exclaiming at his new clothes
Friday, April 18, 2025
he stands there
exclaiming at his new clothes
Sunday, April 13, 2025
a checklist for the seasons: speech & passage, change & endurance
Thursday, April 10, 2025
(Mis)interpretations
* Central Michigan University, about 20 minutes north of us, discovered during a random check that several of their international students had their visas revoked and thus their legal residency terminated without notifications to the university or the students. I don't think this is what "Land of the Free" means.
* Ms. Rachel, the YouTube toddler entertainer, who has been compared to Mr. Rogers, shared UN reports of malnourished children in Gaza and started fundraising for Save the Children... and is being accused of being Hamas with calls for the Attorney General to investigate her for "anti-semitism." That term keeps being used incorrectly. Opposition to Israel is not anti-semitism, as Peter Beinart said recently.
*Nu's class was scheduled to take a senior trip to the zoo today. All week long, in anticipation, we've been pretending that we understood "going to the zoo" to mean that Nu was going to be a zoo exhibit. Our jokes are really old over here.
Pic: Nu's pic of the tiger at the zoo. Once upon a time, William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger burning bright" might have looped through my head. These days, I more likely to remember the six-year-old's poem so bright and clear it just cannot be misinterpreted:"The tiger
He destroyed his cage
Yes
YES
The tiger is out"
Tuesday, April 08, 2025
a day in the park
Pic: From yesterday's walk east along The Red Cedar. The paths are flooded; I snuck around a few parking lots to bypass the submerged sections.
Sunday, April 06, 2025
when I let go
continue to work like
beautiful outlaws
for although I am meant to go
I know no one has died
of being tired
look--objectification in the mirror
is closer than it appears
I've started to imagine myself
as someone with holes
in my hands
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
if you are my friend
let's come back, let's touch absences
to one another
opening in flame before curling
sullenly into ash
Friday, March 28, 2025
don't let the one with the coconuts tell the story
eager and dreaming of success
upright in the restless breeze
by their feet
Poppulu
Koppulu
Note: From a story my ayah told me in Telugu to illustrate how the well-to-do love to complain about their misfortune even when it doesn't really compare or isn't really a misfortune. (I wonder now if there was something that prompted it--like if she'd had some argument with my parents who would have seemed well-to-do to her.) I came up with the retort to the coconut trader and the subheadings (salt, lentils, coconuts in Telugu) because they so neatly nearly rhyme. And I gender neutralized the characters without losing the plot.
______________________
Pic: The beautiful spring view from RS's window at book club today. There was more resistance talk and organizing than book discussion, which was ok with me. Especially since I'd read You Think It, I'll Say It literally years ago and forgotten many of its finer details.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
like an open window
with its great gifts
of unfastened earth
and lightened tasks
talking to myself
and my gods--as if
anyone else would
even be listening--
opening like a fire
Friday, March 21, 2025
that it's only a doorway, that I'm only a door
pet my parents so gently
and secretly check
I can no longer joyride
straddle her hip
I fly them in on my thoughts
my rictus of yearning
Sunday, March 16, 2025
a very short journey to Varanasi
Thursday, March 06, 2025
in this version of myself
as they escape my mouth
even as the sun breaks
through clouds
Wednesday, March 05, 2025
waiting to be discovered
while waiting for the rain
while making some tea
I am owed
Monday, March 03, 2025
Pre-birthday!
Big A and I took off for a hike in Sleepy Hollow State Park, I've wanted to go back with him ever since I went with work friends last month. He downloaded the six-mile loop trail, but I wanted to go around the island too, as it's really picturesque, and then we got lost for a bit--so it ended up being more like eight miles.
At one point, Big A pointed at a plastic tube and looked at me very meaningfully, and I didn't know what he meant--like was he mad that someone had dropped their chapstick? Turned out it was a shotgun casing. I'd never seen one in my life before. We found a bunch more further down the trail, but didn't meet any hunters.
Birthday cards and a garden catalog (Spring is coming!) were in the mail and we got Subway for dinner as a treat. Online birthday greetings are beginning to trickle in (my school friend's big sis in New Zealand is always the first one to wish me), I've had birthday calls with my sister and my uncle, my birthday fundraiser is over halfway there (I set a bigger goal than usual, fingers crossed), I'm on my way! Yay!
Pic:Lake Ovid behind me. Sleepy Hollow State Park.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
and in the end
Saturday, February 22, 2025
a love song / love cakes /surrounded by love
Monday, February 17, 2025
fallout shelter breakout
Sunday, February 16, 2025
a stranger sonnet
for it is also right there and alright
ready to wait for these letters
Friday, February 14, 2025
the drumming in the wilderness
Sunday, February 09, 2025
desire is difficult to diagram
Pic: The hand-made dish I found at the thrift yesterday ($2:73!); I nestled some hyacinths, rosemary, baby aloe, and moss together in it. I think tiny daffodils (when I can get some) would look particularly nice because of the yellow flower in the center. I wonder who made this, whom they gave it to, and why it ended up at the thrift store.
Thursday, February 06, 2025
pre-fight hype song
smeared over my morning
even the soft grey skies feel holy
that the thing
we made of history has caught me
I try hope, I try anger
in this tumbling world
accidents, things constellate my past
hope peoples my future
my muscles and brain are flexed
with the good fight
I use my imagination to succeed
...or survive
Pic: Snow, trees, and the squirrel we call Kylo Ren because of his black garb.
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