Thursday, January 10, 2013

Roses, Wind, Anthem and Yeats


That's a rose that hung over a falling-down wall on my street the other day. I took it with the camera on my phone, and it certainly doesn't do the thing justice, but it was riotously perfect. Despite the profuse rose bloom, it's getting cold here in Los Angeles, some kind of blustery wind is blowing the palm fronds about, we've heard that there's snow in the mountains and tonight is supposed to go down into the 30s. For all those who scorn the "lack of seasons" we have here in Los Angeles, I throw that at you, extra hard. I mean, I'm going to have put on socks with my clogs today!

I've done my daily Anthem Blue Cross chores, talked to the lovely Natasha at the California Insurance Commission, folded some laundry, procured a plumber for the broken toilet, caught up with my friend D who has been itinerant of late (we discussed why his dear friends shouldn't move to Ireland, especially because of the weather), neglected to go for a walk, eaten a bowl of cereal with frozen Trader Joe's blueberries, made a few telephone calls for my job and am now off into the big, wide world.

What are you up to?

The Irish might not have good weather, but they sure have a monopoly on poets, and here's one of my favorites:

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats, 1865

9 comments:

  1. I volunteered this morning and am exhausted now. I contemplated driving four hours, to south of Atlanta, to see Sue Monk Kidd but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. While you get your cold, we're having this freaky pseudo-spring in January. How long can this hot planet stumble on?

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  2. That poem has long been on my list of favorites.
    It's super blustery here today in Margaritaville. Wind blowing off the ocean. Not a day for icy blender concoctions. I'm thinking bourbon. After I get back from taking my mom to the doctor, that is.

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  3. In Sacramento we've already had several 28 degree nights, which means I cover some of the plants with a sheet. I can spot snow in the Sierra foothills - beautiful at a distance.

    A lovely poem, we all are so very vulnerable, aren't we?

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  4. This screen keeps losing my comments. I'll sum up: I played with the boys to the point of exhaustion and filth and my house is completely wrecked.
    But it was good. Real good.

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  5. i have never scorned the 'lack of seasons' and in fact... i think seasons are highly over-rated! Im a 'warm weather all yr round' kind of gal myself. that rose is surreal.

    i got up at 5:30, got myself ready then my eldest daughter, put her on the 6:45 bus and left the house to drive 1.5 hours into PA to give a 9 am talk to a group of professionals (educational consultants working with a private school placement firm), had lunch with them, then drove home to make it in time for the onslaught of buses for 4 children. After that, homework, dinner prep, and off to my third grader's evening choir concert! :)

    ps - im tired.

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  6. Werk put a potato Ianthe oven getting v readytl practice Bach I. My fingerless gloves.


    Tyo
    Pied on my effing ki elect.

    Love
    Rebecca

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  7. Ps. Back she. I was actively painting I used to paint the last line of that poem under Mg gesso.

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  8. Yeats here and Heaney in the margin, surely you speak the truth of the Irish!

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  9. My plans for today and my favorite Irish quote match up nicely.

    Erin go braless.

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