Sunday, October 20, 2013

Reaching for the Zumba

This weekend I started zumba and saw the film Reaching for the Moon, about poet Elizabeth Bishop and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares. I enjoyed both! And now I yearn for the play Dear Elizabeth, by Sarah Ruhl, a dramatization of the letters of Bishop and Robert Lowell. Where can I get a copy? Oh! I see I can read an excerpt at the playwright's website. And I could get the book of letters, too, Words in Air. But I have enough to read for now.

Zumba is fun. I knew it would be! I wore my inside shoes (only for gym floors) and used my inside voice (no energetic yelps from me). If I survive Saturday morning classes, I may add weekday classes. Until I can swim again outdoors!

Today I took a walk on the trail--warm, breezy, sunny, beautiful smells, the fall leaves. Then, since it's been cold already, I did my transplanting into pots to bring indoors: white geranium, heirloom Martha Washington geranium (two-toned purple and magenta), yellow snapdragon, and a bit of balsam already sprouted from seeds that dropped in late summer. Birds are here to eat the rest of the seeds, balsam and morning glory.

Above is Joe Tiernan's harvest moon, shared at Facebook (so I hope it is OK to share here). Some say the harvest moon is in September, but really it depends on the timing of the harvest. It could, in October, be the hunter's moon, but Joe was visiting Polyface Farm, and I think he knows his moons, and his harvests from his hunts. I've seen this kind of moon, this low and huge and golden, before. I saw it tonight, high up and white, emerged from the mist, between branches. I love the moon. Though man has walked on it, it never lost its romance for me.

Speaking of the past (moon landing, dead poets), I have a poem about Nebraska in the 1960s in the new issue of Hobble Creek Review. Look at all the poems! Theme is popular culture, so you can find vampires, Nirvana, Lucy Lawless, Anna Nicole Smith, and even Debbie, Eddie, and Liz.

11 comments:

Collagemama said...

I am sad about Richard.

Kathleen said...

Thank you, Collagemama. You responded to the elegy at the heart of this poem. So did my actual mama.

Maureen said...

What a lovely and moving poem, Kathleen. The form works beautifully in conveying its elegiac qualities.

Kathleen said...

Thanks so much, Maureen!

seana graham said...

I'll chime in on loving the poem, and also Joe Tiernan's harvest moon photo.

In a random coincidence kind of way, the idea of whether or not the moon had lost its romance after the moon landing was one of the elements of a story I just worked on for a One Teen Story boot camp! And the part they seem to have liked the best...

Kathleen said...

O, wonderful! You know how much I love the moon landing coincidence!

seana graham said...

I do.

Kim said...

I want to ZUMBA with you on Saturday!!

Kathleen said...

Parks & Rec, $20, 10 weeks, 8:30-9:30 a.m.! Jessica rocks! Er, zuums!

Hannah Stephenson said...

I love Neil Young's "Harvest Moon," but I couldn't help but hear it as "Harvest Zum" after your post...:)

Great poem (congrats on its publication!).

Kathleen said...

Thanks, Hannah. And I keep hearing the "zoom, zoom, zoom" car jingle in my head. I see that little boy in the commercial, and then I hum/say, "Reaching for the zum, zum, zum...."