T-O-M-A-S-Z-K-I-E-W-I-C-Z

Pronounced TOM-uh-SKEV-itch.

Mrs. Tomaskiewicz was my third grade teacher.  I remembered the other day that she used to say to us, whenever we boasted about some accomplishment, "Do you want a parade or a party?"

That was kind of mean because we were only nine and we were proud of ourselves.

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When I wrote the pronunciation, I noticed that it was the opposite of iambic (as in Shakespeare's iambic pentameter -- five iambs in a row: "From FORTH the FAtal LOINS of THESE two FOE").  I looked it up and when the stressed syllable comes before the unstressed syllable, it's called a trochee (adj trochaic): "DID he WHO made THE lamb MAKE thee?" The poetic norm is trochaic tetrameter, four trochees in a row,  as we see above.  In the case of Tomaskiewicz, we have trochaic dimeter.

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She had a greenhouse in her classroom where we kept the paper towels, and she always had a desk in her seating chart that was left empty but had a name-tag on it for Jesus.

nothing from me today

I've got a few things going on in this moment that I'm genuinely, tentatively excited about (and holy hell does it feel good to be excited about something, anything), and I'm too excited to write about them.  Also, I'm not in the habit of considering blog post topics as I go about my day like I used to be.

So this instead:

a litany for survival :: audre lorde 

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours: 

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive. 

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid 

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

And for good measure, this.  (Because holy hurt-my-stomach beautiful):

when you have forgotten Sunday: the love storyGwendolyn Brooks 

-- And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday --
When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long-street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing-I-have-to-do and I'm-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come --
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,
And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;
And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,
That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner
To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles
Or chicken and rice
And salad and rye bread and tea
And chocolate chip cookies --
I say, when you have forgotten that,
When you have forgotten my little presentiment
That the war would be over before they got to you;
And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,
And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end
Bright bedclothes,
Then gently folded into each other --
When you have, I say, forgotten all that,
Then you may tell,
Then I may believe
You have forgotten me well.

simple

Shitty, shitty day.

The best part of it was the blackberries I dipped in melted white chocolate as I watched Rachel Maddow. That part was lovely.

It's no coincidence that our poem for tomorrow will be this:

In the Station of the Metro
by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.