I wrote an impromptu poem, which I would like to share:

Oh, Coffee,
thou ambrosia of mortals -
you flush my veins with
sweet caffeine
and buoy me up
when days are long.

Oh, Coffee!
How I love thee
in the morning at my desk
on the weekends at my table
my ever present companion
beside magazines and books.

Oh, Coffee!
I will shout from the rooftops
that were it not for you
I would surely be
unemployed.

(c) Sojourness, 2008.

I posted this here three years ago and just found it again. It is so beautiful and haunting.

Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom I once loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

- Edward Thomas

According to Anita's website, my goddess birth sign is Demeter. What does this say about me? Well, Demeter was very maternal - remember how crazy she went when her daughter, Persephone, was abducted? She also controls the harvest and some such. Does that mean I'm earthy? I definitely think I'm maternal, though I'm not a mother yet.

That was kind of random but I was puttering around her site. It's fun and inspiring, though I don't necessarily buy everything.

We got a new person in Sales today, though I hadn't heard anything about it. I guess when you miss a day you fall out of the loop :P One of our Sales guys just came over and introduced her to me, saying, "This is Sojourness, the only Marketing person who comes in before 10:00." Hee hee.

I am thinking of checking out the local poetry slams. I wrote something last night that could be a slam piece, though I am not bold enough to be a slam performer. I figure I should go and listen and maybe I can get up courage to perform my piece in the future. After all, I never thought I would be able to read "regular" poetry in front of people but I do it now with some degree of ease. Some things you just have to force yourself to do, and they are so rewarding.

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

- Lord Byron, 1814.

Yoga was hard yesterday, and quite painful, but I am glad that I did it and will go back. Boyfriend promised to do the next class with me.

The nutrition thing is what I have a hard time with. Exercise is all well and good, but how much can it really do when you have dinner immediately afterwards at a hamburger joint? I am working on it all the time ... what can I say? Just exercising regularly is more than I have done in a long time so I am trying not to beat myself up too much.

The meditation is working. Anyone who has been around me the last couple of days, as Boyfriend has, might not believe it, but I can feel a difference. Yes, I still have road rage and yes, my hormones are still a little off. My emotions fluctuate but it is not really my fault. I am also facing a few weeks in Austin alone when Boyfriend's parents visit the East coast and he goes to meet them while I stay at my stinky job (I kid, I kid), so I am both nervous and worried. But aside from all that, I feel more peaceful, more calm. Some things that normally set me off (the aforementioned ones notwithstanding) have not. I have taken upsetting things in stride and still felt peace. The mantras come back to me throughout the day, even when I am not meditating. Last night I changed it to "Shanti shanti shanti," or "Peace, peace, peace," which is exactly what I need in life. Peace. It is also at the end of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" which gives my meditation a literary feel. When I am more advanced I am going to add to it:

"Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shanti."

I was thinking last night that I would love to go to the park with Boyfriend and lay in the grass and read "The Waste Land" to him. Doesn't that sound wonderful and summery? Only thing is it seems nicer in my head than it might actually be in the sweltering Texas sun.

"These fragments I have shored against my ruins..."

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

- T.S. Eliot

Before summer rain

Since my first full-time office job over two years ago, I developed this habit of carrying around small notebooks. I write down encouraging or funny things people say, reminders and to-do lists for myself, and sometimes thoughts or diary entries. The notebook habit began when I was bored at work and would write down little poems (by real poets, not my own) on the pages. Ever since, it has been like a Zen thing for me - it calms me and gives me peace and a bit of beauty when things get too complicated. The other day I wrote down "Before Summer Rain," by Rainer Maria Rilke:

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something -- you don't know what -- has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

Happy V Day

i love you much(most beautiful darling)

more than anyone on the earth and i
like you better than everything in the sky

--sunlight and singing welcome your coming

although winter may be everywhere
with such a silence and such a darkness
noone can quite begin to guess

(except my life)the true time of year--

and if what calls itself a world should have
the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such
sunlight as will leap higher than high
through gayer than gayest someone's heart at your each

nearness)everyone certainly would(my
most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love

-- ee cummings --