Monkey Mind

I've been lighting a candle for morning meditation lately. It helps, but of course my "monkey mind" still has random thoughts jumping in and out. 
 

Today these two things kept popping up: 

1) bits of a student essay in which they despaired of the election and worried that they may be stripped of the right to marry.

 

2) the look in an advisee's eyes when I ran into them in the hallway. Their eyes were crinkly from smiling (behind their mask) but the eyes were tired, sad, and trying hard to be brave. 

Clearly, work/home separation doesn't work very well with teaching.

Fall All Over

It's fall all over the place.

I'm all over Fall (yay!)

I'm all over Fall (blah)

Fall is all (almost) over

It's Fall everywhere.

I fall everywhere.

(I cycle through all this; yesterday's picture from Baker Woods.)

Return (For my Chelli)

From any direction 
I try to meet you,
you greet me.
We hold hands,
"la biss" kiss-
kiss, kiss-kiss.

There was a time when all
I had to do was simply turn
if I wanted to see you or play. 
Do you ever yearn for when 
we were fed from just one 
plate--no yours, no mine?

To sleep together, curling like
vines? Discuss how parting 
our twin beds, sending them 
to opposite walls was painful
(almost as if conjoined twins 
beginning surgery, separation).

My room now--though bright
feels dim and scribbled over,
continents and years crawl
over--what I fear--were last 
visits. Lost keys, lost locks, 
oh--the stitches come loose.

If I am not an island,
how can I swim to you?
I am now just a body
of water surging,
my eyes growing 
round as our earth.

I am come to an age with
endings coiled inside me.
The pandemic's parting gift,
a gift of parting, is the empty
vision unfolding, trying to return
to decisions I made decades ago.

I want to walk up to you

talk about what I have/have

carried. I bring you all this... 

sadness because you'll say you 

see it, know just how to see it,

and be the first to throw it away.

From any direction 

I try to meet you,

you greet me.

We hold hands,

"la biss" kiss-

kiss, kiss-kiss.

Happy 13th!

Look, it's John Lennon turning 13! Ok, It's Nu  😍 😍.

Cupcakes (Tuptakes) by dad; special, surprise, overnight, 18-hour visit by sweet sib At; breakfast pudding by me; calls from all the grandparents, aunts, and great uncle and aunt (VM and AA).  Also--a special "picnic in Paris" themed birthday Zoom with beret-ed friends drinking Perrier and online tours of the Louvre yesterday; Culvers' for dinner by request today; bunches of presents over the weekend; and now they're spending some birthday cash on the internet. 

Happy birthday, my brave new teen!  😍 😍

Time (Into the Pandemic)

 

Who understands this beauty? 

(I know)

hours are not the apocalypse 

(imagine)

I search their mists and dusts

for security

composting fair warnings

once again

I have searched the horizon 

where sun blinks 

this day into some montage 

of time-lapse

Hank and Huck

This morning when I woke, we had new puppy Hank--all sweet chubby puppy face and wobbly puppy legs. But... I couldn't find Huckie. Then I remembered that we'd "exchanged" Huckie for Hank. And then I was grief-stricken for Huckie, wondering if she was wondering where the heck we were and when we were coming to bring her back. Then I woke up properly and realized none of this had really happened. 

*Extra Huckie hugs*

I told my dream to Nu and we marched up to Big A and informed him that we needed a third puppy.

(I love how my brain braids things--I wonder if "Hank" is because I spent time with JL's "Henry" last weekend and "Hank" is a form of "Henry" but sounds a bit like "Huck?")

Louise Glück: Matins

Matins

You want to know how I spend my time?

I walk the front lawn, pretending

To be weeding. You ought to know

I’m never weeding, on my knees, pulling

Clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact

I’m looking for courage, for some evidence

My life will change, though

It takes forever, checking

Each clump for the symbolic

Leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already

The leaves turning, always the sick trees

Going first, the dying turning

Brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform

Their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?

As empty now as at the first note.

Or was the point always

To continue without a sign?

---------------------------------

I presume a four-leaved clover is the "symbolic/ Leaf" Glück is looking for here? Here's At's hand holding some luck he made himself: A four-leaf clover engineered with spit--he told me he tried sweat first, but it didn't hold. (circa 2008, SD's outdoor wedding in DC; Baby Nu in the stroller.)

I've loved this poem for years and am so happy for Louise Glück's Nobel--poets so rarely get big prizes; but are there non Eurocentric writers who are being overlooked? Absolutely.