We did lots of work in the yard on Saturday. (Work, in this case=moving dirt around in the wheelbarrow from one place to another.) It was actually quite fun. Isn't it odd what becomes fun when you have been cooped up in the house all winter? (And facing, as we were, the prospect of being cooped up again in a few short days: I didn't want to believe the predictions of snow, but now I'm forced to.)I recently came across an advertisment for a toy that is not only organic, but also makes "an adorable jingling sound." Yes. Not one of those sullen, querulous, languid, or---heaven forbid---destestable jingling sounds. What a relief!
And: as one who likes to make lists, I like this notepad.
And also: my children (especially Malachi) need this doorstop. (On every door in the house?) His baby fingers get pinched by something or other at least once daily.
Decades ago, when my birthday came around, all I wanted for it was for all the kids and husbands (I have only one, actually - husband) to work all day in the back yard, raking out the rocks and laying new sod. If somebody had told me to do this when I was a kid, I'd have thought they wanted to kill me. If it had been G's idea, I'd have been mad, bored an dismayed. But at the moment, it sounded to me like heaven on earth - all of us together, and doing something that at the end of the day would be finished, beautiful and a permanent change. Unlike vacuuming, which is undone the moment a dog walks over the floor. Grass. Outside my windows. in May.
ReplyDeleteWhile I appreciate your dissemination of this lovely poem, I note that most editions of T. S. Eliot's poem "New Hampshire" (first part of"Landscapes") do not insert an "and" in this line "To-day grieves, to-morrow grieves." But perhaps he changed it in a later edition of his poems. The edition I have of The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 (copyright 1962) does not have the word "and" in that line.
ReplyDeleteTom Daley, Online School of Poetry