All of a sudden, the yellowing—
coltsfoot
dandelions
forsythia
daffodils
& the chickening—
the neighbor’s chalkboard sign reads
FREE ROOSTERS
the other neighbor’s pullets
test their babywings out front
& the neon-greening—
the leafing out
leaves like fingers spreading into hands
the hillsides like a fabric
of chlorophyll’s talents
& the perennials—
the miracle of having only
to plant something once
to receive its joys
each year
I don’t truss my chicks
before they’ve watched
the world spin by
for ninety days. I’m
all mussed up
with warnings wrought
by bigblack birds
with swollen beaks
that spout the speech
of ancestry. They eat
what I won’t bite &
squawk in tongues I can’t
commemorate except
to say: I came, I laid
my smallass down
upon the grass;
I did my goddamn
best to leave
a mark & then
I up & left.
three goatbutts into a bright blue Kia
then heading off to work. I drive
along the first branch of a river,
past brandnew calves, sideways barns,
and the sign that reads FROST HEAVE
AHEAD which no one’s taken down
because just seeing it makes the green
of the pastures an even sweeter sight.
The silos this morning are brimming
with the years they’ve seen, the guineas
bold enough to eat the grass that runs
along the road, and the local library
has its OPEN flag highfiving the wind.
On days like this, it feels like everyone
and their mother is pushing a wellworn
wheelbarrow in the direction of joy.
(That image is a poemjoke. Do you get it?)
Kenneth Koch! Why didn’t anyone ever tell me to read him before?! He makes me laugh! Here’s the only poem of his I knew of before the other night when I got really into reading him. It’s his perfect joke on William Carlos Williams:
Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
John Ashberry, Frank O’Hara, Patsy Southgate, Bill Berkson, Kenneth Koch., 1964 (photo by Mario Schifano)
In other news, I should not be allowed to use eBay. eBay is not a conversation. It’s not, You want this item? Cool! What do you like about it? Wanna think about buying it? eBay is YOU BOUGHT IT. (I may have just bought two purses by accident. I definitely bought one by accident.) Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
In other other news, it’s a good thing I have two bathtubs, because one of them is filled with 15 peeping baby chicks. Photos to follow. Kate suggested we dress them up and take pictures of them and give them names and personalities. Yeah….probably gonna do that.
So spring is here because of little yellow chicks, and also because of this beautiful, good-smelling, blooming hyacinth that I was given for my birthday. Otherwise, spring is still hibernating.
I am making plum jam and it smells divine
because of that vanilla bean steeping in it
grown by an orchid in another county’s humidity
Misha is outside snipping grapes off the vine
to bring to his parents
because we can’t make all the jam
It’s sunny now after a day of bluster and greys
and there’s a catbird screeching near the chickens
and the rooster’s screeching back at her
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been injured
because it would sound unimpressive
and I like to impress people with quantities
Multiplication has never come easy to me
not even after years of memorization
I wish numbers were something I could intuit like moods
Being an adult means being able to eat an entire box of macaroni & cheese
And I can do that
But only every once and a while
Perhaps I’m still not quite fully grown
That would be really great news for me
Because I check my upper back daily for wings
On the day when I finally grow my wings
I will act as nonchalant as a teenager
And fly away for a daytrip but return home at dusk
Because dusk is the best part about autumn
And the best part about summer too
And the best part about right this minute
So I’m off to enjoy this current set of minutes
Because as you know they are already flying away from me
At a pace that not even the wingful can achieve
In which I spend time with superb ladies, learn about “nature names,” drink beer for dinner, watch the last nub of sun hit a land I may someday live on, stare into the red red eyes of a rabbit, play with chicks with good hairstyles, sleep three to a bed, wake up just past dawn to milk a cow and a goat for the first time, drink muchly-creamed coffee, eat purple potatoes for every meal, meet three stout sheep…and enjoy myself outrageously.
(All photos taken by me at Kate & Nick’s beautifulheavenlyanimalfilled farm.)
The chickens are just heading in
through their chicken-sized door
as I challenge spring in the car,
tires hugged in mud in the bend
where the fast-driving neighbor
does his fast-driving damages
of ruts in the road. I am not yet
thirty and wearing the remains
of red lipstick as I walk through
the door of my home. My man’s
on the floor with his toes to the sky
in a stretch and the teapot is still
breathing steam. Imagining other
couples is like imagining history:
I can’t do it at all without the help
of a movie. In the film of my days,
my man is healing himself
with patience and I am healing
my self with something like hope.
On a bad day I can’t even fight
off my rooster; on most days
I’m pocketing eggs with a song.
Something that I miss about San Diego is the sideyard, that yard we had on the side of our house, where friends used to gather. So many great things happened there: poems under the streetlights, loud live music, deluxe beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), yoga mat washing by way of rare rain, hot pepper roasting (& peeling), yoga class by Britta, yard sales, the explorations of a young chicken named V’Nilla… That being said, we also experienced chair thievery with frequency. And people used to walk their dogs onto the lawn and let them shit and just leave it. Hummingbirds buzzed through there and friends visiting from the east came and sat in the sideyard with their faces facing the sun and said, “Aaaah.” People purchased Misha’s photos there and we parked our bikes there and we grilled fish out there and we sat with tea out there under the purple umbrella that Misha bought because he knows how much I love purple. We grew good mint out there and a kale plant that looked like a palm tree and a bush of African blue basil that the bees adored. And before we left, we invited everyone over to buy and take our stuff, and we made fancy popcorns, and we played bocci, and drank beer and lemonade from a cooler. It was our living room, carpeted with the spikiest grass I’d ever known, and Misha would turn off the sprinklers and then every week dudes would come and mow the grass and turn the sprinklers back on. And now that we’re not living there anymore I hope heartily that whoever is living there is loving that little square of green as much as we did, is using it as hard as we used it, and is calling it a sideyard.
(The sideyard was also where I discovered I could wear bocce balls as earrings, no big deal, just wearing these bocce balls as earrings next to my boyfriend. I’m assuming we lost that game of bocce based on the look on Misha’s face.) (Photo by Marilyn, a true friend who I met–you guessed it!–in the sideyard.)
Dear Scott,
I made you this internet collage comprised of (beautiful) images that remind me of you. I really hope you like it.
Love,
Taylor
Happiest of days to you, friend. I hope your weekend is full of even better things than Ellie giving the sneaky middle finger to you in a photo, though it’s hard to imagine what’s better than that.
I was given a fur coat for my birthday this year (by my mother-out-law, who gives amazing presents–raw silk scarves & notebooks & dark chocolates & the most pristine and gorgeous hand-me-downs). I’m not here to give my opinion on fur, mostly because I’m not sure of my opinion on fur. But this is what I do know. This coat is a beauty. This coat is so warm that when I walk outside in it, I feel like I’m still inside. It covers my entire body and it is both warm and beautiful and utterly deluxe. Here’s a picture of me the day I was given it, which was a very very snowy Saturday, a day I was not expecting to leave the house but then I did and wonderful things happened.
Today I wore the coat outside to let out the chickies. The chickies had no sense of my my unnecessary glamour, but they were pretty pumped to hop up and out of the coop. Tomorrow, I’ll wear it to a black tie Academy Awards party downtown, which I am attending mostly so that I can wear my new fur coat. Also for the company. Also for general deluxeness, which is scarce in February in Vermont.
And soon friends will arrive in Vermont & it will be my birthday & I will wear the fur coat again. And then spring will come & the snow will melt revealing the hidden garlic & I will be twenty-seven & eager to plant things & eat them. And the fur coat will hang graciously on its soft pink hanger, waiting until I need it again.
***
Photos by Misha, who else.
panache, perhaps 