Four's Flights

a couple of poems, sent me by a friend

avoidingstasis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:54:32 +0000

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

BARTER

Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell—

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Climbing fire that sways and sings,

And children’s faces looking up

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell—

Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit’s still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness.

Buy it and never count the cost,

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

funny site

avoidingstasis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:50:24 +0000

http://www.lileks.com/institute/

apologies…

avoidingstasis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:20:21 +0000

…for the typos and other weirdnesses before — have been off my game. Some may still be there, but I did what I could to polish the turd

green blade (beneath snow)

avoidingstasis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:59:28 +0000

a single green blade can cut me

through.

a longing for trees,

crooked fingers

branching

against a winter sky will bring it on.

a cut,

a single green blade

and blood

wells,

again,

unbidden.

the newest dog saga, part one

avoidingstasis — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:11:46 +0000

ChulaLuka (a deep brown chow mix with a very sweet face) is becoming a really good dog. Have noticed lately her honey-brown eyes will hold my gaze for a long time now, and she’s far more responsive when I call her in from outside where she loves to hunt in the weeds at the edge of the berm. She’s only been her about 6 weeks and was very reticent to connect in the beginning, so I let her settle in mostly on her own, watch how the other dogs interact with each other and with me, get used to the schedule and the pace, and find her comfort in us as she felt the need. Shy and skittish, I get the feeling she needs to set her own pace and it’s a relatively slow one. Fine with me. She teaches me patience while she reveals herself to me.

Yesterday I took them all out for our usual walk around the farm. Having hooked ChulaLuka to WookieRosie (my sweet golden, her size) I thought all was secure, but I was mistaken. I’d hooked the hook to her collar instead of a looped leash around her neck. When she scented the recently disappeared deer, she slipped slick out of the collar and took off to the woods, and would not come to her name (yes, she needs some recall work).

I thought I was in for an afternoon, evening, night, a possible-forever of hopelessly searching (no collar, no tags!!) So I turned around and started jogging back to the house to settle the other dogs in and come back out with the car to search and search.

But just as we reached the barn, full-flight ChulaLuka came bounding back from the field, tongue lolling, overjoyed with her adventure and very full of herself. As I guided the pack back into the garden compound, she came along on her own and took the lead, clearly happy to be back where she gets her cookies, which she got in great number along with hugs and kisses.

GREAT DOG!

I have not closed her in her crate (in the far end of our bedroom) even once since the first night, but she still sleeps there part of almost every night, obviously a safe place for her. I’ve covered it with quilted blankets and filled it with a soft cedar smelling dog bed so she’s really comfy in there, but gradually, she’s been spending the dark end of the night curled up in the big brown chair at the foot of my bed, slowly joining the pack. Her coat is several deep, rich shades of brown. It’s often hard to tell if she’s there unless she moves, she blends in so well.

Her only difficult trait is stealing food. She’ll grab anything not nailed down and can snatch food pretty far back on the kitchen counter, and does, as soon as I turn my back. (Am not used to the abilities of big dogs — have gotten spoiled with WookieRosie who is a saint, never takes anything not given her, and I have no idea where she got that from.) ChulaLuka’s also figured out how to upend and empty the big dog food bin if I don’t tuck it carefully into the closet. Am so lucky she didn’t die of bloat the last time — she devoured about five days worth, and didn’t even venture a burp.` The upside: I’ve been keeping the kitchen a lot neater and cleaner lately. Every cloud…

avoidingstasis — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:46:10 +0000

Miss Moon died a few months ago. The day after, I adopted another chi-mix from ARF, a small black bug-eyed girl I’ve named Charlie Little Bug, after Charlie The Lorikeet, who lives happily (I hope) in Riverhead with a lovely couple and about ten other birds, dogs, and cats. CLB is adorable, still a bit yappy, but they all are when they first arrive and all seem to settle into complacency after the first year. She’s a good little tyke, tries very hard to learn everything and get it all right. It was one of those love at first sight things that seems to happen to me with abnormal frequency. In love again.
So, nothing more profound than a shopping list. More prime for the pump, please.

for Miss Moon, who died

avoidingstasis — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:54:49 +0000

fleecy pillow bed, clean and folded.

little bowl, washed and dried

and finally,

tucked away.

huge brave mighty beating heart

still, and from now on,

resounding silent.

How did such an enormous

amazing

self

ever

ever fit into

someone

small

Doing Things Right

avoidingstasis — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:06:56 +0000

not in the business of making resolutions or doing things “right” but…

….I’ve gained about twelve pounds since Frank died and have decided those are twelve too many extra pounds to be carting around and if I have to go back on the Killer Darvon Diet I will. After my surgery the pain meds (which I took for three weeks) made me so sick I could barely eat for six months. I lost 30 pounds. I vaguely thought I was going to die — there’s a limit to how much weight one can lose and stay alive, it’s not an infinite process after all, and it didn’t look as if I were going to start eating again anytime soon, so after exhausting the painfully shallow resources of the western medical world I made my way to an acupuncturist who (fie on her) saved my life.

Of course at that time I had no idea Frank was going to die, so I did actually want to keep living. Now, am not so sure, but of one thing I AM sure, and that living fat is not what I want. Yes, I know I’m not over my goeal weight, and yes I know that going back to WW meetings and getting myself on a regular meditation schedule, in addition to my already in-place regimen of gym attendance, will help, but am all for the easy way out these days and not at all noble about Doing Things Right. The hell with Doing Things Right, really.

The wind is something wild today — several big branches have thumped onto the roof scaring the dogs under the bed and me into my basement studio, and I’d wander over to the beach to collect flotsam if it weren’t so cold and if my throat weren’t already giving me signs of impending doom (a cold, no less!), and if I hadn’t made a date to have dinner with a dear friend and her living-in-Florence-daughter…. I’m going to the beach. The hell with Doing Things Right. Really. Hot tea with bourbon for dinner too. What the hell.

this would be funny…

avoidingstasis — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:45:16 +0000

…if it didn’t so egregiously aggravate the gag reflex:

The Rude Pundit

winter day, soft and grey (compressed)

avoidingstasis — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:56:31 +0000

there were songbirds in the garden yesterday. I thought I could see the shadows of their voices in the snow. Today the gentle rains came tapping cold fingers on the windows, little rivers winding approximately downward to the icy deck. The rain had an apologetic air, as if sorry for the wind and fury of the last storm.

There was a river at the ocean too, a nice big one, one of those tidal pools lifted by the storm over the mounded wash of beach to the base of the dune, so calm and shallow and smooth I was tempted to strip down join the dogs paddling through it. They had at first tried to walk though and found to their sudden wide-eyed shock it was deeper than their little legs were long. Miss Moon, the oldest one with of course the one difficult heart, stood aghast in what appeared to be horror and had to be air lifted out, but the others soon recovered their poise and discovered winter swimming was just exactly what they had planned all along. The legal tenants of the beach, the long-billed muscular ocean-master birds flapped and swooped and voiced their protests at our intrusion, so we left them to their cold grey watery skies, hied home, and jumped into the Japanese soaking tub to warm up and shed some of the acre of sand the dogs’ coats managed to scuffle along. The sweet, powedry-almond smell of their shampoo filled the steamy room in the loveliest way. Eight towels later we were all dried and relatively dressed and ranged around the woodstove (me with my big squishy socks and hot chocolate, they with their treats), where I sat for a while trying to read “When Things Fall Apart” but wanting really only to watch the silvered, shimmering rain, and the smooth drifts of snow in the garden. I think tomorrow the songbirds will visit again, and trail their tuneful shadows like long, silken nets over the snow.