Notes & Nibbles Addenda to #6

Tonight I Can Write

a poem for james and myself, though still we love, if only in ether, in spirit, in essence …

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
----------
translated by W.S. Merwin
Pablo Neruda

This is MY Christmas gift, right here, right now, front and central.

Welcome to the addendum to Dr. Ni's Notes & Nibbles--6!

This addendum to N&N--6 is dedicated to forgotten news, news that slipped through the cracks of my memory, news that I filed in an email then promptly lost, news that should have been reported, but was not.

I begin with the auspicious appearance of my essay in Hamilton Stone Review #13.  I am proud, delighted and grateful that my essay heads the fiction section, for this is an essay so bold I thought no editor would take it.  So please, prove the folks at Hamilton Stone wise and brave by hastening to this link and taking a gander:

Hamilton Stone Review, Issue 13, Fall 2007, Now Online!

Featuring poetry by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Suzanne Ryan, Stephen Baraban, Hugh Fox, Holly Iglesias, Skip Fox, Sheila Murphy, Mark Weiss, Roger Mitchell, Gary Beck, Gianina Opris and James Grabill; and fiction by Helen Duberstein, Anne Earney, Joan Newburger, and Niama Leslie Williams.

http://www.hamiltonstone.org/hsr13.html

Forgotten News Item#2:  Everyone who knows me knows how I feel about Robin's Bookstore on 13th & Sansom.  Now I will finally be able to take a deep breath and order Seasons 1-?3? of House, every season extant of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and SVU, any episodes of 3lbs that missed the cutting room floor, all of the Gilmore Girls, just for starters.  And if anyone in Hollywood was wise enough to put Avery Brooks' Hawk on DVD, my grubby little hands are going to be all over it.  No Black man should be that tall, that fine, that intelligent, that suave, with that big a gun.  That's why they cancelled it.  We Black folk knew it was doomed from episode one when they opened with a Langston Hughes poem .......

THE ANNOUNCEMENT:  Dear Robin's Customers,

We are pleased to announce that you can now shop at Robin's Book Store, Philadelphia's Oldest Independent Book Store, online. You can get every Book, CD, and DVD you can think of delivered to your home.  Just like at those unmentionable corporate giants, but we are still your neighborhood book store in Center City, operated by the third generation of the Robin family.

Please access the online store through www.robinsbookstore.com and click on sales in the top right corner.

Sincerely,

Larry Robin

News Item #3:  Look for me tomorrow night Monday, November 26th, 2007, at 8:30 p.m. EST on Phil Harris' BlogTalkRadio show as he again welcomes NothingBinding.com authors to publicize their books for the holiday season we are deep in the midst of!  The first half hour of Phil's show will be devoted to a new political movement called "Common Ground," and the SECOND half hour will feature NothingBinding.com authors.  I'll be there discussing as many of my seven titles as possible.  Hope you can listen in!

Click on http://philipharris.blogspot.com and you should be right there, listening live through your computer!

News Item #4:  A website worth examining ..... I regularly peruse Michelle Mitchell's Ladybug Marketing list serv and on one occasion found myself at the site of Ms. Tamara Shirer:  http://www.tamarashirer.blogspot.com/  Ms. Shirer's blogsite is remarkable for many reasons, but I was particularly struck by her positive presentation of single Black men (available for dating!) and of Black fathers (her own as one example).

Her underlying message of spiritual uplift and positivity when one views oneself and others is evident in the plethora of regularly scheduled posts ("columns" almost) to her blog and especially in her posting of Jill Scott's YouTube video, "Hate on Me."  As a large-sized woman myself, I could not help but be moved by Ms. Shirer's insight and inspiration and Ms. Scott's healthy, outspoken bravado.

Ms. Shirer updates some columns weekly and others monthly, so don't miss a day!

News Item #5:  And of course, if you can make it, don't forget to drop in to Robin's Bookstore on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007, at 6 p.m. to hear me read from my seven new titles!  Yes, 13th & Sansom is in the heart of Center City Philadelphia, but no, the gay community will not overtake you at the front door and no, the muggers will not be waiting for you either.  Dr. Justin Vitiello, Temple faculty emeritus, has been a resident of Center City for many years and reports there has been ONE murder in Center City the ENTIRE year.  So bring yourself down there and let's have a book party!

And finally, I won't leave you without an opportunity to laugh!  Check out this link to a crazy conversation with an editor:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1XFz0kac0

Love and blessings,

Dr. Ni
Norristown, PA
http://www.blowingupbarriers.com