Poem for Thursday

Poem Holding Its Heart In One Fist
By Jane Hirshfield

Each pebble in this world keeps
its own counsel.

Certain words--these, for instance--
may be keeping a pronoun hidden.
Perhaps the lover's you
or the solipsist's I.
Perhaps the philosopher's willowy it.

The concealment plainly delights.

Even a desk will gather
its clutch of secret, half-crumpled papers,
eased slowly, over years,
behind the backs of drawers.

Olives adrift in the altering brine-bath
etch onto their innermost pits
a few furrowed salts that will never be found by the tongue.

Yet even with so much withheld,
so much unspoken,
potatoes are cooked with butter and parsley,
and buttons affixed to their sweater.
Invited guests arrive, then dutifully leave.

And this poem, afterward, washes its breasts
with soap and trembling hands, disguising nothing.

--------

Yet again it was a magnificent 75-degree day, though I spent quite a bit of it waiting for the dentist and then having my teeth cleaned, which is not the sexiest of activities even when someone is sending you porny text messages. Then I was supposed to hang out at the mall for awhile and meet my mother after her manicure, but half the mall was dark because of a power outage, including the food court and Borders, so after half an hour of wandering around I called her and we agreed to meet at Barnes & Noble up the road instead. She bought me The Roosevelts and the Royals off the bargain table (I'd been flipping through it before she got there, it looked interesting) and we had sandwiches in the cafe there. I also got The Star That Never Walks Around, a round Native American Tarot deck I had never seen before, which was also sitting with the bargain books.

Came home and took younger son to violin while the sky got so dark it looked like it would storm, but after a bit of rain it cleared up completely and though I planned to pick older son up from the bus stop, he had already walked home. Watched a KT Tunstall concert from a Soundstage rerun, made jambalaya for dinner, took a long walk in the evening since it was so beautiful out and found a bunch of Vienna Teng concerts at Live Music Archive, which tells me cool people refer to as Llama, particularly since it has a llama on the logo. Since I am admitting uncoolness, I may as well also ask: Does anyone have a rec for a downloadable French-English dictionary, preferably free, preferably that I can use with Windows Mobile? Just a straightforward big text word list would be fine!


Geese at Huntley Meadows on the beaver dam...


...and in the shallows...


...and doing what cats do best. That is, birds.

Not talking about the news these days, BTW, because it either depresses me or makes me furious, and I just don't have the energy to rehash it. If no one is moving to impeach the bastards, what can I do but rant? Had better go to bed, as is taking Rosie to get her rotted tooth removed and the rest cleaned very early tomorrow morning so I have to get younger son up and out by myself!