If I could tell you

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

-W. H. Auden

Happy Christmas!

Making a Meal Out of It

Hoboken snowtime and the big slushy
mounds are the laundry of the future,
with next-door’s mortician rating
my clumsy shoveling by shouting:
“You’d never make it as a grave digger!”

Time pulse quickens with walkers
and curb lackeys merged in the quadrille
of symbiosis. In local shop windows
they sell devices capable
-----------of reordering speech. I pass. I have
that exile’s sense of recreation
& believe rebirth is possible
from the wreck of our common misery
& that songs are clear when sung

by heroes, but not in this epoch. Niggling
winter dreams fueled by the rhythms
of the world’s desire. This is my version.
I know the dimensions. I live by a river.

-Joel Lewis, 2006

I just discovered this today--Christmas is Happening, a musical Advent calendar.

It's nice. So, on this fourth Sunday of Advent (peace, in the tradition I've been taught), passing it along. Happy Christmas. And for those of you who don't celebrate Christmas (as well as everyone else), there will be a lunar eclipse on the morning on the winter solstice, which evidently hasn't happened since 1378. So.

Tomorrow I pack up, move out, move on--but I won't have internet then so let's just pretend like it's today. I'll be going up to Massachusetts to be with my family for the holidays and then some. Right now the future is fairly nebulous, but I think that might be okay.

Mountain Life

In summer dusk the valley lies
With far-flung shadow veil;
A cloud-sea laps the precipice
Before the evening gale:
The welter of the cloud-waves grey
Cuts off from keenest sight
The glacier, looking out by day
O'er all the district, far away,
And crowned with golden light.

But o'er the smouldering cloud-wrack's flow,
Where gold and amber kiss,
Stands up the archipelago,
A home of shining peace.
The mountain eagle seems to sail
A ship far seen at even;
And over all a serried pale
Of peaks, like giants ranked in mail,
Fronts westward threatening heaven.

But look, a steading nestles, close
Beneath the ice-fields bound,
Where purple cliffs and glittering snows
The quiet home surround.
Here place and people seem to be
A world apart, alone; --
Cut off from men by spate and scree
It has a heaven more broad, more free,
A sunshine all its own.

Look: mute the saeter-maiden stays,
Half shadow, half aflame;
The deep, still vision of her gaze
Was never word to name.
She names it not herself, nor knows
What goal my be its will;
While cow-bells chime and alp-horn blows
It bears her where the sunset glows,
Or, maybe, further still.

Too brief, thy life on highland wolds
Where close the glaciers jut;
Too soon the snowstorm's cloak enfolds
Stone byre and pine-log hut.
Then wilt thou ply with hearth ablaze
The winter's well-worn tasks; --
But spin thy wool with cheerful face:
One sunset in the mountain pays
For all their winter asks.

-Henrik Ibsen, 1851

I've made a playlist each month for the past sixth months. Here's December's, abridged slightly because some of the tracks on it couldn't be uploaded. And because I'm about to go microwave leftovers for dinner, here's a couple winter recipes. Enjoy.
(Ironically, my last eats post was also a music post with an 8tracks playlist--evidently music and food go hand-in-hand in my mind, regardless of season.)

The Egg Had Frozen, an Accident.
I Thought of My Life

The egg had frozen, an accident.
I thought of my life.
I heated the butter anyhow.
The shell peeled easily,
inside it looked
both translucent and boiled.
I moved it around in the pan.
It melted, the whites
first clearing to liquid,
then turning solid
and white again like good laundry.
The yolk kept its yolk shape.
Not fried, not scrambled,
in the end it was cooked.
With pepper and salt, I ate it.
My life that resembled it ate it.
It tasted like any other wrecked thing,
eggish and tender, a banquet.

-Jane Hirshfield, 2010

New York, again.

Beautiful Sunday

The streets are empty as a jar

I could begin an important job
something that would give me satisfaction

but I wander to the windows
one after another
all morning long

Their brightness oppresses me

The words of one sentence
shake against each other
the first forgotten
the last trailing off

We should have gone to the orchard today
instead of yesterday in the rain

I can't get started
reminding myself of too many things
feeling the presence of others
which isn't their fault

I could walk, taking a book
or leaving that behind
have my coffee outside in the sun

but somehow things lack savor
although I'm not despairing

Beautiful---Beautiful---Sunday!

and I can go nothing

the day has already been taken

It's been waiting
but I don't want to lie down

-Miriam Levine, 1976

Miriam Levine has a blog, incidentally.