Big sisters are always right

When my older sister (or my much older sister, as I like to call her when I think she needs to be taken down a peg or two) was born, she got every single ‘ability to organize’ gene from our mother. By the time my younger (not all that much younger) sister came along, some of those depleted  genes might have built back up and passed to her.
Sadly, instead of the gene that helps me sort and collate and coordinate and prioritize, I got an extra several thousand molecules of ‘just read a book and drink coffee.’

So when Older Sister pointed out that my blog is called ‘The Tuesday Prude’ but my sporadic posts are often on any day but Tuesday, I put down my book, took a fortifying swig of coffee, and explained:
“‘Tuesday Prude’ was chosen because I like the way it sounds.”
Such a delightful internal assonance. And I had great intentions of posting every Tuesday. Just like this morning I had great intentions of beginning a paleo lifestyle. Once the loaf of bread is gone.
For some inexplicable reason, Tuesdays are SO HARD for me.

But, because Older Sister is usually right, and because I’m taking cues from the open and transparent and forthright political climate,
I’m turning over a new leaf, and posting on a Tuesday.
(Remember though, in this political climate, new leaves only last a week.)

Here is an old poem from an old book of my dad’s, that my youngest son had newly bound for my Christmas present. I like this poem. Poets always talk of geese leaving in the fall. But here in my neighborhood they are back, and clamoring in excitement over the marsh’s receding ice-line.
I’m squawking and flapping right along with them.

SONY DSC

Wild Goose in Spring

Wild Geese
Robert P. Tristram Coffin

Beauty is coming north again
Slanting eager as the rain;
With necks like arrows on a bow
Across the sky the wild geese go.

Beauty is coming moulded by
High winds of the upper sky
Into shapes that burn to be
In a patterned symmetry.

Loveliness comes like a host
Of lean ships headed for a coast,
Every sail and every keel
Pointed at a common weal.

Comeliness in company,
Every wing where it should be,
Their feathers are communal things,
They help each other with their wings.