Graham crackers with frosting and sprinkles . . . A letter from Di to Grandpa and Earl . . . A homemade card to Mommy & Daddy . . . A poorly drawn leprechaun . . . And an Irish jig!
☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘
Mother’s Day Card ~ Same Era
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute?"
Question asked by Emily, in OUR TOWN
"to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life" ~Thornton Wilder
Painting by Leonard Orr
~ acrylic on canvas ~ Thanks to Len for permission to pick my own "excellent titles; you cannot be wrong." I'm calling this one "The Ides of March" Nor is this the first time that Len has allowed me to share his work on this auspicious date:"The Ides of Whatever" |
German Woodcut Illustration
by Johannes Zainer, Ulm ca. 1474 Depicting from left to right: 1. Porcia Catonis counseling Marcus Junius Brutus 2. Julius Caesars's Death at the hands of Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus 3. Porcia's Suicide |
A Lecture On The Circle
You draw a circle in the sand
and then halve the circle
with the same hazelnut stick.
Next you fall to your knees,
then to all fours.
Then you hit the sand with your forehead
and apologize to the circle.
That's all.
by Nichita Stanescu (1933 - 83)
[Read more poems]
On Marilyn's Birthday
Some of her cards to me from 1976 |
New York Movie (1939)
Edward Hopper (1882 - 1967) |
The Flammarion Engraving, 1888
From L'atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire By Camille Flammarion (1842 - 1925) |
I am intrigued by the slippery sense of time in the following pair of near - sonnets by contemporary American poet Maggie Smith (b 1977). Taken together, the Past and the Future seem to advance and recede -- but no mention of the Present, so I wrote the above haiku to fill the gap.
Past
What is the past?
We needed a word for everything before.
See how my saying this is already there, and there
for good -- no fishing it out of that deep water,
the deepest there is. The past is a tide that drags out
but won't return to shore: even your question
has been carried off. Look, you can see it floating.
Anything heavier settles unseen like wreckage
for a silver ribbon of fish to slip through.
The past is not all distant. We can stand at its edge,
watching the waves do the backbreaking work
of pulling, pulling away. From the shore, the past
seems to go on forever, because it does. We say
it was a different time, but all times are different.
This one, for instance. And again, this one. (p 29)
Future
What is the future?
Everything that hasn’t happened yet, the future
is tomorrow and next year and when you’re old
but also in a minute or two, when I’m through
answering. The future is nothing I imagined
as a child: no jet packs, no conveyor-belt sidewalks,
no bell-jarred cities at the bottom of the sea.
The trick of the future is that it’s empty,
a cup before you pour the water. The future
is a waiting cup, and for all it knows, you’ll fill it
with milk instead. You’re thirsty. Every minute
carries you forward, conveys you, into a space
you fill. I mean the future will be full of you.
It’s one step beyond the step you’re taking now.
What you’ll say next until you say it. (p 80)
And this brief passage,
in keeping with the mystic properties of time:
Poem with a Line from "Bluets"
. . . For what should I save
my longing? Forget the afterlife, the aftertown:
there is no knowing what happens beyond this
sad animal, this sack of hair. Forget the golden future
beyond future. I want to see all of it here, all of it
through these eyes . . . " (p 87)
All three poems by Maggie Smith
found in her collection Good Bones
20: "You remember it that way because it makes a better story . . . That doesn't mean it's true."
"What's the story?"
"The past."
57: "He doesn't understand that it's the weight of the past that's pinned us there . . . ."
102: "At least we have the past."
116: "There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well . . . ."
300: "You think the thing that hurt you is going to hurt you forever but it doesn't."
An Extra Day . . .
An Extra Evening Walk Around the Block |
February 29
An extra day—
Like the painting’s fifth cow,
who looks out directly,
straight toward you,
from inside her black and white spots.
An extra day—
Accidental, surely:
the made calendar stumbling over the real
as a drunk trips over a threshold
too low to see.
An extra day—
With a second cup of black coffee.
A friendly but businesslike phone call.
A mailed-back package.
Some extra work, but not too much—
just one day’s worth, exactly.
An extra day—
Not unlike the space
between a door and its frame
when one room is lit and another is not,
and one changes into the other
as a woman exchanges a scarf.
An extra day—
Extraordinarily like any other.
And still
there is some generosity to it,
like a letter re-readable after its writer has died. (2012)
Jane Hirshfield (born 1953)
American poet and translator
Ten Lords a Leap - Yearing |
Last week, my cousin - in - law Gregg was taking the above photo of the waxing Snow Moon in Kansas at the same time that I was taking the photo below in Virginia. We realized it an hour or so later when we saw each other's posts! That's what makes Facebook so fun!
1st-century AD Roman copy of a 1st century BC Greek original Anonymous Sculptor Rediscovered in 1870 |
Note from the poet: "unlike Michelangelo's David (the one thing i wanted to PLEASE PLEASE MUST SEE on my Italy trip last week - and ohhhh, phenomenal), i had never heard of this statue before seeing her in person in Musei Capitoline. she glows. she simply stopped me in my tracks to dance along my soul."
esquiline venus.
fall into
the earth scented cushion
of my lap
i will stay here
still and soft,
brown and marble moss
i am rooted to ground
buried with rock and quill
here
i will receive
your joy insecurity pain,
here i will receive your
regret, your
hope
i will hear your question
yearn
and stay virtual silent
till the answer sings
to your own inner ear
the confessional
behind my knees
will absolve and cleanse your
pleas(e)
when you stand back up
you will be
natured
nutured whole
again
you will be
sculpted
returned to yourself
through a goddess
vessel
affirming chi
beware the rattle bones
the pulling
ornaments of favor
without heart
beware the candy
of distant sweet
ignore the broken limbs.
i mourn the iris of your eye
the heat of your chest
your belly fire
i mourn the days
we walked the loch
and did not taste or see...
get up
get up now
get up and breathe
and want me
polish and
pedestal me up
get up, my human,
break fast
and be.
###
~Tammy Sandel
Autumn 2015
“Marie [dressed up for a fortune telling party] wore a short red skirt of stoutly woven, cloth, a white bodice and kirtle, a yellow silk turban wound low over her brown curls, and long coral pendants in her ears.
Her ears had been pierced against a piece of cork by her great-aunt when she was seven years old. In those germless days she had worn bits of broomstraw, plucked from the common sweeping-broom, in the lobes until the holes were healed and ready for little gold rings."
~from O Pioneers! (125-26)
My George Washington, Father of His Country, Socks |
Vaguely Patriotic Alternative
[Halloween Version] |
I just wish these Hamilton socks said:
"I'm not throwing away my SOCKS." That would be way funnier, especially after they got holes in the heels! |
The Harlequin of Dreams
Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found,
Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep,
Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap
Upon my spirit’s stage. Then Sight and Sound,
Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound,
And all familiar Forms that firmly keep
Man’s reason in the road, change faces, peep
Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round.
Yet thou canst more than mock: sometimes my tears
At midnight break through bounden lids—a sign
Thou hast a heart: and oft thy little leaven
Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years.
In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine,
I think thou’rt Jester at the Court of Heaven!
Sidney Lanier (1842 – 1881)