Geez, I just went & lost Sheila's original post (dont know how, exactly), to which I wanted to say, beautiful, & love the final line (it's the 'unspoken that nails it...
Doug
On Dec 18, 2013, at 2:01 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> she and the I -
> and she's known by heart -
> affirmations of a deep relatedness -
> each noticing the other and more than noticing -
>
> fumbling for it myself without knowing the birds that matter to Sheila.
> Guessing that the bluebird is then named as a cardinal…
> wheel wells may also be something not known in my part of the world.
>
> As for sass - I've long known the adjective sassy so guess this is the noun…guess.
>
> Others may wish I did not now post from the web:
>
> Urban Dictionary: sass
> www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sass
> Attitude, mouthing off, not backing down to the man, putting the smack down, opening a can of Bruce Lee.
>
> Ah the riches of American English, I can't help envying you-all, even if Sheila feels I am causing a distraction.
>
> There is a lovely mystery in the fresh ways this poem evokes relationship.
>
> Max in Melbourne
>
> On 18/12/2013, at 3:22 PM, Sheila Murphy wrote:
>
>> I love by memory her eyesight.
>> At the window, loitering,
>> a bluebird on the snow.
>> A cardinal. The dark tree.
>>
>> Something to think about,
>> She watched me work,
>> as I am working now.
>> The sun escaped my notice.
>>
>> Lines of birds,
>> snow smudged,
>> the wheel wells caked
>> apart from a direction.
>>
>> When I pray, it goes like this.
>> Her hiddenness, my learning.
>> Her legacy, my wild,
>> unspoken sass.
>>
>> Sheila E. Murphy
>
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Latest books:
Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
Recording Dates
(Rubicon Press)
Swept snow, Li Po,
by dawn’s 40-watt moon
to the road that hies to office
away from home.
Lorine Niedecker
