Socially Distant Cuisine

His goal in life was to be an echo The type of sound that floats around and then back down Like a feather But in the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans No one could hear him Or anything Wilco. Hummingbird.

Robert Hass Many are making love. Up above, the angels in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond and the texture of cold rivers. They glance down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy-- it must look to them like featherless birds splashing in the spring puddle of a bed-- and then one woman, she is about to come, peels back the man's shut eyelids and says, look at me, and he does. Or is it the man tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater? Anyway, they do, they look at each other; two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious, startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet lubricious glue, stare at each other, and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically like lithographs of Victorian beggars with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags in the lewd alleys of the novel. All of creation is offended by this distress. It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes,

Frank Bidart up or down from the infinite C E N T E R B R I M M I N G at the winking rim of time the voice in my head said LOVE IS THE DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND WHAT YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE * then I saw the parade of my loves those PERFORMERS comics actors singers forgetful of my very self so often I desired to die to myself to live in them then my PARENTS my FRIENDS the drained SPECTRES once filled with my baffled infatuations love and guilt and fury and sweetness for whom nail spirit yearning to the earth * then the voice in my head said WHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE OR LIVE IN DIVIDED CEASELESS REVOLT AGAINST IT WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE 1984

That man he had no resistance in him Even as they brought him to his death I resist every moment that I have I fear the future I rewrite my past Maybe it's peace that lies beyond fear and desire Maybe it's peace that's calling me home If I pass through the doorway of fear and desire Maybe it's peace that will welcome me home I knew there must be a way for the finding Though I feared it could not be of this world If I worry or speak ill of you I'll just say a prayer or two And my soul will remind me I'm still loving you Chorus ©2004 Heaton/Marotta

This morning on the Orange Line train to work, Singing Metro Man made an appearance. If you ride the Orange or the Blue Line, you may know of him...I’ve heard from other passengers that he’s been around for years, though I can only confirm the last three. He’s an elderly Asian gentleman, well-dressed, who steps onto the train right before the doors close. Once the train begins to move, he clears his throat, says a polite but insistent “Excuse me,” and begins to sing a hymn from his songbook. The effect is eerie. The silent morning train, everyone still half-asleep before their first cup of coffee. The whoosh of the tunnel. The man’s gentle, earnest voice singing a capella (he’s not half bad) about how we should trust in Jesus. As he reached his crescendo this morning, I half expected the train to explode or something—the moment just felt very... cinematic. Luckily, life is not a movie, and after the song was done, he wished us all a good day, exited the train and moved to the n

The most e-mailed article in the NYT for 2 days running? A ruminition on Mac N Cheese, with a couple of recipes. I tried the one for Creamy Macaroni and Cheese tonight-- and Lord! So good. Just to test the recipe, I followed the directions to the letter... it was delicious, though I think I could have easily included about 50% more pasta for all the sauce it made. It was super easy (no yukky white sauce to make/burn, don't need to precook the pasta), and amazing. It probably wouldn't taste that different with lowfat cottage cheese and 1% or skim milk... next time, I'll try that.