Quoth the redhead, 'nivermoore.'

Sustenance.

2012-02-11T14:57:00.000-05:00

"Winter is good - his Hoar Delights (1316)" by Emily Dickinson

2012-02-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

Winter is good - his Hoar Delights (1316)
by Emily Dickinson

Winter is good - his Hoar Delights
Italic flavor yield -
To Intellects inebriate
With Summer, or the World -

Generic as a Quarry
And hearty - as a Rose -
Invited with asperity
But welcome when he goes.

Frost's snow dusting

2012-02-04T10:38:00.001-05:00

Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Edgar update

2012-01-27T10:38:00.002-05:00

Edgar, with a blur of the little Lenore in the foreground

"All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe."

2012-01-27T10:37:00.001-05:00

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Winter Twlight"

2012-01-25T19:47:00.000-05:00

Winter Twilight

by Anne Porter

On a clear winter's evening
The crescent moon

And the round squirrels' nest
In the bare oak

Are equal planets.

-10*F at the PSALM Arts Retreat, Speculator, NY (photos)

2012-01-21T21:40:00.004-05:00

Every winter a group of artists retreat to the deepest Adirondack woods. At Camp Fowler they revel in the silence that only comes with that sort of cold.

Tenor Guitar Tuning Nob

-10*F But the sun still shines

Sub-zero Morning Mountain & Cabin

Frosty Milkweed Pods

Blurry Tenor Guitar Strings

Bark Aflame

Happy Birthday, Edgar!

2012-01-19T19:49:00.001-05:00

A Dream Within a Dream

by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

starry nights in winter

2012-01-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

Winter Heavens
by George Meredith

Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me, the dead revive.
Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,
Life glistens on the river of the death.
It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,
Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs
Of radiance, the radiance enrings:
And this is the soul's haven to have felt.

"may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple"

2012-01-01T12:39:00.001-05:00

53

by E.E. Cummings

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
for even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

The sun, a blood-red orange....

2011-12-27T18:43:00.000-05:00

Winter-Time
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

"Winter" by Walter De La Mare

2011-12-26T10:55:00.000-05:00

Winter
by Walter De La Mare

And the robin flew
Into the air, the air,
The white mist through;
And small and rare
The night-frost fell
Into the calm and misty dell.

And the dusk gathered low,
And the silver moon and stars
On the frozen snow
Drew taper bars,
Kindled winking fires
In the hooded briers.

And the sprawling Bear
Growled deep in the sky;
And Orion's hair
Streamed sparkling by:
But the North sighed low,
"Snow, snow, more snow!"

Some wise words from Emerson

2011-12-18T08:13:00.002-05:00

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Line breaks at my whim)

One more winter moon photo

2011-12-13T22:35:00.002-05:00

Blustery!

2011-12-04T10:23:00.001-05:00

To the Roaring Wind
by Wallace Stevens

What syllable are you seeking,
Vocalissimus,
In the distances of sleep?
Speak it.

Winter imminent

2011-11-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

The White

by Patricia Hampl

These are the moments
before snow, whole weeks before.
The rehearsals of milky November,
cloud constructions
when a warm day
lowers a drift of light
through the leafless angles
of the trees lining the streets.
Green is gone,
gold is gone.
The blue sky is
the clairvoyance of snow.
There is night
and a moon
but these facts
force the hand of the season:
from that black sky
the real and cold white
will begin to emerge.

warmth in pre-winter

2011-11-08T20:00:00.000-05:00

Winter Sun
by Molly Fisk

How valuable it is in these short days,
threading through empty maple branches,
the lacy-needled sugar pines.

Its glint off sheets of ice tells the story
of Death’s brightness, her bitter cold.

We can make do with so little, just the hint
of warmth, the slanted light.

The way we stand there, soaking in it,
mittened fingers reaching.

And how carefully we gather what we can
to offer later, in darkness, one body to another.

Presenting Edgar & Lenore

2011-11-04T08:12:00.007-04:00

Lenore & Edgar

Edgar

Snoozing, Snuggling

Sleepy Calico

Zzzzzzzz

Simon, former housemate of Edgar & Lenore

Edgar

Sleepin' siblings

A bard speaks on a barred owl

2011-09-04T20:39:00.002-04:00

A Barred Owl

by Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl's voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
"Who cooks for you?" and then "Who cooks for you?"

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

"have your heaven"

2011-08-30T20:53:00.001-04:00

The Hurricane
by William Carlos Williams

The tree lay down
on the garage roof
and stretched, You
have your heaven,
it said, go to it.

Come on, Irene*! (Our day in pics)

2011-08-29T20:42:00.006-04:00

My beardyman coming in from giving the sheep some hay to tide them over during the storm.

The Lovely Ladies of Lanolin finally venture out to graze along their new lakefront property. (They're not fans.)

We spent the afternoon eating quiche, knitting, & playing Scrabble.

My beardyman enjoying a post-Irene canoe ride in our new temporary lake.

*Reference to "Come On, Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners stolen from a friend's Facebook status. Have not been able to get it out of my head since.

Maple Goddess

2011-08-27T13:58:00.000-04:00

Goddess of Maple at Evening
by Chard deNiord

She breathed a chill that slowed the sap
inside the phloem, stood perfectly still
inside the dark, then walked to a field
where the distance crooned in a small
blue voice how close it is, how the gravity
of sky pulls you up like steam from the arch.
She sang along until the silence soloed
in a northern wind, then headed back
to the sugar stand and drank from a maple
to thin her blood with the spirit of sap.
To quicken its pace to the speed of sound
then hear it boom inside her heart.
To quicken her mind to the speed of light
with another suck from the flooded tap.

Dusty Wings of August

2011-08-15T22:31:00.002-04:00

Moths

by Jennifer O'Grady

Adrift in the liberating, late light
of August, delicate, frivolous,
they make their way to my front porch
and flutter near the glassed-in bulb,
translucent as a thought suddenly
wondered aloud, illumining the air
that's thick with honeysuckle and dusk.
You and I are doing our best
at conversation, keeping it light, steering clear
of what we'd like to say.
You leave, and the night becomes
cluttered with moths, some tattered,
their dumbly curious filaments
startling against my cheek. How quickly,
instinctively, I brush them away.
Dazed, they cling to the outer darkness
like pale reminders of ourselves.
Others seem to want so desperately
to get inside. Months later, I'll find
the woolens, snug in their resting places,
full of missing pieces.

Saturday morning visitors: Mama turkey & her feathery white turklets

2011-08-06T22:11:00.008-04:00

This morning, our neighbor's adorable fuzzy yet feathery white turklets* came waddling and peeping through our yard, closely supervised by their mama. Please enjoy some shots, though please bear in mind I was apparently too enthralled by the downy white cuteness to fuss with the finer aspects of the photography. Oh well. I did bring out my tripod though, so points there, right?

*I am aware that "turklet" is not the proper name for baby turkeys. But I don't care.

Some of Summer

2011-07-22T19:48:00.005-04:00

fresh eggs

lily about to bloom

black hollyhock

"Moonlight, Summer Moonlight"

2011-07-10T08:05:00.000-04:00

Moonlight, Summer Moonlight

by Emily Bronte

'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.

Sweet summer, cold & creamy...

2011-07-04T09:23:00.005-04:00

R made black raspberry ice cream with fresh-picked blackcaps from across the road (& supplemented with some berries from my folks' place). Sweet summer on our tongues.

Facing the Fleece

2011-06-26T17:56:00.004-04:00

Today I took a deep breath & faced the fleece. The washing of the fleece. First up, the fleece of one of our Jacobs, Lucy Van Fleece.

Unwashed fleece (a cleaner part, to spare your tender sensibilities).

Popeye is curious at first...

...but not for long. He was no help whatsoever, I might add.

Proper footwear is important.

Beardyman scored this tub for FREE last week. Perfect for washing fleece. We ran hot water from the basement.

Tub of fleece, second soaking.

...To be continued...

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-18T13:51:00.003-04:00

Dad

My Beardyman

Practice getting lunar shots

2011-06-15T20:10:00.002-04:00

Some practice shots taken last night from the back porch...

Who doesn't need a miracle now & then (especially a la Whitman)?

2011-06-13T20:36:00.002-04:00

Miracles
by Walt Whitman

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of
the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with
the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—
the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

Sheared at Last!

2011-06-09T19:52:00.004-04:00

After much ado about plenty of wool, the Lovely Ladies of Lanolin have been sheared! Enjoy a quick cellphone pic until such time that I can get some more:

There was quite a bit of wool there! Compare to this or this or even this. I better get to know my spinning wheel! And fast!

Fiddlehead ferns

2011-05-07T07:33:00.003-04:00

Syrup sublime!

2011-04-29T15:31:00.002-04:00

...simply sublime samples of sryup...

Fleece therapy in poetry

2011-04-26T18:29:00.005-04:00

Grounded and Elevated
or The Healing Power of Fleece

On a low dank day
I urge grudging feet out to the sheep,
my gait stuttering and reluctant.

Eager muzzles seek my waiting cupped palm
for apples or grain.

Grain gone,
my hands delve deep
into their thick, shy fleece.

I come away with the must
of wool and lanolin,
walk easily back toward
my cabin,
my small family,

a little lighter.

HMMooreNiver

Posted for One Shot Wednesday. Curious? Click & see. Go on now.

O for such agility...

2011-04-21T08:54:00.001-04:00

Poem (As the cat)

by William Carlos Williams

As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down

into the pit of
the empty
flower pot

The where, when & why of Edna's kissing

2011-04-19T10:14:00.000-04:00

"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why"
by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

When to look for Emily Brontë

2011-04-11T10:47:00.003-04:00

I’ll Come When Thou Art Saddest
by Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

I'll come when thou art saddest
Laid alone in the darkened room
When the mad day's mirth has vanished
And the smile of joy is banished
From evening's chilly gloom

I'll come when the heart's [real] feeling
Has entire unbiased sway
And my influence o'er thee stealing
Grief deepening joy congealing
Shall bear thy soul away

Listen 'tis just the hour
The awful time for thee
Dost thou not feel upon thy soul
A flood of strange sensations roll
Forerunners of a sterner power
Heralds of me

Another tasty chestnut

2011-04-07T09:18:00.001-04:00

Nature
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Welcoming in National Poetry Month with Slick Willie

2011-04-01T09:22:00.002-04:00

Why not start out with the bard?

Sonnet 116
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediment. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth’s unknown although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

First sample of syrup

2011-03-13T13:13:00.001-04:00

Poetry is a many faceted thing.

2011-03-12T10:01:00.000-05:00

The Uses of Poetry
by William Carlos Williams

I've fond anticipation of a day
O'erfilled with pure diversion presently,
For I must read a lady poesy
The while we glide by many a leafy bay,

Hid deep in rushes, where at random play
The glossy black winged May-flies, or whence flee
Hush-throated nestlings in alarm,
Whom we have idly frighted with our boat's long sway.

For, lest o'ersaddened by such woes as spring
To rural peace from our meek onward trend,
What else more fit? We'll draw the latch-string

And close the door of sense; then satiate wend,
On poesy's transforming giant wing,
To worlds afar whose fruits all anguish mend.

The tapping of the sugar maples

2011-03-05T16:11:00.003-05:00

Today we tapped the first sugar maples at the cabin! The sap is definitely on the run! Maple syrup, here we come!
The rest of the trees will use tubing rather than these lovely spiles, but it will be a lot easier than trudging up & down that steep hill with sloshity buckets of sweet sap.

Frieda looking particularly fetching on a frosty morning

2011-02-23T21:16:00.001-05:00

Frieda with the Naturally Curly Horns

"Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night..."

2011-02-20T13:58:00.000-05:00

Bright Star
by John Keats

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

behind the cloud

2011-02-14T08:43:00.000-05:00

Cloud
by Kay Ryan

A blue stain
creeps across
the deep pile
of the evergreens.
From inside the
forest it seems
like an interior
matter, something
wholly to do
with trees, a color
passed from one
to another, a
requirement
to which they
submit unflinchingly
like soldiers or
brave people
getting older.
Then the sun
comes back and
it’s totally over.

Uncanny Aim

2011-02-09T18:42:00.002-05:00

Uncanny Aim

by HMMooreNiver

Somehow the narrow arrow’s point
aims right
and hits the hidden hollow,
that black splatter
deep in the pink
of your heart.

And why wouldn’t it
head straight
for the one scar
you struggled so hard
to heal
all these years?

The single fissure
you have tried
to forget.

for One Shot Wednesday

Winter Woollies

2011-02-08T16:41:00.002-05:00

Lucy von Fleece (foreground) & Frieda with the Naturally Curly Horns (background)

Hephzibah

busy winter!

2011-01-27T10:59:00.002-05:00

the redhead & her beardyman, out for a jaunty 'shoe

Snowed in Emily Brontë style

2011-01-11T10:19:00.001-05:00

Spellbound

by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

winter trees, liquid moon

2011-01-08T10:34:00.000-05:00

Winter Trees
by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind..."

2011-01-03T14:17:00.000-05:00

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind]

by William Shakespeare

Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior's company

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

Merry Christmas from the Flock

2010-12-25T15:19:00.002-05:00

Songs lilting through the day

2010-12-25T11:53:00.001-05:00

Christmas Bells
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Classic Frost

2010-12-19T22:44:00.001-05:00

So many of us at least know a couple lines from this classic Frost poem...

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

so sings autumn

2010-11-30T06:57:00.000-05:00

To Autumn
by William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

'The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

'The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.'
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

Sweet Fleece

2010-11-29T09:01:00.001-05:00

Please welcome The Girls!

Who-who-who cooks for you?

2010-11-17T08:53:00.005-05:00

There were three or four barred owls calling to one another, swooping silent from tree to tree this morning. Better get the camera fixed if I've any hopes of getting shots like this one from a few years ago.

"And she will never be all mine"

2010-11-07T13:33:00.000-05:00

Witch-Wife
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

And of course...

2010-10-31T23:59:00.000-04:00

All Hallow's Eve

2010-10-31T11:32:00.000-04:00

Theme in Yellow
by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

autumnal poets

2010-10-17T10:18:00.000-04:00

Besides the Autumn poets sing (131)
by Emily Dickinson

Besides the Autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze -

A few incisive mornings -
A few Ascetic eves -
Gone - Mr Bryant's "Golden Rod" -
And Mr Thomson's "sheaves."

Still, is the bustle in the brook -
Sealed are the spicy valves -
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many Elves -

Perhaps a squirrel may remain -
My sentiments to share -
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind -
Thy windy will to bear!

casting

2010-10-11T14:35:00.000-04:00

Spell for Encanto Creek
by Mark Jarman

Tall blades of tufted grasses, keep on flowing.
Towhees like good ideas, keep on flowing.

Pooled water, black in shadow, green in sunshine,
With wild olives bending down to drink,

Those figures coming daily to the bridge
To look at their two shadows on your surface,

Keep them returning, keep them coming back.

trees aren't the only autumn beauty

2010-10-09T09:56:00.002-04:00

The Wild Swans at Coole
by W. B. Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

oranges of autumn

2010-10-09T09:36:00.001-04:00

The Signature Mark of Autumn

by Gary Young

The signature mark of autumn has arrived at last with the rains: orange of
pumpkin, orange persimmon, orange lichen on rocks and fallen logs; a copper
moon hung low over the orchard; moist, ruddy limbs of the madrone, russet
oak leaf, storm-peeled redwood, acorns emptied by squirrels and jays; and
mushrooms, orange boletes, Witch's Butter sprouting on rotted oak, the Deadly
Galeria, and of course, chanterelles, which we'll eat tonight with pasta, goat
cheese, and wine.

O hushed October morning wild...

2010-10-02T10:17:00.003-04:00

In my precoffee grogg, I misread the first line as "O hushed October morning wild," which was perhaps just more appropriate given the whipping winds & sheets of rain that ushered in my favorite month.

October

by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

simply autumn

2010-10-01T17:01:00.000-04:00

On a withered branch

A crow has alighted:

Nightfall in autumn.

-Bashō

A taste of a favorite

2010-09-28T14:33:00.001-04:00

This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams


I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast 

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet

be moved

2010-09-26T13:29:00.003-04:00

Check out this poem, "Drift" by Linda Pastan over on the marvelous Your Daily Poem

You'll be glad you did.

on Orange.

2010-09-14T09:52:00.000-04:00

Why I Am Not a Painter

by Frank O'Hara

Frank O'Hara

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be

a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg

is starting a painting. I drop in.

“Sit down and have a drink” he

says. I drink; we drink. I look

up. “You have SARDINES in it.”

“Yes, it needed something there.”

“Oh.” I go and the days go by

and I drop in again. The painting

is going on, and I go, and the days

go by. I drop in. The painting is

finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”

All that’s left is just

letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of

a color: orange. I write a line

about orange. Pretty soon it is a

whole page of words, not lines.

Then another page. There should be

so much more, not of orange, of

words, of how terrible orange is

and life. Days go by. It is even in

prose, I am a real poet. My poem

is finished and I haven’t mentioned

orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call

it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery

I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.

I carry the words around like a key

2010-09-10T13:38:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite songs by one of my my favorite bands, Iron & Wine. The lyrics get to me. The melody does too, so check it out on their album The Creek Drank the Cradle & give it a listen.

Bird Stealing Bread
by Iron & Wine /Sam Beam

Tell me, baby, tell me
Are you still on the stoop
Watching the windows close?
I've not seen you lately
On the street by the beach
Or places we used to go

I've a picture of you
On our favorite day
By the seaside
There's a bird stealing bread
That I brought
Out from under my nose

Tell me, baby, tell me
Does his company make
Light of a rainy day?
How I've missed you lately
And the way we would speak
And all that we wouldn't say

Do his hands in your hair
Feel a lot like a thing
You believe in
Or a bit like a bird
Stealing bread
Out from under your nose?

Tell me, baby, tell me
Do you carry the words
Around like a key or change?
I've been thinking lately
Of a night on the stoop
And all that we wouldn't say

If I see you again
On the street by the beach
In the evening
Will you fly like a bird
Stealing bread
Out from under my nose?

One more cup of coffee, before I go...

2010-08-30T09:48:00.001-04:00

What the Last Evening Will Be Like
by Edward Hirsch

You're sitting at a small bay window
in an empty café by the sea.
It's nightfall, and the owner is locking up,
though you're still hunched over the radiator,
which is slowly losing warmth.

Now you're walking down to the shore
to watch the last blues fading on the waves.
You've lived in small houses, tight spaces—
the walls around you kept closing in—
but the sea and the sky were also yours.

No one else is around to drink with you
from the watery fog, shadowy depths.
You're alone with the whirling cosmos.
Goodbye, love, far away, in a warm place.
Night is endless here, silence infinite.

spring bath

2010-08-16T08:55:00.002-04:00

Spring Day [Bath]
by Amy Lowell

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.

The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.

Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

sifting through the dark

2010-08-16T08:28:00.000-04:00

Rugelah, 5 A.M.

by Sondra Gash

The house is dark and breathing
deep under the covers.
I tiptoe to the kitchen,
lift bowls from the shelf,
mix cream cheese and butter.
Flour dusts my fingers
as I roll dough into a circle,
spread blackberry jam
with the back of a spoon
the way Mama taught me.
I work quickly, leaning over,
sprinkling nuts and raisins
on top, my hands
shaping ovals, folding,
crimping edges.

Lights sifts through the windows
And I think of Mama, coming
home after so many months,
how we baked before dawn,
I, barefoot, she in nightgown
and slippers. Now I slide
the tray into the oven
and glide through the quiet
to wait for the raising.

trumpeting winds

2010-08-09T06:55:00.002-04:00

There came a wind like a bugle
by Emily Dickinson

There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom’s electric moccasin
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
Those looked that lived—that Day—
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!

awake in the night

2010-08-09T06:48:00.001-04:00

'Had I not been awake...'

by Seamus Heaney

Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore

And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,
Alive and ticking like an electric fence;
Had I not been awake I would have missed it

It came and went so unexpectedly
And almost it seemed dangerously,
Returning like an animal to the house,

A courier blast that there and then
Lapsed ordinary. But not ever
Afterwards. And not now.

Hot Tomato

2010-08-08T19:05:00.002-04:00

I'm not one to pop a 'mater in my mouth, but this poem almost makes me want to.

Cherry Tomatoes

by Anne Higgins

Suddenly it is August again, so hot,
breathless heat.
I sit on the ground
in the garden of Carmel,
picking ripe cherry tomatoes
and eating them.
They are so ripe that the skin is split,
so warm and sweet
from the attentions of the sun,
the juice bursts in my mouth,
an ecstatic taste,
and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer,
sloshing in the saliva of August.
Hummingbirds halo me there,
in the great green silence,
and my own bursting heart
splits me with life.

Midsummer Music & Muse: A Night of Spoken Word, Music & Mixed Media

2010-07-29T08:52:00.001-04:00

A blackbird, 13 ways

2010-06-24T15:58:00.001-04:00

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

within the hush

2010-05-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

Beyond the Pane
by Greg Hewett

The frescoed cloister is closed.
No echo of omniscience
escapes to wind or metaphor.
A cottage holds three bowls,
earthen and chipped, on a table
made of planks smoothed by the surf.
One holds buttermilk;
another, tomatoes pale as moons;
the third, eggs the color of sand.
On the sill you would place a globe
of ivory roses to echo
the dolphin skull beyond the pane,
and think how sonorous, how bold,
this science of solitude.

memories that creep in....

2010-05-22T09:56:00.000-04:00

Early Memory
by January Gill O'Neil

I remember picking up a fistful
of sand, smooth crystals, like hourglass sand
and throwing it into the eyes of a boy. Johnny
or Danny or Kevin—he was not important.
I was five and I knew he would cry.

I remember everything about it—
the sandbox in the corner of the room
at Cinderella Day Care; Ms. Lee,
who ran over after the boy wailed for his mother,
her stern look as the words No snack formed on her lips.
My hands with their gritty, half-mooned fingernails
I hid in the pockets of my blue and white dress.
How she found them and uncurled small sandy fists.

There must have been such rage in me, to give such pain
to another person. This afternoon,
I saw a man pull a gold chain off the neck
of a woman as she crossed the street.
She cried out with a sound that bleached me.
I walked on, unable to help,
knowing that fire in childhood
clenched deep in my pockets all the way home.

the slow spins of stars

2010-05-21T22:51:00.002-04:00

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains,

at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers,

at the vast compass of the ocean,

at the circular motion of the stars,

and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

~ St. Augustine

To My Mother

2010-05-09T09:34:00.002-04:00

Mom & Dad, November 2009

To My Mother
by
Christina Rossetti

Today’s your natal day,
Sweet flowers I bring;
Mother, accept, I pray,
My offering.

And may you happy live,
And long us bless;
Receiving as you give
Great happiness.

soft shuffle of shifting seasons

2010-04-30T23:43:00.001-04:00

April
by James Schuyler

The morning sky is clouding up
and what is that tree,
dressed up in white? The fruit
tree, French pear. Sulphur-
yellow bees stud the forsythia
canes leaning down into the transfer
across the park. And trees in
skimpy flower bud suggest
the uses of paint thinner, so
fine the net they cast upon
the wind. Cross-pollination
is the order of the fragrant day.
That was yesterday: today is May,
not April and the magnolias
open their goblets up and
an unseen precipitation
fills them. A gray day in May.

A smattering of love poems for today...

2010-04-29T23:46:00.000-04:00

by Izumi Shikibu

Nothing
in the world
is usual today.
This is
the first morning.

Come quickly—as soon as
these blossoms open,
they fall.
This world exists
as a sheen of dew on flowers.

Even though
these pine trees
keep their original color,
everything green
is different in spring.

Seeing you is the thread
that ties me to this life—
If that knot
were cut this moment,
I'd have no regret.

Sleeplessly
I watch over
the spring night—
but no amount of guarding
is enough to make it stay.

another brief glimpse of sunlight

2010-04-28T07:16:00.000-04:00

And suddenly it’s evening

by Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968)
translated by Gian Lombardo

Everyone’s always alone on the earth’s breast
pierced by a ray of sunlight:
and suddenly it’s evening

Ed è subito sera

Ognuno sta solo cuor della terra
traffito da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera

a short poem that says plenty

2010-04-27T17:59:00.002-04:00

I have to tell you

by Dorothea Grossman

I have to tell you,

there are times when

the sun strikes me

like a gong,

and I remember everything,

even your ears.

some wordplay

2010-04-26T20:55:00.001-04:00

Spine to Spin, Spoke to Speak
by Andrew Joron

The pilot alone knows
That the plot is missing its
Eye.

Why isn't this "ominous science"
itself afraid, a frayed
Identity?

Pray, protagonist —
Prey to this series of staggered instants.

Here the optic
Paints its hole, its self-consuming moment.
It is speech, dispelled, that
begs to begin to ache.

So that wind accelerates to wound, a dead sound
enlivened by the visitation of owls.

As pallid as parallel, the cry
Of the negative is not the negative
of the cry — an irreparable blessing —

A green world's
"sibilant shadows" where
The syllables of your name are growing younger.

As involuntary as involuted, "who"
returns its noun
to each tender branch
That noon breaks into no one.

Point of view
Hovers, a circular cloud, over evacuated
Time.

That heard its herd bellow below
the terraced cities, the milled millions

as sold as unsouled, ghost-cargos.

A symptom of the Maddening —
Woman undressed of her flesh.
Man's address
to Thou, & the flag of Thou.

How the fallen state
Meets the starry horizon, veil
against witness, hunger against void.

O, oldest
outermost Other —

Ageing mask
Of the transparent Earth. Unspeculated
image
Streaked with mirror & stricken words.

You are neither the torn, nor the thorn.

You are the many-petalled
melting point of repeating decimals. . .

Receiver, river
Has been burned into voice, a day-dark ribbon.

All signal is this
Single.

just a few words together...

2010-04-25T18:58:00.000-04:00

Praying
by Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

poetry meets jazz

2010-04-24T08:54:00.001-04:00

Poem in the Manner of a Jazz Standard

by David Lehman

I've got five dollars and my love to keep me warm
I've got the world on a string and you under my skin
You're the cream in my coffee and driving me crazy
You couldn't be cuter and go to my head

Love is here to stay and just around the corner
Where or when I take my sugar to tea
All I do is dream of you, all of you,
You took advantage of all of me

Don't blame me or worry 'bout me
It had to be you and might as well be spring
Let's get away from it all, fall in love, face the music
And dance with me, let's do it

I got rhythm and the right to sing the blues
She didn't say yes she's funny that way
I believe in you were never lovelier
My melancholy baby my shining hour

How can I resist this poem?

2010-04-23T23:45:00.001-04:00

Ode to Chocolate

by Barbara Crooker

I hate milk chocolate, don't want clouds
of cream diluting the dark night sky,
don't want pralines or raisins, rubble
in this smooth plateau. I like my coffee
black, my beer from Germany, wine
from Burgundy, the darker, the better.
I like my heroes complicated and brooding,
James Dean in oiled leather, leaning
on a motorcycle. You know the color.

Oh, chocolate! From the spice bazaars
of Africa, hulled in mills, beaten,
pressed in bars. The cold slab of a cave's
interior, when all the stars
have gone to sleep.

Chocolate strolls up to the microphone
and plays jazz at midnight, the low slow
notes of a bass clarinet. Chocolate saunters
down the runway, slouches in quaint
boutiques; its style is je ne sais quoi.
Chocolate stays up late and gambles,
likes roulette. Always bets
on the noir.

check for spring at the door

2010-04-22T10:59:00.003-04:00

"Kado kado no"
by Issa (1763-1827)

Kado kado no

Geta no doro yori

Haru tachinu.

At every doorway,

From the mud on wooden clogs,

Spring begins anew.

— Translated by Daniel C. Buchanan

Time for a dose of Milton

2010-04-21T10:58:00.001-04:00

Sonnet 18
by John Milton (1608-1674)

Avenge O Lord thy slaughter’d Saints, whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold;
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our Fathers worship’t Stocks and Stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy Sheep, and in their antient Fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll’d
Mother with Infant down the Rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubl’d to the Hills, and they
To Heav’n. Their martyr’d blood and ashes sow
O’er all th’Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

the road

2010-04-20T23:32:00.003-04:00

Saw this verse on my mom's blog & had to share it here.

by Antonio Machado

Walker, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road, the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road, and turning to look behind
you see the path you never again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road, only foam trails on the sea.

put the needle on the record...

2010-04-19T10:38:00.001-04:00

American Life in Poetry

78 RPM

by Jeff Daniel Marion

In the back of the junkhouse
stacked on a cardtable covered
by a ragged bedspread, they rest,
black platters whose music once
crackled, hissed with a static
like shuffling feet, fox trot or two-step,
the slow dance of the needle
riding its merry-go-round,
my mother’s head nestled
on my father’s shoulder as they
turned, lost in the sway of sounds,
summer nights and faraway
places, the syncopation of time
waltzing them to a world
they never dreamed, dance
of then to the dust of now.

deep waters of your sleep

2010-04-18T23:45:00.002-04:00

In Our Room

by W. S. Di Piero

On the strip between the lakes
I look for some trace of you
in everything that moves.
At the tip of its wake, a coot's
bone bill points through
the leaves' sponged-ink shade,
slate feathers splitting the air;
the water quivers, bright
as your bath-drenched hair
shaking off silvered bits.
A tern pulls up, tilting
through the spreading light,
then drops beak and body fast.
Two dark swifts dip past
swamp oaks like brown
twilight in our room, blinds
barring your face, while your lips
closed on some dream sound,
some word I didn't catch,
a wood-duck's straight-seamed wedge,
a cowbird shuddering from
the lake on loose bent wings.

"His Wife"

2010-04-17T23:59:00.001-04:00

His Wife

by Andrew Hudgins

My wife is not afraid of dirt.
She spends each morning gardening,
stooped over, watering, pulling weeds,
removing insects from her plants
and pinching them until they burst.
She won't grow marigolds or hollyhocks,
just onions, eggplants, peppers, peas –
things we can eat. And while she sweats
I'm working on my poetry and flute.
Then growing tired of all that art,
I've strolled out to the garden plot
and seen her pull a tomato from the vine
and bite into the unwashed fruit
like a soft, hot apple in her hand.
The juice streams down her dirty chin
and tiny seeds stick to her lips.
Her eye is clear, her body full of light,
and when, at night, I hold her close,
she smells of mint and lemon balm.

Whitman on Compost

2010-04-16T23:45:00.002-04:00

This Compost
by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.

O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you?
Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv’d,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person—yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noislessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch’d eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato’s dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the door-yards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.

What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will
none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease.

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas’d corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

Loving & loved

2010-04-15T16:48:00.006-04:00

Today I'm delighted to share this poem by my friend and writer of so many lovely words, Laura Whalen. Visit her blog Mayan Hands Adventure 2009 for a further sampling of her writing & some, well, adventure! But for now, enjoy how she summons Neruda in this marvelous poem.

ODE TO THE ORANGE

“…Give us

this day

orange daylight

and every day

may mankind’s heart,

And its cluster of fruit,

Be both bitter and sweet…”

-Pablo Neruda

trans. Ken Krabbenhoft

Making Juice

by Laura Whalen

Making juice before your birthday—

ruby grapefruit, Spanish clementines,

organic tangerines from California.

And me, armed with crystal pitcher and wooden reamer.

First, cutting the perfect globes until

they shine rays of pink, orange and gold

like little suns during this dark time of year.

Their bright fire blazing with citrus sweet.

Then, squeezing out the liquid from each half,

using the fine yet simple wooden tool,

better than any electrical gadget

to fill the glass container bit by bit

until there is a ruddy pitcher full.

Placing the rind in the compost bucket

Knowing I will brave the cold moments later

To empty it on the pile out back,

food for my flowers next spring.

May these round fruits refresh and feed you,

your South American sun-starved soul, with their

distilled love of light – their sweet-sourness

flooding the dark.

An elixir, a love potion, a cold winter cure—

simply a pitcher of fresh juice to greet you

tomorrow from the cold shelf of the fridge.

Their round fruit emptied of all flesh and blood.

They gave themselves for you entirely—

as I am only learning to do…

ODA A LA NARANGA

“Anaranjada sea

la luz

de cada

dia,

y el corazon del hombre

sus racimos,

acido y dulce sea…”

-Pablo Neruda

Fancy a stroll around New York City?

2010-04-15T08:47:00.001-04:00

The Day Lady Died
by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly new world writing to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the golden griffin I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the park lane
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a new york post with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 spot
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

Quoth the redhead, 'nivermoore.'

Sustenance.

"Winter is good - his Hoar Delights (1316)" by Emily Dickinson

Frost's snow dusting

Edgar update

"All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe."

"Winter Twlight"

Winter Twilight

-10*F at the PSALM Arts Retreat, Speculator, NY (photos)

Happy Birthday, Edgar!

A Dream Within a Dream

starry nights in winter

"may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple"

The sun, a blood-red orange....

"Winter" by Walter De La Mare

Some wise words from Emerson

Finish each day and be done with it.You have done what you could.Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;forget them as soon as you can.Tomorrow is a new day;begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

One more winter moon photo

Blustery!

Winter imminent

The White

warmth in pre-winter

Presenting Edgar & Lenore

A bard speaks on a barred owl

A Barred Owl

"have your heaven"

Come on, Irene*! (Our day in pics)

Maple Goddess

Dusty Wings of August

Moths

Saturday morning visitors: Mama turkey & her feathery white turklets

Some of Summer

"Moonlight, Summer Moonlight"

Moonlight, Summer Moonlight

Sweet summer, cold & creamy...

Facing the Fleece

Happy Father's Day

Practice getting lunar shots

Who doesn't need a miracle now & then (especially a la Whitman)?

Sheared at Last!

Fiddlehead ferns

Syrup sublime!

Fleece therapy in poetry

O for such agility...

Poem (As the cat)

The where, when & why of Edna's kissing

When to look for Emily Brontë

Another tasty chestnut

Welcoming in National Poetry Month with Slick Willie

First sample of syrup

Poetry is a many faceted thing.

The tapping of the sugar maples

Frieda looking particularly fetching on a frosty morning

"Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night..."

behind the cloud

Cloud by Kay Ryan

Uncanny Aim

Winter Woollies

busy winter!

Snowed in Emily Brontë style

winter trees, liquid moon

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind..."

Merry Christmas from the Flock

Songs lilting through the day

Classic Frost

so sings autumn

Sweet Fleece

Who-who-who cooks for you?

"And she will never be all mine"

And of course...

All Hallow's Eve

autumnal poets

casting

trees aren't the only autumn beauty

oranges of autumn

The Signature Mark of Autumn

O hushed October morning wild...

simply autumn

A taste of a favorite

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Cloud
by Kay Ryan