sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

February 7, 2016


into the stacks: january 2016
posted by soe 5:27 am

Shall we begin as we mean to go on? My plan is to post about the previous month’s reads on the first Saturday of the next month. Here, then, are the seven books I finished during January: (more…)

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February 6, 2016


weekend to-do
posted by soe 3:12 am

This weekend, I hope to:

  • Make lasagna/soup/guacamole.
  • Bake cookies/bread/pie/cake/granola.
  • Finish the local baby knit so baby can arrive unhindered by my unfinished project.
  • Take down the Christmas cards. (Clearly my missing held holiday mail is never going to turn up.)
  • Knit on my shawl.
  • Read a book. Or two. Or three.
  • Sleep.
  • Mail cards.
  • Write blog post(s) about books. (!)
  • Go to the farmers market.
  • Buy stamps.
  • Pick up holds at the library.
  • Watch movies.
  • Clean the bathroom.
  • Drink tea.
  • Phone a friend.
  • Change the sheets.
  • Attend a yoga class.
  • Set up my ukulele class.
  • Do laundry.
  • Soak up some rays.
  • Listen to music.
  • Wash socks.
  • Clear off rocking chair.
  • Breathe.
  • Cuddle cats.
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February 5, 2016


warm, beating the crowds, and getting brighter
posted by soe 1:51 am

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Just as I don’t want a blizzard every winter day, I also don’t want to see a heat wave. But the occasional day at 60, where I can walk out during the day in a sweatshirt, is wonderful.

2. A pre-Super Bowl trip to Trader Joes with no lines and chips on the shelves.

3. Realizing that the sun still hasn’t set at 5:30 and that it isn’t dark until 6.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

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February 2, 2016


bloggers’ silent poetry reading: kyle dargan
posted by soe 2:20 am

The start of this month marks the tenth Bloggers’ (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. (I admit to no longer being fully sure of what day it’s supposed to be. We all started on Feb. 2, but it seems to have migrated to the 1st over the years, which is when St. Brigid’s Day is actually celebrated. I am a traditionalist on this issue and always participate on the 2nd.) I think there are only a few of us left who participate, since the originator of the event has gotten rid of her blog and even the Facebook group page has gone mostly silent.

Without additional fuss, here is this year’s poem:

Pale Blue Dot
    ~Kyle Dargan

We’re far enough from heaven. Now, we can freak out.
~Deep Cotton

Either a romantic or subtle sadist,
Carl Sagan begged NASA to burn
Voyager’s hydrazine thrusters,
rotating her hull so she might
capture one last snapshot
before drifting beyond radio
tether—exiting the literal
edge of our galaxy.
The image she spat back:
bands of deconstructed rainbow
and one blue speck. That’s us,
some astronomer gasped
once the matter of his mind
could discern our infinitesimal
everything wrapped in blue
fabric—atmosphere’s loomed light,
which we recognize from pristine
days when our eyes pan upward.
thought we have that photograph,
only Voyager has felt the cold
pull of witnessing all that we are
fitted on the head of a pin
pushed into a black expanse
wider than any sky we’ll ever face.

 

Pale Blue Dot
By Voyager 1, via Wikimedia Commons

I went back and forth about which poem of Dargan’s, who is a D.C. resident and professor, to include here, since I just finished his 2015 poetry collection Honest Engine: Poems. It came down to two choices, one of which used the local, close-up to illustrate the larger picture, and the other, which won out, which used the cosmos to illustrate what’s unknowable closer to home.

In previous years, I have shared poems by Barbara Crooker, William Stafford, Mary Oliver (twice), Wislawa Szymborska, Stuart Dischell, Jean Esteve, John Frederick Nims, Grace Paley, Heather McHugh, and Barbara Hamby, all of which are worth another read.

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February 1, 2016


weekending
posted by soe 2:05 am

Buds on a Tree with Snow Melting in the Background

My weekend included:

  • Working late on Friday to put a dent in the work that got put off by two unexpected days off at the start of the week.
  • Preparing an egg sandwich using eggs that had frozen in my fridge (they’d been sitting against the fridge roof for a couple weeks).
  • Sleeping in on Saturday.
  • Having brunch with Sarah.
  • Meandering my way home and finding a giveaway pile (city folks leave unwanted items curbside in hopes you might want their junk; I’ve brought home a bread maker and books and gotten rid of furniture and a spare blender that way) that included Billy Crystal and George Harrison dvds and packets of seeds.
  • Making sandwiches for Rudi’s and my supper.
  • Hitting the farmers market today.
  • Attending the annual meeting of my community garden. (This will be my ninth year gardening!)
  • Playing volleyball.
  • Watching the live performance of Grease.
  • Talking to family and friends.

  • Weekending along with Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise.

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