Morning Market

The charms of the Reading Terminal Market, early morning—

. a basket of fresh eggs, four shades of caffe latte brown

. peppers in handsome ranks, six colors and degrees of hot—long, lean, and wicked, or in their plumpness appearing deceptively mild

. whole shoals of fish laid out on ice, from trout, silver and mountain, to branzino; Spanish mullet to bluefish to cod

. a wondrous bacon and egg pizza at the Mediterranean stall, wood fire burning bright behind

. the attendant at the shrimp bar setting out a hundred tiny paper cups of cocktail sauce

. the creperie preparing its batter

Even Starbuck’s has Mallorcan sweet bread to tempt me.

image:  Free range eggs

Cheer

I've bought myself a handful of scarlet ranunculus at Reading Terminal Market, and stuck them in a water glass, trailing over the edge with perfect grace.  Reflected in the bathroom mirror they've doubled—made me twice as glad.  They'll cheer my weekend working long days indoors in our book exhibit booth.

I also bought a half a pound of Balzac Blend decaffeinated coffee beans at Old City Coffee, and lovely red curry salmon in the Thai stall.  Things I resisted cheer me too, there for the taking (or looking and smelling).

image:  www.stylhive.com

Coming to Land

What river is this with its slow oxbow curves, I wonder as the plane comes down to land, past shipyards, a barge pulling behind it a long banner of wake, a spray of white birds.  Philadelphia:  a place I don’t know well, don’t remember from time to time.  The map tells me the bigger river is the Delaware; the smaller, which I’ve learned before, though not to pronounce, is the Schuylkill.  The art museum is on the latter, I think; I took a smoky picture once.  I met a friend from California there by chance, both of us there to see an exhibit of Cornell boxes.

image:  an aerial view of a portion of the Potomac River immediately south of Washington, District of Columbia, MSGT Ken Hammond

Celebrating Spring

This painting I have bought from my friend Charlotte's show back in New Mexico makes me so happy—a burst of spring that will be with me all year round. It quite distills the essence of blossoms and their blossoming; captures my very favorite time of the year, when anything seems possible and within reach (though I've most often tried to reinvent myself in late December, that liminal space just before the New Year).

image: Charlotte d'Aigle, The Promise of Things To Come

Welcome, Spring!

In honor of Spring, this glad-hearted little tree, and this poem.

Today
Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

image: Christie B. Cochrell, New Tree

Senseless

While common people like you and me
We'll be builders for eternity
Each is given a bag of tools
A shapeless mass and the book of rules
—The Heptones, Book of Rules

The census questions reduce us to things we know it's wrong to be reduced to. Age and race. A number and a box. The nameless residents, Thendara Lane, Unit Guest House. I'm Person 1 of Persons up to 12. (And what of those beyond?) The Census Data Capture Center captures nothing of the human state, nothing we really are. A soulless exercise that I cry out against.

Far more telling—and worth our while—would be:

What is your favorite Verdi opera?
What Caribbean color are you longing to paint your kitchen?
Do you remember your highschool Spanish?
What is the name of your dog?
Do you write poetry?
Have you ever seen North by Northwest?
Have you ever visited Dar es Salaam?
What do you honestly think about Susan Doyle?
Do you often eat peas, and do you tend to overcook them?
Can you spell Quetzalcotl?
Do you prefer your margaritas on the rocks with salt?
What has become of all those dreams you had?
Why have you let yourself go, so, anyway, and what's there to be done at this late date?

Tell us a little more about yourself—we'd really like to know.


Image: Civil servant at trailer park, census 1925

Ides Eve

A black cat is unlucky, crossing the road from left to right.  But what of these two white horses, that trot in front of me from somewhere to the right, out of this dazzling Sunday morning?  The day seems charmed, because of them or no—with pear tart in the oven, and Mahler in the afternoon, and no sign of the rain clouds which have dogged us so persistently for months on end.  Beware the Ides of March, perhaps—but the day before appears full of good fortune.  

Auguries not in birds, but in white horses.

image:  White horse portrait at sunset. Taken in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Fir0002

Friday Not the 13th

A wet road to be going home on . . .

image: Grange Road, Ickleton, Cambs after an April shower, Rodney Burton

Vignettes

March vignettes:

A woman carrying a blood orange and an LP of Hummel's Septet in D Major.

"Michael the Milkman" painted on a little white truck.

A hundred bicycles outside the Piggott Theatre on campus, the window of the costume shop luring around the back.

A rusty wheelbarrow planted with jadeplant.

A picture of Pippi Longstocking flipping pancakes. (And remembering that I've missed Shrove Tuesday and the pancake races.)



image: Christie B. Cochrell, Mission Rooftiles

Saturday Walk

This evening’s walk will be for me: a patch of mossy steppingstones, the smell of meat and onions frying for somebody’s supper in the houses on Amherst, white blossoms in the air, spring in my step, and ancient Sgt. Pepper on my iPod.

So good to be out walking after a day of meaningless work.

image: Evening near Leon in Spain, ÁWá

Morning Drive

A fun mind-honing exercise is to describe what you are seeing using just a single letter of the alphabet. From my spring morning, driving Fremont Road the back way to Los Altos, using the letter R:

rainclouds
runnels
runner
railing
rubbish-bin
Retrievers
Retriever-walkers
round red sign
red flag
rivulet
rhino-rammer
rearview
road
rise
rebuilding
ridge
rooftops
richesse
radar
regulations
runoff
rock
rider
ranunculus (or really daffodils)
rebirth
ravens
ritzy residence
rent sign
real estate
red light

image: Peacock Springs State Park: Spring I, Ebyabe

Salads

I've had a couple of delicious salads this week—

Crinkly dark-green kale with feta, quinoa, cucumber, and thin-sliced radish; purple beets roasted and julienned; and Roman hazelnuts.

Grilled chicken with bulgar, roasted tomatoes and peppers, red onions, feta, lemon vinaigrette.

image: Radishes, (nl:Radijs voos) Raphanus sativus subsp. sativus spongy

Thought for the Day

"Writing poetry requires a lot of wool-gathering, and in twelve hours there's only so much wool."

—Kay Ryan, Poet Laureate


image: Sheep Looking, Fir0002