The Things We Carry

The view of the aftermath of the SpaceX launch last night

We carry empty syringes, sticky acrid sweet on our fingers later brushed on lips, inadvertent reminders, the yellow-gray soaked-through diaper balled up, the navy blue sleep pants with the red stripe at the cuffs, soaked in the seat, the home-stitched sheet-covered pad that she lay on, her socks and the sippee cup of juice left at the bedside. We carry these things down the hall, through a life, to let them go, but first we veer off into the bedroom and open the back door where the dog has been scratching and barking impatient to get back inside








The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

Mark Strand

Complacencies of the Peignoir*

Enter the Mermaid Room

Instead of around the neck, drape scarves over doorway stains.



I lay in bed this morning, casual. When she screamed a thin, long nearly ecstatic sound, I knew it was a seizure. You know what we do. Later, I told a friend, and she asked whether I was scared. No, I said, I am hard and resigned.








While listening to another person (not Lou) sing take a walk on the wild side, sit at a light in Silver Lake and look forward. A flock of birds flies over, maybe 50 of them, their wings casting shadows. They circle and swoop. A convention that settles on a wire. Birds on a wire. Why? Is their path ordained or are they, pardon the pun, just winging it?





Too Many Birds






The Everyday Enchantment of Music

A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound,
which was polished until it became music. Then the music was
polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when
tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was
polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty
home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the
music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at
the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was
thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the
memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what
happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would
also begin.

Mark Strand












*One of my favorite phrases, from the poem Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens

Colored Lights Under the Dome of Dark

Things are different this year in more ways than one or even two. I piddled around most of the day, unpacking, doing laundry, catching up on email and so forth. I did a little shopping, too, mainly for the kids, and at one moment contemplated buying colored lights to hang somewhere in the house or outside. We're a white light kind of family, and there was a time when I thought colored lights were actually pretty atrocious. For some reason though, today, I couldn't take my eyes from those little globes that you see above, and I'm thinking of bucking tradition and buying a few strands. When I walked home, I realized, too, that despite the melancholy of "the season," I am looking forward to making my home look warm and welcoming, to seeing the lights in the houses and stores, to saying good-bye to this year and welcoming the next.

The great poet Mark Strand died the other day. Here's a good one of his:


Lines for Winter

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself —
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

Mark Strand (1934-2014)

Mild with a tad of rue

The bathroom's favorite time of day

I wondered this morning how early is too early to whisk away the Christmas things, freshen things up, tidy things up, as my Dad still says. Yesterday, I averted my eyes whenever I passed through the living room and went out the front door -- both because I can't stand the mess but also because I didn't want to chastise anyone for it. I thought I'd hold the boys' dirty clothes as ransom for cleaning up -- I'm not going to do any washing until the place is tidied up, I thought I'd say. When I spooned egg into Sophie's mouth this morning and she jerked in what seemed like the millionth small seizure of the morning, I left the egg on the floor in what we call a small test of change in the quality improvement arena (one of the jobs I juggle in healthcare). Will it drive me crazy, unduly so? Will the dog pick it up? Will the tween and the teen bend down and pick it up when they walk into the kitchen after rolling out of bed at 11:00 am? My intent is not to sound or even feel bitter -- in fact, I feel mild. Mild with a tad of rue.

Here's a poem:

Nocturne of the Poet Who Loved the Moon

I have grown tired of the moon, tired of its look of astonish-
ment, the blue ice of its gaze, its arrivals and departures, of
the way it gathers lovers and loners under its invisible wings,
failing to distinguish between them. I have grown tired of
so much that used to entrance me, tired of watching cloud
shadows pass over sunlit grass, of seeing swans glide back and 
forth across the lake, of peering into the dark, hoping to find
an image of a self as yet unborn. Let plainness enter the eye,
plainness like the table on which nothing is set, like a table that
is not yet even a table.


-- Mark Strand, from Almost Invisible