It's not whinging, it's tactical complaining.

I work for a bank you have heard of. I sit in a chair and take phone calls from people who are having a hard time making their mortgage payments (not mrtg pymts, as I automatically typed in the style of the hurried note-making I do day in and day out).

Oh, yes. I am the person who you call when you haven't made a mortgage payment in two or three months and are starting to get scared you might lose your home. It is my job to 1) encourage you strongly to make a payment over the phone right now, and 2) let you know of the ways we might be able to help you make your monthly payments.

Basically, that's "You better make your payment right now or we're taking your home," and "Oh, you're having a hard time right now? I understand, let me tell you how we can help!" Both of those things at the same time on every call. It's a very tricky balancing act. I am constantly telling my customers that there's hope.

"Take a deep breath," I say, "it's going to be all right." Maybe it's true, but I can't help wondering how many of the people I talked to last month are now homeless. Maybe I could have given slightly better advice about the Loan Modification application process. Maybe if I had broken a rule just that once and taken a partial payment or waive the phone payment fee. Maybe I--

It's endless. The work I'm doing now is actually affecting people's lives. I'm not talking to spoiled credit card customers anymore, I'm talking to desperate people who are in real need, and I feel I don't have enough power to help them as much as I want to.

I would actually really love this job, if I could be sure I was really helping, instead of delaying the inevitable or giving false hope.

But somewhere out there is a family who got to stay in their home because I said just the right thing, and frankly, that feels amazing. If you're reading this, I'm so happy you're still at home. When, at the end of our conversation, I told you I hoped it worked out for you? I really meant that. I mean it every single time.

A Detective Story

So there we were in the place where murders happen, and WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED? Well, keep reading and you'll find out!

So there we were, and it was me, the world's detectiviest detective; Susie McIngenue, my lovely and charming lady-friend; Deuter von Hollingsworth-Victimstead, a vivacious red-headed man, more alive than any man I've ever had the pleasure of knowing; and The Dauphin.

We had just finished eating a lovely meal of braised fish heads (except Deuter, who The Dauphin had insisted eat an odd-smelling elixir, instead), when suddenly, Deuter died suddenly!

It was my job to figure out who had done it. "It is your job to figure out who has done it," Susie said, and I agreed.

"It was probably the butler," I declared dramatically. I pointed accusationally toward him, and found him to be a smouldering pile of ashes on the rug, an eighteenth-century Persian masterwork in crimson and gold!

"Susie, my darling," said I, "how could you?" It was clear to me now that she had done the deed all along.

She protested briefly before collapsing in a bloody (and somehow rather headless) heap on the floor. I was quite stumped.

"I am quite stumped," said I, when I noticed that my arms and legs had gone missing.

"A ha," I exclaimed, "It is you, sir, The Dauphin, who are the murderer!"

"Oh, well-spotted," said he, before dispatching me entirely with a poison dart from an Amazonian blow-gun.

THE END. It ended rather darkly, I think.

Poetry Week: E. E. Cummings

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

Poetry Week: Yehuda Amichai

At the Seashore
trans. by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell

The pain-people think that God is the god of joy,
the joy-people think that God is the god of pain.
The coast-people think that love is in the mountains,
and the mountain-people think that love is at the seashore
so they go down to the sea.

The waves bring back even things we haven't lost.
I choose a smooth pebble and say over it,
"I'll never see that one again."
Eternity makes more sense
in the negative:
"I'll never see. I'll never come back."

So what good will it do you to get a tan? You'll be
a sadness, roasted and beautiful, an enticing scent.

When we came up from the seashore, we didn't see the water
but near the new road we saw a deep pit
and beside it a huge wooden spool wound with heavy cable:
all the conversations of the future, all the silences.

Poetry Week: Yehuda Amichai

translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell

The Sea and the Shore

The sea and the shore are always next to each other.
Both want to learn to speak, to learn to say
one word only. The sea wants to say "shore"
and the shore "sea." They draw closer,
millions of years, to speech, to saying
that single word. When the sea says "shore"
and the shore "sea,"
redemption will come to the world,
the world will return to chaos.

I Know a Man

I know a man
who photographed the view he saw
from the window of the room where he made love
and not the face of the woman he loved there.

Poetry Week: Yehuda Amichai

Statistics
translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell

For every man in a rage there are always
two or three back-patters who will calm him,
for every weeper, many more tear-wipers,
for every happy man, plenty of sad ones
who want to warm themselves at his happiness.

And every night at least one man
can't find his way home
or his home has moved to another place
and he runs around in the streets,
superfluous.

Once I was waiting with my little son at the station
as an empty bus went by. My son said:
"Look, a bus full of empty people."

Poetry Week: Ted Kooser

The Old People

Pantcuffs rolled, and in old shoes,
they stumble over the rocks and wade out
into a cold river of shadows
far from the fire, so far that its warmth
no longer reaches them. And its light
(but for the sparks in their eyes
when they chance to look back)
scarcely brushes their faces. Their ears
are full of night: rustle of black leaves
against a starless sky. Sometimes
they hear us calling, and sometimes
they don't. They are not searching
for anything much, nor are they much
in need of finding something new.
They are feeling their way out into the night,
letting their eyes adjust to the future.

Poetry Week: Ted Kooser

The Necktie

His hands fluttered like birds,
each with a fancy silk ribbon
to weave into their nest,
as he stood at the mirror
dressing for work, waving hello
to himself with both hands.

Poetry Week

As an apology to you for not posting more regularly, I'm declaring this Poetry Week. I'm going to post a poem every day. I'm not sure yet if they'll all be by the same poet, but I can promise you they'll all be by my two or three favorite poets.

I'm starting with two poems by my very favorite, Ted Kooser. One for my grandmother, whose birthday is today, and one for all my mothers for Mothers' Day.

A Happy Birthday

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

Flow Blue China

No real flowers would give of themselves
as these do, the soft tips of their petals
easing out under the painted gold borders,
then bleeding into puffs of blue, and the aunt
who in her old age gave me these cups
and saucers, the plates, bread plates and platters,
the gravy boat, and the big covered bowl
that for seventy years she brought to her table
heaped high with buttercup potatoes,
she too, like one of these soft blue flowers,
has slipped beyond the thin line at the edge.
I lift this cup to her. Flow, blue.