Laura's Blog "The Spectrum"

One of the most entertaining, funny, sad, real, gotcha kind of blog writers I have found is Laura Astoria at her blog http://www.thespectrum.org/blogger.html Wide-eyed in Manhattan as she pursues her acting and musical theatre career, she makes great prose out of a subway ride, a trip to her shrink, a rant on ole boyfriends, or her Catholic roots. She's thoroughly pleasurable to read and her charm and intelligence is palpable. Keep it up, girl!!

First Day of August

Yeah, it's hot. Yeah, it's humid. Yeah, it's August in Kansas. As in "...I'm as corny as ...yada yada." There IS a lotta corn out there, by the way.

So how 'bout a cool, ice-clinky, glass of ice tea, or maybe a gin and tonic, and this lime-cool poem by Neruda:

"In Praise of Ironing"

Poetry is pure white.
It emerges from water covered in drops,
is wrinkled, all in a heap.
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,
has to be ironed out, the sea's whiteness;
and the hands keep moving, moving,
the holy surfaces are smoothed out,
and that is how things are accomplished.
Every day, hands are creating the world,
fire is married to steel,
and canvas, linen, and cotton come back
from skirmishings of the laundries,
and out of light a dove is born--
pure innocence returns out of the swirl.

Pablo Neruda, from Plenos Poderes