South Beach Victory Garden

This Sunday morning at the garden allotment, the tomatoes were in flower--there's fruit, too--the cosmos open, and kamatsu and red mustard big for braising.

Compost does it's job, deepening green.

Are cosmos flowers edible?  Must I ask the great god Google?

Katmatsu struts its stuff.  (The stems are struts, all right.)

On the walk home I bought garlic and ginger for miso.  If I get the go-ahead about cosmos flowers, I'l float a few in the soup.  Miso is cooking light.

Are you cooking today?

Trip Up North: Witch Hazel, Crack, etc.

In March, J. shows up on a country road in New Hampshire, D.P. sits in the sun with her paintings in Harvard Square, M.S. picks out a scarf to wear to dinner in Chelsea; witch hazel opens, and three people smoke crack near the Charles River, and blissfully I forget about myself.  Tell me: where are you and what do you see?      

Walking the Streets, Alley's, Too

An independent man may be hard to find.

Wherever they can find coconuts, the men use a long hook to glean them.  Coconuts for sale with their liquid.  They drive a spike into the coconut and insert a straw.  The tourists sip.  It's possible to earn some jingle this way.  An African American drummer, who performs on the street, told me, "There wasn't much jingle."  He didn't have a license to perform on the street, the police said, so he had to keep moving on.  Are the coconut sellers licensed?  I don't think they are.

Business is done from the adapted, repurposed grocery cart.  Identifying marks have been removed--the cart's a long way from Walgreen's or Publix or CVS or Whole Foods, etc., etc.

What is the story behind this arrangement?  What do you think?  The pack of cigarettes angled to the shoe?  Does the pack contain any cigarettes?  I didn't investigate.

The trees I like so much have survived the pruning.

Moss likes the sidewalk.  I like to wander.

Dusk: Flamingo Park

Twilight, dusk, blue hour--many names in many languages for this time between day and night.  Last night's twilight in Flamingo Park was blue and green.  The night-lights did not interfere, only added to the dusky feel.  For once they did not seem unnatural, rather an adaptation.  I sat and watched, heard the pah-pah of the basketball.  How would you describe that sound of the ball hitting the surface?  How do you say "twilight"?  Please tell me, in your language.

J. came by on his bike.  Easy twilight, easy ride: the land is flat here.  Is that why the sky seems so close?  We sat and talked.  He rode off, and I went home to drink Badia "Chamomile & Anise Tea, Te de Manzanilla y Anis."  I'm drinking it again this morning, the empty packet next to my computer as the tea brews.

  

South Beach Again!

Wishing you all a fine year ahead.  2013!  Deadlines, and the usual, have kept me away from the blogosphere.  It's warming to be back in South Beach, where I'm looking down at the darkest green and ahead to blue.

Tell me: where are you and what do you see?

Poems at The Blue Lyra

Many thanks to Matthew Silverman, editor at The Blue Lyra for publishing two of my poems.  The fall issue includes work by B.Z. Niditch, Yvette Moreno, and Yehoshua November.  (I don't know the artist who painted Orpheus playing his lyre near the blue-green ocean.  He's all one here before the maenads tore him to pieces.)

Vega, one of the brightest stars in the sky, is in the constellation Lyra.

Orpheus beheaded, by Redon.   

            And as they floated down the gentle current
            The lyre made mournful sounds, and the tongue murmured
            In mournful harmony, and the banks echoed
            The strains of mourning.

                                    — from Metamorphoses, Book 11 (tr. Rolfe Humphries)

Found

Our street is under construction.  Rain washes brick dust into the street.  I doubt I could make anything as rich as these colors and shapes.



We're lucky to have new fire hydrants.  I wonder what they cost.

These marks signify something underground, something to take care not to disturb.

Is there any point to making art when there are such satisfying finds?

Yes.  I'm glad to find this artful sentence from Chekhov: "When one thinks of food, one's heart grows lighter."