SELFYEAST OF SPIRIT A DULL DOUGH SOURS

Spring has sprung; pummeling summer has begun to throw punches. The nasturtiums, their dinner-plate-sized leaves now smaller than casual coasters, and California poppies are just what weary and tired of the party. There are fewer vegetables planted this year, as I rarely have time to harvest and cook the ones I have grown in past years. The eggplant and squash impatiently dry out daily. The heat isn’t even here yet.

But the light is starting.

Those on the East Coast and in the Northern Areas don’t really understand how we could have an aversion to the light, to the predatory brightness. For several hours of the day, life is flat, one-dimensional, without nuance or mercy. If only flat-lining were painless and not ...

There's a little visual palate cleanser. I have no idea where I was going with that comment about flat-lining and too much light.

So, trying to fire up this writing thing again. I did not mean to stop writing back in February, but this slow political smackdownfuckup threw me for a considerable loop. After ScumSuckerShitGibbon gave his first press conference, I got so angry that I made myself sick for a month (the left over stress from Janet's birthday party was a contributing factor).

Then, it was taking care of Janet who was sick for even longer. She narrowly escaped pneumonia. However, the coughing lasted forever. The over-the-counter cough syrup does nothing for us and it was difficult to get a prescription for something with that lovely codeine kick. Janet would wake me with her coughing. But now we have a bottle of the good stuff.

Here was the winter/spring garden.

This was after the ginormous nasturtiums. This is all dying now and looks pretty ratty. I bought some vegetables to plant, despite my swearing I was not going to do this again. I am keeping it more low-key.

SMS and I were chatting about poetry the other day. He mentioned that someone (maybe Marie Howe on Krista Tippett's On Being) said something about only having a few poets that were central to a person, maybe three or four. SMS said Gerard Manley Hopkins was one of his. And I realized that I knew practically nothing about Gerard Manley Hopkins but that he was probably included in the massive Harold Bloom poetry compilation I had recently picked up at a thrift store (The Best Poems of the English Language). And shore 'nuff, there he was. And although his representation therein was slim, they were tasty.

I WAKE AND FEEL THE FELL OF DARK

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lame
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see the
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves but worse.

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That there is plenty to chew on.