for seeing (barely, briefly) a pair of cardinals in the yard this morning on my way to work: a brilliant, indistinct hurry of flight in my peripheral vision. a blessing.

*

for the work of seamus heaney, who died this morning. i've loved so many of his poems ("blackberry-picking" and "oysters" in particular) and it's been an unexpected pleasure today to realize how many pieces of his i'd never read, and to discover some of them for the first time.

this bit from "squarings," which i read for the first time tonight via dan chiasson's reflection in the new yorker, gives me chills:

Once, as a child, out in a field of sheep,
Thomas Hardy pretended to be dead
And lay down flat among their dainty shins.

In that sniffed-at, bleated-into, grassy space
He experimented with infinity.
His small cool brow was like an anvil waiting

For sky to make it sing the perfect pitch
Of his dumb being, and that stir he caused
In the fleece-hustle was the original

Of a ripple that would travel eighty years
Outward from there, to be the same ripple
Inside him at its last circumference.

*

for roo, who is so happy to see audra's face when she walks in that he bursts out laughing.

*

for audra, who rescued the ginger nectarine jam i made the other night (which had, i thought, turned out badly) to invent a spicy, delicious sauce for chicken.