umm..

Well, this was unexpected...

Not if you'd been paying attention to the weather forecast, of course...

But I've been in my own head a lot lately.

Deadlines and projects seem to be multiplying, so I sat and wrote them all down to figure out how I'm going to get them all done.

one at a time, naturally...

Pic: I can't deny how beautiful the backyard looks.

distraction central

Max, Big A, and Huck are all wrestling at my feet and it makes it very difficult to get grading done... 

an echo without a wall

here, speak  to  Amma

my sister offers, holding 

out  the hair dryer to me

I gently receive the device

lift aside the strands of hair

caught in its grill, delicately

I set the roaring  machine

to my ear  where it  begins 

to angrily melt my earrings

at first I can't hear my mother

--speak a little louder--I beg

even as I feel bad for asking

as  she  sounds so, so  tired 

and  now she's  complaining

about how she forgot to bring 

any money with her

don't you remember this moment?

we are kneeling

at a cliff's edge

      in prayer 

      or defeat

rocks enthroned

trees congregate

      benumbed

      or tranquil

there you are born

dropping headfirst

      like a diver

      into life

your body, landscape

your cries a chorus

      all longing

      and love

__________

Pic: E.M.'s post-dinner pic of Max and Huck.

I will always be writing this poem

it may take years and years 
to tell me the world

but I am stubborn 

I am shocked in sections

to realize my mother 

open as a shadow 

in the middle of this life

I find myself lying

flat, face down 

following how my anger

gets lost late at night  

in family elegy

remembering two months

fractured from the hard symmetry of days

from the moment I open my eyes

 aware of every treachery of light

of going away, of disappearing

on rivers of  might  have been 

and what can never be again 

I beg mercy of shadows 

who, too, flee 

from me 

_____

Pic: A full moon tonight.

prospectus

the yellow bruise of the morning 

is where I list wonders aloud

& I can't pick myself up

from bending silences

and lock on air

I dare any unknown to find me 

I draw maps to where I am

ghosts already know me

falling through the sky 

all breath only sighs

Pic: Max and Huck are surprised in the guest room.

this is not nothing

end 

endings

I've been obsessing over these words and their various forms so much that they've begun to look unreal...

end

ends

what if they didn't exist 

Pic: Sunset over Saginaw St.

the saving of things

Every day, all day long, I find myself saving little things to relay on our chats--funny things, important things, life hacks, memories, things the kids did, what happened to me, what I cooked, questions about things that happened long ago, language/culture/religion queries...

and then the realization that she probably already knows all these things now... 

lookez-vous*

Happy to be greeted by this crepuscular sunshine on my way home.

And happy to be back home, reunited with Big A, Max, and Huckie... and At and Nu on the phone.

Now to check on the backlog of work.

*I saw this bit of franglais on a billboard and it made me chuckle. I couldn't wait to use it myself... take that, Duolingo.

all treats

Our team won SILVER at the iGEM !! (We won bronze last year, so we're goin' up, up, up!) 

I took off by myself for the first time this week, and visited St. Michel, St. Germain, La Sorbonne (where E.M and I presented a paper virtually earlier this year), and meandered all over the left bank.

Then I saw an old friend on the Paris metro and took a picture with him.

I can't wait to be back with family tomorrow. It has been so difficult this week. I guess I've been here too long--at dinner today, the waiter said he was sure he'd met me before, making people at my table laugh.