A Tidings of Magpies

by Matsuo Basho Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind — filled with a strong desire to wander. It was only towards the end of last autumn that I returned from rambling along the coast. I barely had time to sweep the cobwebs from my broken house on the River Sumida before the New Year, but no sooner had the spring mist begun to rise over the field than I wanted to be on the road again to cross the barrier-gate of Shirakawa in due time. The gods seem to have possessed my soul and turned it inside out, and roadside images seemed to invite me from every corner, so that it was impossible for me to stay idle at home. Even while I was getting ready, mending my to...

by George Bilgere When Odysseus finally does get home he is understandably upset about the suitors, who have been mooching off his wife for twenty years, drinking his wine, eating his mutton, etc. In a similar situation today he would seek legal counsel. But those were different times. With the help of his son Telemachus he slaughters roughly one hundred and ten suitors and quite a number of young ladies, although in view of their behavior I use the term loosely. Rivers of blood course across the palace floor. I too have come home in a bad mood. Yesterday, for instance, after the department meeting, when I ended up losing my choice parking spot behind the library to the new provost. I slammed the door. I threw down my book bag in this particular way I have perfected over the years that lets my wife understand the contempt I have for my enemies, which is prodigious. And then with great skill she built a gin and tonic that would have pleased the very gods, and with epic patience she list...

Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey You can get there from here, though there's no going home. Everywhere you go will be somewhere you've never been. Try this: head south on Mississippi 49, one- by-one mile markers ticking off another minute of your life. Follow this to its natural conclusion – dead end at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches in a sky threatening rain. Cross over the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand dumped on the mangrove swamp – buried terrain of the past. Bring only what you must carry – tome of memory, its random blank pages. On the dock where you board the boat for Ship Island, someone will take your picture: the photograph – who you were— will be waiting when you return. Back to CinCity. I will not even begin to estimate the time I have taken simply to try to get access to my required readings off of a modern invention of torture called BlackBoard. I was starting to take it all personally and feelin...

by Wendell Berry IV The summer ends, and it is time To face another way. Our theme Reversed, we harvest the last row To store against the cold, undo The garden that will be undone. We grieve under the weakened sun To see all earth's green fountains dried, And fallen all the works of light. You do not speak, and I regret This downfall of the good we sought As though the fault were mine. I bring The plow to turn the shattering Leaves and bent stems into the dark, From which they may return. At work, I see you leaving our bright land, The last cut flowers in your hand. please note: photo by Maurits Van Wyk

My grad school classes begin this week. Occupational Health Illnesses and Injuries to kick it off. Maybe some rotator cuff disabilities from stickin' it to The Man. And alcoholism cause I've watched Mad Men long enough to know there's no getting through those days without a drink or ten. CollegeGrrrl and I were in the bank a week or so ago and overheard a PhD. candidate discussing his research on Violence Against Drug Dealers. I see opportunity for a guest lecturer promoting helmets and kevlar. Or, maybe not. And, I suspect there will be less halcyon days of the college campus photo above and more of the schlepping through the campus below. Little nervous. Not certain that I can take notes again and study, study, study, but we'll see what happens. OctoberFest this weekend in CinCity where the Chicken Dance is king. HoneyHaired and I are off to the ballet to see New Works , where local choreographers showcase their work, often with local musicians. The video below is fro...

uhmmmmmmmmmmm...don't forget your flu shots...

by Valerie Martínez Turn it over and look up into the sphere of heaven. The tracery is lucent, light seeping through to write, white-ink your face, upturned. Swing it below and it's a cradle of blue water, the sea, a womb. A mixing bowl for Babylonian gods. Here, they whirl up the cosmos. Pick it up and your hands form a pedestal, and all who drink contain the arcs of body and the universe— and between them, no imaginable tear or distance.

Well, another weekend of work done and over. Another weekend of spontaneous head bleeds from ruptured blood vessels, fall down drunkards with expanding brain bruises crowding and pushing one side towards the other, and self-inflicted gun shot wounds to the head. Actually, less of a wound as much as the kind of massive injury that a 9mm can inflict on soft tissue. So, a quiet morning at home listening to the dog snore and the wind loosening the leaves from their seasonal lodgings. Our old, now crazy, cat is walking around the first floor howling while we keep reminding her that come on, we're over here, sitting on the couch. Hubby's on the phone with the utilities company trying to sort out a bill and rooting through his espionage defying file of "Important Papers." Second cup of coffee is still warm and delicious next to me and I'm soon to check my university email to see if I have any important updates before school starts next week. I haven't seen any list o...

by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno Long-faced irises. Mums. Pink roses and white roses and giant sunflowers, and hundreds of daisies. Fruit baskets with muscular pears, and water crackers and tiny jams and the steady march of casseroles. And money, people give money these days. Cards, of course: the Madonna, wise and sad just for you, Chinese cherry blossoms, sunsets and moonscapes, and dragonflies for transcendence. People stand by your sink and offer up their pain: Did you know I lost a baby once, or My eldest son was killed, or My mother died two months ago. People are good. They file into your cartoon house until it bows at the seams; they give you every blessed thing, everything, except your daughter back.

by Sandra Beasley For six months I dealt Baccarat in a casino. For six months I played Brahms in a mall. For six months I arranged museum dioramas; my hands were too small for the Paleolithic and when they reassigned me to lichens, I quit. I type ninety-one words per minute, all of them Help. Yes, I speak Dewey Decimal. I speak Russian, Latin, a smattering of Tlingit. I can balance seven dinner plates on my arm. All I want to do is sit on a veranda while a hard rain falls around me. I'll file your 1099s. I'll make love to strangers of your choice. I'll do whatever you want, as long as I can do it on that veranda. If it calls you, it's your calling, right? Once I asked a broker what he loved about his job, and he said Making a killing. Once I asked a serial killer what made him get up in the morning, and he said The people.

by William Notter CAFE still burning in neon after sunup, and a bird's gangly silhouette stretched out with speed—the sign draws me in. The walls inside are hung with Spanish prayers, kachina dolls, chili pepper bundles, and a three-foot Christ sanctifies relief from the bluster of New Mexico spring. The waitress brings coffee and cream. The gaunt, mustachioed cook whets his spatula against the grill scrambling huevos Mexicanos with chopped green chilies, tomatoes, onion, tortillas and beans on the side. A whiskered man at the counter brags to the waitress about the money he can make selling copper wire for scrap, and how he drank thirteen beers the night before, and wasn't even drunk. Highway patrolmen talk knockdown power and calibers, a courthouse blown apart by a fertilizer bomb in the back of a truck. A skittish Navajo woman, Drug Free and Proud printed on her shirt, opens a letter and swirls ice cubes with her butter knife. The letter might be from a son locked up for ste...

...that is, if your idea of a party involves punching a timeclock and scrubs. Day of birth was fabulously hot here in CinCity. Hubby and I had lunch at Don Pablo's on the river where the humid breeze could smooth out the 55 year old laugh lines I've accumulated. Flowers were included and a book and gift cards. Life is truly good. Grad school starts in 21 days. I think I may still need one vaccine and I definitely need an ID, but I made it through the orientation program and I know where my classes are. On. A Map. That works. please note: photo of Judy Holliday, star of The Bells are Ringing--movie from whence we have The Party's Over