Mimi

"Hope" is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with Feathers- That perches in the soul- And sings the tune - without the words And never stops - at all-

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard- And sore must be the storm- That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm-

I've heard it in the chillest land- And on the strangest Sea- Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.


 * Pumpernickel**

Monday mornings Grandma rose an hour early to make rye, onion & challah, but it was pumpernickel she broke her hands for, pumpernickel that demanded cornmeal, ripe caraway, mashed potatoes & several Old Testament stories about patience & fortitude & for which she cursed in five languages if it didn’t pop out fat as an apple-cheeked peasant bride. But bread, after all, is only bread & who has time to fuss all day & end up with a dead heart if it flops? Why bother? I’ll tell you why. For the moment when the steam curls off the black crust like a strip of pure sunlight & the hard oily flesh breaks open like a poem pulling out of its own stubborn complexity a single glistening truth & who can help but wonder at the mystery of the human heart when you hold a slice up to the light in all its absurd splendor & I tell you we must risk everything for the raw recipe of our passion.

The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; but I hung on like death: such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf; my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt, then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.

by Theodore Roethke

By Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.