International Human Nights: A Poem

Elizabeth is in Chile.
Live from a mountaintop.
She studies the stars.
Giant telescopes
mounted on mountainsides
worked
by night scientists
working with small computers.

She wrote me today and said
Orion IS upside down.

Later, in class, the European diplomat
guest lecturing,
saying words like “conwinced” and “blackleest,”
is talking about the 700 years of federalism
about the tragedy of landmines
and child soldiers, child trafficking,
the Maoists being demilitarized in Nepal,
and I find myself trying to imagine

two shoulder points
three studs on a girded belt
(Would they hang on the same rakish angle
left to right,
or upside down,
does it slip up his hip, right to left?)
two star-spangled boots,
like Dolly Parton,
kicking it up on a stratospheric stage

all hanging, upside down,
upside down.

Orion is—

“So ven you say you want to beeld a fentz between the Youess and Mehico, I say, as long as one tzide of the fentz has an eight dohllur a day wage and on the ahther tzide of the fentz has an eight dohllur per hour wage—you can beeld a fence one hundrred meetrs high, and peeple will alwayz find a way.”

Sarah and Company (Has Company)

A friend (a good friend) asked me to help her name her blog. I'm not good at these things, actually, on demand. (Though, it's true, I did come up--and on the spot-- with the name for the back page of The Collegiate Post--BYU's academic fortnightly--that was intended to showcase the lighter, funnier side of the paper. The name I came up with? The Posterior. I've always felt a little sheepish and a little pleased about that.)

The point is--she asked me to come up with a name for her blog, and I tossed one off ("Levi's Spouse"--her husband's name is Levi, of course), and today I was writing her an email, asking her if she'd made her blog and what she'd named it.

What I'm trying to say is--that as part of my email, I told her that I "kept googling" "Levi's spouse" and came up with nothing, which wasn't quite true because, though I'd tried "levisspouse.blogspot.com" at least twice (and came up with nothing), that isn't quite googling (what would you call that? bloguesstimating? (see--not that good)). And, because I didn't want to have to come up with a name for whatever it was I had done (trying to get URLucky?), I decided to blog "Levi's spouse," thereby at least making my statement minimally true. And I came up with nothing.

But then I thought--what if personal blogs don't typically come up with a google search for their title? So I decided to google my blog name (sarahandcompany, of course; but I actually wrote "sarah and company"), and guess what came up?

http://www.sarahandcompany.com/

!

So anyway, there's a handbag company in South Dakota, started by a woman named Sarah (Sarah Sola), and it's called Sarah & Company.

And you know what? The bags look pretty beautiful.

http://www.sarahandcompany.com/sarah/handbags/signature.php

(See the "black and white waffle stitching." And the polka dots, which are very much in.)

That's it. I'm just pleased. Delighted and pleased. That's what I was trying to say.


Addendum: You know what? If you google "sarahandcompany," you get two links for sarahandcompany.com and then, ta dah--

Sarah & Co.
Pork Loin and Cheddar Dill Scones. These recipes are provided courtesy of Karren, as part of my ongoing feasting series (see The Feasts of Christmas at ...sarahandcompany.blogspot.com/ - 53k - Cached - Similar pages