Apparently it does snow in Pollock Pines. Sam took this picture out our back window just a few minutes (and inches) ago. Here's one of the front, when it first started:
Please bear with me for one more poem about moving; I figure this is the last I'm going to think about it. Two months is enough time to perserverate on anything, let alone a house:
STARLINGS ON THE ROOF
—Thomas Hardy
"No smoke spreads out of this chimney-pot,
The people who lived here have left the spot,
And others are coming who knew them not.
"If you listen anon, with an ear intent,
The voices, you'll find, will be different
From the well-known ones of those who went."
"Why did they go? Their tones so bland
Were quite familiar to our band;
The comers we shall not understand."
"They look for a new life, rich and strange;
They do not know that, let them range
Wherever they may, they will get no change.
"They will drag their house-gear ever so far
In their search for a home no miseries mar;
They will find that as they were they are,
"That every hearth has a ghost, alack,
And can be but the scene of a bivouac
Till they move their last—no care to pack!"
_______________________
Today:
•••Thursday (2/22), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. presents Chris Olander and Bill Carr. Open mic before/after, free. Info: 916-441-3931.
And today, Edna St. Vincent Millay would've been 115 years old:
FATAL INTERVIEW XLVII
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Well, I have lost you, and lost you fairly,
In my own way and with my full consent.
Say what you will, Kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess: but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish—and men do—
I shall have only good to say of you.
______________________
SONNET XLI
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.
______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)
