Tuesday, January 12, 2010

GIFTS TO POST

During that horrendous influenza outbreak in 1918 or there about, children sang this little song when they jumped rope. "I had a little bird, her name was Enza. I opened up the window and in flew Enza." There was so much death all around the world. Even on Leech Lake people died. Whole families were taken by the virus. Emma Bear used to talk about that awful time of suffering and despair.
Mae Sarton wrote that she had been impressed with Max Kolbe's "motherliness". She had also been in contact with a woman who told her that poetry had kept her alive. I have no doubt that the power of a poem can generate enough hope to sustain many lives. Mae had watched "the sun rise brilliant orange from a purple haze at the horizon and a slightly ruffled, pale blue ocean." Whatever else happens in our day we can know the sun goes on rising and setting.
Virginia Woolf wrote, "It is true that I only want to show off to women. Women alone stir my imagination." Mary O never fails to stir me. "After the rain I went back into the field of sunflowers... and I listened to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing."
I plan to walk to Walgreen's today so Jim Lenfesty spoke to me. "Today, dark and barren at some dumb failure, I prowl the angry sidewalk fearing ice." Now I wonder how old he is. Surely a young man does not fear the ice.
I have returned from the angry streets of ice. Hah! It did not take me down... I slipped and dipped a bit but did not fall. The sun is warm but the wind bites. I returned with small gifts for Annie and kids. You must know what a thrill it is to receive an unexpected gift in the mail.

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