Well, that lasted long.

Pictured: Several of the rocks I've been hiding under.

I intend to be up and running, clogging your feeds with YouTube links and some reference to baked good or another in the next few days. Until then, I give you the entry I had meant to post about three weeks ago. Progress is progress.

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Hello, kids. I'm a bad blogger and I know it. My constant dry spells and subsequent need for forgiveness are just part of my charm though, right? It was near-August when I last posted. Oops. Here are a few things I've learned since then.

-An instrument tuned to A440 'makes you a little nervous'. (Thank you, Steve Lindley.)

-Couples love me. I don't know what it is, ladies and gentlemen, but something about me puts romantic duos in a giving mood. Give me your spare water bottle? Sure. Let me move to the front row of the concert? But of course. Swipe me through when my MetroCard isn't working? Don't give it another thought.

-Teaching hospitals are considerably less fun than an episode of Scrubs when you're on the patient-side of things.*

-It is possible for me to send several letters to the wrong addresses. Twice.

-Rabbit is delicious.

-Telling your brain to shut up when a situation is entirely out of your hands will make for a much more enjoyable time. I mean, there's nothing you can do about potentially being trapped on a island, is there?

-Road rage is easier to manage with a rubber orca in the passenger's seat.

-Airport security personnel really appreciate winter-wear.

-Finding the ridiculous nightshirt of your dreams is well worth the risk of bed bugs.

-I am just as gullible as I was at five. Creator of that Mars hoax, you broke my heart.

Follower Love-Fest #12: Z

I love the mystery of Z. One letter is all you need, and it's just the right one when A-Y just won't do. Z is, as his (her? I really don't know.) picture will show, is a leather-clad warrior who is liable to take your ass down a peg or two if you so much as look at his Beanie Baby collection the wrong way.

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*This one will come up again in our next edition, too. El ohh el.

Anyway, I'm trying out this new thing where I'm a truly productive member of society. I get up early, eat wholesome breakfasts, get all my work done, am highly involved in extracurriculars--all that kind of stuff. Or, at least, that's the idea. We'll see how it works out.

Obligatory Valentine's Day Entry

Don't let the title fool you, ladies and gentlemen--unlike most people, I quite love Valentine's Day.

I spend most days of the year trying to convince people that they don't need to earn love or nice things, that goodness should just come to them because they are people and we are not put on this earth to suffer.

More often than not, though, my particular worldview is not shared or accepted.

Today is a genuinely consumeristblahblahblah day which nobody seems to enjoy, regardless of their relationship status.

It does, however, give me an opportunity to send that extra blast of love-spores (Sperm imagery, I know. Just bear with me.) into the world without fear of being thought a creep.

So what if I have to endure a few eye rolls and cynical sighs?

Whether they like to admit it or not, everyone likes being reminded that they are loved, and I am okay with being the one who gently tugs on their shirttails to do so.

And, now, a poetic interlude from Mr. Kenneth Rexroth with one of my favourite poems. In fact, it is the one from which this silly little blog gets it's name. Photos by lberto Polo Iañez.

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When We with Sappho

“. . . about the cool water
the wind sounds through sprays
of apple, and from the quivering leaves
slumber pours down . . .”

We lie here in the bee filled, ruinous
Orchard of a decayed New England farm,
Summer in our hair, and the smell
Of summer in our twined bodies,
Summer in our mouths, and summer
In the luminous, fragmentary words
Of this dead Greek woman.
Stop reading. Lean back. Give me your mouth.
Your grace is as beautiful as sleep.
You move against me like a wave
That moves in sleep.
Your body spreads across my brain
Like a bird filled summer;
Not like a body, not like a separate thing,
But like a nimbus that hovers
Over every other thing in all the world.
Lean back. You are beautiful,
As beautiful as the folding
Of your hands in sleep.
We have grown old in the afternoon.
Here in our orchard we are as old
As she is now, wherever dissipate
In that distant sea her gleaming dust
Flashes in the wave crest
Or stains the murex shell.
All about us the old farm subsides
Into the honey bearing chaos of high summer.
In those far islands the temples
Have fallen away, and the marble
Is the color of wild honey.
There is nothing left of the gardens
That were once about them, of the fat
Turf marked with cloven hooves.
Only the sea grass struggles
Over the crumbled stone,
Over the splintered steps,
Only the blue and yellow
Of the sea, and the cliffs
Red in the distance across the bay.
Lean back.
Her memory has passed to our lips now.
Our kisses fall through summer’s chaos
In our own breasts and thighs.
Gold colossal domes of cumulus cloud
Lift over the undulant, sibilant forest.
The air presses against the earth.
Thunder breaks over the mountains.
Far off, over the Adirondacks,
Lightning quivers, almost invisible
In the bright sky, violet against
The grey, deep shadows of the bellied clouds.
The sweet virile hair of thunder storms
Brushes over the swelling horizon.
Take off your shoes and stockings.
I will kiss your sweet legs and feet
As they lie half buried in the tangle
Of rank scented midsummer flowers.
Take off your clothes. I will press
Your summer honeyed flesh into the hot
Soil, into the crushed, acrid herbage
Of midsummer. Let your body sink
Like honey through the hot
Granular fingers of summer.
Rest. Wait. We have enough for a while.
Kiss me with your mouth
Wet and ragged, your mouth that tastes
Of my own flesh. Read to me again
The twisting music of that language
That is of all others, itself a work of art.
Read again those isolate, poignant words
Saved by ancient grammarians
To illustrate the conjugations
And declensions of the more ancient dead.
Lean back in the curve of my body,
Press your bruised shoulders against
The damp hair of my body.
Kiss me again. Think, sweet linguist,
In this world the ablative is impossible.
No other one will help us here.
We must help ourselves to each other.
The wind walks slowly away from the storm;
Veers on the wooded crests; sounds
In the valleys. Here we are isolate,
One with the other; and beyond
This orchard lies isolation,
The isolation of all the world.
Never let anything intrude
On the isolation of this day,
These words, isolate on dead tongues,
This orchard, hidden from fact and history,
These shadows, blended in the summer light,
Together isolate beyond the world’s reciprocity.
Do not talk any more. Do not speak.
Do not break silence until
We are weary of each other.
Let our fingers run like steel
Carving the contours of our bodies’ gold.
Do not speak. My face sinks
In the clotted summer of your hair.
The sound of the bees stops.
Stillness falls like a cloud.
Be still. Let your body fall away
Into the awe filled silence
Of the fulfilled summer —
Back, back, infinitely away —
Our lips weak, faint with stillness.
See. The sun has fallen away.
Now there are amber
Long lights on the shattered
Boles of the ancient apple trees.
Our bodies move to each other
As bodies move in sleep;
At once filled and exhausted,
As the summer moves to autumn,
As we, with Sappho, move towards death.
My eyelids sink toward sleep in the hot
Autumn of your uncoiled hair.
Your body moves in my arms
On the verge of sleep;
And it is as though I held
In my arms the bird filled
Evening sky of summer.