The best thing for any day is poetry… and today is no exception! I stumbled across this beautiful poem by the brilliant Tracy K. Smith (you can listen to her read it here)
And if you want to hear the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters… well, enter the rabbit hole here!
Wade in the Water
by Tracy K. Smith
for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters
One of the women greeted me.
I love you, she said. She didn’t
Know me, but I believed her,
And a terrible new ache
Rolled over in my chest,
Like in a room where the drapes
Have been swept back. I love you,
I love you, as she continued
Down the hall past other strangers,
Each feeling pierced suddenly
By pillars of heavy light.
I love you, throughout
The performance, in every
Handclap, every stomp.
I love you in the rusted iron
Chains someone was made
To drag until love let them be
Unclasped and left empty
In the center of the ring.
I love you in the water
Where they pretended to wade,
Singing that old blood-deep song
That dragged us to those banks
And cast us in. I love you,
The angles of it scraping at
Each throat, shouldering past
The swirling dust motes
In those beams of light
That whatever we now knew
We could let ourselves feel, knew
To climb. O Woods—O Dogs—
O Tree—O Gun—O Girl, run—
O Miraculous Many Gone—
O Lord—O Lord—O Lord—
Is this love the trouble you promised?
I am gathering with Bonny and all the poetry lovers to share some poetry with you all today. (Make sure you stop by and see what we all have shared…and we’d love it even more if you joined us and shared a poem!)
Is it just me… or is June racing along? In my mind, it is still last week… and I have plenty of time to contemplate poetry for today.
Thankfully, Pádraig Ó Tuama came to my rescue with this introduction to the pantoum this week. That sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole on the internet and led me to the poem I am sharing today.
Pantoum’s are delightful and you can learn a bit more about them here and here. (And I highly recommend you listen to Pádraig read you the pantoum from this Monday’s Poetry Unbound podcast!)
The pantoum I am sharing this week is by A.E. Stallings for all us insomniacs out there!
Another Lullaby for Insomniacs
by A.E. Stallings
Sleep, she will not linger:
She turns her moon-cold shoulder.
With no rings on her finger,
You cannot hope to hold her.
She turns her moon-cold shoulder
And tosses off the cover.
You cannot hope to hold her:
She has another lover.
She tosses off the cover
And lays the darkness bare.
She has another lover.
Her heart is otherwhere.
She lays the darkness bare.
You slowly realize
Her heart is otherwhere.
There’s a distance in her eyes.
You slowly realize
That she will never linger,
With distance in her eyes
And no ring on her finger.
Another Lullaby for Insomniacs by A.E. Stallings appeared in the April 2004 issue of Poetry Magazine.
And that is all I have for this week… see you all back here on Monday!
It’s that time in the week when we all gather together and share what we are making and (perhaps more importantly!) what we are reading!
I have an almost finished Mystery Gnome… that I won’t share this week because there are several “bits” that are not yet finished and my Gnome… well, he remains a mystery to me! I did stuff him yesterday so I am hoping that he speaks to me soon about the direction he wants to go! Stay tuned!
I made some headway on my Summer Knitting List… I have a finished pair of Hermoine’s Everyday Socks! I liked this pattern (especially the heel with the garter edges!) very much and I will be knitting it again! These socks are now tucked away for October or November when socks are once again needed!
My Summer Knitting List has decreased by two projects this week! I have frogged the Ooh La La sweater… I was not in love and began to ask myself were would I wear it. It was quick work to rip it out… and I have already repurposed the yarn! Yep, I have another Shakerag Skirt underway!
After seeing this… I got a crochet hook out and gave Ye Olde Crochet Bucket Hat a try… I used a skein of Euroflax I had in my stash to see how it went… and by George, I think I got it! Ha!
It is a bit “stiff” I think the linen yarn was on the heavier end of worsted weight… but it works! I have begun a second with some leftover Hempathy in my stash. Yes, I know it is a dk yarn, but I like the fabric I am getting, so I will forge on. It is fun counting and single-crocheting… ha!
And if that was not enough ‘making’ for the week. I finished a do-over of the flower pot lesson from my last watercolor class. This one I did on a quarter sheet (so much bigger!) and I ordered a frame yesterday because this one is heading off as a “congrats on your elopement” to my son and new daughter-in-law in Wisconsin!
So how’s my reading been this week, you ask? Well… I have just one finish… The Colony by Audrey Magee. I loved it! (There is painting in it! Ha!)
I have been savoring Fresh Water for Flowers… I really don’t want to leave Violette and her little cemetery… however, even though I have been savoring it, I should finish it today (I have about 50 pages to go.)
In my ears, I have been enjoying Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. It is a collection of short stories and I am very much enjoying them!
What about you all? What have you been up to this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
Brings some much needed rain! I am hoping that it washes away much of the pollen that is making me miserable! (as well as bring a bit of life back to our very dead lawn!)
We did have a good weekend… there was a happy hour that might have celebrated a certain indictment! I made the NYTimes recipe for spinach artichoke dip (and it was insanely delicious!) A couple of weeks ago I picked up a set of these produce containers that Carole had raved about a few weeks ago. They are crazy… and amazing!
But perhaps the best thing of the entire weekend was this little cutie wandering into our back yard Saturday afternoon and spending a few hours with us!
So tiny and so stinking cute! For a few hours I felt very much like dear Margaret Renkl with her Comfort of Crows in my own backyard! (An added boon… that rabbit in the end of the brief video is the Papa Bunny who has successfully watched over his third nest of babies in our yard this year!)
Today I am going to savor the rain as I sit in and paint a bit today! Happy Monday everyone!
See you all back here on Wednesday with some unraveling!
This month’s exhibit is a study in contrasts… the then and now of my Happy Place! And… has my Happy Place changed over the years.
When I was much younger my Happy Place was tied to a physical place… my grandparent’s home was at the top of that list… and if going to a physical place was not possible, then letting a book “take me away” was the next best thing! And those things worked for my happy place for a very long time.
My Happy Place now has expanded a bit… grown up, perhaps. I still love to read a book that will “take me away”… thank goodness! But I don’t need to physically go someplace. Although, I’d love to be able to head over to my grandparent’s house and while away the hours with them! I think my grandpa would love for me to recite some of my favorite poems to him! And an afternoon cooking with my nana sounds heavenly! Thankfully, I have their memories tucked away safely inside me and those memories are there for me to visit any time I want!
Today however, I also am so incredibly happy when I am making things… knitting was the best thing I ever did for myself… picking up some yarn, needles, a how to knit book and teaching myself to knit (pre-YouTube days!) was so wise as was finding a LYS that was a true delight and who helped expand my love for knitting. Knitting remains the gateway to happy these days… and I am so grateful to past me for embarking on this journey!
However my happy place has been expanding recently! Watercolor painting has moved up significantly on my Happy Place List in the past year. I am so thankful that a friend forwarded me an email that put my feet on this path…
And I even have a couple of “exhibits” to share with you… the first and last lessons from the latest painting class!
It took me several years to figure out who I am and a few more to accept what I discovered. Now, I’m in the enjoyment stage of that process and it’s a happy place. — Jolene Blalock
It took me a while to get to this point, but gosh I am so happy to be here now!
Happy Friday everyone, I will see you all back here on Monday!
Fat bottomed girls You make the rocking world go ’round — Brian May, Queen
Greetings Unravelers!
First… this post needs a sound track… so here you go:
I have one, grand, glorious “sweatskirt” finished… and yes, this fat bottom girl will be living in it for the foreseeable future!
It checks all the boxes:
Comfortable
Well-fitting
The perfect length
Yes, I’d make it again!
Even with some long big-ass rows, I got it done in record time! I cast on on mid-May and finished the elastic/waistband on the 5th. If you are on the fence about this skirt working for you, don’t be. It is such smart designing. There are incredible pattern notes for fit. I did the short rows to lengthen the back after I completed the lace work and did not do the second set of short rows before I began the waistband. I tried it on twice during my knit…the first time when I was almost done with the pattern’s suggested decreases. I saw that I would need a few more (4 to be exact) sets of decreases to my waist… the second time when I thought I was close to where I’d need to start the waistband. The pattern suggested adding length at the bottom, which seemed iffy to me… I wanted my skirt to be well below my knees, so I guessed at an additional 4 inches of knitting before I started my decreases, but I still needed to do about 4 more inches at the top once I was done with the decreases. I had 1.5″ waistband elastic, so I modified the waistband knitting to accommodate the wider elastic.
And I don’t want to take it off… it is my new favorite thing… ever! Oh… and there is no worries about my underwear showing… it is a nice dense fabric!
And yes…casting on another ASAP! (and I am working out a different “lace” pattern for the bottom for the next one!)
The reading this week. Oh my! I have been immersed in Ann Cleeve’s latest Matthew Venn mystery – The Raging Storm. It was deliciously good! A compelling mystery that I had no clue who “did it” until the last pages. We got to know Matthew, Jen, and Ross better as well… they are an interesting team! It will be published in early September… and I highly recommend!
The book in my ears was How High We Go In The Dark. It is a collection of short stories all around the same topic… plagues and death… but don’t let that put you off! The stories are fascinating, well written, and they kept my attention! I listened and found it difficult to stop before a story was done! If you liked Station Eleven… I think you’ll like this!
My current reads include The Colony (in my ears) and Fresh Water for Flowers (which sucked me in from the first brilliant chapter) on my Kindle!
What about you? What is making your rocking world go ’round this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below.
