Limbourg Brothers, plan of the Monuments of Rome
illuminated manuscript from the Tres Riche Heures du Duc de Berry, ca 1416

Rain for Angelenos is rain for so many ninnies, should I go out or should I not?, brake lights, minivans parked too close, the quandary of wet shopping carts and a gray blanket over the hills.

Natasha Trethewey, the poet laureate of Mississippi and the United States has a mellifluous voice and read poem after poem from her book thrall, weaving together her interracial roots, relationship with her poet father, eighteenth century paintings, the 14th century myth of the miracle transplant (black donor, white recipient) -- my hands lay in my lap, clenched and relaxed, the weird tension of loving words.

I ate ramen afterward in a small restaurant in Little Tokyo, wide bowls of steaming broth, a flaky hard-boiled egg cooked soft in soy sauce, melting in my mouth before the crunch of scallions, noodles slipping from the chopsticks, sliding down my throat, the voice of the host, keeping things moving, his Angeleno Japanese voice. The mix of the city, young, old, Asian, Hispanic, white and black -- we passed the tents of skid row, one after the other squared up neatly, their backs against low-slung buildings.

The idealized painting above of the monuments of Rome was commissioned by Jean de Berry who was very angry with divisions of the Church. It is said that he liked to run his fingers over the forty churches depicted, tracing the former path of the Bishop of Rome. The little white square on the left, in the middle, depicts snow, ordered by the Virgin Mary on a warm summer night to fall and mark where a church should be built. The idealized painting had little to do with reality, it is said.

Rotation

Like the moon that night, my father --
        a distant body, white and luminous.
How small I was back then,
        looking up as if from dark earth.

Distant, his body white and luminous,
        my father stood in the doorway.
Looking up as if from dark earth,
        I saw him outlined in a scrim of light.

My father stood in the doorway
      as if to watch over me as I dreamed.
When I saw him outlined - a scrim of light -
      he was already waning, turning to go.

Once, he watched over me as I dreamed.
       How small I was. Back then,
he was already turning to go, waning
       like the moon that night - my father.

Natasha Trethewey

How women like me get excited

I'm going out tonight to hear the U.S. Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey, read from her poetry and speak a bit at our downtown library. And you thought this post was going to be inappropriate, didn't you? HA! I just thought I'd throw a wrench in, seeing that I've spent the last day or so ranting and raving about health insurance. I haven't been out at night for weeks and will be meeting a friend and having drinks beforehand. I know nothing of Trethewey or her poetry, so I'm excited. I found this poem online and liked it.

Vespertina Cognito

Overhead, pelicans glide in threes— their shadows across the sand dark thoughts crossing the mind. Beyond the fringe of coast, shrimpers hoist their nets, weighing the harvest against the day's losses. Light waning, concentration is a lone gull circling what's thrown back. Debris weights the trawl like stones. All day, this dredging—beneath the tug of waves—rhythm of what goes out, comes back, comes back, comes back.

Natasha Trethewey, via Poets.org