One month, three seasons

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To remind myself of why the yellow cars and weeks of sneezing are worth it.

This month, the last of the winter icebergs melted and the temperatures slowly climbed from the fifties to the sixties, then seventies, and finally eighties. The trees went from buds to blooms and the pollen coats what snow once did. Now summer is just around the corner and we'll be looking for the air conditioning--how quickly things change.

Enjoy the warm weather!

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There's a Zelf on the Shelf and Other Hidden Poems

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Take a look at your books, and what can you find?
I wonder if poetry comes to your mind.
No?

Look closely--look at the spines,
What stories emerge when you put them all in a line?

Book Spine Poetry: "The Lamplighter"

As I Lay Dying
in my Heart of Darkness,
The Lamplighter
Hangs a Thousand Trees with Ribbons.
what a Joyful Noise they make!
Atonement.

Care to give it a try?
Would you like to become a poet
in the blink of an eye?
Yes?
Take a look at your books. Browse. Peruse.
Collect all of the titles that you think you could use.
Then sort them by function--verbs, adjectives, nouns,
and start matching them up to see which ideas resound.
Add a word here, add a phrase there
to smooth out the sentences (some might call this cheating, but there's no need to care).

Voila!

Book Spine Poetry: "Walking Across Egypt"

Walking Across Egypt,
I watch as the House of Sand and Fog
becomes Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet;
The Stream and the Sapphire
Make a Scene,
calling for A Farewell to Arms--
Cry, the Beloved Country

You're a poet--and I bet you didn't even know it.
Happy National Poetry Month!

What the beep?

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Dear apartment full of things, things with batteries and things without,
Why do you beep?

For two weeks now, you've tormented me with your chime.
A single tone, just higher in pitch than a microwave oven, that sounds every fourteen minutes and fifty-three seconds.
Yes, I've timed you. You are remarkably consistent.
Sometimes you seem loud, and sometimes not, and sometimes--only sometimes--I forget that I've heard you at all. Sometimes you seem to live in the living room. Then the kitchen. Then the laundry room. But I can't find you anywhere.

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Following the Boston Marathon Bombing Trial

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I am a researcher. And by that, I mean that when something tragic happens, I retreat into my couch with a computer and I scour the internet for everything I can find. I look up the who, the what, when and where; I read about the how, and I consider the various speculations as to the why, doing my best to separate the logical from the inane. Even when the details are horrifying, I’m compelled to see and hear everything, not because I am a sensationalist, but because the facts, whatever they may be, help me to process the unfathomable. 

During the past two weeks (and for many more to come), eighteen Boston jurors are being asked to consider the facts, process the unfathomable, and ultimately decide whether or not to punish a man with death, or with life. While following the trial from jury selection onward, I have often asked myself what I would do as a juror for the case, whether or not I could be an impartial juror, whether or not I would vote to sentence a man to death, even if that man deliberately ended an innocent person’s life. I’m not sure of the answer to any of those questions, and so I research.

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Book Club: I Shall Be Near to You

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It's the story of a young woman, Rosetta, who, in an effort to be with her husband as he leaves their home to fight for the Union army, cuts her hair to the nape of her neck and enlists in the army herself as Ross Stone. Together, Ross and her husband try to learn how to be newlyweds, contend with the horrors and uncertainties of war, and keep their dream of owning a farm in the West alive.

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