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One premature turn this evening landed me in front of these tracks, red light blinking like Rudolph's nose through the snow, but no train in sight.
I stopped and waited. Then the train came clacking along... and along... and along. Long enough for me to pause, take a photo, a few deep breaths, and to remember the few beautiful little things I can appreciate about winter in Indiana.
Zero Holding, by Robyn Sarah
I grow to like the bare trees and the snow, the bones and fur of winter. Even the greyness of the nunneries, they are so grey, walled all around with grey stones — and the snow piled up on ledges of wall and sill, those grey planes for holding snow: this is how it will be, months now, all so still, sunk in itself, only the cold alive, vibrant, like a wire — and all the busy chimneys — their ghost-breath, a rumour of lives warmed within, rising, rising, and blowing away.
The best five minutes of my morning commute: the Writer's Almanac on NPR. It usually airs between 9:05 and 9:10, when I'm usually driving into work (late, because I have an abusive relationship with my snooze button).
Garrison Keillor has a voice so regal, I'm convinced he could read the ingredients off the side of a Cheez-It box aloud and they'd sound like priceless verse.
I love this poem from last week, as Ryan and I have spent countless hours pouring through glossy magazines and window shopping since we moved into our house in September. It's good to pause and remember that "we already have everything."
I've stolen this title directly from Strunk's "Elements of Style" (or, "the writer's bible" as my high school English teacher called it). Thumbing through the other day, I saw this passage and felt a pang in my chest.
The volume of writing is enormous, these days, and much of it has a sort of windiness about it, almost as though the author were in a state of euphoria.
"Spontaneous me," sang Whitman, and, in his innocence, let loose the hordes of uninspired scribblers who would one day confuse spontaneity with genius.
The breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that comes to mind is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.
Harsh words but honest words, and I'm terribly guilty.
With that, I'll spare you my witticisms (for today) and instead offer this beautifully haunting Frost poem in the hopes that you'll find some piece of it to love as deeply as I do.
Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
For 11 years, I've written poetry and for 11 years, I've been scared to let people read it. There may come a day when I'm ready to. Today is not that day. So instead, I'll share one I love by Mary Oliver, called Singapore.
A beloved English professor told me once (everyday) that in order to appreciate a poem, you must first read it ten times. Seems excessive, but I believe if it is a good poem, you can read it ten times and find something new in it each time. Without further ado, here is Miss Oliver.
In Singapore, in the airport,
a darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the women's restroom, one compartment stood open.
A woman knelt there, washing something
in the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach
and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that's not possible, a fountain
rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarassment struggled together, and
neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense it this?
Everybody needs a job.
Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watch her as she states down at her labor,
which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as
hubcaps, with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.
I don't doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop
and fly down to the river.
This probably won't happen.
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn't.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
the light that can shine out of a life. I mean
the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
the way her smile was only for my sake; I mean
the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.
a good poem[e.e. cummings]
it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;
moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:
one pierced moment whiter than the rest
-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.
a good laugh
[what my yearbook photo could have been, had I been born a few decades earlier]
a good workout
I thought I was in decent shape. The folks at Atlanta Yoga proved me wrong. If you're looking for a get-your-ass-handed-to-you workout, I recommend it.
One premature turn this evening landed me in front of these tracks, red light blinking like Rudolph's nose through the snow, but no train in sight.
