Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

My Hand

See how the past is not finished
here in the present
it is awake the whole time
never waiting
it is my hand now but not what I held
it is not my hand but what I held
it is what I remember
but it never seems quite the same
no one else remembers it
a house long gone into air
the flutter of tires over a brick road
cool light in a vanished bedroom
the flash of the oriole
between one life and another
the river a child watched

W. S. Merwin
The Shadow of Sirius

Thank you, Reya!

Back to knitting

Well. This sure has been interesting! Several things worth thinking about have emerged from my Blog of Note experience.

1. There really are levels and adjoining circles on the internet, and I suspect that most of us travel in pretty small circles, relatively speaking. I've been so used to a readership of mostly knitters that my new, wider circle is still a surprise.
   
2. Well-wishes and encouragement from total strangers, sometimes even delivered in a language I don't speak, are very nice. Very nice indeed.
   
3. I've never discouraged Anonymous comments, until now. I had to turn them off after I was bombarded with spam. Some people have too much time on their hands.
   
4. My advice to anyone who is named a Blog of Note? Take cover till it's mostly over, then read all the comments and enjoy the rest of the ride.

Now to the knitting. Here is my Whimsy Lace Scarf --



I haven't spent much time with it lately, but I plan to remedy that. It takes about 15 minutes to do a repeat, and I've memorized the procedure, so it's not that hard to make progress. The top portion, in garter stitch, forms the neck or collar. The ruffles cascade around the shoulders.


This is the leg of a sock. It's the tried-and-true no-brain-required Blueberry Waffle pattern, in Sundara's Deadly Nightshade (I think this is a Seasons Collection color). Pardon the cat hair. I'm almost halfway finished with the second sock, and I hope I can make some progress on it, too. One of the more annoying side effects of chemotherapy is neuropathy in my fingers. Lucky for me, mine isn't too bad (and it should go away), but it does slow me down!

My real problem with what I'm knitting is that I want to start a new pair of socks. I'm itching to cast on. I have delightful yarn that's waiting for me, but these two are just as delightful, and they're already on their way to being done. Can I resist, at least until I finish the socks? Probably not.

Our weather has finally improved a little -- the weekend has been sunny and not too cold, so my grey mood is gone. It was too windy to visit the bay yesterday. It would have been nice to get a closer look at all the ice chunks that have pushed up against the shoreline. They take such interesting shapes. I hope that February lets me get out into the world a little more!

I'll be back tomorrow with my poem for this year's (Silent) Poetry Reading. This is one of my all-time favorite blog events.

By the way, today is Pajama Day. I'm in!