beauty & the feast.

This is a few weeks old, but how lovely does Gwyneth Paltrow look in August's Vogue?





And how much do you want that sparkling, perfect kitchen?

ac-ci-dents.

It’s going to come out all right—do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass—they know.
They get along—and we’ll get along.

Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting
And the letter you wait for won’t come,
And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray
And the letter I wait for won’t come.

There will be ac-ci-dents.
I know ac-ci-dents are coming.
Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,
Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.
But somehow and somewhere the end of the run
The train gets put together again
And the caboose and the green tail lights
Fade down the right of way like a new white hope.

I never heard a mockingbird in Kentucky
Spilling its heart in the morning.

I never saw the snow on Chimborazo.
It’s a high white Mexican hat, I hear.

I never had supper with Abe Lincoln.
Nor a dish of soup with Jim Hill.

But I’ve been around.
I know some of the boys here who can go a little.
I know girls good for a burst of speed any time.

I heard Williams and Walker
Before Walker died in the bughouse.

I knew a mandolin player
Working in a barber shop in an Indiana town,
And he thought he had a million dollars.

I knew a hotel girl in Des Moines.
She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself
The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.
I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.
We took away the money for a prize waltz at a Brotherhood dance.
She had eyes; she was safe as the bridge over the Mississippi at Burlington; I married her.

Last summer we took the cushions going west.
Pike’s Peak is a big old stone, believe me.
It’s fastened down; something you can count on.

It’s going to come out all right—do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass—they know.
They get along—and we’ll get along.

--- Carl Sanburg, Caboose Thoughts

but you are so magnetic, you pick up all the pins.

Songs for the weekend:

1) Marina & the Diamonds // I Am Not a Robot
2) Coconut Records // Nighttiming
3) Passion Pit // Moth's Wings
4) Belle & Sebastian // Judy & the Dream of Horses
5) Florence & the Machine // Cosmic Love

Activities for the weekend:

Wake up early. Run errands. Organize your life. Read in bed. Catch a movie. Have family visit. Blast music in the car. Dance a little. Visit museums. Eat a lot. Sleep well. Be thankful.

your one wild & precious life.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

--- Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

regina the paper-back mummy.

The Flowers from Melanie Harris on Vimeo.

"The flowers you gave me are rotting
& still I refuse to throw them away.
Some of the bulbs never opened quite fully -
They might so I'm waiting
& staying awake."