Wednesday in CinCity

It was a grrrl's weekend at the lake. Pizza, beer, thrift store shopping, farmers' markets and girltalk. A nice break for all of us and a new way to reconfigure ourselves with 2 girls growing up, up, and away. CollegeGrrrl shadowed at BigFatTeaching Hospital, first in the Burns unit, then with me. That was fun to have her there and explain some of the details about nursing that can't be learned till you're in the thick of it and equipment that makes much more sense in person than in a lecture.

HoneyHaired--our new collegegrrrl--made up for lost sleep. You'd think there was a magical sleeping potion in the backseat of the car.

But, they're off and running again. Hubby is off working at winterizing the place before the season passes. I'm here on a day off with the remaining animal boys who could also sleep all day and night and then some. Must pull myself away quickly. I'm convinced they release some pherome that entices all humans around them to nap the day away.


At the Lake


by Mary Oliver



A fish leaps

like a black pin --

then -- when the starlight

strikes its side --



like a silver pin.

In an instant

the fish's spine

alters the fierce line of rising



and it curls a little --

the head, like scalloped tin,

plunges back,

and it's gone.



This is, I think,

what holiness is:

the natural world,

where every moment is full



of the passion to keep moving.

Inside every mind

there's a hermit's cave

full of light,



full of snow,

full of concentration.

I've knelt there,

and so have you,



hanging on

to what you love,

to what is lovely.

The lake's



shining sheets

don't make a ripple now,

and the stars

are going off to their blue sleep,



but the words are in place --

and the fish leaps, and leaps again

from the black plush of the poem,

that breathless space.