A Tidings of Magpies

Apology by Richard Wilbur A word sticks in the wind's throat; A wind-launch drifts in the wells of rye; Sometimes, in broad silence, The hanging apples distil their darkness. You, in a green dress, calling, and with brown hair, Who come by the field-path now, whose name I say Softly, forgive me love if I also call you Wind's word, apple-heart, haven of grasses.

by Louis Jenkins January finally drags into February and one fumbles with numb fingers at the ordinary knots and hooks of life. People are irritable, difficult. Some days you want to stay in bed with the covers over your head and dream of paradise. A place where the warm sea washes the white sand. There are a few palm trees on the higher ground, many brightly colored fish in the lagoon, waves breaking on the reef farther out. No one in sight. Occasionally an incredibly large, split-second shark darkens the clear water. Sea birds ride the wind currents, albatross, kittiwake, ... and pass on. Day after day, sea wind and perfect sky .... You make a big heap of driftwood on the beach I've been down for the count with  all of some variation of the many influenza strains not covered by the 2013 flu vaccine. There's been much moaning and gnashing of teeth; usually the cat, as I've attempted to carry him with me from one unsatisfactory lay-about spot to anoth...

by Marianne Boruch I walked out, and the nest was already there by the step. Woven basket of a saint sent back to life as a bird who proceeded to make a mess of things. Wind right through it, and any eggs long vanished. But it my hand it was intricate pleasure, even the thorny reeds softened in the weave. And the fading leaf mold, hardly itself anymore, merely a trick of light, if light can be tricked. Deep in a life is another life. I walked out, the nest already by the step. please note: photo by DarlingBridget from Homespun Bliss Blog

Might I recommend a movie to you all? Diana Vreeland. If you are "of a certain age," male or female, this movie brings our past back to kaleidescopic life through an entirely different lens. The quotidian wrappings of our day have, more likely than not, become icons. The Twiggys, the Rolling Stones, the Jean Shrimptons, the Veruschkas. Pages and pages of magazine photos that filled our minds and eyes in the travels of our every days now fill in the gaps of our history of events of that time. I'd seen the previews at our neighborhood movie theater and thought it looked interesting enough, though easy enough to keep putting off. Yesterday I put it on the To-Do List for 5:05pm and to quote another great icon, "I'm mad about it!! Simply mad!" Goodbye, New York (song from the wrong side of the Hudson) by Deborah Garrison You were the big fat city we called hometown You were the lyrics I sang but never wrote down You were the live...

by Paul Lisicky That silly retriever. He doesn't go to the two guys looking right at him, beaming him awake with concentrated joy. Not at all: he goes straight to the man with his head turned to the left, who could care less about doggy behavior and isn't the least bit stirred by the snout parked in the knee and the wagging hind parts. And that's it: the physics of the known world. Which is why the trees look better when they're left unwatered, and the birds actually prefer it when you don't sing back to them. And the holy man crossing the street with the black brim hat? He knows better than to pick up what he's dropped and lift his face to the mountains. Take it from him, friend. You probably wouldn't even want it if the light hit you in your head.

      ...being that's it's the second inauguration of this country's first African-American president on the very day we celebrate Martin Luther King. I love this president and revere Mr. King, but I got nothing. I'm gonna percolate on this and try to be pithy and reflective at some point in my day. What I really want to talk about is the Downton Abbey episode last night, and the reports I keep getting on FaceBook that it's -20 in Fargo, and the events surrounding the young woman I wrote about a few days ago reported on the front page of our http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130119/NEWS/301200040&Ref=AR">">  daily paper yesterday morning  and the fact that Hubby is working today and I'm off which allows me to toss and purge some of the flotsam and jetsam in this house without having every bag and pile second guessed. With the inauguration playing in the background. On...

                   "Outside, it is cold, silvery, and suffused with a delicate milky haze. Gray hushed days follow each other, calling us to inner activity. Sitting by the fire or hurrying through the streets, our power of thinking grows. Filled with new ideas, we feel creative and courageous. Legend says, "words spoken in winter go unheard until next summer." This is the message from Janus, the old Etruscan god of the doorway, after whom January was named. Janus stands between past and future, new and old. He has two faces. One looks back, the other forward. His third face is invisible. This is the face of eternity, the present moment: NOW. Warmth settles around our hearts. Summoned to great deeds of right action and selfless love, Janus bids us pass through his gate." -- Christopher Bamford please note: photo is from Cincinnati Daily Photo. Apparently there was a once-in-a-lifetime, pheno...

                           "Every year about now, I feel the need to keep a journal...I walk past the blank books--gifts of nothingness--that pile up in bookstores this season, and I can almost hear their clean white pages begging to be defaced...if I do give in, this is what I have in mind. I want to count the crows in the field every afternoon. I want to record the temperatures, highs and lows, every day and measure the rain and snow. If a flock of turkeys walks into the barnyard, I want to mention the fact. If one of the horses throws a shoe, I want to say so, in writing, before I call the farrier; and I'd like to be able to tell from my journal just how many bales of hay I have squirreled away in the barn." --Verlyn Klingenborg For those among us who live more prosaic lives and don't have the cawings of crows to mark our mornings and even...

Lenten Dissent by Cherie Lashway There once was a logger, named Paddy O'Connell, Who at lunch during Lent, found himself at McDonalds, And had just settled down to his Big Mac and fries, When along came his priest, much to both their surprise. The priest said to Paddy, "Just what are you eating? In this season of Lent, I sure hope you're not cheating." Paddy said to the Father, "I'll tell you no lies. I'm enjoying a Big Mac, along with some fries." The priest said to Paddy, "I see no repentance. Because of this sin, you will have to do penance. "By Friday or sooner, I say that you should, For our fireplace, deliver a cord of chopped wood." Now our timberman, Paddy, an overworked man, Did think to himself, "I don't think that I can." But early on Friday, our priest, he heard shoveling, And looked out the window at Paddy not groveling. And saw with confusion, disma...

   Getting Through by Maxine Kumin I want to apologize for all the snow falling in this poem so early in the season. Falling on the calendar of bad news. Already we have had snow lucid, snow surprising, snow bees and lambswool snow. Already snows of exaltation have covered some scars. Larks and the likes of paisleys went up. But lately the sky is letting down large-print flakes of old age. Loving this poor place, wanting to stay on, we have endured an elegiac snow of whitest jade, subdued biographical snows and public storms, official and profuse. Even if the world is ending you can tell it's February by the architecture of the pastures. Snow falls on the pregnant mares, is followed by a thaw, and then refreezes so that everywhere their hill upheaves into a glass mountain. The horses skid, stiff-legged, correct position, break through the crust and stand around disconsolate lipping wisps of hay. Animals are said ...

Exegesis by Paul Hostovsky We couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen, sitting on that green bench in the late sixties or early seventies, me and Michael Zucker who was much more savvy and world-weary than I, when I asked him to please explain the meaning of the words to a song by Carly Simon, who was simply gorgeous—that much was plain—after we'd resolved the essential question of whether or not she was wearing a bra in that photo of her with the blue top and thick lips on her album cover. "I don't get it," I said. "'You're so vain. You probably think this song is about you.' But the song IS about him, isn't it?" I asked Zucker, holding my palm up in the air like one who is trying to ascertain the truth about whether or not it has started to rain. Zucker looked away then, gingerly fingering the green slats, as though he were reading the carved names of the lovers and obscenities tact...

please note: photo by Ray Yeager

 Wild Geese by Charles Goodrich I'm picking beans when the geese fly over, Blue Lake pole beans I figure to blanch and freeze. Maybe pick some dilly beans. And there will be more beans to give to the neighbors, forcibly if necessary. The geese come over so low I can hear their wings creak, can see their tail feathers making fine adjustments. They slip-stream along so gracefully, riding on each other's wind, surfing the sky. Maybe after the harvest I'll head south. Somebody told me Puerto Vallarta is nice. I'd be happy with a cheap room. Rice and beans at every meal. Swim a little, lay on the beach. Who are you kidding, Charles? You don't like to leave home in the winter. Spring, fall, or summer either. True. But I do love to watch those wild geese fly over, feel these impertinent desires glide through me. Then get back to work.

Ice by Gail Mazur In the warming house, children lace their skates, bending, choked over their thick jackets. A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy it's hard to imagine why anyone would leave, clumping across the frozen beach to the river. December's always the same at Ware's Cove, the first sheer ice, black, then white and deep until the city sends trucks of men with wooden barriers to put up the boys' hockey rink. An hour of skating after school, of trying wobbly figure-8's, an hour of distances moved backwards without falling, then—twilight, the warming house steamy with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs aching. Outside, the hockey players keep playing, slamming the round black puck until it's dark, until supper. At night, a shy girl comes to the cove with her father. Although there isn't music, they glide arm in arm onto the blurred surface together, braced like dancers....

The Bloody Mary by Susan Donnelly Sunday in late December calls for one, with a celery stalk and faint taste of Worcestershire, to be sipped while eating poached egg and corned beef hash, in a hotel dining room with someone you love. Touch the hairs at his wrist as the warmth endorses all bed-lingering, non-churchgoing. It's the solstice, remember, when your frugal father would hand around dollar bills so the day would last longer. Stir ice into the rich red and consider such Celtic rituals, as you watch, beyond the tall windows, pilgrims traveling the paths past snow-fringed trees in the park. please note: photography by Marc Piasecki

I was very much hoping to go to the above cafe tonight and listen to a little music and eat a little cafe food. Hubby, however, is still recovering from a horrible gastrointestinal virus that he picked up in his ER which I'm crossing my fingers and hoping is only passed on in his ER. Don't want it. And would like to be away from sick people for a night. Ahhh, well, next weekend is another two days. It's cold here. Maybe feels colder because we've had such a mild time of it so far, but that wind is piercing. Good time to computer shop for a down parka on sale especially since we're saving money by not going out. I do love a win-win :>) Fishing in the Keep of Silence by Linda Gregg There is a hush now while the hills rise up and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully as He lies dreaming in the lap of the world. He knows the owls will guard the sweetness of the soul in their massive ...