Shoe Envy

I saw a woman go into the coffee shop yesterday wearing tight blue jeans turned up at the bottom, a form fitted black T-shirt, and a pair of high-heeled, pointy-toed, ankle strapped red shoes. She looked radiant. I know it was the shoes. A woman could conquer the world in shoes like that.

When I was a child I wanted a pair of red shoes. I saw them at the shoe store, shiny red shoes with bows on the toes. I could have been a princess in those shoes. I could have been a ballerina. But my mother wouldn't buy them for me. "Only whores wear red shoes", she said.


My mother definitely bought shoes in the "stump-along-like-that" category, as in the following poem:

Frida Wolfe
Choosing Shoes

New shoes, new shoes,
Red and pink and blue shoes.
Tell me what would YOU choose
If they'd let us buy?

Buckle shoes, bow shoes,
Pretty pointy-toe shoes,
Strappy, cappy low shoes;
Let's have some to try.

Bright shoes, white shoes,
Dandy dance-by-night shoes,
Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes;
Like some? So would I.

BUT Flat shoes, fat shoes,
Stump-along-like-that-shoes,
Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes
O that's the sort they'll buy.


The working girl in this poem must have taken off her red shoes:

e e cummings

raise the shade
will youse dearie?
rain
wouldn’t that

get yer goat but
we don’t care do
we dearie we should
worry about the rain

huh
dearie?
yknow
I’m

sorry for awl the
poor girls that
gets up god
know when every

day of their
lives
aint you,

oo-oo dearie

not so
hard dear

you’re killing me

The Road

I read some very good books over the summer. The one that I think about the most is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It starts with a sentence that is almost poetry:

"When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him."

Civilization has ended and the man and his son are on the road, moving towards the coast. We never find out what ended civilization. There are no big-headed aliens attacking humans, or anything like that. We don't even know for sure why the man and the boy are walking towards the coast, except they need to keep on the move, and the coast is warmer than the mountains.

There are gangs of "bad people" who roam the earth, seeking out the weak to kill them and eat them. The man and boy need to stay away from the "bad people" while trying to survive, and trying to remain one of the "good people". The man's wife kills herself before the book starts. She couldn't stand the fear of what might happen.

The book asks some basic questions: If all of civilization was gone, what would you need to do to survive? And more importantly, what would you be willing to do to survive? Would you be willing to kill to survive? Would you be willing to prey on the weak and eat them? Would you remain one of the "good people" even if it cost you your life?

Can we defeat terrorism by turning into terrorists ourselves?


I am reminded of a poem by Stephen Crane:

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.

For Grady

Grady died this week. I think he was ready to go. He didn't want a funeral, didn't want a minister talking about him, so they will get together and celebrate his life. I can't be there, but I will be remembering him, too.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.


As Befits a Man

I don’t mind dying—
But I’d hate to die all alone!
I want a dozen pretty women
To holler, cry, and moan.

I don’t mind dying
But I want my funeral to be fine:
A row of long tall mamas
Fainting, fanning and crying.

I want a fish-tail hearse
And sixteen fish-tail cars,
A big brass band
And a whole truck load of flowers.

When they let me down,
Down into the clay,
I want the women to holler:
Please don’t take him away!
Ow-ooo-oo-o!
Don’t take daddy away!

Langston Hughes


If I should go before the rest of you,
Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone.
Not when I’m gone speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves that I have known.
Weep if you must,
Parting is hell,
But life goes on,
So sing as well.

Joyce Grenfell

A Poem for Grady

I found this poem in the Washington Post Book World Poet's Corner on Sunday.

Grady is a Viet Nam Veteran and a drummer. He married my sister many years ago, worked hard, liked to hunt, road a motor bike and occasionally raised hell. Now he's in Hospice care.

Morphine

The man lying in bed is dying
from cancer, flecks of bone
flow like ice in his blood.

Outside it’s snowing,
lightly in the street, white petals
from a pear tree.

Everything is starting
to feel immense. His children,
like four pylons,

quietly resemble each other.
They pull at glasses
of Dewar’s. They can’t help

but notice the petals, the snow
blowing together in the street.
They chat politely, take salt

from his forehead,
on their lips, as they go
out the door, agreeing

he looks bad. They don’t know
the man’s floating on
a blue raft, an ocean, a small

Pacific. He’s smoking
a pleasant cigarette; it’s nice,
lukewarm, no undertow.

James Hoch

I Shopped Today

I didn't mean to, but I was at the mall waiting for my hair appointment and I wandered into the book store. I got three paperback books off the "3 for 2" table, paid for them, and walked out feeling a little guilty, but not much.

You will have to forgive me; I have already forgiven myself. We are leaving for Watervale next week, and the thought of a week at Watervale without a stack of new books to read was too dismal to contemplate.

So what did I buy? What brought to an end my year of not shopping?

"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini, recommended by my sister;
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, recommended by my new boss and an Oprah's Book Club selection; and
"Blink" by Malcom Gladwell, the author of "Tipping Point", a book I really enjoyed.

This doesn't mean that I am going to go crazy with shopping. I plan to overlook this little lapse and continue to resist mindless shopping for the balance of the year. Not buying new things has helped me to appreciate the things I already own.

Two poems today, just because I like them:

Lending Out Books
Hal Sirowitz

You’re always giving, my therapist said.
you have to learn how to take. Whenever
you meet a woman, the first thing you do
is lend her your books. You think she’ll
have to see you again in order to return them.
But what happens is, she doesn’t have the time
to read them, & she’s afraid if she sees you again
you’ll expect her to talk about them, & will
want to lend her even more. So she
cancels the date. You end up losing
a lot of books. You should borrow hers.


The Fiddler of Dooney
William Butler Yeats

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.
I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.
When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,

He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance:
And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney!"
And dance like a wave of the sea.

Of Jane and Emily

I saw the movie "Becoming Jane" last week. It is a romance, based, very loosely, on Jane Austin's life, and in particular a sentence in one of her letters to her sister, saying that she had flirted with a Mr. Lefroy at a party. The movie got a lot of things just right - her father the country parson - her dashing brother who married cousin Philadelphia (whose first husband lost his head to the guillotine in France) - Jane's lively wit.

As for the romance between Jane and Mr. Lefroy - well, all the romantics in the theater wished it were true. Jane Austin wrote the most wonderful love stories and we all wanted to think that she had once experienced a passion of her own. But Jane Austin never married. She was very briefly engaged, but called it off, choosing to remain single rather than marry without love.

Another wonderful writer who never married is the poet, Emily Dickinson. There are rumors of an unrequited love for a married man, but no one really knows, and no one believes there was anything physical between them. However, there are tantalizing hints of passion in her writing that give one pause.

The following poems are by or about Emily, but are for Jane as well.

Emily Dickinson

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!



Billy Collins

Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything—
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that Reason is a plank,
that Life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

For My Sister

My sister is a remarkable person, and a whole lot of fun. She writes, too, though I won't publish what she's written. These poems are for her:

Ladies

Dorothy Parker

The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They'd rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints...

So far, I've had no complaints.


Touch Me

Stanley J. Kunitz


Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that’s late,
it is my song that’s flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it’s done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.



From “Garden”
II

Hilda Doolittle


O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat—
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

Nobody is Perfect

The first baseball game I ever saw all the way through was on September 2, 1972. This was the year I was married. My husband and I had recently moved to the Chicago area, and we were finally able to watch the Cubs on WGN. Milt Pappas was pitching for the Cubs against the San Diego Padres. I was sitting by my husband trying to see what he found so fascinating about watching baseball, and particularly the Cubs. Of course, that was the game in which Pappas came within one pitch of a perfect game. He retired the first 26 batters. He went 2 and 2 to the next batter, then the umpire called the next 2 pitches balls and the player walked. Pappas retired the next batter for a no-hitter and the Cubs won. I think Jack Brickhouse must have been announcing, and he was hoarse with excitement.

I realize now what a great game that was. But I have to admit, at the time I was complaining to my husband that "nothing is happening - no one even gets to first base". I was almost convinced that baseball was the slowest, most boring game ever invented. I was not too bored to continue to watch the Cubs, however, and I've been something of a baseball fan ever since. I've never seen another no-hitter, but I haven't given up hope.

Bill Buckner used to be a Cub, so I was immediately attracted to the following poem. I like the poem, too, because of the image of life coming at you so fast you miss it.

This poem is also about forgiveness - not only forgiving Buckner, but forgiving yourself and being forgiven.

Forgiving Buckner
John Hodgen

The world is always rolling between our legs.
It comes for us, dribbler, slow roller,
humming its goat song, easy as pie.

We spit in our gloves, bend our stiff knees,
keep it in front of us, our fathers' advice,
but we miss it every time, its physic, its science,
and it bleeds on through, blue streak, heart sore,
to the four-leaf clovers deep in right field.

The runner scores, knight in white armor,
the others out leaping, bumptious, gladhanding,
your net come up empty, Jonah again.
Even the dance of the dead won't come near you,
heart in your throat, holy of holies,
the oh of your mouth as the stone rolls away,
as if it had come from before you were born
to roll past your life to the end of the world,
till the world comes around again, gathering steam,
heading right for us again and again,
faith of our fathers, world without end.

Empty Nest

My son left home on Friday so I rented a carpet shampooer and cleaned the carpets upstairs. There are those who will remember that when my daughter left home I cleaned all the windows in the house. It's the same thing, really, cleaning the empty nest.

My husband does not clean when under stress. He buys himself something. (Ask him what he bought himself at the Apple store.) He did help with the carpet cleaning, moving furniture at my direction, and actually looking up the instructions on the website so I could use the machine properly. Unfortunately, I had already dumped about 2 gallons of water into my son's bedroom rug before we figured out what I was doing wrong. I got most of it vacuumed up. It will dry out.

My son will say, "I haven't really left. I'm just visiting my sister." But he only bought a one-way ticket, and he took his resume with him. It's OK. He needs to find his dream.


Edwin Arlington Robinson
From Tristram

I am not one
Who must have everything; yet I must have
My dreams if I must live, for they are mine.
Wisdom is not one word and often another,
Till words are like dry leaves under a tree;
Wisdom is like a dawn that comes up slowly
Out of an unknown ocean.

The Road Not Taken

I understand that the Vatican recently issued the 10 Commandments of Driving. I haven't seen them, but I would like to propose another:

If you are in the LEFT TURN ONLY lane, TURN LEFT.

It's a simple concept, but one that a lot of people don't seem to understand. At least 3 times a week, I get into a left turn only lane, confidently expecting to turn left. The green arrow comes on, and the idiot in front of me inches forward, then stops, throws on his right turn signal and waits to merge into the forward moving traffic. Does he imagine that a fast-moving rush-hour stream of traffic is going to let him merge? Does he think that the people behind him, who really do want to turn left before the light changes, are thinking sweet thoughts about him and wishing him well? Guess again. Yesterday I saw a dyslexic minivan suddenly swerve out of the left turn only lane, cross two east bound lanes of traffic, and turn right.

No, the only thing to do if you are in a left turn only lane is turn left. If you didn't want to turn left, turn anyways, find a safe place to turn around and go back. The people behind you will bless you. Anyhow, who knows what you might discover on your little side trip.


The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

If Bees Are Few

Did you know that the bees are disappearing? According to an article in the Washington Post, honeybees are vanishing. No one knows why. No one even knows where they are going. There are no piles of dead bees anywhere, but hives are empty. There is some concern because agriculture depends on bees for pollination; and, if the bees are leaving, what species will be checking out next?

Do I have a poem for the situation?

Of course.

Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

The Year of Not Shopping Continues

OK, it's not really not shopping. I shop for food, I shop for gifts, I shop for plants and mulch to put in the yard. But I am still not buying things for myself. Still no new shoes, clothes, furniture, books, towels or gardening tools. The Bed, Bath & Beyond Store was a real challenge, with all the neat kitchen utensils, but I bought not a thing. I've gone to the mall (to buy my son some new clothes), but I hurried past the Nordstroms shoe department. Oh, the cute summer sandals, the darling little flats I saw from the corner of my eye, but I didn't even stop.

I've been shopping, too, for a sink and toilet and marble tiles to redo my first floor powder room. I haven't bought anything, but I've been to the Expo Design center twice now, dragging my husband along, to look. Some time this year I will get hold of Ivan, who repaired the kitchen ceiling when it got leaked on, who installed the pot lights above the fireplace, and who painted the outside of the house, and ask him if he can install tile and bathroom fixtures. I suspect he can do all of that. Once I show him what I want, and get an estimate, I may have the bathroom redone. I'm not in a hurry.

I read a book recently called The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith. It is the latest in his series about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency; I really enjoyed it. His main character is Mma Ramotswe, in Botswana, who is a detective, but not a typical one. There is no violence in these books, not even a lot of suspense. They are simple, cheerful little stories. I'm including an excerpt:

From The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
by Alexander McCall Smith

"The world, Mma Ramotswe believed, was composed of big things and small things. The big things were written large, and one could not but be aware of them –wars, oppression, the familiar theft by the rich and the strong of those simple things that the poor needed, those scraps which would make their life more bearable; this happened, and could make even the reading of a newspaper an exercise in sorrow. There were all those unkindnesses, palpable, daily, so easily avoidable; but one could not think just of those, thought Mma Ramotswe, or one would spend one’s time in tears—and the unkindnesses would continue. So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one’s own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?"

I got a poetry collection for Mother's Day called Dancing With Joy. This poem seems to fit with the above quotation:

A Brief for the Defense
by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music, despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

I've heard people say they have a personal relationship with Jesus, but I've never really understood what they meant until I read this poem:

Heaven on Earth

I saw Jesus at the bowling alley,
slinging nothing but gutter balls.
He said, "You've gotta love a hobby
that allows ugly shoes."
He lit a cigarette and bought me a beer.
So I invited him to dinner.

I knew the Lord couldn't see my house
in its current condition, so I gave it an out
of season spring cleaning. What to serve
for dinner? Fish—the logical
choice, but after 2000 years, he must grow weary
of everyone's favorite seafood dishes.
I thought of my Granny's ham with Coca Cola
glaze, but you can't serve that to a Jewish
boy. Likewise pizza—all my favorite
toppings involve pork.

In the end, I made us an all-dessert buffet.
We played Scrabble and Uno and Yahtzee
and listened to Bill Monroe.
Jesus has a healthy appetite for sweets,
I'm happy to report. He told strange
stories which I've puzzled over for days now.

We've got an appointment for golf on Wednesday.
Ordinarily I don't play, and certainly not in this humidity.
But the Lord says he knows a grand miniature
golf course with fiberglass mermaids and working windmills
and the best homemade ice cream you ever tasted.
Sounds like Heaven to me.

Kristin Berkey-Abbott


Then there is this poem by ee cummings:

no time ago
or else a life
walking in the dark
i met christ

jesus ) my heart
flopped over
and lay still
while he passed (as
close as I’m to you
yes closer
made of nothing
except loneliness

Two Poems for Mother's Day

You raise your children to be independent, and to think for themselves, but you still cry a little when they leave the nest.

Only a little, though. I still remember the thrill of accomplishment I felt the first time my husband and I said, "You kids feed yourselves, we're going out to dinner".


For my daughter:


To a Daughter Leaving Home

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

Linda Pastan



For my son:

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?

Don't fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge
My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?
What he doesn't know
is that when we're walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand

Robert Hershon

And no, my son's hair is not receding. It's just a poem.

Hate Radio

When I was in high school women played "half-court" basketball. Each team had 3 forwards on one side of the court and 3 guards on the other side of the court and no team member could cross the center line. Full court basketball was considered too strenuous for developing females. I remember being warned that too much exercise could cause my female organs to become displaced, preventing future child bearing.

Things have changed somewhat. Women today play full court basketball and no one, to my knowledge, has had her uterus fall out as a result. Women now go to college on basketball scholarships.

But some things never change. Strong female atheletes still frighten some men. How else do you explain Don Imus calling the Rutger women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos"?

Women playing basketball never has been, and never will be, a joke. Don Imus is not a "good man" as he describes himself. Good people don't spew hateful ideas on the public airways in the name of having fun. Sexism and racism are hurtful.

I'm not sorry he got fired.

I am sorry for the atheletes who were the innocent victims of his attack. They deserved better.



Incident

Countee Cullen


Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me. 

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

April

No particular reason for these poems. They are all by women, all mention April, and all reflect on death. Plus - I enjoy them.



Dorothy Parker

I shall come back without fanfaronade
Of wailing wind and graveyard panoply;
But, trembling, slip from cool Eternity-
A mild and most bewildered little shade.
I shall not make sepulchral midnight raid,
But softly come where I had longed to be
In April twilight's unsung melody,
And I, not you, shall be the one afraid.

Strange, that from lovely dreamings of the dead
I shall come back to you, who hurt me most.
You may not feel my hand upon your head,
I'll be so new and inexpert a ghost.
Perhaps you will not know that I am near-
And that will break my ghostly heart, my dear.



Sara Teasdale

When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough;
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.



Edna St. Vincent Millay
Spring in the Garden
Ah, cannot the curled shoots of the larkspur that you loved so,
Cannot the spiny poppy that no winter kills
Instruct you how to return through the thawing ground and the thin snow
Into this April sun that is driving the mist between the hills?

A good friend to the monkshood in a time of need
You were, and the lupine’s friend as well;
But I see the lupine lift the ground like a tough weed
And the earth over the monkshood swell,

And I fear that not a root in all this heaving sea
Of land, has nudged you where you lie, has found
Patience and time to direct you, numb and stupid as you still must be
From your first winter underground.

Loch Ness

When my daughter was in college she spent one summer working in Scotland. I joined her for the last three weeks of summer and we travelled Scotland, Wales and England, riding the British Rails and staying at various Beds and Breakfasts. The trip was one of the best of my life. I wouldn't have gone if not for my daughter, because I am normally afraid to fly, and flying is kind of necessary to get the Britain these days, but happily I made the flight.

One of the most memorable days of the trip was in Inverness, Scotland.

We signed up to go on "Gordon's Loch Ness Tour". Gordon was a retired biologist with a large van. He loaded up two American's (my daughter and I), a Canadian family of three, two Japanese and three Italians and drove us out to the Loch. Once there Gordon served us tea, kept hot in a couple of thermos jugs.

(I kept confusing the British by asking for "hot tea", because the British can't even imagine drinking tea any other way but hot. They don't drink iced tea. They don't drink iced anything.)

Once tea was served, Gordon asked if anyone wanted to swim, and offered his collection of bathing suits for our use. No one wanted to swim in the cold lake, but Gordon said he would. Then he calmly removed all his clothing on the beach and put on a pair of swim trunks. Now the Japanese and Italians took no notice at all of the brief public nudity. The Canadians looked vaguely uncomfortable, but kept talking, while the Americans dropped their mouths open in amazement and didn't know where to look. Americans just don't do nudity in public. I think most of them don't even do nudity in private. Maybe it's the Puritan in us.

After his swim, Gordon led us on a hike up the mountain above Loch Ness. It was a three or four hour hike through the trees, with a stop for sandwiches, and up to a glorious meadow of heather. The view from the top was spectacular, and well worth the climb. Getting down the mountain was actually harder than getting up, but the whole trip was exhilarating, and I am grateful to Gordon, and my daughter, for making it possible.

We didn't see the Loch Ness monster, we saw a little more of Gordon than we bargained for, and we saw some interesting cultural differences.


My Picture Left In Scotland

I now think love is rather deaf than blind,
For else it could not be
That she
Whom I adore so much should so slight me,
And cast my love behind;
I’m sure my language to her was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet,
As hath the youngest He
That sits in shadow of Apollo’s tree.

Oh, but my conscious fears
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundred of grey hairs,
Told seven-and-forty years,
Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace,
My mountain belly and my rocky face;
And all these through her eyes have stopped her ears.


Ben Johnson

Forgive Me, Forgive Me

So the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is calling homosexual acts immoral. This from a guy whose subordinates kill, maim and torture people.

Stevie Smith
Forgive me, forgive me

Forgive me forgive me my heart is my own
And not to be given for any man’s frown
Yet would I not keep it for ever alone.

Forgive me forgive me I thought that I loved
My fancy betrayed me my heart was unmoved
My fancy too often has carelessly roved.

Forgive me forgive me for here where I stand
There is no friend beside me no lover at hand
No footstep by mine in my desert of sand.

The Year of Not Shopping Part 2

I continue not to shop for things, and it's going pretty well. I'm staying out of the malls entirely, and at the bookstore I grab a magazine to read and head for the coffee shop. Then after the family has shopped, I put the magazine back on the rack and leave. I did buy two bunches of tulips at the grocery store last Saturday, but they don't count because I won't have to store them. I've been reading and rereading books I already own. I went through the first six Harry Potter books, and loved them all over again. Fortunately, my husband has already pre-ordered the seventh Harry Potter book from Amazon.com (It's due out in July) so I can read it when he's done with it. Next, I actually went to the Blockbuster Video to rent, rather than buy, the four Harry Potter movies. I have not rented a movie in years, but why stop with the books? The second movie wasn't available (all checked out, I guess) and I was quite content to have three to watch, but the husband went to Best Buy to buy the missing movie so I could watch them all in order. He's a sweetheart, but is it cheating to not shop, and then have someone shop for you?

I've talked at least one person at work into not shopping with me.

Could two people not shopping account for the recent stock market losses? If so, I'm sorry.


Sara Teasdale
Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like the curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Hymns of a Fat Woman

My sister lost about 40 pounds last year. She did it the old fashioned way, by eating healthy foods and exercising. She joined a gym and did aerobic exercise and strength training while eating less. She's a size 4 now, bless her heart. She goes with my nieces to the Karaoke Bar at the bowling alley. Men half her age hit on her at the gym. She will probably live forever.

Like many a reformed sinner, she now wants to save the rest of us who are mired in gluttony and sloth. She is trying to market herself as a "lifestyle coach". She will help you find a healthy diet and start an exercise program. She will help you join a gym and a hire personal trainer, if that's what you need. She will go through your pantry with you and toss out fattening foods. She will grocery shop beside you and help you read food labels and figure portion sizes. I think she's really on to something here. A lot of people need encouragement to be healthy, and most people don't get that encouragement from their environment.

I haven't signed up for her services, however. The following two poems are more my style.



The Hymn of a Fat Woman

Joyce Huff


All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same
Latin root.

Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.

Hard
as pew seats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.

They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.

Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.

I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.


Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale

Jane Yolen

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Cinder Elephant,
Sleeping Tubby,
Snow Weight,
where the princess is not
anorexic, wasp-waisted,
flinging herself down the stairs.

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Hansel and Great,
Repoundsel,
Bounty and the Beast,
where the beauty
has a pillowed breast,
and fingers plump as sausage.

I am thinking of a fairy tale
that is not yet written,
for a teller not yet born,
for a listener not yet conceived,
for a world not yet won,
where everything round is good:
the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.

I found these two poems, and many other wonderful bits of poetry at the Library or Congress web site page, 180 Poems: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/

Birds

My radio alarm goes off every week day morning at 6:30 a.m. I usually lie in bed for another half hour, listening to National Public Radio tell me the news, weather and traffic. They have such soothing voices on NPR, even the worst news or the most snarled traffic doesn't sound too threatening.

I keep the radio turned low; I can also hear the birds in the yard, excited about the food in the bird feeder.

This past week, every morning at 6:50, Garrison Keillor was on the radio for a brief monologue he calls The Writer's Almanac. He talks about a writer or two, usually on the writer's birthday. Then he reads a favorite poem.

I just love it. What a great way to start the day - soft voices, bird song and poetry.

Check out the associated web site: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/02/05/#thursday


I heard him read the following on Thursday as I lay in bed listening to the birds in my yard:



Why I Need the Birds


When I hear them call
in the morning, before
I am quite awake,
my bed is already traveling
the daily rainbow,
the arc toward evening;
and the birds, leading
their own discreet lives
of hunger and watchfulness,
are with me all the way,
always a little ahead of me
in the long-practiced manner
of unobtrusive guides.


By the time I arrive at evening,
they have just settled down to rest;
already invisible, they are turning
into the dreamwork of trees;
and all of us together —
myself and the purple finches,
the rusty blackbirds,
the ruby cardinals,
and the white-throated sparrows
with their liquid voices —
ride the dark curve of the earth
toward daylight, which they announce
from their high lookouts
before dawn has quite broken for me.


by Lisel Mueller

The Year of Not Shopping

Some time ago I read about a man who gave up buying things for a year. He bought food, of course, and necessary medicines, and gifts for other people, but nothing else. Then last fall I read about a group of friends in California (where else?) who signed a compact to not buy anything new for a year. They allowed themselves to buy services such as haircuts and going out to eat, but no new things, only used or recycled things. They bought used gifts for people, even re-cycled brake pads for their car. The whole idea intrigued me and I decided to give it a try.

For 2007 I am not shopping for new things: no clothes, shoes, dishes, towels, books or furniture. I am not buying anything that will add to the burden of possessions I already own. I am spending money on food, medicine, gifts (even new items for gifts), and lattes. I am paying to have my hair done. And, as I pointed out to my husband, I have no prohibition against other people buying things for me.

So how is it going? Well, I did pretty well in January. I bought a new battery for my car because it needed one and I need my car to get to work, and I'm not sure I could have found a re-cycled battery. Then I bought new eye glasses, but only because my old ones broke and couldn't be fixed, and anyhow my vision insurance paid for most of them.

Norah Jones released a new album. I probably wouldn't have noticed, but both my kids pointed it out to me because they know I really liked her previous albums. But I wouldn't buy it. My son offered to get it for me for Mother's Day, which was really sweet of him, but then I remembered the itunes gift card my daughter got me for Christmas, so I ordered the album from itunes. I figured that wasn't really buying it because the gift card had already been paid for.

I went to Best Buy today and bought my son a birthday gift. That was a challenge. Any number of items caught my eye, but I didn't buy anything else. Then I went to the Barnes and Noble book store next to Best Buy, and that was really a challenge. So many interesting books! I almost bought one as a gift for David, but I put it back. He hadn't asked for it, and I really just wanted to give it to him and then borrow it back to read myself. I have unread books at home, so I was strong.

I've started a list of things I might want to buy in 2008. The funny thing is, I've already forgotten about most of the items I've put on the list.

My husband is quite amused by all this. He says he will shop twice as hard to make sure the economy doesn't suffer.

I plan to continue one month at a time. I will be saving money, time and energy. I will be enjoying the possessions I already own. I'll keep you posted.

I don't really have a poem about not shopping, but this poem amuses me, so I'm sharing it:

From “The Walrus and the Carpenter”

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.’

Lewis Carroll