Summer Kitchen

Summer Kitchen

In June’s high light she stood at the sink

With a glass of wine,

And listened for the bobolink,

And crushed garlic in late sunshine.

 

I watched her cooking, from my chair.

She pressed her lips

Together, reached for kitchenware

And tasted sauce from her fingertips.

 

“It’s ready now. Come on,” she said.

“You light the candle.”

We ate, and talked, and went to bed,

And slept. It was a miracle.

–Donald Hall, White Apples and the Taste of Stone

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WWW Wednesday

 

What are you currently reading?

The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

White Apples and the Taste of Stone by Donald Hall

 

What did you just finish reading?

Getting over Garrett Delaney by Abby McDonald

Rising Sun by Michael Crichton

Half-Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton–A reread, but it’s up next for book club.

I put Cinder by Marissa Meyer on hold, but I’m 11 people back, so we’ll see how long it takes to get it. I keep seeing everyone talk about that series, so I can’t resist any longer.

WWW Wednesday

 

What are you currently reading?

Rising Sun by Michael Crichton (completely coincidental to my blog post this morning)

Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

White Apples and the Taste of Stone by Donald Hall

 

What did you just finish reading?

The Eye of Minds by James Dashner

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

I just started both of the books in my top list, so I haven’t picked what is up next! We’ll see! I have a George Washington spy book that’s next on my library list, which would normally be what I would go to, but I just bought an awwwwwwwwwwwful lot of books lately….

WWW Wednesdays

letyourvoicebenerd just posted a WWW Wednesdays post, and I thought it was neat, so I’m going to play along!

 

What are you currently reading?

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (I may decide to read all four books in this collection, we’ll see if I do it all at once.)

White Apples and the Taste of Stone by Donald Hall

 

What did you just finish reading?

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

The Kill Order by James Dashner

Nine Horses by Billy Collins

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

The Eye of the Minds by James Dashner

 

Old Timer’s Day

Old Timer’s Day

 

When the tall puffy

figure wearing number

nine starts

late for the fly ball,

laboring forward

like a lame truckhorse

startled by a gartersnake,

–this old fellow

whose body we remember

as sleek and nervous

as a filly’s–

and barely catches it

in his glove’s

tip, we rise

and applaud weeping:

On a greenfield

we observe the ruin

of even the bravest

body, as Odysseus

wept to glimpse

among shades the shadow

of Achilles.

–Donald Hall, Old and New Poems

O CHEESE

I’m really enjoying Donald Hall’s poetry, though I haven’t shared much on here. He writes almost as if he is painting still life on canvas. He takes objects or people or creatures, and writes about them, rather than writing about feelings or emotions. It’s a very interesting perspective.

 

O CHEESE

 

In the pantry the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh

Lancashires; Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner;

the clipped speech of Roquefort; and a head of Stilton

that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids.

 

O cheeses of gravity, cheeses of wistfulness, cheeses

that weep continually because they know they will die.

O cheeses of victory, cheeses wise in defeat, cheeses

fat as a cushion, lolling in bed until noon.

 

Liederkranz ebullient, jumping like a small dog, noisy;

Pont l’Eveque intellectual, and quite well informed; Emmentaler

decent and loyal, a little deaf in the right ear;

and Brie the revealing experience, instantaneous and profound.

 

O cheeses that dance in the moonlight, cheeses

that mingle with sausages, cheeses of Stonehenge.

O cheeses that are shy, that linger in the doorway,

eyes looking down, cheeses spectacular as fireworks.

 

Reblochon openly sexual; Caephilly like pine trees, small

at the timberline; Port du Salut in love; Caprice des Dieux

eloquent, tactful, like a thousand-year-old hostess;

and Dolcelatte, always generous to a fault.

 

O village of cheeses, I make you this poem of cheeses,

O family of cheeses, living together in pantries,

O cheeses that keep you to your own nature, like a lucky couple,

this solitude, this energy, these bodies slowly dying.

 

–Donald Hall, Old and New Poems

Shudder

Shudder

 

The foot of death has printed on my chest

Its signature, and I am rattled free

Of time and its dimensions and the rest

Of the hard outlines of identity.

Now minutes mix with centuries as if

Time were an undeciphered hieroglyph;

For someone has walked on my grave.

 

O someone, walk in other places, please,

Whoever, when, or where yourself may be,

That I may deal with near anxieties,

In fear of now and not eternity,

That future where you wander without guilt

Over the grass my private body built;

For someone has walked on my grave.

 

“Grandfather Fool, thin voice I sometimes hear

Like scratches on a crystal radio,

Nothing I do will make death disappear

Or let your shudder or your knowledge go.

See the world whole, and see it clearly then,

A globe of dirt crusted with bones of men.

If we walk, we walk on graves.”

 

–Donald Hall, Old and New Poems