The Wanlorn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_wanlorn) wrote2010-04-04 02:13 pm
the_wanlorn) wrote2010-04-04 02:13 pm
Entry tags:
Maxine Kumin, "The Hermit Goes Up Attic"
Last night, internet, it was so hot and muggy I almost died. It was so hot that I couldn't fall asleep. And, well. I considered getting out of bed to set up my fan, but decided it would be much more effective to moan at the internet about it. (It was not.) BUT EVENTUALLY I FELL ASLEEP.
The pretty great thing about the weather being so awful, though, is that instead of being FULL OF RAGE when there's no hot water (ie, five days a week), I am just like "AWESOME, A NICE COOL SHOWER :D :D :D" So, you know. There's that.
Also, I am slowly getting the dog used to going outside and, you know, sticking near me instead of fucking off to wherever the fuck he wants. Mostly through the clever mechanism of always carrying a tennis ball around so that he's mostly going ":D! :D! THROW THE BALL!! :D! :D! COME ON!! :D!!!!!!" instead of "FUCK YEAH BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE DAY: In doing the crossword, I only needed the RQ to figure out that "Equestrian nobleman?" was MARQUIS DE SADDLE. I am pretty awesome, internet. And also, I lol'd for like five minutes. Because puns are hilarious. :(
THOUGHTS ON DOCTOR WHO (PROBABLY NONSPOILERY UNLESS YOU ARE A FREAK IN WHICH CASE I AM SORRY BUT I DO NOT CARE): Amy is fucking awesome and her manhandling Eleven around sort of made up for the whole "Hello, my name is Matt Smith and my face looks like a foot" thing. ONLY SORT OF, THOUGH. BECAUSE REALLY, I WOULD PREFER IT IF AMY WERE BEING AWESOME WITH, well. Anyone else, really.
The Hermit Goes Up Attic
by Maxine Kumin
Up attic, Lucas Harrison, God rest
his frugal bones, once kept a tidy account
by knifecut of some long-gone harvest.
The wood was new. The pitch ran down to blunt
the year: 1811, the score: 10, he carved
into the center rafter to represent
his loves, beatings, losses, hours, or maybe
the butternuts that taxed his back and starved
the red squirrels higher up each scabbed tree.
1812 ran better. If it was bushels he risked,
he would have set his sons to rake them ankle deep
for wintering over, for wrinkling off their husks
while downstairs he lulled his jo to sleep.
By 1816, whatever the crop goes sour.
Three tallies cut by the knife are all
in a powder of dead flies and wood dust pale as flour.
Death, if it came then, has since gone dry and small.
But the hermit makes this up. Nothing is known
under this rooftree keel veed in with chestnut
ribs. Up attic he always hears the ghosts
of Lucas Harrison's great trees complain
chafing against their mortised pegs,
a woman in childbirth pitching from side to side
until the wet head crowns between her legs
again, and again she will bear her man astride
and out of the brawl of sons he will drive like oxen
tight at the block and tackle, whipped to the trace,
come up these burly masts, these crossties broken
from their growing and buttoned into place.
Whatever it was is now a litter of shells.
Even at noon the attic vault is dim.
The hermit carves his own name in the sill
that someone after will take stock of him.
The pretty great thing about the weather being so awful, though, is that instead of being FULL OF RAGE when there's no hot water (ie, five days a week), I am just like "AWESOME, A NICE COOL SHOWER :D :D :D" So, you know. There's that.
Also, I am slowly getting the dog used to going outside and, you know, sticking near me instead of fucking off to wherever the fuck he wants. Mostly through the clever mechanism of always carrying a tennis ball around so that he's mostly going ":D! :D! THROW THE BALL!! :D! :D! COME ON!! :D!!!!!!" instead of "FUCK YEAH BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE DAY: In doing the crossword, I only needed the RQ to figure out that "Equestrian nobleman?" was MARQUIS DE SADDLE. I am pretty awesome, internet. And also, I lol'd for like five minutes. Because puns are hilarious. :(
THOUGHTS ON DOCTOR WHO (PROBABLY NONSPOILERY UNLESS YOU ARE A FREAK IN WHICH CASE I AM SORRY BUT I DO NOT CARE): Amy is fucking awesome and her manhandling Eleven around sort of made up for the whole "Hello, my name is Matt Smith and my face looks like a foot" thing. ONLY SORT OF, THOUGH. BECAUSE REALLY, I WOULD PREFER IT IF AMY WERE BEING AWESOME WITH, well. Anyone else, really.
The Hermit Goes Up Attic
by Maxine Kumin
Up attic, Lucas Harrison, God rest
his frugal bones, once kept a tidy account
by knifecut of some long-gone harvest.
The wood was new. The pitch ran down to blunt
the year: 1811, the score: 10, he carved
into the center rafter to represent
his loves, beatings, losses, hours, or maybe
the butternuts that taxed his back and starved
the red squirrels higher up each scabbed tree.
1812 ran better. If it was bushels he risked,
he would have set his sons to rake them ankle deep
for wintering over, for wrinkling off their husks
while downstairs he lulled his jo to sleep.
By 1816, whatever the crop goes sour.
Three tallies cut by the knife are all
in a powder of dead flies and wood dust pale as flour.
Death, if it came then, has since gone dry and small.
But the hermit makes this up. Nothing is known
under this rooftree keel veed in with chestnut
ribs. Up attic he always hears the ghosts
of Lucas Harrison's great trees complain
chafing against their mortised pegs,
a woman in childbirth pitching from side to side
until the wet head crowns between her legs
again, and again she will bear her man astride
and out of the brawl of sons he will drive like oxen
tight at the block and tackle, whipped to the trace,
come up these burly masts, these crossties broken
from their growing and buttoned into place.
Whatever it was is now a litter of shells.
Even at noon the attic vault is dim.
The hermit carves his own name in the sill
that someone after will take stock of him.
no subject
no subject
no subject
also i didn't actually read it so i hope it doesn't say something like 'my gran died'
no subject
no subject
no subject
I hope you appreciate how hard it was to make a cake that wasn't horribly deformed.
no subject
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
no subject
no subject
STOP GIVING BIRTH, EVERYONE
no subject
no subject
I really am. :) (I'm going to do this every time you talk about her btw.)
no subject
no subject
I mean, I wouldn't say that because the character's like 16 but I resent that I can't anyway. :( It's like if you dated someone with your dad's name.
no subject
no subject
OH MEMER, LIKE YOU DON'T USUALLY GO LOWER THAN THAT.
no subject