Sunday, January 16, 2011

A Piece of Childhood Lost

A sad, sad thing happened yesterday.  The house on Coolidge Drive, where my family lived from 1967 until Mom moved in 2003, was destroyed by fire.  Such a shock to see your childhood home crumpled, charred and broken.  I've been going through old photo albums this month and sifting through pictures and childhood memories.  It's hard to believe that the house where so many of those memories were made isn't there anymore.




Friday, January 14, 2011

Currently reading

Here are the books I'm reading right now:

The Naked Now--Learning to See as the Mystics See
 by Richard Rohr  (wonderful book!)

All That Rises Must Converge by Flannery  O'Connor


Page after Page--discover the confidence and passion you need to start writing and keep writing
A good book, if a little repetitive, but I love the cover:
Page after Page


Professional reading:
Writing Essentials by Regie Routman and The Fluent Reader by Tim Rasinski
Partly for school, partly for fun:  The Summer of Riley by Eve Bunting

I think this may be the original version of "Baby its Cold Outside"


Spellbound
by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.


Monday, January 10, 2011

A New Point of View




Somehow it helps me to think of all the 
severe starkness as a well earned rest.


Winter Trees
by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.





Monday, January 3, 2011

Saturday, January 1, 2011

A Fresh New Year!

 I like this haiku by Kobayashi Issa:
New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
  Admittedly it is a little subdued.  So is this one, but I like it too....a lot.


Te Deum
by Charles Reznikoff

Not because of victories
I sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largess of the spring.

Not for victory
but for the day's work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table.