sunday

Faun, Horse, and Bird, Pablo Picasso, 1936

As You Slept

so much in a line

the swoop, the curve, the curlicue

all of you expressed along a slackened jaw
loosened knot of hands, I saw exactly

when it happened, understood by just your pause

so still, reclining there, the crinkled sleeve

around your elbow, easy flow of legs

across the couch, your cheek a wrinkle, I believe

that you could doze forever, dark

slits to mark your eyes, hair's scribbled mess

the gentle lift and fall of your chest, I wonder

in your dreaming is there flight, a gallop

something great or small, anything of interest

going on at all, or static, pepper black

the blue of song, a thousand words like bird tracks

stippling your path, the start and stop

of stories, any line of thought, a note

or just your own bare sound, I see

no thread to follow, the gentle curving 

of your side leaves me no end to grasp 

and nothing to unravel, now 

you move your arm, but not to beckon

you have left no clue, just gone, your shape

a hollow, here with me yet somehow

you have slipped to dreams 

your steps a line I can not follow

--smh

Thanks to Tess at The Mag for today's prompt -- 

and to Picasso himself, of course

friday

The Magic Garden, Rebecca Crompton, 1934

Organic Matter

forgive me, I fear
I have underestimated
the complexity of it all, every
thing connected and what
I have done today 
always becoming tomorrow
seeds for footsteps, buds
for words, their full
blooms dropping petals
behind me, a path exposed
where perhaps I never 
intended to go at all

--smh


  

wednesday

Well well . . . 
Already on day number whatever of my grand reinvention! Still feel like me. And still trying to decide what said reinvention might entail. Earlier this week I had decided to go back to school. I felt so sure! What a wonderful thing to do while trying to figure out what to do! It seemed obvious! I even went so far as to look at starting my application. But the first thing the website directed me to do was fill out the FAFSA . . . Hey, wait a minute -- I happen to know the FAFSA is for kids! Something you yell at your high school student to get done while they're dawdling around for hours on the computer... 

I couldn't do it. Seems like I was hounding Hannah so recently, trying to get HER to fill out the FAFSA...it just felt ridiculous to consider filling out my own. So I decided to hang around Facebook for awhile instead. Come to think of it, I suspect that's what Hannah used to do instead of the FAFSA, too. Kinda makes me laugh...kinda makes me hate myself.

And then there's the ongoing saga of the move/house. Good grief. Although I'm pleased to report that we FINALLY found the box labeled "Cookbooks" in the garage. Happy day! We can't get to it, but at least we know it exists. I have been without a single recipe for months, so that's good news! However, I may be expected to start cooking again...so hmmm. (Although I'm not yet sure what my grand re-invention plan looks like, I'm pretty sure it isn't going to involve a lot of cooking. Seems that's a habit that was frighteningly easy to break.)

Since Russ is out of town for the week, I decided to commemorate his absence with a major plumbing leak. I started to hear a strange hissing sound in the wall about 4am. I should have known that no story that begins with a hiss at 4am can possibly have a good ending... 

That's okay -- home warranty to the rescue! Thank goodness we had the foresight! Except turns out the leak was caused by a nail put through a pipe when the guy installed our baseboards after we moved in.  So not covered. (They were still happy to require the co-pay, however.) That sneaky nail had just been quietly rusting there for a couple of months, waiting for Russ to leave. Things like plumbing problems can be so patient when they want to be, waiting for just the right opening. 

The good news is the plumber did fix the leak. After he finished and went out to his truck to fill out paperwork, I ventured in to survey the damage. Through a gaping new hole in the wall, the pipe was spraying water everywhere, and at a much greater rate than before! I don't know a lot about plumbing, but I felt perhaps it was not fixed properly. I traipsed out to his truck and politely knocked on the window.  "We have a problem." He grunted, followed me up the driveway (I could feel the eye-roll behind me). At least he had the decency to shout HOLY CRAP!! as he ran for the main shut-off. He then hauled all his equipment back in to re-fix it, with the carpet just about twice as wet as it was when he started.  

I felt he was less friendly with me when he left than when he arrived. That's okay, since I felt less friendly by then too.  

We will now be replacing our 4 month old carpet.  Sometime after we repair the additional $500.00 in plumbing problems he kindly pointed out while he was here. Oh! And the giant hole he cut in the wall...and the baseboards that need replacing...not sure who I am going to call to do that job. But I am relatively sure who I am NOT going to call. 

It was while I was stuck killing time waiting for the plumber to stop the flood from carrying off every pair of shoes in my closet that, for some crazy reason, I decided it would be a perfect time to look at filling out a college application. Aha -- maybe that was my mistake! Maybe I was already on overload, so that's why the darn FAFSA stopped me in my tracks. Although somehow I feel confident I would have had no problem hounding Hannah to fill out her FAFSA, even with the sound of a plumber cutting a hole in my wall and my new carpet squishy with water...maybe even while balancing a cookbook in one hand and a spoon in the other! 

But there I was, completely unable to force myself. Perhaps this is why 49-year-olds make good mothers, but less sure students.  

Maybe I should call my own mother and ask her if she minds nagging me until I get my college application filled out.  I could message her on Facebook...

tuesday

photo by TheFoxAndTheRaven

Weather

there are only so many 
tears in any world, and all
the water in existence

has already rained, spilled
been drunk, absorbed, evaporated 
cried, and all the sadness

wrung from every sky 
just try to think of something
that has never happened

--smh


Thanks to The Mag for the photo prompt. 
Check it out to find more.