Sittin’ Thinkin’
Lo! The winter is past;
The rains are over and gone.
The time of the singing of birds
Has come.
I can sit here and think for ages and never write anything. So, I’ll just recount the last few days. Friday Scott was away. P and I went to dinner at Carmela’s and then went for a long walk on the beach. Needless to say, she is what I am sitting here thinking about more than anything else. Saturday morning I did paper work and picked up Scott’s graduation photos. In the afternoon I went to Watertown and climbed up the old slate roof at the house on Dana Terrace to try to re-mortar the chimney at my Dad’s house. Afterwards, I walked down to the T’s to talk to Rick for a while. Little Gabriel is walking now, he has curly brown hair just like his Uncle Tony had when he was a kid, (that’s remembering way back). Sunday morning I had three kids in Sunday School, Evans, Matt and Suzannah. We sat around a round table in the fellowship hall prayed, talked about a lot of interesting stuff, and read 2Kings 3. P came to church, and afterwards we took a ride in her car and talked. When she left to get her kids, I went down to Pansy’s to bring her some red cyclamen and take her trash to the dump. She was too sick to come to the door.
In the evening Scotty called from Bridgeport and said to call the Hunan crowd because he wanted to go out to dinner. Nathan wasn’t around but Liz joined us later for dinner. Today I worked alone at the Williams starting to do the finish work inside.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Sunday, March 28, 2004
P-town 2001
You do not know,
You do not know what life is,
She said,
Slowly twisting the lilac stalk
between her fingers
There was, on the sidewalk in front of the church, a mime dressed as a mechanical doll. She, it appeared to be a she, moved mechanically to a whirring sound coming from a basket in front of her. She looked just like a doll, her body was sexless, her face pretty like a young girl, her hair a mop of bright yellow curls, her eyes as blank as a machine but written across her face was the brightest, friendliest smile. I took a picture of her and of the church, then we walked on. We came next to a store that sold salt water taffy we went in to buy some, I remembering how I used to watch it made in the storefront at Hampton Beach when I was a child. When we stepped outside the same mime was walking by. She moved close to me, I was not conscious of her approach until, from the corner of my eye, I caught her broad smile. I instinctively looked up and said, "Hello", and looked into her eye as I have done many times when I was fortunate enough to receive a smile from a pretty woman. Catching a woman's eye and reading her approval is something I sometimes think I live for. But these eyes did not respond, no trace of bashfulness, or flirting or anger. There was nothing in those eyes. I instantly knew this was not a woman. She or he walked on swaying and smiling down the street. And I, puzzled, watched her go. Her gait was strong, light, agile and manlike in the sense of a male ballet dancer. The smile on the outside, the lifelessness inside; this was a tragic figure, definitely male, definitely making a personal statement to the crowd. I sensed an invulnerability that can only come when one embraces death.
You do not know,
You do not know what life is,
She said,
Slowly twisting the lilac stalk
between her fingers
There was, on the sidewalk in front of the church, a mime dressed as a mechanical doll. She, it appeared to be a she, moved mechanically to a whirring sound coming from a basket in front of her. She looked just like a doll, her body was sexless, her face pretty like a young girl, her hair a mop of bright yellow curls, her eyes as blank as a machine but written across her face was the brightest, friendliest smile. I took a picture of her and of the church, then we walked on. We came next to a store that sold salt water taffy we went in to buy some, I remembering how I used to watch it made in the storefront at Hampton Beach when I was a child. When we stepped outside the same mime was walking by. She moved close to me, I was not conscious of her approach until, from the corner of my eye, I caught her broad smile. I instinctively looked up and said, "Hello", and looked into her eye as I have done many times when I was fortunate enough to receive a smile from a pretty woman. Catching a woman's eye and reading her approval is something I sometimes think I live for. But these eyes did not respond, no trace of bashfulness, or flirting or anger. There was nothing in those eyes. I instantly knew this was not a woman. She or he walked on swaying and smiling down the street. And I, puzzled, watched her go. Her gait was strong, light, agile and manlike in the sense of a male ballet dancer. The smile on the outside, the lifelessness inside; this was a tragic figure, definitely male, definitely making a personal statement to the crowd. I sensed an invulnerability that can only come when one embraces death.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
The Entire Poem
The mountains of Bech-Parma are great enough,
But my love is greater.
The glaciers that marble their tops are white,
But your breasts are whiter.
The antelope stricken by my bullet
Weeps a red blood from its wound
Which dyes with large red flowers
The field of the blowing jasmine flowers of snow.
Your arms are whiter than the jasmine flowers of snow
And your kiss is redder than the blood of the antelope.
The mountains of Bech-Parma are great enough
But my love is greater.
II
The wind screaming in the forest when the wind of Russia blows
Is milder than the desire that draws me to thee.
Your body smells richer than the resin
That weeps in the sun from slender pines.
And your mouth has more of odours
Than mint flowers throw on the air.
When you are by my side, I feel in my body,
A warmth more suave than the softest sun-rays.
And when you go away from me, my sadness
Is blacker than the lowering night black with storm.
The wind screaming in the forest when the wind of Russia blows
Is milder than the desire that draws me to thee.
Daghestan
The mountains of Bech-Parma are great enough,
But my love is greater.
The glaciers that marble their tops are white,
But your breasts are whiter.
The antelope stricken by my bullet
Weeps a red blood from its wound
Which dyes with large red flowers
The field of the blowing jasmine flowers of snow.
Your arms are whiter than the jasmine flowers of snow
And your kiss is redder than the blood of the antelope.
The mountains of Bech-Parma are great enough
But my love is greater.
II
The wind screaming in the forest when the wind of Russia blows
Is milder than the desire that draws me to thee.
Your body smells richer than the resin
That weeps in the sun from slender pines.
And your mouth has more of odours
Than mint flowers throw on the air.
When you are by my side, I feel in my body,
A warmth more suave than the softest sun-rays.
And when you go away from me, my sadness
Is blacker than the lowering night black with storm.
The wind screaming in the forest when the wind of Russia blows
Is milder than the desire that draws me to thee.
Daghestan
Strange Days
Your arms are whiter than the jasmine flowers of snow
And your kiss is redder than the blood of the antelope
S is in Valley Forge Pennsylvania this evening if all went well. He left last night with his friend Warren from CueTime. They planned to drive from midnight non-stop. He is participating in the 18-and-under billiards tournament at the Billiards Exposition held at the Radisson Hotel.
I talked to P yesterday at the library. She was studying algebra for a test that evening. She had on a lime green sweater and was wearing just a touch of a really nice perfume. She came by Friday night and we talked for a long time in the kitchen and then went for a walk down to the cove. That night she had on an orange sweater and just a touch of orange in her lipstick. I am really enjoying getting to know her.
Pansy is supposed to go in for her second chemotherapy, (oxymoron!), treatment tomorrow. I’m not sure who is taking her; I should have called. It seems wrong for someone who is so healthy to be made so sick by her doctors.
Your arms are whiter than the jasmine flowers of snow
And your kiss is redder than the blood of the antelope
S is in Valley Forge Pennsylvania this evening if all went well. He left last night with his friend Warren from CueTime. They planned to drive from midnight non-stop. He is participating in the 18-and-under billiards tournament at the Billiards Exposition held at the Radisson Hotel.
I talked to P yesterday at the library. She was studying algebra for a test that evening. She had on a lime green sweater and was wearing just a touch of a really nice perfume. She came by Friday night and we talked for a long time in the kitchen and then went for a walk down to the cove. That night she had on an orange sweater and just a touch of orange in her lipstick. I am really enjoying getting to know her.
Pansy is supposed to go in for her second chemotherapy, (oxymoron!), treatment tomorrow. I’m not sure who is taking her; I should have called. It seems wrong for someone who is so healthy to be made so sick by her doctors.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
A Quiet Sunday
--Yo te agradezco, Abenamar,
Aquesta tu cortesia.
It has been a quiet Sunday, I rested all afternoon. This morning I taught Sunday school. We read a little from 2 Kings and made Italian ice.
S came with me this morning to church and P came too and sat with us. I talked briefly with HN and when the conversation turned to building houses, he intimated that he could get me money to do a spec house. We did not pursue the subject, I dislike talking business in church, but it gives me something to think about.
The sermon was excellent, about Jesus’ resurrection. I drank it up. I wondered what the reaction was in S’s mind, he appeared restless and disinterested. I also wondered what was in P’s mind as I am not sure where she is spiritually. I hope the Holy Spirit is working on their hearts.
This afternoon I finished the book TheDaVinci Code which was leant to me by the Ws. It is a clever book about a modern day pursuit of the holy grail. It reads like a movie script with a lot of fast action and little character development. The protagonists follow a long, almost tedious, series of riddles, there are many twists of the plot and much suspense. The premise of the book is that Christianity, a false religion, supplanted the ancient goddess worship that preceded it; the goddess worship is the true religion now subordinated by Christianity and preserved in secret by the Priory of Sion. Of course Mary Magdalene is the goddess and was married to Jesus, their children are the royal line whose existence threatens the church to this day. It is so clever only the devil could have thought this up.
--Yo te agradezco, Abenamar,
Aquesta tu cortesia.
It has been a quiet Sunday, I rested all afternoon. This morning I taught Sunday school. We read a little from 2 Kings and made Italian ice.
S came with me this morning to church and P came too and sat with us. I talked briefly with HN and when the conversation turned to building houses, he intimated that he could get me money to do a spec house. We did not pursue the subject, I dislike talking business in church, but it gives me something to think about.
The sermon was excellent, about Jesus’ resurrection. I drank it up. I wondered what the reaction was in S’s mind, he appeared restless and disinterested. I also wondered what was in P’s mind as I am not sure where she is spiritually. I hope the Holy Spirit is working on their hearts.
This afternoon I finished the book TheDaVinci Code which was leant to me by the Ws. It is a clever book about a modern day pursuit of the holy grail. It reads like a movie script with a lot of fast action and little character development. The protagonists follow a long, almost tedious, series of riddles, there are many twists of the plot and much suspense. The premise of the book is that Christianity, a false religion, supplanted the ancient goddess worship that preceded it; the goddess worship is the true religion now subordinated by Christianity and preserved in secret by the Priory of Sion. Of course Mary Magdalene is the goddess and was married to Jesus, their children are the royal line whose existence threatens the church to this day. It is so clever only the devil could have thought this up.
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