Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

Ok, I am no where near enjoying my tomatoes yet, but since I spent the entire day in the garden hoeing and raking and weeding and planting over 60 tomato plants and 17 tomatillo plants I have tomatoes on the brain: BLTs with tons of tomatoes, tomatoes eaten like apples, tomatoes with salt, homemade tomato sauces and salsas and...Anyway, photos soon. "Ode to tomatoes" The street filled with tomatoes, midday, summer, light is halved like a tomato, its juice runs through the streets. In December, unabated, the tomato invades the kitchen, it enters at lunchtime, takes its ease on countertops, among glasses, butter dishes, blue saltcellars. It sheds its own light, benign majesty. Unfortunately, we must murder it: the knife sinks into living flesh, red viscera a cool sun, profound, inexhaustible, populates the salads of Chile, happily, it is wed to the clear onion, and to celebrate the union we pour oil, essential child o...

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.  ...

I got the stomach bug and woke up with it yesterday at 3:30am. This is not how I imagined I would be spending my weekend. Being sick here at the Farm reminds me of how great living in community can be. As I lay in bed yesterday feeling like the Devil was trying to get out of my body, not only did roomies TSO and RugbyGirl check in on me, so did S and CJ, and Mummy Dearest via the phone, and then Amos came and kept both me and TSO company today as we recouped. Community is swell sometimes. Being sick this weekend made me think about the positive sides--is there a positive side, you say?--Umm...the Mary Poppins in me says yes, well, let's see: getting sick means being snatched by surprise and forced to lay low; catching up on a good book; watching a few movies; napping; finishing the first season of Mad Men. Being sick also means reading poetry. Falling into some Pablo Neruda poetry today made me make this weird connection with Marc Chagall. This poem, "In my sky at twilight...

Looking for our Christmas tree this week; in the very act of hiking in the woods, in deep snow, over sleeping mounds of tucked in stumps and un-navigable stones, I became buoyant with energy. It was as though that sleeping child, which hides deep within all of us, was reawakened. As I wandered alone I became less aware of the tree I was supposed to be looking for, and more aware of a memory which I had forgotten. I was suddenly thinking of one of my favorite moments alone with my Dad. The woods behind our house lay as an open canvas until we had nearly outgrown it and the activity it provided children. In this, its uncharted-ness, my Dad and I ventured off, following the semblence of a trail; a hunters path; a deer road, perhaps. We walked for what felt like miles and though I can't recall exactly, I imagine that my Dad told me stories as we hiked. Maybe of the sea; stories which made me long to rock with the ocean, falling asleep to its sounds; maybe stories of his youth; storie...

I stumbled across this on accident today while looking for something else and I am SO glad that I did. This is such a beautiful poem, I just had to share. Lovely, lovely, lovely! "If you forget me" I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to see...