I only know that summer sang in me

I have spent the last two weeks reconnecting with Emily, and it has been really nice--discussing our similar love for exotic, delicious foods; laughing about our escapades in Southeast Asia; comparing what we learned in China and Vietnam now that we've had some time to digest; and spontaneously donning a whole lot o’ spandex for The BANG, like only we would. Above all else, it was really nice to celebrate Chinese New Year/Vietnamese Tet with the same person I celebrated it with last year, even if there is snow on the ground this time around.

I would like to dedicate this week's poem to me & Em, because I like its earnest spunk and I know she will too. I'm continuing with my February trend of love-themed posts--had you noticed?--but with a slight change of pace. In honor of silly St. Valentine, here is a coquettish little sonnet from saintly Edna Millay. The poem's humor comes from the juxtaposition between its traditional structure, natural imagery, and its subject matter, which takes on a decidedly modern twist. It's a nice break from bold declarations of love, insipid cupid, and last weekend's chalky candy hearts, isn't it?

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why (Sonnet XLIII)

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

the lion of contentment / has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest

I am failing big-time at posting on Mondays. I was in Florida with the parentals for about a week and managed to avoid the internet most of the time and it was actually... really nice. I'll cut straight to the details: Juno beach littered with man o' war jellyfish; lots of Scrabble with Mom in the evenings; subs from a real, honest-to-god, New York-style Italian deli that would make Tony Soprano proud; and several amazing dinners involving too much of only the good things--brie, bread, shrimp, steak, and, my favorite, tangy sweet key lime pie.
Maybe it's the Italian in me, or maybe it's just everyone, but food is so important to my happiness. In the last two days, Mom made chicken soup with tortellini, Alex and I had our ceremonial Noodles & Co. lunch, and the three former ESL-teachers-in-Asia went out for a rousing round of "cold, exhilarating wine." In this case, savory and delectable pinot noir from Vinotecca. Yum yum.
Today, Mom and I ventured into my favorite place on earth--Le Petit Prince at 14 and Pierce. It has been there for over 28 years and smells like a petit French heaven. We bought too many chocolat et amande tuiles, palmiers, gougere, and tasty, buttery noisette cookies, and if that weren't enough... Alex, Emily and I are off, once again, to toast our love for Asia with pho and nom bo kho (spicy papaya salad) at Da Nang in Clawson, followed by some brews at Black Lotus.
All I can think of right now is Jenny Howard always laughing at me for making such a ruckus when we went out to eat in Beijing with GIEU. I had to try everything, exclaim "it's so tasty!" (I now know how to say that in Chinese--hen hao chi) and then insist that everyone try a bite of the strange foods before us. So with chopsticks and palmiers in hand, "the lion of contentment" has certainly placed his heavy paw on my chest--and on my stomach.
Enjoy Billy Collins. His words are a feast of tasty, verbal treats. I can't help but crave bone marrow as I read this, and think of the gan guo (dry pot) restaurant in Qingdao where I first fell in love with "the leg of an angel..."

Osso Bucco
--Billy Collins
I love the sound of the bone against the plate
and the fortress-like look of it
lying before me in a moat of risotto,
the meat soft as the leg of an angel
who has lived a purely airborne existence.
And best of all, the secret marrow,
the invaded privacy of the animal
prized out with a knife and swallowed down
with cold, exhilarating wine.

I am swaying now in the hour after dinner,
a citizen tilted back on his chair,
a creature with a full stomach--
something you don't hear much about in poetry,
that sanctuary of hunger and deprivation.
you know: the driving rain, the boots by the door,
small birds searching for berries in winter.

But tonight, the lion of contentment
has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest,
and I can only close my eyes and listen
to the drums of woe throbbing in the distance
and the sound of my wife's laughter
on the telephone in the next room,
the woman who cooked the savory osso buco,
who pointed to show the butcher the ones she wanted.
She who talks to her faraway friend
while I linger here at the table
with a hot, companionable cup of tea,
feeling like one of the friendly natives,
a reliable guide, maybe even the chief's favorite son.

Somewhere, a man is crawling up a rocky hillside
on bleeding knees and palms, an Irish penitent
carrying the stone of the world in his stomach;
and elsewhere people of all nations stare
at one another across a long, empty table.

But here, the candles give off their warm glow,
the same light that Shakespeare and Izaac Walton wrote by,
the light that lit and shadowed the faces of history.
Only now it plays on the blue plates,
the crumpled napkins, the crossed knife and fork.

In a while, one of us will go up to bed
and the other will follow.
Then we will slip below the surface of the night
into miles of water, drifting down and down
to the dark, soundless bottom
until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still,
below the shale and layered rock,
beneath the strata of hunger and pleasure,
into the broken bones of the earth itself,
into the marrow of the only place we know.

of emptiness, of fullness perfectly contained

One week into The Post and I’m already behind. Insert comment on Miriam-lateness here.

Ok, here’s a real-life conversation from last week…

Me: I was supposed to be born in mid-October, so I was a few days early.

Allison: You? Early?! I guess it happened that one time aaaand it’s never happened since! (buh dum chh)

I didn’t post on Monday, as promised, because I was sick and still went to work. Bad move. I’m paying for it now. I dragged myself to a clinic this afternoon to find out what's wrong (I've been sick three times in four weeks; turns out I have a sinus infection and an ear infection) and then I went on a quest for the ultimate medicine: Matzah ball soup.

Whenever I'm sick, all I want is chicken soup. My dad sent me a bunch of Hanukkah presents last month, including a gift card for a delicatessen in Tenleytown, so I managed to get carry-out today. I cashed in big-time--two containers of matzah ball soup, a turkey melt, an everything bagel, blintzes, rugelach, and a Dr. Brown’s cream soda. Now I have enough food to last me through the weekend--and hopefully through this illness.

So my question for you is: What are your favorite comfort foods??! And why? (This seems like the kind of question my roommate would like. She's moving out tomorrow and it’s going to get lonely around here!!)

My comfort foods are:

*Mom’s chicken soup with acini di pepe

*Mom’s polenta with spicy Italian sausage

*Mom’s roast beef and mashed potatoes

*Mom’s cornbread and Irish soda bread

*Mom’s oatmeal (notice a trend here?)

*Chinese food--onion pancakes, rou chuan, guan guan mien from Tai Dong, etc.

*And of course, kreplach or matzah ball soup

Comfort foods remind us of where we're from... So what are your favorites?

This poem has been one of my favorites since Mrs. Greenbaum’s Advanced Writing class senior year. It was a great class--probably my favorite at Groves. We wrote a lot. We read a lot--both poetry and prose--and I knew I loved Mrs. Greenbaum when we read a short story by Charlie Baxter, who was my mom’s professor in college. Emily, Caitlyn, Kate, and I were in the class together, which gives me the warm fuzzies because Caitlyn and I had brunch in Woodley last week, and almost exactly a year ago, Emily and I were in Southeast Asia.

I like the simplicity of this poem and how everyday it is--like a snapshot out of Alan Dugan’s life. It makes me think of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and of being in New York--one of the places I'm from, in a way.

And most of all, as a perpetually-late Libra, I like the imperfect metaphor of perfect balance.

Closing Time at the Second Avenue Deli
--Alan Dugan
This is the time of night at the delicatessen
when the manager is balancing
a nearly empty ketchup bottle
upside-down on a nearly full ketchup bottle
and spreading his hands slowly away
from the perfect balance like shall I say
a priest blessing the balance, the achievement
of perfect emptiness, of perfect fullness? No,
this is a kosher delicatessen. The manager
is not like. He is not like a priest,
he is not even like a rabbi, he
is not like anyone else except the manager
as he turns to watch the waitress
discussing the lamb stew with my wife,
how most people eat the whole thing,
they don’t take it home in a container,
as she mops up the tables, as the
cashier shall I say balances out? No. The computer does all that. This
is not the time for metaphors. This is the time
to turn out the lights, and yes,
imagine it, those two ketchup bottles
will stand there all night long
as acrobatic metaphors of balance,
of emptiness, of fullness perfectly contained,
of any metaphor you wish unless
the manager snaps his fingers at the door,
goes back, and separates them for the night
from that unnatural balance, and the store goes dark
as my wife says we should take a cab
or walk, the stew is starting to drip already.
Shall I say that the container can not
contain the thing contained anymore? No.
Just that the lamb stew is leaking all across town
in one place: it is leaking on the floor of the taxi-cab,
and that somebody is going to pay for this ride.