A Poe-em

My lilacs...the buds...but the buds have gotten bigger since I took this photo on Friday...I'm glad the weather cooled down...things were popping too fast, too soon...my daffodils that JUST bloomed on Friday were ruined by Monday when it hit 90 degrees in the shade here on my acre...oy vey!

Anyway...spring has sprung, it's the last day of April...

I thought I put up a little poe-em...just because...why not? Ahem...

Full moon rising, the end of summer
A picnic feast, I see the endless blue horizon
and the haze—
Oh, I love the haze! What I would give for lack luster days—
Days bored out of my gourd with nothing to do.
Do and do over, everything—
Yes, everything—wait, but not all of everything,
there are many things,
Things worth keeping as they are.
The way things are, we smile and we laugh.
I stab my potato salad with my fork and gaze up,
up at the benign twilight sky—
The sky is fraught with the barn swallow air show—
Show offs! They swoop and dive, soaring,
soaring little masters of flight—
I’ll take flight! Thinking I could step out,
out into that cornfield, to disappear forever lost—
Lost and tormented by coyotes,
The coyotes persistent yapping,
Yapping and snapping so very nearly,
nearly driving me mad—Mad,
madness, ah, but I’ve got shit to do, so I better not—
It’s not worth the trouble.
The trouble is the moon—
the moon rising orange in the haze, big and full—
Full. I stare at my empty plate, I ate too much—
Much too much, I give my mind over to others,
others, not myself, for eight hours a day—
day after day, five days a week,
the week ends, the week begins,
begins again, it’s the cycle of my life—
Life. I get up and run into the cornfield—
The cornfield! I love its scent—
The sweet scent of things growing tall,
tall green stalks, husks and silk,
I am hidden from the world—
The world revolves, I walk following the moon—
The moon, pale orange, hazy indigo sky will guide me home again—
Again, I will find myself this time.

Well, that's it...yup, it's one of mine, I wrote it back in June 2000, and just recently revisited and revised...it just seems right for now...this poem is the early tremors for my new novel Layers of Illusion...it's simmering on the back burner while I work on other things...

One of the Daffodils before the heat killed it. Dang, they were so pretty too!

July in April

Coltsfoot in bloom...

What a little clamoring hoard!

I scrambled to get the pictures today, this hot weather has come too soon and I feared that these little fellows were going to go to seed before I took their portrait! I love this little thing...such an odd plant...it has made its home on the northern edge of our acre where I haven't really done too much to "develop" the garden...it's still half wild over there and littered with dead leaves and tangled with black berry briars...



...are you ready for your close-up?





To think that only a few days ago...Wednesday I think...there was snow in the air...now it's in the 80's and like summer...someone even fired up their lawnmower...we need some April Showers...

Spring's progress...

Pussy willows are beginning to flower, the Siberian Squill is becoming a blue carpet in one corner of my yard...and these tiny white violets are just overpowering with their sweet fragrance! Other things are beginning to bloom...watching, waiting, preparing...I'm enjoying the sunshine...puttering in the garden...

Spring ponderings...

Crocus and a honey bee...


and then more snow...

Pussy Willows...this bush was once a twig that my father rooted for me from the pussy willow bush at my childhood home...they're like kitty toes...

Speaking of kitty...

A handsome little pussy cat...Charlie...the good little naughty boy...we were napping together today...he made me mad early this morning because he got into my bag of seeds and ate the plastic bag that contained the brussel sprout seeds that my friend had given to me (of course he got sick and left a "present" on the floor to go along with the scatter of seeds all over the floor)...but how can anyone stay mad at that sweet little face...why are the little devils so angelic while they sleep?


The World of Pooh...a comfort book that has soothed me to sleep these last couple of weeks because of my back pain...


A hard cover full of Inspiration...a different kind of comfort...

A journal as an experiment in consciousness. An attempt to record not just the external world, and not just the vagrant, fugitive, ephemeral "thoughts" that brush against us like gnats, but the refractory and inviolable authenticity of daily life: daily-ness, day-ness, day-lightness, the day's eye of experience. -- Joyce Carol Oates, January 1, 1973

Comfort for the mind...

Journal entry

Willy Big looking at me upside-down...


What Gets Your Goat?
That my insurance company denied my MRI back in November because they didn't believe my three numb toes were enough evidence to bother...my new insurance company okayed it in March, and I have a herniated disk in my back. I'm pissed and in pain, I'm not a happy camper.


What am I doing right now?

Tucked in bed with my heating pad on my sore back, laptop in lap. A fat tabby has a paw on my knee, another fat tabby is lounging nearby, and my faithful dog is staring at me with hopeful ears anticipating his after dinner walkies...



What's the weather at the acre?

It's snowing sideways and the wind is howling too (just like January revisited, WTF?) The crocuses that looked so sweet yesterday are purple mush in the slush.



What music has my interest lately?

Metric, an alternative band that my Fred discovered online, and ever since, I've been shopping for all of their CD's. I just got their new album Fantasies as an MP3 download this week, it's awesome...I particularly love the songs Help I'm Alive and Gimme Sympathy, they rock! Visit their MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/metric





What did I accomplish today?

I did our taxes. We're getting money back.
I updated my other Blog Follow Your Bliss...posted pictures of some bones of the earth...
Did some shameless self promotion of Dusty Waters...



What am I working on (creatively)?

I'm editing chapter 9 of The Fractured Hues of White Light (I totally love this book!)



What books I'm reading these days (other than my own)?

The World of Pooh, A. A. Milne (a comfort book that I've had since I was very young and was sick with one of the childhood diseases.)

This one just arrived in the mail today: The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates 1973-1982 (for inspiration)



What's for dinner?

Leftover takeout Chinese food. I think someone threw out my egg roll by mistake. Dang.



Any plans tonight?

I'm going to watch tonight's movie on PBS's Classic Movie Night is Inherit the Wind
and I'll work on some nifty little bits of artwork...
Do some very gentle yoga for my back.



Who'd you rather be, The Beatles or The Rollin' Stones?
-Metric, Gimme Sympathy





Willy Big on the doggy bed, he has some serious belly fuzz...he's plush like a stuffed animal...but weighs about 12lbs...once upon a time, he was Willy Little...