Happy new gregorian year!

The dust of our move is slowly settling, and we are doing what we can to prepare for the arrival of our new baby (due date January 20, 2012). A few false alarms over the holidays notwithstanding (contractions are scary over the holiday period because (a) our doctor was out of town, (b) there are NO ambulances or any other type of emergency intervention channels here, and (c) we spent part of the holidays 2 hours north of Robi in a lodge/farm type of place - complete with roaring fires, donkeys, milking cows, and hairy wood spiders - the last to Anno's delight!!).

Anyway, here is the lazy man's post, a few photos from the hols and some recent verse.


Above: view from room terrace at Malu Farms (Dec 2011)

Above: Lazy afternoons with S. and spaceman Shooshoo

Above: Well, that fire is not going to light itself...

Above: By day 3, S. is pretty comfortable with the whole donkey ride thing.

* * * * *

Peponi Showdown

Late dusk headlights flicker grudgingly

in an intersection strangely uncrowded.

Beyond my rolled-up window,

lantern-jawed salesmen brandish

birds of paradise,

coruscating in their fists

like a challenge to the gathering dark.

I slow to turn the radio dial,

committing unintentional eye contact:

ancient and irrevocable entry into a contract

to buy a bunch -

at price decidedly unknown.

Synapses on auto,

I mash the gas unabashedly,

desperate to rescind.

Puckered knuckles recede to

fist,

flowers,

and finally face

in the rear view:

From deal-maker to hope to surprise to

I-kid-you-not: the shaking of that same fist at my taillights.

This I’ll smile for:

Good to be alive, and me,

and fiddling with the expensive stereo,

come from Japan to belong to me.