The odd nursery rhyme never hurt anybody

Maybe a poem a week was a better goal. Here is a draft of this week's, in all its cheesy glory:

70

I stay up late, by candlelight
at the drafting window
I go more miles than I’m supposed to
and come back through night.

As long as the wax is warm
and pools in my palm I move
nimble-toed and taciturn.

In the sunlight mornings
with your warm apple skin
covering my hands, we suss all we can
of the sun, far into westering

sky, until there is nothing for it
except to lay, spent
and cold in the dirt.

You are caked with mud
and mast and all manner
of junk; l take you down to the river
wipe away the twigs and blood

from when I bit your lip,
tasted sugar, and couldn’t stop
until the salt dripped down my chin.

A passerby sees innocents, vexing nature
with our play-dams of twigs and spit
and I am thinking only of
taking myself a tall, cool drink of water.

Comb the winter from my hair
and put it away somewhere; I have
enough candle to get us back a time or two.

I’ll darn your dresses by candlelight
you hem my shirts far from the window-
draft; the distance is dour and slow going
when we're damning ourselves, to outrun the night.

April Resolutions, in high and low

In honor of National Poetry Month, I will... write some poetry. And put it here. I was all geared up to make this resolution about writing a poem a day all month, or something like that, but knowing how I work, that would probably kill any inkling to write for the rest of the month. So I will post a few poems a week, at least, because it's amazing that we have a month dedicated to poetry, and it is also the month of my birth, and of digging in dirt and watching little green lifes begin.
So here is a translation of Miyazawa Kenji's "Village Girl" to kick off with:

村娘 　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
畑を過ぎる鳥の影
青々ひかる山の稜

雪菜の薹を手にくだき
ひばりと川を聴きながら
うつつにひととものがたる


Village Girl

Birds shadow over fields,
the tips of mountains glimmer green—

immersed in spring-lark and river sounds
I crush the faded snow-mustard stem in my fingers,
talking of lucid and transparent things.

Strep throat, raspberry tea, friendly friend fires

Well, pending opinion of a certified doctor, I seem to have contracted the awful deadly miserable virus known commonly as strep throat. So I'm working from bed, drinking raspberry tea and eating lemon raspberry cake and hoping I don't infect my lovely friend who has brought these treats. Also, I have shamelessly been feeding my addiction to the more recent Panic at the Disco album. Yes, I know I am dishonering all of my musical taste to this point, but it's a good album, and it makes me happy. So I don't care what you might have to say about it!

Libraries, Fat Rain Clouds

I have this view outside the fourth floor giant fourth floor windows of the library of these big, fat, grey clouds trundling along, awfully low and blurred by the solid whiteness that they fade into. These are rain clouds. Real rain clouds- not the slate grey, can't tell if they'll rain on you or snow on you or just drape you with a general sense of dreariness and misery, clouds. These are real; heavy air, visible edges, bloated, slightly foreboding (but not storm-like), accented by stillness rain clouds. I am having this lingering notion of being back home in Japan. Or out in the Texas countryside. It really depends on which eye I'm looking through and which memories I'm loitering in. But it feels nice. It feels like home! Rain in Scotland is so...lazy. I want storms, unpredictability, menacing stillness, these things! I remember absolutely hating being in the library during a rainstorm in Tokyo, because the library was so damn hot and you always got soaked and then had to work soggy and steamy, while you couldn't tell if you were trickling rain or sweat from your neck. I have nothing else for today, except that my computer has a crippling virus and is completely unusable, and so I have been forced to relocate to the library for any writing, work, or computer related activities. Sad computer. I'm going to buy some cookies now.

Two Months Later!!!

Well oops. I've become a home-loving, embroidery learning, novel reading hermit. And I've neglected everything but writing poetry and reading old novels. Recently, I find myself staring blankly at people whenever they try to conduct a conversation with me. As though I can't figure out why they would do such a thing. Or what is an appropriate thing to say in response. Or really, what the hell they're talking about and why I'm not at home enjoying a good book and a cup of tea. I'm turning into that girl that was raised by wolves and has no idea how to conduct herself with people. Only I don't eat raw meat. Or pee on the shrubs. And as much as I would have like to have been, wasn't raised by wolves. So I have no good excuse. Except that I keep hoping this is maybe just a reflex of having been insanely over social in Tokyo for the last two years, so now my mind and my body are like... stay home! learn how to embroider! Write poems in a Texan accent with random Japanese onomatopoeia! Yes, thank you, brain. What a great idea. Then I can alienate everyone and increase my caffeine addiction. Oh well, this is a happy time. The Edinburgh weather is a weeee bit dreary, but spring planting is only a month away! Turnips and carrots and squash, oh my! And shiso and chamomile and lavender! At least the snow drifts are gone, and hiking and bicycling are now possible again! And walking without slipping and brushing death every two steps. Excuse me death, it's just these damn feet, they don't seem to want to take orders! Sorry if I keep grabbing your robe to steady myself, it's nothing personal, really.
In other news, I have been notified that I have won a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize. Well hot damn. I had forgotten I even entered stuff. I will find out on Friday what this officially means. Until then, I hold my breath and try to keep from doing a little happy dance. So that when Friday comes, I'll have all this suppressed energy that will explode into a BIG happy dance, possibly accompanied by song! And the hugging of random people on the street.
Oh and did I mention that Borges is doing that thing again, where he pops up in really random places? He's been showing himself in all manner of bizarre places over the past few days, and to finish the night, I discover I'm NOT THE ONLY ONE with this weird problem.

November thoughts, Novels old and new

There is a clear-sky anomaly lingering over Edinburgh today; draping itself about the trees with mischievous innocence and a grin, as if to say "what? I've been here all month, haven't you noticed?"
So I'm thinking of a particular poem which haunts my own work today-

"The Region November"

It is hard to hear the north wind again,
And to watch the treetops, as they sway.

They sway, deeply and loudly, in an effort,
So much less than feeling, so much less than speech,

Saying and saying, the way things say
On the level of that which is not yet knowledge:

A revelation not yet intended.
It is like a critic of God, the world

And human nature, pensively seated
On the waste throne of his own wilderness.

Deeplier, deeplier, loudlier, loudlier,
The trees are swaying, swaying, swaying.

--Wallace Stevens


Also, I just finished reading Speaker for the Dead (I read Ender's Game many many years ago) and am wondering why it took me so many years to pick it up! So today tastes of November trees and half-light.

Tam Lin, New Poetry

So I'm working on a new research paper centred around the Scots ballad "Tam Lin"; something which I've been interested in doing for quite a while now. Feminism in old ballads, light the way! I'm working through some articles by Martha Hixon and Charles Butler, but there doesn't seem to have been much work done in regards to the comparison of elements between the different actual versions of the ballad. I'm hoping that I can at least bring some small insights into the piece through looking at all eleven versions side by side.

Otherwise, here is a new poem.

The Texas Dreamer Blues

The harp notes coaxed from my
stringy heart,
my little ukulele heart

have tall tells they
long to tell
to tubas and horns and
great golden bells.

I woolgather all day long
with a spindle that drops
and swirls
glittering golden threads
from the straw-strings that my thoughts
have scratched and shed.

I rustle them up,
like grub, like cornbread,
cover them with honey and pour the wine,
and wait for my home-coming
honey and
listen down the tracks
for my home to come
to come home whistling
to this little tune of mine.