Peace



Thanks to Jr. for the craft suggestions, and big hug to Russ who sent me detailed instructions on a shadow box project. You guys are the best. In other domestic news, little missy is learning to knit. Yesterday I bought us both needles and yarn. Rough going teaching missy, who gets very frustrated, but she's coming along. She's making a pink blanket for Gracie upstairs and I'm making a purple scarf for Jr. There is something really calming about knitting. It's a way to be quiet and productive at the same time. Well, must go do laundry, dishes, and make Jack type his English paper.

Ode To My Socks

by Pablo Neruda

(Translated by Robert Bly)

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as though into two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin.

Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.

They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp tempation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.

Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty,
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.