Staying at Grandma's
by Jane Kenyon

Sometimes they left me for the day
while they went — what does it matter
where — away. I sat and watched her work
the dough, then turn the white shape
yellow in a buttered bowl.

A coleus, wrong to my eye because its leaves
were red, was rooting on the sill
in a glass filled with water and azure
marbles. I loved to see the sun
pass through the blue.

"You know," she'd say, turning
her straight and handsome back to me,
"that the body is the temple
of the Holy Ghost."

The Holy Ghost, the oh, oh ... the uh
oh, I thought, studying the toe of my new shoe,
and glad she wasn't looking at me.

Soon I'd be back in school. No more mornings
at Grandma's side while she swept the walk
or shook the dust mop by the neck.

If she loved me why did she say that
two women would be grinding at the mill,
that God would come out of the clouds
when they were least expecting him,
choose one to be with him in heaven
and leave the other there alone?


Jane Kenyon, "Staying at Grandma's" from Collected Poems. © 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org (buy now)

It's the birthday of science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson (books by this author), born in Waukegan, Illinois (1952). He's the author of stories set in the past and future, stories set on Pluto, Mercury, the slopes of the Himalayas, and the ice of Antarctica, including the Mars trilogy and the Orange County trilogy.

It's the birthday of the man who won the 1937 Nobel Prize in literature, French author Roger Martin du Gard (books by this author), born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France (1881). His life's work was chronicling the fictional Thibault family in a series of novels known as Les Thibault, which he published over the course of two decades, from 1922 to 1940. It's considered a roman-fleuve, a French term that literally means "river-novel." It refers to a series of novels written by one author that are about the same few characters (often family members) — usually a saga where the historical backdrop plays a prominent role in the fiction, and the author often provides a sort of running commentary on the era.

It's the birthday of writer Louis Adamic (books by this author), born in Blato in what is now Slovenia (1899). He came from a family of farmers and immigrated to the United States at the age of 14. He wrote about travel, the labor movement, immigrant life in America, and Eastern European politics in books like The Native's Return (1934), Cradle of Life (1936), and Two-Way Passage (1941).

Louis Adamic said, "My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn."

On this day in 1913, California novelist Jack London (books by this author) wrote to six writers, including H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw, asking how much they were paid for their writing. London, who grew up in extreme poverty, always claimed that his chief motive for writing was money. He told his colleagues, “I have published 33 books, as well as an ocean of magazine stuff, and yet I have never heard the rates that other writers receive.” One of the writers London wrote to was Winston Churchill — the American novelist, not the British Prime Minister. Churchill replied to London with useful information. London was so appreciative that he wrote Churchill a thank-you letter and invited him to stay at his house in Sonoma County, California. He wrote, “It is as a born Californian that I dare to say that we will show you here a different California from any that you have seen so far. Please always remember, also, that we are only camping out; but that nevertheless this is a dandy place for a man to loaf in and to work in.”

It was on this day in 1775 that Patrick Henry gave a famous speech and probably delivered the line: “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Henry spoke at the Second Virginia Convention, a meeting of American colonial leaders. The Convention was held at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia. There were 120 delegates, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. Henry was representing Hanover County, Virginia, where he had been born 39 years earlier. The four-day meeting turned into a fierce debate about whether or not to raise a militia and arm Virginia in the fight against the British.

Henry was an attorney with a knack for turning a phrase and a commitment to American independence. Twelve years earlier, he had stood up in court and called King George a tyrant, and he had been fighting against English laws and rule in the courts ever since.

There was a problem with Henry’s speeches. They were wonderful and charismatic, and everyone was entranced by them, but afterward, no one could remember what he had said. Thomas Jefferson said of Henry:

“His eloquence was peculiar, if indeed it should be called eloquence; for it was impressive and sublime, beyond what can be imagined. Although it was difficult when he had spoken to tell what he had said, yet, while he was speaking, it always seemed directly to the point. When he had spoken in opposition to my opinion, had produced a great effect, and I myself had been highly delighted and moved, I have asked myself when he ceased: ‘What the devil has he said?’ I could never answer the inquiry.”

So although Henry’s speech at the Second Virginia Convention is so famous, no one is sure what he said. It wasn’t written down until 1816, by Henry’s biographer, William Wirt. Wirt talked to people who had been present at the speech and had them reconstruct it, but they were relying on their memories, not even notes.

It’s the birthday of Fannie Merritt Farmer (books by this author), born in Boston (1857). She’s known for publishing the first cookbook in American history that came with simple, precise cooking instructions.

She compiled all the recipes she had ever learned, along with advice on how to set a table, scald milk, cream butter, remove stains, and clean a copper boiler. At first all the publishers turned her down because they reasoned that these were all things young women could learn from their mothers. Finally, Little, Brown agreed to publish the book if Fannie Farmer would pay for the printing of the first 3,000 copies. It has sold millions of copies since.

It’s the birthday of the writer Josef Čapek (books by this author), born in Hronov in what is now the Czech Republic in 1887. His brother, Karel, was the famous writer, but Josef will go down in history as the man who invented the word robot. Karel Čapek wrote a play called R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots (1921), a dystopian work about mass-produced human substitutes who are employed as cheap labor. But Karel Čapek couldn’t think of a good word for his artificial laborers — he was going to go with laboři but decided that was too obvious. Josef suggested roboti, and the name stuck. Josef was arrested and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from which he wrote Poems from a Concentration Camp (1946). He died there in 1945.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

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