Ellie@Home by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

or, if your German is as defunct as mine, happy May Eve!  It is the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Germany. In German folklore Walpurgisnacht is believed to be the night of a witches' meeting on the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, a range of wooded hills in central Germany between the rivers Weser and Elbe. The first known written occurrence of the English translation 'Walpurgis Night' is from the 19th century. Local variants of Walpurgis Night are observed across Europe in the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Estonia.      Being a Pagan of Germanic, Swede and Celtic descent, I find the combination of Walpurgisnacht and Beltane so much fun: music, dancing, good food, faerie watches, all kinds of happiness and joy as we welcome the advent of summer. Granted, today doesn't feel very summer-like: gray, chilly and rainy, it's a typical April day here in New England, but s

   I love this poet so much I named my daughter after her (AlysonRose Elizabeth). A Dead Rose O Rose! who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet; But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,--- Kept seven years in a drawer---thy titles shame thee. The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odour up the lane to last all day,--- If breathing now,---unsweetened would forego thee. The sun that used to smite thee, And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn, Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn,--- If shining now,---with not a hue would light thee. The dew that used to wet thee, And, white first, grow incarnadined, because It lay upon thee where the crimson was,--- If dropping now,---would darken where it met thee. The fly that lit upon thee, To stretch the tendrils of its tiny feet, Along thy leaf's pure edges, after heat,--- If lighting now,---would coldly overrun thee.

Mary Robinson (née Darby ) (27 November 1757? – 26 December 1800) was an English actress, poet, dramatist, novelist, and celebrity figure. During her lifetime she was known as "the English Sappho". She earned her nickname "Perdita" for her role as Perdita (heroine of Shakespeare's Th Winter's Tale ) in 1779 and as the first public mistress of King George IV while he was still Prince of Wales. The Bee and the Butterfly UPON a garden's perfum'd bed With various gaudy colours spread, Beneath the shelter of a ROSE A BUTTERFLY had sought repose; Faint, with the sultry beams of day, Supine the beauteous insect lay. A BEE, impatient to devour The nectar sweets of ev'ry flow'r, Returning to her golden store, A weight of fragrant treasure bore; With envious eye, she mark'd the shade, Where the poor BUTTERFLY was laid, And resting on the bending spray, Thus murmur'd forth her drony lay:­ "Thou empty thing, whose merit lies In the vai

A funeral yesterday morning, a Reiki treatment yesterday afternoon and family needs into the evening means no poetry post yesterday. I do apologize. Having just finished reading John Matteson's Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father , and recently having finished Marmee and Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother by Eve LaPlante, and preparing to reread Thoreau's Walden , I decided today's poems should combine the talents of my favorite author and one who was a mentor to her. Thus, Thoreau's Flute , written by Louisa at Thoreau's death, and I Am the Autumnal Sun , by Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau's Flute We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead; His pipe hangs mute beside the river Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, But Music's airy voice is fled. Spring mourns as for untimely frost; The bluebird chants a requiem; The willow-blossom waits for him; The Genius of the wood is lost." Then from the flute

Daisies on My Shoes             The daisies on my shoe             Blink at me             In the dark closet.             Behind me             Dreams are lazing             In the twisted sheets.             They’re losing their hold now,             Gossamer shreds             Drifting out the window             To melt in the             Early September rain,             And I wonder             What the night brought,             What the night will             Hold.             From beneath the bed             The other shoe               Sighs.                               ~Nicole Kapise Perkins Home Cooking                         Who will remain Standing   In the end? A chicken is cooking, Mingled scent of oranges, onions. Can they smell it Time zones away Where cars explode and Children die?                    ~Nicole Kapise Perkins  

Lullaby   by W. H. Auden                                                                   Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral: But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie, Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful. Soul and body have no bounds: To lovers as they lie upon Her tolerant enchanted slope In their ordinary swoon, Grave the vision Venus sends Of supernatural sympathy, Universal love and hope; While an abstract insight wakes Among the glaciers and the rocks The hermit's carnal ecstasy. Certainty, fidelity On the stroke of midnight pass Like vibrations of a bell, And fashionable madmen raise Their pedantic boring cry: Every farthing of the cost, All the dreaded cards foretell, Shall be paid, but from this night Not a whisper, not a thought, Not a kiss nor look be lost. Beauty, midnight, vision

where I see it every time I'm in the kitchen. I haven't found any of Patrick Donnelly's poetry in my library, but an internet search has led to many such lovely works on his webpage, http://www.patrickdonnellypoems.com On Being Called To Prayer While Cooking Dinner for Forty When the heavens and the earth are snapped away like a painted shade, and every creature called to account, please forgive me my head full of chickpeas, garlic and parsley. I am in love with the lemon on the counter, and the warmth of my brother’s shoulder distracted me when we stood to pray. The imam takes us over for the first prostration, but I keep one ear cocked for the cry of the kitchen timer, thrilled to realize today’s cornbread might become tomorrow’s stuffing. This thrift may buy me ten warm minutes in bed tomorrow, before the singer climbs the minaret in the dark to wake me again to the work of thought, word, deed.  I have so little time to finis

I realize I haven't shared any recipes lately....so here's one that's just too good, really. Creamy Spaghetti Primavera   (I take no credit for this, and I can only heartily and humbly thank Rachael Ray for creating this amazing comfort-food dish. I make it for myself on my birthday every year. Yeah, it's that good.)   5 c vegetable or chicken stock (I generally use chicken) 2 Tbs olive oil 2 Tbs butter 4 cloves of garlic, chopped 1 pound of spaghetti (or substitute orzo, which makes it more risotto-like, but still tastie) 1 onion, chopped 2 carrots, cut into thin sticks 1 zucchini, cut into thin sticks 2 Tbs chopped fresh thyme leaves salt and pepper to taste 3/4 c dry white wine 1/2 c heavy cream (no, this dish is not the most healthy you can make yourself.) 1 c grated Asiago cheese grated peel of 1 lemon 1/2 c chopped flat-leaf parsley   * Simmer the broth over medium heat; keep hot. * In a large

THE GREAT FOUNTAINS —Anne Hébert Better not go to these deep woods for great fountains sleep in their depths. Better not wake the great fountains A false sleep closes their salty eyelids No dream invents the blossoms underwater white and rare. The days around them and the lean and chanting trees sink no image into them. Water in these dark woods is so pure and uniquely fluid and hallowed in this flowing source a sea profession where I gaze. O tears inside me in the hollow of this grave space where erect columns oversee my old patience keep intact eternal solitude water solitude.

Mary Hynes (The most beautiful woman in the West. Padraic Fallon translation of the Anthony Raftery poem) That Sunday, on my oath, the rain was a heavy overcoat on a poor poet; and when the rain began in fleeces of water to buck-leap like a goat, I was only a walking penence reaching Kiltartan and there so suddenly that my cold spine broke out on the arch of my back in a rainbow; this woman surged out of the day with so much sunlight, that I was nailed there like a scarecrow. But I found my tongue and a breath to balance it, and I said: 'If I'd bow to you with this hump of rain, I'll fall On my collarbone, but luck I'll chance it'; and after falling bow again She laughed: Ah! she was gracious, and softly she said to me, 'For all Your lovely talking I go marketing with an ass, I know him. I’m no hill-queen, alas, or Ireland, that grass widow, So hurry on, sweet Raftery, or you’ll keep me late for Mass!' The parish priest has blamed me for missing second

it's time to plant! Well, mostly. Almost. It's time to start seeds indoors? I have. In a pot on the kitchen bar I have three sweet little tomato plantlings valiantly reaching to the sky. Ceiling. Whatever. The peppers I planted in an accompanying pit have yet to do much of anything, which just proves their contrary nature. Outside, covered, are pots of lettuce and basil, and the window box's chives wintered over beautifully, and are doing their thing. I let my little bitty plant some sage and pansies in the window box as well, but I'll probably just buy some herbs to add to it. I have all kinds of photos of the work-in-progress, and blogger won't load any of them, so just use your imaginations while I try to figure out why blogger is being as contrary as my peppers. (I can't even copy and paste my own photos. How annoying is that??)    Anyway, I've already grabbed my pickle buckets from the restaurant downstairs--the 5 gallon buckets make perfect po

     One simply cannot post entries for National Poetry Month without acknowledging, nay, swooning, weeping, lamenting and living the agony of the doomed romance of John Keats and Fanny Brawne. And so, dear readers, with my heart full and my eyes welling, I give you                         Bright Star Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-- No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever--or else swoon to death. John Keats  

Light and Earth Most beautiful of things I leave is sunlight. Then come glazing stars and the moon’s face. Then ripe cucumbers and apples and pears. ~Praxilla

I missed yesterday; my husband took me out for a day-long adventure for my birthday. He's such a nice man. And so today I give you two: Thirteen ways of looking at a Blackbird , by Wallace Stevens, and The Unicorn in Captivity , by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, two of my favorites. Enjoy! Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird           ~ Wallace Stevens        I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one. V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause. VII O thin m

Jabberwocky 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. 'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!' He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought -- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood a while in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One two! One two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. 'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Lewis Carroll  

       The awesome blog Blog Me Mom has recently posted what is probably the most fun literary activity I have ever seen, and I'm stupidly ashamed to say that I never thought of it before now. Small children love treasure hunts. My little guy adores maps of any kind, probably because the bigger guy is a HUGE Dungeons and Dragons fan and has all the books he could possibly own, as well as several interactive maps and miniatures to go with it. Hence, the small one's love of all things cool and big brother-ish. So what did the geniuses at Blog Me Mom do? Came up with a picture book scavenger hunt. She hid books all around her yard, gave her children a list of clues, and set them loose. Very very cool. I have included the link below (hope it works!) and on the page the moms have added a downloadable link for the clues and book riddles. If you don't have all the books they used, you can of course make up your own. I don't know how good I'd be at making up riddles, but I

and so today I will share several of my favorite poems, because reading some of my favorite words is a lovely present for me to give myself! The Little Mermaid          ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh Only the little mermaid knows the price One pays for mortal love, what sacrifice Exacted by the Sea-Witch, should one choose A mermaid's careless liberty to lose. Into the smoky cauldron she must throw A mermaid's kingdom, gleaming far below The restless waves in filtered light that falls Through dim pellucid depths on palace walls. All childhood haunts must go, all memories; Her swaying garden of anemones Circled  by conch-shells, where the sea-fans dance To unheard music, bending in a trance. No longer--now she seeks a mortal home-- Sharing with sisters laughter light as foam. Those moon-bright nights alone upon the shore, Singing a mermaid's song, are hers no more. The magic sweetness of a mermaid's song, She must abandon, if she would belong To mort