More Ada Limon

...he said he
liked to fuck her as if she was tied
to railroad tracks and this train, bigger
than the local strip mall, was roaring
around the corner.

She asked once, Is it the Union Pacific?
But he said it didn't have a name.
Do you untie me in the end? She asked.
I never thought that far ahead, he said.

She told him, But every woman tied
on the tracks needs a hero, right?
Look, he said, It's not like that,
it's not a love story, it's not so complicated.

Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer

It has been a good year or so since a Steve Scafidi poem really broke my heart, but the ending of this one really hit me in the face last night. It is like a hammer, Steve Scafidi, it is.

 And what good is a dream finally? It breaks your heart
and you stand in the lush dark of the moment after twilight
ends and begins to sing and nothing makes sense to you
and you sing louder for a while, then awkwardly sit down

where you are. And the stars overhead shine a little--no more
or less than usual--and whether it is daylight and they are invisible
or whether it is night and they are the embers of a blacksmith's
fire, they shine and you are grateful. That love is like a hammer.

-"The Sublime."

Tuesday Donut Lady Omens

There's something still pleasurable about breaking through the valley fog and giving the city of Harrisonburg a friendly up-nod as I drive into work. Unlike Lynchburg, which is populated with ghosts, this is the city where my past and present meet in a weird vanilla chocolate twist. This place was once a kind of refuge for me--maybe it will be again.

I skipped all the rest of the days

Some strange weather in my head lately.  I'm eating up all the crystalized ginger and sitting in the semidark at the kitchen table. It's not as bad as it used to be, but I'm a little removed from my usual self. Pensive and with nothing to show for it.This was a happy weekend spent with friends and so I have little to complain about. Even the dire stars are on the other end of the zodiac this time.

So here are some little pictures.

Offerings to Sif.

Little Nithavellir pumpkins unwittingly planted during the carving last October. Such happenings when one sits out in the garden late and drunk and with a friend and does a very sloppy job. They are growing very well now all the same. I hope they will be green.

This is the fanciest, nicest chicken pot pie a girl has ever made, so I took a picture of it.

Wednesday

Oh little indulgent blog, I held a dead peregrine falcon tonight.

Tuesday

I waited all day for Beckian Fritz Goldberg to arrive at her booth at AWP, the only poet I went to appeal alone. Still, when I told her the plain, obsessive facts of my love affair with her poem "Being Pharaoh"--how I'd memorized it, carried it in my car over every stitch of the last four years, she seemed almost amused. She said maybe I'd spent more time with it than she had. I don't know. It's a beautiful poem, and everything I feel right now, as it has been for every moment of the last four years. Sometimes I know exactly what she meant by her dismissiveness, and maybe that's a part of it. But tonight, it's rained relentlessly, and the rivers are all blown out, so instead of the Pharaoh,  I'll give you a bit of her "The Ventriloquist."

The coyote is out on the street, thinking, The riverbed has moved.
The actual river is there too, mumbling
Yes, the bed must be somewhere in this valley.

And when the rivers talks,
you will still not know the fat-child-faith of my heart.

Monday

This afternoon, I gave up on work and went for a walk. It was a sad walk; it rained on my head. Now it's still raining and the sound is echoing through the empty spaces of my house.

I always thought I should post the reason for the title of this blog someday and today is that day

Peggy in the Twilight
 

Peggy spent half of each day trying to wake up, and

the other half preparing for sleep.  Around five, she

would mix herself something preposterous and ‘40’s-ish

like a Grasshopper or a Brass Monkey, adding a note

of gaiety to her defeat.  This shadow life became her.

She always had a glow on; that is, she carried an aura

of innocence as well as death with her.

            I first met her at a party almost thirty years ago.

Even then it was too late for tragic women, tragic

anything.  Still, when she was curled up and fell asleep

in the corner, I was overwhelmed with feelings of love.

Petite black and gold angels sat on her slumped shoulders

and sang lullabies to her.

            I walked into another room and asked our host for

a blanket for Peggy.

            “Peggy?” he said.  “There’s no one here by that name.”

            And so my love life began. 

-James Tate

the lighthouse burned

During this fuckchasm of a week, I think I spent more hours staring blankly at the wall in my office listening to metal than I did anything else, including eating or sleeping.

I'm in something of a dark place.

It is not ruled out that my eyes were open

Scorpio Full Moon coming on this weekend. I know it's stupid as hell, but I've been dreading and lusting for this particular lunar occurrence for months. I imagine I can already feel its sinister power twisting in my belly.

There was strange weather when I drove to and from school last night. On the way there, it was sunny enough, and then I hit Afton Mountain and the strangest, thickest swirling white cloud. It was such a physical presence on the mountain that I rolled down my windows and it entered my car and got in my hair.

By the time I was driving back, the weather had cleared in the valley, but the deserted back roads were still steaming and wet. I had to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting a baby fox, and when he'd dashed across the road and saw me stopped, he looped back to stand on the opposite bank of the road and stare me down with electric green eyeshine. By the time I reached Afton again, the earlier cloud had settled into the thickest fog I've ever seen, and I swear to you, I practically felt my way up blind.