like it.

Folding Chairs

I don't know the answer to the immigration problem. Yes, I know what illegal means, and I understand that we can't let anyone who wants cross our borders undetected. On the other hand, I have a sneaking admiration for people who are willing to risk everything for a chance at a better life. Making them all felons seems kind of mean-spirited to me.

My mother was an immigrant, as were my father's parents, which may be why this poem has always appealed to me:

He said--

Folding Chairs

How sad these changes are.
People unscrew the name plates from the doors,
take the saucepan of cabbage
and heat it up again, in a different place.

What sort of furniture is this
that advertises departure?
People take up their folding chairs
and emigrate.
Ships laden with homesickness and the urge to vomit
carry patented seating contraptions
and unpatented owners
to and fro.

Now on both sides of the great ocean
there are folding chairs;
How sad these changes are.

Gunter Grass
translated by Michail Hamburger


This poem contains the lines that are engraved on the Statue of Liberty:

She said--

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus

Dancing In the Wind

The National Weather Service has predicted another active hurricane season, although not as bad as last year. There is a 64% chance that a major hurricane will hit the Atlantic coast or the Gulf coast sometime this year.

I predict that FEMA will be only marginally more prepared than last year.

I predict that the President will say all the politically correct things that his speech writers write for him, and that he will wonder, briefly, like a child, what it's all about.



William Butler Yeats

To a Child Dancing in the Wind

Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?

A Most Amazing Man

My husband and I went down to DC on Thursday to meet an old friend of his who was in town to do research at the National Archives for a book he is writing. We met in front of the Archives, had lunch and toured a couple of art museums. My husband had always spoken of his friend as being intelligent and well-read, and so he proved to be. We talked about everything from the origins of the New Testament (he's learning Greek) to the latest Jane Austin movie. You have to like a guy who reads Jane Austin, and can converse about her books and movies. He liked Pride and Prejudice but felt like the sound track was too "Beethoven" and not right for the period. We all had a wonderful afternoon.

If I didn't have to work, my husband and I could do things like that every day. My husband is, of course, intelligent and well-read, also, and is wonderful company.

I only have about 3 more years until retirement. I can last that long.

It's cherry blossom time in DC so I am sharing a poem about cherry trees. I remember reading this in a high school English class, and disagreeing with the teacher about what age the author is claiming to be. The teacher said 70, but it's obvious he is only 20. He only has "50 more" springs in which to view the cherry blossoms.


Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.


A. E. Housman

James Bond

Of course my husband has a secret life. Don't we all have a life where we are rich, or famous, or brave, or thin? In some other life I walk on the moon, sail across the ocean on a raft, and travel the world with only the clothes on my back and a journal. Maybe in another life my husband is James Bond, always sophisticated and cool, always impeccably prepared, right down to his coat and watch, for anything.

Isn't that why we read books? - to live another life for a while? And isn't that why we save the books we've read? - not so much a record of who we were, but a record of who we wanted to be?


C.K. Williams
The Dance

A middle-aged woman, quite plain, to be polite about it, and
somewhat stout, to be more courteous still,
but when she and the rather good-looking, much younger man
she’s with get up to dance,
her forearm descends with such delicate lightness, such restrained
but confident ardor athwart his shoulder,
drawing him to her with such a firm, compelling warmth, and
moving him with such effortless grace
into the union she’s instantly established with the not at all
rhythmically solid music in this second-rate café,

that something in the rest of us, some doubt about ourselves, some
sad conjecture, seems to be allayed,
nothing that we’d ever thought of as a real lack, nothing not to be
admired or be repentant for,
but something to which we’ve never adequately given credence,
which might have consoling implications about how we misbe-
lieve ourselves, and so the world,
that world beyond us which so often disappoints, but which
sometimes shows us, lovely, what we are.



Robert Frost
Fireflies in the Garden

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.

Don't They Tell Him Anything?

The Vice President shoots his friend in a hunting accident, and nobody knows until the next day. No one even bothers to tell the president. I suppose there was nothing he could do, but you think he might have been interested. (I told a group at work that Cheney was the first sitting vice president to shoot a man since Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel and killed him. A couple of people said "Aaron who?" I think the others were wondering who Cheney was.)

Now a British company is getting ready to sell the management of several major eastern U.S. sea ports to a company owned by the government of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. There is a lot of discussion as to whether or not this is really a security risk, but Bush goes public with a vehement defense of the sale, and threatens to use his first veto ever against any bill Congress passes to postpone or cancel the sale. Then word leaks out that Bush himself only heard about the sale 3 days before Congress did.

Don't they tell him anything?

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College

Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies,
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘tis folly to be wise.

Thomas Gray

Coats of Many Colors

Sometimes I think my husband has a whole secret life I know nothing about. He certainly has the coats for it. He has leather jackets, Gore-Tex coats, Polar Fleece coats, down coats, denim coats, micro fiber coats. He has long coats, short coats, and too many vests to count. His coats fill two closets, yet today he bought himself another coat. This one is a Gore-Tex soft shell, perfect for skiing or snow boarding. Maybe it was in honor of the Olympics. I don't know, as far as I'm aware the man has never been near a ski slope in his life. Today's purchase would also work for walking the dog in the rain, except we don't have a dog. The man doesn't even shovel snow. He doesn't jog or ride a motorcycle, but if he ever did he would have the appropriate coat. He has a coat that could climb Mount Everest with him.

What does he do all day while I'm at work?

Two poems about snow:



In winter in the woods alone
Against the trees I go.
I mark a maple for my own
And lay the maple low.

At four o’clock I shoulder axe
And in the afterglow
I link a line of shadowy tracks
Across the tinted snow.

I see for Nature no defeat
In one tree’s overthrow
Or for myself in my retreat
For yet another blow.

Robert Frost


Snow

Yes it can!

Now you know what they say about snowflakes
How there ain't no two the same
Well, all them flakes look alike to me
Every one is a dirty shame


My ears are cold my feet are cold
Bermuda stays on my mind
And I'm here to say that if winter comes
Then spring is a ways behind


Jesse Winchester

Squeeze Me In

My mother didn't die of breast cancer; she died of the surgery that cured her breast cancer. I guess it was quicker that way. She died about 6 weeks after her mammogram. One time I told a medical technician that a mammogram killed my mother, but the idea seemed to disturb her, so I didn't pursue the thought.

I had my latest mammogram done on Thursday. My appointment was for Monday, but I wrote the wrong date in my planner and didn't notice until it was too late. I showed up on Thursday anyhow and asked them to squeeze me in. They didn't think they could at first. I was scheduled for the "A" room, which is reserved for large breasted women, and they only had openings in the "B" room for smaller breasted women. (Isn't that backwards? Shouldn't the small breasted women have been in the "A" room, with the larger ladies in the "C" room or the "DD" room?) I protested that I really didn't have big breasts at all, in spite of the size 38 bra. Then I flashed my winter coat open to let them view the t-shirt clad evidence. After a couple of flashes, they agreed to let me into the "B" room. Either they agreed with me about the size of my tits, or they figured they'd better get me out of the lobby before I removed even the t-shirt.

That madness is over for another year.

My mother was a poet. She wrote some really great stuff. I think this one is my favorite:

The Call

There are not enough choirs on earth
To sing me to rest
When I think of the sap
There in January twigs.

February is a waiting,
Nature’s baton aloft, a breath
Held, while the snivel and hack
Of winter subsides.

Sometime in early March,
The first sweet tones begin
Singing the rising, sweet filling,
Calyx softening.

And when I hear good melody,
Old Maple Tune, then
There will be choir enough
For me to leave.

by MMR

Guilty Pleasures

Yes, my daughter has hooked me on the show "Project Runway". I wish I could think of one redeeming feature for this "reality" show, but I can't. But I like it. I'm not that interested in fashion, and the runway models are all painfully thin; I just like the personalities, and the conflicts. I can see the tension rising, week by week, and even though I know it is heavily edited to define each participant by their worst emotions, I enjoy watching it. It will be one of those guilty pleasures, like the Star Magazine.

He said:

Wallace Stevens
Table Talk

Granted, we die for good.
Life, then, is largely a thing
Of happens to like, not should.

And that, too, granted, why
Do I happen to like red bush,
Gray grass and green-gray sky?

What else remains? But red,
Gray, green, why those of all?
That is not what I said:
Not those of all. But those.
One likes what one happens to like.
One likes the way red grows.

It cannot matter at all.
Happens to like is one
Of the ways things happen to fall.

She said:

Dorothy Parker
From Sunset Gun

The Searched Soul

When I consider, pro and con,
What things my love is built upon-
A curly mouth; a sinewed wrist;
A questioning brow;
a pretty twist
Of words as old and tried as sin;
A pointed ear; a cloven chin;
Long, tapered limbs; and slanted eyes
Not cold nor kind nor darkly wise-
When so I ponder, here apart,
What shallow boons suffice my heart,
What dust-bound trivia capture me,
I marvel at my normalcy.

Social Scene

My mother accuses me of abandoning my blog.

I successfully got her hooked on "Project Runway" while I was home for the holidays. So successfully that a woman who swears she cannot stay up past 10PM was awake and bitching about Santino at midnight last Wednesday!

Anyways, we got a new episode this Wednesday, so here is my rundown:

Nick: Pretty. I like the color. It is similar to other dresses he's done, but they were pretty dresses, too, so who's complaining?

Daniel: I loved the fabric. There has been some discussion over at Television Without Pity's board whether it makes the model's ass look fat. Because "looking like you eat regular meals" is the new "fat," apparently?

Andrae: Drama Boy is pulling it together. I'm no longer even tempted to mutter "Don't poke the crazy" when they interview him. The dress is nice, though I wonder whether her clothes coming out of the suitcase wrinkled is Nicky Hilton's big problem in life. I did especially like the restrained sparkle when the model walked. That is the proper use of sequins and figure skaters everywhere should take note.

(Off topic: Please send Tim Gunn to tell Stephane Lambiel that he is skating the Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," not Survivor's "Eye of Tiger." There's just no excuse for that costume.)

Santino: Setting aside his personality and the fact that he doesn't seem to wash his hair on a regular basis, the dress isn't bad. The color was a little washed out and the style very reminiscent of his first dress. I think he went a little overboard with the ropey bits and shredded skirt, but that's his look and anything is better than the offenses against taste that were his underwear challenge.

Kara: Very pretty; would have been even better in a bright color. Like a lot of the others, this is a dress that I can only appreciate from afar and could never wear. I'd look pregnant, my breasts don't support themselves and I'd worry about flashing the world with a skirt that short...

Chloe: A lot of people have commented that this dress and her "Clothes Off Your Back" dress are really similar, which I can see. This one didn't seem to fit the model as well; different fabrics, I suppose. Or maybe I'm just looking at her and thinking "Eat a sandwich, please!" I liked the braid going down the back, but wasn't entirely keen on the flouncy skirt.

Emmett: I don't care. I like Emmett. I liked this dress, too, especially she walked and you got the shimmer effect from the layers. I'd have liked it better if the skirt hadn't been attached to a baby-doll dress, but that seems to be the style everyone's going for...

Diana: Nice on top, but messy on bottom. I liked the skirt in her sketch better; that may be the inexperience in taking things from paper to life under pressure showing up.

Zulema: Ick. Everything's all bunchy. And her model always looks miserable. Please, stand up straight and stop letting them do such awful things to your hair.

Guadalupe: The front wasn't bad. Not Nicky Hilton's style or really meeting the challenge in any way, but not bad. The back looked like the model sat down and stood up again with a garbage bag bunched up at her butt. And the sleeve thingy was completely unecessary.

Marla: Okay, Marla was on my last nerve. Three times she was told that her dress looked like the photos of Nicky that they gave the designers. I don't know why you'd want to copy that dress, anyway; it wasn't that pretty to start with and essentially flattened out what little chest Nicky had.

Winners and Losers: (Or Whiners and Losers, if you will)

I liked Nick's dress better, thought it would photograph better where-ever Nicky Hilton deigned to Appear (more contrast than the grey) and Santino's ego hardly needs to be fed.

I put my finger on something that really bugs me about Santino: he's all about making himself look good, more than making the client or the model look good. (He's the Mel Gibson of Fashion.) He's like this big Artist and the clothes are his creations and any other use of the creation as a garment to be worn by people simply doesn't enter the equation. Which has it's place, but Santino needs to understand that if he really wants to be the Next American Fashion Designer, he's gonna have to think about the practicality of what he does at some point. Otherwise, he's never going to move past the niche market of people who want over-the-top clothes.

Marla bugged, but I doubt that Guadalupe was going to make it to fashion week, so she had to go at some point. My money is on Marla going out next week. She just seems out of her depth, though I'm sure the time constraints are contributing to her difficulties. I hope she pulls something out next week that satisfies her even if it doesn't satisfy the judges; it would be sad if she had such a relentlessly negative time with what could be such a great opportunity.

Someone at TWOP said watching Marla was liked seeing a bunny get run over by a Hummer. Guadalupe had some spirity left; I just was never too keen on her whole Look.

Questions I Wish I Hadn't Asked

I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for an antibiotic. I hate to take these things, but after blowing bloody snot into Puffs for three weeks, I decided I wasn't going to get better on my own, so I saw the doctor, who diagnosed a sinus infection, and prescribed some powerful antibiotic to cure me.

As the pharmacist handed me my powerful pills, I asked him if there were any side effects I should watch out for.

"Well, take it at night," he said, "because it will make you very drowsy, but eat something with it, and drink lots of water."

OK, drowsy I can handle - a bed time snack and a bottle of water and I'll be fine.

Then he continued: "Yes, take it at night. You will go to sleep and not notice that your heart feels funny".

Not notice that my heart feels funny? "What do you mean funny?"

"Oh, you know - just funny".

"You mean my heart might race?"

"No . . arhythmia - irregular heartbeat. It's only dangerous if you have heart disease".

I confess to having an enlarged left ventricle, but he says that won't be a problem.

"Just drink lots of water, and go to sleep, and you will be fine. It's not very risky".

I go home and read the package insert, which also warns me of drowiness, dizzyness, nausea, diarrhea, headache, and trouble sleeping. I am to notify my doctor if I get yellowing of the eyes or skin, a yeast infection, or a rare, but serious intestinal condition that can occur weeks after taking the medication and produce abdominal pain and bloody stools.

Then I call my sister, who is a certified medical assistant, and she is very reassuring. Her doctor has prescribed this antibiotic many times, and she has never heard of anyone having serious side effects or any kind of heart problems. My 92 year old father is taking this antibiotic and has not had an irregular heart beat. He did develop a yeast infection, and the whole bloody stools thing, but he is, after all, 92, and recently had surgery for colon cancer. So I decide to take a chance on the medicine.

I take it at bedtime, with food and water, and go promptly to sleep. My heart feels no funnier than is usual for one who sometimes suffers from panic attacks. My sinuses feel better all ready.

The Land of Counterpane

When I was sick and lay a-bed
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills:

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

Robert Louis Stevenson