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ON A COLD, COLD NOVEMBER DAY OF FALLING LEAVES!
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It was one of those rare freezing, blustery, early fall days. The
weather, I mean, was mean! We'll likely never see another day
any worse.
At dawn, we woke up to gray skies. Whipping, whirling winds,
were pummeling the house with sheets of sleet and rain...in
blasts that rattled some of the windows, and randomly even
shook the house.
It was the kind of wind that, down on a West Texas farm of
seventy-five year ago, they'd have said: "It was AWFUL!"
The leaves had been turning for some weeks, and many
had fallen. This was a tree-cleaning wind; leaves were flying
everywhere and scurrying happily along curbs.
A lot of attics have air conditioning and mine does, but we all
know that the best attic time is fall and winter, when things
get cold outside. Also I've got it fixed up pretty good with a
wood stove, a big unfinished pine 1/10 wood bookshelf,
a surplus steel cot, a rocking chair, a little cabinet bought at
a garage sale (for my 1960's coffee percolator.) and my
salvaged old toaster oven.
And then course, there's the the main thing---my little (former office)
fridge. It is full of V-8's, Hires Root Beers, diet Pepsis and Dr.
Peppers, and big Nehi oranges---stuff that "Country Boy Bob"
likes to drink, when he comes by for a visit, Also my little creamers,
rescued from restaurants...for coffee!
This storm was going to be a doozy---I could tell. So I got a quart
of water in an old Mason jar for my coffee pot, grabbed our bag
of Starbucks' "morning buns", and headed upstairs to some "house-
cleaning." Translated, that means: relaxing, resting, reading, writing,
reminiscing, checking all the old diplomas and photos on the wall,
looking through books on the shelves, all the while peeking out the
attic window periodically to see what was happening.
Have you ever sat down to such serious reminiscing that you got
an ache in your throat...a good ache? I believe they call it a "lump."
Be warned: attics are good for that!
Right over my head, I could hear the sheets of sleet being blown
against the roof, as if some giant were slinging buckets of sand
our way, and enjoying doing it! I put on a pot of strong coffee to
perk.
I threw a couple of small logs into my wood stove and quickly
started a fire with a firebrick thingie. I set the trusty old wooden
orange crate beside my rocking chair, put my steaming coffee cup
and rolls on it, selected a favorite poetry book out of the shelf,
grabbed an old quilt and settled in. Friends, life does not get
much better than that!
The old quilt was made circa 1930, likely at a quilting party at
my grandmother's farm. When I was about five, I noticed quilts
on their frames, hanging from the ceiling in her "quilting room."
No telling how many people had been warmed by this quilt
before I inherited it! Quilts are among earth's good things!
My poetry book, 'THE POET'S CORNER", was one I had
stumbled across one day, maybe in a magazine, and had
ordered it. John Lithgow, the famous actor, does a genius thing.
He has compiled a list of about forty famous poets, gives a page
or two bio on each one---setting forth a summary of their lives,
careers, literary contributions----printing one of their best poems
and listing others. Not only that, he provides a CD recording of
the printed poems being read by noted actors or actresses.
Lithgow, obviously a person with literary perception, has hit
upon a clever way for Joe Average to read a poem every day
or two and enjoy it...and learn more about the poets. He calls
his book: "The one-and-only poetry book for the whole family."
Sit with me (in spirit anyway) here awhile, over there on that
comfy chair, and let's read a bit...
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"THERE IS NO FRIGATE LIKE A BOOK"
-----Emily Dickinson
"There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Couriers like a page
Of prancing Poetry---
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the human soul."
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Oh, here is one of my favorites. they call the author
"The Mythical Visionary."
"THE TYGER"
----William Blake
"Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
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Here is a poem the Beloved Editor and I did not quite get,
but----"not to worry"--- we liked it.
"DAYS" ----Philip Larkin
"What are days for?
Days are where we live;
They come, they wake us
Time and time over
They are to be happy in
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running o'er the fields."
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"SONNET LXXV"
----Edmund Spenser
A monument stands today in Westminster Abbey and
says: "The Prince of Poets in his Tyme."
"One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away,
Again I wrote it with a second hand
But came the tide and made my pain his prey.
Where when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."
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"DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT"
----Dylan Thomas ("The Modern Romantic")
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right;
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night."
****************
"ANNABEL LEE"
----Edgar Allan Poe ("The Macabre Poet")
"It was man and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee,
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me."
****************
"TO A SKYLARK"
----Percy Bysshe Shelley ("The Radical")
"Hail to thee, blithe spirit
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unmeditated art."
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"A PSALM OF LIFE"
----Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time.
Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."
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"THE RED WHEELBARROW"
----William Carlos Williams
"so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens"
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"THIS IS JUST TO SAY"
----William Carlos Williams
"I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
******************
I have enjoyed my coffee and Starbucks' rolls, and the
lonesome old wind that moans through that little opening
I always leave at the bottom of the window, by the sill.
I miss old Bob.
A lot of times he comes to visit and we sit up here and eat
sardines and onions and Ritz crackers...and just talk. We've
been friends since 1939! He keeps me posted on things
that happen in my hometown---Clovis. I really wish he were
here so we could talk. I get drowsy just reading. Poetry can
make a fellow sleepy. Ho Hum.
Where's my New Testament. My wife was reading a
great Bible verse from Facebook yesterday. Here it is.
I think I'll read it. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NLT)
"That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are
dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our
present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet
they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them
all and will last forever.
So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather,
we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the
things we see now will soon be gone. but the things we
cannot see will last forever."
I really do like that promise.
Ho...Hum...zzzz---zzz---zzzz............
*******30*******
BY MIL
09/01/13
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