Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

The Curtain

 - Hayden Carruth

 

Just over the horizon a great machine of death is roaring and rearing.

We can hear it always. Earthquake, starvation, the ever-renewing sump of corpse-flesh.

But in this valley the snow falls silently all day, and out our window

We see the curtain of it shifting and folding, hiding us away in our little house,

We see earth smoothened and beautified, made like a fantasy, the snow-clad trees

So graceful. In our new bed, which is big enough to seem like the north pasture almost

With our two cats, Cooker and Smudgins, lying undisturbed in the southeastern and southwestern corners,

We lie loving and warm, looking out from time to time. “Snowbound,” we say. We speak of the poet

Who lived with his young housekeeper long ago in the mountains of the western province, the kingdom

Of cruelty, where heads fell like wilted flowers and snow fell for many months

Across the pass and drifted deep in the vale. In our kitchen the maple-fire murmurs

In our stove. We eat cheese and new-made bread and jumbo Spanish olives

Which have been steeped in our special brine of jalapeños and garlic and dill and thyme.

We have a nip or two from the small inexpensive cognac that makes us smile and sigh.

For a while we close the immense index of images that is our lives—for instance,

The child on the Mescalero reservation in New Mexico sitting naked in 1966 outside his family’s hut,

Covered with sores, unable to speak. But of course we see the child every day,

We hold out our hands, we touch him shyly, we make offerings to his implacability.

No, the index cannot close. And how shall we survive? We don’t and cannot and will never

Know. Beyond the horizon a great unceasing noise is undeniable. The machine,

Like an immense clanking vibrating shuddering unnameable contraption as big as a house, as big as the whole town,

May break through and lurch into our valley at any moment, at any moment.

Cheers, baby. Here’s to us. See how the curtain of snow wavers and then falls back.

from: Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey: Poems, 1991-1995. Copyright 1996.

It's a Garden Party - Early Winter Thoughts

This feature, originally known as Saturday Farmer's Market, was created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and then hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

Winter Trees
- William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

Fall and winter are a mixed bag in Northern California. We are far enough north to miss the lovely mild winter weather, but not far enough to reap some of the benefits engendered by frigid winters.

Living in an agricultural area also mutes some of the damage done by the drought, as land regularly irrigated retains its ability to absorb winter rains, and the water table is at least partially replenished.

On the down side, deciduous trees and shrubs make a half-hearted stab at dormancy, but like swing shift workers, are easily awakened - and an errant frost can do tremendous damage.

This is the time of the year that garden decor comes into its own.

The Crepe Myrtle may have lost its leaves, but some days is covered with birds.

Most of these are Lesser Gold Finches.

My name may be Snowball, but I haven't actually held one for decades.

However, we recently got a lot of tiny ones. The hail lasted about ten minutes and turned the road white until it melted.

So far this year the East has had most of our warmth and we've had a lot of their cold. 

Stay safe wherever you are.

From Our House To Yours . . .

Here's hoping this Holiday Season finds you safe, warm, and happy 

 - regardless of your choice of celebration.

And may your new year be better than the last.

Things could be different . . .

{Transcript & story}

The Sage says to be the change we want to see in the world. 

Imagine if we all made different choices  . . .

Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

The Kingfisher

- Mary Oliver

The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world--so long as you don't mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn't have its splash of happiness?
There are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn't born to think about it, or anything else.
When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water
remains water--hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.
I don't say he's right. Neither
do I say he's wrong. Religiously he swallows the silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry
I couldn't rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.

from: House of Light. Copyright 1990.

 

Autumn

 - Adam Zagajewski  
                   Translated By Renata Gorczynski

 

Autumn is always too early.

The peonies are still blooming, bees   

are still working out ideal states,

and the cold bayonets of autumn   

suddenly glint in the fields and the wind

rages.

What is its origin? Why should it destroy   

dreams, arbors, memories?

The alien enters the hushed woods,   

anger advancing, insinuating plague;   

woodsmoke, the raucous howls

of Tatars.

Autumn rips away leaves, names,   

fruit, it covers the borders and paths,   

extinguishes lamps and tapers; young   

autumn, lips purpled, embraces   

mortal creatures, stealing

their existence.

Sap flows, sacrificed blood,

wine, oil, wild rivers,

yellow rivers swollen with corpses,

the curse flowing on: mud, lava, avalanche,   

gush.

Breathless autumn, racing, blue

knives glinting in her glance.

She scythes names like herbs with her keen   

sickle, merciless in her blaze

and her breath. Anonymous letter, terror,   

Red Army.

from: Without End: New and Selected Poems. Copyright 2002.