a topsy-turvy kind of life

[harborshore]

Today was odd. The idiocy of forgetting it was March (no, really, I thought I had a week to write something when in reality it was due last night) turned out to not really have any serious consequences, because I told my professor I was too sick last week to write. This is actually true, I just wasn't worrying about it because of thinking I had a week I didn't have. She knows about the recurring illness I have, so she just nodded and said it was fine and to take care of myself. And then she told me I should go back to the thing I wrote my paper on last spring eventually, because it's looking like people are moving into that. This, for the record, is the terrible advisor from last spring. So that was all very good, even if the seminar was sort of tiring, and I was on time for once, etc. GOOD.

Then I realized I've accidentally booked my trip to Israel so that I'll miss one of the seminars. OOOPS. That's what I get for having very little money and needing to fly on Tuesdays. BAD. BADBADBAD. And I'm also terrified about missing so many days of thesis work when I'm already behind. AWFUL. Relatedly, I have two months to finish my thesis. OH GOD NO.

Then I logged onto facebook (which I never do) and my oldest friend (since I was born, you guys) was on and we talked for an hour and then he invited me over next week! I haven't seen him since last May! AWESOME.

I have a cold. EW. Also I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO BE MORE SICK.

My poetry translations are up on the magazine website! :DDDD




So, like, what does one do with days like this? *feels wobbly*

I'm going to post a poem, that's what I'm going to do.

From egelantier (when you see this, post a poem--or feel free to post one in comments, should you feel so inclined)

Daphne

And if I was changed, what was the difference?
And if I was strung – myself and not myself,
a double thing, there was a consequence.
When I was a girl, I was a girl.
And now I’m a tree, I’m a tree.

Seasons don’t arrive. There’s just a shifting.
We move. I see it now. The staid worlds move,
and the sun is no dragged lamp. The gods die,
or never lived. They crawl home, damp and slow,
to the subtle, shallow sea that made them.

I’m not that happy. It’s not important.
And I’m not sad. It’s good to be a girl,
and a tree, with the wind in it. It’s good
to move in the wind, and to move the wind.
My leaves all move. They sing, and make the world.

--Emma Jones

Comments

[crowgirl13.livejournal.com]

Nightclub
~Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love
with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a gorgeous, gorgeous ending, I love it. ♥

[crowgirl13.livejournal.com]

Oh, I 'm so glad you do! Billy Collins is one of my favorites. Have you ever heard Johnny Hartman sing? His voice really is incredible.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I have not, no. Who is he?