checking in

So being on break seems to have meant more work than I'd have thought, in part because of having to turn in grades (no easy task when you have have to evaluate 63 final projects, think about things like participation, earlier assignments, and oddly enough, grades are due on the 30th of December but university offices are closed until 5 January, there's some planning), the discovery that the PEN Translation grant application deadline is this week (and not at February 1), and the realization that if I didn't get through some other work (for work I'll be doing later this year) I'd never move forward.

Happily, I got the grades in, finished the application and have started working on some new poems. So the complaining ends. Next week I do have to go into school to get readers in place for two classes I'm teaching in the spring.

But here is a poem I'm pleased with:

Music Central

on this one F train
on violin and trombone
two men are playing
Those Were the Days
a song from when
I was young
about a woman growing older
I remember watching
the singer sing the song
on television
I think, was it the Ed Sullivan Show
now someone is
playing an accordion
something sweet
and just as familiar
though I can’t put
a name on it
at the next stop
Delancey
he’s off the train
but like
Those Were the Days
a song from when
I was young
when really there weren’t any days
to remember or regret
the way there are now


abrazos a todos

Mark