Twelve-Fingered, Out Of Mind

Photo by Moses Pendleton

Photo by Moses Pendleton

HER KIND, by Anne Sexton

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

Whenever The Wind is High

conduallyIt was very spooky at the Daly Farm this week.  All the Little Britches ponies and riders were dressed up for Halloween.

That’s Connor on the left, dressed up as a firefighter. Connor is riding Dually, who is very pleased with his  wizard costume.

conor1It’s been an exciting couple of weeks for Connor, his sister, Em, and their parents.  They’ve just adopted a puppy named Kailey.   Here’s Em and Connor and Kailey on the right.  I wonder if they know that there is a scary witch’s shadow to the left of EM?

Let’s Name the Puppies

pup3Devin and I visited Charlotte yesterday to check on the puppies.  They’ve really grown in the past week and it’s clear that their father(s) outsized their dear little mother, Peanut.  They’re almost half her size already and they’re only four weeks old.

The puppies need names.  I’ll introduce you to each and we can help Charlotte think of appropriate names.  Also, all five four puppies are still available for adoption.  Charlotte will only consider very good homes. She’s asking for a $50 adoption fee which she will then turn around and use to pay the adoption fee at the kill shelter where she finds dogs to rehome.  So, for each of Peanut’s puppies that finds a new home, an older, perhaps needier dog will be rescued.

Wireless Ghost

Photo by Moses Pendleton

Photo by Moses Pendleton

I’ve tried all morning to post a poem that is perfect with this photo.  I cannot. It will not cut and paste the right way, but instead, jumbles all the words into lines that are not at all the the way the poet wrote/published them.  I really think the internet is haunted when it comes into my house.  I’m taking my computer to the coffee shop with the wireless service later this morning, and I bet I’ll have no problem.

One Night Stand

milano-side-whiteYes, we have a new feature here at the blog. If you scroll down a little, you’ll see it on the right.  It’s called “On the Nightstand”.

Originally I was going to just display the books I am reading, but now I have decided to show one book a month, give everybody a chance to read it as well, and at the end of the month, we’ll have a discussion.  Here.  On the blog.  It’s not going to be a live chat. I’ll just start the discussion and you all can weigh in throughout the day, commenting as often as you wish.  I think that’ll work best as we all have different work schedules and live in different time zones.

Baskets of Rubies

Photo by Phil Holland

Photo by Phil Holland

I can’t bear to have that depressing grey photo in the previous entry appear at the top of my page.  Not with that depressing grey header. Fortunately, my friend, poet/professor Phil Holland has just emailed me these beautiful photographs from Greece.

He wrote, “On a warm day like this you can almost hear the pomegranates slowly ripping apart to expose their seeds like the baskets of rubies in the Sultan’s old palace in Istanbul.”

Very nice.

Photo by Phil Holland

Photo by Phil Holland

Name Your Life

scarehouseIt was a spooky, rainy weekend here in New England.  I took this photo of my house the other night.  See all the rain spots on the lens?  Or are they actually ghostly orbs?

Devin is working on her college applications and last night she made the mistake of telling me the topic of one of her essays.  It was something like: If you had to come up with a title that would describe your life up until now, what would it be?

Devin joked that she was considering calling her life Of Mice and Bats.

A Good Mother

peanut 2The other day, I visited my friend Charlotte. Why?  Because Charlotte  rescues dogs from a kill shelter and one of her recent rescues just had a litter of puppies.

As many of you know, Denis has put a freeze on the acquistion of new dogs in the Leary household.  The kids and I are always whining about getting a new dog, but Denis always brings us around to his sensible viewpoint, which is that we have a very amiable pack at present, never a growl or raised hackle between them.  They’re all trained and relatively well-behaved and there is almost enough room in the bed for Denis and me to stretch out between them at night.

Yes I Will Yes

James_Joyce…and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”    James Joyce, Ulysses

My friend Davyne Verstandig, head of the Litchfield County Writers Project, recently asked me if I would like to attend a lecture about James Joyce, given by author Frank Delaney.

James Joyce? Frank Delaney?  Yes I said yes I will Yes.

New York Times

30531004.JPGRemember when I blogged about the New York Times coming to our house to interview us and take our photos? Well, I have just received an email from our very own Tracy, informing me that the piece is up on the Times’ website. You can view it here.

There’s a slideshow on the Times site and I’ve nabbed some photos to post here.  The photographer, Andrew Sullivan, was really great, as was Beth Maker, the reporter.

Now do you see why I love that grey horse almost more than life itself?  Have you ever seen a horse with a sweeter expression. Love.