I have a date tonight.

That is all.

(Well, OK, it actually isn't all.

This is a date with a 20-something man who winked at me on OKC on July 22. His self-summary was a poem about goal-setting and among the things he cannot live without is turmeric.

We got to exchanging e-mails a couple days later; he appealed to me in that he liked to cook curry, liked to run, liked to rock climb, and said, "I dunno about cynicism in general but if it's Boston induced - I can say that coming from Mumabi via NYC it's better to yell and curse rather than just go with the flow."

And we never got around to going for a Beer because he went to India for awhile, but he reappeared a couple weeks ago and I'm not otherwise occupied this weekend, so we're getting around to it. I thought perhaps it would just be a Beer and asked him to choose where we go. He responded with 5 (count 'em, 5) options ... ranging from a pub in Dorchester to the the MFA to a carnival in West Springfield to the Acton Jazz Cafe ...

This is some serious enthusiasm. A serious date. So much so that to expound any further on this enthusiastic date might jinx it.

So we've made the plan: a possibly pretentious (his words) place in Mission Hill for a cocktail, and then to Wally's Cafe on Mass Ave for jazz. Hopefully good jazz.

And that indeed is all, finally.)

Happy Friday.

(Yet Another) Good Poem

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

--Mary Oliver 

Good poem

Wild Water

Insidious cruelty is this
that will allow the heart
a scent of wild water
in the arid land --
that holds out the cup
but to withdraw the hand.

Then says to the heart: Be glad
that you have beheld the font
where lies requitement,
and identified your thirst.
Now, heart, take up your desert,
this spring is cursed.

--May Swenson (1913-89)

A (sort of) Good Poem

There once was a girl
Who had great intentions
Of a great Thursday blogpost

But who was instead
consumed by
work (really!) and
getting ready to leave for
Reach the Beach Relay
(her 5th occasion of)
and ended up with
nothing to say and
no time to say it.

So, instead
she will
just post
a photo of the
Bubbly Sex Pot

(at Prohibition in downtown MSP)
and the
(inebriated) feet
of the 6 girls
who drank 2 of them
and lived to tell the tale.

(She realized it had been a
good party and
she'd never
told you about it.
You can guess
which one is her,
if you want.)

And
she'll see you again
on Sunday
(20 miles o'running
worse, or better,
for the wear).

Another Good Poem

Swimmers

Tossed
by the muscular sea,
we are lost,
and glad to be lost
in troughs of rough

love. A bath in
laughter, our dive
into foam,
our upslide and float
on the surf of desire.

But sucked to the root
of the water-mountain --
immense --
about to tip upon us
the terror of total

delight --
we are towed,
helpless in its
swell, by hooks
of our hair;

then dangled, let go,
made to race --
as the wrestling chest
of the sea, itself
tangled, tumbles

in its own embrace.
Our limbs like eels
are water-boned,
our faces lost
to difference and

contour, as the lapping
crests.
They cease
their charge,
and rock us

in repeating hammocks
of the releasing
tide --
until supine we glide,
on cool green

smiles
of an exhaling
gladiator,
to the shore
of sleep.

--May Swenson

Good morning to you (too)

Yes. I'm cynical.  I no longer get misty when a man sends a poem as form of online introduction  Most of the time he's lifted it from some other source. All of the time it indicates an easy-out rather than something more genuine.

This morning I received this (which, when Googled, is found to live on dozens of Hindi text-message sites) from yet another early-20s (and ostensible) college student from Allston-Brighton:

Look
Outside
It’s So
Pleasant !
Sun
Smiling
For
You !
Trees
Dancing
For
You
Wind
Singing
For
You !
Because,
I have told them
all To Wish You
Good Morning.

Since it indeed has (finally) stopped raining, despite a lingering fog, he's almost (actually) persuaded me.

Good poem (sung)

Sleep

The evening hangs beneath the moon
A silver thread on darkened dune
With closing eyes and resting head
I know that sleep is coming soon

Upon my pillow, safe in bed,
A thousand pictures fill my head,
I cannot sleep, my minds aflight,
And yet my limbs seem made of lead

If there are noises in the night,
A frightening shadow, flickering light…
Then I surrender unto sleep,
Where clouds of dream give second sight.

What dreams may come, both dark and deep
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep
As I surrender unto sleep.

-- Charles Anthony Silvestri

Day 4 of 28:  4.65 miles

February Total:  8.4

2011 Total: 58.41

Good poem (sung II)

I Love, I Love (Traveling II)*
from The Honesty Room (1995)

I heard love can fall so hard, it can bury a kingdom
I heard it makes the spring appear out of season
It's a storm in a shadowbox, a force to be reckoned with,
When it finds you and find you, it will.

And I'd not believed it til I loved, I love
The rivers sing and stars awaken above me
And the wind and the moon in fits of restless conspiring
Turn night to heaven for you.

But I am going to a far, far land
I know it sure as I've a past and a future
With my maps on the table, you see, I have lost many things
So many I won't turn back.

And were I a deadwood ship, my heart a compass
I would leave with inanimate grace, no love could touch me
But I live and I know that I'll burn as I grow
Though it might break my heart to walk away and so

As a moon may adore you and remain, high moon
The wind may crown your head with leaves, and keep blowing
So I'll stop and I'll watch you, for I love, I love
And then be on my way. And then be on my way.

--Dar Williams

*recommended
if you need something to

unexpectedly bring you to tears

on an overcast Thursday afternoon at the office

Day 24 of 28: 2.45 miles
February Total: 45.46
2011 Total: 95.46