fun for me (possibly not for you)

Google Image Search your answer
- pick one image from the first page
- and post

1. The age you will be on your next birthday










AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. A place you'd like to travel to









3. Your favorite place









This is "with friends," not cavorting in the snow. See previous post.

4. Your favorite object












5. Your favorite food










6. Your favorite animal











7. Your favorite color












8. The town in which you were born










9. The town in which you live














Same town, in case you were confused. The first is an awesome picture of Boston, isn't it?

10. The name of a past pet














I find it kind of hilarious that there is a Fritz the cat comic book, and our first pet was Fritz the cat. AND our Fritz looked like this. But our Fritz was a girl and never tried to rock a red blazer or pick up chicks.

11. The name of a past love











David Mcfadden, 3rd grade. I can imagine this is what he would look like if he was old and a poet.

12. What you wanted to be when you were little













This is a picture of a "lady archaeologist" (their designation, not mine). I looked up archaeologist then thought I should find a picture of a woman and this is what I got.

13. Your nickname/screen name








Kind of boring, but tinglypoet did not yield a lot of options. Neither did triggermarie, my other one.

14. Your first name













15. Your middle name













Don't know who this lady is, but her name is marie.


16. Your last name






















These are both interesting, because the first is a picture of a group project that I did in seminary raising awareness about the lack of handicap accessibility in the seminary building. What's funny is that this picture came up because the caption says that the woman in the chair is me, which she is obviously not. She's Deborah Penny, for the record.

The second is interesting because this guy, O.G. Tinglof was not only an original gangster, but a pastor in a church in New Hampshire that was from the denomination my church sprung out of, The Swedish Evangelical Mission Church. I'm carrying the flame, O.G.!



17. A bad habit of yours










I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.
- Mark Twain in Eruption

18. Your first job













19. Your grandmother’s name























I had two grandmothers. This makes one look slightly more distinguished, but they were both on par.

20. Your major in college

pros and cons of living in boston in the second snowiest december EVER (or, why i'm glad i have slippers)

UPDATE: people who come here from Google: if you want the REAL pros and cons of living in Boston, this post will not help you (sorry).  Go here instead.

PROS:

It's pretty: yesterday when I was driving home all the soft and fluffy snow was still clinging to the branches -- lovely, like a winter wonderland (to be said with hands clasped by cheek, all romantically)

It brings neighbors together: people are all out, shoveling together. And for every mail truck guy that drives by and goes "Boy, you got a long way to go," there's a middle aged Brazilian lady who helps you clean off your car. And everyone has something to talk about.

It's cozy: It's fun to sit inside and drink tea and wrap presents (with your slippers on) when it's snowy outside...it feels like Christmas.


CONS:

Parking (or owning a car in general) makes me want to poke my eyes out. I had to park on the street in Chicago, but I never remember it being this bad. It's taken me a total of 3 hours to shovel my car out on various occasions, last night I realized why it's bad to leave your windshield wipers on when you get out of your car in a snowstorm (I don't think there's been so much snow in my car...well, ever.) Also, there are like half the parking spaces available because there are huge piles of snow and ice in the other ones.

This past Sunday, there was a snowstorm, and we canceled church! Well, we didn't cancel it, but nobody came!

People drive crazy in the snow! And park crazy (because they are desperate to find a space to park).

And it's pretty, BUT (big ol' but), it gets dirty and gross pretty quickly. Like, big piles of chunky, grungy ice, and big puddles of slush that you have to jump across. And people shovel their sidewalks, but nobody shovels ways INTO the sidewalk. So you have to scale the piles or slog through the slush. So your shoes and socks and such get soaked. BUT (big ol' but and a new pro) then you can wear your slippers. =)

best picture ever

here.

the latest and greatest

in theaters: Gone Baby Gone

LOVED it. It was a really honest view of Boston, the gritty, uncouth side of Boston, the place where the people who are poor and white live. Ben Affleck, who annoys me to no end on screen because, I don't know, he looks too polished or something, is GREAT behind the camera. He used a lot of locals to make the film more authentic, which worked so well that the bigger names, like Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, actually pulled me out of the story. I don't want to give away too much, but I do want to say that Casey Affleck is great and a far cry from the dude that wanted to sit in the front seat in Good Will Hunting, and also, I don't ever want a private dectective boyfriend (which is what Affleck plays) because I thought Affleck was going to die about 7 different times in this movie and that would be too much for my frail little heart.

Also, one reviewer from the Boston Globe said that B. Affleck did a great job portraying class (which, I agree, phenomenal) but struggled a bit with race. The reviewer said that the great Boston movie will deal with race expertly, but no one will want to see it.

online: Project Runway Canada & Robin Hood BBC. I guess I'm not very patriotic these days.
on PRC:Canadians are just calmer than Americans it seems, and, don't tell Tim Gunn but I almost love this show better than the US version. Less drama, more sewing, and they even made dresses that were auctioned off to benefit AIDS relief in Africa.

on Robin Hood: Robin Hood is campy and cheesy and horribly inaccurate and purposely anachronistic and so predictable and cliche (like the weekly-Robin-and-Merry-band-sneak-into-the-castle-will-they-escape business, or the love triangle between the cocky and dashing Robin, the headstrong Marian, and the vile (but increasingly softhearted) henchman Guy of Gisbourne)...BUT I LOVE IT. I've come to the realization that I don't necessarily want intelligent TV, because usually it's just TV that tries to be intelligent and fails and drives me crazy (hello, LOST). I like a little cheeseball melodrama with a dash of humor. That makes me happy.

in life: Christmas music! and lights, the tackier the better. There's a guy in Jamaica Plain who put up 500,000 Christmas lights as well as a 650 lb crown this year, but mostly I really love driving down the street and passing a little row house all decked out with different size and color lights. I could think about wasted energy, wasted money, etc., but this time of year, especially, I prefer to think about people feeling cheered and ready for the season.

You know what this post has told me? especially the last two bits? I'm a sap. Might as well embrace it.

let's go red sox (clap clap clapclapclap)

my parents took part in this Jordan's furniture promotion that will give them their mattress for free if the red sox make it all the way to the series.

on saturday night, my mom thought it was all over, and she was ready for her mattress...we had to tell her, "not yet, mom."

even though he didn't do much last night (i like to think he allowed the younguns to have some glory), i still love me some david ortiz. i found this video on youtube, and even though the interviewer's annoying, i am a sucker for a man in an apron, especially a man with an apron and a big smile who can actually cook (and well -- i was ready for those plaintains), ESPECIALLY a man with an apron and a big smile who can actually cook and hit homers in his sleep.

i just want to give him a big hug around his belly.

mouse update.

bought the humane traps. but then the mouse disappeared! rainster and i thought perhaps the downstairs neighbor's cat killed/ate it, but i guess i'll never know what happened to that brave little sucker.

also, made potato leek soup yesterday. YUM!

themouseissqueakingwhyisitsqueaking

i just imagined it walking toward me.

i'm not going to make it through the night.

city mouse

there are few things i thought to blog about this week, but ended up being too lazy to, like:

1. my thoughts on me possibly doing karaoke with rainster
namely, that my voice is such that i could not try and sing normally, because people would be embarrassed for me. i would have to try and be ironic, like the guy this past week who did britney spears a la robert goulet (on a side note, although i do enjoy covers done in completely different styles, like the acoustic guitar guy who did "real love" by mary j. blige at a dido concert torgo and i went to once long ago, ironically singing britney spears is overdone). but i'm not confident enough to be ironic without practicing exhaustively. i could also try and be funny, but i'm more the witty-story-writer type funny, not the sing-and-dance-goofily-get-the-crowd-going-along-with-you type funny.



2. a random question i had:
namely, where are those trucks that are driving along pulling one long log behind them going? why don't they have a bunch of logs? is this for some log throwing contest for giants? an enormous log cabin being built really inefficiently?
but then, that same day, i figured it out -- ELECTRIC POLES. duh.




but what is it that made me come on here and post? the fact that right now there is a MOUSE in my HOUSE. and by house i mean ONE ROOM APARTMENT.

my parent's house has mice. mostly in the kitchen. so i felt a little better sleeping there because i could convince myself that the mouse was going to stay put in the kitchen, and wouldn't possibly get close to my bed. however, in this apartment, my bed is about four (human) steps from my kitchen. moreover, i have seen the mouse running round under my bed.

it's not a rat or anything. it's just a little mouse. but i am FREAKED OUT. like, right now, i don't know where it is. it could be right under me as i sit on the futon. i know tomorrow i can call my landlord and hope she can do something (i don't want to set a trap), but for tonight, we might have to co-exist. where will the mouse go once i shut all the light off? will the mouse crawl on me in my sleep? on my FACE? oh. oh my.

tuesdays are for discoveries

DISCOVERY #1: my taxes

duh, xtina, shouldn't you KNOW about your taxes by now? well, yes, i should, if my taxes were still regular taxes. but ACTUALLY my taxes are now unusual. clergy, you see, are considered self-employed, so don't get any taxes taken out. instead, i have to pay estimates on a quarterly basis.

but wait! there's more!
salary for clergy is actually divided into a salary and a housing allowance. why? who knows? and income tax is just taken out of the salary, and social security is taken out of both...plus i need to keep track of all my deductions.

i used to be able to do the 1040EZ. no more! but happily, clergy also get standing room only access to all red sox home games...that kind of makes up for the tax confusion. that and the whole living into my calling thing.

DISCOVERY #2: Party Mix, March 2007

so the other day i was in my mom's car and she hands to me a CD with the words "Party Mix, March 2007" written on it. i don't recognize it, i don't remember any parties in march, and it doesn't look like the handwriting of anyone i know. whatever, i take it anyway. i play it. it doesn't sound like anything my friends would listen to, kind of a mixture of funk, oldies, really fun music...i recognized only a few of the songs (TOTALLY rocked out to Stevie's "signed, sealed, delivered"), but i liked them all. it was like an early Christmas present.

my destiny calls and i go!

so last night i went to see Man of La Mancha at a theater that I didn't even know existed in downtown Boston. A tiny little venue, but worked perfectly well for the stage set up, which is supposed to look like a prison. the main character, Miguel Cervantes, is a playwright who uses the props in the prison and his fellow prisoners to act out the story of Don Quixote.

i think you'd have to work pretty hard to wreck MoLM because it's such a fun, energetic show with really catchy songs, but this group did a fabulous job, and i liked the multicultural-ness of their company. Don Quixote had the perfect mix of earnestness and dottering age. the Padre was hot (can i think that?) the only thing that was weird to a person who is used to going to musicals (i do love a good musical) in big venues was the pre-recorded music (as opposed to, obviously, an orchestra)...a little distracting. (ed. note: apparently, i am in a parenthetical mood today)

if you haven't seen this show, and are in Boston, go see it where i did. if you haven't seen the show and are not in Boston, find someplace that is playing it, and go see it. at the very least, watch this, which is what turned me on to this musical in the first place.

*for those who don't know, this is the fabulous Scott Bakula in the fabulous Quantum Leap. He sings with a little too much macho gusto for this particular role, but i love him anyway. also, yes, i know it's in spanish. it's the only one i could find.

**also, I just put a video in my blog! praise me.

why i don't speak french

The Chair-Caner

Whatever it cost to make the old peasant give in
who had refused to yield his ancestors' land,
cost to have the swamp sanded over, and the bridge built
and the reception for state dignitaries, he knows nothing of it
the Sunday painter devoted to flowers
to cats' eyes, to young girls' blossoming
on an imaginary dune, just as such things are not noticed
by the gods of this palace who smoke and talk of art
with the gestures of Greek statues. He only
knows that for painting, a sparrow in the sky
suffices, or a sun-ray on the straw of his chair
if in the depth of silence for an instant that shadow
loosens the grip that makes him drop his eyes.

(Text of the poem in the original French)

Guy Goffette

..because translating poems like this, which i really like, would be really hard. don't you think?

so the most recent thing i'm procrastinating on is this licensing paper i have to write to get started on the ordination process.

once i do that, i will be on my way to really, really being a pastor, and that's amazing and kind of knee-knockingly scary. early in the summer i went to talk to the grandmother of one of my kids who was going through a hard time. she answered the phone once during the middle of our meeting and said, "let me call you back, i'm talking to a pastor right now" and she meant me...

crazy.

it made me do it.

i am dumbfounded enough by this to finally come back to the blogging world.

Fudge vs. Gore

so last thursday i saw harry potter and the order of the phoenix, which was good, but i always hate watching movies based on books because i want the WHOLE book in the movie, and that hardly ever happens. but i was entertained.

and just this very evening i watched an inconvenient truth.
and i decided that when jk rowling wrote the order of the phoenix, she may have been thinking about global warming.

no, wait, really, just listen.

so in order of the phoenix one of the main themes is that the governing body, the ministry of magic, does not want to admit that voldemort is back, and so they get increasingly strict in their monitoring of people who disagree and increasingly shrill in their denials that anything is wrong, even while evidence that something is gravely wrong is staring them in the face. (i mean, hello, dementors in little whinging? mass breakout in azkaban? c'mon, fudge! wake up and smell the soul-sucking!)

let's see. a governing body, not wanting to admit a dangerous situation is imminent? well, ok, that doesn't have to global warming, it could be any number of things. but global warming makes sense also.

one of gore's most chilling facts (and there are a lot of chilling facts) was the results of a study that looked at over 900 scientific articles over the last ten years and over 600 popular press articles. 0% of the scientific articles disagreed that global warming is a serious problem of which humans are the main cause, while over 50% of the popular press disagreed. as gore says, no wonder people are confused.

just like how the prophet called harry a liar, despite the endorsement of one of the greatest wizard who ever lived, dumbledore.

what i'm trying to say is this. don't be like seamus finnagin's mom, believing what the press says, denying a potentially horrendous situation, until the death eaters are practically at your door. be like luna lovegood's dad. that is to say, believe the evidence, and then use your power to put what you know out into the public to convince the doubters.

everything's gravy

it's been a long time since my last update, sorry about that!

what have i done? i went to camden to hang out with some kids and adults at the ministry i used to work with. all the kids seemed older and stretched out and had facial hair and deeper voices (well, the boys had facial hair and deeper voices). the ministry had changed a lot too -- but everything still felt so familiar.

me and gabby (who is now leaving to work with street children in peru)

















(joey in shades and a hat i made him wear)


















(tony, pookie, me, albert -- the twins are the guys i gave piano "lessons" to)










(tyrone & cj -- had a great time reminiscing about how awful they were to me when they were in the 8th grade)













(abby, little myron, jason, justin -- the last time i saw jason he was up to abby's elbow. and now, what was i saying? all stretched out. facial hair. i'm old)
















(jesse -- he's preaching at his church now!)



(shawn wasn't around for lunch so i sat on his porch with him and we talked for a long time...this kid's going to be a famous dancer some day)
















i got back sunday night and felt rushed and struggled to get a discussion ready for youth group on Monday, but we talked about the supreme court decision on the case against seattle/louisville school systems (which i will blog about when i DON'T have a sermon to write) at youth group on Monday and had a very lively discussion that went around and around and came back again. the kids didn't know what they thought, but they got pushed to articulate, which was awesome.

also, i had a GREAT 4th. my friend steve had a party, and i am typically the type that wants to go home at 11 because i'm sleepy, but this time i was wide awake even when we were driving home against the lightening sky. my old high school crew got together and talked forever -- and then continued it the next day when we met for brunch at lisa's house and ate and talked until i was hungry again and looked at the clock and it was SEVEN. so then we went to chili's

(this is us on the porch)
















the point being: it's been a superb week.

part time job hunt part two

OK, so there was a LOT of interest in me taking the nit picking job.

i went to an open house about it, which at first i was really nervous about, since it was a job off craigslist, and how did i know there wasn't a crazy person on the other side of the door of this "open house," ready to trap me in their monstrous newton house.

but there was no craziness or monstrousness, unless you count some of the stories she had about lice: people putting their kids in chemical baths, people on farms giving her fresh eggs in exchange for payment, people with over a thousand nits on their head, people who told their kids to call her "goddess of lice."

i could definitely do it -- it's totally within my capabilities and i don't think it's gross -- but i haven't decided yet if i have the time to commit to it.

part time job hunt part one.

so, only working at the church part time job leaves me time to pursue another part time job.

so guess what i applied to do?

be a professional nit picker! go around and pick lice eggs out of people's hair!

the other side

so, we're looking for an administrative assistant for our church office, and i get to do the second interviews.

i had my first one yesterday, and maybe i will get over this feeling by the 4th, but it was REALLY fun being on the other side of the desk, making someone else nervous instead of being the one who was nervous. not that i like making people nervous.
ok, maybe.
no, of course not.
well, maybe.
i think it 's that i would never think that i actually COULD make someone nervous. i mean, me?

anyway, it's way better than i thought it would be.

those winter sundays

One of my all time favorites, a major reason why being the way my poetry professor would say the last two lines, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes, holding them in his month like they were some sort of sweet wine.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.



I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

--Robert Hayden

taking it old school...

i'm in a romantic mood tonight...

SONNET 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

i said to poetry

pretend this is yesterday, too. i suck at daily posts.

if you are a poet, you have been here.


I SAID TO POETRY

I said to Poetry:"I'm finished
with you."
Having to almost die
before some wierd light
comes creeping through
is no fun.
"No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
Im out for good times--
at the very least,
some painless convention."

Poetry laid back
and played dead
until this morning.
I wasn't sad or anything,
only restless.

Poetry said: "You remember
the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?"
I said: "I didn't hear that.
Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.m.
I'm not getting up
in the dark
to talk to you."

Poetry said: "But think about the time
you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked so much better
than the grand one--and how suprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with

Think of that!"

"I'll join the church!" I said,
huffily, turning my face to the wall.
"I'll learn how to pray again!"

"Let me ask you," said Poetry.
"When you pray, what do you think
you'll see?"

Poetry had me.

"There's no paper
in this room," I said.
"And that new pen I bought
makes a funny noise."

"Bullshit," said Poetry.
"Bullshit," said I.

--Alice Walker

we interrupt your regularly scheduled poetry week

...because i just can't hold it in. i try to be an environmentally conscious consumer. i have canvas tote bags for groceries/other purchased products. i buy environmentally sound dish soap and trash bags and paper towels. i reuse my ziploc bags. i recycle. i bring my travel mug wherever i go since i'm such an avid coffee drinker. that way, if i decide to stop, i have my mug with me. i even have a iced coffee container that i bring around on hot days.

i go into the dunkin donuts (the hypocrisy of a self-proclaimed environmentally conscious consumer buying coffee at dunkin donuts is yet to be determined). i say, holding out my mug, "can i have a french vanilla with cream and sugar please?"
the person behind the counter says, "what size is this?"
i say, "medium."
she pours the coffee into BOTH a small and medium sized disposable cup and then into my mug, discovering that of course, it is a medium.

this is the SECOND time this has happened to me. the first time, it was with my iced coffee container, which is an actual dunkin donuts piece of merchandise (my regular travel mug is not). i told the cashier it was a large (which she should have known, being an employee of the company which manufactures this container), and she used a small, medium, AND large plastic cup full of water to determine the exact size. which is large. "you're right," she said.

yes. yes i am right. meanwhile, more waste had been produced than if i had just purchased the coffee straight out. GAH.

we now return you to peaceful world of poetry.

dancing toward jesus

pretend this is yesterday...

so the previous post was probably one of lucille clifton's most well-known poems. this one i discovered later, and would probably like just as much if i didn't relate so much to the hips one (having magic hips, myself)

i like this one because it combines nature and city and makes both seem beautiful, and makes worship embodied.




God send Easter

and we will lace the
jungle on
and step out
brilliant as birds
against the concrete country
feathers waving as we
dance toward jesus
sun reflecting mango
and apple as we
glory in our skin.

--Lucille Clifton

funny thing about google imaging

so in pursuit of finding a suitable picture for my very favorite poem by my very favorite poet (below), i had two interesting/exciting/ arguably life changing discoveries:

1. first i googled "hips" and on the very first page on the VERY FIRST LINE got a picture of a woman giving a water birth! yup, bit of a shocker.

2. then i googled "lucille clifton" and on the THIRD page found a picture of myself! from the profile of this blog! the fact that a picture of myself came up when i googled the name of my favorite poet made me very giddy indeed.

ultimately, i decided to save the lucille clifton picture for my other lucille clifton post (yes, there will be another), and couldn't find a good enough one to embody the hips and so the post goes pictureless. but it doesn't need a picture, it's THAT FRICKIN GOOD.

homage to my hips

wait, but if this is your favorite poem, christina, by your favorite poet, why are you putting it on wednesday of all days. why didn't you put it first, or save it for last?

well, because it's the perfect poem to make you want to sway your way into the rest of the week...

homage to my hips

these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

---Lucille Clifton

This is Just to Say

because it is a warm summer night, and i have fresh peaches to eat...




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

alternate versions

this made me laugh, but make sure you read the real one above first...

VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
--Kenneth Koch

Love Calls us to the Things of this World

Editor's note: this poem is not formatted correctly. i keep adding spaces to no avail -- when the blog is published, they're not there. sorry, richard wilbur! sorry poem readers!

************************************************************************************

LOVE CALLS US TO THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,
``Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.''

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

``Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance.''
--Richard Wilbur


********************************************************************************
a perfect Monday poem. i take issue with the soul/body split, but i love how beautiful and even spiritual everyday things like laundry, steam, and rosy hands become in this poem.

a former professor told a story about changing her baby's diaper while in a faculty meeting with other prominent theologians/scholars. one remarked to her that there she was this well known theologian having this high-falutin' theological discussions with all of these academics, and moments later she was stuck doing a mundane, dirty task. she looked at him and said, "this is the most theological thing i've done all day."

o let there be nothing on earth but laundry!