Category: Just Shelley

There were a thousand things I could have done today

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 4, 2003

Archived with comments at Wayback Machine

There were a thousand things I could have done today,
but all I did was sit at my window and watch
the storms move past.

Instead of doing my laundry
I watched the wind rip the blossoms
from the tree across the road
forcing it into full green.

Instead of cleaning house or reading a book
I stood out on the deck to better see,
forgetting to close the door behind me,
getting everything very wet.

If I closed the window and turned my back
I could have finished my taxes, or written about war and injustice
but all I did was look at the sky
and listen to the thunder.

RDF Writing

Acks

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 2, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Practical RDF is heading into the production process and when next I see her, it will be as proofs. Talking with Simon, it sounds like the book will hit the streets in July.

July is a good time to release a book. Better than now.

The tech book industry has been taking some severe hits lately. The book publisher WROX went into bankruptcy leaving authors unpaid. In fact, many authors only found about the closure of the company through online lists and weblogs, though it sounds like the WROX staff made efforts to notify them the day before the doors closed.

O’Reilly itself has had to do some downsizing recently in some of its divisions. This is particularly difficult for O’Reilly because the people that work there are a very close knit group.

Anyway, I thought I would publish the dedication section of my acknowledgement because several of you are mentioned. Hopefully you’ll all be pleased. And Tim Tams and Godiva Chocolates would be a suitable thank you.

(Just joking.)

Books don’t get written in a vacuum and this book is no exception. I’d like to thank some special friends for their support and encouragement during the long, long period this book was in development. This includes my best friend, Robert Porter, as well as ++AKM and Margaret Adams, +Jonathon Delacour, Simon St. Laurent, Allan Moult, Chris Kovacks, *Loren Webster, Jeneane Sessum, Chris Locke, **Dorothea Salo, and others I’ve met in the threaded void known as the Internet. Thanks friends. It’s finally done.

*Who doesn’t like all this sappy, mushy stuff. Heh.
+Who likes cherries.
**Who should houseboat the Mississippi!
++ Who has neat new digs – but what’s with the chicken logo?

Writing

House on the Hill

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 1, 2003

They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.

Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray
Around that sunken sill?
They are all gone away.

And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

Edwin Arlington Robinson – “The House on the Hill” second version

Writing

Daughters, 1900

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 1, 2003

Five daughters, in the slant light on the porch,
are bickering. The eldest has come home
with new truths she can hardly wait to teach.

She lectures them: the younger daughters search
the sky, elbow each others’ ribs, and groan.
Five daughters, in the slant light on the porch

and blue-sprigged dresses, like a stand of birch
saplings whose leaves are going yellow-brown
with new truths. They can hardly wait to teach,

themselves, to be called “Ma’am,” to march
high-heeled across the hanging bridge to town.
Five daughters. In the slant light on the porch

Pomp lowers his paper for a while, to watch
the beauties he’s begotten with his Ann:
these new truths they can hardly wait to teach.

The eldest sniffs, “A lady doesn’t scratch.”
The third snorts back, “Knock, knock: nobody home.”
The fourth concedes, “Well, maybe not in church. . .”
Five daughters in the slant light on the porch.

Marilyn Nelson “Daughters, 1900″

(P.S. I like the other poems, but I adore this poem.)

Writing

Believing in Iron

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 1, 2003

The hills my brothers & I created
Never balanced, & it took years
To discover how the world worked.
We could look at a tree of blackbirds
& tell you how many were there,
But with the scrap dealer
Our math was always off.
Weeks of lifting & grunting
Never added up to much,
But we couldn’t stop
Believing in iron.
Abandoned trucks & cars
Were held to the ground
By thick, nostalgic fingers of vines
Strong as a dozen sharecroppers.
We’d return with our wheelbarrow
Groaning under a new load,
Yet tiger lilies lived better
In their languid, August domain.
Among paper & Coke bottles
Foundry smoke erased sunsets,
& we couldn’t believe iron
Left men bent so close to the earth
As if the ore under their breath
Weighed down the gray sky.
Sometimes I dreamt how our hills
Washed into a sea of metal,
How it all became an anchor
For a warship or bomber
Out over trees with blooms
Too red to look at.

Yusef Komunyaka “Believing in Iron”