O tempora, o mores!*

We got five or six inches of snow late Friday and early Saturday. The birds have been pouring in to the feeders: goldfinches, juncoes, woodpeckers, cardinals, bluejays, nuthatches and chickadees for the most part. My aging shoulders ache from wrestling with the snow blower. Spring can’t arrive soon enough as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, we’re again looking at a week ahead full of days with high temperatures in the single digits, at least according to my smartphone weather app. The Weather Underground outlook is marginally more optimistic.

a forced bulb pot garden in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

On a more pleasant theme, we got an early start baking Irish soda bread this week, instead of waiting until next month for St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve almost finished reading a book the Daughter Person lent me (which the Better Half assures me she read to our kids when they were young): Wise Child by Monica Furlong. I have no memory of it but find the current reading to be delightful. I’ll be curious to see how I react to the other two books in the series. Mentioned previously on these pages has been the forced bulb garden the Better Half gave me for Christmas. Watching it bloom has helped my sanity immeasurably during this interminable winter season. A version from 2023 is shown above.

Despite the goings on in D.C., this is still Black History Month. As a matter of fact, here’s a link to this year’s presidential proclamation announcing it. (I took a screen shot as backup.) Today’s poem feels fitting for all of US during the times and goings on the administration is shoveling on US. I wonder how much “love of country” will be in the air come Friday.

*O tempora, o mores! [click for translation  and explanation]

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

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