The perfect poem for this period

I came across this poem in a group I had saved and it felt like it had been written for this moment:

Everything is Going to Be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

Derek Mahon

Unexpected events

On Friday, I took a dawn hot tub steam curling tranquilly around the sweet peas, heading towards the bay just visible between oak branches. Then I noticed that the electric fence, which guards my chickens from predators, was not blinking, which meant it was shorted out somewhere. I dressed and went down to find a sizable oak limb had split off and crashed through the chicken run, rupturing the bird net and the fence.

Luckily both the tree guy and the handyman were able to come right away, and by noon the fence was secured and the confused chickens all in place.

Then my grandson and I decided to try to trap the cheeky squirrel who has been pilfering the chicken and bird food despite lacing it with hot pepper. We got out my old trap, set it with peanut butter, and scattered a trail of sunflower seeds up to and into it. By evening, the sunflower seeds leading right up to the trap were gone, but no squirrel.

“Maybe he’s too smart for us,” I told my grandson. We decided to leave the trap baited overnight, and this morning I woke to find a skunk in it.  I’ve had a lot of experience with skunks from the time our house backed onto a large open space in Lafayette. The county used to drop off traps and then pick up trapped skunks. Those traps were very narrow, so once caught the skunks couldn’t raise their tail to spray. My trap has plenty of room for the skunk to spray, so it was a problem. I got an old towel and held it in front of me as I approached the trap. The skunk sprayed and sprayed until his little spray reservoir was depleted. Then I covered him with another old towel, put the cage on a rubber mat in the back seat and drove the trap to Tilden Park, where I propped the trap open and let him flee.  The car smells only a tiny bit skunky, as does my right arm.  The towels and cage are out in the sun, waiting for time to reduce the smell. Continue reading “Unexpected events”

A good poem for now

You may know Raymond Carver for his short stories, but he also wrote poetry.  Here’s an example, appropriate for this moment:

Sunday Night

Make use of the things around you.
This light rain
Outside the window, for one.
This cigarette between my fingers,
These feet on the couch.
The faint sound of rock-and-roll,
The red Ferrari in my head.
The woman bumping
Drunkenly around in the kitchen . . .
Put it all in,
Make use.

Raymond Carver

A day of no particular importance…

For over 50 years, Larry and I have ignored Mother’s Day, Father’s Day…I mean, really, showing up for each other for the other 364 days of the year is what counts. But for some unknown reason, Larry made me breakfast yesterday. And later in the day, my grandson brought over this bouquet that he picked himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I guess this year we celebrated. Therefore, today you get a mother’s day poem. I especially love the line “Among your earthiest words the angels stray,” though I’m not sure I could tell you why, perhaps just the sounds of it.

Those Irishmen have a certain earthiness to them that is unmistakeable.

Au revoir Little Richard

Although I’m posting this in Stuff Larry Sez, Larry is not the protagonist here (though he did know Little Richard’s last name)–just forwarded on an email from a friend about Little Richard. Here’s someone‘s story:

I recorded little Richard for a commercial about 30 years ago. He nailed the commercial in two takes… Total pro. But… He wore so much cheap rose perfume that it actually bonded with the diaphragm of the microphone, and could not get the aroma out!

With only a faint hope for success, we wrapped the microphone in plastic and sent it back to the manufacturer, and told them of our plight. What we got was a picture of a guy in a Class-3 hazmat suit, holding the bag, along with completely refurbished microphone, and a letter that said they used their “least senior engineer“ to perform the “Rose-ectomy” and “decontamination protocols” were adhered to with “utmost security precautions”.

The band in the great beyond just got better.

Witter Bynner

In my early twenties I wrote a letter to John Berrryman, and he replied saying something about my “witchy name.” But surely Witter Bynner has the witchiest name of all, and though born in 1881, his work seems utterly contemporary:

Undressing You

Fiercely I remove from you
All the little vestiges—
Garments that confine you,
Things that touch the flesh,
The wool and the silk
And the linen that entwine you,
Tear them all away from you,
Bare you from the mesh.
And now I have you as you are,
Nothing to encumber you—
But now I see, caressing you,
Colder hands than mine.
They take away your flesh and bone,
And, utterly undressing you,
They tear you from your beauty
And they leave no sign.
Witter Bynner