Because No One's Cheerful All the Time...

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone for Roundup.

There have been some exciting things this week, including:

...an early morning phone call with Radio Europe (in Spain!), sharing about THE CAT MAN OF ALEPPO.

...the arrival of a single author copy of WILD PEACE. I would buy this book for its endpapers alone... bravo, Il Sung Na! 

...also in the mailbox, the Japanese edition of CAT MAN. (You can imagine how special this is to Yuko Shimizu!)

...Betsy Bird's cover reveal of AFRICAN TOWN (and interview with me and Charles) over at A Fuse #8 Production.

...and a new octopus friend to add to my collection, thanks to a dear one among us. 🐙 I'm so grateful for this community!

For today's ArtSpeak: FOUR SEASONS poem, I return to van Gogh. We've had a lot of storms lately, and that kind of shows up in this poem! Thank you so much for reading.

Sometimes

Clouds rise,
thunder calls—

somewhere,
a raven:

caw caw
             caw—

Sun sputters,
cypress shudders.

No one's cheerful
all the time—

not even             summer.
- Irene Latham