Sonnets 04: Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended

Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu,—farewell!—the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The color and the features, every one,
The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

Caution to the Wind

He had planned to buy a mouth guard, but didn't see one he wanted.  So he just strapped on a helmet.  This text, an hour after they left the house:  "Ha ha, I just broke my teeth."  I thought "ha ha" meant it was a minor chip.  I didn't realize he meant he broke them out of his mouth.  So I didn't do anything.  Then he walked in the house with a bloody face.

This can all be traced back to me.  I introduced my Jared to the other Jared, two hurricanes joining forces.  And they went to ride trick bikes, so confident in their sinewy muscles and the invincibility of youth.  But there's a fine line between courage and foolhardiness, and if you tilt your weight over the handlebars too far your face will learn it.  Modern dentistry had just enough tooth left to attach temporary crowns after two root canals.  The final teeth will be attached in two weeks.

The night after the accident he clicked "purchase" on the bike he'd chosen before his first ride.  "It's like a bronco; you have to get right back on."  Meanwhile, Jared 2 is reconsidering the wisdom in this phrase "If I'm not scaring myself, it's not a good ride."

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. 

--Gerard Manly Hopkins

Let Them Eat Cake

My family always celebrates birthdays.   Mom, of course, gets a little less birthday than everyone else, because she handles the rest of them and my Dad and I aren't as amazing as she is.   Still, there is always cake and ice cream and a few little gifts.  We sing two versions of the birthday song, we photograph the blowing out of candles, we admire new clothes and snacks.  Our birthdays are all bunched together in the fall and winter so we end up having a lot of dessert October through February.  Normally this isn't a problem,  as there are a lot of us.  But as of recently, NO ONE EATS CAKE.  My brothers are on specific healthy athletes' diets, and so the cake is just sitting there getting stale.

 Compounding the problem, my Mom and I took a cake decorating class, so we made a cake or cupcakes every week for four weeks.  And no one will eat them!  We keep inviting people over so we can give them cake and send some home for their families.  Baking is pointless now, because no one will eat the results.  What will I do to feel domestic and productive?  Who will indulge in the deliciousness of baked temptation?  To those chiseled bodies earned by hours at the gym, I say congratulations.  But I also say, life is short...eat my cake!