The White Horse
Paul Gaugin, 1898
The Louvre, Paris

My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer

1

When the moon appears
and a few wind-stricken barns stand out
in the low-domed hills
and shine with a light
that is veiled and dust-filled
and that floats upon the fields,
my mother, with her hair in a bun,
her face in shadow, and the smoke
from her cigarette coiling close
to the faint yellow sheen of her dress,
stands near the house
and watches the seepage of late light
down through the sedges,
the last gray islands of cloud
taken from view, and the wind
ruffling the moon's ash-colored coat
on the black bay.


2

Soon the house, with its shades drawn closed, will send
small carpets of lampglow
into the haze and the bay
will begin its loud heaving
and the pines, frayed finials
climbing the hill, will seem to graze
the dim cinders of heaven.
And my mother will stare into the starlanes,
the endless tunnels of nothing,
and as she gazes,
under the hour's spell,
she will think how we yield each night
to the soundless storms of decay
that tear at the folding flesh,
and she will not know
why she is here
or what she is prisoner of
if not the conditions of love that brought her to this.


3

My mother will go indoors
and the fields, the bare stones
will drift in peace, small creatures --
the mouse and the swift -- will sleep
at opposite ends of the house.
Only the cricket will be up,
repeating its one shrill note
to the rotten boards of the porch,
to the rusted screens, to the air, to the rimless dark,
to the sea that keeps to itself.
Why should my mother awake?
The earth is not yet a garden
about to be turned. The stars
are not yet bells that ring
at night for the lost.
It is much too late.

Mark Strand

So long and thanks for all the fish

Can't get this song out of my head today...I think that means it's time to reread some Douglas Adams!

The Bounty

Haven't read any Hesse lately, but thinking about
Steppenwolf. I'm also thinking about some poems
I read in The Magician's Feastletters today. Wakoski
opens the book with this quote:

In Confucian philosophy, unlike Western thought, discussion
of food held a high place in intellectual exchange as an integral
part of living. Confucian scholars, it is said, found politics
too dirty and religion too esoteric.

Elaine Kris, "Yin and Yang Today,"
Petits Propos Culinaires 7


From there, I am thinking about dinner tonight. What
a luxury and gift it is to think about what I am going
to have for dinner--what I am going to feed my family
and anyone else who may show up.

The neighbors' romas and jalapenos are overflowing,
so they brought me a bowl full of them.

What shall I do?

Hmmmmm......this.

Angel Hair Pasta with Crab and Jalapenos.

Salt and pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced (or, better
yet, freshly grated--you get more flavor from the garlic
if it's finely chopped or grated)
3 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced (I leave some seed
because I like things hot)
1/4 cup dry white wine (I am going to use a Sauvignon Blanc)
1 pound Dungeness crabmeat (which I can't get here, so I am
using that crab stuff you have to buy when you can't get the
real thing, but it tastes good)
1 pound angel hair pasta


Bring the water to a boil for your pasta. Heat the olive oil over
medium heat in a large saute pan. Add garlic and saute until
lightly browned (I add shallots to this, so I do those first and then
add the garlic). Cook 2-3 minutes. Add jalapenos and wine (I
also add a little chicken stock) and bring to a boil. Add crabmeat
and remove from heat. Add kosher salt and pepper to taste.

Cook pasta and drain. Add the pasta to the crab mixture and
heat through. Cook until most of the liquid is cooked down.

Now, if you want rich, you can add cream to this dish, but
you'd have to do it when after the shallots and garlic are
ready. Just make a roux and add some heavy cream. You
can do it later, and it works, but I like to make the roux
first.

Put in a serving bowl or plate and add chopped fresh basil or
flat leaf Italian parsley to the top.

I am going to slice the romas, scoop out the insides, put them
on a baking dish and drizzle some olive oil over them. Then
I am going to add some salt and pepper.

I am going to chop some fresh basil and oregano (from my herb
garden!) and add it to some ricotta cheese. I am then going
to fill each roma with the mixture and sprinkle some Italian
bread crumbs on the top and bake it all for about 30 minutes
(I think) at 350.

Will be a pretty plate with good food. Might also do some wilted
kale cooked in olive oil and garlic--I love kale!

Food is good.

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Have not seen that in a long time.

Winging it here.

Grief

When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla
you must count yourself lucky.
You must offer her what’s left
of your dinner, the book you were trying to finish
you must put aside,
and make her a place to sit at the foot of your bed,
her eyes moving from the clock
to the television and back again.
I am not afraid. She has been here before
and now I can recognize her gait
as she approaches the house.
Some nights, when I know she’s coming,
I unlock the door, lie down on my back,
and count her steps
from the street to the porch.
Tonight she brings a pencil and a ream of paper,
tells me to write down
everyone I have ever known,
and we separate them between the living and the dead
so she can pick each name at random.
I play her favorite Willie Nelson album
because she misses Texas
but I don’t ask why.
She hums a little,
the way my brother does when he gardens.
We sit for an hour
while she tells me how unreasonable I’ve been,
crying in the checkout line,
refusing to eat, refusing to shower,
all the smoking and all the drinking.
Eventually she puts one of her heavy
purple arms around me, leans
her head against mine,
and all of a sudden things are feeling romantic.
So I tell her,
things are feeling romantic.
She pulls another name, this time
from the dead,
and turns to me in that way that parents do
so you feel embarrassed or ashamed of something.
Romantic? she says,
reading the name out loud, slowly,
so I am aware of each syllable, each vowel
wrapping around the bones like new muscle,
the sound of that person’s body
and how reckless it is,
how careless that his name is in one pile and not the other.

Matthew Dickman

Leonard Cohen - Joan of Arc

Nighthawks
Edward Hopper, 1942
Oil on canvas, 30 x 60"
The Art Institute of Chicago