Dorito and Champagne Night

With the lovely loon. With a shout out to the SteeJos!

An Orange Poem

A new friend directed me to this poem by Margaret Atwood (she doesn't know about this blog yet, it was just a fortuitous circumstance). I sort of love it (and we all know my complicated relationship with poetry...)

Against Still Life

Orange in the middle of a table:

It isn't enough
to walk around it
at a distance, saying
it's an orange:
nothing to do
with us, nothing
else: leave it alone

I want to pick it up
in my hand
I want to peel the
skin off; I want
more to be said to me
than just Orange:
want to be told
everything it has to say
And you, sitting across
the table, at a distance, with
your smile contained, and like the orange
in the sun: silent:

Your silence
isn't enough for me
now, no matter with what
contentment you fold
your hands together; I want
anything you can say
in the sunlight:
stories of your various
childhoods, aimless journeyings,
your loves; your articulate
skeleton; your posturings; your lies.

These orange silences
(sunlight and hidden smile)
make me want to
wrench you into saying;
now I'd crack your skull
like a walnut, split it like a pumpkin
to make you talk, or get
a look inside

But quietly:
if I take the orange
with care enough and hold it
gently

I may find
an egg
a sun
an orange moon
perhaps a skull; center
of all energy
resting in my hand

can change it to
whatever I desire
it to be

and you, man, orange afternoon
lover, wherever
you sit across from me
(tables, trains, buses)

if I watch
quietly enough
and long enough

at last, you will say
(maybe without speaking)

(there are mountains
inside your skull
garden and chaos, ocean
and hurricane; certain
corners of rooms, portraits
of great grandmothers, curtains
of a particular shade;
your deserts; your private
dinosaurs; the first
woman)

all I need to know
tell me
everything
just as it was
from the beginning.

(copied without permission, but with great respect)

Might Be Time to Admit I Have a Problem...

My file cabinet at work...

Online Dating Tips

I have been meaning to do this post for a while to complain about all the people who "work hard and play hard," the people looking for "a partner in crime," the people who can't spell or still use text shorthand at age 36, and the people whose profile picture is a camera phone picture of a bare torso. These are all things that annoy me, but today I discovered the essential, platonic rule of online dating: thou shalt not use IWillNotMurderYou as your user name. Everything else is just details...

Things That are Orange

A Thought for Today

So here we are, ten years later. I remember days when I couldn’t believe that we would reach this anniversary – when the idea of peace and normal life seemed so foreign as to be entirely inconceivable. And yet, today arrived, bright and clear – I went to church (I know, hard to believe), went to the farmers' market and spent too much on flowers and blackberries, cleaned my house, and am now settling down to edit some materials for a non-profit for which I volunteer. Which I think is the victory of this day – that I can spend it in so mundane a way.

I am not a particularly religious person. I don’t frequently attend church – in this town, it’s hard to forgive the hierarchy of men who put the face of their organization ahead of the safety, health and wellbeing of children. But on days like this, of mourning and remembrance, I go to where my family has gone for comfort for hundreds of years; to listen to the words – to the Word, if you will – and try not fixate on the man in the front delivering the message. The theme of the readings at mass today was forgiveness, which I found very moving and appropriate.

So today, I give you something new for this site, a quote from the Bible. It’s from Sirach, chapter 28:

“Should a man refuse mercy to his fellows, yet seek pardon for his own sins? If he who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins? Remember your last days, set enmity aside…”

A good thing to keep in mind on this day.

Literate Cat is Literate

Milo does not show nearly the same amount of affection for my kindle...