Glorious things

This morning dawned drizzly, foggy and bleak. The blackbirds were flying low, tree level, and so loud it was glorious. Speaking of glorious things, Jerry got me some new pajamas which are the most wonderfully weird things I’ve ever seen: disembodied heads, his and Phil’s, float around in a teal-ish blue background. I love them – PJ’s, man and cat.
 
Today is the day before the day that ends the year. My last day to run errands: birds need seeds and I needed my library books. Tomorrow the whole day is devoted to working on poetry. Well, my day will be devoted to poetry; we will take a walk at some point; there will be a nap and reading, lots of reading. Maybe an episode of Perry Mason, these are wild times we’re living in.
 
And now, a poem for no other reason than I told Justine I had a poem about a type of pasta, Garganelli, when we were in Columbus for Christmas, and she is making pasta today.
 
Buon appetito!

Garganelli

A man is making pasta, a volcano of flour
is filled with a dozen yolks sprinkled with salt.
He whisks these until every egg is broken and blended
into a smooth golden cream and then the sides
of the cone are folded into this center. Once
every dry ingredient has become moist he kneads
the mass smooth. He forms the dough into a ball,
cuts a third of it away and feeds it into a pasta press.
These he refeeds until he has a
saffron sheet that looks like fine cloth. From here
he works like a seamstress, cutting equilateral
squares no more than two inches per side.
The blend of sciences then become art 

as he takes a corner, spools it around a dowel
and then rolls it across a board
(called a comb) that creates grooved
tubes of pasta. And like that he has food.

Science, magic, precision. Mangiamo!

Image from Marcellina in Cucina

a Garganelli Board

The long winter night fills us

 

Celebration

There is a reason we save this time
of the year for celebration,
this time when we need sun or star or flame
to take us through the axis tip;
when we need snowfall and miracle
and warmth and song to carry us through
till spring. There is a reason
we search the sky, listening for wingbeat,
verse, the sound of doves hovering
in the shelter of pine. We look toward
one another, rather than away,
pull in toward the hearth
the sturdy chair, take the arms of one
so loved, we could not go on
without them, and in this
pause, we pull in the world.
The long winter night fills us:
a renewal, a radiance, a reason for waking.

~~M.E. Hope

Bring me chimes

Last night this sky ended the day. Swoon. Today, squirrel gangs were running up and down the trees, leaping branch to branch, down to fences and into yards. At least nine squirrels. (I think earlier a few had run across my roof.) There were two groups and at a certain point there was some sort of call and a standoff ensued, followed by lots of running along the neighbor’s new fence. I watched until the last squirrel disappeared into a Sweet Gum tree, three yards over. Earlier a squirrel had risked life and limb to look for a peanut in the lawn while a fifty or so starlings had decided the front lawn was theirs, every time they shifted into the air the squirrel ran to the tree and then back, and then bird flight and then back; I hope the calories were worth it.

It has been a rainy day and a thunderstorm moved through at one point. The birds scrambling about out my office window were covered in miniscule rain drops. Lovely little bits of light they periodically shook off as they dug through leaves. A good assortment of sparrows and finches and dark eyed junco, cardinals (of course), chickadees, the tufted titmouse couple (💓), doves and a few blue jays that needed to come by in case they were missing something.

So: it is rainy and warmish, but no wind today, no tornado brewing (or forecast), no snow either. Almost solstice. It was quiet today. It is quiet now. I tried to find a poem about quiet and found this anti-quiet poem.

Save me

Save me. Save me from this need for stillness,
this quiet house soaking into my skin.
Fill me with song, syllables of sound,
banging drums, birds eager to tell stories.

Tell the coyotes to bring their yellow eyes
and grey muzzles, to lift me on their cries,
let me howl until my voice matches theirs.
Save me. Find a way to open my stalled

and silent heart. Fill me with aspen and oak
leaves, the hallowed rush of pine needles
chanting in the night. Locust and poplar,
willow and birch quivering in breezes

filling the day with chorus and hymn. Save me.
Bring me chimes, horns, reeds singing
like love struck frogs, crickets trapped
by solstice, cats crazed with heat.

Open the hours, open the night, let the stars
clash and burn like July 6th firecrackers,
let the falling ice cascade outside my window
open your mouth and speak. Save me.

       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And from bell hooks, this ties in too.

To all a good night

Yesterday during our snow “storm”, at the coldest point of the day, the tree man, Bill, came by to talk to me about a tree at the corner of our house. He’d just gotten his mother home from a doctor’s appointment in Saint Louis and was running late or we would have missed the chill. I like his tree company and I find his crew hardworking and fun. I like that the first time he came for a broken branch on a pine in the backyard he brought his granddaughter who he was helping look after during the school closure(s). (I wrote one of my first pandemic poems about that visit.) And I really like to support a hometown business.

The tree is an ornamental pear variety filled right now with cherry size fruit. The birds love them because they’ve frozen and grown soft. The tree looks amazing but over hangs the roof (half its leaves are lining the rain gutters I’m pretty sure) and its roots are working their way toward the foundation. We talked solutions and options and possibilities. Next Jerry and I will talk possibilities and options and solutions; what would we put there if the tree needs to leave (tree-leave…tee hee).

I asked Bill if he’s been busy and he said it’s constant which is good all around. Then he pulled his long, mostly white beard up under his chin and said “Guess who I am?” And told me they’d gotten the Santa suit out of the closet and he had his first appearance scheduled that night for an Alzheimer’s home. He said throughout December he is a drop in Santa as needed throughout the community. As he left, and the snow skittering about, he got to his pickup door and said Merry Christmas and let out a warmup “Ho Ho HO!”

Tender light

The tree guy, Bill, and his granddaughter,
Eveline, are making their rounds.
She is eight and is being reminded
by Bill, keep six feet now. She’s
in his care during the pandemic
knowing it’s yard work only, a little
walking, some safe distance questions
from homeowners. I question her:
she’s in second grade, her favorite
class is math and yesterday she caught
two bluegills with Grampa Bill.
She’s shimmering like a dandelion,
full of tender light, she steps closer
until Grandpa tells her, six feet
honey, remember, and she dances
away. She’s the kind of girl who wants
to come close, share wonder, reach
for your hand. Soon, I think, soon.
As they leave, she waves and waves.

Kindness as creed

When I was younger, I thought I would never marry, I wanted to travel and write and write and travel. In high school I remember a class with Mr. Cosgrove, he had so many stories and we got him off topic so much (he also loved to have trivia battles rather than teach!) and I remember once he said, in answer to a question about marriage, he knew he wanted to spend everyday of the rest of his life with the woman he did marry; once he realized that he didn’t need anything else. That seemed a lofty thing though.

When I thought about love it was abstract and unknowable. And then I met someone who changed my mind. I thought about sharing a life with someone but didn’t see how this worked, (constantly recalling my father’s words when we argued about bedmaking (mine) “You don’t make your bed!” “I married someone to do it for me!”. It was so dismissive of my mother, his wife.

But then I remembered I did know of a partnership that seemed right, a model that made me feel like it was possible to, well, be in a partnership. I saw this model when I was 18; certain images stay with me, the passing of a hand over the loved one’s shoulder, a shared memory and laugh, genuine care and respect. Gentleness with each other. Kindness as creed. And I have been honored to be a part of this family, Dean asked me to be his daughter, happy to oblige. And Bette has been a teacher, mentor and friend. They have given me so much. Support. Cheer. Many a meal. Poetry. A place to rest so often.

And they are the quintessential married couple. They’ve had highs and lows like us all but always seem to look outward. Yes, we carry on, but how are you? I’m so happy to know them. I’m so happy to wish them a happy anniversary.

Next year we dance, next year we feast! I’ll bring the gooseberry pie. I love you both so very much.

Bette and Dean and Fiona.