Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Long Summer Days





When we were children and the summer days were long
my father would take us fishing
and near the water I'd spread out a blanket
and listen to Elton John on the radio
and watch for lady bugs in the grass
and he would tell us to enjoy these days
because all too soon they would pass

It was by no means a perfect life
but watching my brother cast like my father
knowing my mother would pack the perfect lunch
knowing she put work aside on a Sunday afternoon
made our life seem almost perfect
and she would tell us to drink the sun
as we'd have to leave soon

There was a Sunday when it rained and rained
and we had a picnic in the back of the car
the blanket spread out under us
and it was an adventure, the grandest of adventures
the fierce warrior taught us to play a card game
that required four people to play
and he told us when we were older we'd remember this day


and if I am still I can hear my mother humming
a neil diamond song and when she looked at him
he was the only man that ever existed
she will always be young and beautiful
and even when she was sad she a tragic beauty
she held the world at a safe distance
and before she could show the world who she was she was gone
and life marches on and on

On summer days like today when the sun is out longer than it's dark
when the fireflies come out at night to play
the dreaded fireflies who would mark our bed time
when the summer bugs get loud I think of them
and hope that maybe heaven will be the place where all those memories
are played out over and over so we can relive all the little details
that made those days magic
and like the miracle that puts the sun and the moon in the sky
at the same time
when night is day and day is night
they will be there too
and my brother and I can tell them of all the times
we laughed in quiet moments
what one of us couldn't remember
the other held on to like a sword and a shield
and indeed she was right
one day it would be the two of us
and it would be just fine

Patience






Morning Glories don't bloom when the plant is two inches tall
they take their time climbing up something strong
something that commands the wind and brings it closer to the sun
and in each tendril there is a hidden leaf
another inch of life another twist and turn
and it can't be forced it just has to come along
but then one day when you least expect it
when there are no buds you are anticipating
no trumpet sound
just one day when you glance over
there will be a bloom so beautiful
it will make you stop and just enjoy it
and that bloom won't last forever
love doesn't last forever either
so there is no crime in lingering there
enjoying it for one more second
holding on
and even wishing for the watch boiling pot of nature
to move faster
no hopeful soul was ever convicted for wanting
who would condemn me for wishing your kiss never ends
who would point a finger at a girl, this girl even
for wanting summer to never end
for you to never stop loving me
for just one morning glory to bloom?

Do you mind?





Do you mind if I ask you a question
Do you mind if I swear not to hurt you
Do you mind if I don't piss on your bed

Do you mind if I bring her still with me
Do you mind if I forget and thank you
Do you mind if I juggle the meaning

Do you care that I wear only silver
Do you care that set only stone
Are you angry the you I'm adopting
Is only a pretense at home

Do you mind if I make you wear earrings
Like she did, like you did before
Do you mind for I think I still love you
Do you mind
Always have
Evermore

http://youtu.be/-TCyyqvWfNI If you post that in your brower and listen all the way to the end, you get it.

Sometimes you have to look for the hidden secret, the tiny meaning nobody else would get, the idea that you share with someone who has a commonality of spirit. Secrets are only valid if they are kept, that way they can't hurt a soul and sharing a secret can forge a friendship like no other.










Every time I watch it I laugh and I don't like cartoons, just ask my nieces and nephews.


Best Friend tells me to be patient that quite often what we want is like watching morning glories bloom, they seem to take forever. I watch them tendril up the trellises I put up for them in the garden and I wait and wait, watering them, loving them, hoping against all hope I can see the blues and purples. The days when I am frustrated and wanting and wanting and wanting I just say a little prayer, not to get what I want but to have the patience to wait for what I need.

Monday, July 11, 2011

I love the way you Speak to Me


Falling Garden In Venice

The Falling Garden in Venice in 2003 inspired some art project in my head and I knew I wanted a few large tree branches but wasn't sure I wanted to brave the heat to go find a few, the next day we have a horrible storm and it blows down half a tree in the yard. Be careful what you ask for, you never know who is listening.


The Way You Speak To Me

I wandered into a church like any other Sunday
there's a storm brewing
the air has been thick and hot for days
and finally the coolness washes the earth
and over the voices singing
you could hear the thunder carrying the rain
and under the whispered prayer,
the rejoicing song
above mother nature's fury
I could hear a voice ask me
"Why are you here?"
my heart answered back not waiting for me
to formulate a thought
"Because I Love the way you whisper to me"

When I am playing the violin
and I pull the bow over the strings
I can't even believe the music comes from my hands
it feels as though the violin would move without me
and I am just a spectator of the song
that the earth is singing in most any object
and to touch it, to make it your own
will create music and that music could change the world
or just the heart of a wonky girl
in those moments when I a hear the music
whispering to me
it will ask of me "Why do you need this music?"
and lost in the notes
lost in the timing, hearing that metronome
trapping me in the rhythm
my only answer is "I love the way you sing to me"

I find myself in old bookstores,
all the pages stacked one on another
someone else having read the passages
and now those words are their own,
part of their being how they think of the world
and when reading Bukowski's edge
or Wolff's passion, Shakespeare's terror
I found a book of Conroy had written
I'd read a few times
and turned to my favorite passage
one of secrets and how they bear on a man's soul
and I could hear Conroy speak to me
asking me "Why do you read this over and over?"
and if he had been on the other side of the stack
if I could meet his eyes with mine
I would tell him he has taught me much of how men think
and how duty can dampen their souls
and before I left I'd tell him
"I love the way you read to me"

When I am standing in the drive way with no end
and I can see my Best Friend pulling away
when I am already missing her
when I am wishing it was a Monday, a Monday of nothing to do
but drive Lake Shore Drive
in the summer sun and watch her hair get wind blown
to such wild imagination that she will need a large
pin to hold it down
our skin a little sun burn
celebrating the years we didn't sleep
life was too exciting and we couldn't miss a minute
and even when we are apart we are as close as the next heart beat
because that's how life works when you love and love and love
when I have my arms around her and I say
"Call me from the train"
and walk away quickly as to avoid too much emotion
she always stop for a few moments and just waves
and when you are friends for so long
you never have to ask and I never have to say
"Because I love the way you play with me"

And when the day is done
when there are just a few minutes before you drift
and if you drift before me
well then I will be in charge
when I can smell your skin and
yes indeed you smell like summer rain
and your hand slides over my throat
When I am sure I couldn't love you any more than I already do
it would just be silly and impossible
you say something
"Yesterday was long without you"
for a moment I am exactly where I want to be
suspended in time
I can be weak for a few moments
I drop pretense over the side of the bed
and listen to it crash like a glass
your eyes ask me why I love you
and while I hold your head in my hands
reminding you I am just as strong as you
but different
I can feel the days of warm heavy air in my lungs
and the cold front moving over me
this storm between us that never seems to end
I whisper "Because you see, I love the way you speak to me"




The last entry is my favorite passage in any book.




A good interview with Conroy you can watch the entire interview on Borders.com. He's a stunning southern gentleman and I could watch him speak for hours.

You Look Like Rain






Heard this song years ago, actually it was softly whispered in my ear. There are some evenings you just don't forget.

More Morphine:






Let's take a trip together
Headlong into the irresistible orbit
Breathing the cold black space
With the glistening edges
Let's take a trip me and you
Let's go the scenic route
Get to finally (x3)
Get to know each other
Just to be alone (x2)
Just to be alone with thee
Somewhere there's no distracting breeze of information
Leaking through the windows dripping from the trees
Somewhere there's no earthquakes
Of other people's anxious questions
No nervous wrecks going down (x2)
Let's take a trip together
Headlong into the irresistible orbit



And how could it be summer without a sad song:

A Summer Poem






A Summer Shower
By Henry Timrod


Welcome, rain or tempest
From yon airy powers,
We have languished for them
Many sultry hours,
And earth is sick and wan, and pines with all her flowers.

What have they been doing
In the burning June?
Riding with the genii?
Visiting the moon?
Or sleeping on the ice amid an arctic noon?

Bring they with them jewels
From the sunset lands?
What are these they scatter
With such lavish hands?
There are no brighter gems in Raolconda’s sands.

Pattering on the gravel,
Dropping from the eaves,
Glancing in the grass, and
Tinkling on the leaves,
They flash the liquid pearls as flung from fairy sieves.

Meanwhile, unreluctant,
Earth like Danae lies;
Listen! is it fancy
That beneath us sighs,
As that warm lap receives the largesse of the skies?

Jove, it is, descendeth
In those crystal rills;
And this world-wide tremor
Is a pulse that thrills
To a god’s life infused through veins of velvet hills.

Wait, thou jealous sunshine,
Break not on their bliss;
Earth will blush in roses
Many a day for this,
And bend a brighter brow beneath thy burning kiss.

Source: The Collected Poems of Henry Timrod (1965)

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Love Letters




HBO ran the John Adams series over the weekend and of course the romantic in me was truly taken by the letters Adams wrote to his wife and the letters she returned to him. This one was a favorite.

My Dearest Friend,

...should I draw you the picture of my heart it would be what I hope you would still love though it contained nothing new. The early possession you obtained there, and the absolute power you have obtained over it, leaves not the smallest space unoccupied.

I look back to the early days of our acquaintance and friendship as to the days of love and innocence, and, with an indescribable pleasure, I have seen near a score of years roll over our heads with an affection heightened and improved by time, nor have the dreary years of absence in the smallest degree effaced from my mind the image of the dear untitled man to whom I gave my heart.

Abigail Adams to John Adams, her husband.
Abigail Adams



Their letters not only reflected this emotional and intellectual interdependence; they also became symbols of it. Abigail found writing to John “the composure of my mind.” John, even more strikingly, asked, “Is there no Way for two friendly Souls, to converse together, altho the Bodies are 400 Miles off?— Yes by Letter.— But I want a better Communication. I want to hear you think, or see your Thoughts. The Conclusion of your Letter makes my Heart throb, more than a Cannonade would. You bid me burn your Letters. But I must forget you first.”

http://www.amazon.com/My-Dearest-Friend-Letters-Abigail/dp/0674026063


A great book for summer reading romance and for people love history.


Miss Adorable

By the same Token that the Bearer hereof satt up with you last night I hereby order you to give him, as many Kisses, and as many Hours of your Company after 9 O'Clock as he shall please to Demand and charge them to my Account: This Order, or Requisition call it which you will is in Consideration of a similar order Upon Aurelia for the like favour, and I presume I have good Right to draw upon you for the Kisses as I have given two or three Millions at least, when one has been received, and of Consequence the Account between us is immensely in favour of yours,
John Adams
Octr. 4th. 1762

New Baby Photo




I've named him Buddha and he's the fuzziest of the new babies. He likes to sleep in the crook of my arm while I am reading and when his momma gets tired of his need to roam away from the crowd she brings him over and drops him at my feet for awhile. She has a built in babysitter.

That's Entertainment




I am tearing through novels this summer and just finished Little Bee which was a good read but didn't end quite as dramatic as I had hoped. Best Friend told me Water For Elephants would be a fast read and as usual she was right. I finished the book in two sittings over the weekend and as it was a quick read it was a good story also. I like the old circus images it created and because of those images still in my head I am working on a few circus projects. I am forwarding both books on to friends to share as I have so many books to finish I am tired of storing them and promised myself not to buy another book until I finish another twenty of the books I already have and have forwarded to someone else. I started Beyond Desire this morning, the book based on the life of Felix and Cecile Mendelssohn an old old book I found abandoned in some bookstore for $1 and the $64 Tomato, a book about the cost of making the perfect garden. I spend half of my life doing that and now in two gardens it's a little overwhelming at times. Last year I planted thirty tomato plants and this year only four. I can't take the pressure of what to do with all the tomatoes.

I also went to the movies this weekend to see Larry Crowne. After just spending some time with my 18 year-old niece I was astonished at the energy of 18 year-olds and their power of fun. This movie was as little slow but I think all summer movies are supposed to be a little slow and it was a testament to the power of a life gone awry and how to fix it. I laughed and ate too much popcorn. I can't remember the last time I went to the mall, a fascinating place that people actually pick to spend leisure time there simply amazes me.

French Cooking Made Easy




I made this peach raspberry blackberry blueberry tart in about 5 minutes of prep and a little over an hour of cooking time. It's summer perfect. You can find the uncooked pie crust (I like the pillsbury brand) put it on a cookie sheet and pile it high with two cans of peaches (drained), two handfulls of fresh raspberries, blueberries and a handfull of blackberries. I then topped it with a few pats of butter some some sugar mixed with cinnamon and baked it at 350 for a little over an hour until the edges are brown. It's the perfect summer treat that takes only minutes of prep time.