by Kat | 1 day ago | General, Poetry
Welcome to the Third Thursday of National Poetry Month and I am again joining Bonny, Kym, Sarah, and Vera! Today is all about aging! Which for me has some days with lots of reminders and others with hardly any at all… but I think my most worrisome part of aging is memory!
And yes, it is a thing that I am noting as I repeat what my beloved Nana did regularly… run through a list of names before settling on the “right” one. Sigh. I am thankful that Billy Collins has written a poem about this phenomena because he makes me feel seen and even find a bit of humor in the situation!
Forgetfulness
by Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
“Forgetfulness” from Questions about Angels, by Billy Collins, © 1999.
If you want to learn more about Billy Collins, you can find information here and his website here.
I hope this poem brought a smile to your face as, perhaps, you nodded along with it. And please stop by and see all the poems Bonny has gathered today!
Header Photo by Pixabay
by Kat | 2 days ago | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unraveler’s and Happy Wednesday!
I am settled well into April and appreciating the battle between seasons as the temperatures fluctuate between warm spring days and ones where I need my winter coat and a hat as I journey outside! But… those daffodil bulbs I planted last fall all have buds on them! A bit of sunshine and they might open! Although, the deer “clear cut” the hyacinth’s that had first popped up, they have not been back to nibble them down again and it appears that they, too, have the start of some blooms peeking up!
I received the extra yarn for the Spiral Vest… I am reminded that row gauge is the determining factor for the length of garments. My row gauge was, sadly, off… so of course I would not have enough yarn to knit the vest. I had some momentary anger at this development, but it is what it is. I now can do an extra repeat of those fun spirals and make the vest a better length for me.
I am keeping up with Gnome Clues and I think this might be why I like knitting a mystery gnome so much! A small bit of knitting that can be accomplished in a small bit of time. This works well in my days… I like the 15-30 minute bit of a break in the rhythm of the day. So to fill the days when I did not have a Gnome Clue… I cast on a pair of plain vanilla socks with my last skein of Must Stash Yarn from my stash… color way: You Had Me At Hello, from the Star Wars inspired color ways. This one is a tribute to Princess Leia.
The reading this week has been so delightful. I got a copy of Small Rain from the library and stayed up too late a couple of nights reading it! At first I thought, oh boy… another “pandemic” novel… but it was absolutely not that at all. Rather it is a compelling story of a man who has a health crisis and how he tries to make sense of it. I confess, I felt a bit of a kinship with him as I struggle with my own health issues (which are by no means a crisis… just very inconvenient in my daily life.) What I think I loved most about him was how vital poetry became as he navigated life in the ICU Bubble during the pandemic. Anyways, the story very much feels like a memoir (which it was not) and the writing is just so incredibly beautiful. And despite this life threatening crisis… it is so full of hope. It is a story that I will be thinking about for a very long time and I highly recommend it!
I also finished Big Chief by Jon Hickey. It was, perhaps, the perfect book to read right now. You can read my review here.
Now, I have plunged myself into a murder mystery with the delightfully flawed DS Logan McRae. A chewy mystery that, of course, involves a grisly death. I am just a few chapters in and I am having a hard time putting it down. And I am tucked into Ben Shattuck’s The History of Sound… I really like the way this books is set up – twelve interconnected stories… short stories woven together is the perfect thing to sit down and stitch or knit with!
That is it for me today… what about you? What are you happy with this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | 4 days ago | General, In This Moment
…is for giving myself a bit of a “kick in the pants” to get some things done!
For the past two weeks I have put “sew pants” on my list for the week… and for two weeks that item has remained undone. Sewing those pants is on my list again this week… but I am hopeful that by sharing it here I will just get it done!
I did order more yarn so I can complete that spiral vest and it is supposed to arrive today! I would like to wear this vest on vacation at the end of the month so that is back on my list as well!
And with that, I am going to get started on that list! Happy Monday everyone!
by Kat | Apr 10, 2025 | General, Poetry
Hello and Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day!
I am joining Bonny again today to share a poem with you all!
I love little poems that can fit in your pocket… there for when you need them! I have a “pocket” in my planner that holds little poems… and a zippered pocket in my purse that has a collection as well.
After all, you never know when you will need a poem!
Billy Collins is my go-to poet for small poems. He has a book, Musical Tables: Poems, that is full of perfect little poems! My selection today is from that book. And it is even more appropriate because right now a gentle rain is falling outside… and while I did not hear any frogs or peepers… by the end of the month I will be hearing them and Billy is right that frogs do need a bit of an exaltation!
An Exaltation of Frogs
by Billy Collins
I know it’s supposed to be larks,
but their full-throated croaking
early this rainy morning
after a night of more rain
is lifting me slightly off the floor.
An Exaltation of Frogs © Billy Collins from Musical Tables, 2022.
You can read more about Billy Collins here or on his website here.
Make sure you visit Bonny and see all the poems for your pockets today!
Header photo by Jeffry S.S.
by Kat | Apr 9, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unraveler’s and Happy Wednesday to you all!
I have reached the part of my vest knitting where the realization that I don’t have enough yarn has set in…big time. I have begun the last “swirl” repeat to go before dividing for the arms and my ball of yarn is very small…and I’d really like to do another repeat before dividing. Ordering more yarn was not on my list this week! Grrrrr!
Thankfully, there is no chance of running out of yarn for the latest mystery gnome: Professor Fungi. I managed to keep up with the first and second clues and a new clue arrives today! The first clue was fun… it was all the little bits of Gnome Making… sadly, they don’t photograph well so you will have to wait to see them!
The best news is that I have caught myself up with my daily stitching and the 100 Day Stitch book! First… all my March Stitching! I am really, really happy with last month’s stitching! And when April is finished, I will have the “top row” of my whole cloth finished!
March stitches…
And here are my pages… all caught up. These last pages are a bit of an homage to the last quilt I made with the quilting group I was in eons ago. We all did an appliquéd flower block which eventually became a quilt, which won a ribbon eons ago at the Tulip Time Quilt Show! I have been stitching “flowers” and thinking about those ladies as I stitch. I am working on a “tulip” in my current page and I have plotted out two more flowers as the days wind down to the finish on April 27th. I even have a plan for the “back page” that I am quite excited about!
My 100 Day Stitch Book is drawing to a close… just 3 pages to go!
My reading has, appropriately, dipped into some poetry reading … I reread Jericho Brown’s The Tradition and listened to Danez Smith read his Don’t Call Us Dead (both books/poets were on a recent Atlantic Journal list!) I have also been working through a collection of Adrienne Rich’s poems.
I also have been listening to Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles. Who knew this would be so important right now. And so I am appreciating even more Miles’ book.
I hope your making this week has not run short on yarn and that your gauge was spot on!
If you wrote a post to share today, please leave your link below! I will be back tomorrow with a poem for your pocket!
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