Follow1. Reading
2. Doing real work with throwing firewood
3. Beer
4. Bourbon
5. Pork loin
6. Pajamas
7. Jane Sibley
8. A good blanket
9. Sharing
10. Biscuits and gravy.
Three Good Things Day 1456:
1. Rites of Spring
2. Fire Grove
3. Community
4. Showers
5. Bad Sons Brewery
6. Black Hog Brewing
7. Working for a better world
8. The Ticket to Ride app
9. Being disconnected from the Internet completely
10. Listening
11. The book Basketball: A Love Story
12. The Golden State Warriors.
Three Good Things Day 1455:
1. Being on the mountain
2. Seeing old friends
3. Packing and unpacking the car
4. Village Builders tomorrow
5. Rites of Spring
6. Seeing a toad on the road
7. Reading
8. Madness by Marya Hornbacher
9. Bourbon
10. Toasts
11. New adventures.
Of The Empire by Mary Oliver
One of the most beloved poets in the world is Mary Oliver. Often her stuff is more gentle and speaks about things like nature. In this poem “Of the Empire” from her collection “Red Bird” (2008) she talks about the greed of our current era. In a way only she can.
Of the Empire
by Mary Oliver
We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.
———————-
Barton Springs by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
The poetry of Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz has been huge for me this year. 2019 has been a tough one with a fire on the Saturday before New Year’s displacing me from the house for 2 months and losing a job since I couldn’t work with the fire.
My second favorite book from COA is her book about losing her mom “How to Love the Empty Air”. And honestly something that can make me cry is incredibly helpful. It also makes me think about losing my dad 6 years ago on April 1, 2013.
This is one of the happier poems from the book:
Barton Springs
by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
When they locked the north gates early,
we decide to just walk across the river bed
in our bare feet, the tallest carrying our towels.
on his head. When we reach the springs,
the night is still warm, but so dark. Austin
in late summer, and everyone is laughing.
The water feels like a kiss: all wet and wanted.
Everyone is in love: the moon and the water,
the diving board and the rocks, the night air
and the howls we released into it at midnight.
Weeks ago, you told me you’d never been.
That you felt too pale, too awkward to go.
In the dark, I swim towards you, even though
you aren’t here. Still, I swim to you, the hope
of you, under the pale, perfect Texas moon.