Ponder This:

". . . and my day, which nothing interrupts, is like a clock-face without hands. . ."  Rainer Maria Rilke, from "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge".

 

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."  ~William Faulkner

 

 

 

 

Read Rilke.  He never disappoints. 

 

 

 

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Sophie, waking from a cat nap.

 

 

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost....We Have Snow!!!

It's snowing here for the first time in many, many moons.  The silence is awesome.  I woke at 2 a.m. and noticed the glow coming through a window.  It was the gorgeous, white, magical snow.  We got about three inches.  (Don't laugh, you yanks!)  I can't wait for the kids in the neighborhood to wake up and see this.  It'll probably be gone by tomorrow, but it's like a gift, a beautiful, rare gift from Mother Nature.  I immediately thought of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems.  Enjoy!  xo

DUST OF SNOW
By Robert Frost
     

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

 

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

6:00 a.m. in the swamps of Louisiana....snow!

 

Only one of my cats would touch the snow...Gir, or course.  He's under my truck.

 

Natasha Blythe in the snow.

 

Let it snow...

 

 

 

 

 

Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman

An amazingly awesome book.

EVERY RIVEN THING
By Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made.

__________________________________________

rive

rīv/

verb

past participle: riven

1. 1.

   split or tear apart violently.

___________________________

 

Spearmint in red glass.  My Mint loves winter here in Louisiana.

 

 

Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver

From the following poem by Mary Oliver.  Poster from Pinterest.   Starlings in Winter Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly they are acrobats in the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, they swing over buildings, dipping and rising; they float like one stippled star that opens, becomes for a moment fragmented, then closes again; and you watch and you try but you simply can't imagine how they do it with no articulated instruction, no pause, only the silent confirmation that they are this notable thing, this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin over and over again, full of gorgeous life. Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us, even in the leafless winter, even in the ashy city. I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it; I feel my boots trying to leave the ground, I feel my heart pumping hard, I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings. "Starlings in Winter" by Mary Oliver, from Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays.   ------------------------------------------------------   It is frigid here in the deep South, as in under 20 degrees last night. I do not like the cold or I would live 'up North'.  I envy those of you in Canada and all points North who can handle the snow and cold.  Kudos from a certified Southern Belle sitting here wearing three sets of clothes and three pairs of socks...and a sock hat.  Yes, I have heat.  LOL!!!   I'm busy reading (a re-read of the magnificent book, "The Wood Wife", by Terri Windling) and loving 2014.  I'm learning Origami and teaching myself to draw.  I'm in love with Prismacolor Colored Pencils and Watercolor Pencils.  You're never too old to learn something new.  And thank God for gift cards.  :-)  Happy 2014, again.    xo, Marion   "The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months! " ~Edward Payson Powell from Pinterest

SHELFIE- My Vote for Word of the Year - 2013

Okay, I hate the word "selfie".  It's narcissistic and dumb.  BUT, if you add a single little "h" into that word, it becomes sublime.  Shelfie - taking pictures of all your books and sharing said pictures.  I tried to take pics of ALL of my books, but it wasn't possible.  Some are in plastic containers (from that time we had serious hurricane warnings and I had to save the books!!!), some are in closets...my daughters have "borrowed" (i.e. stolen) some of them...you get the picture. 

The books in those cloth bags are from Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN.  Ann Patchett, one of my favorite authors, owns that store and when you join her first editions club you get a SIGNED first edition of the authors of her choice ever so often.  Unfortunately, she and I have waaaaaay different tastes in books, so I only belonged to the club for one year.  The books you see in plastic bags are first editions, my babies.   'Specially the hardcover, first edition diaries of Anais Nin.  Those were a MFer to collect on my budget.  I'm a certified cheapskate.  I got most of them from Ebay from people who obviously didn't know the books were first editions in great shape.  I digress.  Let me upload the few shelfies I took today.  I swear I'm gonna dust all these books before this year is out.  I better get going.  Happy New Year!!!   My one resolution is to READ MORE BOOKS in 2014.  (You can click on the photos to make them larger if you want to read the titles.) 

P. S. Don't judge me because I have 3 copies of "Skinny Legs and All" by Tom Robbins.  Reading his books changed my life.  (Thank you, BFF, Angie Mallette Comer, wherever-the-hell you are, for sending me that first copy of "Jitterbug Perfume" over ten years ago.  I MISS YOU!!!  Where are you???? Call me if you're still alive.  I have the same number!)

These are books about books on the bottom.  Really!!!!   HaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!!

E. E. Cummings and Lorca, how I love you both!!!!

See what I mean about the plastic?  Yeah, baby, that's "Rabbit Run" by John Updike.  Don't slobber on the screen.  Oh, the story that goes along with that book!!!  I could sit here and tell stories all day about each and every book.  I need to do that for my grand-ones.  Okay, hubby went into a junk store to buy a hat.  He sees this book in a pile.  The lady had it marked $15 (in pencil, thank God).  He bargained her down to $5 and she took it.  He gave it to me like handing me a diamond.   He had NO IDEA that he had purchased for me a pristine first edition of "Rabbit, Run" by John Updike.  God love him.  I know, I do. 

 

 

I'm still reading "S." by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst.  It's two stories in one huge book.  I wonder if they knew that John Updike wrote a book titled, "S." back in 1988?  It's one of the most mind-blowing book I've ever read.  The main character is a woman and I could have sworn that book was written by a woman.  It was like he crawled into a woman's body and took over her brain to write this book.  My #1 favorite book by Updike.

I ran out of shelves.  I swear, I have no idea where these milk crates came from!

This is ONE of my To-Be-Read piles.  I got the "Game of Thrones" books for Christmas.  That's going to be a month-long marathon of non-stop reading for January.  I hope it snows.  Fat chance of that.  So much for housework and cooking.  Some things are just waaaay more important once you get my age.  So many book, so very little time, right?

This is Penny Lane and Polly Jean.  (Blythe dolls). P. J. is wearing a curly wig.  Tee-hee.  I hope I never, ever, ever grow up.  Ever.

Okay, I stole several of these books from my husband:  "Radix" by A. A. Attanasio and "Everville" by Clive Barker.  He hasn't missed them yet.

This is my Tom Robbins row.  He's all over the house.  I have many copies of his books.  He's THE master of the metaphor, the king of irony and humor.  I worship him in a bookish sort of way.  He'd be happy to know (I hope) that I have him near John Updike, another of my favorite authors.

My favorite Mark Twain:  "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc".  A masterpiece.

 

I met Rick Bragg at a book festival years ago and made a damned fool of myself, slobbering all over him like a groupie.  But I think he liked it.  He autographed every book of his I brought with me.  You were supposed to buy your books there, but he could tell my books were old and battered.  He winked at me.  If my daughter hadn't been with me, I might have, well, you know.  Use your imagination.  (Licked his face like a dog).  Ha! Ha! Ha!

 

The book, "The Dreaming:  A Novel of Australia" by Barbara Wood was so magical, it literally became a part of me.  I read it when it first came out in the early 90's (or as my granddaughter says, "Oh mah gawd, you mean back in the nineteen hundreds????")  She's a comedian.  Anyway, the book is with me still and I can call up scenes from it like a movie.  Fabulous book.

Oops, more Blythes.  My girls like to hang out with the books, so I cleared them off a shelf.  They're above the books about writing.  I read them, then don't write.  It's a curse.

My James Lee Burke, Joanne Harris and Isabelle Allende shelf.  I'm running out of room.  I need a bigger house.

I love Graham Joyce's books, especially "Smoking Poppy", "Indigo" and "Dark Sister".  He's a wizard with words.  I found those old Rumer Godden books at a library sale for free.  My favorite price!!

That boxed Ursula Le Guin book is another great find:  "Always Coming Home".  This box set edition of the book came with an audiocassette entitled Music and Poetry of the Kesh, featuring 10 musical pieces and 3 poetry performances by Todd Barton. The book contains 100 original illustrations by Margaret Chodos.  I think I paid a dollar for that one, including the cassette and the box.  Tee-hee.  :-)  :-)  :-)

 

The orange/white books are all Angela Carter's.  I found these at a used bookstore in Nashville, TN.  Oh, how excited I got when I saw this pile of her books!  I only owned one at the time and had just discovered her writing.  I happily paid $1 each for these books and didn't even try to bargain them down.  My daughter gripes when I visit her in Nashville and the first thing I want to do is hit the used book stores.  Cheap fun!  I only take two sets of clothes so I can fit more books in my luggage.   (And my 3 grandkids are just like me...I passed on the book gene).

A poetry row, mostly.  It used to be in alphabetical order, but then life crept in....

Ha!  There's that Barbara Kingsolver book I've been hunting for!!!  On the bottom shelf.  I love Tao books.  My fav is "The Tao of Elvis".    Happy Reading in 2014. 

 

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 "I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things."  ~George Robert Gissing

Christmas Sparrow by Billy Collins

Well, this particular cat never caught anything but a bowl of Science Diet.  Catfish, lying on a plastic bag from my favorite clothing store (freepeople.com) doing research for me on a new cat toy from Amazon.  He has a plastic fetish (goes crazy over any kind of plastic...loves to lie on it and crawl into bags...).  He gave this toy five paws up because it held his attention for over five minutes.  Tee-hee...  He's a whopping 25 pounds.  I have 6 cats and he's the only fat, lazy one.  Go figure.  

 

Enjoy this awesome poem.  I heard it on public radio this morning.   xo

Christmas Sparrow

by Billy Collins

The first thing I heard this morning
was a rapid flapping sound, soft, insistent—

wings against glass as it turned out
downstairs when I saw the small bird
rioting in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of glass into the spacious light.

Then a noise in the throat of the cat
who was hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap of a basement door,
and later released from the soft grip of teeth.

On a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a shirt and got it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.

But outside, when I uncupped my hands,
it burst into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.

For the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms as I wondered about
the hours it must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.

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From Mr. Collins' wonderful newest book, "Aimless Love".

 

Support poets.  Buy poetry!!!!

 

Gratitude

 

 

"I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I've been knocking from the inside!" ~Rumi

 

++++++++++

"At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language-door and open the love-window. The moon won't use the door, only the window." ~Rumi

++++++++++

 

"I believe cats to be spirits come to earth.  A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through."  ~Jules Verne (Gir and Debbie, hiding in the roses).

 

 

 

"I don't create poetry, I create myself, for me my poems are a way to me."  ~Edith Södergran

 

++++++++++

 

We had an amazing Thanksgiving with Mama and all of my sisters and brother and their families.  I think we had over 30 people, some we hadn't seen in many years.  I'm grateful for my crazybeautiful family.  I had so many hugs, I got hug-drunk.  I hope your Thanksgiving was as fun as mine.  Today, I'm grateful for the warm sunshine and you.

 

xo,

Marion

 

 

"Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all."  ~William Faulkner

 

Against Devotion by Olena Kalytiak Davis

Photo from my bottle of "Queen of Hearts" Chardonnay.  Review:  "Our Queen of Hearts Chardonnay offers up fresh and zesty ripe fruit flavors like Golden Delicious apple, Bartlett pear, honey and flowers." 

Against Devotion
By Olena Kalytiak Davis

It’s just the same old raving

condolence.  The same old wild sympathy
pulled up to prove you’re not
without a heart.  The fevered understanding
offered from the barstool, from this side
of the confessional’s grate.  The ardent
I’m-so-sorry, the willing I-hear-you,
as the gentle Samaritan you are
inconspicuously leans away from the crazed
whisper:  My life’s so fucked up.
It’s just someone else’s violent
dying.  It’s just your childhood friends stuck
in an oversized world.  The crippled
talking.  The exhausting
confiding.  The not really
caring.  It’s the simple fact that
what’s most touching
is the angle at which some old roof leans
against the sky.  The shockingly thin
trees, the stunning mosaic
of light.  The way the stars keep
arranging themselves
into constellations.  The way the moon’s
always somewhere
in the sky.  What’s most heartbreaking
is this rib piercing this lung.  That I’m
as breathless as this
over nothing.  Wanting everything
bending, layered and resilient:  the parquetry,
the click of heels like the stove
setting itself on fire:  My friends,
it’s our hearts, we should be
walking around grabbing our hearts,
for what could be more burdened,
more efflorescent?  Tell me, what’s
as unfolding, as spiked and as shooted
as this, our dissilient heart.
 
From:  “And Her Soul Out of Nothing” by Olena Kalytiak Davis

parquetry - Inlay of wood, often of different colors, that is worked into a geometric pattern or mosaic and is used especially for floors.

efflorescent - Abloom: bursting into flower.  A gradual process of unfolding or developing.

dissilient - bursting open with force, as do some ripe seed vessels.

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One simply cannot have too much Olena Kalytiak Davis.  She's one of my favorite contemporary poets of all time.  I went hunting in my poetry books (no small feat) for this book and couldn't find it.  I know I have two hard copies, but they was nowhere to be found, (I tend to carry it around with me) so I had to use my Kindle copy (tee-hee) to post this.  I know, I'm an addict.

I just returned from the library where I had a heated discussion with the librarian (fruitless---I know it's the 'higher ups' who decide which books to purchase) because there were like five books of poetry, mostly ancient, in the poetry section which used to have three full shelves of poetry.  I had a horrendous vision of a future without poetry...  So I keep buying it and hoarding it. 

I saw a news piece last week about a bookless library (an oxymoron, right?) in San Antonio, Texas.  It was a vile, cold, contemptible, scary-looking place with only row upon row of computers.  I shudder thinking about it.

For those of you in the U.S., have a Happy Thanksgiving.  I know I have much to be grateful for every moment of every day, poetry, books, friends and all. 

xo,

~Marion

 

Ah! on Thanksgiving day....
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
 and the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
~John Greenleaf Whittier

 

Late October by Dorianne Laux

Last Morning Glory, Late October, 2012

Late October
By Dorianne Laux

Midnight.  The cats under the open window,
their guttural, territorial yowls.

Crouched in the neighbor's driveway with a broom,
I jab at them with the bristle end,

chasing their raised tails as they scramble
from bush to bush, intent on killing each other.

I shout and kick until they finally
give it up; one shimmies beneath the fence,

the other under a car.  I stand in my underwear
in the trembling quiet, remembering my dream.

Something had been stolen from me, valueless
and irreplaceable.  Grease and grass blades

were stuck to the bottoms of my feet.
I was shaking and sweating.  I had wanted

to kill them.  The moon was a white dinner plate
broken exactly in half.  I saw myself as I was:

forty-one years old, standing on a slab
of cold concrete, a broom handle slipping

from my hands, my breasts bare, my hair
on end, afraid of what I might do next.

From:  "What We Carry", page 11

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I am this woman, have been this woman, will probably always be this woman.  Even my children think me a crazy cat lady (one of them is the same, but she also has dogs, chickens, a mule, pigs, geese, etc.).  We have 6 rescued cats, 3 boys and 3 girls:  Gir, Garfield, Catfish and Sophie, Little Debbie and Tigger).  They go outside in the daytime to climb trees, run, kill mice & snakes and play...and we bring them in every night because we live by the woods which are full of predators. 

So right before dark, every night, I begin calling them in.  It begins with "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..." in a nice, normal tone of voice.  Then I wait a few minutes.  No cats come---ever.  I get a little louder:  "Here KITTY, KITTY, KITTY with my hands cupped to my mouth!"  then I wait about 15 minutes.  A couple of the cats come in, always girls.  I imagine the other cats sitting together, licking their paws, grooming and saying, "Hells, bells, let's make her crazy and ignore her---again.")

My husband then says, (every night), "Marion, why do you have to be so loud...you know they'll eventually come to the door."  I do my famous eye-roll, then go back outside to call louder.  It's now a matter of principle.  This time I use the names of whichever cat is missing (always Garfield-the-hunter, sometimes crazy-Gir).  I'm sure our neighbors are thinking, oh, shit, there she goes with her batshit crazy cat-calling.  I really don't care what the neighbors think...that's why we have a tall wooden fence around the yard:  privacy.  (Ha!!)  Finally, after about an hour of calling, chasing them around the yard, throwing sticks under my truck, at times climbing a ladder to get one off the roof (always crazy-Gir), I get them all in the house.  They find the softest spots and crash out for about an hour, then wake up and party until dawn and it starts all over... 

That's a long story to say: that's why I adore this poem.  I see myself in it, but clothed (most of the time). 

xo,
Marion


"I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult.  It's not.  Mine had me trained in two days."  ~Bill Dana

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"A cat pours his body on the floor like water."  ~William Lyon Phelps

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My favorite cat book.  I cry my eyes out every time I read it, thinking about Ramone, my 20 year old Siamese who died a few years back.  It's awesome, as is the author, Cynthia Rylant.  Her book, "The Van Gogh Café" is magical & amazing.  Sometimes children's books are the best.

 

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Crazy-Gir walking on the roof yesterday.  He got himself down somehow.

 

Catfish - who never passes a soft blanket.  He's 21 pounds of kitty-love.

 

Tyler Knott Gregson, the Typewriter Poet

 

 

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