I know you’ve been absolutely dying to know what I listened to last year. Well. Here it is.
U2 was big because we saw them at the Sphere in Las Vegas over Superbowl weekend. I also saw Samantha Fish here in Austin. And Sting/Billy Joel in San Antonio.
From the book Songs of Waking by Jonathan Simons.
Small Fire
In the Night
Madrid
Driftwood
Hungry Ghost
Salt Spring Island
On Forgetting
Polaris
Castaways
From the Shore
Moving Closer
The Factory
Midnight Sun
The Seamstress
When the Sun Sighs
Golden
Like a Soldier
The Butterfly
Solid Ground
Shelter
A Thousand Empty Rooms
Solitude
Currency
Mirage
Thirst
Upon the Banks of That River
Song from the Void
Tracks
When the Last Bell Tolls
Sensation of a Moment
Life on the Wing
From the Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell
Under the Maud Moon
Happy New Year y’all. I hope this is a year of sanctuary, and shared values, surrounded by friends and loved ones.
So one of my goals last year was to read 1000 poems. I…I didn’t make it. I didn’t meet that goal.
So I’m going to try it again this year, but instead of posting the poems, I’ll just list them.
I don’t know what the year is going to hold, so the goal for my books is modest, just 2 a month. I set a goal of 16 books for 2024. I set it on November 6th. But I also had other goals. I was conflicted.I think I reached 12 books in the last 7 weeks of the year.
Anyhow. Watch this space for those 1000 poems and 24 books.
That said, the first poem of the year:
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The next morning I felt that our house
had been lifted away from its foundation
during the night, and was now adrift,
though so heavy it drew a foot or more
of whatever was buoying it up, not water
but something cold and thin and clear,
silence riffling its surface as the house
began to turn on a strengthening current,
leaving, taking my wife and me with it,
and though it had never occurred
to me until that moment, for fifteen years
our dog had held down what we had
by pressing his belly to the floors,
his front paws, too, and with him gone
the house had begun to float out onto
emptiness, no solid ground in sight.
So many years later, the old dog
still circles, head lowered, crippled by
arthritis, nearly blind, incontinent.
We repeat the litany, as if we need
convincing that the end is right.
I’ll get her an ice cream cone if you’ll
drive her to the vet, my wife says.
So there we sit on the front steps
with our friend, and in the car, as always,
when she senses the doctor’s office
drawing near, she moans and tries to
burrow underneath the seats.
What remains, the memory of how
she taught us all the way we need
to learn to live with wasting.
There we sit, together, one last time
as all that sweetness slowly disappears.
I’ve thought about this check in email from Kathy Jackson, the followup coordinator for Cocker Spaniel Rescue of Austin/San Antonio, many many times over the years:
“You have had an adventure with Max.. God Bless you…
I had one in the last few years that I would NEVER have adopted if I had know how traumatized he was. He died in June, and I really think I will grieve him worse than any other cocker I have ever loved. For some reasons, the rough ones imbed in our hearts in a more significant way.
I am glad you are not giving up on him; he has had so many homes.”
My friend Kai commented on the original Facebook Post:
The hard ones are always the best ones. I think we miss them more because of the extra time we spend helping them learn that life is full of love and that not all people suck. Love you my friend.
Bill Fravel commented:
I’m so sorry. Our last of six Cockers went blind from SARDS and I know how amazing a blind dog can be. I’m sure you will treasure every memory.
I found something I transcribed from the wall of the office of one of our vets where we had to send one of our Cockers to the Rainbow Bridge.
“My Dog Heart. It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them, and every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough all of the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are.”– Anonymous –
Peggy Kipping commented:
Thank you for giving Max such a meaningful, wonderful, love-filled life. He was truly a good boyJen Welch, Max’s foster, who followed his adventures on Facebook commented:
I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m so glad you found each other.
