A Tidings of Magpies

by George Bilgere I am doing laps at night, alone In the indoor pool. Outside It is snowing, but I am warm And weightless, suspended and out Of time like a fly in amber. She is thousands of miles From here, and miles above me, Ghosting the stratosphere, Heading from New York to London. Though it is late, even At that height, I know her light Is on, her window a square Of gold as she reads mysteries Above the Atlantic. I watch The line of black tile on the pool's Floor, leading me down the lane. If she looks down by moonlight, Under a clear sky, she will see Black water. She will see me Swimming distantly, moving far From shore, suspended with her In flight through the wide gulf As we swim toward land together.

Unknown Legend by Neil Young She used to work in a diner Never saw a woman look finer I used to order just to watch her float across the floor She grew up in a small town Never put her roots down Daddy always kept movin, so she did too. Somewhere on a desert highway She rides a harley-davidson Her long blonde hair flyin in the wind Shes been runnin half her life The chrome and steel she rides Collidin with the very air she breathes The air she breathes. You know it aint easy You got to hold on She was an unknown legend in her time Now shes dressin two kids Lookin for a magic kiss She gets the far-away look in her eyes. Somewhere on a desert highway She rides a harley-davidson Her long blonde hair flyin in the wind Shes been runnin half her life The chrome and steel she rides Collidin with the very air she breathes The air she breathes. please note: photo by fhotogamy and song from Rachel Getting Married

please note: photo by 5chw4r7z Opposing Forces by Eamon Grennan Even in this sharp weather there are lovers everywhere holding onto each other, hands in one another's pockets for warmth, for the sense of I'm yours, the tender claim it keeps making ? one couple stopping in the chill to stand there, faces pressed together, arms around jacketed shoulders so I can see bare hands grapple with padding, see the rosy redness of cold fingers as they shift a little, trying to register through fold after fold, This is my flesh feeling you you're feeling. It must be some contrary instinct in the blood that sets itself against the weather like this, brings lovers out like early buds, like the silver-grey catkins I saw this morning polished to brightness by ice overnight. Geese, too: more and more couples voyaging north, great high-spirited congregations taking the freezing air in and letting it out as song, as if this frigid enterprise were all joy, nothing to be afraid of.

Don't think you'll be going anywhere today... and here's why your STAT XRAYS are going to be a little late today:>) please note:photo by the Radiology department in the hospital courtyard where I believe they still stand, frozen stiff.

In my hometown everyone likes to jump into our cars and get a conga line going. please note: photos by Ryan Newman, student at DAAP

please note:dance and music by Ethan Philbrick

Tomorrow the work week starts again. I think I hear my mother calling for me to stay home. Our roof caved in and we have to move out all our belongings. My cat is sick. The dog ate my scrubs. I have a curious case of Benjamin Button. I can't find my stethoscope. I have been relocated with the Witness Protection Program. I have an important appointment with my accountant about the lottery I am almost certain to win. I have a sore throat. I have Obama Fever. I have Bird Flu...

If you watch any of the medical/hospital themed television shows you may have the idea of a nurses's work life as being, well, off-camera. In House we come skittering from the shadows when summoned to assist in resuscitation efforts performed by one of the almighties. In Grey's Anatomy we're the recipients of some junior intern's sloppy seconds who loves us and leaves us. Seriously. There's not a critical care nurse alive who would allow any of the Seattle Six in a patient's room let alone get near the LVAD (Left Ventricular Assistance Device) keeping love interest Denny's heart pumping efficiently. But that's drama. Real life is watching a well experienced critical care nurse gaze curiously as her brain takes a flying leap and runs flying through the exit doors screaming for the hills. That nurse has not one, but two phones to her ears, one call from the staffing desk listing multiple call offs for the next shift and the other requesting the plan for...

On the Assembly Line by Virgil Suarez Cousin Irene worked in the cold of a warehouse basement in New Jersey, soldering the filaments to GE lightbulbs. The job required steady hands, without gloves, bare fingers for sensitivity, and her hands cramped up eventually, after six hours or so, but the workday lasted ten or twelve, in so much cold. This was her life for several years in America—back home, in Cuba, she'd been a chicken sexer, a botanist caring for orchids, a potato peeler, a cigar ring paster, a picker of papayas—all as a volunteer worker because she wanted to leave the country. So in Trenton, Union City, Elizabeth, at least she got paid for the work she did with her hands, though her choices continued to be blue-collar work, and she thanked god for her hands, her reliable hands, so necessary. She came to the United States through the Peter Pan Project as a teenager with the promise of a scholarship to an all-girl boarding school in Kentucky, which never materialized—she go...

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe by Elizabeth Alexander Poetry, I tell my students, is idiosyncratic. Poetry is where we are ourselves, (though Sterling Brown said "Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'") digging in the clam flats for the shell that snaps, emptying the proverbial pocketbook. Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details, the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love and I'm sorry the dog died. Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?

"So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: 'Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].'"

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. I found the video below from a very interesting and visually beautiful blog, Mouse Medicine . She has written there about the award-winning documentary, playing for change/peace through music . Mouse takes fabulous photos of her city of choice, Cleveland, Ohio, and shows a strong social activist streak clearly noted by a picture of Margaret Meade and her oft quoted comment about the work of thoughtful, committed citizens. HoneyHaired Grrrl and I volunteered this morning at an orphanage across the river painting hallways and alcoves with other housewives, college kids, and folks from the neighborhood in our efforts to honor this day. Trying to decide on an afternoon movie since we're all off today. It's 2:1 for Gran Torrino with Clint Eastwood so far. I doubt there will be doves and rainbows coming out of anyone's backsides on that screen...

Order up a large bucket of boiled shrimp with some green onions, a little beer, a little beach music --till you're busted. I suggest to lather, rinse and repeat as needed. What's the order at your corner of the bar??

Apparently,yes... First Cutting by Susie Patlove What is the hayfield in late afternoon that it can fly in the face of time, and light can be centuries old, and even the rusted black truck I am driving can seem to be an implement born of some ancient harvest, and the rhythmic baler, which spits out massive bricks tied up in twine, can seem part of a time before now because light glitters on the hay dust, because the sun is sinking and we sweat under the high arc of mid-summer, because our bodies cast such long shadows— Rebecca, with the baby strapped to her back, the men who throw impossible weight to the top of the truck, the black and white dog that races after mice or moles whose lives have been suddenly exposed. How does the taste of my sweat take me down through the gate of childhood, spinning backwards to land in a field painted by Bruegel, where the taste of salt is the same, and the same heat rises in waves off a newly flattened field. In the duskiness of slanted light, we laug...

I spent the last two days surrounded by the family of a young man, victim of a non-survivable gunshot wound to the head. There was much debate about whether this was the result of the young man playing Russian Roulette or whether his tiny, wisp of a wife shot him. A debate that resulted in a few of our city's police officers being summoned to the unit multiple times. I was told by one of the visiting teenage girls that she "didn't know a bullet could do that much damage." I didn't know quite what to say to that, but thinking more on it I can see how in certain environments bullet wounds seem rather commonplace. Like tattoos. So-and-so got shot in the arm or the belly or the leg and they got out of the hospital the next day. The finality of a bullet, even a small caliber, could very well be a new event. We had a sweet doe-eyed student nurse working with us. We explained the location of the back exit and stairwell in case of a hullaballoo. How to call 911 from the h...

"If deep cold made a sound, it would be the scissoring and gnashing of a skater's blades against hard gray ice, or the screeching the snow sets up when you walk across it in the blue light of afternoon. The sound might be the stamping of feet at bus stops and train stations, or the way the almost perfect clarity of the audible world on an icy day is muted by scarves and mufflers pulled up over the face and around the ears." --Verlyn Klinkenborg, The Rural Life

Tagged-I'm it-by Sweet Annie at Blissful Bohemian , and asked list 5 things I luuuuuuvvvvvvv. Only 5?? Here goes: 1. "I love the night life, I got to boogie..." 2. the color red/ orange 3. mapquest 4. men who can make me laugh 5. my sweet clown of a dog and for extra credit--**6. I love the miracles of second chances Anyone else want to play??

...just get me to my work on time.

by Alden Nowlan I keep a lunatic chained to a beam in the attic. He is my twin brother whom I'm trying to cheat out of his inheritance. It's all right for me to tell you this because you won't believe it. Nobody believes anything that's put in a poem. I could confess to murder and as long as I did it in a verse there's not a court that would convict me. So if you're ever a guest overnight in my house, don't go looking for the source of any unusual sounds.

by J. W. Marshall 1. It takes a small face to see itself in the handmirror offered when staff says it's time to wash that greasy hair. Says it'll help. Like a tuber on the pillow or the shadow of a spade is how I remember looking. Water slopped on my gown and skin and sheets. When they laid my head back into the metal basin I died and happily that time. 2. There was a terrifyingly large sky that first day they rolled me out for air. Terrifyingly. And clouds like balled-up cobwebs. What if the chair got caught in a crack or on a rock—I watched for that. There's one the orderly said meaning a cloud that looks like you. There was weakness in each of them. There was a fraying wind. A mess he said like you before your bath.

I read this blog, The Economy Isn't Happening , almost every day because I think he's funny a lot of the time, he's a guy so I get some testosterone-laden perspective in my day, and although he states he's NOT Robert Goulet I'm secretly hoping that he is and will one day belt out "If I Would Ever Leave You." I also sense he has a kind heart. His latest post is centered on the idea of not inundating ourselves with news--and by that, he means bad news--and to go on living our lives surrounded by daily, undramatic, non-crime-ridden, non-war mongering activities. He believes we and the world would be much happier. For the record here, I don't agree with him 100%, but as I said I like the guy's writing and I'm willing to give him what small forum I have to share his point of view. I don't think a person needs to watch CNN 24/7, nor do I believe that necessarily makes a person informed. What I do believe is that the world does not need us to w...

Going tonight for the first in a series of Lindy Hop classes...watched the video...did I mention I'm 53??...uhmmmmmm..., guess I'll wear flat shoes...and pants, definitely wearing me some long pants:>)

Is it that he makes me laugh or that Scottish accent?? Either way, love this man.

"I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting. O! had I but followed the arts!" William Shakespeare--Twelfth Night, 1. 3 I missed Twelfth Night this year, being instead held hostage in Neurodramaville. No King's cakes or mischief making for us. We pretty much got our asses heartily kicked as did the rest of the hospital. Patients' families always seem so surprised to learn that there are no hospital beds to place their loved ones into. Certainly not the impression given on House or ER or Grey's Anatomy where patient's guerneys go flying willy-nilly to a quiet empty room and crisply starched white sheets. The truth is that the bed is still slightly damp from the disinfectant spray used after the last patient and the nurse may be still putting clean sheets on the bed while the newest invalid is rolling through the doorway. As my mother delights in telling me, "There's no rest for the wicked or the w...

by Roseann Lloyd Find a clean cloth for the kitchen table, the red and blue one you made that cold winter in Montana. Spread out your paper and books. Tune the radio to the jazz station. Look at the bright orange safflowers you found last August— how well they've held their color next to the black-spotted cat. Make some egg coffee, in honor of all the people above the Arctic Circle. Give thanks to the Sufis, who figured out how to brew coffee from the dark, bitter beans. Remark on the joyfulness of your dishes: black and yellow stars. Reminisce with your lover about the history of this kitchen where, between bites of cashew stir fry, you first kissed each other on the mouth. Now that you're hungry, toast some leftover cornbread, spread it with real butter, honey from bees that fed on basswood blossoms. The window is frosted over, but the sun's casting an eye over all the books. Open your Spanish book. The season for sleeping is over. The pots and pans: quiet now, let them b...

Square Dancing with Sister Robert Claire by Michael Cleary First week of junior high, Kel wised off to her same as he'd done to the one all year before. I can still see it. Her so short, the uppercut put all her weight under the whack of her pudgy fist against the V of his chin. Kel arching a back-dive, landing legs up, desks dominoing halfway up the row. Sweet Jesus, she was tough, but bless her the first one who liked boys best and didn't carry a grudge. But she sure as hell wasn't one of the almost pretty nuns you could almost imagine out there in the world. Picture pie-faced Lou from Abbott and Costello, lumpy-looking in any duds but now add a thick black floor-length habit with dozens of folds, hidden pockets. Around her waist rosary beads big as marbles dangling to where knees would be. Hair, ears, and neck under a stiff white wimple, she waddled the aisles like a wooly toad. One week she dragged us into the gym and the alien world of square dancing—and girls. Sheddin...

by Baron Wormser Invariably, a family in each one And someone opening the fridge to fetch A carton of milk, someone sitting in A chair and shelling peas, someone looking Out a window at a barn, two willow trees. Solitude broods like a pursuing shadow; A radio fades in and out -the voice Eager yet eerie. Three ages anchor The oaken dinner table: Mom and Dad Up-before-dawn weary, Grandma perturbed About half-thawed rolls, the children recounting School stories, then silent. In the parlor A whiskey tumbler rests beside a Bible. The old collie whimpers when a car goes by.

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale by Dan Albergotti Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days. Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals. Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices. Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review each of your life's ten million choices. Endure moments of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you. Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart. Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all the things you did and could have done. Remember treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes pointing again and again down, down into the black depths. please note: art by Johnathan Marshall

This year has the smell of hope to it that makes me feel excited about what is to come. Maybe we really can make a difference in the world. Perhaps we can be the change we want to see. So, I'm going out on a limb here and making some resolutions for 2009. First of all, St. Vincent de Paul will be my new best friend and I will be clearing out of the house our trash and someone else's treasures. I'm usually a "When in doubt, throw it out" gal, however The Hubby likes to hang onto miscellaneous odds and ends "just in case." In our seventeen years here we have accumulated quite enough for any scenerio or invasion of Barbarians that comes our way. 2009...this stuff's got to go and we'll blissfully have some room to move. There's the usual--get to bed earlier, read more books, watch fewer Monk reruns, drink more water. Take an additional dance class. Modern, maybe hip-hop. Something different. I plan to leave every place I'm in a little bett...