Valentine's minus 6

Signs of spring arrived yesterday, but they’re forced. A bunch (2 bundles) of forsythia stems arrived and have now been trimmed and placed in vases to bloom early.

forced forsythia with pussy willow stems

Photo by J. Harrington

Today, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day (mid-March), a package of Irish Soda Bread mix and a small bag of Irish flour arrived. We won’t be forcing the bread to bake early, although we might try an experiment with the flour before we get into March.

There’s at least one errand I’d like to finish in time to include it in the Valentine’s celebration, but our schedules have developed an unfortunate habit of getting disrupted over the past week or ten days. Meanwhile, we’ll just luxuriate in the brief warm spell we’re enjoying. It makes the prospect of real spring and warm weather seem like an actual possibility someday after Valentine’s and, probably, St. Patrick’s Days.

Next month we’ll be baking soda bread and enjoying a different bunch of blooming stems. For now we’ll munch our way through the Valentine’s candy centerpiece, going slowly enough that it will still appear respectable on the Fourteenth.

Forced Bloom

David Baker - 1954-

1.

Such pleasure one needs to make for oneself. 
She has snipped the paltry forsythia 
to force the bloom, has cut each stem on 
the slant and sprinkled brown sugar in a vase, 
so the wintered reeds will take their water. 
It hurts her to do this but she does it. 
When are we most ourselves, and when the least? 
Last night, the man in the recessed doorway, 
homeless or searching for something, or sought—
all he needed was one hand and quiet. 
The city around him was one small room. 
He leaned into the dark portal, gray 
shade in a door, a shadow of himself. 
His eyes were closed. His rhythm became him. 
So we have shut our eyes, as dead or as 
other, and held the thought of another 
whose pleasure is need, face over a face ... 

2. 

It hurts her to use her hands, to hold 
a cup or bud or touch a thing. The doctors 
have turned her burning hands in their hands. 
The tests have shown a problem, but no cause, 
a neuropathology of mere touch. 
We have all made love in the dark, small room 
of such need, without shame, to our comfort, 
our compulsion. I know I have. She has. 
We have held or helped each other, sometimes 
watching from the doorway of a warm house 
where candletips of new growth light the walls, 
the city in likeness beyond, our hands 
on the swollen damp branch or bud or cup. 
Sometimes we are most ourselves when we are 
least, or hurt, or lost, face over a face—. 
You have, too. It's your secret, your delight. 
You smell the wild scent all day on your hand. 

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