Chew On This
Comfort Poem (and Books)



I'm very tired tonight, not to mention over-committed. So I am just going to post this, which made me cry on first reading, my favorite (so far) poem by Ray Bradbury. Yeah, that guy who wrote Farenheit 451. Plus about two dozen awesome books full of short stories and some novels, my top three being, in reverse order:


#3: The Illustrated Man. These short stories are all connected by the fact that some depiction of each is tattooed onto a carnie's body. And get this - they move. (Yes, I loved this one before I was old enough for ink.)


#2: Something Wicked This Way Comes. A novel about two boys - one light and one dark. Their names are Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway. Can you guess which one is which? This evil carnival comes to their small midwestern (read: girlgrey's childhood) town, and lures the townsfolk in. I won't give it away, but it is Fuh-reeeaaa-ky. I read this one every year during the month of October. Just talking about it makes me wish it was fall (the best season).


And drumrole please::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#1: Dandelion Wine. Probably my favorite book *Of All Time* (said with God-inflection). This one is a novel about summer and childhood and being ferociously ALIVE. It, without fail, brings me comfort in a world that can seem very cynical. It makes me remember that I am still alive, a gypsy soul, sucking the marrow and relishing the sensuous; "a crazy creature with a head full of carnival spangles." Read it and tell me you didn't search for some ancient drug store that sold old-fashioned lime-vanilla ice. I dare you.

P.S. So he has a thing for carnivals. So sue him. -gg



That Woman on the Lawn by Ray Bradbury

Sometimes, gone late at night,
I would awake and hear
My mother in another year and place
Out walking on the lawn so late
It must have been near dawn yet dark it was
The only light then in the gesture of the stars
Which wheeled around in motionings so soft
They took your breath to see; and there upon the grass
Like ghost with dew-washed feet she was
A maid again, alone, quite singular, so young.
I wept to see her there so strange,
So unrelate to me, so special to herself,
So untouched by the world, evanescent, free,
With something wild come up in cheeks
And red to lips, and flashing in the eyes;
It frightened me.
Why should she wander out without permit,
Permission saying go or do not go
From us or any other…?
Was she, or My God, wasn’t she our mother?
How dare she walk, a virgin, fresh once more
Within a night that hid her face,
How dare displace us in her thoughts and will?!

And sometimes even still, late nights,
I think I hear her soft tread on the sill
And wake to see her cross the lawn
Gone wild with wishing, dreaming, wanting
And crouched down there until dawn,
Washing her hair with wind,
Paying no mind to the cold,
Waiting for some bold strange man
To rise up like the sun
And strike her beauteous-blind!
And weeping I call out to her:
Oh, young girl there,
Oh, sweet girl in the dawn!
I do not mind, no, no. I do not mind.