Limited by character length parameter but not by love

Sidney's poll for the morning.

I am...
         reading LJ and Zeek instead of working; taking in caffeine and hormones; triple-checking my to-do lists; tired of gerunds. At work. A New Englander. Practical in heels. Leaving soon.

Right now I want...
         the rest of those to-do listy things DONE. Someone to watch over m(e/y cats while I'm gone). An oatmeal cranberry cookie (oops). A non-digital photo of Sidney. Ten minutes to think, pray, be still.

The social change I want most is...
         Ten minutes to think, pray, be still -- nationally

The political change I want most is...
         See above. Also freer markets, local to international. Removal of tarrifs and subsidies. Open border policies with accompanying reduction of fed social services (return to locally provided assistance)

I wish I was...
         Braver. More in touch with feelings. Expert with Excel/Access/SQL/VBA/VB.net/ASP.net. Doing accounting instead. Having breakfast with the rest of the Solid Gold Dancers. On the Dalmatian coast.

Right now I am very...
         Overwhelmed. In a zen state about the overwhelm. Unprepared for this Israel trip. Grateful for good friends. Tired. In love. Looked-out-for. Out of shape (in need of pilates and dancing). Excited!

I really hate...
         "We've always done it this way." "They're not really people like you and me." Violence trumping rights. Violence in the name of God. Rapists. Hatred of the stranger in our midst. Road rage.

I would like to go...
         Swimming. To Ukraine/E.Europe, Belize, Argentina, Northwest Africa, Estonia, Montreal again, driving through the American West, to Key West for long lazy vacation, to Israel (hey!).

I would like to experience...
         Summer morning on the Adriatic; Saturday night in Budapest; Passover in Morocco; fixing up a house with my Beloved; being on a ship in the middle of an ocean; having a baby; skydiving (sans baby).

I love...
         Sidney! Seriously, like. My Beloved. My family. Economics. Judaism. My kitties. Traveling. Dancing. Good food. Really good coffee. Nauset and the house on Cape Cod. Poetry. Small businesses. Stories.

"Cloistered monastic life is something like living in a sonnet."

The winner of the 2007 Foley poetry contest is "Lost and Found" by John Slater. Slater is the pen name of Brother Isaac, a Trappist monk from The Abbey of the Genesee in upstate New York. Born in Toronto, Ontario in 1974, Brother Isaac studied classics at Trent University before entering the monastery in December 1999. In addition to writing poetry, Brother Isaac helps to bake "Monks’ Bread," the monastery’s main source of income. He also told us that he "helps in the plumbing dept. and infirmary as well as tending our quasi-Japanese garden." Brother Isaac agreed to an interview with America by e-mail.

...

Added to side links: Iranamok

Jazz drifting in from the late practice next door

Oatmeal cookies
in the oven,
The Buddy Holly Story

in the other room,
all the windows open to
honeysuckle green.

Self-Portrait with Insomnia, Rocks, and Fireflies

I might have been encoded
a few eons ago
as an oblong stone, flat & perfect for skipping,
kissed & kissed & kissed; & if pitched
skillfully enough, Mystic Lake
wets me a fourth time,
then settles me bottomward,
one among millions
cast into the snail's pace of underwater time.

But it's Wednesday, Love,
well past midnight. I've been peering
into the jolt of a black window.
I could swear I see the fireflies
that teased a summer lawn
decades ago, the flash-black-flash of their belly-lamps.
They're beetles, not flies—
did you know that?
                             Neither did I.
A sort of enzyme—Luciferin—combines
with oxygen to create their light.
Nobody knows what makes the light
switch on & off, least of all
the darning needle of my wakefulness
practicing its stalls over a lake
that might have bitten or licked as readily as kissed.

And besides, what I'm calling fireflies
we called lightning bugs. None of us
connected their glow to sex, & beside
you now I'll swear to anything:
I'm that tired in this sleepless daydream
as a deeply appreciated pebble, while a ring
of rocks circles the August lakefront fire—

On each rock, someone chants,
but I chant the most persuasive chant
up from the bottom of the lake.
Hearing that chant, the shell-
halves of our hands keeping time,
all of us thrust into future & past
listen & regret a little less.

-- Steven Cramer