solstice nights & poetry

It's not that the food is so interesting. Only a light antipasto summer supper. One glass of chilled white wine. No, not the food, but the colors that caused me to reach for the camera.

On a glorious full moon night. Big and close. Light pouring in through too many windows. A bright poet's moon in the dark sky. Coyotes madly howling and yelping into the dark distance.

Long days are nice, but I have to admit that this weekend I need to unwind and embrace cool darkness. I missed the farmer's market, walking, and my meditation session this morning because I was suffering a general malaise and physical discomfort. Crampy, stiff, tense. The printer proof of the anthology was waiting for me (not that I attribute my condition to hypochondria) and I knew I would have to look it over ultra carefully -- which meant reading every single word of 115 pages of poetry and prose (how many times now?). Well, over the next hours I did read every word and a good thing, too. I found four typos! How does that happen? It's been proofed and corrected several times and still these little typos sneak through. Is it a trick of technology? Or is it that our brains just fill in and correct as we go along? I'm so close to the material now that I can practically recite the whole volume. On Monday it goes to print -- its destiny left to the whims of the book gods.

So, at this point I'm feeling like this peony, past it's prime, but not quite dead yet. I expect to rally, but for now, I accept what is and read poetry (that I don't personally have to edit or proofread). Arthur Sze's poems are in the anthology and I love his work. I highly recommend any of his poetry books. Poetry saves!

I sip warm wine out of a sky blue bowl
flecked with agate crystals in the glaze
           (Arthur Sze,  from Quipu)