we flippantly go

When I get restless lately I've been forcing myself outdoors; I walk, meander, stroll, run, skip, do whatever I can to let go of that restless feeling that steels in. Last night I went back to a new favorite spot and hiked; walked circles familiarizing myself with the bumps and moss covered rocks, the trees and bushes. As I settled onto the ground I noticed that the three deer (who first made their appearance when there was still snow on the ground) were across the way from me. I watched as three turned into five, five turned into four--the skittish one running away at the first sign of a car. We studied each other and neither seemed to mind the other, so we went about our business; the deer ate grass and rye, natural lawn mowers; I sat and envied the sky its colors, the wind its gusts, and the deer their flippant white tails.

"Afternoon on a hill"

I will be the gladdest thing  
    Under the sun!  
I will touch a hundred flowers  
    And not pick one.  
  
I will look at cliffs and clouds
    With quiet eyes,  
Watch the wind bow down the grass,  
    And the grass rise.  
  
And when lights begin to show  
    Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,  
    And then start down!

 --Edna St. Vincent Millay 

GOATS!!

As promised, here are the pics of Farmer MacDonald's goats! Last night after I gave them dinner I sat with them and was climbed on, chewed on, nuzzled, loved. Goats are such amiable creatures. I am in love with them!

The goats!

Quick! Make a star formation!

Checking out the new digs.

taking me back

"Piano"

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
--D.H. Lawrence

all the pieces

Happy 35th Birthday A1! Where has the time gone? 

Only one more day of work and then a short weekend. Two more days of work after the short weekend and I am going to enjoy some silence...maybe a museum too...?

"Museum Piece"
The good gray guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes,
Impartially protective, though
Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse.

Here dozes one against the wall,
Disposed upon a funeral chair.
A Degas dancer pirouettes
Upon the parting of his hair.

See how she spins! The grace is there,
But strain as well is plain to see. 
Degas loved the two together:
Beauty joined to energy.

Edgar Degas purchased once
A fine El Greco, which he kept
Against the wall beside his bed
To hang his pants on while he slept.
-- Richard Wilbur

carrying that weight

Last night was supposed to be a night for relaxing, prayer and meditation with some friends who've started a spirituality group; I was looking forward to the down time, but happened instead to be in the right (or wrong?) place at the right (wrong?) time. A coworker accidentally put her hand through a pane of glass in the kitchen while a few of us were hanging around talking. In the span of seconds, which seemed to move so slowly, we realized that our friends arm warranted a trip to the ER so, after applying pressure and wrapping arm with towels, Sierra and I and I took Elo to the ER.

The night, which didn't go as I planned, was actually exactly what I needed. The time was spent being present to a friend, which forced me to forget about things which had previously seemed important--stresses and concerns--and gain the same sense of calm to be there for her. During the drive into town, and through sitting at the ER--sitting with the uncertainty--we were able to laugh and tell stories, make jokes abowhat had happened, things which helped us focus on something other than our friends injury. We laughed like lunatics and I can honestly say I don't think that hospital has ever seen such a rowdy bunch of girls!

Sierra and I sat with Elo and watched as the doctor flushed her wound and put in 16 stiches (3 internally and 13 externally), told her how fortunate she was that the glass had only just grazed the sheath of skin around her tendon, just missing it. In under 3 hours we were again outside in the thickness of an already too warm spring and deciding where to go eat.

The adrenaline was fading away and I was feeling sleepy as we returned home I. slept like a rock and woke really renewed. Times like those remind me of the bonds we share as community member: a dysfunctional family unit at the worst of times; a strong, supportive force at our best. I guess sometimes we can only help each other on this crazy journey of life--carrying our weights together. This song felt apropos.



Mumford & Sons- Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight (Beatles Cover)

Way more upbeat than the Beatles, but I LOVED it. Thank you Mumford for EVERY SONG--all gems!

an event

Event
How the elements solidify! ---
The moonlight, that chalk cliff
In whose rift we lie
Back to back. I here an owl cry
From its cold indigo.
Intolerable vowels enter my heart.
The child in the white crib revolves and sighs,
Opens its mouth now, demanding.
His little face is carved in pained, red wood.
Then there are the stars - ineradicable, hard.
One touch : it burns and sickens.
I cannot see your eyes.
Where apple bloom ices the night
I walk in a ring,
A groove of old faults, deep and bitter.
Love cannot come here.
A black gap discloses itself.
On the opposite lip
A small white soul is waving, a small white maggot.
My limbs, also, have left me.
Who has dismembered us?
The dark is melting. We touch like cripples.
-- Sylvia Plath

Mumford before the Sons

Wretched Man by Marcus Mumford

so many grand things

It is so beautiful today. It's one of those days when I want to do nothing more than lay down like a cat lapping up the sun, feeling the warmth at my very center, falling asleep in a sunny spot until the darkness creeps in and cools off the earth. It is around 80 degrees (F) and all feels right; spring is doing its work, spreading daffodils and crocuses; wildlife is out and enjoying the heat and the bounty of fresh veggies: deer (usually a trio) graze in a (not yet used) cow pasture full of rye; porcupines totter along roads looking unperturbed by the flash of car lights; Canadian geese honk serenading no one; peepers call in a chorus, at times deafening; frogs play a real life game of Frogger after the rains; and the rains, seem to come and come and come, but at this time it's good--no tomatoes in the ground yet to ruin. 

This week has been crazy...and it's only Tuesday. My boss is off again this week on vacation and I'm in charge and so tired and so ready for his return. *sigh* It feels like everyday is so chock full of stuff. Life! The coolest thing I've done this week is when I learned how to use the new lift in the (car) shop so I could do an oil change (definitely different than when I've used the pit). Tre cool! Otherwise, busy busy busy, and I need to go and start putting some seeds into the ground!! Agh! Where does the time go!? Anyway, while I ponder that, ponder this:

"Gods Grandeur"

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
        It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
        It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
        And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
        And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
        There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
        Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
        World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. 

-- Gerard Manly Hopkins

sleepy

Easter has wiped me out. We made roasted Farm pork, Julia Child's scalloped potatoes, roasted tofu with baby spinach and cider gravy, broccoli and rice casserole, a bib leaf salad with apples, cranberries and almonds and assorted veggies. Looking forward to digging in at 6pm, but until then I am looking forward to a long nap...not possible; meeting, milking and a shower first. *sigh*

"Absence"
I have scarcely left you
When you go in me, crystalline,
Or trembling,
Or uneasy, wounded by me
Or overwhelmed with love, as
when your eyes
Close upon the gift of life
That without cease I give you.

My love,
We have found each other
Thirsty and we have
Drunk up all the water and the
Blood,
We found each other
Hungry
And we bit each other
As fire bites,
Leaving wounds in us.

But wait for me,
Keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
A rose. 
-- Pablo Neruda

many arts

During my last semester as an undergrad I was taking four English lit classes; wonderfully happy, while totally bogged down with tons of reading. One of my classes (my Senior Capstone to be exact) was Women Poets of the 20th Century, something that I was not looking forward to--I hated most female writers at the time--weird phase to have gone through!--but something that I wound up loving so much! One of the wonderful lady poets I was intro'd to that last semester of school was Adrienne Rich. A true gem. Enjoy!

"The Art of Translation"

1

To have seen you exactly, once:
red hair over cold cheeks fresh from the freeway
your lingo, your daunting and dauntless
eyes. But then to lift toward home, mile upon mile
back where they'd barely heard your name
--neither as terrorist nor as genius would they detain you--

to wing it back to my country bearing
your war-flecked protocols--

that was a mission, surely: my art's pouch
crammed with your bristling juices
sweet dark drops of your spirit
that streaked the pouch, the shirt I wore
and the bench on which I leaned.

 

2

It's only a branch like any other
green with the flare of life in it
and if I hold this end, you the other
that means it's broken

broken between us, broken despite us
broken and therefore dying
broken by force, broken by lying
green, with the flare of life in it

 

3

But say we're crouching on the ground like children
over a mess of marbles, soda caps, foil, old foreign coins
--the first truly precious objects. Rusty hooks, glass.

Say I saw the earring first but you wanted it.
Then you wanted the words I'd found. I'd give you
the earring, crushed lapis if it were,

I would look long at the beach glass and the sharded self
of the lightbulb. Long I'd look into your hand
at the obsolete copper profile, the cat's-eye, the lapis.

Like a thief I would deny the words, deny they ever
existed, were spoken, or could be spoken,
like a thief I'd bury them and remember where.

 

4

The trade names follow trade
the translators stopped at passport control:
Occupation: no such designation--
Journalist, maybe spy?

That the books are for personal use
only--could I swear it?
That not a word of them
is contraband--how could I prove it?

-- Adrienne Rich

journeys

I seldom write about religion, so if you don't like reading about it, you might want to skip this post:

Being raised Catholict I grew to hate the Lenten season, the 40 days leading up to Easter; in my mind I reconciled the holiday less with chocolate as I grew up, and more with a time when I felt bad about myself. Felt bad that I'd slipped and accidentally eaten meat on a Friday; felt bad that I slipped and swore (the year I gave swearing up); always felt bad that I wasn't a good enough Catholic.

It took until I was in my 20s and a really cool priest (and dear friend) to help me realize that the most important thing about Lent isn't giving something up, it is using this time of year, to think of Christ's struggles and the temptations he faced. I think the coolest thing about the time leading up to Easter (Lent) is that this was the time when Jesus was hungry and worn down and being tempted by the Devil--it is at this point that he seems least God-like and most human to me; makes him more less distant and scary to me (even more so than at his birth). I like to think of Jesus at this time, when He wants to give up. I love a good underdog story and if you think of Jesus with all these challenges, it makes him way cooler--like Rocky. You just now he's gonna make it--maybe not in his first match, but at least he gives a hell (no pun intended) of a fight!

It is also during this time of year when the world is being reborn that it is easy to think of journeys: the journey of the smallest to biggest shoots and trees, coming back to life after so much seeming inactivity; the reawakening of nature; the coming-to-lifedness dance that all nature does every spring. I  like to try and use this time of year to think about what is important in my own growth and spiritual journeys. I think: Stretch out, take stock, reach out, take action! Go do good in the world; make it a better place. It's not easy, but I like trying! I found this article--while though I didn't love it, I enjoyed this quote:

"I had a professor in the seminary many years ago who made a point that has stayed with me ever since, namely, that the liturgical year resembles a spiral rather than a circle. Every year we celebrate the same important feasts, but we are not in the same spiritual place that we were in the previous year.

For good or for ill, we change from year to year, and so does the impact of the feast upon our consciousness and our spiritual development."--Richard McBrien

 

So, I guess somehow this was my mumbly jumbly way of saying Happy Easter!

Pic found here.

sagely

This poem is so lovely. Lovely lovely lovely. *Sigh of contentment*

"The Tea and Sage Poem"

At a desk made of glass,
In a glass walled-room
With red airport carpet,

An officer asked
My father for fingerprints,
And my father refused,

So another offered him tea
And he sipped it. The teacup
Template for fingerprints.

My father says, it was just
Hot water with a bag.
My father says, in his country,

Because the earth knows
The scent of history,
It gave the people sage.

I like my tea with sage
From my mother’s garden,
Next to the snapdragons

She calls fishmouths
Coming out for air. A remedy
For stomach pains she keeps

In the kitchen where
She always sings.
First, she is Hagar

Boiling water
Where tea is loosened.
Then she drops

In it a pinch of sage
And lets it sit a while.
She tells a story:

The groom arrives late
To his wedding
Wearing only one shoe.

The bride asks him
About the shoe. He tells her
He lost it while jumping

Over a house-wall.
Breaking away from soldiers.
She asks:

Tea with sage
Or tea with mint?

With sage, he says,
Sweet scent, bitter tongue.
She makes it, he drinks.

-- Fady Joudah  

exactly how I feel

"The charming landscape which I saw this morning, was indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms.  Miller owns this field, Locke that, and manning the woodland beyond.  But none of them owns the landscape.  There is a property in the horizon that no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.  This is the best of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

stop following me!

Poetry followed me to work yesterday. Actually Ian, a fellow Farmer, asked for a recommendation on which W.S. Merwin book he should buy. I was unsure, so I checked out three for perusal from the library; looking forward to swapping good Merwin poems with him soon. So, since Merwin's on the brain:

"Separation"

Your absence has gone through me   

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color. 

--W.S. Merwin

the 405 or anywhere

Remember when we laid in a field and talked about life? We were young, not quite done with high school; I was in love with you and you were in love with no one. Remember the plans we made? Remember how we were supposed to go to NY and bash around London? It doesn't have to be you today, it doesn't have to be with anyone; I just want to crawl into a cave and sleep--lost to no one. I want to hide away...I feel like running away for a few days...but not yet.

philosophies

I will be glad when April is over so I don't have to post a damn poem every day...I mean, I don't have to, since it's my blog and I can do what I want...but, the librarian in me is shouting, "yes, you do!!" So, I continue.

"My philosophy of life"
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea--
call it a philosophy of life, if you will.Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?

That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like.
Everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom
or just standing on a subway platform, lost in thought
for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests,
would be affected, or more precisely, inflected
by my new attitude.I wouldn't be preachy,
or worry about children and old people, except
in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe.
Instead I'd sort of let things be what they are
while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate
I thought I'd stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.
At once a fragrance overwhelms him--not saffron, not lavender,
but something in between.He thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle's Boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him
quizzically, pointed ear-tips folded over. And then the great rush
is on.Not a single idea emerges from it.It's enough
to disgust you with thought.But then you remember something
William James
wrote in some book of his you never read--it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.

It's fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler.Nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well,
messages to the world, as they sat
and thought about what they'd do after using the toilet
and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out
into the open again.Had they been coaxed in by principles,
and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?
I confess I can move no farther along this train of thought--
something's blocking it.Something I'm
not big enough to see over.Or maybe I'm frankly scared.
What was the matter with how I acted before?
But maybe I can come up with a compromise--I'll let
things be what they are, sort of.In the autumn I'll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.
I won't be embarrassed by my friends' dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that's the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn't even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he's
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him--
this thing works both ways, you know. You can't always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time.That would be abusive, and about as much fun
as attending the wedding of two people you don't know.
Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas.
That's what they're made for!Now I want you to go out there
and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too.
They don't come along every day. Look out! There's a big one... 
--John Ashbery

on the mend

Today marks two months since the tree fell on my cabin. Two months of wonderful friends like B1&B2, Mummy Dearest and Family, M&N and Family--all absorbing me into their lives even more; giving me a bed and a room of my own in each place. Each place is unique: my room at B1&B2's a quiet guest room which they've given over to me; drawers now stuffed with my things, half a closet taken by me; a bed that the cat Mabel occasionally naps on, next to me. Mummy Dearest has given over her daughter M's bedroom to me. Large, curtained windows which I pull back at night so that I may see the first rays of the dawn when I wake early, even before the kids across the hall. At M&N's I sleep with Bob Dylan--or at least see a poster of him before I fall asleep, which on occasion leads me humming a Dylan diddy while I read in bed. I love that at the two latter houses when I sleep over on my weekend the kids are glad to see me when I wake, enjoying that we've all had a big sleepover. I have been truly blessed with my friends.


And today, two months since the tree fell, it was somehow fitting that I was pulled outside by Sierra to see men working on my little cabin in the woods; examining my room, making sounds that sounded official and hopeful. I am not getting my hopes up yet, but I think things are under way! 


It also felt fitting that my dearest friend Kuz (a teacher from high school who has become like family to me over the nearly 20 years since we first met) made mention of the poem "Mending wall," by Robert Frost. There is a cyclical feeling to spring--the rebuilding of things in nature--and hopefully the mending of my cabin too. 


"Mending Wall"
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, 
And spills the upper boulders in the sun; 
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 
The workof hunters is another thing: 
I have come after them and made repair 
Where they have left not one stone on a stone, 
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, 
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, 
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 
But at spring mending-time we find them there. 
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; 
And on a day we meet to walk the line 
And set the wall between us once again. 
We keep the wall between us as we go. 
To each the boulders that have fallen to each. 
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls 
We have to use a spell to make them balance: 
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" 
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 
Oh, just another kind of out-door game, 
One on a side. It comes to little more: 
There where it is we do not need the wall: 
He is all pine and I am apple orchard. 
My apple trees will never get across 
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. 
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." 
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder 
If I could put a notion in his head: 
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it 
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. 
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know 
What I was walling in or walling out, 
And to whom I was like to give offence. 
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him, 
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather 
He said it for himself. I see him there 
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top 
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 
He moves in darkness as it seems to me, 
Not of woods only and the shade of trees. 
He will not go behind his father's saying, 
And he likes having thought of it so well 
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours." 
-- Robert Frost

the nicest kind of cloud

I had to memorize the first 20 lines of this poem when I was an undergrad. I knew it by heart and then, for whatever reasons, floundered in front of my classmates. Ah, Romantic Lit was such a hot mess for many reason anyway...


"The Cloud"
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Where
r he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the ,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes form, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again. 

--Percy Bysshe Shelley

these days

I have these moments where I just want to run. Run and run, into the woods, away from work and people and responsibilities. I want to run until my lungs burn and I am laughing; to throw myself down onto a mossy spot underneath the boughs of trees and lay back, my weary head on the cradle of bare flesh that is my arms, folded underneath me in the most comfortable of pillows; "To sleep: perchance to dream..."

These are the moments born from me not being able to imagine being stuck inside any longer. This winter, for whatever reasons, felt like the longest and hardest of my life; I enjoyed close to none of it! Fortunately we've missed out on the snow which has been plaguing some of my friends further west, and today were left instead with the rain--turning on and off all day, though a huge switch were constantly being flipped. 

Spending time today looking over my newly tilled garden plot gave me such a sudden jump-start--as though my very soul were renewed--that I became immediately mesmerized and invigorated by all of the surrounding open pastures (at present cow-free), which I'd never before wandered through. I tread on soil off the common paths; found old, hard cow flops which became a thing of beauty, something belonging to me through discovery. It all became mine: the thickening grass of these pastures; the mallards calling to each other; the rain water, running down a slight slope. It all belongs to me on these days.

"These days" Nico

hold on

"Hold on to what you believe," Mumford & Sons
Because I am back in that Mumford & Sons place. You're welcome.

Forage!

I was trolling around the internet and found this: Berkshire Farm and Table's Foraging Walks in the Berkshires. So, if you are in Western MA and want to learn cool stuff and forage for food--check them out!

Single Ladies Gone Wrong

Wow. There is NOTHING sexy about this--thank you Youtube.com

good memories

I have so many good memories of libraries, from a young age--maybe 
that's why I became a librarian...? Anyway, thought I would share this gem.  

"My first memory (of librarians)" 

This is my first memory:
A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky
       wood floor
A line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the center
Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply
       too short
              For me to sit in and read
So my first book was always big

In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided
To the left side the card catalogue
On the right newspapers draped over what looked like
       a quilt rack
Magazines face out from the wall

The welcoming smile of my librarian
The anticipation in my heart
All those books—another world—just waiting
At my fingertips.

-- Nikki Giovanni 

awed by new life

Just got back from the hospital, visiting dear friends M&N and their new baby Henry--being there made me realize that it has been nearly 5 years since last I was in a baby ward, holding my sister A1's baby (my monster nephew A). I walked into the room to see my dearest friends smiling warmly, holding their new baby--a spot of life and light. I held him; noted tiny feet, small curled fists; shushed his tender cry. I melted. Such is the magic of a new baby.

I do have other things to say, but until I can, I hope these poems I've been posting have been enough.

Sylvia Plath's reflection on her daughter's birth; the wonder and awe of having a baby. I dedicate this to M & N and Henry

"Morning Song" 

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety.  We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses.  I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's.  The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.  And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

 --Sylvia Plath 

a poem of a letter

"The River Merchant's Wife: a letter"

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead. 

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.  I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
   As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

the intellectual and the lover

This April poetry business is keeping me busy finding lovely things to share. :) Enjoy!

"The Intellectual is Always Showing Off"

The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away.
afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love
is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone.
even surrounded by people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
gets nothing. He's mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

-- Rumi

lapping at the spurs

"The Harvest Bow"

As you plaited the harvest bow

You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.


Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent


Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,


And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,


Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.


The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device

That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--

Like a drawn snare

Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn

Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.

-- Seamus Haney

it's raining calves

Ok, not really, but there were two more new calves born Tuesday night/Wednesday morning; went down this afternoon to see them with M and the girls--adorableness ensued.  Since, of course, I forgot my camera I will have to post pics later, so until then here is a pic of Don Curlyone and Laska, two of my favorite calves.

Laska (brown) and Don Curlyone (white)

I want this job

Hungover? Look like shit? Forget to wash your laundry/wearing dirty clothes? Forget to brush your teeth/hair/eyebrows? No problem if this is your job. I want this job. SERIOUSLY.

flashback

Walk the Dinosaur. Wow. Flashback. You're welcome.

love-ly

Poem-ish "poem" for the day:

“For love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.”

Song Of Solomon Chapter 8

I'm the one who dreamt

In the spirit of National Poetry Month, here are two amazing poems by Langston Hughes--I remember studying, "Dream deferred," in my 11th grade English class, which now seems about a million years ago--who, I find, is particularily more enjoyable when read after reading Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Enjoy!

"Dream deferred"

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

And another Hughes gem.

"Let America be America again"
 
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

not just for the seeds of knowledge anymore

That was a lame title. Anyway, just read this article about public libraries who have started seed lending. According to the article,  

"Seed libraries allow patrons to “check out” carefully organized vegetable seeds to plant on their own. After harvesting the crops, they save and return seeds to be used in the next growing season."

Some of the libraries doing it include:

• San Francisco Public Library’s Potrero branch 
• Richmond Public Library (CA) 
• Alameda Free Library CA) 
• Fairfield (CT) Public Library's Fairfield Woods branch

 What cool things does your library do?

most banned books of 2010

The ALA’s Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2010:

1. "And Tango Makes Three" by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group
2. "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Offensive language, Racism, Sex Education, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group, Violence
3. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: Insensitivity, Offensive Language, Racism, Sexually Explicit
4. "Crank" by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: Drugs, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit
5. "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group, Violence
6. "Lush" by Natasha Friend
Reasons: Drugs, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group
7. "What My Mother Doesn’t Know" by Sonya Sones
Reasons: Sexism, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group
8. "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: Drugs, Inaccurate, Offensive Language, Political Viewpoint, Religious Viewpoint
9. "Revolutionary Voices" edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit
10. "Twilight" by  Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint, Violence

For this list (which I copied and pasted from ALA's site, click here. 

another hymn to the morning

"An hymn to the morning"

Attend my lays, ye ever honour'd nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev'ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather'd race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow'rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.
See in the east th' illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away--
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th' abortive song. 

--Phillis Wheatley

oxen and sapping 101

I wrote about my sapping adventures last week, well here's proof. So thankful my computer is fixed again--so many pictures to download! Pictured are the oxen: Sampson and Joshua, Farmer MacDonald and EvanAlmighty.  I love this last photo.

stalking spring

I never grow tired of how spring seems to sneak up on me every year, no matter how closely I try and watch it, trying to catch every change, no matter how small.This year I promised myself I would document each change somehow. Everything I could think of felt excessive: journaling each change, Facebook status updating each little thing, sending an email, "more blades of green grass--GET EXCITED!" But, instead I've chosen lots of silent gratitude and appreciation and satisfaction and pleasure. So excited for what has begun.

While in Buffalo this weekend Beth called across the hall, "I can hear peepers for the first time." So, I opened my window and heard it too--a sure chorus of spring. Arriving back at the Farm Sunday we saw three doe which seem to have made one of the pastures their hang out spot; seeing them today I noticed the grass they stood on and munched has grown greener, so crisp and alive after the browns and muted greens. It sprinkled last night and tonight too and I had to laugh as I slightly swerved to avoid hopping toads and frogs spotting every stretch of the Farm's roads. It is truly spring.

I spoke with one of the farmers about my garden plot today. I planted varieties of tomatoes and tomatillos and flowers, specks of seeds in a sea of earth, now sprouting seedlings, and now wait anxiously and watch their progress--my trips to the greenhouse some of my daily sacred time. Some of the garden plots have been tilled for early plants/planters so I will be trial testing my first ever batch of spinach (hopefully this weekend), as I've been assured it's hearty enough to handle the still-to-come cool.

As far as the farm goes these days: they've finished tapping the trees for sap, boiied last batches of syrup and I believe are nearly done cleaning the huge vats. Also, my friend Farmer MacDonald bought a half dozen kids (goats), which he is going to use for brush clearing on some of the Farm property; they are super adorable and I've enjoyed sitting with them and being climbed on like a jungle gym--such damn affectionate animals!

lovely song

I wanted the video too, but this is such a good version of the song that I guess it'll do.
Orphan Girl - Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

little drifter, perhaps?

Hadrian, Roman Emperor

In the spirit of continuing with celebrating National Poetry Month:

“Little Soul"

Little soul little stray

little drifter

now where will you stay

all pale and all alone

after the way

you used to make fun of things

--Hadrian,  translated by W.S. Merwin from Poetry (April 2006).

things to be happy about

1. YAY!! N just fixed my computer--apparently my hard drive had just (somehow?!?!) manged to slide loose!! HOORAY!! Will be posting pics soon!
2. It is 73 degrees here now!!!
3. I LOVE that scratchy record version of Billie Holiday which I posted earlier today.
4. The Nanci Griffith video I posted on 4/8: her cellist (bass?) player looks like John Malkovich's cousin. Also watch the smug face made at  2:10...ha ha ha. Had to watch it 3 times!
5. I have some new followers! WELCOME!

oh, for the healing swaying

April is National Poetry Month here in the United States. Been meaning to post a great poem everyday but alas, busy busy lately. Stumbled across this poem by Elizabeth Bishop and liked it. Made me think of how I am feeling...in need of music...and right now it's jazz.



"I am in need of music"

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
-- Elizabeth Bishop

"He's funny that way," Billie Holiday with Eddie Heywood Trio,1944

Spain on the brain

Made it to the Buffalo area safely. Sepnding the day being lazy. *Sigh of contentment.*


All this thinking of travel this weekend has made my mind wander back to lovely days in sunny places; an ocean; country towns with ancient bridges; flamenco; fields of olive trees flying by a train window. Ah, how I long to visit Spain again.

"Oranges in the south of Spain"
stars hang out at night
linen left to dry
red geraniums along the balconies
nodding, nodding
willing to agree to anything
just to keep their cola
a gang of kids running through the streets
faceless pranksters
the moon a plate held before each face
who am i? saying who am i
running through the streets saying who am i
the shadows of the buildings
becoming cats that move away
the trees immobilized
left to stand alone in the dark
rubbing their bark from regret
like cicadas
oranges have more delicacy
softly falling, falling
in the groves
on the hills
softly eaten, eaten
by the earth
swallowed whole
as if by a snake
not earth
as if by millions
slithering in the groves at night
millions
stalking the oranges that fall softly
softly to the earth
hunting there in the groves
that form a ring around each town
-- Pablo Picasso

no surprises here

Les Paines de Picasso, 1954, Robert Doisneau

I stumbled across this picture tonight in my wanderings. Have always loved it. I was going to post the e.e. cumming's poem about Picasso, but realized I already did (here), which is actually great because it led me to a stash of Pablo Picasso's very own poems! Enjoy!

"whisper"

the shiver of hands

blind without memory

and so,

friendly still

yet sweet like the words

forgotten

to the tremble of lips

quiet

there are no surprises here

rest your eyelids

until they become stone

rest your heart

until it stops

(it beats now only for itself

in some secret place)

--Pablo Picasso

Pic found here.