Friday, September 16, 2005

Friday evening

Welp, today I spent the day cataloging articles mostly about silvaculture and environmental policy and managment issues for the library I am volunteering at.

If I knew what I knew now, and this was 25 years ago when I started college, I would switch majors to library science, I think. I didn't know how much I would enjoy doing this.

My knee still hurts. I do the isometrics the doctor asked me to do several times during the day, but I guess it's just going to take time.

The weather has been drop-dead gorgeous...the way it only gets in the fall - beautiful sweet light, not too hot, not too cold, clear air, low humidity.

It's a good thing the weather is nice. I went and tried on some of my old winter clothes. Way, way tooo big. Even my Jones of NY jacket...sigh. I loved that jacket..but it was a size 24 w. I'm wearing size 16 w jackets now.

I'm tired. But a good tired.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Fall is here....



Yesterday we had a cold front come through that put snow on the mountains. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to see where the snow is.

This pic was taken later in the year two years ago, but it gives you an idea of how glorious the mountains can look.

I'm looking forward to that, but not to the snow.

But it's too early to snow, because my mums haven't bloomed yet. They are usually the last thing to bloom in my garden, and they always get snowed on before they are bloomed out.

I decided I needed some cool weather clothes last Saturday. Good thing I did, because by Monday morning it was cold enough to need them.

My fifth grade catechism class starts in earnest tomorrow. At the end of last year they didn't think there were going to be any students at all for Wednesday class, but seven students popped out of the woodwork. So once again my Wednesdays will be filled.


There's color in the hills. Pretty soon it will look as good as this pic!

Monday, September 12, 2005

Life is crazy...

My son admitted to me this weekend he has a drinking problem, and has in the past been a stoner. Oy veh!

Of course, admitting is the first step, and we organized some evaluation and counselling to see the next step.

He also had enough problems this weekend to be ready to try an alternative school scenario. Well, maybe. Might be a breakthrough.

Wrote this poem this morning. I hand out with a small group of people who pass out a word for the day to write about. The word today was apocryphal.


Sing o Muse,
of the wrath of Katrina,
and the damage she wrought
both wide and far,
and the legends she spun,
the memes apocryphal,
of racism and toxicity
and death and deep waters.
And yet when dawn
shows her fingertips of rose,
will we not find
that though the myth
was worse than the reality,
the reality is bad enough
for legends of its own.

Don't know why Homer popped into my head. I am feeling sad. Two people I talked to yesterday didn't know who Jonathan Swift was. These were educated people, and although Swift isn't the number one person in English lit, people should associate that name with Gulliver's Travels at least...

Today I feel trapped in one of Elliot's poems...

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

And there I am...longing for a life of quiet and scholarship and no more high drama, and the only teenage angst would be memories of my own not easy transition into adulthood...ah well...life is what it is. Who knows where it will be by this time next year?

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Prayer on 9/11

I

Hear my prayer, O Lord,
and let my cry come unto thee,
and hear the voice of your children,
all those burdened
with death unexpected,
the dead, the dying, the survivors,
the blood of victims
here,
then,
throughout time
since Abel's blood first cried to you.

II
The Day

For some it was
a day to celebrate,
a day that a little David
brought down
a mighty Goliath.
that symbol of sin and oppression,
who would strip them of God
and truth and opportunity
and tear their world apart
and try to keep them
ground under it's thumb forever.

For some it was
the day life turned to ashes,
drifting in white dusty smoke
coating the survivors
as they groped,
ghostlike,
trying to find the light.

For some it was
children searching for fathers
now pulverized
beneath an unbelievable wreakage.
wives looking for husband
husbands crying for their wives,
voicemail messages played over and over,
the last quick message,
a final goodbye,
the last connection
before the unthinkable.

III

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

For the hardness of our heart
Forgive us, O Lord.

For the passing of our wrongs down to our children,
Forgive us, O Lord.

For the celebration of the death of our enemies,
Forgive us, O Lord.

For choosing to nurse our hate rather than be reconciled with our neighbor,
Forgive us O Lord.

IV


Words.
Words were spoken,
and soon,
reality is warped into the image
cast by words.

The words were spoken
twisting peace into hate,
twisting plowshares into swords,
twisting buildings of people into rubble and ruin.

Where are the words
to ease the pain
of a woman who has lost her child?
In the anger of hate,
is she real
or just a counter?


Where are the words
to fill the heart
of a husband who lost his wife?
Is his loss
justified
by the blow against the enemy?



Where are the words
to fill the lives
of the newly orphaned?
Are their shattered lives
able to heal
the twisting of others' hearts?

V

Dear Lord,
This day, let me commend to you
all those killed
in hatred,
whether by sword,
stone,
scapel,
poison,
bullet,
bomb.
This day I commend to you
victims chosen
to terrorize the surviving,
children,
beloveds,
friends,
coworkers,
strangers.

And on this anniversary
of the evil that man willingly does to others,
teach us not to hate,
but to break the chains
that try to drag us down into the pit
one word at a time
one refusal to hate at a time,
one reaching out to those in need at a time,
one willingness to walk in your steps at a time.

Amen.