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