Enga mellom fjella

Sijo for a field of sunflowers

"I thought that if I left, mean folks would be left behind; that if I kept in touch, those I cared about would be there for me. But meanness followed everywhere and out-of-sight and out-of-mind meant my needs no longer mattered." KE

Joan Didion wrote the book and play, The Year of Magical Thinking. It portrays her struggles with the sudden death of her husband John Dunne while dealing with the illness and death of her daughter Quintana Roo during and soon after. It was as if she could control, hit the replay button, avoid reality... as if by magic she could make it all play out a different way. Watching Judith Roberts in the role of Didion (it is a 90 minute monologue) last night reminded me of my own traumas. So, perhaps I too avoid reality by believing in magic.

"Years later, I still hoped that being kind and patient would restore the many-severed ties, make them real again. I had yet to give up on magic."

Sijo for a field of sunflowers

Born beyond this heaven's girth,
         dark clouds of lifeless husks now passed;
they twirled around a dim lit star
         that burnt their offering to a crisp;
as golden sundrops fell to earth,
         ten thousand rays burst forth.

© Kåre Enga [166.194] 2009-09-04

15/16/14 = 45 so not bad syllable count wise. How much wiggle room does a sijo-like poem have?

Me

So today I cut up a box of red tomatoes that my sister is boiling down into sauce. And I cut up cherry tomatoes for the dryer. I already fed the chickens the slops.

My sister makes peach, blueberry, cherry leather in her dehydrator. I like the cherry best.

Last night we ate naan, mushroom masala and rogan josh at Taste of India on Roosevelt and 55th in Seattle. Very good. Tonight? Liver!

I picked tulip-tree and big-maple leaves. I plucked a pea-pod, got the mail, spoke to my mother on the phone. The day ebbs slowly.

Washington: 79° and sunny at 3 p.m. in Monroe.

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