pleach

I love new (to me) words.  This one has possibilities....

pleach \pleech\, verb:

1. To interweave branches or vines for a hedge or arbor.
2. To make or renew (a hedge, arbor, etc.) by such interweaving.
3. To braid (hair).

Robert got up very early, and went off to pleach the big hedge at the foot of the far pasture.
-- Mary Webb, Seven for a Secret

I might not be able to install plumbing fixtures or to pleach apple trees, but I know how to throw a good party.
-- Nancy Atherton, Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree

Pleach is derived from the Middle French word plais, which meant "a hedge."

Prime Time Library Community

Here's a "brightspot" worth sharing---

Last night, we had our last of six Prime Time Story sessions, convened at the Columbus-Eckstrom Public Library in Tucson.  We started with 7 kids and their parents and ended with 20 and their families.  Throughout the project, we shared stories and conversation, a dinner meal and tips on how to stay engaged with library (seen in the photo above) and reading activities throughout the year.  In their exit survey, several families noted that the program had increased family reading time through the six weeks and it is hoped that this new investment in family reading will continue.  This project began with the Lousiana Endowment for the Humanities several years ago and, with additional funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities, expanded to several states, including Arizona.  Only Tucson participates in the program at this time and it is coordinated through the Arizona Humanities Council.  Another series of the program starts at the Martha-Cooper Library next week (with another scholar taking on the role I had), so please spread the word and shine your light on this community effort! 

And here's a second photo with some of the kids in the foreground and me dashing to clean up a liquid refreshment spill.  Never a dull moment with kids....

Rutilant

As the summer approaches and the sunsets dip into the mid-evening hours, the rutilant light in the western sky softens the intensity of the day.  (Practicing a new word as do the authors below):

rutilant \ROOT-l-uhnt\, adjective:

Glowing or glittering with ruddy or golden light.

He had a round head as bare as a knee, a corpse's button nose, and very white, very limp, very damp hands adorned with rutilant gems.
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

It was like the show-piece that is reserved for the conclusion of a fete, the huge bouquet of gold and crimson, as if Paris were burning like a forest of old oaks and soaring heavenward in a rutilant cloud of sparks and flame.
-- Émile Zola, The Downfall

Why flashed through space a sudden and extraordinary splendor, intenser than the rutilant fulgurations of the aurora borealis, lighting up the whole heavens instantaneously, and for a moment eclipsing every star of every magnitude?
-- Jules Verne, To The Sun?

Rutilant is from the Latin word rutilāns, meaning "having a reddish color or glow."

bright spot at night

How many of you stood outside last night to savor the Super Moon, 30% brighter than normal for a full moon?  It was lovely and reminds me of how there is perfection in the universe, seen from afar.

coming attractions

Even though I haven't heard back from followers about the interest if following my "BrightSpots" feature, I am going to plan to do it anyway.  Part of the role of shining the light on "brightspots" is to act as if there is hope for our future.  So, in that spirit, I am sending forward a link to Cinema La Placita, a literal and figurative "bright spot" in Tucson.  http://www.cinemalaplacita.com/

In the near future, I will be posting an interview with the movie venue's founder, so look forward to that.

NYC Church

Here's a lovely poem about the miracle of turning around a corner in NYC and seeing a gothic cathedral in the midst of the buildings of retail and finance.  That certainly was the image Mark caught in the image here, taken last month.  Enjoy the picture and poem.

Everything but God

by Anne Pierson Wiese

In Europe you can see cathedrals
from far away. As you drive toward them
across the country they are visible—stony
and roosted on the land—even before the towns
that surround them. In New York you come
upon them with no warning, turn a corner
and there one is: on 5th Avenue St. Patrick's,
spiny and white as a shell in a gift shop; dark
St. Agnes lost near a canal and some housing
projects in Brooklyn; or St. John the Divine,
listed in every guidebook yet seeming always
like a momentary vision on Amsterdam
Avenue, with its ragged halo of trees, wide stone
steps ascending directly out of traffic.

Lately I have found myself unable
to pass by. The candles' anonymous
wishes waver and flame near the entrance, bright
numerous, transitory and eternal
as a migration: the birds that fly away
are never exactly the same as those that return.
The gray, flowering arches' ribs rise
until they fade, the bones so large and old
they belong to an undetected time
on earth. Here and there people's small backs
in prayer, the windowed saints' robes' orchid
glow, the shadows—ghosts of a long nocturnal
snow from a sky below when we did not yet
exist, with our questions tender as burns.

"Everything but God" by Anne Pierson Wiese, from Floating City. © Louisiana State University Press, 2007. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

brightspots redux

Well, folks, I guess I need to shine the light a bit brighter to get your interest since no new followers have been added to my blog.

My next BrightSpots posting will be about one of two "brightspots" and I will let you choose:

1.  A sunset run in Sabino Canyon
2.  A new community garden

Which one do you want to "shine the light on?"