A Tidings of Magpies

from one shore to another... Back in ten days, but until then please try to put your fat feet on the ground...:) (a cappella group singing "Mustang Sally" on Toulouse Street in New Orleans. A great time was had and MissNewOrleans is doing great.)

Our girlie-girl was in New Orleans for the Final Four final game, but had another reason to be down there which involved a job interview. After weeks of crossing our fingers and lighting multiple Our Lady of Guadelupe candles--very concerned about job prospects and economic recovery--our girl found out she got the job. While she is busy packing up this weekend for her move next week, we are busy gathering bits and pieces here to exchange with her the things she won't need till she finds an apartment. Go down with a fold-up cot, come back with a backseat full of winter coats and sweaters. Sheer joy and excitement have been replaced with some nostalgia and a nod to Time who keeps truckin' on whether we are quite packed and ready or not. For a Daughter Gone Away by Brendan Galvin Today there’ve been moments the earth falters and almost goes off in those trails of smoke that resolve to flocks so far And small they elude my naming. Walking the Boston ...

by Linda Pastan When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park, I kept waiting for the thud of your crash as I sprinted to catch up, while you grew smaller, more breakable with distance, pumping, pumping for your life, screaming with laughter, the hair flapping behind you like a handkerchief waving goodbye.

Prayer for Our Daughters by Mark Jarman May they never be lonely at parties Or wait for mail from people they haven't written Or still in middle age ask God for favors Or forbid their children things they were never forbidden. May hatred be like a habit they never developed And can't see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking. If they forget themselves, may it be in music Or the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking. May they enter the coming century Like swans under a bridge into enchantment And take with them enough of this century To assure their grandchildren it really happened. May they find a place to love, without nostalgia For some place else that they can never go back to. And may they find themselves, as we have found them, Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to. May they be themselves, long after we've stopped watching. May they return from every kind of suffering (Except the last, which doesn't bear repeating) And be the...

by Sylvia Plath Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I'm no more your mother Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow Effacement at the wind's hand. All night your moth-breath Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear. One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral In my Victorian nightgown. Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try Your handful of notes; The clear vowels rise like balloons. please note: photo by elsief1