Now Playing: “All I Wanna Do” — Sheryl Crow

I’m on the sunporch, and Word Raccoon is on my shoulder, listening to Tuesday Night Music Club, and I’ve promised to share a poem with her that I had to learn by heart in junior high. I don’t remember it all now, but it’s Longfellow. And yeah, it’s long, fellow, but I memorized it nonetheless.

I gave myself last week to recover from all that was going on, and this week it’s back to business — which means tackling my inboxes. Yes, plural.

I don’t want my literary newsletters tangled up with work assignments — yuck. One account of mine is for digital receipts, newsletters and other digital clutter. The other? Friends, literature, and joy. I don’t know how people live without at least two. (I’m not a stickler; it doesn’t really matter so much to me which emails come to which, but that’s my general guideline.)

I’m going to treat myself to tea out tomorrow while I tame the inbox. (This is the part where I cheer myself on: I can do it, I can…eh, maybe I don’t really need to.)

Back to happier things: WR and I met a woman at the beer tent on Friday who makes adorable earrings — mushrooms, fruit slices, a tiny Sprite bottle. Naturally, WR asked for Coke Zero ones. And raccoon earrings. Long story short: I might be buying a new pair of earrings or two and have made a new friend.

Word Raccoon wants me to drop that Longfellow poem NOW, and I will, but she can go raid the Tootsie Pop jar until I’m ready.

Though I’m not sharing any poems of my own today, I will share some titles I either wrote yesterday or today or in general forgot to tell you about, sweetheart.

I swear sometimes I write like I’m taking dictation from the ghosts of my next ten selves. (Except I don’t believe in reincarnation, duckies. Or did you want me to call you babe today? I’m Southern; I have a whole arsenal of affectionate names I’m itching to use, sugar.)

                  Latest Titles

• A Shrine to Truth and McDoubles
• On Tap
• Mythological Preachers
• Prelapsarian Almosts (That may have been from a while back?)
• No Lying Still for Lilies (Alfred, Lord Tennyson should be scared.)
• Downwind
• Mars Rover
• Snacking on Existential Dread with a Side of Havarti
• Reading Neruda at the Grocery Store

I wrote “No Lying Still for Lilies” while on my sunporch yesterday evening, admiring the view. And I can add Blue Jay to my list of my favorite birds I’ve sighted this season.

Tomorrow, I’m finally tackling the wild growth around the porch. The bushes have gotten bold, trying to keep my windows to themselves. But no more. I want a better view!

Meanwhile, I found some poetry uptown yesterday for my greedy amanuensis. She is bingeing on poetry by May Sarton and Rod McKuen. “Hmmm…the McKuen seems to be all about love, WR.” She rolled her eyes. Love is in the title of the book.

Here, here you imp constructed of words and caffeine, here is the promised poem.

The Children’s Hour

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,

      When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,

      That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

      The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

      And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

      Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

      And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:

      Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together

      To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,

      A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

      They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

      O’er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me;

      They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,

      Their arms about me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

      In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,

      Because you have scaled the wall,

Such an old mustache as I am

      Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,

      And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

      In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,

      Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

      And moulder in dust away!

Word Raccoon is back, carrying a pink boot, saying she’s glad Longfellow said “of my heart” when he referred to the dungeon or she was gonna call the police. And she said if I don’t stop writing soon, she’s gonna call me the long one.

As for me, that last stanza makes me wish for at least two lifetimes. What about you, dear?