Cheryl Snell's Blog, page 17
February 3, 2012
February 2, 2012
Wit and Wisdom from FaceBook
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January 30, 2012
January 27, 2012
Evgeny Kissin: Happy Birthday
It's Mozart's birthday!
January 25, 2012
January 22, 2012
January 19, 2012
January 17, 2012
My Winter Poem
Flicker Vertigo
Two old pilots play chess in the park, hearing aids off,
cataract eyes unable to track disturbances
in an air of newsreel memories. Contrails corkscrew
toward animals cringing in their furs like dowagers
in a bad neighborhood and glint struck off a propeller
tells a story begun far from here, a parable unreeling
in air made luminous with silver nitrate and dust.
In their wars, charged images flicked past
too fast to register. Information received at 15 spins/second
always condenses thought to pudding, ricochets
off the exits and perpetual threat of fire. A riffle of stills
can fool the eye into a perception of continuous motion.
The brain fills in what's missing, blanks between light and light,
a corrugated sky hanging over the theater's false ceiling.
Wounds still bloom where there is a pounding in the temple,
fists full of summer poppies pushing through
the scarred gray crust of winter.
January 14, 2012
Pongal
In my novel RESCUING RANU, I set a scene in the third day of the festival:
Nela and Ranu looked out on a passing parade of decorated cattle, horns painted and covered with shining metal caps. Multi- colored beads, tinkling bells, sheaves of corn and flower garlands surrounded their necks. "It is Mattu Pongal," the girl declared. "End of winter!"
"It is why we take oil baths," Nela told her. The girl cocked her head. She had only learned the ritual, not the origins. Nela said, "Once Shiva asked his bull, Basava, to go to the earth and ask the mortals to have an oil bath every day and to eat once a month. But Basava made a mistake. He announced that everyone should eat daily and have an oil bath once a month! Shiva banished Basava to live on earth forever. He would have to plough the fields. This is why we appreciate him."
Something, a detail, the half-glimpsed gesture, a particular scent perhaps, caught Nela's attention just then. She did not answer Ranu's stream of questions about the bull, but scanned the scene before her, narrowing her eyes to sharpen her vision. Nearly lost among the commotion of lowing beasts, shouting vendors, and rickshaws, she saw a disheveled man slumped in a chair. He was stirring his drink as if that small motion took all of his strength. His skin, waxy and hanging like steamed folds of fabric, looked feverish even from a distance. Nela's body recognized him before her brain remembered his name. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.
