Work

Piece by piece

The puzzle is assembled.

Hour after hour

Levers are jammed beneath

The ungainly blocks

Of hard facts

And rough numbers –

Tonnage lifted,

Grunting,

Sweat stinging

The mind’s eye.

As we muscle them into

The stubborn spaces

That made our work

For the day.

While the mortar dries

We stood back and smiled.

Then pack up our tools  

In the long shadows

Of the coming night,

Relieved it justified

Our confidence   

In the bright morning light

we started out in.

My Autumn

Autumn

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes

 The casement all the day

And from the mossy elm tree takes

 The faded leaf away

Twirling it by the window-pane

With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig

 Dance till the shut of eve

The sparrow on the cottage rig

 Whose chirp would make believe

That spring was just now flirting by

In summers lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke

 Curl upwards through the naked trees

The pigeons nestled round the coat

 On dull November days like these

The cock upon the dung-hill crowing

The mill sails on the heath a-going

The feather from the ravens breast

 Falls on the stubble lea

The acorns near the old crows nest

 Fall pattering down the tree

The grunting pigs that wait for all

Scramble and hurry where they fall

John Clare

Grateful

He had been through the arc of the storm.
From the distant rumble of angry air
Electrified and bitter berry black
To the last drop of the downpour gone,
On a summer breeze and the song of a bird.

He felt he shouldered the whole of God’s plan for himself.
From the space carved out in God’s love by the fallen one
To the righteous light of his deliverance from that dark, desolate space.

It was St. Augustinus who led him through that storm.
The Roman star once rising and shining above
The sun-bleached bones of Carthage.
That reluctant bishop of Hippo.
It was his path he followed from Plato,
To Plotinus, to Christ the Savior.
St. Augustinus – his gate to a deeper truth,
His higher calling above
The ship-wrecking wind of his own will.

How grateful he was to this father of the ancient church,
This pillar of God’s word.
The stone rejected now the corner stone
In his storm shelter built
From God’s eternal love and forgiveness.

Parenting Over Time

The connection between parents and the children can be looked at as an inverse relationship measured over time.

While the parents are building a family support network, growing closer to their child day by day, the child is learning to be increasingly independent. As a result, that intricate network is ‘deconstructed’ a little bit everyday. Eventually, it is reduced to a minimal frame work which barely resembles what it once was.

The morning after I drove my second to college, I fully realized my parental routines of twenty four years became that minimal frame work in just the space of a day. Being in the middle of that routine, I did not make any kind of after plan for the final day.

It left a large hole in the center of my life.

Over the course of the next few weeks, this realization rolled through my mind and cast a heavy shadow darkening my conscious and unconscious thoughts. Eventual, my definition of the relationship with my children was reshaped from a mathematical formula of sorts to a fairy tale like metaphor.

The Gift of a Cottage

‘A husband and wife are given a tiny cottage of unique design. Immediately, they feel a deep and joyful attachment to it which grows stronger everyday. This attachment moves them to build a home beside it. Eventually, they enlarge their new home and it encircles the small cottage. All the doors and windows of that new home look out on the cottage making it the center of their lives.

One morning the couple woke up and found that the cottage was gone. They always knew that day would arrive but ignored it for years. They were so enamored with their gift, they could not bear for long the thought of losing it.

In the days after, they tried to fill that empty space with memories of what was there. They soon found that memories are like friendly spirits; welcome at first but eventually they haunt their hosts with what is ultimately lost to them.

They also found that memories, like spirits, can be translucent as colored glass or a morning mist. No matter how many memories they put in that space, they saw through them all and onto the doors and window of their own house; all reminders of the space they could not fill.

It was a hard time for them but together they managed to unwind the inoperative connections and close off the doors and windows they would never use again. Over time they filled that space with new things to celebrate, develop and care for. ‘

Since that day I have learned that at the right time letting go and moving on can be just as important as holding on and being present.

There are places in your heart you will never know exist until you raise your own children.

Chicken Grillin’

For the last few years, I have been cooking chicken breasts for my wife to put on the salads that she takes to work.

The plan was to create a simple and quick recipe, this way I would be able to prepare it every week, no matter how busy I was. Having gotten this process to a place of semi-perfection, (nothing I do ever gets to really be called perfect, just exceptional near misses) its’ time to share what I have learned.

Essentially, I am marinating two large boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a 12 oz freezer bag and letting them infuse with flavor over night in order to be cooked off the next day. I use a basic marinade base – 6 oz salad oil to 2 oz of white vinegar. Different ingredients are added to this base to create a specific flavor. The addition of an acid, the vinegar and lemon juice, break down the protein and tenderize the chicken. The addition of salad oil spreads the flavor over the chicken as well as aids in the grilling process by not allowing the breast to stick to the grill grates.

If the juice of a citrus fruit is added, you may want to reduce the vinegar a little. On the marinades with heavier flavors, try red wine vinegar instead of white. On the liter flavored marinades, try rice wine vinegar instead of white.

The first step is to pound down the thick side of the breasts. (When the handles of my old rolling pin broke off, I converted it to a cutlery bat.) Place the breasts in the freezer bag and close the zip lock. Now, firmly and steadily pound down the thick side with a cutlery bat or the flat side of a meat hammer. Don’t pound is so hard that it tears; five or six good hits all around that area should be sufficient. Flattening that thick end helps them to cook more evenly; locking it in the bag keeps the raw chicken from flying all over your kitchen.

The chicken can be cooked on the grill, or, the entire contents of the bag can be poured into a small roasting pan, covered with foil, and baked at 400 until done. Try cooking it one way, then the other, and you will taste a significant difference in the flavor and texture.

All recipes were seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

A few more comments that may be useful.

When adding the flavoring to the bag, put half the ingredients on one side and half on the other.

If you are able, flip the bag over a few hours after it goes in the fridge.

Put the bag in a container, it may leak. I learned that the hard way!

When storing the chicken after using the baking process, leave behind the oil, but keep the herbs and onions, or garlic.

Below are the combinations that my lovely wife chose as her favorites.

Ingredients

Dionysus Delight.

1 – 2 Tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped with stems.

Juice from 1/2 Large Lemon. Sometimes I rough chop the squeezed lemon and put that in the bag too.

2-3 Large cloves garlic, peeled, chopped.

Roman Holiday

Basil, 3 – 4 Tablespoons, chopped

Parsley, Flat, 1/2 cup, chopped, leaves and stems

Lemon, Large, 1/2, squeezed for the juice

1-2 Large cloves of fresh garlic, peeled, chopped.

Sub salad oil for olive oil.

Mexican Holiday

One half of a medium sized onion, peeled, med dice

Cilantro, 1 cup, chopped, stems and leaves

Cumin, 1Tablespoon

Chili powder, 1/2 Tablespoon, optional

Liquid smoke, 1/4 Teaspoon, optional

Picnic in Brittany

Basil 3-4 Tablespoons chopped, leaves and stems

Parsley, Flat, 1/2 cup, chopped, leaves and stems

1/2 Teaspoon green peppercorns, in brine, crushed

Half of a medium onion, peeled, med dice

Picnic in Brittany – the following weekend

3 Tablespoons of rosemary, chopped

1/2 Lemon, large, squeezed for the juice

1/2 Table spoon, capers, chopped

1 Garlic clove, peeled chopped

Happy Cooking and be thankful for what you have !

July 4th Reading List

Happy birthday America!

Here is a reading list for every lover of liberty, individual rights, property rights and religious freedom.

In these turbulent times, with tyranny threatening out liberty more then ever, and from every conceivable quarter in our society, we owe it to ourselves and our posterity to keep alive the ideas in these great works. If we do, we will keep the light of liberty shining for another generation.

God bless America.