Well, I had all these insightful posts to write last week but I didn't. So - I'll just tell you that I had a wonderful weekend.

Saturday, Kerry came over and we had a great time in the sunshine and warm enough to not wear a jacket weather. We got breakfast at Two LIttle Red Hens, walked to the Grand Army greenmarket, ate lunch at my favorite Thai place (Galanga), watched dogs at play, sunbathers, and a tyco drum group in Washington Square Park, visited my community garden, and went to a bookstore and got coffee in Cobble Hill. I also managed to cook a good dinner (a rarity for me) of brown rice with onions, peppers, and veggie kielbasa, zucchini with garlic and lime, and a salad with homemade dressing in which I successfully made an emulsion for the first time.

Sunday morning Patrick and I cooked breakfast before Kerry headed back to her parents' for Easter dinner. Patrick made us a picnic lunch and we took it over to Prospect Park to eat it. The park was very crowded, lots of people having cookouts, but we found a quiet spot. We walked a little around the park and then went home. After a little bit we called and found out the Chocolate Room was open, so we walked over there where I got to have the long awaited "best chocolate cake in the city" which was very very good. One thing I love there is that the chocolate is very good and satisfying, but they also are very good at figuring out how much of a serving to give people so you don't feel sick after eating. Then a quiet evening at home with a light dinner (since we had chocolate for dinner) and watching stuff on the Tivo. |

About a week or so ago I got an email from the contact form on this website. It was from a guy named Jeremy and I don't know if he googled me or what but I guess somewhere around 1996 I submitted a poem to his zine. He used it in an issue, and the email was an offer to send me a copy (which I received today). The zine is Karass, and it's got a lot of good stuff, so you should check it out. And the return address is Brooklyn, so I guess we're neighbors.

While I have no memory of the submission, I know the date because the last time I wrote poetry was for a collection of poems and photos that was my senior thesis at North Carolina School of the Arts. Not college thesis, senior as in second year of their program, as in I was 19 years old.

Needless to say I was kind of dreading reading the poem when I opened my mail today. It had been literally years since I'd laid eyes on it, and while at the time I thought I was a pretty good poet, we all know that adolescents write some pretty awful stuff. What I found pleasantly surprised me. Sure, the second verse (? stanza? what do you call the sections of free verse poetry?) is really clumsy (an innocent wandering among the flowers? what - is that some Cure lyric reference??). But, overall it has held up, which is more than I can say for the subject matter. I can't even remember what guy had wronged me to inspire it.

Since it is National Poetry Month, and everyone else is doing it, I am going to suck it up and post it here for you. Please be kind - I do not profess do be anything more than an amateur with a poet for a father. And again, I was 19 when I wrote this, and very melodramatic.

The Foundations of Commitment

Dreams and angels
fly far freer
than I ever will
(or want to).

An innocent,
wandering alone
among the flowers,
can stare skyward
between the branches
and feel as full
as a wayward dream.

But I am not her.
(Am I not whole?)

We are joined
in a three-legged race
for life;
Too scared
of our own souls
to ever let go. |

Sunday was beautiful - 60s, sunny, people out and about in the neighborhood. Sunday is also the only day both Patrick and I are off work. So - we got up early, ate breakfast, and then got our bikes out. It was the first time I was on a bike since August, and my first time out in the city. We biked over to Prospect Park and looped the park twice (inadvertently - missed the turn the first time) before heading over to the Botanical Garden, where bulbs and trees were in bloom (mostly types of magnolias I'd never seen in the south and a couple of early blooming cherries). I also learned that the very pedestrian forsythia is actually an ornamental relative of the olive tree. Pictures will be coming soon.

After the garden, I braved street biking (Park Slope has lots of bike lanes and not much traffic, I still won't go in Manhattan or on Flatbush, Atlantic or Eastern Parkway) and we biked over to the north side of our neighborhood and got lunch and a few really good chocolates before heading back home. I also trimmed back my perennial herbs and put them out in hopes they will come back to life in the next few weeks. |