Snow Day!

Back yard: very Edward Hopper, don't you think?

View from the front door.

The snow and ice hit last night during the rush hour drive home. The whole city was a mix of ice rink and demolition derby track. It snowed all night and now this morning, as I went out in my robe to get the paper: calm and muffled quiet, starry sky, about 4-5 inches of white snow everywhere, no cars moving anywhere. It is gorgeous, simply gorgeous out. Gorgeous but treacherous on the roads. They say on the news, "If you don't have to drive, stay home." So I say, it's offically "stay home from work day. "

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From today's Word a Day:

speculum (SPEK-yoo-luhm) noun

1. A mirror used as a reflector in an optical instrument,
such as a telescope.

2. Speculum metal: any of various alloys of copper and
tin used in making mirrors.

3. An instrument for holding open a body cavity for
medical examination.

4. A bright patch of color on the wings of certain birds,
for example ducks.

[From Latin speculum (mirror), from specere (to look at), ultimately
from the Indo-European root spek- (to observe) which is also the
root of such words as suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer),
espionage, despise, telescope, and spectacles.]


Put all four ideas seamlessly into a poem, and win a prize.

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I received Charles Jensen's wonderful chapbook Living Things in the mail yesterday, and immediately devoured it over dinner. It's a really lovely, moving, thoughful collection, about the death of a former lover and/or friend. All of a piece. Terrific cover art as well. Congrat's Charles.


Mail

Bare envelopes arrive
each afternoon, small spears up and down my neck.

Your bills stare through cellophane windows
with their teletype eye.

"Time is running out.
Renew Men's Health today."

(pg 22)

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