My newest addition to my library/gallery. Yvonne, my daughter, rehearsing a dance. 

RECENSION DAY
        - Duncan Forbes

Unburn the boat, rebuild the bridge,
Reconsecrate the sacrilege,
Unspill the milk, decry the tears,
Turn back the clock, relive the years
Replace the smoke inside the fire,
Unite fulfillment with desire,
Undo the done, gainsay the said,
Revoke the penalty and clause,
Reconstitute unwritten laws,
Repair the heart, untie the tongue,
Change faithless old to hopeful young,
Inure the body to disease,
And help me to forget you, please.

   Okay, I've played all summer. Studied now and then, and done a LOT of thinking, and some writing. And taken trips to Mexico, to Washington (💖)  But the day after Labor Day, school starts in earnest. Time to buckle down. Start something and finish it. Hold me to it, Peeps!

TAMER AND HAWK
              - Thom Gunn

I thought I was so tough
But gentled at your hands
Cannot be quick enough
To fly for you and show
That when I go I go
At your commands.

Even in flight above
I am no longer free:
You seemed me with your love,
I am blind to other birds -
The habit of your words
Has hooded me.

As formerly, I wheeled
I hover and I twist,
But only want the feel,
In my possessive thought,
Of catcher and of caught
Upon your wrist.

You but half-civilize,
Taming me this way.
Through having only eyes
For you I fear to lose,
I lose to keep, and choose
Tamer as prey.

Good meeting of the poetry circle last night. Met a new writer to the area, just arrived from Austin. And talked with Will, the playwright. Very inspiring evening, tho there were few of us this time. Now I feel like getting busy writing again. And we discussed what fun it would be to just meet and read a play together. Yum.

The brewing equipment has finally reached its destination! Kudos to Raymond, for navigating it through the mountains, driving 2,200 miles in three days! Today we unload it, and as soon as our slow-poke contractor finishes the construction on the brewing room, it will be installed. Pics coming in installments.  😉

The other day I was watching Master Chef, the Gordon Ramsey show, and the contestants were challenged to make a great meal in one pot - a cast iron skillet. In an hour. As they were working on it, one of the judges said it wasn't easy. Ramsey said, "I could do it in half the time." The judge said, "There's 30 minutes left, get busy. So in half an hour, he made a lemon-garlic chicken pot pie. I decided to try it. I didn't make the time (almost!) but the pie was good! Then Hubby, inspired by all this, made a Rosemary-parmagian skillet bread, which was great.  

Pics from the Arches National Park.

This one is my favorite. From a distance you can see the Three Watchers, as I call them. Wise men guarding the place, and talking amongst themselves. And behind them. to our left, is the King, sitting on his throne (back to us) looking out over the canyon. It's hard to see in this pic, but looks magnificent in person. 

THE BRACELET: TO JULIA
                      - Robert Herrick

Why I tie about thy wrist,
Julia, this silken twist;
For what other reason is't
But to show thee how, in part,
Thou my pretty captive art?
But thy bond-slave is my heart;
'Tis but silk that bindeth thee,
Knap the thread and thou art free;
But 'tis otherwise with me:
- I am bound and fast-bound so
That from thee I cannot go;
If I could, I would not so.

One brewery to go, please.....

We're home! What a wonderful trip! Flew to Washington on Sunday. Monday, the guy selling us the brewery equipment was unavailable, so we had to amuse ourselves until Tuesday. We went to the Mount Rainier National Park - huge hills bristling with pine trees. Forest everywhere. Warm sun and light, cool breezes, like it's supposed to be. Then we went to downtown Seattle and the Space Needle.  Beautiful city. Went to the hotel and fell into bed. Up at the crack of dawn, rented the truck and got the equipment loaded. Lots of very heavy stuff. A salute to the guys who sold us the stuff, who could have said "Here it is, see ya later, but instead spent about 4 hours helping us get it all on the truck.

And then off! Four days of driving that big thing, through mountain passes, up and down the switch-backs on mountain sides, and through seemingly endless desert. (especially when Nature called and GPS told us it was 60 miles to the next restroom).

We stopped on the way at the Arches National Park and I got lots of great pics, and then lost them as I was trying to make room on my phone for more. Maybe I'll swipe some from Raymond - I took some on his phone too.

Here are some of my favorite pics of the trip:

Mount Rainier. So many Bob Ross scenes in that place! 

I'm in love with Washington.

As we were rolling through this area, Cinnamon girl was playing in my head. "A dreamer of pictures, I run in the night. You'll see us together, chasing the moonlight, my Cinnamon Girl."

I didn't take this pic,  but the one I took was too fuzzy so I downloaded this. Shiprock. Beautiful.

Eden, Texas.

Mount Rainier

It's 61F and overcast. My Irish roots, after the searing, blinding heat of Texas, are clapping their fingers!

   "I believe it was Robert Pinsky (a superb memorizer of poetry) who explained that the only way to know something is 'by heart'. If you can hold a poem or a song in your heart, it is truly yours. Imagine Nadezda Mandelstam walking the cold roads, memorizing the bits of poems tucked between the pots and pans she carried. Imagine Mandelstam in the camps, speaking to himself the gifts he had made, the poems no one could pluck from his heart."    - Karen Chamberlain

   (Mariah speaking) This is so true. I have memorized poetry - unassigned by my teachers - since I was 12. And they have kept me company all these years - I still have them. Now, inspired by an old Irish poet I know, I've begun memorizing again, and I have a list of 15 that I recite to myself every day, plus the one that I'm working on memorizing. Poems, essays, speeches, passages from the Bible, and from Shakespeare. Accompanied by these words, I will never be lonely or bored.

   Would you like to see the list? Okay......

   1. Hungry Heart - Edna St. Vincent Millay
   2. A Psalm of Life - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
   3. I John 4:7&8
   4. II Timothy 1:7
   5. Ephesians 4:29
   6. God is America's King - Laura Ingalls Wilder
   7. Latin Table Blessing
   8. St. Crispin's Day - Shakespeare
   9. The Quality of Mercy - Shakespeare
   10. Psalm 19:14
   11. When Earth's Last Picture is Painted - Rudyard Kipling
   12. The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet
   13. If - Rudyard Kipling
   14. The Hound of Heaven - Francis Thompson
   15. She Walks in Beauty - Lord Byron
   16. Song: To Celia (Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes) - Ben Johnson. (currently working on)
   

I love this lady........

THE SINGING WOMAN FROM THE WOOD'S EDGE
                                                 - Edna St, Vincent Millay

What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix, cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?

And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?

You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave's weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother's web.

But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love of a priest for a leprechaun.
And you never have seen and you never will see
Such things as the things that swaddled me!

After all's said and after all's done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?

In through the bushes on any foggy day,
My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads, for all that he was worth.

And there sit my Ma, her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking at his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some fancy little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!

He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him from out of sight and we conjured up the devil!

Oh, the things I haven't seen and the things I haven't known,
What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both ways by my mother and my father,
With a "Which would you better?" and a "Which would you rather?"

With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what I am?

"I have very little of Mr. Blake's company. He is always in paradise." - Catherine Boucher Blake, one year after marriage to William Blake.

from AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE
                           - William Blake

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to Heaven for human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing
A cherubim does cease to sing.

Front porch on a warm, quiet summer night, alone with my adult refreshments and the breeze....

   SO..... Last night was our daughter's 20th birthday party, held at the house she shares with her sister. The suggested attire was black and white, with a hat. The girls also provided hats for anyone who had forgotten, or who wanted something...... more interesting. All those hats were made/decorated by the girls, with a couple made by their brother Peter. It was reminiscent of a wackier than usual Ascot Opening Day........ And lots of fun! There were thirty hats in play, all being traded and sported by different people. fun to see how different people wore the same hat.
   Great food, music, games, people...... Great party!

Son Peter

Daughter Yvonne

My Three Sons  

Son Peter

Daughter Annie

Hubby Raymond (R)

Pete and Raymond

Son Chris