elizabeth bishop

ok, sorry, i just like that it is poetry month. i know that stacy isn't reading the poems i put up here, but well she also told me once "it's not that i didn't hate your poem..." well she can just scroll down. and you can too if you don't like it (but really you should just read) but today i was thinking about elizabeth bishop. i think it should always be poetry month because it makes me think about all the good poems of my life.

so i will update you on my fiction writing class woes before we get to the good stuff. we finally workshopped my stuff today. and well, blah. some people liked it but that is the thing about workshopping. there are people who don't. and no matter how many times i go through workshopping, it is still hard. because i think i am better than i actually am. but...ruth moose did say i have the funniest manuscript she has read all semester, so well, that was encouraging at least.

one more person to encouraging my humor = me getting more obnoxious. (now would be the time to feel bad for stacy who has to live with me)

i talked to jill who just got back from visiting Buenos Aires...she ate at a restaurant that i ate when i was there, visited Evita's tomb, and saw a tango show...we share international experiences :) yay! how fun!!! now if she will just go to Iguazu like i told her to!!!

today marks a new era of the semester. now i will have tons of work to do alllll the time. it will be great. i will be stressed out and annoyed, which started today when trying to work on presentation stuff. yipes. i need to pray ab. my attitude during this time. feel free to do the same.

ok, enough of me, here's elizabeth:

Filling Station

Oh but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color--
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in the daisy stich
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO-SO-SO-SO
to high strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

Somebody loves us all :)
night!