Long Afternoons
Those were the long afternoons when poetry left me.
The river flowed patiently, nudging lazy boats to sea.
Long afternoons, the coast of ivory.
Shadows lounged in the streets, haughty manikins in shopfronts
stared at me with bold and hostile eyes.
Professors left their schools with vacant faces,
as if the Iliad had finally done them in.
Evening papers brought disturbing news,
but nothing happened, no one hurried.
There was no one in the windows, you weren’t there;
even nuns seemed ashamed of their lives.
Those were the long afternoons when poetry vanished
and I was left with the city’s opaque demon,
like a poor traveler stranded outside the Gare du Nord
with his bulging suitcase wrapped in twine
and September’s black rain falling.
Oh, tell me how to cure myself of irony, the gaze
that sees but doesn’t penetrate; tell me how to cure myself
of silence.
This is a poem that works on several levels and repays re-reading. Good night,
But yesterday I got to drop by for a visit. This library building (we are at the back door) was new when I was young and we moved from the 1910 Carnegie Library in 1975. It will be torn down this fall and a superb new library and community center erected in its place. Lani (embroidered dress) is in charge of the Gilroy Library now and has been since I was transferred in 1983. We had just been to Carmel to lunch with two other library buddies. Go ahead, become a librarian! Your world will expand and you will meet the friends of your dreams!
He's right in the center and seems to be carrying pollen baskets of RED pollen. Does anyone know anything about bees? It was GLORIOUS by the Monterey Bay today!
This is my husband in the late 1940s. probably at a swimming party at Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, where they went for family outings. This is a picture I had never seen, so it was quite a find. His aunt died recently, just past her hundredth birthday, and it was in her box of photos which her daughter, and only child, shared with us on Monday. I was in scanning heaven!
Yesterday my husband's dear cousin, who is the baby in this picture, came down for a visit and some of my husband's excellent blueberry pie. She and her husband hauled with them one large tote box and several small ones filled with family history. It's a treasure trove!
My other find of the day on the wildflower walk. Ann B. said, "Look!" And I looked. I think this brushfooted butterfly is a Chalcedon Checkerspot. And I know I'm in love with his red antennae!
Another picture taken during my grandson's visit. I thought this nautical sunset over San Francisco Bay (see a tower of the Golden Gate bridge on the skyline in the middle of the photograph?) would be a suitable accompaniment for the poem I read at the celebration of National Poetry Month last night.
mentioned in the post below.
This was taken six or seven years ago. Mu grandchildren, and my husband's new dachshund, are watching my daughter-in-law bake a pie. My husband is holding the dachshund on his lap and the level of interest-in-food is high among all the observers. My husband is a divine pie-maker, and he does little seminars with my daughter-in-laws about it when we visit.
You can eat it boiled, like spinach, or raw in salads. They say that the forty-niners ate it to prevent scurvy. At this time of year, it grows in great stands near the paths and under trees in Almaden Quicksilver Park. I sent my son and his family up to the Park when they were here last week, so they could walk the Norton Loop that has such spectacular views of the valley.
