The traditional Spring bank holiday is this weekend, and it's pouring, which is probably also traditional. May Day in the past was the day people left anonymous gifts of flowers for each other, so here, -- have some flowers.

This morning, the first verified case of swine 'flu hit my hometown. I hope no one is panicking, but I have a feeling that many people are. There's such a dramatic leaning in the human psyche that we love words like "pandemic," and "pestilence" and "plague." I think I'll go with "epidemic," and wash my hands a lot. Between the war and the economy and the viruses and me starting my walk/run routine up again this week, I'm too tired to take in any more.

It's a strange-looking world that exists outside my rain-sluiced windows. It's become unrecognizable in myriad ways. I ran across an article that mentioned eleven companies which will soon no longer exist. How odd to think that all the novels that name-drop stores like the Gap are now hopelessly and irretrievably dated! I guess that's what people get for name-dropping. No matter how unfamiliar the landscape, though, it's good to know that some things remain the same. This past month has been all about the surety and cadence of words, for me. Poetry, sprouting from every leaf and bush and all across the blogosphere (And thank you, Elaine, for all of your work keeping track!). Words have remained the same. This is a comfort.

And well we all know, things are not as bad as they could be. Imagine living in Singapore between 1942 and 1950, when you put on your résumé how much you expected your work was worth -- in terms of food. You could be worth so many pounds of rice per day, so many coconuts per week. People were starving in the wake of the Depression and the war, and they figured out how to feed themselves as best they could. Blogger Dora Almond has a great review of the nonfiction book Wartime Kitchen, by Wong Hong Suen, curator of the National Museum of Singapore's Food Gallery. Her review details the struggles and inventiveness of the Singaporean people during that time period. Do you know your worth in tapioca root? Could you make soap out of coconut husks and palm oil? Rather than being a book about tragedy, this is a book about survival -- and optimism. I'll take a double order of that, please! Since it's published in Singapore, this book is tricky to find in the U.S., but here's hoping it will make its way this direction soon.

Folio
Flattened like coins on train tracks

The prunus leaves unfurl along their twigs

in copper ovals. She bends down,

peers in. Shadowed underneath,

each leaf greens in its

charcoal dark, laced with veins

rosy as human arterial blood, delicate

as her own most minor capillaries.



Here are two secrets: the bud

bursting pink from the groin where

leaf stem embraces branch; the curled worm

slung in its pale cocoon, waiting.



Here is another: she has walked around

all day, feeling raw as that bloody leaf

or worse, a blank page. Priceless

as a flat penny, she'll end up

shriveled for sure, food for the worm.

Against the odds, maybe shell bloom first.

- from The Angles of Light: New & Selected Poems, © 2000 by Luci Shaw

Poetry Friday is hosted by Maya Ganesan at Allegro. This month, in spite of worms and drenchings and the pestilence that stalks, may you, too, bloom against the odds.

(For those of you who asked, Kirkus has its reviews online today. You can't see the whole review unless you're a member, but it's there, and the final sentence is "absolutely essential reading." I'm still quite pleased about that!)

Labels: Poetry Friday