Worrying

Until everyone we love is safe is what you said. I worry a lot; you know this. Lately I've been worrying that John will be in a wreck, for no good reason other than the fact that he's been on the road more frequently, driving home after long days and late night orchestra gigs.

A Poem: Joanna Goddard Fall Challenge

Joanna Goddard recently started a series of Fall Challenges, during which she and her readers will do things like read more, watch tv less, and write actual letters.

This week, she suggests that we memorize a favorite poem. What a lovely idea. There was something therapeutic about reciting "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" day after day in elementary school, and maybe, as a grown up, it would be just as nice. I would welcome having something beautiful in my head to combat daily to-do lists, running on repeat.

Here's mine:

Moon

Open the book of evening to the page

where the moon, always the moon, appears

between two clouds, moving so slowly that hours

will seem to have passed before you reach the next page

where the moon, now brighter, lowers a path

to lead you away from what you have known

into those places where what you had wished for happens,

its lone syllable like a sentence poised

at the edge of sense, waiting for you to say its name

once more as you lift your eyes from the page

and close the book, still feeling what it was like

to dwell in that light, that sudden paradise of sound.

--Mark Strand 

 What about you, what poem would you choose?

Thanks, Joanna, for reminding us to slow down a little bit and remember what's beautiful.

Image is "Sconset Beach" by David Armstrong, available at 20x200.com.

This SUMMER and Sweet Impossible Blossoms

from Dallas Travel Guide

This recent switch to this gorgeous spring leaves me sososo excited for summer.

And this year....a real summer, with real sun, a real job, and real friends! I see walks downtown and happy hours with outdoor seating in my future. And please, don't squeeze the peaches.

xo!

  Lauren

From blossoms comes 

this brown paper bag of peaches

we bought from the boy

at the bend in the road where we turned toward

signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,

from sweet fellowship in the bins,

comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin, but the shade,

not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into

the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background; from joy

to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to

impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossoms.

"From Blossoms," Li-Young Lee