Weird Cookies and a Weyant Poem

Just had a weird error message about cookies pop up that took some time to unravel. I have trust issues with technology and believe that following Google’s instructions probably caused some other problem somewhere of which I won’t be aware for days or weeks to come.

I’m on my last day of grading binges to clear out my Comp I papers. I still have World Lit research papers to grade, but I have week left to get those done before the Tksgiving break (my goal). I find myself hoarding links to blogs I want to re-read with more time and stacking books in precarious piles on the to-read shelf.

It is great when life is full, but I struggle to learn the balancing act that will prevent burning out again.

I’ll leave you with a poem from Karen Weyant’s beautiful chapbook Stealing Dust, a book I read months ago and didn’t have a chance to write about here.

Joyride

The night after a three-point turn on a test
gave her a driver’s license, my best friend
borrowed her mother’s car, missed the turn
at Potter’s Grove, plowed into a cornfield.
In the passenger’s seat, I laughed
giving directions, back wheels spinning
through October mud and ears bent low,
silk brown and damp. That’s how
it was like with us: two girls always threatening
to leave what we called a one-stoplight town,
when in fact there were three, often green,
short-circuited, a squirrel chewing through
a stray wire, a storm snapping a loose cable
in two. It should have been easy,
but there was always a check engine light,
a crack in the window, a rear tire worn raw.
It took us years to figure it all out —
all we needed to do was throw a suitcase
in the backseat, tilt the rearview window away,
so we couldn’t see what fell behind us:
strings of stores sealed tight with plywood,
street lights dull, even in the darkest of dusks.