Spent all of yesterday reading about pre-Raphaelite painting. I'm to teach the Victorian literature course in the winter term, and it's true: I'm in over my head. And why had I never read Modern Love before? I'm pretty sure I've been in this relationship.
By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured effigies they might be seen
Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;
Each wishing for the sword that severs all.
***
I'm off to the tub to go read all fifty sonnets again.
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Shall I start a wishbook? Yes, let's. Tell me what you want for Christmas. For starters, this this and this. Okay?
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From Ana Castillo:
Guess what, kids? The Mayans are alive, if not exactly doing well. The general idea seems to be that the Aztecs are long dead. (Don't lose your head ove that fact!) And that the Mayans are also extinct. They are not all lost in the jungle wearing taparabos either.
FYI--approximately TWO MILLION Mayas live in the United States today. However, like the rest of the mestizos who live here, whose people originated from the Southwest, Caribbean and throughout Latin America (academic term, I know, I know)--they cannot register here as Native American. Instead, they are immigrants. Even those of us born in places as far north as, let's say Chicago, are 'seen' as immigrants.
We didn't cross the border.
The Border double-crossed us.
(thanks for the link, Emmy.)
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Worth mentioning: walked into a place called Sound FX to have the cd stuck in the player removed by the guys who installed the thing in the first place. The manager, Moises, shook my hand and dwarfed mine in his while I tried not to stare at the thick gold chain and pendant hanging at my eye level just above his great belly. The chain was thick as my ring finger, the pendant bigger than my hand. Big Daddy, it said. His cup behind the counter said the same.
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I am buying Glenda's car. This is what it looks like.
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