Cemetery Road

The lillies hold their buds
graves look like boxes
are actually books

were actually houses
eyes are hard
as glass looked through

this room, this city is empty
aloneness floods tunnels
I imagine only a little

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Flow

Amma, my mom, teases me about living in a village because her family has been city folk for over three generations. (Her grandfathers--her actual, biological grandfather and his younger brother--ran away from their new stepmother to make their fortunes as diamond merchants and to write poetry in Madras. Childhood memories of visits to any jeweler in the city is replete with Amma's oh-so-casual mention of the Jalagam name resulting in a flurry of special treatment.)

But on a day like today when Big A and I needed to talk through stuff, I'm glad I live in this village and across from Glen Helen. Talking about how we spend our free time and what social commitments I make on our collective behalf--which we really needed to do--is so much easier when I'm concentrating on how to navigate stepping stones across a waterlogged creek rather than on how to word watertight demands.

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This Yellow Springs Life

I thought the highlight of today would be my date at the opera this afternoon with Big A, but as it turned out, it wasn't.

Big A's colleague had two spare tickets to Ira Glass on tour and they were ours for the taking. And we took 'em. And yes, it was awesome to listen to and see Ira Glass, but that wasn't the highlight either.

Saturday morning line up for me and the kids while Big A sleeps off his night shift involves the Farmers' Market, getting to choose their free book at Dark Star, spending a couple of dollars--via birthday gift cert--at Mr. Fubs, and trying to get home to listen to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and This American Life over lunch.

As it turns out the opera and Ira were across the street from each other, but I wanted to go with Li'l A. So the highlight was to have Big A let me enjoy the second half of the star gala at the opera by myself while he braved the wilds of the midwest to retrieve the Ira Glass tickets so I could dash home, change out of opera togs, grab some of the pizza that had been delivered, and go back downtown with Li'l A in tow.


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