A Tidings of Magpies

Fairbanks Under the Solstice by  John Haines Slowly, without sun, the day sinks toward the close of December. It is minus sixty degrees. Over the sleeping houses a dense fog rises—smoke from banked fires, and the snowy breath of an abyss through which the cold town is perceptibly falling. As if Death were a voice made visible, with the power of illumination... Now, in the white shadow of those streets, ghostly newsboys make their rounds, delivering to the homes of those who have died of the frost word of the resurrection of Silence. Honey-Haired Girl has moved to Alaska. The Land of the Midnight Sun. The Last Frontier. Hubby was up there for about two weeks to get her settled. I was just up there for Thanksgiving. She's doing well; thank you for asking. I believe the lowest temperatures were hovering at -18, and the sun is up for about 5 hrs. And, by "up," I mean it drifts along the horizon. It's dark by 4 pm. The roads are essentiall...

Journey by Train by May Sarton Stretched across counties, countries, the train Rushes faster than memory through the rain. The rise of each hill is a musical phrase. Listen to the rhythm of space, how it lies, How it rolls, how it reaches, what unwinding relays Of wood and meadow where the red cows graze Come back again and again to closed eyes— That garden, that pink farm, that village steeple, And here and there the solitary people Who stand arrested when express trains pass, That stillness of an orchard in deep grass. Yet landscapes flow like this toward a place, A point in time and memory's own face. So when the clamor stops, we really climb Down to the earth, closing the curve of time, Meeting those we have left, to those we meet Bringing our whole life that has moved so fast, And now is gathered up and here at last, To unroll like a ribbon at their feet. HoneyedHaired Grrrl should be making her way back home tomorrow, air tr...

Does anyone know anything about or anyone in Fargo? HoneyHaired has an opportunity to work there for a co-op this winter quarter and my knowledge is only cinematic...and it's 19 degrees there...

by Peg Lauber The grass here is strange paradise to northern feet. Stiff, it explodes into green when we aren't expecting it remembering it as greening up much later. All over town they turn the fountains on again. If there's one thing they've got enough of, it's water. Dig down a foot and you have it, even though brackish, and in the summer no cold water comes out of the tap no matter how long you run it. In every yard there's another explosion in January, camellias, pink, deep red, white, and we not a month past Christmas. But up north the frigid season crawls on, takes its time; even in April and May it's still snowing and sleeting, then comes hail as winter turns to summer in one day: 90 degrees. Here, however, people eat sack lunches on the dull green trolley with red touches still bearing Christmas garlands over the controls at each end. The riders open the windows to put their elbows out while they take the...

Well, MissNewOrleans Grrrrl is unpacked in her new apartment and sent us a pic of the orange tree outside her kitchen window. That seems a good omen to me for a sweet home.  Live Oaks, New Orleans by Jennifer Maier They square off along Napoleon avenue, opposing armies of dark women, leaning out so far their branches meet at the top, like hands grabbing fistfuls of tangled hair; and some of them are old, with the thick, scarred trunks of Storyville madams, and roots so strong their suck heaves up the sidewalk like so many broken saltines. And some are young, with the straightbacked bodies of girls who dream of horses and the brown arms of the neighbor boys, but underground the red roots grow together, fuse in a living circuitry spun deep and stronger than the whims of emperors, as if they've known all along that earth's the right place for love, as though, planted in battle lines, they incline toward the circle, and hold it open...

Storage by Faith Shearin That year we left the house we couldn't afford and put our belongings in storage. We were free now to travel or live in tiny spaces. We kept our chairs and tables in a cement cell, our bookshelves, our daughter's old toys, clothes we wouldn't wear or discard. There were books we liked but did not need and mattresses and pots and pans. Sometimes we went to visit our things: sat in our rocking chairs, searched for a jacket, listened to an old radio. It was like visiting someone I loved in a hospital: the way, removed from the world, a person or object becomes thin, diminished. The furniture on which we lived our young life had no job but to wait for us. It remembered our dinners, the light through our windows, the way the baby once played on the floor.