Andare, Partire, Tornare

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Roethke is best for what ails me

Nothing like a good grocery shopping trip to make you happy. Well, makes me happy, anyway. I like knowing our cupboards are stocked.

In an odd mood. I want to post some poems up, but none of them, either my own or other people's, seem to quite fit my mood. Perhaps I'll have come up with something after I go wake Bemo up to go to work and let the dog out for one final pee.

I want to read but none of the books felt right until I realized I wanted to reread Cyteen, a very complex book that took me a while to get into. Once in, though - woof, baby. I devoured it. Haven't read any other by the author, and I may never, but this book is definitely worth it.

Part of the odd mood is the heat. It hit the mid-nineties today, and we had the code red thing where the ozone is bad and buses let you ride for free to try and reduce traffic. Tomorrow is more of the same, heaven forfend.

Been doing a lot of impromptu collaging and just plain messing around in a scrapbook. I don't have to please anybody with it but myself, and it pleases me, so I guess it's a success.

Hmm. Maybe Roethke?

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
THese old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

10:09 p.m. - 2002-06-11

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