Wednesday Words: Juice, Joy

This poem is a deep, deep favorite; one I invariably mutter all spring long. For the second Wednesday of spring, Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring--
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightenings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.--Have, get before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

In Which Time Passes, Cake With Flags

Two things, dear reader.

1. I've lived in New York a year this month; it has been the year that flew. Truth be told, I'm glad to have it under my belt. First years are tricky things. Also, when I meet a new person and they say how long have you been in New York and I say I've been in New York about a year, I won't even be fibbing now. Except maybe I'll start saying two.

2. And speaking of two, we at first milk turned two in February and the day came and went and we forgot that we were two. But two we are. Happy birfday, first milk. Thanks to all of you who stop by even when I'm off tending other things. I love you like pink magnolias and blue sky.


Maybe you are tired of looking at this cake. But I am not tired of this cake. It has flags, dear reader. Flags and chocolate frosting. From forty-sixth at grace.

Weekender: Magnolias, Spring

A Met visit. Emerging turtles. A sunny outdoors adventure laughing day and a chilly staying-in-bed day. Cardamom coffee. Pink magnolias and a pale blue sky. Happy spring to you, to you.

Grasses, Tend

Am I ok? Yes, thank you very kindly for inquiring.
Have I been hiding? Yes I have.
Hiding lots? Yep.
Behind the curtains? Yes.
And under the duvet? Uh-huh.
And behind the trees? Behind one tree in particular.
And behind those grasses? No. Not there.
Do I intend to come out? Yep.
Pretty soon? Yes.

Thank you, dear ones, for all of your wonderful comments over the past couple of weeks--I know I've been absent. I have a little something in the works, and have needed to tend it with the energy I usually alot for this lovely space. I think one more week should do it, and I promise to pop in if I possibly can.

Smooches and lubs,
A.

Print, Risk

You may have heard something recently about reading the printed word. You've likely heard that in addition to reading the printed word, many have taken a pledge to do so. This pledge, the baby of east side bride and cevd, means we are committed to reading books and newspapers and magazines and subway signs and words that are printed.

This all sounds very pleasant--coffeehouses! the smell of ink!--but I would like to remind us all that pledges are rarely made without a bit of underlying risk. In this case, make no mistake, we undertake a great deal of it. To say nothing of stepping silently around the characters who spend time at libraries, we must reckon with smudgy, soft ink on our hands, paper cuts, early-evening cherry pie cravings when nothing else will do, men at bars who ask--or do not ask--with cocked eyebrow, what we're reading. We risk missing our train stop or leaving a half-finished paperback in the back of a cab. We risk heading in bleary-eyed, achy, having a poem knock the wind out of us as we cross the street. We risk daydreaming, staring at strangers whose toes remind us of Seymour's, glimpsing the dust of other worlds. We risk walking into another land and coming back changed, or not ever quite returning at all. It is a brave choice, to make a pledge. And if we're going to Read the Printed Word, it seems important to face the facts.

A list with a Lauren in its pocket: I face risk with lists. At least for the time being, books I've finished in 2010 will appear at the right-hand side of this blog. This is not to say I'll list everything I read in print, for that would be a bit unwieldy. I'm leaving out research and professional livres, for example, and t-shirts and street signs and newspapers and magazines and plaques and calling cards. Mostly, you'll see fiction and livres for littles and collections of poetry, and only those read from cover to cover. Will re-reads be included? Of course. Categories may or may not appear. I'm prepared for all sorts of possibilities.

What, dear reader, have you got going, printed word-wise?
What have you risked recently by burying your nose in its depths?