Blurry

Snowy, flurry days through windows
Blurry time ticking by
Nurses tender, giving showers
Secret friends bringing flowers,
Ice, hot soup, Beethoven, pie
Blankets over wraps and pillows
Firewood flames and feet aglow
How many stair steps did I go?
Love, I do not care or know.

Knocking Holes in the Darkness

Oh, the interview with Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles on NPR this morning . . . one of the best pre-Martin Luther King, Jr. Day meditations ever. The line, "knocking holes in the darkness," gives such a vivid picture.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122670935

The image, attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, who, as a child, described what he saw outside his sickroom window--a man lighting the street lamps, does a lot more than that for me, too. And, I guess it did for Tom Waits when he wrote it in "Downtown Train."

Happy New Year

Wishes for the Best Year Ever!

Hope your chicken got its kisses!

Velvet Night

In an old part of the city one of the best spots to work is by the window of a creaky-floored, tin-ceilinged all-night cafe. The square, real window panes have Christmas-light-edging around the view of a snowbanked, pavered street and narrow shops on the other side with their evergreen and twinkling garlands. The sidewalk below glows from the warmth that invites friends and lovers and tattered wanderers alike. Good music, bursts of laughter, and pleasant voices telling stories mix in.

Some friends come by, pull chairs close, and tell about their ice-skating at the city rink tonight. Earlier today I had promised I'd buy them coffee afterwards. Stories of hockey (haw-key) come up. I recall mine, having just bought a hockey puck at the Red Shield (Salvation Army) store--not just any hockey puck, though. It's a genuine, used, CHA, maple-leafed gift for one of my brothers, who is a collector. We grew up skating every chance we could get, and I think of the Fire Department flooding for rinks and how we brought sack lunches and delighted over free hot chocolate at the warming booth. Each new season, we traded in our outgrown, used skates for used skates that pretty much fit depending on how many socks were worn, at the ACE Hardware. How they made a little money was charging for blade sharpening and selling blade covers. I tell them about the scar on my chin--how I got it playing hockey--high-sticked after making a goal, no less. And, being on crutches right now stinks. So we laugh and talk about skating, life, love, and family fun. They tell me how much they love that their mother can kick someone in the seat of the pants and the person will thank her for it later, because, of course, she only does it because she loves them. Their mother, the former Dairy Queen of New York State, rode the train to Chicago and sat on Santa’s lap at Macy’s while I took a picture. There was no line, and Santa was amiable. Two middle-aged businessmen, apparently foreign visitors, observed and pondered our “custom.” One of them took out a camera and made a souvenir photo, while the other one sat on Santa’s lap . . . all the same . . . smiling and wishing and hoping.

Pushing their chairs back away from the little table, they linger on goodbye. Midnight mass, Christmas Eve--you'll call us, ok?

Outside, the ribbon ends of red velvet Christmas bows, softly flapping, frame the winter night.

12-23-09, 12AM

Unexpected Gift

I ventured out his morning to see how much slickning the icy rain had brought. I saw something unusual and thought, "I should take a picture. That's wild." I went back to wrapping presents, humming Christmas songs, when it came to the The Twelve Days of Christmas. Then, it hit me. That odd thing I saw--was that a partridge in a pear tree? I believe it was! (See: wildeblue.blogspot.com)

Happy First Day of Christmas!

The First Snow

December 3 brought a favorite day and a favorite poem:

The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

Mark Strand

For Jean

Mother to Son (Child)

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Langston Hughes

Rise and Shine

"The sun never sets. It is we who rise and think to shine."
Earle Birney, in The Old Farmer's Almanac 2009

Beautiful Pomegranates

How to eat a pomegranate. So far, nothing beats fresh, like an orange. Umm, crispyluscious. I've never heard of anyone getting sick from eating too many. (?) While expecting Molly, I ate 3-7 oranges a day the last three months with no apparent afteraffects, my only scientific basis.

Crispyluscious!
Pomegranate cheers!

Spirit in the Sky

It seems lazy, and it is kind of, but I'd put this one in my favorites, too. Song of the Year for 1969:

http://www.wildeblue.blogspot.com/