Nicole

We had our first Russian TMS last night. It was amazingly good, I’d have to put in among the top five best ever meetings I’ve been to. Everyone did really, really well. Rich was so proud, like a parent, it was adorable.

It makes me wonder if they really need me. All this time, one of the factors that I always put on the side of why I should stay in Michigan is that this group needs me, whereas many in other cities are much more established and have more native speakers. But it seems like they’re coming along fine without me now.

e.e. cummings

when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
and the sun strikes to gain a living wage–
when thorns regard their roses with alarm
and rainbows are insured against old age 

when every thrush may sing no new moon in
if all screech-owls have not okayed his voice–
and any wave signs on the dotted line
or else an ocean is compelled to close

when the oak begs permission of the birch
to make an acorn–valleys accuse their
mountains of having altitude–and march
denounces april as a saboteur 

then we’ll believe in that incredible
unanimal mankind (and not until)

Paul Laurence Dunbar
MY LITTLE MARCH GIRL

Come to the pane, draw the curtain apart,
There she is passing, the girl of my heart;
See where she walks like a queen in the street,
Weather-defying, calm, placid and sweet.
Tripping along with impetuous grace,
Joy of her life beaming out of her face,
Tresses all truant-like, curl upon curl,
Wind-blown and rosy, my little March girl.

Hint of the violet’s delicate bloom,
Hint of the rose’s pervading perfume!
How can the wind help from kissing her face,—
Wrapping her round in his stormy embrace?
But still serenely she laughs at his rout,
She is the victor who wins in the bout.
So may life’s passions about her soul swirl,
Leaving it placid,—my little March girl.

What self-possession looks out of her eyes!
What are the wild winds, and what are the skies,
Frowning and glooming when, brimming with life,
Cometh the little maid ripe for the strife?
Ah! Wind, and bah! Wind, what might have you now?
What can you do with that innocent brow?
Blow, Wind, and grow, Wind, and eddy and swirl,
But bring to me, Wind,—my little March girl.

THE SOLDIER

If I should die, think only this of me:
 That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.  There shall be
 In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
 Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam.
A body of England’s breathing breathing England’s air.
 Washed by her rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
 A pulse in the eternal wind, no less
  Gives somewhere back the thoughts of England given;
Her sights and sounds;  dreams happy as her day;
 And laughter, learnt of friends;  and gentleness,
  In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

A PSALM OF LIFE
What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist
 
TELL me not, in mournful numbers,  
  Life is but an empty dream!—  
For the soul is dead that slumbers,  
  And things are not what they seem.  
  
Life is real! Life is earnest!          
  And the grave is not its goal;  
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,  
  Was not spoken of the soul.  
  
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,  
  Is our destined end or way;  
But to act, that each to-morrow  
  Find us farther than to-day.  
  
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,  
  And our hearts, though stout and brave,  
Still, like muffled drums, are beating  
  Funeral marches to the grave.  
  
In the world’s broad field of battle,  
  In the bivouac of Life,  
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!  
  Be a hero in the strife! 
  
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!  
  Let the dead Past bury its dead!  
Act,—act in the living Present!  
  Heart within, and God o’erhead!  
  
Lives of great men all remind us  
  We can make our lives sublime,  
And, departing, leave behind us  
  Footprints on the sands of time;  
  
Footprints, that perhaps another,  
  Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,  
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,  
  Seeing, shall take heart again.  
  
Let us, then, be up and doing,  
  With a heart for any fate;  
Still achieving, still pursuing,   
  Learn to labor and to wait.

Robert Burns – 379. Song—Fragment—Love for love 

ITHERS seek they ken na what,
Features, carriage, and a’ that;
Gie me love in her I court,
Love to love maks a’ the sport.
 

Let love sparkle in her e’e;
Let her lo’e nae man but me;
That’s the tocher-gude I prize,
There the luver’s treasure lies.

X

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.

THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN (To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports of his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned term, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan.
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man.
A phonograph, a radio, a car, and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation,
And our teachers report he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

My career in retail began (well, if you don’t count orientation) with a 2-10:30 shift on a Wednesday in summer 2001, setting up the shoe department of a soon-to-open Kohl’s. Tonight it ended with a 2-10:30 shift in swim in a soon-to-mutate-to-Macy’s Marshall Field’s. I suppose one can never say never, but at this moment I don’t ever want to go back, I don’t ever want to punch another clock. In these five years, I have worked way too hard for way too little money, taken a lot of abuse, and just generally let work drain way too much of me. But at the same time, I have known a lot of good folks, heard a lot of stories, and maybe taken in some stories which will shape what I might someday write.

There are a lot of eras ending right now, actually. This morning I thought perhaps I might have to add another era to the list, but I don’t know. My “dinner break” kind of undid it. And then I wanted to write a song, when I got back to work. Which is never a good sign!

I am very, very tired. I will end this now.

It’s a lovely day, the perfect time of year in Tree Town, uncrowded and quiet.

I went downtown this morning, mailed some things, and splurged on an ice mocha at Chocolate Cafe. I know there are newer, trendier dessert/coffee house places now, but the stuff is so good, the owner guy is so nice, and the big comfy couch so inviting, that this will always be my Ann Arbor place. The owner left his corporate job a few years back to run this place, which I totally respect.

I walked around a bit, checked mail at the MLB. It already doesn’t feel quite the same. I guess there’s a technical graduation as well as an emotional one.

I read a quote I like quite a lot: “Any kind of benign success is never worth having. Much much better to fail magnificiently.”–Malcolm McLaren