Scant

"...the first whit of alpha, the first
jot of bearing, beneath the riling
sun the first nourishing of self."

From "Address: the Archaeans, One Cell Creatures" by Pattiann Rogers

***

Scant time to find and catch pixels to share.
Scant time to post.
Scant time for a respite -- husband is going in for some medical tests today.
Scant time afterwards -- work and schoolwork piling up, plus a business trip next week.

S'can't go on at this pace, but it do, don't it?

New metal

"As I sit looking out of a window of the building
I wish I did not have to write the instruction manual on the uses of a new metal.
I look down into the street and see people, each walking with an inner peace,
And envy them..."

From "The Instruction Manual" by John Ashbery

Loud star

"...The loud will take care of itself, and everyone will be able to say
What happened in that direction. But who is looking

The other way?..."

From "Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science" by Alberto Ríos

Chrome delirious

"... I feel
Fever from the cars I pass, delirium
Trembling out from the radiators. ..."

From "Fire: The People" by Alfred Corn

Low skies

"...when he saw some archaeology,
he had a feeling of
homeland. As if he were in his house. ..."

From "Memories Are a House" by Avot Yeshurun
Translated by Leon Wieseltier

***

Thanks, all, for your care and concern -- my mom is now back home, and this week has been so far a bit less eventful than the last. (Whew!)

I have hopes of carving out more picture time this weekend...stay tuned for more!

Baling / Unbaling

"...I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend..."

From "Three Songs at the End of Summer" by Jane Kenyon

***

Back, and tired.

My mom went to the hospital, was released from the hospital, then went back into the hospital, but is getting better.
Part of my team at work was reassigned to another department; it happened while I was out dealing with parent schtuff, and required many conference calls.
School starts next week.
I was accepted to present my Giotto paper here! Yay!
And I am once again staple-free. (I seem to have a new one of these as a result.)

I think I want a "do-over" on this supposed vacation.
What do you think -- should I go here, or here?
If the second choice, I can stay with friends...the first will set me back some $$ I may need for things like traveling to present papers.

One more for the road

"...we are windows propped up against the sky,
quotations of light waiting to sail
into your aperture, calling because because
and now now now. ..."

From "Not That It Could Be Finished" by Ann Lauterbach

***

Heading out, staples and all, to visit my parents...back with new posts in about a week or so. Remember, be safe out there...

Treats

"...Fate’s hammer inches above the anvil of our head,

or failing that, still find among the cartoon stars its
blow brings forth
our own brief comet..."

From "In the Kingdom of Perpetual Repair" by Kevin Stein

Tumped over

Under the heading of "the best-laid plans"...up early for work, went to take the trash out, tripped and did a spectacular header into the (who knew?) sharp hard plastic edge of the trash bin. One worried hubbie and seven stitches in the top of my noggin later, I'm home, hoping I feel up to taking pics this weekend.

I had always heard head wounds bleed a lot.
That turns out to be accurate information.

I also learned from the EMTs who came to our house, as well as the ER nurse who went over post-stitch (or more correctly, post-staple) care, that trash cans have injured others in similar ways.

Let this be a lesson to me...or something...and please consider this my apology-in-advance if I'm not crawling about with a camera in time to post more before I travel to my parents' next week.

(And yes, it's okay to laugh. I did, once I realized I wasn't going to be dead from head-butting the trash bin.)

Ghost money

"...The barn and sheds were built
In the Great Depression. Someone

Had money and a big idea. ..."

From "Western Civilization" by James Galvin

Random acts of search terms

Sorry, but running low on the fresh pics inventory...and I couldn't resist posting the very unusual ways people end up at this blog. My scattererd links within the list are equally arbitrary, riffing off what came to mind.

Skipping the first twenty search terms, and in descending order of frequency, we have the following...

***

hexagram 30 clinging
tips iron and steel
curly witzel cowboy
audrey flack chanel
drawing ghost flames
eccentric polygon
analyze porch swing in september
welcome english do you have beer?
story 150 words
slender men
buny grafiti
newyear good word
tree energy texas
poems about platonic solids
small town with one road
dan chelotti
gary larson cow hide
edward hirsch lori
blue lacey
implied objects
air books for children
who will know us? gary soto summary
who will know us? analysis gary soto
my dreams my works must wait till after hell
mexican hat asteraceae daves
everyday mottos
everyday motto
define running errands
just hypnotized
fort davis tx indian lodge restaurant menu
learning to love america poem analysis by shirley geok-lin lim
day dock
carl chelf
crush carol ann duffy
compare the silent rose of the sun
monologue for an onion poems
long nose, pencil thin suckerfish
motto about beauty
flip-it! good to use
how to get rid of ipomoea indica
allergies in alpine texas
christmas mur
good word for the new year
silver shut
three bad jacks patches
how to ghost flames
cairn building
salcman poetry
poem about a backache
good word for new year
cosmetology motto
android parts robot
magritte chatoyance
hózhó
who will know us analysis
rooflines
the blind always come as such a surprise by ted kooser analysis
glowing buddhas
chatoyance art studio
chost flames
snow's mail order bbq?
garage apartment photo
thomas campi st michaels maryland
sussuration
learning to love american by shirley geok-lin lim analysis
playing in mud barefoot
hexagram clinging
back ache poem
mayfield park peacocks winter
graffitis de bunny
cell phone charm platonic solid
new year gud words
with ghost flames
murry witzel austin tx
alpine texas bread and breakfast
chatoyance ring
everyday motto
seduction story blogspot
running errands vikipedi
crimes about 300 words
piercing gaze
new year's good words
good words new year
i'm just hypnotized

Almost dusk

"...All had been said,
The unsayable, when your translator joined us,
Our time was up and, brightened, I walked on..."

From "Coevals" by Michael Hamburger

Green blue red

"Think of a line as an edge,
as the edge of a form
that is moving away from you in space.

And I do..."

From "Drawing Lesson: Outline and Edge" by Elizabeth Seydel Morgan

Ornament

"...heads bow, eyes close; the blessings are said.

Here there is good will; here peace
on earth..."

From "Sunday Brunch at the Old Country Buffet" by Anne Caston

***

Happy happy merry merry to all those stopping by, to all my friends known and unknown.

Cute Alert: Felix Navidad!

And, for those who'd like something less sweet for the holidays, here's a heaping helping of Fruitcake Abuse. (Note: there's an advertisement embedded in all but the first...however, it was too much fun to pass 'em by.)

The Texas

It was time, we decided, for a road trip.

My friend had been wrestling with ongoing health challenges, and I'd been wrestling with that feeling I've been running on fumes. We knew what would make us both feel better.

We chose a theme: "Pie - Art - Pie"
We chose a form: Drive to Fort Worth to see at least two museums, and while on the road investigate at least one of the cafes noted here, and eat pie. Pie on the way up, art in the middle, pie on the way back.

It was a grand day!

We left at 7am, driving here through an uncharacteristic thick fog that made everything on the highway mysterious.

I had a poppy-seed kolache and coffee, and she had a sausage kolache and a blueberry cream-cheese kolache and coffee.

Since I've not had much in the way of sweets for some time, I felt the sugar rushing through my blood like fire.

(And yes, there was pivo for sale, and yes, they played this sort of music through their PA system.)

While not pie strictly speaking, the kolaches were yummy!

Miles flew by while we chatted. We discussed what art might be created on a planet where there was no community, only a monad life-form (and since found I should read "Monad Number Two" to learn more). We discussed family schtuff. We talked about school (she's gone back to school too). We talked about ASL, and whether a poem in ASL could be better served in translation to written word or to dance.

We landed in a place where certain Precolumbian terra cotta figures looked lively enough to undo their protective cases (after the guards left for the night, of course) and where I saw something so beautiful I found myself tearing up.

From there, we went here, and had some extra fun watching/hearing little bitty kiddos and their parents making echoes inside this.

An excessively delicious and leisurely lunch in the museum cafe, and then back on the road to Austin with much happy arguing over where to turn to find the freeway.

Miles later a stop here. Yes, I had a small burger (really good) but we were there for the pie. Pie -- I had buttermilk, she took a piece of chocolate cream to go, and I got a piece of the nutmeg-happy buttermilk for my hubbie. Yes, we did get a little lost on the way back, but I saw the old theater above as a result.

It was all Texas, and all good.

Junk mosaic

"...I hanker for that place beyond the sparrow
Where the wrench beds in mud, the sun-hat hangs
In densest branches, and the book is drowned.
Ah, you have read my mind. ..."

From "The Mind-Reader" by Richard Wilbur

Bunny graffiti

"...to feel that the light is a rabbit-light,
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained..."

From "A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts" by Wallace Stevens

Two, strung

"...no through-line exists:

to sink the head of a nail below the surface,
to fix as a distinguishing imprint, sign, or appearance,
to incite..."

From "Streamers" by Arthur Sze

Pressed / shed

"On a wall shadowed by lights from the distance
is the screen. Icons come to it dressed in capes..."

From "The Screen of Distance" by Barbara Guest

***

Class is wrapped for the semester! After a round of defensive driving tomorrow (to offset that speeding ticket I received while returning from a medieval conference) I will have more time to wander with a camera.

Gutted

"...Black cinders, burdock, sumac, Pepsi, cellophane,
Each syllable a filament in the cord
Of a word-net..."

From "City Elegies" by Robert Pinsky