Since this is the start of Thanksgiving week, we'll also admit we're grateful we don't live in any of the fire-ravaged areas of California; nor in Yemen, nor about anyplace else in the Middle East. Until the glaciers return, Minnesota may well be one of the better places to try to adapt to a broken climate. As chaotic and dysfunctional as much of our political climate is these days, we don't seem to have (yet) caught ourselves in the bind those in the United Kingdom have over their Brexit options.
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| from the top, lack of rise isn't obvious
Photo by J. Harrington
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This past week we've also realized just how much we're grateful for the way our family, the one we've raised with the Better Half, has turned out. Many of the things that get us upset these days are far from life-threatening or even real pain inducing. That probably means we need to be more grateful that most of our more immediate problems fit the heading of major or minor annoyances. We look forward to being grateful for the day we actually fail to sweat the small stuff. Then we can work on remembering it's almost all small stuff. Or do we have that backwards? Does it work better if we start with the idea it's almost all small stuff and move inform there?
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| it can definitely be seen from the side
Photo by J. Harrington
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| it has some crumb, but it's very dense
Photo by J. Harrington
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The past couple of days we experienced our first unmitigated, and unexplained, failure in the years we've been baking bread. We though we had done everything as has worked well in the past, but the loaf completely failed to rise. When we sliced it, there were a number of the carbon dioxide openings, but they were much smaller than usual. The closest we can come to an explanation is the starter may have collapsed before we used it and we simply failed to notice. Or, the oven thermostat didn't register properly? Only sometimes do we do the see if the starter passes the test and floats in a glass of water. We had just used the self-cleaning option on the oven the day before so ...? Anyhow, rather than throw out our failure, it now sits in a bird feeder. We're curious to see if any of the feathered or furry critters think it's edible. We're grateful that so many of our baking efforts have turned out well. As we've written previously, baking is helping us transition from living in a mechanical universe to an organic one. Now, we'd be especially grateful if we could begin to have poems turn out as well as our artisanal bread. Maybe that's what we should focus on in 2019? Meanwhile, you should be grateful if thus far in your life you've avoided failures like our unrisen bread and even more so if those become the only notable failures in your life. Without mistakes, how would we learn?
The Mystery of Meteors
I am out before dawn, marching a small dog through a meager park Boulevards angle away, newspapers fly around like blind white birds Two days in a row I have not seen the meteors though the radio news says they are overhead Leonid’s brimstones are barred by clouds; I cannot read the signs in heaven, I cannot see night rendered into fire And yet I do believe a net of glitter is above me You would not think I still knew these things: I get on the train, I buy the food, I sweep, discuss, consider gloves or boots, and in the summer, open windows, find beads to string with pearls You would not think that I had survived anything but the life you see me living now In the darkness, the dog stops and sniffs the air She has been alone, she has known danger, and so now she watches for it always and I agree, with the conviction of my mistakes. But in the second part of my life, slowly, slowly, I begin to counsel bravery. Slowly, slowly, I begin to feel the planets turning, and I am turning toward the crackling shower of their sparks These are the mysteries I could not approach when I was younger: the boulevards, the meteors, the deep desires that split the sky Walking down the paths of the cold park I remember myself, the one who can wait out anything So I caution the dog to go silently, to bear with me the burden of knowing what spins on and on above our heads For this is our reward:Come Armageddon, come fire or flood, come love, not love, millennia of portents-- there is a future in which the dog and I are laughing Born into it, the mystery, I know we will be saved
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