I’m taking a break from watching some Dead Like Me episodes to do laundry and catchup on the blog(s). Writing in my other blog, I used the word ‘glean’ – but I’m having a very bad speling day so I checked at m-w.com first if it was an een or ean. And one of the definitions was:

glean: 1 a : to pick up after a reaper

I think that sounds like fun, lurking behind Mason or Daisy or Roxy or Milly. Which reaper would you follow? (And no fair saying Rube– we all wonder what he does with his day. You know, besides looking for the guy with six fingers on his left hand.)

Of course, it doesn’t take long for the word glean to strike a memory:

…Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation; so call it,
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
So much from the understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of: I entreat you both,
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
And sith so neighbour’d to his youth and havior,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time: so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
That, open’d, lies within our remedy.

It’s funnier when Ros and Guil recount it later. I still would like to see that play live, or see the movie version on TV again (it’s in my TiVo wishlist)

I’ve spent the last few weeks doing what I’ve always done: Searching, reinventing, learning, forgetting, self-criticising, confronting, abating… Sometimes we get so used to our ways that we don’t even recognize them anymore, and we need to be jolted from our routine to recognize who we are. Just as glass is tempered in a fire and steel is forged in flame, it’s the hard things that make us better. And I will be better. I’m just going to sit in the fire a little longer, and later rise from the ashes.

But this post is not to find poetic ways to slam at people; I’m not sure Stuck is smart enough to get it anyway. I haven’t seen any proof he’s empathetic enough to care – whether that’s from laziness or emnity or just plain immaturity. I do know if people don’t care about my feelings, I don’t care about them. It just takes a while to get over trust being duped. Those scars, scratched fresh by new wounds, heal slowly for me.

I’m reading the book Good Poems compiled by Garrison Keillor, and found the following I wanted to share – the real purpose of this post. I’m about a third of the way through the book, and none of them yet have really spoken to my mood above. (And if they did, I would likely keep them to myself. A poem or a song that patches your soul is like a magic gift; you hold it close and savor every bit for yourself.) But, in honor of the summer weddings and these murky August storms, I give you this.

Summer Storm by Dana Gioia

We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.

We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.

The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.

To my surprise, you took my arm–
A gesture you didn’t explain–
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.

Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.

I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn’t speak another word
Except to say goodnight.

Why does that evening’s memory
Return with this night’s storm–
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?

There are many might have beens,
What ifs that won’t stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.