25 January 2004 - 8:37 p.m.

Ampersand Project, January 2004: why can't you be more like your sister/brother? (This can be interpreted any way you like.)

[draft]

Lea 'n' Nia

Lea was as rooted as her turnips and tubers,
treasures thriving in mud, coziest in cellars

while Nia clambered over their mountains
as gentle, as volatile as the summer's many rains.

How hot the tears and electric cold
the bolts of Nia's hatred - from her fold

she'd brought to her mother her choicest prize
only to find that it would not suffice -

the goddess preferring milky juices
and crisp green skins. So refused -

as crows devoured the meadowsweet blood,
Nia fired. Her aim was good.

Missing letters

To where did the a, the b and the c
and the solid bookend of "d" disappear?
Listen, my children, and you shall see:
the stories you'll read are not what you hear.

- pld

Good blues service at church this morning - Greg Ward preached, Vivian Slade and Tony Walker sang with IGOR (the house band - "InterGenerational band of Rock").

The Yiddish Radio Project is still making me cry and smile ("Siggy" about his wife: "Prettiest 90-year-old I ever seen. I mean that sincerely." Lip-smacking noises in background. Awwwwww. . .)

Finally got around to reading last weeks Poetry Daily newsletter, and there's a selected-collected edition of William Matthews' poems coming out, along with a memoir by his son. And - hm! here's a poem on the blues. (For the morning meditation, Rev. Ward told a Mississippi woman's story about, amongst other things, her father shooting her piano after catching her playing the blues, and about the difference between escape and freedom. . . And the line in his sermon that caught me was when he said (QFM), ". . .and if you look back over your life and you can't find a single reason to sing a little bit of the blues, then than in itself is a reason to sing the blues, because that means you haven't let yourself love anything so much that it could break your heart.")

One year ago: "A nice aspect about being a dilettante. . ."