my second favorite poem by my favorite guy

Church Going


Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new--
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
"Here endeth" much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for, wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation--marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these--for whom was built
This special shell? For though I've no idea
What this accoutered frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.


Philip Larkin

There's music coming soon and very soon. Sleep well in the meanwhile.

just another dog day / poem

The "Chemistry" demo still isn't completely fixed but it's been updated somewhat.

Here's another dog poem that I like. I'm amazed by how many poems are about dogs. Is it too cute? And/or getting old? But I feel like I have to use them now because he might get adopted soon. Anyway this is probably the last one. Enjoy!


Golden Retrievals


Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don't think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who's--oh
joy--actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I'm off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you're sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you can never bring back,

or else you're off in some fog concerning
--tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time's warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master's bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.


Mark Doty

some joyful Tidbits

Dear Humans,

I have a couple of things to share. First, a speech Abbie made last night at 11:03 PM:

"Whooooa. Right when I unplugged that, you turned the light on. I felt like I unplugged the darkness."


And this bulletin just came in from my sister. "G" is my four going on five year old niece, Georgia.

"We just counted out 100 beads for a school project. G did the counting, and after 39 (she pronounces 'furty-nine') she asked me, 'Was that the first "furty?"' I said yes, and she said 'Furty. Furty-one. . . .'"


Here's a poem.


The Aim Was Song


Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught.

Man came to tell it what was wrong:
It hadn't found the place to blow;
It blew too hard--the aim was song.
And listen--how it ought to go!

He took a little in his mouth,
And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
And then by measure blew it forth.

By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be--
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song--the wind could see.


Robert Frost


And here you can see the results of an epic battle between Rocky, his rope toy, his tree (or what's left of it, which is a vertical stick right behind his shoulder), and a sunbeam.
(The sunbeam won.)

crumbs in the bed

It's been a peaceful and productive day.

Another one like that, and "we" ought to have some new tunes up here shortly.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any ideas about what Abbie should use her awesome new wooden box for.


The Hound


Life the hound
Equivocal
Comes at a bound
Either to rend me
Or to befriend me.
I cannot tell
The hound's intent
Till he has sprung
At my bare hand
With teeth or tongue.
Meanwhile I stand
And wait the event.


Robert Francis


It's been a peaceful and productive day.

dreaming in your philosophy

Dear People,

Lest you forget who is really the boss around here, I submit these additional images of Rocky.

He is still looking for a home. But we have our fingers crossed about a very cool couple who met with us today. They have a shepherd-mix puppy named Satchmo, who of course completely bossed Rocky around despite being five months old and about twenty pounds. We will keep you posted.

In music news, we are in touch with a producer guy, and there's really nothing to report, at least not yet, but I just wanted to say that it has been very nice to communicate with a successful industry person who seems to be a human being.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---


Emily Dickinson




And this is the face Rocky makes when I kiss him:

their names are called; they raise a Paw

Dear Fellow Mammals,

I'm going to share this link to Postsecret, even though probably most of you already know all about it... and even though it's one of the most popular blogs on the internet and certainly doesn't need lil' ol' me to link to it.

But for anyone who's not familiar, it's most definitely worth checking out. There's a new set of images every Sunday, so that's cool. And it's a community art project, so that's cool.

Now I'd like to share this little anecdote about our home life. My dear sweet Abbie, who is very dear and sweet, has a very funny habit of referring to me as "we" whenever she makes a request or gives a command. Let me give some examples:

Abbie: Do you think we should walk Rocky?
Translation: Please walk Rocky right now.

Abbie: We should probably call so-and-so to make some plans for this weekend.
Translation: You forgot to call so-and-so and you'd better do it right now.

And now, one of my favorite examples of all time as well as one of the most elaborate, this just happened two seconds ago. Abbie is in bed, about two steps away from the alarm clock but also nice and cozy and warm under the comforter. I am in the other room, typing the first part of this blog post.

Abbie: Sam, would you please help me remember that the alarm clock is still set, and we should turn it off before we go to sleep?
Translation: Come in here and turn the alarm off now, before you forget, because there's no way I'm getting out of this bed.

I hope all of "we" have a good night.

something rather more heartwarming

By way of apology for my earlier outburst, please enjoy this article from the New York Times about our friends in the UK continuing to gaze at their national navel.

Some of my favorite suggestions for their national motto:

Once mighty empire, slightly used
Let's discuss it down the pub
At least we're not France

forgive me: a little emotional brush-clearing

I think it's unfair to Dubya that he has to decide whether waterboarding is torture when he's never had the experience himself. Don't you?

harvester of hearts

Dear Interwebs,

We made a song. It's over on the right. You might or might not have to scroll around to find it.

It's called "Chemistry" and we hope you like it. This version will get replaced with one that has fewer screwups in the next few days. So, it's kind of a collector's item... if you're a collector of screwups.

Rocky charmed several chumps on our walk today. He's really just so very cute. At least women seem to think so. We ran far this morning, so my hope is that he sleeps for the rest of the night without too much snoring. Who knows? Tomorrow might be his last day with us.

Go look at Abbie's blog (you won't regret it).

Happy birthday to my dear father. Good night to all of you.




Nick and the Candlestick


I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears

The earthen womb

Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs

Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.

Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,

Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish—
Christ! They are panes of ice,

A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking

Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,

Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo

Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean

In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.

Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses.
With soft rugs—

The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,

Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,

You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.



Sylvia Plath

dream load one

It was a big ol' honkin' three-day weekend over here, and we hope you can say the same. Friday especially was weird, what with Rocky's un-adoption right before the show. Thanks to all who came out for that, by the way. Then Rocky kept us up all night practicing his guard dog skillz. I spent the extra hours reliving my various errors from the concert... so that was fun.

But we're all rested up now, thanks to some naps and Rocky's mercy. As a result, I am in a position to promise that there will be a brand new tune posted on this blog tomorrow night, come heck or high water and by hook or by crook. I am not in a position to promise that it will be good. But neither am I in a position to judge - that's you.

In my few lucid hours, I've been pondering this article about morality. I know, I know. But really, click on it and take a look if you have any interest in good and evil, or why Republicans are the way they are, or why I am the way I am (possible dain bramage?).

One excerpt that I hope will entice you:

"[Here's] the favorite new sandbox for moral psychologists, a thought experiment devised by the philosophers Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson called the Trolley Problem. On your morning walk, you see a trolley car hurtling down the track, the conductor slumped over the controls. In the path of the trolley are five men working on the track, oblivious to the danger. You are standing at a fork in the track and can pull a lever that will divert the trolley onto a spur, saving the five men. Unfortunately, the trolley would then run over a single worker who is laboring on the spur. Is it permissible to throw the switch, killing one man to save five? Almost everyone says “yes.”

"Consider now a different scene. You are on a bridge overlooking the tracks and have spotted the runaway trolley bearing down on the five workers. Now the only way to stop the trolley is to throw a heavy object in its path. And the only heavy object within reach is a fat man standing next to you. Should you throw the man off the bridge?

"Both dilemmas present you with the option of sacrificing one life to save five, and so, by the utilitarian standard of what would result in the greatest good for the greatest number, the two dilemmas are morally equivalent. But most people don’t see it that way: though they would pull the switch in the first dilemma, they would not heave the fat man in the second. When pressed for a reason, they can’t come up with anything coherent, though moral philosophers haven’t had an easy time coming up with a relevant difference, either.

"When psychologists say “most people” they usually mean “most of the two dozen sophomores who filled out a questionnaire for beer money.” But in this case it means most of the 200,000 people from a hundred countries who shared their intuitions on a Web-based experiment conducted by the psychologists Fiery Cushman and Liane Young and the biologist Marc Hauser. A difference between the acceptability of switch-pulling and man-heaving, and an inability to justify the choice, was found in respondents from Europe, Asia and North and South America; among men and women, blacks and whites, teenagers and octogenarians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews and atheists; people with elementary-school educations and people with Ph.D.’s.

...

"But when the people were pondering a hands-off dilemma, like switching the trolley onto the spur with the single worker, the brain reacted differently: only the area involved in rational calculation stood out. Other studies have shown that neurological patients who have blunted emotions because of damage to the frontal lobes become utilitarians: they think it makes perfect sense to throw the fat man off the bridge. Together, the findings corroborate Greene’s theory that our nonutilitarian intuitions come from the victory of an emotional impulse over a cost-benefit analysis."



As I've probably mentioned to some of you, I am one of the very very few people who would flip the switch AND push the dude. Abbie, on the other hand, is one of the very very few people who would NOT flip the switch (or push the dude). She can't believe I would push him, and I can't believe she wouldn't flip the switch. But we both seem to believe what we're saying... and if so, we're both in tiny (different) minorities of the species.

Key to our successful marriage? Explanation of some of our bizarre idiosyncrasies? Or yet another symptom of some deeper weirdness? You be the judge.

But the article has other cool ideas, including some thoughts about the genetics of morality and of why liberals and conservatives don't agree but both think they're morally right (as I mentioned).

Enough of that. I hope you enjoy this brief and peaceful poem as an antidote to my long and frantic post. Good night, all y'all!




In a Station of the Metro


The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.



Ezra Pound

sorry that i lied to you

Folks,

It turns out that Rocky's still in need of a home. The SAF folks went to check out his adoptive family and didn't like the size of his yard, or the size of the fence, or the fact that there was access to the underside of the house. So the adoption was called off.

It's good that they're thorough, because when Rocky eventually gets placed, we can be sure it'll be a good place.

But I do wish they'd done their homework before they told us--because now I feel like I've messed with all y'all's emotions (in addition to messing with my own and Abbie's).

We're going to put up some more fliers tomorrow and enjoy some extra time with the boy. Keep him in mind if you know anyone who needs a fine companion.

New song coming soon I promise - it's written and we performed it tonight and we just need to record it. Rocky will undoubtedly be audible in the background.

Sweet dreams!

rocky's headed Home

Rocky got adopted. It happened all of a sudden, and I'll drop him off in the morning. This poem I offer as a tribute to the proud beast, in the hope that he will enjoy many happy years with his new family, whom we met briefly and who seem like very good people.



Walking the Dog


Two universes mosey down the street
Connected by love and a leash and nothing else.
Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves
While he mooches along with tail up and snout down,
Getting a secret knowledge through the nose
Almost entirely hidden from my sight.

We stand while he's enraptured by a bush
Till I can't stand our standing any more
And haul him off; for our relationship
Is patience balancing to this side tug
And that side drag; a pair of symbionts
Contented not to think each other's thoughts.

What else we have in common's what he taught,
Our interest in shit. We know its every state
From steaming fresh through stink to nature's way
Of sluicing it downstreet dissolved in rain
Or drying it to dust that blows away.
We move along the street inspecting it.

His sense of it is keener far than mine,
And only when he finds the place precise
He signifies by sniffing urgently
And circles thrice about, and squats, and shits,
Whereon we both with dignity walk home
And just to show who's master I write the poem.



Howard Nemerov


We'll miss you, buddy!

not even Crying save me

Slapstick



If there are angels,
I doubt they read
our novels concerning thwarted hopes.

I'm afraid, alas,
they never touch the poems
that bear our grudges against the world.

The rantings and railings
of our plays
must drive them, I suspect,
to distraction.

Off-duty, between angelic –
i. e., inhuman – occupations,
our slapstick
from the age of silent film.

To our dirge wailers,
garment renders,
and teeth gnashers,
they prefer, I suppose,
that poor devil

who grabs the drowning man by his toupee
or, starving, devours his own shoelaces
with gusto.

From the waist up, starch and aspirations;
below, a startled mouse
runs down his trousers.
I'm sure
that's what they call real entertainment.

A crazy chase in circles
ends up pursuing the pursuer.
The light at the end of the tunnel
turns out to be tiger's eye.
A hundred disasters
mean a hundred comic somersaults
turned over a hundred abysses.

If there are angels,
they must, I hope,
find this convincing,
this merriment dangling from terror,
not even crying Save me Save me
since all of this takes place in silence.

I can even imagine
that they clap their wings
and tears run from their eyes
from laughter, if nothing else.




Wislawa Szymborska



Know that movie where the front of the house falls on Buster Keaton, except he's in exactly the right spot so that he ends up standing in the open second-story window with only his hair messed up?



According to some book, he did that, for real. No stunt man, no special effects. And of course! It's easy, right? You just measure it... and then maybe measure it again just to be sure.

But would you do it?

I admire that confidence in the laws of physics (not to mention his set builders). I think we have to celebrate these moments where the rational parts of the brain (cerebral cortex?) manage to make the stem say "uncle" at least for a moment. The results are always spectacular.

a Thing that we've never Made

We had a meeting with the family that might adopt Rocky. They were great. I am very hopeful that our boy will have a playmate (a very cute half-Pomeranian half-circus dog named Pagan) in addition to two loving humans. Nothing's set in stone yet. But at least he didn't break any of their stuff with his ridiculous tail (though it was a near thing).

Another funny speech that Abbie once made while half-asleep:

"But, there's a thing that we've never made and we have to put it in a bowl. No, it's not really a weird thing. You made the situation weird because you turned off my TV so that I sound like a freak."

Hope y'all all sleep well.

put aside the Theft

Rocky hasn't been adopted yet, but it'll probably happen within another day or two. This poem, by my favorite guy, is about a house with no dog in it.



Home is so Sad



Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.



Philip Larkin


Our little band has managed to get 1,000 plays on myspace, which means we get free lifetime memberships, a solid gold trophy shaped like an .mp3, and some radio play on the island of Nauru. Many thanks to all of you who have visited our page, especially G-lo and my sister, who have logged over 400 hours on the site by some estimates.

Having met that goal and a few other deadlines last week, we are bringing our steely focus and iron will to bear on the goal of posting a new tune before the show on Friday. Everyone grab hold of something.

what happens Outside the screen door

Good news about the proud beast.

As you can see from these poses, which he calls "attitudes of sun and showers," he's pretty much irresistible.

We have reason to hope he'll be adopted by a very loving family in the very near future.

Good and sad news.

Abbie's favorite for today:


This Is Just to Say



I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox



and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast



Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold



William Carlos Williams

for the Record

We're expanding our efforts to get Houdinky adopted with a craigslist post. Please feel free to share, of course.


10:52 PM

sam: scoot over.
abbie: no.
sam: scoot over.
abbie: you need new pajamas.
sam: what?
abbie: hmm.
sam: what did you just say?
abbie: you need the thing to help you do what needs to be done.
sam: okay.
abbie: wait.
sam: what?
abbie: did a lot just happen?
sam: um.
abbie: because i was asleep for a second there.
sam: okay.

I Wanna Piece of Date Bread

The band has some dates, and my are they tasty:

January the 18th
February the 15th
March the 14th (birthday of my beloved mother - hope she's okay with that)
April the 11th
May the 9th

If the roadtrip doesn't happen for some reason, we'll continue to play the second Friday forever after.

All these shows are at the Neutral Ground Coffeehouse in New Orleans (5110 Danneel Street) and they all start at 8 and are free.

Rocky has been escaping. I've spent most of my time with him today either scolding him, chasing him, watching him suspiciously, or building barriers against him. Plus at least a few minutes trying to think of a new nickname for him. Houdini is the only escape artist I can think of, and it doesn't mix with Rocky very well. All I get is "Houdinky."

But he's doing it because he likes to explore. It's not about being bad, at least based on how happy he is to see me when I catch him. Maybe Amerigo Vespocky? Rockgellan? Columbocky? Leave a comment on this pressing topic please.

Seriously, I'm worried about this exploratory streak. Abbie thinks he's squeezing through a tiny hole in the fence. I'm not sure that's possible and think he's leaping the fence on his newly-re-empowered legs. She thinks I'm crazy. Either way, it's bad. I'm not sure we can fix the fence without involving our landlady, who is not explicitly anti-animal but who will not be thrilled about the idea of spending money to fix his fence. And we have been putting off telling her about him since it's such a temporary arrangement (he's only been with us for two weeks, which is just plain nuts). And if I'm right and he's just jumping it... well, that's pretty nuts and unsafe, too.

Either way, it seems likely that we'll have to return him to the wonderful people at SAF sooner than we had thought.

So, again, I beg you to help us get him adopted. Surely someone knows someone who needs a wonderful, sweet, housebroken puppy who's pretty well-trained if I do say so. Drop us a line.

We're becoming those people.

So we bought Rocky a new toy today. Abbie chose it, and it made her--both of us--really happy that he loves it so much.

But he also really loves to play with rosebush branches with huge thorns. So why are we buying him toys? Gotta love capitalism.

You look into his eyes and you want to pet him and love him and hug him. And that's not enough somehow, maybe because he's still got a wild carnivorous beast somewhere down there in his DNA, and you suspect that he wants more than just food and sticks and constant belly-rubbing (all evidence to the contrary). So, as you droop in the weakness of your love, the merchant strides forward with the hilarious bauble and overmasters you.

But he really likes it though.

Also: if you can't grow one of these, why grow one?

i wish there was something i wanted as much as Rocky wants to keep playing tug of war

Thanks to my mom for today's poem, which is written from the perspective of a cockroach named archy (cockroaches don't use capital letters because they can't press shift and a letter at the same time):



the lesson of the moth



i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy



Don Marquis, in archy and mehitabel, 1927





I love this last one because he's looking at Abbie. Rocky's version of multitasking: completely distracted and yet maintaining his grip.

a Little time

The More Loving One


Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take a little time.



W. H. Auden

Rocky's back with us, and we are glad, even knowing his sojourn will be brief. He'll either get adopted, or his leg will finish getting strong and we'll give him back to SAF. Neither of those will take very long, I'm afraid. And we'll have to give him back once he's healed, because otherwise we're really hurting his chances of getting adopted out of selfishness. The peoples will probably adopt the other dogs unless Rocky is there in the flesh to mesmerize them with his big cow eyes.

And I just wanted to share this amazing and inspiring story I heard on All Things Considered today. Issa's doing it right as far as I'm concerned - and as soon as I figure out how, we're going to have a website with pay-what-you-want capabilities for all the tuneage.

Y'all sleep well in the total dark sublime.

found the People Incomplete

It's cold here, too. Maybe not like it is where you are, but maybe even a little sadder for the surprise of it. The garden certainly was unready.

Year's End


Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.

I've known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.


Richard Wilbur

I think there's something very comforting in the idea of being an incomplete person--maybe just because it's a nice name for a tricky idea, and we always like it when tricky things have nice names. More time, indeed. If wanting more time to do things means being incomplete, that certainly beats the alternative.

...Not that living in the future is any good either, as this time of year continually re-proves. But if you can own and even enjoy the incompleteness, maybe you can have a nicer present.

I wish nice presents for all of you.

he's got a famous face!

We're so proud of our boy Rocky. I'll flesh this post out soon, but I want to get this link up as quickly as possible. Please share it with anyone you know who might consider adopting this wonderful dog.

so cute and nice and funny

Just wanted to share a few of abbie's photos from the rocking party last night.

Max missed his girlfriend but consoled himself by beating us at cards.

Gloria was there in spirit.

We hope you had a lovely night and aren't paying overmuch for it now.

Headed back to New Orleans tomorrow. We're excited to see Rocky and to get some new tunes up here.



Acquainted with the Night



I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain – and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.



Robert Frost