Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry, poem by Ruth Stone

THINGS I SAY TO MYSELF WHILE HANGNG LAUNDRY
by Ruth Stone

If an ant, crossing on the clothesline

from apple tree to apple tree,

would think and think,

it probably could not dream up Albert Einstein.

Or even his sloppy moustache;

or the wrinkled skin bags under his eyes

that puffed out years later,

after he dreamed up that maddening relativity.

Even laundry is three-dimensional.

The ants cross its great fibrous forests
from clothespin to clothespin

carrying the very heart of life in their sacs or mandibles,

the very heart of the universe in their formic acid molecules.

And how refreshing the linens are,

lying in the clean sheets at night,

when you seem to be the only one on the mountain,

and your body feels the smooth touch of the bed
like love against your skin;

and the heavy sac of yourself relaxes into its embrace.

When you turn out the light,

you are blind in the dark

as perhaps the ants are blind,

with the same abstract leap out of this limiting dimension.

So that the very curve of light,

as it is pulled in the dimple of space,

is relative to your own blind pathway across the abyss.

And there in the dark is Albert Einstein

with his clever formula that looks like little mandibles

digging tunnels into the earth

and bringing it up, grain by grain,

the crystals of sand exploding
into white-hot radiant turbulence,

smiling at you, his shy bushy smile,

along an imaginary line from here to there.

“Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry” appears in Ruth Stone’s collection Simplicity (Paris Press, 1996), available at Amazon.com.

Photo: ”Our Clothesline Is the Favorite Place for Ants” by  *katherine*photo*, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ruth Stone was born on June 8, 1915, in Roanoke, Virginia. Her books of poetry include What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2008), a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize; In the Dark (2004); In the Next Galaxy (2002) which received the 2010 National Book Award; Ordinary Words (Paris Press, 1999), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award; Simplicity (1996); Who Is the Widow’s Muse (1991); Second Hand Coat (1987); Cheap (1975); Topography (1971); In an Iridescent Time (1959). Stone was the recipient of the 2002 Wallace Stevens Award and received two Guggenheim Fellowships, The Bess Hokin Award from Poetry magazine, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Vermont Cerf Award for lifetime achievement in the arts. She taught creative writing at several universities, including the State University of New York in Binghamton. A Vermont resident since 1957, she died at her home in Ripton, Vermont, on November 19, 2011. She was 96 years old. (Source: Poets.org)

Einstein’s Happiest Moment, poem by Richard M. Berlin

EINSTEIN’S HAPPIEST MOMENT
by Richard M. Berlin 

Einstein’s happiest moment
occurred when he realized
a falling man falling
beside a falling apple
could also be described
as an apple and a man at rest
while the world falls around them.

And my happiest moment
occurred when I realized
you were falling for me,
right down to the core, and the rest,
relatively speaking, has flown past
faster than the speed of light.
***
“Einstein’s Happiest Moment” appears in Richard M. Berlin’s collection Secret Wounds (BkMk Press, 2011), available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Richard M. Berlin received his undergraduate and medical education at Northwestern University. The winner of numerous poetry awards, his first collection of poems How JFK Killed My Father (Pearl Editions, 2003) won the Pearl Poetry Prize. He is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, Code Blue and The Prophecy. Berlin’s poetry has appeared widely in anthologies and such journals as Nimrod, JAMA, and The Lancet. His column “Poetry of the Times” has appeared for more than ten years in Psychiatric Times. He has established the Gerald Berlin Creative Writing Prize (named for his father) for medical students, nursing students, and resident physicians at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where the author is a senior affiliate of psychiatry. He has published more than sixty scientific papers and has edited Sleep Disorders in Psychiatric Practice and Poets on Prozac: Mental Illness, Treatment, and the Creative Process. He practices psychiatry in a small town in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. Visit him at richardmberlin.com.

Painting: “The Son of Man” by René Magritte (1964).

Read your children fairy tales, quote by Albert Einstein

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ALBERT EINSTEIN

Photo: Model Twiggy reads to daughter Carly (born 1978).

Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry, poem by Ruth Stone

THINGS I SAY TO MYSELF WHILE HANGNG LAUNDRY
by Ruth Stone

If an ant, crossing on the clothesline

from apple tree to apple tree,

would think and think,

it probably could not dream up Albert Einstein.

Or even his sloppy moustache;

or the wrinkled skin bags under his eyes

that puffed out years later,

after he dreamed up that maddening relativity.

Even laundry is three-dimensional.

The ants cross its great fibrous forests
from clothespin to clothespin

carrying the very heart of life in their sacs or mandibles,

the very heart of the universe in their formic acid molecules.

And how refreshing the linens are,

lying in the clean sheets at night,

when you seem to be the only one on the mountain,

and your body feels the smooth touch of the bed
like love against your skin;

and the heavy sac of yourself relaxes into its embrace.

When you turn out the light,

you are blind in the dark

as perhaps the ants are blind,

with the same abstract leap out of this limiting dimension.

So that the very curve of light,

as it is pulled in the dimple of space,

is relative to your own blind pathway across the abyss.

And there in the dark is Albert Einstein

with his clever formula that looks like little mandibles

digging tunnels into the earth

and bringing it up, grain by grain,

the crystals of sand exploding
into white-hot radiant turbulence,

smiling at you, his shy bushy smile,

along an imaginary line from here to there.

“Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry” appears in Ruth Stone’s collection Simplicity (Paris Press, 1996), available at Amazon.com.

Photo: “Our Clothesline Is the Favorite Place for Ants” by  *katherine*photo*, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ruth Stone was born on June 8, 1915, in Roanoke, Virginia. Her books of poetry include What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2008), a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize; In the Dark (2004); In the Next Galaxy (2002) which received the 2010 National Book Award; Ordinary Words (Paris Press, 1999), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award; Simplicity (1996); Who Is the Widow’s Muse (1991); Second Hand Coat (1987); Cheap (1975); Topography (1971); In an Iridescent Time (1959). Stone was the recipient of the 2002 Wallace Stevens Award and received two Guggenheim Fellowships, The Bess Hokin Award from Poetry magazine, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Vermont Cerf Award for lifetime achievement in the arts. She taught creative writing at several universities, including the State University of New York in Binghamton. A Vermont resident since 1957, she died at her home in Ripton, Vermont, on November 19, 2011. She was 96 years old. (Source: Poets.org)

Read Your Children Fairy Tales, Quote by Albert Einstein

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Photo: Model Twiggy reads to daughter Carly (born 1978).

Everybody is a Genius, Op-Ed by Albert Einstein

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Illustration: “Sky and Water I” (1938), Woodcut by M.C. Escher

Note: I woke up thinking about this Escher illustration today and just had to find a way to include it. I often see Escher images when I have a migraine coming on — and hope that’s not the case today!

Albert Einstein, Fashionista

Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy.” ALBERT EINSTEIN

I shot the above photo this afternoon near LAX and was struck by the motorcyclist’s red and white striped helmet and red, white, and blue checked shirt. Must say I like his style!