Seen while looking for a book of criticism about Stevie Smith, Ann Sexton, and other women poets. The book wasn’t on the shelf.
These photos are a cross section of about five shelves of books on the same subject.
Category: images
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Napkin Art
My new nickname for Philosopher is Sadhu, Sanskrit for “spiritual seeker.” I think the word might be similar to the Buddhist “bodhisattva.”
My younger son Freeboarder is leaving for art school in a few days. His nickname remains the same. As I write this post he’s somewhere in the city doing ollies with his new board.
Sadhu came over to stain the deck for us, and he left some napkin art in his wake.
Do you notice the resemblance between his doodle and the 18th century headstone I saw recently in the Berkshires? When he was a very young child, we went to this cemetery while we were walking up Cone Hill.
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Poetry Across the Border
Just across the state line from Berkshire County is Austerlitz, NY, the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay, who preferred the name Vincent.
She named her farm house “Steepletop” after the wild flower that grows in the area. The flower resembles the shape of a church steeple.
The Millay family burial grounds are at the end of a path that’s marked with excerpts of Vincent’s poems. It’s a shady trail lined with birch trees and padded with moss.
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Sitting at a Cafe
We’re at an outdoor cafe connected to an artist’s studio and gallery. The Berkshires Mountain area has a long history of attracting writers, musicians, and artists.
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Outdoor Life
Today was sunny, in the mid seventies, perfect weather for a walk on Cone Hill and a long swim in the Stockbridge Bowl.
We’re grilling locally grown zucchini, patty pan squash, yellow squash, eggplant, and corn.
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Great Barrington
We had dinner in Great Barrington to celebrate our anniversary.
I had tagliatelle pasta with oyster mushrooms and egg and a nice red wine.
The photo here is of the street outside.
In the afternoon, the cows were dining in the pasture. They each looked up in turn as I passed by. Very observant of them.
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Breathing Fresh Air All Day
I paid a visit to the Cone Hill Cemetery on my way up Cone Hill Road–I used to be able to run up this hill, but today just walking had my heart rate going.
Some of the headstones in the cemetery were from 1799. The oldest one I found was from 1734!
We swam in Lake Mahkeenac, otherwise known as the Stockbridge Bowl. The wind was blowing and the water was choppy, but I swam breast stroke for a good half hour.
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Sunday Concert
Film Critic and I are sitting on the lawn, at an outdoor concert, listening to the BSO and Emanuel Ax play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22.
My feet and my ears are in heaven.
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May You Have Peaches
Freeboarder and his girlfriend brought home a big basket of fresh Georgia peaches, the best I’ve ever tasted.
He is all in all to me, as is his brother, and their girlfriends and friends are dear to me too. I can only glimpse one tiny portion of the grief, the total collapse, that the parents in Norway are now experiencing.
And the mothers in Somalia, whose children are dying of hunger–a woman whose goats had died said, “I am doubly cursed, because I gave birth to twins during a drought.” Her son Emmanuel lived, but baby Miriam died. During the video report on CNN, she was feeding her two surviving children leaves she had found on the scorched earth. They ate the paste she made for them out of her hand.
The very least I can do is dedicate these peaches to the mothers and fathers who have lost their children. My gratitude is tenuous, and I cherish my ability to feel it.
Balanced On the Edge 