Peg Kerr's Journal

This week, I've been cold, and it feels as though the freezing temperature has sunk deeply into my bones.

I had an occasion on Tuesday where I was waiting outside for two and a half hours. In January. In Minnesota. I have a good coat, and I wore gloves, and I could occasionally break away to sit in my car and run the heat for a few minutes. But I had to keep leaving the car to check on where I was in the queue. I tried to manage my impatience by reading on my phone, and I kept having to take off the gloves to scroll, since the screen couldn't recognize my touch with the gloves on. So I got thoroughly chilled.

As I mentioned previously, I've been trying to keep the temperature of the house lower to save money. I took hot baths and would get out again and run the space heater, and still, I would shiver--it felt as if my inner furnace has gone out. I've worn up to four layers. Every time I'd open my clothes closet to pull out another one, the cold air would rush out from that uninsulated space and smack me in the face.

January. Gray skies. Minnesota.

I found myself meditating upon the heat death of the universe.

And I also thought this week of another death. Yesterday, January 26, was the fifth anniversary of the day that cancer took Rob from me. It is said that at the time of Samhain, Halloween, the dead draw near to the living. But I have come to recognize one particular ghost, my husband's, who comes to be with me again from January 24 to 26th: the days I left ordinary time to enter the hospital to be with him. I didn't leave again until he was gone.

He isn't angry or threatening or sad.

He's just there, invisible but close as my next breath.

Thinking about all this reminded me of a sonnet written by a friend, John M. Ford (Mike Ford to his friends), who also died too young. David Goldfarb writes here:

[the sonnet] was a comment on an entry on Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s blog, about an amusing error in Amazon.com’s database, which concluded:

if I were a better writer I’d conclude by yoking the trivial to the tragic, relating the twin inevitabilities of death and database error by means of a rhetorical figure involving worms.

…and John M. Ford (who I’m sure Patrick would be the first to admit was indeed the better writer) responded by doing exactly that — in sonnet form!

Here is the sonnet, Against Entropy:

The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.

The universe winds down, yes...that's the cold that has been seeping into my blood this week.

The worm drives helically through the wood: that's cancer, I realized.

I am switching to a new phone, and I have spent the last three days screenshooting and saving old texts because I am switching from Android to Apple, and so I've been going through all the medical update texts I was sending out to friends and family five years ago. I'm remembering again how awful it was: once the leukemia set in, it devastated him. He lost fifty pounds in two and a half months, his kidneys shut down, his intestines fell victim to diverticulitis, and his strong, kind, and clever mind began to weaken and wander down paths of confusion and paranoia.

And now his ghost comes to me. The light of other days, the fading colors, the regret.

When we were planning his funeral, my pastor asked what Rob thought about life after death. After a perplexed moment, Rob's brother Phil offered tentatively, "Rob always said he would be star-stuff."

Perhaps Rob was right, and he's one star out there, shining to keep the heat death of the universe at bay.

So I'm bearing witness, remembering the name of my lover Rob. I loved him. I still love him.

I miss him.

I've turned up the heat again. It's all I can do. Although his ghost visits me and lingers awhile, he isn't here to keep me warm.

To create the collage, I used an image for the background that I found when I searched for "heat death of the universe." Instead of a crystal glass, I used a glass Coca-Cola bottle. Rob loved his Coke, and it was the last thing we gave him to taste before he passed away.

(Fuck that worm cancer anyway.)

Background: a portion of a black hole surrounded by a blue spinning nimbus representing the heat death of the universe. A cartoon worm emerges from the black hole. A semi-transparent Coca Cola bottle balances on top of the black hole, upper right. Three gradually enlarging semi-transparent Coca Cola bottles (like a vision seen in strobe light) fall toward the bottom of the card. Bottom center: a shattered Coca Cola bottle lies on its side. Top: three semi-transparent heads shots of Rob looking out at the viewer. From right to left they look neutral, amused, and astonished.

Entropy



Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.

At 5:00 a.m.
the old Buick growls to life
surly at being roused from winter hibernation
for a predawn appointment ninety miles away.
We drive through the silent streets
past the light rail station
past the Falls
over the Mendota Bridge
past the highway fork where the oil refinery
flings its lurid glow against the sky.
The curved streetlights hunch
broodingly over the road
meditative as monks at Lauds.
Swirling fog and icy spindrift shines against the darkness
in the cones of light falling away from their burning eyes.
He sleeps beside me as I drive
the once crisp line of his goatee blurred
by the grizzled whiskers
growing out over the biopsy scar.
And the light sweeps over him
again and again
mile after mile
a benediction and a blessing.
All shall be well
All shall be well
And all manner of things shall be well.

>>>

We drove to Mayo for a surgical procedure today, to have a port put in for Rob so he doesn't have to keep getting IVs in his elbows for the infusions (the veins in his arms are very bad).

I write very little poetry, and I don't follow formal forms, and since I'm so ignorant, I don't consider myself to be any kind of judge of what's good and what's bad.

But

I kinda like this.

I blame the fact that I had to get up at 4:00 in the morning.

From one of my favorite poets, Elise Matthesen (elisem), a poem in honor of the team that brought you Curiosity. Reposted with permission (original link here):

Now, gather round, younglings, a story I'll tell
Of the smart careful humans who staff JPL
All humans have missions, and these sure had thars:
To get Curiosity safely to Mars.

To go very far takes a wonderful mix:
Some humans who build, some humans who fix,
Some humans who watch and take copious notes,
Some who grew up dreaming of airplanes and boats,

And some of them dress like the person next door
And others like nothing imagined before.
Some paint up their hairdos with colors from jars,
and the Bobak Ferdowsis have stars upon thars.

Now all of these humans use science and math
To keep Curiosity safe on her path
Combining their knowledge, invention and skill
And in the control room, they work with a will.

You can see them, intent on their consoles and charts,
With bright shining eyes, with hope in their hearts,
They come in all colors, all shapes and all sizes,
And so do their hairdos -- they're full of surprises.

We thank every one as the roll is now called,
The long-haired, the short-haired, the fuzzy, the bald;
They sent Curiosity safely to Mars.
(And the Bobak Ferdowsis have stars upon thars!)


(Elise says: "link away with gladness, and reprint if you like, but please credit Elise Matthesen. Thanks!")

(and for those who don't know, re: Bobak Ferdowsi)

Edited to add: Also see the Tumblr NASA needs more mohawks (*Sporfle*)

I got this from lifehacker_rss, which got it from Curbly here:



Love those magnetic poetry sets? Curbly shows you how to whip up one of your own.

All you need is one of those magnetic calendars that tend to show up in the mailbox this time of year, plus a sheet of Avery labels. Print, stick, cut and you're done. It's a fast, fun, why-didn't-I-think-of-that kind of project.

As one of Curbly's commenters mentioned, you can save a step (and get better overall results) with an inkjet-compatible magnetic sheet, which is printable on one side. Staples, for example, has a four-pack, enough to make a boatload of magnetic words, for $11.98.

papersky, in response to my reminder that Saturday was Miss Jane Austen's birthday, posted the poem that she wrote in 1999 after visiting her grave. MUST READ.

(I wish Kipling had had the chance to read it.)

Edited to add: I fixed the link. Sorry!

Snabbled from matociquala

Meme:

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

( la la la )

Since scott_lynch and guipago got me When Love Speaks, I have been listening to it over and over, and reading Shakespeare's sonnets, with commentary, on this website. Ran across this one, Sonnet 20, and it seems appropriate to mention on Blog Against Heteronormativity Day.

XX

1. A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
2. Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
3. A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
4. With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
5. An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
6. Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
7. A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
8. Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
9. And for a woman wert thou first created;
10. Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
11. And by addition me of thee defeated,
12. By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
13. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
14. Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

Gacked from coffeeem: The Endicott Studio is celebrating National Poetry Month with a different e-postcard each day, featuring excerpts from poems and delicious art. Send them to all your friends and give them a moment--just a moment--outside the rest of the day's concerns.

Take the time to check these out; they are truly beautiful.

Other ideas to get your daily poetry fix: you can read a poem each day at the Writers Almanac. Or check out some of the offerings at the Magnetic Poetry site. Or friend cruisedirector's journal.

What's your favorite poetry site?