"Spring is like a perhaps hand" (e.e. cummings)

"Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare...

arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and...

changing everything carefully...

Spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while...


people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and...

without breaking anything."

(--e.e. cummings)

A Very Happy Easter to one and all!
Happy Spring!

(photos from last spring in Duke gardens)

"In summer, the song sings itself." (-William Carlos Williams)

It's been one of those wonderful, lazy summer weekend days today:

I confess, I didn't do a bit of weeding in the garden, which I should have done.

Well,... I did mow the lawn, (since Joe is mending after arthroscopic knee surgery.) But we started the day with decadence-- french toast for breakfast, along with plump strawberries, syrup, and whipped cream. (It's the weekend, right?)

For a good bit of the day, we sipped lemonade, relaxed, read the Sunday New York Times, and quietly watched the birds fly back and forth to the feeders. I clipped flowers for vases all over the house.

Joe and I are babysitting "the kids"--Olivia and Winston. (Joe always teases that the two of them put together might equal one complete dog.)

They've actually behaved quite well. Olivia likes to curl up behind Joe on his chair, and she'd be pretty content to sleep there with him almost all day long if he let her. I don't think she'd care if he never moved.

Winston, on the other hand, likes me to harness him up and venture into the Great Outdoors, where he can sniff and nuzzle every flower, leaf, and blade of grass to his heart's delight. To see the two of them, you'd think visiting Joe and me is a pretty exciting adventure!

When I took Winston out for one last walk this evening, we saw fireflies flitting around the yard in that magical way they do, blinking like little fairies in the dimming skies.

It brought back memories of summers as a little kid, catching those little guys and putting them, with leaves, into Mason jars, with holes poked into the lids. We'd watch them lighting up the sky, and finally we'd let them go, out into the steamy night.

In Defense of Fireflies:

Of a starlike start they are accused
as if a star was ever used
to combat cancer, or to lure
phosphorescent mate, secure.

Since when were fireflies meant to stay?
They propogate and fly away
and now you cannot find them in
a single field or north woodland.

(--Robert Frost)

wis*ter*i*a: "any of several climbing woody vines of the genus Wisteria in the pea family"

Wisteria

Violet, whispered Eve, because
saying the names aloud

made the act too real. Pansy
and woodruff, the flowers so small

some of them, she was afraid,
they'd be forgotten--though what did she know

about forgetting, when she had
no past at all? She took to her task

immediately, absorbed by the strange
courage to assign names to things. Adam

was on the other side of the garden, away
from her for the first time. Snapdragon

and Coral Bells; the sensuous sounds
rolled across her tongue, although

she didn't know sensuous yet. The untrod
path curved to the right. She stopped, no not



the apple tree: that will come soon
enough. Here a twisting vine knuckles

through the gate that separates them
from another world.



Wisteria, she says--aloud this time--the syllables
as liquid to her as the blooms

dribbling from the branches
like slow rain.

(-Heather Hallberg Vanda)

“…you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens” (-e.e. cummings)

This weekend was the first time in quite a while that I had some moments to breathe. Since it was beautifully warm and balmy, I spent hours in the garden, cleaning, weeding, trimming things back, and just in general getting things ready for spring.

I went to my favorite nursery, just to enjoy what was there, but also to pick out some pretty things for a friend’s birthday.

The place just does my heart good: I love its gurgling fountains, glorious urns, elegant topiaries, and rich, colorful flowers bursting out of baskets and pottery.

I left thinking that spring is definitely on its way. ..

"O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

fingers of

prurient philosophers pinched

and poked

thee

; has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

beauty .how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

(but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

thou answereth

them only with

spring)"

(-e.e. cummings)

" When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.” (-Unknown)

To Cupid

Child, with many a childish wile,

Timid look, and blushing smile,

Downy wings to steal thy way,

Gilded bow, and quiver gay,

Who in thy simple mien would trace

The tyrant of the human race?

Who is he whose flinty heart

Hath not felt the flying dart?

Who is he that from the wound

Hath not pain and pleasure found?

Who is he that hath not shed

Curse and blessing on thy head?

(-Joanna Baillie)

“Bring the tulip and the rose, While their brilliant beauty glows.” (-Eliza Cook)

A Tulip Garden

Guarded within the old red wall's embrace,

Marshalled like soldiers in gay company,

The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry

Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace

Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!

Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry,

With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye

Of purple batteries, every gun in place.

Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread,

With torches burning, stepping out in time

To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead,

We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime

Parades that army. With our utmost powers

We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.

(-Amy Lowell)

"You can't keep a squirrel on the ground" (-Mary Lasswell)

“Squirrels for nuts contend, and wrong or right,

For the world’s empire kings ambitious fight

What odds?—to us ‘tis all the self-same thing,

A nut, a world, a squirrel, and a king.”

(-Charles Churchill)

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

"Praise Song for the Day"

What an uplifting day it was for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration. The whole country seemed filled with feelings of hope and anticipation.

I was supposed to head to Duke on Tuesday, but because we were hit with four inches of snow all day, I wound up being thrilled that I was able to stay at home and watch the Inauguration as it took place. I was touched, I cried a few times, and I felt a surge of happiness at what it all represented.

There were lots of reasons that the day was special and historic, and the snow that we so seldom see here in North Carolina somehow seemed very fitting.

All in all, a moving, uplifting day for watching TV, painting, and staying warm.

Praise Song

“…In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp—praise song for walking in that light.”

(-Elizabeth Alexander)

"Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue." (Unknown)

Statues
(-Pablo Neruda)

The pigeons visited Pushkin
And pecked at his melancholy
The gray bronze statue talks to the pigeons
With all the patience of bronze.

The modern pigeons
Don't understand him
The language of birds now
Is different.
They make droppings on Pushkin
Then fly to Mayakovsky.
His statue seems to be of lead.
He seems to have been
Made of bullets.
They didn't sculpt his tenderness -
Just his beautiful arrogance.
If he is a wrecker
Of tender things
How can he live among violets
In the moonlight
In love?

Something is always missing in these statues
Which are fixed rigidly in the direction of their times.
Either they are slashed
Into the air with a combat knife
Or they are left seated
Transformed into a tourist in a garden.
And other people, tired of riding horseback
No longer can dismount and eat there.
Statues are really bitter things
Because time piles up
In deposits on them, oxidizing them
And even the flowers come to cover
Their cold feet. The flowers aren't kisses.
They've also come there to die.

White birds in the daytime
And poets at night
And a great ring of shoes surrounding
The iron Mayakovosky
And his frightful bronze jacket
And his iron unsmiling mouth.

One time when it was late and I was almost asleep
On the edge of the river, far off in the city
I could hear the verses rising, the psalms
Of the reciters in succession.
Was Mayakovsky listening?
Do statues listen?

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” (-Michelangelo)

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.” (-Carl Reiner)

Four seasons do it for me.

I like the variety of all the changes in climate, and I like living where we experience each one. But I do have to admit, North Carolina has what I call more “blended” seasons than other places where I’ve lived.

We get a beautiful burst of spring as early as February or March each year.

We get a long, flower-filled summer, and we definitely get heat and humidity in those later months.

Fall is stunning with the brilliant colors that rouse that time of year.

But our winter is “just enough” to do it for me: cold enough to enjoy sweater and coat weather, or to build a roasting fire in the fireplace, but not that long a season, and not cold enough to keep pansies from peeking up out of the ground. We rarely get snow, and if we do at all, it’s not typically that much. I do remember one year when he got 22” of snow, but that was extremely unusual, and that was some years ago.

Now, I love snow if I can enjoy it, and go sleigh riding in it, but to get out and have to dig my car out of it and plod into work on a freezing morning is not my idea of fun...I've paid my dues there!

I am always so glad when I see the cold weather is here to stay each winter, because for me, it means I’m home for the season. I recently realized I stayed in 65 hotels this fall, and so now my “hotel” is home, and I'm good with that!

“Weather is a great metaphor for life—sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and there’s nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella.” (-Pepper Giardino)

"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt." (~Author Unknown)

This weekend was a whirlwind. Home very briefly, I had lots of work still to do, so it was with great joy that on Sunday, Joe and I both got out to do some fall cleaning in the garden. We filled barrel after barrel with cut-back plants and weeds, we pruned things that could be pruned, and we picked some pretty flowers to bring inside to enjoy at the same time. Many of our flowers have faded, but some are still going strong, and we were happy to see that our camellias are starting to bloom!

While we were outside, on that glorious fall day, who should come by but my good pal Wesley and his friend Eva. Wesley is our neighbor who visits me all the time.

He came to visit and we told him to pick some roses to bring to his mom, which he did.

Of course, I had to get some photos. He’s a great little guy! While I was on the road for my last trip, I was surprised one day to get an email from Wesley with a birthday wish and a poem he “invented.”

"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling." (~Mirabel Osler)

Writing this now in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Back at it! Hope Monday's a good one for you all!

"Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees." (David Letterman)

"Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause
between the opposing miseries of summer and winter."
- (Carol Bishop Hipps )

Happy weekend, all!

“Nature is my medicine.” (-Sara Moss-Wolfe)

Now that the hurricane winds have finally subsided, the weather is wonderfully calm and comfortable.

At Oberlin College in Ohio, today, the quad was verdant and lovely, and I spent some time relaxing on the lawns in the center of the town and campus.

Students were out making music in the grass, and boys and their dogs were bonding with Nature.

An albino squirrel stood, investigating the fallen limbs for nuts that might have been dislodged, and townspeople sat on benches relaxing in the sun and comfortable temps.

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” (~Rachel Carson)

"What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul." (-James Addison)

Every fall, when I'm visiting college campuses, I love to seek out the art, and there are always fabulous sculptures to enjoy. I’ll share just a few of my favorites with you today.

UC Davis (the University of California) has a wonderfully witty piece of art that greets you in front of their library…

A tangle of vines calls to me every time I step foot on the grounds of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota…

This rabbit, perched atop his rock at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri always makes me smile as he mimics Rodin’s Thinker…

Whitman College, in Washington state, is rife with wonderful art, and this horse constructed from driftwood oversees a quad there…

And at Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, a sculpture of a boy and girl throwing their heads and arms back in glee is one that I love...

But perhaps my favorite sculpture was at Kenyon College the last time I visited, and today when I looked for it, it was gone…so I’m glad I got this photo when I was there before…

“Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.” (-Ralph Waldo Emerson)