What I'm reading this week

and of course, still reading this book and I love the cover of this copy:

What I am reading

Detail from Makoto Fujimura’s "Desire Itself is the Movement" (photo and type design by Sarah Duet)

1. this great  blog on THE FOUR QUARTETS that I went to at Duke Chapel in January: 

Generative Fragments: Four Collaborative Movements on QU4RTETS

Detail from Bruce Herman's "QU4RTETS No. 3 (Autumn)" (photo and type design by Sarah Duet
2. Malcolm Guite's poems on Dante's The Divine Comedy

Botticelli illustrates Purgatorio 27, Dancing through the Fire

Another connection to TS Eliot: 

‘From wrong to wrong the exasperated sprit proceeds/ unless restored by that refining fire/ where you must move in measure like a dancer’

These words from TS Eliot’s Little Gidding have always struck a chord with me. They allude, of course, to the moment near the end of the Purgatorio when the pilgrims ascend towards the Earthly Paradise, the garden of our origins and of our restored humanity, at the summit of the Holy Mountain

3. Les Miserable by Victor Hugo : I misplaced my book for a couple of weeks and just found it on the bottom of a stack by my bed. I know what the word REJOICE means!

4. Reading Thomas Howard's Dove Descending: a journey into TS ELiiot's 
Four Quartets.  He is Elizabeth Elliot's 
sister and this book sings!

Detail from Makoto Fujimura’s "The Voice in the Waterfall" (photo and type design by Sarah Duet)

the past week

                         

1. It snowed.

2. One of my poetry students said the snow had a pink glow.

3. A dear friend's mother passed away.

4. Newlywed #3  son and his wife called on Friday  to come for the weekend. 

They live almost 5 hours away. COME ON. Over the mountains and through the woods...... 

5. Emma and I  went to see Les Miserable on the stage. 

6. We went to see Les Miserable in the movies. Yes, again. (5th time for me)
#3 son and his wife had not seen it. Another great excuse to go again!

7. We had already seen the last episode of Downtown Abbey Season 3.

8. It still makes us sad and mad.

9. We would love to go to NY to see Matthew on Broadway with Jessica

Chastain before the show THE HEIRESS closes at the end of the month.

10. That would be in the next 2 weeks. Not going to happen.

11. Maybe it is sold out and that would make me feel better.

12. Sun came out late this afternoon. Midwinter spring. 

 Claude Monet - Winter Sun, Lavacourt

Weekend over

It was fun!

Emma on the far right with two friends at the cast party.
I teach all of these wonderful, fun girls. 

the whole cast: ( Emma in the middle with the same two girls to her left)

LITTLE WOMEN

Performance tonight and tomorrow night.
Musical Theater.

Emma is in the ballroom dancing scene and is a hag.

#3 from the right: 





in the middle top row with grey hair under the mask:

winter poem

Ode to Winter 


We hoard light, hunkered in holt and burrow,
in cave, cwtsh, den, earth, hut, lair.
Sun blinks.  Trees take down their hair.
Dusk wipes horizons, seeps into the room,
the last flame of geranium in the gloom.

In the shortening day, bring in the late flowers
to crisp in a vase, beech to break into leaf,
a branch of lark.  Take winter by the throat.
Feed the common birds, tits and finches,
the spotted woodpecker in his opera coat.

Let’s learn to love the icy winter moon,
or moonless dark and winter constellations,
Jupiter’s glow, a slow, incoming plane,
neighbourly windows,someone’s flickering screen,
a lamp-lit page, drawn curtains.

Let us praise intimacy, talk and books,
music and silence, wind and rain,
the beautiful bones of trees, taste of cold air,
darkening fields, the glittering city,
that winter longing, hiraeth, something like prayer.

Under the stilled heartbeat of trees,
wind-snapped branches, mulch and root,
a million bluebell bulbs lie low
ready to flare in lengthening light,
after the dark, the frozen earth, the snow.

Out there, fox and buzzard, kite and crow
are clearing the ground for the myth.
On the darkest day bring in the tree,
cool and pungent as forest.  Turn up the music.
Pour us a glass.  Dress the house in pagan finery.

Gillian Clarke
 ( National Poet of Wales)

Found on this blog : 
Cait O'Connor
I live in the heart of rural Wales in an old blacksmith's cottage with five acres of land that includes a river and the old forge. I am slowly creating quite a nature reserve here. My passions? Books, poetry (both the reading and the writing of), genealogy. Photography, music, Ireland, which is my spiritual home and Wales,my actual home

culture care

17 1/2 inches by 17 1/2 inches.

This was Emily Dickinson’s desk.

Makoto Fujimura says this is all the space one needs to change culture. He reminds us to create in quiet – to usher in holy by letting the soil ruminate.

read the rest here ~

This should bring us great encouragement.

friday

Checking in here. 
It seemed like yesterday was friday because it was my husband's birthday. 
We celebrated with Italian : out to dinner. 
So I think going out during the week for a really nice dinner made me think of the weekend.
It was Thursday. 

Still in THE FOUR QUARTETS ( TS ELIOT).
I finished the poem before going to Duke Chapel on Monday to see the exhibit and hear the talks and the composition: At the Still Point. 
Here are some of the books I am in:


HERE IS THE BOOK ON SALE AT 
HEARTS AND MINDS BOOKSHOP
AND AN EXCELLENT REVIEW


























Thomas Howard  is Elizabeth Elliot's brother. This book makes me sing. 




Another really good study after you have read the poem: 



The sky is this color and the air is cold today. 
Fire going. 
Hearthside.