Sassistas! Our dish on the social soup.

Artichoke

 

 

O heart weighed down by so many wings.

 

-- "Artichoke" by Joseph Hutchinson

 

 

Comfortable

 

"If you can apply the word 'comfortable'

to anything in your life other than

your favorite pair of shoes,

you need to re-examine it."

 

DISCUSS

Blue Moon

I have grown tired of the moon, tired of its look of astonish-
ment, the blue ice of its gaze, its arrivals and departures, of
the way it gathers lovers and loners under its invisible wings,
failing to distinguish between them. I have grown tired of
so much that used to entrance me, tired of watching cloud
shadows pass over sunlit grass, of seeing swans glide back and 
forth across the lake, of peering into the dark, hoping to find
an image of a self as yet unborn. Let plainness enter the eye,
plainness like the table on which nothing is set, like a table that
is not yet even a table.

-- "Nocturne of the Poet Who Loved the Moon" by Mark Strand

 

 

Courage

Courage is all around us.

Sane or insane.

 

The receptionist whose daughter with severe breathing problems --

won't take a nickel from the son of a bitch

living his mid-life fantasy -- always

cheerful and creative.

 

The neighbor with brain cancer --

most likely seen his last Christmas --

chases me off when

I try to shovel his walk.

 

The friend who every day

for over a year

saw his Dad at the nursing home until

death eased the burden.

 

The son who fights for and achieves his dreams

by hard work

and faith -- never

asking for a handout.

 

The Mother who sends her sons

off to war

again and again and somehow

does not lose her mind.

 

A smile on their faces.

Scoffing if anyone called them courageous.

 

Courage is all around us.

Sane or insane.

 

-- "Courage is All Around Us" by nowayasista

 

The Supple Deer

 

The quiet opening

between fence strands

perhaps eighteen inches.

 

Antlers to hind hooves,

four feet off the ground,

the deer poured through.

 

No tuft of the course white belly hair left behind.

 

I don't know how a stag turns

into a stream, an arc of water.

I have never felt such accurate envy.

 

Not of the deer:

 

To be that porous, to have such largeness pass through me.

 

-- "The Supple Deer," Jane Hirshfield, Come, Thief:Poems

 

Sweater

 

What is asked of one is not what is asked of another.

A sweater takes on the shape of its wearer,

a coffee cup sits to the left or the right of the workspace,

making its pale Saturn rings of now and before.

Lucky the one who rises to sit at a table,

day after day spilling coffee sweet with sugar, whitened with milk.

Lucky the one who writes in a book of spiral-bound mornings

a future in ink, who writes hand unshaking, warmed by thick wool.

Lucky still, the one who writes later, shaking.  Acrobatic at last, the

    sweater,

elastic as breath that enters what shape it is asked to.

Patient the table; unjudging, the ample, refillable cup.

Irrefusable, the shape the sweater is given,

stretched in the shoulders, sleeves lengthened by unmetaphysical

    pullings on.

 

-- "The Sweater" by Jane Hirshfield from Come,Thief:Poems

End of Summer

 

Last night the cold wind and the rain blew
Hard from the west, all night, until the creek
Flooded, tearing the end of a wooden bridge
Down to hang, trembling, in the violent water.

This morning, with the weather still in rage,
I watched workmen already at repairs.
Some hundred of us came around to watch,
With collars turned against the rain and wind.

Down the wild water, where men stood to the knees,
We saw come flooding hollyhock and vine,
Sunflowers tall and broken, thorny bramble
And pale lilies cracked along the stalk.

Ours was the Sunday's perfect idleness
To watch those others working; who fought, swore,
Being threshed at hip and thigh, against that trash

Of pale wild flowers and their drifting legs.

-- "Sunday at the End of Summer" by Howard Nemerov

 

Where Any of Us

Where any of us is

going in tomorrow's reckless Lexus is

the elemental mystery: despite

 

instructions he left behind, Houdin-

i, who could outwit

ropes and chains, padlocks and steam-

 

er trunks, could extricate

himself from underwater metal crates,

could send forth, he was certain,

 

a message from the other side,

never cracked the curtain

and Mary Baker Eddy's telephone

 

said to be hooked up in her crypt -- 

would it have been

innocence or arrogance,

 

such trust in the beyond? --

has, mythic, failed to ring.  If 

they knew the script

  .    .    .    .

 

these two (God may be love

or not) they left, tightlipped

and unfulfilled.

 

As we will.

-- "Where Any of Us" by Maxine Kumin from Jack

Constantly

 

The back of St. Francis Cathedral, Santa Fe, New Mexico

11:11 a.m., July 19, 2011

 

The Doorway

 

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

 

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

 

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

-- "Praying" by Mary Oliver from Thirst

 

It is time for a silence in which another voice may speak.

After publishing nearly 1,140 posts, the Sassistas! have decided to take a hiatus from regular posting. We do not make this decision lightly or without much sadness. The fact is, however, we are very weary, particularly Flannista who has written nearly 90% of the posts and monitored most of the 40,700+ comments.

We plan to post occasionally while we discern what new direction Sassistas! might take. We will, for example, be in New Mexico next week -- with PEACEsista -- to pay our respects to Gwendolyn and to celebrate Matissta's birthday and plan to share some of those experiences here. Outside of that, we have no plans except to pay attention and patch a few words together -- for other critical creative endeavors for which the sassosphere might serve as a platform.

We are grateful for your steadfast loyalty and hope that you will continue to sass in.  We are particularly grateful to Westsista and her very popular "Meet the Sass" posts which we hope to continue when our new direction becomes clear.

In the meantime, know that this doorway is always open for you and your comments.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.  

Love to all.