The uselessness of letters
Some snow this morning. Struggling with words today. With both a long poem Atlantis and on my substantial edit of Skelton Yawngrave intermittently through the day, both at a stage where careful thought is needed and in the case of Skelton Yawngrave this is slightly nerve-racking. The text is coming out the other end of this process is far cleaner and the plot is much faster.
Calliope is bored by bad weather and is indoors more and constantly bringing her catnip mouse and rubber ball into my study and thundering about with them, or jumping up at my keyboard to rub her chops on my face at critical moments. The only respite was a violent screeching fight with another cat. Amazing to see her rocket to the top of a wall and beat the intruder like a ginger stepchild. She smugly returned from her battle completely unharmed. I've never seen a scratch on her.
Otherwise I finished listening to Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (which I would heartily recommend), while baking a pie of my own devising and arranging to see my French clients next week. Evening with Lorraine, and we skipped across the icy road to the Battle of Trafalgar where I found it was good to be among humans once we had found a seat in the hubbub. Lorraine all smiles as she has little work to do in the next two weeks.
Found this poem today in one of my books. It is lovely if rather dismal. I sent it to Richard. I have started typing individual poems I find like this into a file. I have no idea why I haven't done this before. There is something different in reading a poem in a book. Retyping it somehow gets you into the poem in a slightly different way.
SNOW STORM
Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.
Tu Fu (713-770)
tr. Kenneth Rexroth
Some snow this morning. Struggling with words today. With both a long poem Atlantis and on my substantial edit of Skelton Yawngrave intermittently through the day, both at a stage where careful thought is needed and in the case of Skelton Yawngrave this is slightly nerve-racking. The text is coming out the other end of this process is far cleaner and the plot is much faster.
Calliope is bored by bad weather and is indoors more and constantly bringing her catnip mouse and rubber ball into my study and thundering about with them, or jumping up at my keyboard to rub her chops on my face at critical moments. The only respite was a violent screeching fight with another cat. Amazing to see her rocket to the top of a wall and beat the intruder like a ginger stepchild. She smugly returned from her battle completely unharmed. I've never seen a scratch on her.
Otherwise I finished listening to Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (which I would heartily recommend), while baking a pie of my own devising and arranging to see my French clients next week. Evening with Lorraine, and we skipped across the icy road to the Battle of Trafalgar where I found it was good to be among humans once we had found a seat in the hubbub. Lorraine all smiles as she has little work to do in the next two weeks.
Found this poem today in one of my books. It is lovely if rather dismal. I sent it to Richard. I have started typing individual poems I find like this into a file. I have no idea why I haven't done this before. There is something different in reading a poem in a book. Retyping it somehow gets you into the poem in a slightly different way.
SNOW STORM
Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.
Tu Fu (713-770)
tr. Kenneth Rexroth
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