During my lunch breaks, my favourite thing to do now is to walk over to Worcester College, and find a comfy bench, and eat my lunch box offering while reading a poem or two from Being Alive (the sequel to the monstrously wonderful Staying Alive poetry collection). This week I read Planet Earth by P.K. Page, which I immediately snapped a photo of and sent it to Jacob. I loved how tactile it was, and reminded me of how my mother shows so much love in touch - smoothing my hair when I was sleepy, smoothing my forehead when I was worried, smoothing my back when I was sad.
When we were at Jacob's Mum's home this week, and saying goodbye, I knelt down face level with one of her cats, Hamish, and he gently touched his wet little nose to mine. He smelt like a biscuit, and I fell promptly in love.
And after our long run this weekend, and it was a weekend where I felt physically depleted and nauseous and achey, I soaked myself for a long time in hot bath water. The water steamed and was milky from soap, and I felt my whole body unravel. Coldness (and I know it's not very cold in Oxford now, but it sure feels cold to me) makes my whole being tense up, and being in warm water is the best cure I can imagine.
I am thankful for these good sensations.
Planet Earth
By P. K. Page
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,
has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness;
and the hands keep on moving,
smoothing the holy surfaces.
~ Pablo Neruda, ‘In Praise of Ironing’
It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens,
the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins
knowing their warp and woof,
like a lover coaxing, or a mother praising.
It has to be loved as if it were embroidered
with flowers and birds and two joined hearts upon it.
It has to be stretched and stroked.
It has to be celebrated.
O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it.
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet.
The trees must be washed, and the grasses and mosses.
They have to be polished as if made of green brass.
The rivers and little streams with their hidden cresses
and pale-coloured pebbles
and their fool's gold
must be washed and starched or shined into brightness,
the sheets of lake water
smoothed with the hand
and the foam of the oceans pressed into neatness.
It has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness
and pleated and offered, the flower-blue sea
the protean, wine-dark, grey, green, sea
with its metres of satin and bolts of brocade.
And sky -- such an O! overhead -- night and day
must be burnished and rubbed
by hands that are loving
so the blue blazons forth
and the stars keep on shining
within and above
and the hands keep on moving.
It has to be made bright, the skin of this planet
till it shines in the sun like gold leaf.
Archangels then will attend to its metals
and polish the rods of its rain.
Seraphim will stop singing hosannas
to shower it with blessings and blisses and praises
and, newly in love,
we must draw it and paint it
our pencils and brushes and loving caresses
smoothing the holy surfaces.
