Moon Man

Some high school kids bought up a batch of mice and let them go in assembly. Many were trampled to death. This little guy escaped and lived for six months at the Stratham SPCA. I adopted him on Halloween, full moon. Hence the name.
He's a pretty old guy now, almost three. So I was happy, just now, when he took a little sun bath and I was able to get some good pictures! He answers to his name, lets me pat him. And he has the most wonderful, petal-like ears.

The Committe To Begin Essential Piano Placement

Painted pianos all over London this summer. Anyone can sit down and play. This is enough to make me buy a ticket to England, pronto. But even better, let's start a campaign to put musical instruments in every town and city!

In the Other Kind of Time by Mark Nepo

IN THE OTHER KIND OF TIME
by Mark Nepo

Let's journey now
to the other kind of time
where we've known each other
for centuries, beneath our names,
beneath our pain, to the other side
where we can stop to listen
the way fox listen to the night.

Come with me out of the cold
where we can put down the
notions we've been carrying
like torn flags into battle.

We can throw them to the earth
or place them in the earth, and ask,
why these patterns in the first place?
If you want, we can repair them, if
they still seem true. Or we can
sing as they burn.

Come. Let's feel our way
beneath the noise where we
can ask what it means to be alive
and lift our chins from the stream
like deer who've outrun
all the hunters.

Intense blackberry love

My sister, who's from Oregon, laughed at my yard
that by now looks almost like Sleeping Beauty's castle, wreathed and impassible because of thorny rose vines. In my case, it's blackberries. Kathleen
said, "Every single person I know does everything they can to get the blackberries out of their yard. You do everything to encourage them. . ."
Yes siree Bob I do. For me and the birds. Here is the first ripe berry of July. And one picture down, you can guess what happened.

Capybara Solo

Capybara Ensemble

Watch for Sandra Beasley --Dazzling New Poet

Keep an eye out for poet Sandra Beasley. In this month's issue of Poetry, one of her poems,
Unit of Measure appears. I'll post it here along with a terrific poem called Love Poem for Wednesday. She has one book already published, Theories of Falling
and another book, I Was the Jukebox, due out in April of 2010.

Unit of Measure

All can be measured by the standard of the capybara.
Everyone is lesser than or greater than the capybara.
Everything is taller or shorter than the capybara.
Everything is mistaken for a Brazilian dance craze
more or less frequently than the capybara.
Everyone eats greater or fewer watermelons
than the capybara. Everyone eats more or less bark.
Everyone barks more than or less than the capybara,
who also whistles, clicks, grunts, and emits what is known
as his alarm squeal. Everyone is more or less alarmed
than a capybara, who—because his back legs
are longer than his front legs—feels like
he is going downhill at all times.
Everyone is more or less a master of grasses
than the capybara. Or going by the scientific name,
more or less Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris—
or, going by the Greek translation, more or less
water hog. Everyone is more or less
of a fish than the capybara, defined as the outermost realm
of fishdom by the 16th-century Catholic Church.
Everyone is eaten more or less often for Lent than
the capybara. Shredded, spiced, and served over plantains,
everything tastes more or less like pork
than the capybara. Before you decide that you are
greater than or lesser than a capybara, consider
that while the Brazilian capybara breeds only once a year,
the Venezuelan variety mates continuously.
Consider the last time you mated continuously.
Consider the year of your childhood when you had
exactly as many teeth as the capybara—
twenty—and all yours fell out, and all his
kept growing. Consider how his skin stretches
in only one direction. Accept that you are stretchier
than the capybara. Accept that you have foolishly
distributed your eyes, ears, and nostrils
all over your face. Accept that now you will never be able
to sleep underwater. Accept that the fish
will never gather to your capybara body offering
their soft, finned love. One of us, they say, one of us,
but they will not say it to you.

Love Poem for Wednesday

You’re the day after Tuesday, before eternity.
You’re the day we ran out of tomatoes
and used tiny packets of ketchup instead.

You are salt, no salt, too much salt, a hangover.
You hold the breath of an abandoned cave.
Sometimes you surprise me with your

aurora borealis and I’ll pull over to watch you;
I’ll wait in the dark shivering fields of you.
But mostly, not. My students don’t care for you

or your lessons from the life of a minor god.
Can you hit the high C in our anthem?
Can you bench press a national disaster?

I fear for you, Wednesday. Your papers
are never in order. Your boots track in mud.
You’re the day I realized I didn’t even like him,

and the day I still said yes, yes, yes.
Sometimes I think you and I should elope,
and leave this house of cards to shuffle itself.

You are love, no love, too much love, a cuckold.
You are the loneliest of the three bears, hoping
to come home and find someone in your bed.