-

Esau

It wasn't my birthright
but I'd've liked to've known
if I was the first.
His tulip-tight lips
his skinny-stemmed limbs,
drunk, or ashamed, he was tongue-tied at least
and even after Mardi Gras--
silence.
Maybe he gave me up
for Lent.

Winter Beach

John and I spent part of the day Saturday at the beach. In Chicago. Yes, that is ice. Floes of ice on a warm (43 degree) day at the beach. Yes, that spray is ice, not liquid water. And yes, it was glorious.

My "Ubi Sunt" motif

What follows is one of my favorite Seamus Heaney poems, not least because it catches the feel of a place and how it affects us in a more profound way. Having recently moved (again), I've been experiencing some of that wistful nostalgia for what's gone, what's passed and not coming back, and I feel like I've gathered up all those "ubi sunt" motifs old epics and sprinkled them across my memory. (Which may or may not be healthy. Probably not.) But I don't want to pine for the past, so I'll just enjoy rereading the Seamus Heaney poem, right?

Postscript
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

.....

Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountains. Like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the west. Behind the hills, into shadow.

Among other reasons

Last night John and I stayed out quite late, partly by accident. Starting out the evening at the Drake Hotel's period(1930s)-swing party, we afterward hit up a small faux Irish bar in River North. Garrett Ripley? The patron who "founded" the bar? Yeah, we asked about him too. Turns out, he's totally fictional.

After time with some good company (John's Northwestern-prof-friends) and conversation, John and I headed out the door to go home. We got sidetracked once with buying a "homeless" man a gyro (hey, buy one get one free, and it'd been a long time since I'd had drunken late-night take away) and delayed once when we were informed that the blueline out to our Logan Square stop would be delayed because a person had fallen on the tracks and needed to be removed (I noticed they didn't use the word "body"...). At this point, it was late late, and by 3am we were finally home.

I very guiltily canceled my breakfast plans (they were to be at 9.30am, about 45 minutes away eating with my sister at The Bourgeois Pig), and slept in. And woke up, more or less, to this:

And that is why I live with John. And why I love him, among other reasons.

(That's a pancake. Anne-cake. Annie-cake. Whatever. Also that tray is sitting on my lap, in bed. *sigh*)