Verda Delp: martha

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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Sunday morning

A just received in the mail poem handwritten and decorated with white narcissus and stars from my dear friend Martha.

Window Ledge in the Atom Age
by E.B.White
I have a bowl of paper whites,
Of paper-white narcissus;
Their fragrance my whole soul delights,
They smell delissus.
(They grow in pebbles in the sun
And each is like a star.)
I sit and scan the news hard by
My paper-white narcissus;
I read how fast a plane can fly,
Against my wissus.
(The course of speed is almost run,
We know not where we are.)
They grow in pebbles in the sun,
My beautiful narcissus,
Casting their subtle shade upon
Tropical fissus.
(No movement mars each tiny star;
Speed has been left behind.)
I’d gladly trade the latest thing
For paper-white narcissus;
Science, upon its airfoil wing,
Now seems pernissus.
(Who was it said to travel far
Might dissipate the mind?)
I love this day, this hour, this room,
This motionless narcissus;
I love the stillness of the home,
I love the missus.
(She grows in pebbles in my sun
And she is like a star.)
And though the modern world be through
With paper-white narcissus,
I shall arise and I shall do
The breakfast dissus.
(The tranquil heart may yet outrun
The rocket and the car.)

“Window Ledge in the Atom Age” by E. B. White

From The Second Tree from the Corner 1935

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Thursday morning in Berkeley

3/5 of my Evanston Family

[click to view larger image]

1/5 of my Evanston Family

[click to view larger image]

Back home

Sitting at my desk with my coffee and lots of memories from my trip to see my Evanston family.

Images of little girls giggling; art projects; yogurt snacks [with special k, honey and berries for Jordan and apples for Skylar]; reading books [Where the sidewalks Ends and Ming Lo Moves the Mountain, to name just two, and doing math problems [ 2+0 and 4+4, for example]; ichatting with Shanan; solving dog and cat puzzles from Martha; reading a biology book with Dylan [even though he didn't want to talk to me]; "hanging out" with everyone, as they put it; snowflakes falling outside.

And more images of the ride home from the airport with Shanan and Desie and Goose [my Berkeley family] last night.
Lots of hugs and wags and catching up about Brandon and his family.

2/4 of my Berkeley Family [at Crissy Field while I was away]

[click to view larger image]

It is quiet this morning.

Sunshine abounds.
Desie is in her bed--she is a bit confused about my comings and goings and her place here with me.
She is a reserved happy girl on this morning.

Thinking about family.
And how lovely love and affection can be.

An excerpt from one of last year's Valentines

which seems appropriate to put right here.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Just back from my visit with my dear friend Martha in Wellesley, Massachusetts and our biennial road trip to Jacob's Pillow and Tanglewood in the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts.

This is a photo of the Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob's Pillow in Becket, Massachusetts [in the Berkshires] where Martha and I saw a performance by the Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble. It was quite quite wonderful. Lots of young, excellently trained ballet dancers performing on point in classical [of course] and modern [not usually done] pieces.

We also visited [briefly over lunch] with my friend Ella Baff who is the Artistic Director at the "Pillow", as the locals call this well known and beloved dance festival and school. It is the first and longest-running of its kind in the United States. I have known Ella for some time. I worked with her years ago [in Berkeley] when I taught English at Willard and collaborated with dance and music companies at Cal Performances.

This is a photo of the Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts [in the Berkshires] where Martha and I saw the Mark Morris Dance Company. It was quite quite wonderful as well. We had great seats--4th row. My favorite dance was "Grand Duo".

Along with these dance events, Martha and I:

worked out at her gym in Wellesley on Friday morning
had dinner with [her husband] Gene on Friday night [including a cake for his birthday]
walked her sweet sweet dog Oreo in her beautiful neighborhood in Wellesley [two times]
drove [west] across the state to Becket
stayed at Canterbury Farm [built in the 18th century on 160 acres] in Becket
walked on its lovely grounds and trails [Canterbury Farm is a cross country ski resort in the winter]
went out to dinner at Jacob's Pillow [beneath a tent] on Saturday evening
drove to the top of October Mountain [via dirt roads] in the Berkshires and got turned around a bit but not lost on late Sunday afternoon
went out to dinner in Lenox on Sunday evening
went out to lunch in the town of Easthampton on Monday [on the way home]
drove [east] across the state to Wellesley on Monday
slept late most days and relaxed all of the time

This is a photo of the Fred Snow Road Trailhead at Canterbury Farm where we stayed.

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A Poem by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look  Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled  And paced upon the mountains overhead  And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Books I Like

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Cutting for Stone

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

A Reliable Wife

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society

The Housekeeper and the Professor

Olive Kitteridge

Little Bee

Tinkers

Plainsong

The Book Thief

Out Stealing Horses

One Man's Meat

The Sky Fisherman

Amy and Isabelle

To Kill a Mockingbird

Sweeping Up Glass

Gate at the Stairs

Half Broke Horses

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Motherless Brooklyn

My Dog Tulip

The Graveyard Book

Angle of Repose

Room

Reading My Father

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Brooklyn

The Tiger's Wife

The Samurai's Garden

Salvage the Bones

Vaclav and Lena

The Fault in Our Stars

Language of Flowers

A Month in the Country

House of Stone

Berlin Childhood around 1900

The Hare with the Amber Eyes

Canada

The Unusual Pilgrimage of Harold Frey

Eventide

The Tie That Binds

Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog

Shaggy Muses

Year of Wonders

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

The Sense of an Ending

Beautiful Ruins

The Orchardist

Great House

The Light Between Oceans

Man Walks into a Room

a land more kind than home

A poem by Raymond Carver


  
Happiness
So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
[Thank you, Elizabeth.]

Reflections on "White Rabbits"

For me, upon discoverment [which is giving language/words/understanding to observations about the self that have been hidden or are hiding], it is both the letting go and figuring out how to be without a white rabbit that is very very hard. It makes me have to be brave, to close my eyes to my fear [perhaps it should be open my eyes, but when I am afraid, I want to not see the danger] and forge ahead [with tiny and careful steps—here again made up of language/words/understanding]. Only to find [and know] that there is no one moment when a white rabbit is let go [forever] but rather replaced [and this replacement resides with a lasting fragility]. I do think [and know] that this is good.

[an excerpt from a note to friend.]

[Read: Oh Dear, Too Late for the White Rabbits by SIMON WINCHESTER]

A Poem by Mary Oliver

DREAMS

All night the dark buds of dreams open richly.

In the center of every petal is a letter, and you imagine

if you could only remember and string them all together they would spell the answer. It is a long night,

and not an easy one--you have so many branches, and there are diversions--birds that come and go,

the black fox that lies down to sleep beneath you, the moon staring with her bone-white eye.

Finally you have spent all the energy you can and you drag from the ground the muddy skirt of your roots

and leap awake with two or three syllables like water in your mouth and a sense

of loss--a memory not yet of a word, certainly not yet the answer--only how it feels

when deep in the tree all the locks click open, and the fire surges through the wood, and the blossoms blossom.