Being Thirty-five

It's a serene pleasure to watch

The rabbit running. I keep letting him out

Of his hutch into the yard.

It worries the children, even my husband

Wonders what I am at

And likely the rabbit too questions

The wisdom of finally being free.

for the Valentines

wish i had found this poem on the 14th, but better late than not at all. hope you love it.

it's by poet Tony Hoagland.

(you can see a really fun reading of it by the poet here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/video/315 )

Romantic Moment

After seeing the nature documentary we walk down Canyon Road
into the plaza of art galleries and high end clothing stores

where the orange trees are fragrant in the summer night
and the pink adobe walls glow fleshlike in the dark.

It is just our second date, and we sit down on a bench,
not looking at each other, holding hands

and if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over
and vomit softly into the mouth of my beloved

and if I were a peacock I’d flex my gluteal muscles to
erect and spread the quills on my cinemax tail.

If she were a female walkingstick bug she might
insert her hypodermic proboscis delicately into my neck

and inject me with a rich hormonal sedative
before attaching her egg sac to my thoracic undercarriage

and if I were a young chimpanzee I would break off a nearby tree limb
and smash all the windows in the plaza jewelry stores.

And if she was a Brazilian leopard frog she would wrap her impressive
tongue three times around my right thigh

and pummel me lightly against the surface of our pond
and I would know her feelings were sincere.

Instead we sit awhile in silence, until
she remarks that in the relative context of tortoises and iguanas,

human males seem to be actually rather expressive.
And I say that female crocodiles really don’t receive

enough credit for their gentleness.
Then she suggests that it is time for us to go

to get some ice cream cones and eat them.

***I couldn't find his original, published version, so this is definitely not a perfect copy. the words seem accurate but not the line breaks or other mechanics.

But the poem is pretty great, right? I mean.

the dane in me

my taste and preferences change a lot, but many of the things that i could look at forever--and never tire of--come from denmark.

like this louis poulsen lamp.

and this one.

i know. lamps! but these are the things i think about.

*sigh*

i'm not sorry. they're beautiful.

today & everyday

my challenge today is how to say what i mean, and to be brief.

that's one of the great challenges of poetry of course, and you all know how i like to record those moments when a poem intersects my real life perfectly. sometimes those moments are truly, rarely, devastatingly accurate. for just a bit you can forget to breathe and your whole body says, gah, that's it!

the German poet, Ernst Stadler died in 1914 on the Western Front, killed by a British shell. the poem following poem, "The Saying" is a translation {hence, an imitation} by Stephen Berg of Stadler's original poem, which ends with the line, "Mensch, werde wesentlich!" ("Man, become substantial!").

The Saying

In an old book

I stumbled across a saying.

It was like a stranger

punching me in the face,

it won't stop

gnawing at me.

When I walk around at night,

looking for a beautiful girl,

when a lie or a description

of life or somebody's fake

way of being with people

occurs instead of reality,

when I betray myself with

an easy explanation

as if what's dark is clear,

as if life doesn't have thousands

of locked, burning gates,

when I use words without really

having known their strict openness

and put my hands around things

that don't excite me,

when a dream hides my face with soft hands

and the day avoids me,

cut off from the world,

cut off from who I am deeply,

I freeze where I am

and see hanging in the air in front of me

STOP BEING A GHOST!

:: :: ::

and anyway, who out there is fully awake? who is living out every second, confronting fear and earnestly seeking understanding? i think there are such people. but not me. i think i am mostly half asleep.

the NPR program that's often on when i'm out driving the kids to and fro is a SoCal production called Air Talk with Larry Mantle. this week he was asking for people to call in with definitions of patriotism, and so i wrote out some of my own. they may be influenced somewhat by some of what i've heard lately on the topic of immigration {that states like GA, that are following AZ's assault on illegals, are now dealing with the reality that Americans simply aren't willing to do the jobs left vacant, no matter what the unemployment rate is} but i think these three points capture some of how i feel about being a good citizen.

a patriot is someone:

:: whose love of justice and mercy does not end at her nation's borders

:: who says, really, "let all that breathe partake," in the just fruits of freedom, no matter where they were born

:: who honors the sacrifices of past patriots by making her own sacrifices: for example, by giving generously to the poor throughout the world, and particularly to the poorest in undeveloped nations, thereby helping to spread freedom--without violence--where it doesn't exist now

a book came into my hands recently that is really answering a need for me--a need i've felt all my life without responding to fully. it's called, The Life You Can Save, and i will be happy to loan my copy to anyone who has an interest in knowing more about charitable giving.

i will probably always be part ghost, part ponytail, but this book has made me feel a little more alive in the world where i live. it's a step toward becoming the kind of patriot i want to be.

happy independence day, friends! independence from hunger, from tyranny, and from self-loathing. bim & i give our pledge.

what i love about 19th century english novels

the characters would fall in love with a hat rack if it were tall enough and belonged to the right family. it would take approximately one week to progress from attachment to declaration to engagement to {ding! ding! ding!} "connection."

every subtle action has devastating consequences on individuals' and families' lives.

you can identify the heroine easily as the one who: walks in the rain; dresses most plainly; and gives up everything that could ever make her happy out of duty and goodness.

the most admired people are the ones who are handy with a pencil, a horse, or a piano. they don't do anything else.

everybody reads poetry, and lady novelists are supreme. conversation is art.

this is just a beginning.

must be spring

here is a bit of spring fever to kick off your April. may it be a bright-shiny wet one.

from Moby Dick, by Herman Melville:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

end quote.

I Stop Writing the Poem

by Tess Gallagher

I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives

or who dies, I'm still a woman.

I'll always have plenty to do.

I bring the arms of his shirt

together. Nothing can stop

our tenderness. I'll get back

to the poem. I'll get back to being

a woman. But for now

there's a shirt, a giant shirt

in my hands, and somewhere a small girl

standing next to her mother

watching to see how it's done.

: : : : : :

good poems travel through time and space to find you, but they find you--if you're listening. Really!

this one found me like a heat-seeking missile. it walked me through years of my life, including the days of standing by my mom's ironing board listening to michael jackson or watching sesame street. and then later, as a newlywed when i told bim, i don't iron men's shirts. do you know how? he did. now we have them dry cleaned, but i still do all the other laundry. i've always enjoyed laundry.

nothing wrong with warm, clean clothes.