Gerard Manley Hopkins

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is—
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

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I needed this poem today, and thank God for the internet.

Best Westerns

In no particular order, here are 10 that I love.

ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner.
THE MEADOW and FENCING THE SKY by James Galvin.
COWBOYS ARE MY WEAKNESS by Pam Houston.
LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry.
DESERT SOLITAIRE and THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG by Edward Abbey.
BLOOD MERIDIAN and ALL THE PRETTY HORSES by Cormac McCarthy.
LITTLE BIG MAN by Thomas Berger.

I feel sure that there will be more McCarthy books added to this list if (and when)I have a week off to read Cities of the Plain and the upcoming No Country for Old Men. It took me a month of Sundays to read the other two of his books. I have to concentrate without interruption, then go back and savor the writing.

Twin Peaks Contest

Leland: Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy... a kid'll
eat ivy too, wouldn't you?

Well, I wrote a whole short story based on this quote. I am sure it would not qualify for any contest (especially not one for poetry), but I'm sending it out somewhere nonetheless. My Patti Smith story came back with kind ink from the editor. I guess it'll go out again soon after I absorb the criticism. So much to think about==the notes from the editor are almost as long as the story.

I've been busy, what with a birthday (aargh), high-school class reunion, and revising the Eve poem below. Also Harv and I have been attending local readings this week: On Friday, Daniel Anderson (poetry); on Saturday Randall Kenan, (fiction), going tonight to hear Leah Stewart...I have been so lonely for something like this, and now a week of readings! Fabulous.

Well, This Quiz is 100% Accurate!

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

My Neck of the Woods--And Joe's

And possibly the towns one never sees are best,
Preserved, remote, and merely names and distances.
Cadiz, Kentucky, “noted for the quality of hams it ships,
The home of wealthy planters,”. . .

Weldon Kees,
The New Yorker
from Travels in North America

Joe was from Cadiz. I met him (this date, according to my notebook)at Murray State. His poems were beautiful, melancholic and metrical at the same time. More than anyone else in our class, he had the gift of tone.

We both had the same puzzling habit of counting syllables with our fingers. He told me I'd have made a great Morse code operator. I told him he'd have been a good transcriptionist.

Joe, today's my birthday, and I've still never been to Florida.

"Falling apart in the fall."

"Rue is rule without the l."

Also, I'm the Devil!

You are sexy, powerful, and bold. You're full of passion and energy... Sometimes this passion has a dark side. You feel most alive when you're seducing someone. You never fail to get someone's attention. Quick minded, you're also quick to lose your temper!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

This is just too funny. (Since I haven't seduced anyone in 19 years, I must be comatose).

I Always Was Young for My Age--Or Was It Immature?

You Are 36 Years Old

36 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Stacked Deck

Right now I only have a few books on my bedside table (which is not actually a table, but three antique, leather and wicker vanity cases balanced precariously enough).

Gilead--M. Robinson (early birthday present to me, from me--wanted my own copy!).

Serenade--James M. Cain (wanted to read this again after not reading it for years).

Life Sentence--Selected poems of Nina Cassian (thanks to Ginger for recommending this).

The other bedside table is an antique Japanese trunk (which houses my Bakelite and rhinestone jewelry collection), and atop it are my old reading lamp (an adorable tulip-shaded lamp, its base a bronze mouse reading a book), a Botticelli leather box (has Birth of Venus embossed on its green lid and contains mushy notes from my husband and drawings of my kids)and a mirrored holder for my reading glasses.

I just realized that I've hogged both bedside tables. That's probably why I'm the Devil (see below--heh heh).

Pamela

WHAT A FIND!

I just love this poem--was looking for something else and found this. I am definitely going to look for more of Oswald's work.

Wedding

Alice Oswald

From time to time our love is like a sail
and when the sail begins to alternate
from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;
and if the coat is yours, it has a tear
like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter
and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions....
and this, my love, when millions come and go
beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe
tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;
and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,
which is like love, which is like everything.

Independence Day

Trade day finds:

80 bulbs in 2 clumps--Chicago Apache daylilies (scarlet with green throats), already in the ground.

Brass coffin tag: HUMAN REMAINS. Think it's from a medical school.

Clothespin holder.

Fourth of July spent in Tennessee with family. Raleigh swimming with her cousins. Downpour of rain just as fireworks were to start. Driving home in deluge, with lighting as counterpoint to Roman candles sputtering from carports. Absolutely no sparklers.

Still raining. Still no word on when my MRI will be.

New Sappho Poem, translation by Dr. Martin West

"[You for] the fragrant-blossomed Muses’ lovely gifts
[be zealous,] girls, [and the] clear melodious lyre:

[but my once tender] body old age now
[has seized;] my hair’s turned [white] instead of dark;

my heart’s grown heavy, my knees will not support me,
that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.

This state I oft bemoan; but what’s to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there’s no way.

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn,
love-smitten, carried off to the world’s end,

handsome and young then, yet in time grey age
o’ertook him, husband of immortal wife."

_____________________________
Love the heart too heavy, the knees too weak.

And the Tithonus reference--that's my favorite Tennyson poem.

Also, the balance in my checking account....

Your IQ Is 120

Your Logical Intelligence is Above Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Consorting with Angels--Anne Sexton

I was tired of being a woman,
tired of the spoons and the pots,
tired of my mouth and my breasts,
tired of the cosmetics and the silks.
There were still men who sat at my table,
circled around the bowl I offered up.
The bowl was filled with purple grapes
and the flies hovered in for the scent
and even my father came with his white bone.
But I was tired of the gender of things.

Last night I had a dream
and I said to it ...
"You are the answer.
You will outlive my husband and my father."
In that dream there was a city made of chains
where Joan was put to death in man's clothes
and the nature of the angels went unexplained,
no two made in the same species,
one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand,
one chewing a star and recording its orbit,
each one like a poem obeying itself,
performing God's functions, a people apart.

"You are the answer,"
I said, and entered,
lying down on the gates of the city.
Then the chains were fastened around me
and I lost my common gender and my final aspect.
Adam was on the left of me
and Eve was on the right of me,
both thoroughly inconsistent with the world of reason.
We wove our arms together
and rode under the sun.
I was not a woman anymore,
not one thing or the other.

0 daughters of Jerusalem,
the king has brought me into his chamber.
I am black and I am beautiful.
I've been opened and undressed.
I have no arms or legs.
I'm all one skin like a fish.
I'm no more a woman
than Christ was a man.

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I wonder if anyone else reads this poem and thinks of Lilith and the unsexed fish that symbolizes Christianity--a new creature, a body that you put on?

A-Musing

~Calliope~
Your muse is Calliope, the Fair Voiced, Chief muse
and the muse of Epic Poetry. Her symbol is the
writing tablet. I wonder if you'll end up as
the next Tolkein...?


Which of the Nine Muses is your muse?
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James M. Cain (and Mario Lanza, too)

On this day in 1892, James M. Cain was born. I love some of his novels: The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Serenade. The first three were made into good movies (in the case of Double Indemnity a great movie). There's also the infamous kitchen scene (even better in the the book) in Postman. Serenade has an even more infamous (though less famous scene), in which the lovers' assignation occurs in church. (Wonder if this is not an in-joke). However, the film version is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. Mario Lanza stars as an opera singer (which is apt), and he is in great voice here, but the film really bowlderizes the book.

In a fair world, Mario Lanza would have been idolized more than the 3 Tenors combined. His life was so, well, crazy--Philly kid becomes opera singer, studies at Tanglewood, is seduced by Hollywood and never becomes an opera star, headlines the biggest smash hit movie of 1951, establishes himself as a heartthrob, is fired in next major movie for being "too good" as a singer, rebuilds his life in Italy as an operatic tenor, and finally hits the concert stage in Europe--dying at the age of 38. Now there's a movie!