senior moments

It's the time of the year when high school teachers write letters of recommendations for seniors. As my sister-in-law, a high school guidance counselor, says, some letters just write themselves, because she knows the student that well. Lately all the letters for which I have been responsible have been writing themselves. That is to say, I sit at the keyboard for several hours composing, revising, and editing, but I have plenty to say, lots of good material from several years of knowing the student and working in several capacities--English teacher, club sponsor, mentor, editor, encourager--and nothing remotely form letterish comes into play. Some letters I view as an opportunity to express my appreciation for the contribution the student has made to my classroom. I put myself in the role of the one who has benefited, collaborated with, seen the results of... all the hard work students put into their assignments and attitude. The students who accept their role of participant, collaborator, catalyst... make it fun to come to work every day. And the other students, who don't see the importance of their role yet... I keep encouraging.

playing possum

The seasons are trading off the four corners of the US. San Diego is having Death Valley temps, Boston is pushing Florida temps, Florida is unseasonably cool, and San Francisco is unpredictable as always.

Here is Eavan Boland's "Atlantis-- a Lost Sonnet"

How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder
that a whole city—arches, pillars, colonnades, 
not to mention vehicles and animals—had all 
one fine day gone under?

I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then.
Surely a great city must have been missed?
I miss our old city —

white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting 
under fanlights and low skies to go home in it. Maybe 
what really happened is 

this: the old fable-makers searched hard for a word
to convey that what is gone is gone forever and 
never found it. And so, in the best traditions of 

where we come from, they gave their sorrow a name
and drowned it.

How indeed? Must have been global warming.

Dear Blog,

Life is very full right now.

Nature's first green is gold, Frost says. Martha's second birthday is next Wednesday, and her days are golden. Fall is the season for traveling to New England. I will see family I know but little, and family I know well, and old friends I have known too little since too long ago. The weekend will be full of biblical women--Martha, Sarah, Judith.

Fall has brought a surprise hatching of swallowtail butterflies eating the nubbins off the fennel and parsley. October first, last Saturday, featured a turn of the calendar page and a jump shift to temperatures twenty degrees lower. So, thinking of Invisible Man's lower frequencies, I move into the change of season.