snails are good for the environment, too: September 2009

27 September, 2009

Where the Horseshoes Were

My grandfather changes the subject,
talks about the sweet peppers, tells me,
“Never plant them near the hot peppers,”

talks about dominant hybridization,
teaches me the difference
between early and late tomatoes,

the grabbing beans and woodchucks
that can’t get to the carrots, tells me
the carrots have grown so much

since we weeded them last Saturday,
says, “You did that,” as I cower under stalks of rhubarb,
Watership Down everywhere.

Danger in every bud of radish, cabbage
a trap, we didn’t talk about the rains that week,
or the zucchini that should have blossomed

by now, or how many more summers
the soil will be tilled, how long
before the clover takes over –

Seventy-five years of gardening experience
and my grandfather looks at me and he says,
“Let me show you the pumpkins,”

      (blue eyes like mine in the sun)

“What are you staring at?” he asks.
“You won’t find them
standing there by the dill.”

*

“…And your mother tells me
            you have eaten all the sweet pickles
                  I canned for you last August….”

23 September, 2009

Hopscotch Remix

sonds - Hopscotch (sibilant mix) by sibilant

19 September, 2009

Vermont is Summer

Driving around in Solen’s Buick, waiting for a few months later when water would flood the engine, he and I were on speaking terms. We had just left his house after deciding his shower was the last place we’d see each other naked; until it became his friend's spare bedroom that evening, somewhere southeast of Montpelier; and even later, his bedroom somewhere between September and Halloween.

His car was littered with mixed tapes and poems and road maps and condom wrappers. My head was littered with all of these things and the illusion that they were mine. I was pregnant and from Canada, and so was he. We bummed cigarettes and never smoked them, wore large sweaters and drank martinis, sweet. I had just gotten over my phase of black coffee and he had just gotten over his depression. We were soaring through a state that is its own continent, bookstores with missing proprietors who left notes asking that we please figure in tax. So we did.

We found Lake Champlain after buying Nine Stories and Dubliners and dove in at two o’clock in the afternoon but still haven’t read them.

We ran naked, wondering if the cottages were empty this time of year as our hitchhiker took pictures. Solen developed them with white borders and I wondered if they were on purpose.

And when all of this was over, back in Massachusetts, after we kissed goodbye outside his house after photos, again, of me topless against water, I understood what he meant weeks prior when he said, "Lovers should be thrown in to ocean..."

"In the worst of weather."

11 September, 2009

Things to do to make things less boring:

tell someone you like them
learn to play the ocarina
go to your favorite coffee shop and read a book for three hours
go to your favorite coffee shop and write a poem/play/story/novel for three hours
go for a bike ride
learn how to bake something new and complex
bake alaska
sell sex toys
go to yoga and don't get angry at the instructor
invite biddies over every sunday in winter to knit/craft/crochet
learn to sew
knit leg warmers
apply to graduate school
take a class in woodworking or pottery - something with your hands
write a letter to someone with only good news, because it's not always about you
send a book/cd/thank you card to someone you haven't seen
or spoken to in a long time
be a smart ass
read the Spiderwick Chronicles
carve a pumpkin
carve a gourd
put a snow cone on katie's doorstep
ring the doorbell
hide
(accidentally learn about dirt cones)