afternoon prayer july 20th, 2000 alas, my slothness once again takes over. i must clip from an email i sent earlier this evening to the lovely amber... *snip snip* it's four a.m. and i just got miss Aisling to sleep...actually she was asleep at about nine, and i went to take a nap too, but then doug called and woke me up and in the midst of our conversation (perhaps stemmed by myself talking too loudly) she woke up and decided to terrorize everything for a few more hours. ;) she's a cutie, it just seems she's becoming more and more of a handful every day. i think she's getting bored with a lot of her toys, and just sitting around the house all day. she seems to fare better when we are over at my grandparents' house and there are new things to explore, or best even outside where she can play and go wherever she wants as much as she wants. it's difficult, because in the summer months, i tend to want to hide away from the sun and shrink up into my nice and cool air conditioned house and wait for the autumn to bring bright colours and much cooler weather, but Ash is pretty insistant on spending at least a little time every day outdoors. she especially loves her little tree-swing. she could stay in that thing for hours. i've been attempting to catalogue my video-tapes again - rather unsuccessfully, i might add. i have all of these little projects, and i keep working on a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. today i ran a few errands in town and ended up stopping at goodwill for a few minutes and finding some pretty amazing things...a small little fun sunflower sundress, a cure album called "concert and curiousities", the spin doctors "pocket full of kryptonite" which i've been debating whether or not i should buy it for a couple of months now, and a book called "blue highways" that looked promising and made me automatically think of erin, so i picked it up. all this for seven bucks. gotta love thrift stores. i'm convinced i simply keep cleaning the house over and over, and it never gets any better. right after i clean, there is about a 17 hour period where i can breathe and relax and think, "wow, things look pretty nice." but after 17 hours are over, everything is piling up on top of me and i find myself wondering if i'm ever going to find a system to adhere to. i know things will be a lot easier after mum moves out and i have a little more space to put things - i'm going to miss mum a lot, of course, but i know it will make housecleaning easier. plus, if i would ever get to the point where i would actually clean *everything* including my room, i could probably keep things in their proper places a lot easier. i know i'm a hell of a lot more organized than i used to be, ten times more domestic, and my house now compared to my living conditions i was satisfied with two years ago makes me look like mrs. cleaver, but there's still something unsettling about it. i know what a lot of it is, as much as i hate to admit it - i simply have too much stuff. i'm such a pack rat, and i keep everything, even if i don't like it anymore, or have absolutely no use for it whatsoever. i think my grandmother's mentality that "everything might come in handy, someday" has gotten me into some trouble with my housekeeping ability. once i *do* finally get everything squared away, i plan to give my entire house a good going-through, tossing out everything i've outgrown and outworn, or stuff i simply don't like anymore, and things that don't hold a very specific and important sentimental value. (for example, i don't need to keep *all* of my valentine cards from the first grade, only those of the people i remember and liked. and there aren't very many of those.) *snip snip* i discovered something tonight, in my putterings around the web, or rather i suppose i should say i *rediscovered* some*one*. a miss rowan darkelf that i used to penpal to and from with a bit "back in the day", or "once upon a time." it was a nice little trip down memory lane. and it makes me wonder just how many of my penpals i had so very much in common with and i just totally lost touch with them because i'm a lazy bitch. (well, *that's* a little harsh, but you get the idea...) i wrote a poem today, my first poem in months. and the first poem in a long time that i am decently happy with. it's entitled, "afternoon prayer". stuffed giraffes and dinosaurs stand sentinel between the wooden balconies as they exchange glass-eyed-stares - the world transmutes to paper and doubles over on itself in soft, insubstantial folds this origami that is earth the road stretches both ways - to the north, above you - to the south, below - in a slope defined with graph paper and quadratic equations - yellow bird, black wings - gravel cracks against the heat - toes are emancipated from their anklets and chains - a sea of mountains rolls on forever in one frozen smoky tide as far as one eye might reach (twice the distance of mast to anchor - an eternity measured in leagues, stretching far beyond vision) across the river, we tiptoe over chainlink bridges holding our breath - the priest ascends, her rings broken twice, her wheels drenched in a soft coat of faith from this afternoon's rain - if you go down about eight feet you'll strike haunted caverns, lost seas, and tennessee clay (after you divide the shale from the sunflowers you're left with nothing but seeds) still, it isn't every afternoon you are kissed by butterflies feverently and with purpose as if they were driving you on and down (encouragement) "run" they whisper and "wild" and "why" and you are lost in the wings and the petals and the colours of one soft whispering afernoon prayer and the world cries out, "i knew there was a poet hiding in you somewhere!" or perhaps that was just me. sometimes i get scared that i've lost my voice forever. afternoons such as these help me to realize i haven't. sometimes you just have to be quiet for a while.