where the people wave

I want to live where the people wave
where they know your story
where they kind of care that the lettuce didn't do so well this spring
or the plumbing backed up
or the baby won't sleep
'cause you kind of care

I want to live where men are know by the life lived and yet gracious to the fallen
where there is time for living and slow eating
where life is made step by step
and a new sunrise is a gracious golden gift

I want to live where the children grow like trees
rooting
shooting
reaching for light and hidden depth
becoming stable and strong
a shelter for the weak and small

Maybe I long for too much
this dusty traveler of earth
Maybe I long for home

Maybe I long for heaven


I was just driving home from work when I felt a strong urge, or wish maybe, to wave at the people I drove past, to be in community with them, to know them. And into my head popped the first line of this poem (doesn't it sound a little like that song in Ariel? lol)...or whatever it is. I couldn't wait to get home and find out where writing it would take me.

So Enchanted with You

I heard this poem read by the author, 66 year old Nikki Giovanni, on The Splendid Table and it caught my fancy. I think we all need a little more poetry in our lives...poetry we can understand. In the interview she said, "I love a love poem, makes me smile...I mean there's nothing sillier on earth than falling in love."

I like

Boiled turnips

Boil potatoes

Boiled rutabagas

with butter

and sea salt

But not every day

I like

Fried Virginia flounder

Fried sand dabs

Fried smelts

But usually only on Friday nights

I want

Drop biscuits

Miniature Parker House rolls

Extra thin white bread

When I uncharacteristically

make a sandwich

I like

Garlic straight off the vine

Anchovies any time

And good red wines

'cause I'm too old

to drink cheap

I like to pound and grill my veal

I rub my beef

In a special chili mixture

I really don't eat

anyone else's ground meat

In other words:

I'm Normal

So this is the question:

Why am I so enchanted

with you

I love that food and love are so mixed up here, cause really they always are for me. Before we dated I would lure The Man into hanging out with promises of chocolate chip waffles. I think he fell in love with those before he fell in love with me. I still love cooking for him; coming up with dinners that supprise and please him while still living within our budget, pouring over sale papers, blogs and recipie books to concoct the perfect menu for the week, and glowing when he takes pride in these little gifts of mine. I never eat as well when he is gone; things are always so hurried, and cooking for me has turned into a way to show him how much I love him. It seems empty when he is gone. Many things do. Say a prayer for The Man though, there are tests today and he's been running fever for almost a day now. Lord willing we'll be together tommorrow, and I can baby him to my heart's content.

An Old Woman of the Roads

With our southern cold snap and snow this week, I've been thinking of how thankful I am for the shelter God has provided The Man and I, and at the same time dreaming of a very little house somewhere on a hill...one day.

O, To have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there's never a house nor bush,
An tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house—a house of my own—
Out of the wind's and the rain's way.
by Padraic Colum