I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey's Version of "Three Blind Mice"
And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.
Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,
how did they ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?
And how, in their tiny darkness,
could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife
or anyone else's wife for that matter?
Not to mention why.
Just so she could cut off their tails
with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,
but the thought of them without eyes
and now without tails to trail through the moist grass
or slip around the corner of a baseboard
has the cynic who always lounges within me
up off his couch and at the window
trying to hid the rising softness that he feels.
By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for the wet stinging
in my own eyes, tough Freddie Hubbard's
mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"
which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.
The Lanyard
The other day
as I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the “L” section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word
“Lanyard”.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past.
A past where I sat at a workbench
at a camp by a deep Adarondac lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard,
a gift for my mother.
I have never seen anyone use a lanyard,
or wear one,
if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand
again and again
until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard
for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face cloths on my forehead,
then led me out into the airy light and taught me to walk and swim,
and I in turn presented her with a lanyard.
“Here are thousands of meals,” she said,
“and here is clothing and a good education.”
“And here is your lanyard,” I replied,
“which I made with a little help from a counselor.
“Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones, and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world,” she whispered
“And here,” I said, “is the lanyard I made at camp.”
And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift.
Not the archaic truth that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission
that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom
would be enough to make us even.
“Flock”
It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenburg Bible required the skins of 300 sheep.
I can see them
squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed.
All of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike
it would be nearly impossible to count them.
And there is no telling which one of them
will carry the news
that the Lord is a Shepherd,
one of the few things
they already know.
So we reminisced about the Anne movies for a while on Saturday night, and in continuation of that grain of thought I have re-watched Anne of Avonlea and reread Anne's House of Dreams. While I still hold Gil in the highest respect, I must state that Anne kind of annoys me now. She waxes poetic a little much. One could almost mistake her for Madeline Bassett, who thought the stars were God's daisy chain.
Very important questions courtesy of Christin
1. First things first: Hugh Grant or Collin Firth? Explain.
Colin Firth (provided he can get that floppy Mr. Darcy haircut thing going again). He seems more like the kinda guy you'd want to settle down with--more stable, more mature, less inclined to blow money on trivial things like hookers.
Plus, Hugh Grant has really bad teeth.
2. If you could either own your own fabulous bakery or be a famous musician with a fabulous band, which would you pick?
The bakery, hands down. I'm so undisciplined with music that if it turned into anything other than just a fun passtime I think I'd hate it.
Then again, bakers don't really get to have groupies...
3. What do consider to be the benefits of your sheltered childhood?
It kept me out of big trouble (and major injuries) for 18 years. And gave me alot of entertaining stories. And though it pains me to say it, I already see little fledgling tendencies in myself to be the same kind of parent.
But I will let my kids have a Lite-Brite. To hell with the danger of electrocution.
4. What is your prized posession, and if you could choose something else to be your prized possession, what would it be?
I have always thought (hypothetically) that if the apartment catches fire and I can only get one thing out, I take the guitar. Not because I play it that often anymore, or because it's worth that much, but because it was a gift from my dad for nothing in particular. Other biggish gifts are kinda anticipated in life (cars for graduation maybe, or great wedding presents or whatnot). But this was an out of the blue Thursday morning kind of gift--and I prize it more than all of the others combined.
If I could switch the prized poss., I guess I should probably take my recipe box (which was my mom's, BTW, just so we get equal parental publicity here) so I'd be able to keep that world-famous bakery in existance.
5. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
New York City. For the food and the shopping and BROADWAY.
::If you woud like to participate too, here are your instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same as you see here).
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
And the cycle continues, on and on and on...
I'll warn you now: it's easier said than done.::
I'm such a terrible grocery shopper. I'm a sucker for attractive packaging. I'm totally buying the new orange juice that comes in the little plastic carafe things (you know which one I mean). I want the lunch meat that comes in its own disposable Ziplock container. My post-Moscow resolution to not habitually buy cheap wine is still going strong; however, now I'm buying expensive wine based solely on the looks of the bottle and label. And I am THRILLED beyond belief that Brookshire's is now carrying organic whole milk that comes in its own little glass jugs--just like old times.
By further application of this same principle, I could probably happily marry Ben, the cute Brookshire's boy, if he'd ask me.