Watermark

privacy & exposure

This process of building websites, and doing an online notebook, raises for me issues of privacy and exposure – how much to reveal? What really is the interest of the (unknown) audience? & when may I name names, and when may I not?

Is the reader knowledgeable enough to realize that poetry is fiction, that the poet is only sometimes the speaker, and sometimes not?

Erin's Kind Words

Erin's kind wordsof January 14:

sb, whose comments turn up here from time to time, has a brand new website -- I'm excited. I know her from Zeugma, where we don't see enough of her fine, sensitive work. She's one of the best of us. Good to get another dose.

Later: everyone *must* go read her solstice letter.

(& I have finally figured out how to TrackBack!)

sonnet in search of a title

The moonlit field is haunted by the brush
of hunting shadow wings. The field mouse stops --
her heart a frantic rythym in the hush
of grassy murmur, field brook rush, the plop
of water on the rocks -- as wings dip once
then down the sound of owl descending, loud
to ears now straining for the sound of pounce!
that predatory whoosh! that final shout.
Does field-mouse shudder, thick with fear, her bones
astutter as she hears her death descend
from high above? Does owl, the hunter, groan
aloud, anticipating hunger's end?
Or does the field mouse see an angel loom
with love? And owl, a sin he must assume?

ducks

this morning, a dozen black-headed, white-bottomed ducks, paddling through the ice on the river

too much to learn

This whole process has been much more demanding than I had anticipated. I went online sooner than I should have -- the software makes it too easy to just plunge ahead. 

With advice from Gary; support from Erin; and help from friend Niki, who lent me books on web design, all has now been completely redesigned and rebuilt.  There is still tweaking to do, and a lot of what I've learned to call "static content" to enter, but at least I feel more confident of the base.

Still a lot to learn, too -- I've now tried five times to link "Erin" with her post of Wednesday, January 14, where she mentions my site -- but I can't make the trackback link work. 

Ice Fog II

Icefog

We are cocooned in fog, ice crystal air. Beautiful, spooky, sound-bending. 

& the computers, too.  The desktop unusable, slowed to ice.  The laptop is usable, but crashes without warning and must be reverted 24 hours to function again, so all work is lost.  Some incompatibility with the webbuilding software?  I've done all I know how to; the Computer Guy will come tomorrow. 

This feels so awkward. . .

First Post

This is a free-30-day-trial experiment. 

Will it stick? We shall see.

this heavy braid
the only remnant
of my youth