There's a little black spot on the sun today
that's my soul up there

Selected Lyrics from the Police

From "King of Pain"

There's a little black spot on the sun today
That's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday
Tha's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
That's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
That's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
That's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
That's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtide's ebb
That's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web
That's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
Ther's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread
King of pain

There's a red fox thorn by a huntsman's pack
That's my soul up there
There's a black winged gull with a broken back
That's my soul up there
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday

Gardiner's Bay, New Year's Day

Gardiner's Bay, New Year's Day 2010

A partly unfurled confetti curl in the sand,
party colors in the dun
of winter, of early dark,
the failure to rise to a challenge

Breathing air off the cold deep bay
where a piece of saturated wood
seeps closer to bottom,
part of summer's ambition

Closing the pale yellow curtain
against weak midday light
its blowsy roses
taupe and scentless
I daylight-slept
one paw of the dog in my hand

(Check Out) These Things

Things I recommend checking out:

"The List" -- Rosanne Cash's renditions of some on the list of 100 essential country songs, given to her by her father, Johnny Cash
From her website:
"When I was 18, I was on the road with my dad. One day, we were sitting in the tour bus, talking about songs, and he mentioned a song, and I said, "I don’t know that one." He mentioned another one, and I said, "I don’t know that one, either." Then he started to get alarmed, so he spent the rest of the day making a list on a legal pad, and at the top he put "100 Essential Country Songs." And he handed it to me and he said, "This is your education."

And check out these books, that I'm taking back to the library today after voracious winter reading:
Barbara Kingsolver's new book, "The Lacuna";
"A Gate at the Stairs" by Lorrie Moore (what beautiful writing!)

And new to the pile of books read but to be revisited to mine the passages I marked while I read them:
"The History of Love" by Nicole Kraus
More about that later, as it was not only the structure of the book but so many passages that I want to look at again ...

Things I want to check out:
The new biography of Raymond Carver, and Stephen King's review of it in the NY Times Book Review

Afternoon visit to the beach

Northern Ocean

White January froth
winter rhythm
midday light burns clear
and blue and sharp
until sudden twilight gray
hours before dark

The sand frozen in ruts,
winter peaks
in the dune where I set
your funeral flowers
long ago

Stripes of twilight colors
blew life into the sky, briefly,
like lips directing the flow of air
to one burning ember
when I walked in the hilly graveyard
yesterday afternoon

So many there dead
at 50, 60, 61 --
ages suddenly a part of me.

This is your life:
The wind soughing through cedars
grizzled and tempered,
green-gray and twigs.
The line of foam,
flat surface and breaking waves,
blood and tears seeped into the ground
hoping for joy to emerge

Greeting Christmas
in Paris and
Fontainebleau

Seasons of Light

It's such a cheesy phrase but I'll say it: the soundtrack of my life. Been thinking of that as I'm preparing playlists for a party for my upcoming "landmark" birthday, because, well, I want the evening to have more meaning than just another get-together, helping me take the next steps toward my approach to the next phase of life. And I do feel one phase is ending and another beginning.
But, really, I'm always there, running over the soundtrack of my life. Still loving the music I grew up with, and savoring the songs that moved me and soothed me and turned me on and helped me blow the cobwebs out at so many different points.
So it is with great excitement and satisfaction and gratitude that I'm playing, once again, Laura Nyro's "Seasons of Light," a live collection of songs that, singly and as a journey from one to the next, was such a part of things for me for a time that I wore the cassette tape out. Have been wanting to hear it again, in toto, but could not find what it was until I asked a friend, a fellow Laura fan, and he knew, right away: "Seasons of Light."
And here it is again, a gift. And just one of the many new and changing and returning things in my life that stitch my soul together through the years, like the people I love, and poems, and places, and moments, looping and unraveling and holding and stretching and rolling back again, holding this heart together as I live through my years.