Flashwrite

Last day of classes. Last day of first semester of grad school. Last time in the library in 2010. Last bite of a Clif Bar. Last time I will use the word "last" in this post.

This morning, I brought doughnuts to my baby freshmen, and when one girl tried to study her Psych book instead of doing the exercise I assigned, I snatched the book from her and read them tips on prejudice issues ("You should just be glad I don't write 'This wants to make me put my head on the table and cry' on your papers!" I told them). Then I laughed maniacally and wandered around the room. They wrote. I calculated their grades. I went on a rant about energy drinks. They laughed. I went on a rant about how they should never never get drunk because you lose control of yourself and just try sitting in a Dave Matthews' concert full of drunk people and how it's not so much wrong as it is SAD and HORRIBLE. They laughed again, more hesitantly this time. I slammed my fist on the table and said I was serious. Then I smiled and said that they should choose coffee as their addiction of choice instead.

Sigh. I will miss these children. I have an urge right now to write encouraging notes to each of them on their papers that I will return Friday. And then I think, "Hey, I can go read Marilynne Robinson!" or "Hey, I can spend an hour browsing the Sartorialist!" and I know that urge will probably not be completed.

***
In other news, I'm leaving on Friday. Fo' good (at least until I have to come back in January). Done done done except for two minor things, and full of happiness at the thought of home and Christmas and oh yes--home.

New poems coming up! Stay tuned. The Grimms' stories are back in my poems, and I've also got a peacock and playhouse in the mix.

Bare trees, blue sky, grass fields - winter is beautiful.

so I can close my eyes

Apparently, when I have papers to write, I make blog posts instead.

Why yes, I have eaten a lot of chocolate. And I want more more more.

I'm already missing Jan term. Next term starts back earrrlyyyy January, and that leaves me not much time to make the rounds and visit everyone I want. But I'm gonna try, by gum. Atlanta, Nashville, and Texas. Three weeks. Here I come. It's going to be busy, yes. But remember two years ago, when I did Texas/Missouri/Utah/Tuscaloosa(oh yes it counts) in 3 weeks? Yep. I can make it.

***
Let me tell you a secret: Mississippi's growing on me. I think I'm just now realizing that. This is not an easy place for me. But it is good. I think I can say that honestly. I'm with good people. I laugh a lot. The fields do have a roll to them and the trees and earth are beautiful, and the sky is really wide. I guess what I mean is - sometimes happiness isn't the best way to be happy. And I'm okay with that.

***
In other news, last weekend I went to Texas. It was sunny and lovely and best of all a really wonderful guy was there and we hung out a lot.

And I drove seven hours, both ways. All by myself. The End.

***
Quick, gimme a topic for the next poem. I'm game for anything from ancient Rome to rollerskating. Winner gets satisfaction of suggesting the best thing and my deep deep gratitude. Thanks folks.

I love this, I love that too . . .

So no . . . I usually don't do the round-up things. But sometimes, things out there in internet land are so beautiful and interesting and marvelous that I can't help but say "Go 'ave a look!"


Train + New Mexico + Over the Rhine . . . it's killin me.


Evie love. One of my favorite blogs ever. Nashville artist/gourmand/teacher/world traveler/writer. Stop by and rest your weary mind for a while.


A steady surprise of stars.


I would buy this tent, and I would pitch it in a green grassy field, and I would live in it with lots of blankets and pillows and . . . flashlights, I guess.


Happy birthday to me, hint hint. Just kidding . . . sort of.

for today

I have a lot to do right now. Three papers. One presentation. Essays to grade. Tests to grade. Lessons to plan. Friends (Erin&Shannon&Kait&Lee, you're at the top of the list) to call and write. Bills to pay. Miles to walk. Meals to make. And I want to GET ON IT, by golly. I'm ready to go in to Robot Productive Mode.

But. Instead . . .

Well, first of all, I am eating an orange. And second - I'm writing this blog post.

I don't like it when I stay away from my blog. Because I don't like it when other people stay away from their blogs. At this point I could compare the orange to the blog and say writing is like Vitamin C for my sanity, but I won't do that. That's way too Hallmark.

***
Today, I'm going to sit in the sun and work. Must start fighting off Seasonal Affective Disorder. Somebody get me one of those sun lamps. Now, slave! Oh sorry. I forgot I wasn't talking to my class.

***
I'm writing a research project on Penelope Fitzgerald. She's absolutely marvelous. That is, if you're looking for a British writer whose novels have broken down people and mess and heartbreak and a strange sort of hope and all in the most subtly luminous prose. If you're looking for that, I think you'd like her. And it's fun to research something I care about it. I am on a bona fide crusade for the woman's novels now. Treat her like a real writer, literary critics, and stop talking about how she didn't publish til she was 59 but her books are so great - come on, scholars, get into the meat of her work. Sheesh.

***
Lately, I've been getting lots of emails from my precious students that go something like this:

"HEY do wE haVe Cla$$ toMorRow??????", or "what is due on wensday i forgot".

So, this morning in class, I gave the children a short but concentrated lesson on writing appropriate emails to professors and future bosses. It involved me bursting into the class, talking very loudly, and saying "OMG" a lot. I also stressed the importance of acknowledging that you are writing to a REAL human warm body being with salutory words such as "Hello." I think they got the point.

***
Don't forget to pick out your very own Puritan name this Thanksgiving! Ok, I laugh, but I have to admit they were on to something. There's something sort of lovely in the thought of naming someone for life, of names as a gift:"Joy-again" and "Hope-still".

That said, whoever named their kid "Ashes" or "Fly-fornication" . . .

Plan B . . .

Today, I was completing my usual 4 mile march around the complex (that sounds a little too Soviet, so let me make clear that I love walking and seeing the sky a

nd ducks and it is my sanity time). I saw a bush and, in the bush, what appeared to be a very small cow. "That looks like a very tiny cow," I thought. But I am nearsighted and given to an overactive imagination, so I told myself it was not a cow and was probably some kind of mysterious black box connected to boring things like electricity or cable. I grew closer, and discovered I had been correct. It was not a cow sitting in the bush.

It was a goat. A small black goat. A small black goat tied to a stake. "What is a goat doing tied to a stake?" I thought. Then I realized what it meant. The goat is going to be eaten. Why else would it be tied down on the grass in front of an apartment building? Obviously there is a fiesta going on this weekend. I looked at the goat again and realized that it still had fuzzy baby fur. It bleated and looked at me. I began to plan its rescue.

Operation Baby Goat Deliverance, Part 1: Offer to buy it from the owners. If they refuse, take it. Yes, I think I just plotted theft online.

Part 2: Yet to be determined. I need a way to a) get it home, b) convince parents to keep it somewhere on our 9 acres, and c) did I mention get it home.

And now, images of tiny helpless fuzzy baby goats keep running through my head.

Not helped by the fact that I found a small, surprisingly sweet daschund on the loose as well, and could not convince it to come home and am worried it will be hit by a car.

I'm not a crazy animal person. Promise.

I just want to save the goat, okay?

"Help us!"

The Sun Was Unclouded

Here in the flatlands, it's autumn and absolutely gorgeous. I'll admit it: Mississippi is growing on me. This weekend roommate and I went with a sweet friend to ride horses in the southern part of the state, and it was gorgeous and rolling hills and her parents are vets and I felt I'd stepped into the Mississippi version of James Herriot. All that to say--the desert is starting to bloom.

And last week, in poetry class, we each got individual assignments. Mine was to write about something BIG--a war, a natural disaster, etc. Arghh. Now, I write about small things, ordinary things, I am kin to Dickinson, not Whitman. But I set myself to do it, and I'm not sure how it happened but somehow a poem about the Alabama Cherokee and Trail of Tears came out. Near Florence, there's a man who's spent years building a wall, a memorial to the tragedy. So here's another stone for the remembering.

The Sun Was Unclouded--

“The Cherokees are a peaceable, harmless people, but you may drive them to desperation, and this treaty cannot be carried into effect except by the strong arm of force.”
-Major William M. Davis, 1837

How can I put you in a poem, dustfoot
people? Your trees were faithless, in the end.
How you wove rivers in the skin and glassed
the long hut after all. The forest went wild
for grief after you left. Oh sweet warrior,
first friend, the smoke and salt of you lingered
long after the cane broke. How many calloused
eyes, how much broken before the wheels?
The tear-pocked dust should have swollen, crumbled
into earth red earth, sprouted sudden
mountains on the empty distant line of land and sky.
If the rocks rose up to cave you, if your graves
mounded numb and deep, if you somehow found
eastern sky again, if the trees refused to cover
your desperate bare--if anyone tried to say
you were fully desirous--then know your blood
was too fresh for them, too wooded,
too earth for that manifest. Real people, know
your soft language still tongues their brain.

what's lost

Sometimes, sad things happen.

I know. Understatement of the century. I'm an English major, but with all the poetry and gorgeous literature in the world, still simple language serves us best sometimes.

Thirteen days ago, the Sweet Dog was hit by a car. He's alive, I don't know how. Only the vet couldn't save his right hind leg, so now Mo is home and learning how to get around again.

It feels foolish to grieve over an injured dog. You don't know how people are going to take it, because obviously it's a lot bigger deal to us than them. I mean, we make fun of the folks who take their animals too seriously. I'm not a blindly infatuated animal person, I promise.

But. It's sad.

And the whole time I've been home has been a rapid wash of two emotions: the sadness of seeing a more subdued Mo learn how to live on three legs. And the gladness and sheer wonder that he's still here and still with us. I guess this is our existence, yes? The rebellion at the way things go wrong - he should still have all four legs. Sweet dumb Mo was not meant to live this way. And the grace in the way things go right - he also should be dead. But he isn't. He's ok and he's healing and I'm awfully glad this crazy dog is still here to lick my face and chase more balls.

And if it's only autumn and the desire for security and rest and hope that keeps me from turning away from these words in bitterness - well then, I'll take it.

Only love can turn this around

I wake up dreaming

Everything we've lost can be found

We'll wake up dreaming

-Over the Rhine