Published July 1st, 2008
in Life.
In your eyes I have seen
In your eyes I have seen
the swaying rushes of our glances
stilled, and the quiet, simple
precious thing caught in your
fingertips
caught between the reeds,
quiescent, huddled, silent and still,
dormant in the chill of a November
evening and the slow March thaw.
It is springtime again.
The ice which once froze
along the water’s edge
has gone, leaving me
feeding the ducks
(and other things)
and looking,
looking out and waiting
for it to poke its head
out from its gentle brook
and say hello once more.
- me.
A followup to Before We Left. First of a series of four which otherwise will probably never be posted here. For Bernadette.
Published June 27th, 2008
in Thoughts.
My horizons these days are circumscribed by my job, with days of whitewashed routine broken only by the highlights of my days off. I go to work, I come back from work, and in-between those simple, utterly quotidian things, there is simply - work. Nothing more, nothing less.
Its been a while since I looked over the barbed-wire fence of my paid time, past what others would so charmingly call the mundane, and had a adventure. Or much else with any semblance to the interesting life I used to have.
Then again, it would help if I had a few more days of leave queued up. I guess I’ll have to wait until the end of the year - and hopefully Koh Samui or some other suitably tropical island getaway far from here. Or something.
And in the meanwhile: work, work.
Published June 26th, 2008
in Life.
The record plays on an outdated gramophone, spinning slowly as the warm analog crackle of long-ago trumpets and a smoky voice begins to fill the room. You can almost see it now, the nightclub, the singer, some black woman in a wonderful dress, the band.
There is no record, there is no gramophone, but the warm sound of vinyl and the record of a long-ago performance at some recording studio, with the pianist and the trumpet and saxophone players, lives on.
And now, maybe, if you listen hard enough, you can hear it - filling some room with the smooth strains of a long-gone era, redolent with fedoras and trenchcoats and pearls:
I’ll never smile again,
Until I smile at you…
I’ll never laugh again;
What good would it do?
For tears would fill my eyes,
My heart would realize
That our romance - is true -
I’ll never love again…
I’m so in love with you…
- Billie Holiday, “I’ll Never Smile Again”
I love it.
Published June 26th, 2008
in Life.
So I finally got around to trying Xiaolongbao (小笼包). At one of the many Crystal Jade* restaurants dotted around this island, no less. Bernadette loves the things and figured she’d drag me along to have a try**.
What can I say? The things are made of pork or some other meat in a flour skin. My understanding is that the meat is uncooked before the whole thing is steamed, meaning the meat stews in its own juice, which in turn isn’t allowed to escape.
You take one gently, making sure you don’t puncture it with your chopsticks, and dip it in vinegar. Then you place it in your mouth. The flour skin tears easily, and suddenly the juices from the meat run along your tongue.
Then you gently bite, and the juicy bits of meat gives way. It’s soft and stewed, and the small size - it’s usually a dim sum dish (i.e. snack) - means that it’s basically a little chunk of delicious.
What can I say? A+, Would buy again.
* It’s been said before (I forget by who) that all Chinese restaurants tend to have the following words in their names: crystal, imperial, treasure, palace, jade, dragon. This one is no exception.
** She also told me to write about this, so here you are.
Published June 23rd, 2008
in Writing.
Have I walked beneath these eaves before
Have I walked beneath these eaves before,
walked upon these shadowed streets
before, paved my way
with footsteps at the close of day
through the gentle sunlit park
where once too I left my mark
past another crumbling wall
crowned with alabaster tall
on these concrete steps?
Perhaps this thought of memory past
is not a memory, not the last
of painful wanderings, but the dawn
of a past yet new-made morn
dimly glimpsed, and dimly sought
but where not all has come to nought.
- me.
Unedited. Mostly derived from one of those
semiconscious, thoughtful instants before sleep.
For Bernadette.
