Passin' It On

countrygrrl (at Blueskies) sent along this meme that's been making the rounds of .mp3 blogs. Here's my take:

Total volume of music files on my computer:
313 songs, 21.7 hrs, 1.38 gb (varies daily as I add and move songs off)

The last 2 CDs I bought.
The Decemberists, "Picaresque," The Go Betweens, "16 Lovers Lane" (2-CD reissue)

Song playing right now.
"The Engine Driver" by The Decemberists

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
"Let the Mystery Be" by Iris Dement; also 10,000 Maniacs w/ David Byrne
"Lily, Rosemary, & the Jack of Hearts," by Bob Dylan
"Spoonful," by Howlin' Wolf
"San Antonio Rose," by Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys
"Morning Bugle," by John Hartford

This too alters, though all the above will always be imprtant to me. Now, over to you, Kat....

Poem for the season

Got caught in a series of classic spring thunderstorms last Saturday. Having grown up mostly on the Great Plains I have a terror-filled love for that kind of weather. The sky was unbelievable; I tried to get a bit of the experience into this poem.

Spring Storm

First low sky sweeping
ragged ashy sheets
of cloud just above
my head then flashes
and jags of lightning
and then the rain
skitters straight along
the sidewalk drops
dancing bouncing
and spattering me where
I stand breathless and
tingling from the charge
in the air.

May 15, 2005

Many thanks to Lovely Naomi for one crucial suggestion for revision.

Back at Last!

"Nature is a Haunted House but Art -- a House that tries to be haunted." -- Emily Dickinson

Greetings faithful readers! Sorry to have neglected posting for so many weeks. For three weeks in late March and early April I was on the jury for a rather gruesome murder trial here in DC. It was a fascinating experience and I am glad to have done my civic duty, but it was tiring and emotionally draining. I have spent the weeks since getting my equilibrium back, plus playing catch up at work!

I have been reading an excellent book, Emily Dickinson: An Interpretive Biography, by Thomas Johnson, the scholar to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude for collecting and editing her poems fully and in their proper form. Originally published in 1955, it is now out of print. However, I was able to secure a copy of the 1976 paperback edition for a very modest price. I highly recommend it -- Dickinson is perhaps the greatest (or co-greatest with Whitman) american poet, and her aesthetic, well described and analyzed by Prof. Johnson, comes very close in many places to my own.

More soon!