The Tide of Easter

Shopping is done. Eggs are drying (robin egg blue) and two simple syrups are chilling. I made tarragon syrup for the chilled soup. And blackberry sauce for the sundaes. The table is set. The almonds are toasted. The garden is at April's peak. This week I changed out the jade for a camellia, the shade lover. Also added a blue-grey succulent. I teeter between lush and arid.

Jerusalem: Tis the Season

Because I understand the frustration of finding a map online that is suitable for printing, I offer my map to the public. So that when you search high res, old jerusalem, jerusalem at the time of jesus, old city, easter week, holy week, and sundry indicators, you may chance upon my site. Please leave a comment with your email address and I will personally (oooh!) send you a high resolution pdf, suitable for printing.

Milk and Eggs

I spent Easter with Jon and Judy. It was terrific—relaxed, festive, meaningful, and religious. I turned pages for Judy as she accompanied the choir. We were dressed in coral and white, a surprise to both. I sat at the low end of the piano, a few inches from the singers. I told them how good they sounded. There is something special about sitting so close to a choir that you really are able to hear individual voices. I came home with Easter treats, three colored hard-boiled eggs, an Easter lily, and a flowered bud vase. Not to mention how lovely a gift I took away of the time together. They are like no other people in so many ways. Open doors and open arms. We ate lamb with mint jelly, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls (which Jon took credit for baking at Costco), and angel pie. I stopped short when she brought out the Lenox Peeps salt and pepper shaker set. In the kitchen, Judy finally let me help a little. We both unloaded the dishwasher and I took out a metal baking cup measure. It is ancient. She insisted I drink milk from it as metal makes the milk really cold. I did.

Those That Climbed for the Sun in Their Lives

In the pushcart market, on Sunday,
A crate of lemons discharges light like a battery.
Icicle-shaped carrots that through black soil
Wove away lie like flames in the sun.
Onions with their shirts ripped seek sunlight
On green skins. The sun beats
On beets dirty as boulders in cowfields,
On turnips pinched and gibbous
From bulging rocks, on embery sweets,
On Idahos, Long Islands and Maines,
On horseradishes still growing weeds on the flat ends,
On cabbages lying about like sea-green brains
The skulls have been shucked from,
On tomatoes, undented plum-tomatoes, alligator-skinned
Cucumbers, that float pickled
In the wooden tubs of green skim milk—

Sky-flowers, dirt-flowers, underdirt-flowers,
Those that climbed for the sun in their lives
And those that wormed away—equally uprooted,
Maimed, lopped, shucked, and misaimed.

In the market in Damascus a goat
Came to a stall where twelve goatheads
Were lined up for sale. It sniffed them
One by one. Finally thirteen goats started
Smiling in their faintly sardonic way.

A crone buys a pickle from a crone,
It is wrapped in the Mirror,
At home she will open the wrapping, stained,
And stare and stare and stare at it.

And the cucumbers, and the melons,
And the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.

From “The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World”
By Galway Kinnell

I spent last weekend in a dream-like state with family friends. We loll and spend a sublime time. As my yoga teacher says, All choices correct. Their home is one of my favorites for a thousand reasons. Some activities: dying eggs, dining, putting together Easter baskets, hiding eggs, talking to someone who understands, house looking, dining, family, church, singing, art, browsing, photography, learning, remembering. Life is rich.



Movies: Casino Royale (dvd), An Unfinished Life (dvd), Miss Potter (theatre).
This week I finished typesetting the poem you just read. I am interning for an afternoon here and there with my former book arts instructor and company. They are teaching me letter-press printing and typesetting.
Book: The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle, reserving judgment till it is finished.
Preparing: pasta with fresh tomato sauce (sublime concoction) and Sharing Time.
Poem: Apology for Bad Dreams by Robinson Jeffers.
Best Newspaper Title: Mirror (see Kinnell poem)