L'aura del Campo

Winter: 5 Sharaf (January 4)

2006-01-04
afternoon, 54 degrees. 49 in Pittsburgh, PA.

Beautiful sunshine. Ran into former prof on my way to the bookstore to look up books on Costa Rica (he was my advisor when we both were there years ago). A bit of a coincidence. Of course when I mentioned Lindsborg, a young lady who was standing close spoke up because that is where she's from (not Swedish though).

Today may be a good day to go outside and not sit at the computer. Ta.

2006-01-04
late morning, 44 degrees. 69 in Naples, FL.

Zeta is still churning in the Atlantic! Does the phrase 'zeta eta beta' speak about someone eating a fish? Just wondering ...

A series of thoughts from yesterday:

Twenty bites, no calories

1

Blue ball-bearings and bird droppings unter der Juniper tree.

2

Shyly she opens to reveal her scarlet heart. Her leaves turn sickly after the frost. This January day rests warm and calm.

3

Crossing to where the squirrels play next to the iron arch, I stop, turn, look back, towards the naked larch.

4

Pagodas spread their wings to shed the rains. This one droops. Its chartreuse pea pods weep.

5

The crabapple trees like cranberries. The robins. A mini Thanksgiving feast.

6

A gathering of chirps. Where are the birds? No. It's the young girls piping after school.

7

And she rises long-haired, silver, a fountain of cool water, black clad, pink bloused.

8

She grabbed the marzipan, tried to break it in two to share. The jelly stopped her. Popped into her mouth, it melted.

9

In January, the gardener speaks of mosquitos borne on the storms of February. On this warm day he prays for frost.

10

They occupy the corner like two love birds, then leave the cage and books behind.

11

She meditates or sleeps, hands held prayer-like, prow-like, divining the blank blue wall before her.

12

The lamps hover, ufos spying on the books we read, the magazines we look at. Four, embarassed by what they've seen, have lost their light.

13

There are no-smoking signs. No signs of the anger seething within us.

14

Cry out the words, sing the music, act out the dramas that are pressed on disks or pages. Never show your self.

15
She removes the magazines and places them in stacks, on shelfs. She's paid for the path she wears across the carpet.

16

I sit. The day moves on without me.

17

Bare sandled, he speaks over coffee, sips with his friend in a language I do not know, with a laugh I comprehend.

18

He flirted with me yesterday. He shakes my hand today. Someday? Someday.

19

Half an apple, half the calories. The caramel and chocolate bits don't count.

20

Top down in a white Miata. I recognize the taillights
from a life that's passed.


2006-01-04
morning, 40 degrees. 39 in West Seneca, NY.

Thinking of a friend. He'll have a cold chilly day. Here it is sunny and later wind. Sometimes, I want to talk to friends so bad, it wears me down just holding back. But ... people have schedules and lives to lead. I try to time my interruptions well.

Like calling Brendan last night and leaving a message on his machine. I will call again tonight and tommorrow. No prob there. In his case persistance is good!

But sometimes patience is the better virtue.

OVERHEARD

"She gave me a yo-yo in case I wanted to yo." Steve upon finding a string in his satchell.

QUOTES

"Is there perhaps a quality in each person - hidden like a laugh inside a sob - that loves even more than it loves to live?" from Fanny Howe's Doubt

WORDS

from Galway Kinnell's The Quick and the Dead:

drooking
scummage
slorped
sloom
revenant
plouters
noggles
dunch
gourpen