The story goes on. In twelfth grade, I was in a creative writing class. Mrs Krinsky (another favorite teacher) had us write Whitmanesque poems, seeing as how Whitman, aside from being brilliant, is sort of Long Island's favorite son. His house isn't terribly far from mine, and that was where the Whitmanesque poems of the class eventually ended up, as Honorable Mentions in the class anthology category of a contest sponsored by the Whitman Foundation or whatever it's called. I was there, and so was Galway Kinnell, in the capacity of Featured Attraction (him, not me, of course.) So I met him and he autographed my book of his stuff, not at the front like a normal autograph, but right on this poem that's my favorite.
In the Glade at Dusk
I come back obedient
I hear again in the leaves
My days begin, and in the grave
Light lean my body waiting - and for what
If not those vanished flames to make me brave?
But the days of the suffered flame
Forsake me, and the days yet to be endured
Ring me around, and the sun puts its fire
On the trees, and the wind blows in the teeth
Of days the last day only shall consume.
The glade catches fire, and where
The birds build nests they brood at evening
On burning limbs. Spirit of the wood, dream
Of all who have ever answered in the glade at dusk -
And grass, grass, blossom through my feet in flames.
this is "Watersnakes" by Klimt.
The Story Of New Orleans
I have just returned from a trip to New Orleans. Technically this next bit shoulod be on the travels page, but it's tied in to a bit that technically should be on the food page, plus I haven't worked on this page in awhile. So.
New Orleans was marvelous. I just went to hang out with my dad, who knows I've been aching to visit the place for years. Don't ask me why. I get an idea that it would be exciting to visit a place, and then every time I see or hear it mentioned I devour the reference voraciously. Then if I get to the place I perplex people with odd bits of information, while adding many more odd bits to my stash while there. For instance, if ever I find myself on a certain corner in Bourbon Street, I will turn to my traveling companion and remark, "Here's where my dad and I were mistaken for a dirty old pimp and an underaged hooker."
That pearl of an incident occurred on our way to dinner at Arnaud's in the French Quarter, a three-hour affair simply dripping with members of the American College of Physicians and high mucky-mucks of the pharmaceutical industry, speaking vaccines and immunizations. Luckily the food was so good that not even discussions of Lyme disease and hepatitis could spoil it. I had excellent chicken, and the first of a long series of shrimp dishes. The waiter flamed the dessert strawberries in dramatic darkness, like a conjuror.
The next day my dad gave his speech and I slept in, and slept in, and slept in. Then, once is Reason for going on the trip was disposed of, we took off for the REAL reason why we were there, which was the Jazz Fest. It was hellish hot, and I forgot to put sunscreen on my face, but what do I care? Three days later I still look like one one of those shrimp (pink, not crusty and bug-eyed) but it was worth it for all that music. I heard blues, zydeco, old school big-band, a little Brazilian, Native American chanting, a brass band, Carribbean. And my experience barely scratched the surface of this vast expanse of music. And food. The food was sublime, the one time madly overpriced fairground food justified - nay, surpassed - its expense. You bought a little bowl of jambalaya for $4 and felt like it was a bargain. Same for the shrimp po-boy (similar to a sub sandwich) or red beans and rice with a giant chunk of sausage, or blackberry cobbler. Absolutely minute portions, but it left more room to sample.
That night we dined at Mr. B's Bistro, also in the French Quarter, but more hip and less tony than Arnaud's. Again, I had shrimp (I ought to have turned into a shrimp) which they brought to me in a little skillet, absolutely slathered in garlic. They were looking at me though. I ate them anyway, although normally and hypocritically I prefer not to think about the little crustacean lives which I've interrupted through my carnivorousness.
Saturday we got up ridiculously early to eat at Mother's, where everything they cook is squirted with melted butter from a hose, I swear this is true. We were finished eating breakfast before 7, if you can believe it, and weren't even remotely hungry at 4, not that that stopped us much. That night we stayed at the house of one of my dad's medical school friends, and had dinner at a favorite restauraunt of his wife's. More shrimp. Grilled portobello mushrooms. The best cornbread I ever had in my life.
Then we went to our respective homes. I took a madly expensive taxi back to Swarthmore, where I found that I had been elected to the board of the Women's Resource Center, and had been made a Sexual Health Counselor along with my friend Anni. To celebrate, she and I made our Sunday-night brownies thing (which can be scoped out from top to bottom on her very excellent page) a bit experimental, in the form of a layer of mashed bananas with bits of dark chocolate in it. They were deemed one of our better efforts.
here is another poem I like
On the Beach, by Jane Hirschfeld
Uncountable tiny pebbles
of many colors.
Sand dollars, shattered and whole,
the half-gone wing of a gull.
Changed glass
That is like the heart after much pain
The empty shell of a crab.
A child moves alone in the grey
That is half fog, half wind-blown ocean
She lifts one pebble, another
into her pocket.
From time to time she takes them out again and looks.
These few and only these. How many? Why?
The waves continue their work of breaking
then rounding the edges.
I would speak to her if I could
but across the distance what would she hear?
Ocean and ocean. Cry of a fish.
-Walk slowly now, o soul, by the edge
of the water. Choose carefully
all you are going to lose, though any of it would do.
The Lighthouse, by Andrew Wyeth
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