Sunday, May 1, 2011

Hooray, Hooray, the First of May...

...outdoor $#%&ing starts today! Well, according to my dad it does. You could have knocked me over with a feather when he said that to me and I was a married woman by then, but Dad didn't indulge in spirits and I'd never heard him tell a risque joke in my whole life. It made the little couplet all the funnier because he said it and with such glee that I still giggle just thinking about it. I went out in the windy but sunny backyard this morning to pick up a few blown in trashes and spied the first asparagus spear poking out a bit. Yay! A pair of chickadees have moved into the flamingo birdhouse outside the kitchen window so there's a lot of busy-ness going on out there. Lots of back and forth, lots of cheeping and scolding when I'm out there in the way. I think Durwood will have no trouble at all enticing one of them to eat from his hand this summer.

April 30--Andrea da Giona, Retable with Christ, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Margaret.

Smoke from centuries of candles
stain the once-white marble
golden where it gathered in the lofty
stillness of the sacristy.
The penitent and the pious both
lit candles to speed
their prayers to God's ears.
~~~~~

I think I just figured out why I've been frustrated with my writing these last couple of months, I'm stuck being too literal. I'm writing about the picture rather than from the picture. Feels like I've got a few internal knots that need untying.
--Barbara

1 comment:

Aunt B said...

I love that naughty little couplet!! And if memory serves me, some people actually practiced that outdoor activity -- once upon a time!!!