When I arrived at work this morning and got out of the car, the sky was radiating crimson and pink. When I arrived in my office a few moments later, I realized I’d left a part of James Joyce’s poem “Chamber Music” on my desk. The first few lines are very appropriate given the sky this morning:
Chamber Music
2
The twilight turns from amethyst
To deep and deeper blue,
The lamp fills with a pale green glow
The trees of the avenue.
The old piano plays an air,
Sedate and slow and gay;
She bends upon the yellow keys,
Her head inclines this way.
Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands
That wander as they list–
The twilight turns to darker blue
With lights of amethyst.
James Joyce
Also, on my desk this morning, a poem from “Cora Fry’s Pillow Book” by Rosellen Brown. This poem made me laugh, mostly because I was just telling someone the other day about our cat, Nimbus’s, secret plot to kill me, so he can take my spot in bed next to RJ, his one true love.
From “Cora Fry’s Pillow Book”
I hate to think how we make do: It’s me and Prance the cat.
I love the little cat–that’s not the point.
But all the warmth a woman wants
seems to be less the work of pile-up quilts,
let alone husbands whose legs entangle ours,
than the weight of the curve, the fur, the flick of whiskers
humped rumbling in the middle of the arctic bed.
Nothing’s more loyal, more quiet, more contented
than this smallest lover, this tender sac of bones and blood,
this delicate listening head.
Brianna Pike 