First snow, late cranes

Opening my eyes yesterday morning,
first snow had been falling.

Few hours later I heard them singing.

But why would they fly northwards?!

Beers & Books CCCXL – In the Borderland

I'd suggest:
In the Borderland

Sherko Fatah * 28 November 1964

Beers & Books CCCXXXIX – Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie

Anarchy's brief summer:
the life and death of Buenaventura Durruti

 
Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022)

 

Beers & Books CCCXXXVIII – Never let me go

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro *8 November 1954

Beers & Books CCCXXXVII – German Autumn

German Autumn (1946)

Stig Dagerman (5 October 1923 – 4 November 1954)

Adios for a while

Surrounded by books
writing is nothing but joy.
And nights getting long.

Saturday Night Music – Moon Song*

Asmik Grigorian * 12 May 1981

Rusalka

Antonin Dvořák (8 September 1848 – 1 May 1904)

* for Paula @ el racó de sa luna ;-)

Friday is Skyday

Same procedure as last week.

Laughing Lhursday*

Cat(s) as cat(s) can.

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Beers & Books CCCXXXVI – Codename Adler

Code name Adler (Eagle)
Klaus Barbie and the Western secret services*

 
* Also highly recommended:
Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, which in 1988 won Marcel Ophuls the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature

Enough

The older I get, the less time I have to be diplomatic, which is why I'm not ill-disposed to (at least largely) put an end to blogging at the end of this month.
Time to write! Without scissors in head.
To put it with Seamus Heaney:
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests. ...

In praise of ...

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbed
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rotted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.


My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy neat the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney

Friday is Skyday

Rain barrel fillers approaching