unask

 

 

 

a break, for the weekend: rehearsals. The next post will be on Monday, 30 January.

 

 

 

 

bicycle

 

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

 

Linda Pastan, To A Daughter Leaving Home

 

 

 

 

breakfast

 

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

 

William Carlos Williams, This Is Just To Say

 

 

 

 

Amaryllis

 

One morning--and so soon!--the first flower
has opened when you wake. Or you catch it poised
in a single, brief
moment of hesitation.
Next day, another,
shy at first like a foal,
even a third, a fourth,
carried triumphantly at the summit
of those strong columns, and each
a Juno, calm in brilliance,
a maiden giantess in modest splendor.
If humans could be
that intensely whole, undistracted, unhurried,
swift from sheer
unswerving impetus! If we could blossom
out of ourselves, giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing!

 

Denise Levertov, The Métier of Blossoming

 

 

 

 

Virginia

These are the soul's changes. I don't believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

 

Virginia Woolf

I don't know if the gargoyle in the photo (taken in Cambridge) is meant to commemorate Virginia Woolf. I hope so. It certainly looks like her.

 

 

 

 

waiting

I no longer ask how much longer the waiting?
I no longer ask anything at all. I wait. Here.
Beyond... beyond... question and answer.
How quiet it is.
How still this shining hollow of waiting.

 

From our new play, Imaginary Friends, to be staged on February 3-5 2012. More information here.