It's a strange time.  The weather can't seem to decide what to do, and neither can I.  In between recovering from a cold, practicing the fiddle so much that my ears ring, and waking the last few mornings from odd, cinematic dreams, I've been feeling somewhat surreal.  Then this afternoon, reading Hemingway by my window, I caught the scent of autumn blowing in on the breeze, something of smoke and leaves that I didn't think existed in the city.  It's that sort of in between time when I always think of this poem and all the distance we've covered from the last time the leaves fell:

Migration

Prayers of many summers
come
to roost on a moment
until it sinks under them
and they resume their
journey
flying by night
with the sound
of blood rushing in an ear.

- W.S. Merwin

I've been wandering around quite a bit lately, both on foot and on my bike, catching glimpses of the hidden corners of Queens, sidewalks ruptured by trees, old Greek women sitting talking on porches, a shrine of the Virgin surrounded by flowers and tomatoes.  I've also been thinking a lot about what it actually is to grow up, whether that's what I'm doing or what I'm striving not to do.  Hmm.  Might not be in my control.  Looking through my external hard-drive, I found an essay I'd written in Spanish on this poem by Neruda, which I had completely forgotten about, but which found me at a perfect time.

Al pie desde su niño

El pie del niño aún no sabe que es pie,
y quiere ser mariposa o manzana.

Pero luego los vidrios y las piedras,
las calles, las escaleras,
y los caminos de la tierra dura
van enseñando al pie que no puede volar,
que no puede ser fruto redondo en una rama.
El pie del niño entonces
fue derrotado, cayó
en la batalla,
fue prisionero,
condenado a vivir en un zapato.

Poco a poco sin luz
fue conociendo el mundo a su manera,
sin conocer el otro pie, encerrado,
explorando la vida como un ciego.

Aquellas suaves uñas
de cuarzo, de racimo,
se endurecieron, se mudaron
en opaca substancia, en cuerno duro,
y los pequeños pétalos del niño
se aplastaron, se desequilibraron,
tomaron formas de reptil sin ojos,
cabezas triangulares de gusano.
Y luego encallecieron,
se cubrieron
con mínimos volcanes de la muerte,
inaceptables endurecimientos.

Pero este ciego anduvo
sin tregua, sin parar
hora tras hora,
el pie y el otro pie,
ahora de hombre
o de mujer,
arriba,
abajo,
por los campos, las minas,
los almacenes y los ministerios,
atrás,
afuera, adentro,
adelante,
este pie trabajó con su zapato,
apenas tuvo tiempo
de estar desnudo en el amor o el sueño,
caminó, caminaron
hasta que el hombre entero se detuvo.

Y entonces a la tierra
bajó y no supo nada,
porque allí todo y todo estaba oscuro,
no supo que había dejado de ser pie,
si lo enterraban para que volara
o para que pudiera
ser manzana.

The Child To His Foot

The child's foot still doesn't know that he is a foot
and wants to be a butterfly or an apple.

But then glass and stone,
streets, stairs,
and roads of hard earth
teach the foot that he cannot fly,
that he cannot be a round fruit on a branch.
So the child's foot
was defeated, he fell
in battle,
became a prisoner,
condemned to live in shoe.

Little by little, without light
he got to know the world in his own way,
without meeting the other foot, enclosed,
exploring the world like a blind man.

Those smooth nails
of quartz, those grape bunches,
hardened, moved
in an opaque substance, in hard leather,
and the small petals of the child
were crushed, twisted,
took on the form of an eyeless reptile,
the triangular heads of worms.
And they became calloused,
were covered
with tiny volcanos of death,
unacceptable hardenings.

But this blind man walked
without respite, without stopping
hour after hour,
now a man's,
now a woman's,
up,
down,
through the country, the mines,
the stores and the offices,
backwards,
outside, inside,
forwards,
this foot worked with his shoe,
hardly taking the time
to be naked in love or in sleep,
he walked, they walked
until the whole man stopped.

And so into the earth
he went and knew nothing,
because down there everything, everything was dark,
he did not know that he had stopped being a foot,
or if they had buried him so he might fly
or so he could be
an apple.

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

- e.e. cummings

I've been feeling unaccountably melancholy these last few days, perhaps because I just got back from the city after a few brief, blissful days at home, perhaps because the world is feeling particularly rich and shifting at the moment.  It's the kind of feeling I always get after reading this poem, never knowing whether to cry because the golden girl is really an unattainable bird, or whether to stand in awe of such beauty nevertheless.  It's hard to learn to live with the fact that in this world, everything we know is changing from what we know into something else, probably even before we actually understand what it was.

Casida de la Muchacha Dorada

La muchacha dorada
se bañaba en el agua
y el agua se doraba.

Las algas y las ramas
en sombra la asombraban,
y el ruiseñor cantaba
por la muchacha blanca.

Vino la noche clara
turbia de plata mala,
con peladas montañas
bajo la brisa parda.

La muchacha mojada
era blanca en el agua
y el agua, llamarada.

Vino el alba sin mancha,
con mil caras de vaca,
yerta y amortajada
con heladas guirnaldas.

La muchacha de lágrimas
se bañaba entre llamas,
y el ruiseñor lloraba
con las alas quemadas.

La muchacha dorada
era una blanca garza
y el agua la doraba.



Casida of the Golden Girl

The golden girl
bathed in the water
and the water turned golden.

The algae and the branches
In shadow shadowed her,
and the nightingale sang
for the white girl.

The clear night came
muddied with evil silver
with bare mountains
under the tawny breeze.

The wet girl
was white in the water,
and the water ablaze.

The unblemished dawn came
with its thousand cow faces,
stiff and shrouded
with frozen garlands.

The girl of tears
bathed among flames,
and the nightingale wept
with charred wings.

The golden girl
was a white heron
and the water gilded her.

- Federico García Lorca

I have spent to much time trying not to think in poetry.  Thank God, I believe I've failed in that.  Poetry has always meant more to me than I've wanted to admit, both in reading and in writing.  It's so easy to hoard whatever is most special to you, to wrap it up, layer upon layer, to protect it.  I think I've always known who I am, but I've wanted to keep it safe, shut it up in a Pandora's box.  I'm beginning to think there is nothing more dangerous. 

So on this Saturday afternoon, sluggish and stuffy with a cold, I take out three fresh, yellow plums from our refrigerator, and all I can think of when I eat them is William Carlos Williams' poem.  Everyone makes fun of this poem, but I think that's because they've never actually eaten plums right out of the icebox.  And to think of poetry while eating fruit that tastes like sunshine, as Cara says...  It's as if the world has become ripe.

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

- William Carlos Williams

Louie, all of the angels are facing outward
Down here all of the stars look the same
Lately I’m in the glare of a thousand glances
Tell me, why are they staring so strange
At a freediver

Louie, you in the sunlight, you breathe so freely
Upright, driest of winds in your hair
Loosely holding the line that becomes an anchor
Let me look for your hand in the air
I’m a freediver

Louie, all of the oceans are here inside me
Lately even each stone has a name
Search me, I don’t know if I am air or water
Truly I think they’re one and the same
To a freediver

- Kris Delmhorst

by Mahmoud Darwish

Goodbye I'm leaving
This house and this country for home
And a heart full and aching with wonder
To reap every seed I have sown

If the time were not now I think I might stay
Right here with my feet on the ground
But the sunset is flown away to the west
And it's her I must follow on down
Her I must follow on down

In my heart I run down to December
Late night lonely the clouds are all gone
And the stars like pinpoints they shine through
Streetlight halos for angels unborn

And alone in my room as I am right now
I can almost see calling your name
And as memory fades into intention
They seem to be one and the same
They seem to be one and the same

Maybe every man's heart is a graveyard unkempt
And the lines on his face mark the stones
But I saw in your eyes some part of my soul
And I swear I will make you my own.

- Jeffrey Foucault

I am sitting on my bed on the 5th floor of this brick apartment building in Astoria with the radiator bubbling and the late afternoon sunlight melting in through my window more golden than I've seen in weeks. It's rare that I am here during the day with work or adventures most of the time, but I'm down with the cold that has been going around 360 and it makes me appreciate the things I often forget.

Right now, the cold weather makes me long to be in my cottage room at Marlboro, writing while the snow glitters all around outside my window. I want to be in love with words and with Ireland and with the hill, but then take a break and brave the wind and piercing light for hot chocolate in the dining hall. I want to have everyone near for tea or scones or just sunlight, the sunlight just like this that used to spread through our living room like joy.

I am stuffed up and slow today and should be drinking hot tea, but I feel like I don't need to, this sunlight is soaking me through.




Also in the back of my mind: an obsession with the 30s and 40s. It started while I was learning about the building of Rockefeller Center for my tour guide job there, then expanded when my grandmother sent me a book of essays by E.B. White written during those decades, but now it's in full embarrassing tilt as 360 gears up for a show on Sherlock Holmes. There's a new movie coming out starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Watson (very exciting!), but I've been listening to the old radio dramas that used to air during the 30s and 40s starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. I have no idea what either of them looked like, but based just on their names and their muffled voices, I'm in love.




Some of you may also know of this not so subtle coincidink...

Ok, first off, it's not what you think...  Really.  I recently got my copy of The Joy of Cooking (courtesy of the 'rents who visited a few weeks ago), and have been searching through it for easy, warm recipes to come home to.  Naturally, I was drawn to the soup section, and what should I find but this: Cock-A-Leekie Soup.  No joke.  Now, while my inner teenager was guffawing, I read through the recipe, found it easy enough, and really, who could resist cooking something with a name like that?

One thing that might put you off (or turn you on, if you're one of the fiberly-challenged folk that I know): the recipe does call for prunes.  But there's actually a reason for the prunes, and for the name as well.  It's a traditional Scottish soup with chicken and leeks (hence the "cock" and "leekie") that is often served for Saint Andrew's Day dinner, which is the 30th of November.  Now, there's very little fruit in Scotland even during the summer, so they used to add the prunes to make the soup more nutritional.  We already know that I'm kind bit of a Hiberno/Anglophile, and I'm also a sucker for holiday food, so all of that combined with the name made it impossible to resist.  It was a great way to spend an afternoon off:




Cock-A-Leekie

Combine in a soup pot and bring to a boil:
2 lbs chicken thighs
6 cups cold water
Skim the scum from the surface.  Add:
1/4 cup pearl barley (or rice)
1 tsp salt
Simmer, uncovered, until the chicken is cooked and the barley is tender, 30 to 40 minutes.  Turn off the heat and remove the chicken to a platter to cool slightly.  Discard the bones and skin, and shred the meat.  If you want to degrease the stock, remove the surface fat.  Melt in a large skillet over medium-high heat:
2 Tbsp butter
Add and cook, sitrring, until tender, about 10 minutes:
5 medium leeks (about 5 cups)
Add the leeks to the soup, along with:
12 pitted prunes
Simmer for 10 minutes.  Return the chicken to the pot and simmer for 5 minutes longer.  Season with:
Salt and black pepper to taste.

I made about half a recipe, and also added carrots and dried parsley, thyme, and a bay leaf.  While I was still at the grocery store, I had to add a few things to my basket to get a discount on yogurt (rawr), and ended up with another favorite from the UK: McVities Hobnobs.  Yup.  Cock-A-Leekie and Hobnobs for dinner tonight.  Whoot!