Friday, January 16, 2009

From NPR's "The Writer's Almanac", a couple of weeks ago -- as promised

What To Do the First Morning the Sun Comes Back

by Roseann Lloyd

Find a clean cloth for the kitchen table, the red and blue one
you made that cold winter in Montana. Spread out
your paper and books. Tune the radio to the jazz station.
Look at the bright orange safflowers you found last August—
how well they've held their color next to the black-spotted cat.

Make some egg coffee, in honor of all the people
above the Arctic Circle. Give thanks to the Sufis,
who figured out how to brew coffee
from the dark, bitter beans. Remark
on the joyfulness of your dishes: black and yellow stars.

Reminisce with your lover about the history of this kitchen
where, between bites of cashew stir fry,
you first kissed each other on the mouth. Now that you're hungry,
toast some leftover cornbread, spread it with real butter,
honey from bees that fed on basswood blossoms.

The window is frosted over, but the sun's casting an eye
over all the books. Open your Spanish book.
The season for sleeping is over.
The pots and pans: quiet now, let them be.

It will be a short day.
Sit in the kitchen as long as you can, reading and writing.
At sundown, rub a smidgen of butter
on the western windowsill
to ask the sun:
Come back again tomorrow.

"What To Do the First Morning the Sun Comes Back" by Roseann Lloyd, from Because of the Light. © Holy Cow! Press, 2003. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

8 comments:

lisahgolden said...

That's really nice. Thank you for sharing it. It warmed me.

Kate Morningstar said...

I just loved it. Doesn't it make you think we have songs deep inside us, us women, that we ought to be able to remember and sing to bring the grass and the crocus and the heat back out of the earth, this time of year?

Doorman-Priest said...

I'd get up with a spring in my step for a change!

Anonymous said...

Aside from the poem (which speaks to me rather directly), I just affirm that the psalm that has always spoken most directly to me is that one...at the entrance to your place...139.

Kate Morningstar said...

D-P, it's lovely to be back, and I'm so glad you stopped in -- spring in your step indeed.

I'm glad you liked it,Scott. I've always missed the sun in the winter myself.

Crimson Rambler said...

how absolutely lovely! I was curate in a church where -- because it was "oriented" north/south instead of east/west -- twice a year I had the sun in my eyes at my prayer desk (on the equinoxes). Human sundial... it resonated for me!

Jan said...

This is wonderful!

WHERE are you geographically??

Kate Morningstar said...

CR, how lovely to hear from you! HOW did you get an Anglican church that was oriented that way?

And Jan, I'm still in Ontario. I'm flying to Tyler on February 12th, and staying in the suburbs of Arp, which is about half-an-hour south of Tyler. We'll be in Round Rock the weekend of March 14th.