Tangents

I'd hoped to stay in bed, but duty called,
but had I not been out I wouldn't have stopped
for the slow treat of a tall peppermint mocha.

Although I had the pew-bench all to myself,
the shop seemed full of congregants --
a grizzled gentleman holding forth on Churchill,
younger creatures conferring on clothes for clubbing,

and who-knows-what-fresh-hell-now unspooling
across the phone and laptop screens. I'm too far away
to see what's being said, and I am fine with that,

for right now all I want is to steep in the sweetness
of sitting still, of studying glass
being both filter and mirror, night-edged research
sharing its margins with daybreak, the sky

the pink of the Christmas cactus blooms at my house,
the plants flowering on, beyond the carols and candles.

This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/145005.html.

Upper Rubber Boot prompt 20: travel
21: black and white
22: can't wait to see

I have fond memories of a morning I spent in Jacksonville almost three years ago. There were beautifully bedecked lions...



...and a spice shop, where I purchased some presents, and the San Marco Bookstore, where I picked up three more gifts. (This was the road trip where I picked up Christmas stamps for that year's holiday mailing and then couldn't remember where I'd stashed them until January. This year I'm sticking with roses.) The store was having a Buy 1 Get 1 free sale, so I treated myself to Samuel Chamberlain's Bouquet de France (sixth printing August 1960), which includes both black-and-white photographs and line drawings:



A painting I can't wait to see again (and unsuccessfully searched for online a few nights ago) is Irwin Hoffman's Portrait of Dorothea G. Hoffman, which hangs in the Boston Public Library's Fine Arts/Music Reading Room. It's a marvelous record of a beautiful woman, and it's been almost a decade since I last visited her (and the danger is, of course, that the painting may be rotated out by the time I next get myself to Suffolk County. Not too long ago, Cheekwood put back into a storage a painting I'd just started writing about but hadn't taken complete notes on, thinking it would be there the next time...). I keep my precious copy of the BPL reading room art list tucked inside a guidebook from Cambridge's Globe Corner store:



At the moment, though, I'm abandoning all my grand plans for the afternoon in favor of a nap. (Current rule of thumb: if I'm too tired to wash the dishes, I'm too tired to go out again. Plus there are mushroom bao to make...) I did sing in two services this morning, and I write about how the Gospel of Luke got me thinking about Jack Gilbert over at Vary the Line, which Mary is reviving, with contributions from me and Joanne at least once a month.

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/118205.html.

August Moon day 8 prompt:
I sat outside and told my secrets to the moon. This was her reply: ....


The sun was high in the sky when I rose
and yet cannot melt
tiaras into bullets
or bullets into bedpans
or bedpans into spades

nor coax fresh fruit
from smothered seeds.

Who are you to despair
at stones not turned
and leaves no longer new

when you stand but a step
and a hinge-life away
from a sky with different answers?



~pld

Both photos were taken earlier tonight.

I took a break between stanzas to walk some magazines around the corner. There is already the scent of burning leaves in the air.

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/113865.html.

August Moon Day 4 prompt: So I had a conversation with my shadow...



... where she asked me what kind of net
I would want to knot
cast
cradle
mend

were time no object
and money no limit



I said to her, I
am both oil and water
whip and trench
slipper and shard
caper and crutch



I'll meet you at the corner
where the wind
has been whisking
shreds of tealeaves
past the lost screws
of stray sunglasses.

~pld

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/113130.html.

hello, tomato plant ...



how you like it here
inside my house
with the lily and the peppers
and long sips of water
with occasional shots
of tea and coffee

so do I
oh so do I

---

Prompted by April Moon 15 Day 13

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/104654.html.

A reason to love being an adult: beginning a holiday with lasagna, salad, and half a glass of white wine.

( Read more... )

This fall and winter, the sounds of a house being built across the street have filled many weekdays and most Saturdays. But not today:



This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/98517.html.

This Miyashige daikon radish kind of reminds me of my attempts at side plank the other day.

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/91257.html.

Ann Arbor Juvenile Probate Court, 23 September 1994



Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, 29 August 2014

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/90436.html.

A week ago, the BYM and I walked eastward on Fort Street to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Along the way, there was a yoga studio... ( Read more... )


This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/89200.html.

mushrooms sprout on the wheelbarrow
as I sharpen
another pencil

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/85513.html.