may you not trip and spill your hatboxes and other spring mishaps

happy spring.

tidy

isabel and i found this row of tulips on our walk this afternoon. i'm both drawn to the image and annoyed by it. i know it's not tulips' fault, but they are the epitome of a spring cliché. i'm drawn to clean, domestic images but i need them a little more complicated.



i took this one to offset it:




the rust around the letters comforts me like a custard.













i feel an affinity with these today:

milksnake's egg tooth
mulberry stain
the swagger and bluster of a fire eater
sealing wax
punk and tinder
anything postwar-




for friday's flickr fix i choose these:


"iron-on"













and "catbird seat"

just go here if you want to meet the photographers.

promising

the day after valentine's i went to the bank. i noticed, while my teller was doing my transaction, that he'd written the word "flowers" on the back of one hand. the word had partially faded, probably from his morning shower. i have thought about that fading reminder several times over the last few days. it is more pronounced in my mind for the fact that i glimpsed it faded.


this is a photo of my plum blossoms budding. it has been clothesline weather for days, though the forecast promises some rain. i like it both ways, i've developed a marked admiration for the weather in all of its forms. i suspect it's an age thing, for when i was child i remember puzzling over how fascinated adults were with the weather, and it seemed to me that the older the adult, the more fervent he or she seemed about the weather.

now i've arrived at the age of weather zealotry. i never check the forecast, preferring to get it by word of mouth. or just get wind of it on my own.

30 days until spring

what changes
neatly turning in the blue air
punctuated by white moths

and i am no match for my stuck windows
painted shut last september

so i open the doors

to the drone of lawnmowers
the hearsay of flies

and i'm ready for something
that knows i'm expecting it
and it's all i can do