back ... and here to stay.

hello mes cheries!  i am so terribly sorry about my extended absence.  but now the stress that my life has been is over over, i have returned to stay & post & post once more.  how was your october?  mine was full of moving {again} of writing and reading and working, of a trip home {oh, how i do love thee suburbia}, a best friend visiting, a snowstorm {yes ...  in october ... in new york}, a halloween house warming.  but i am so so triste to have missed october, perhaps my very favorite month, with its leaves & apples & pumpkin patches & the lovely crisp weather.  but now the holidays are here here.  {when starbucks switches to the holiday cups, well, c'est officiel}  & christmas music on the radio & ice skating in rockefeller plaza.  i'm more than ready for a season of fêting & the warmth of thanksgiving & the sparkles of holiday parties & the nutcracker & thoughtful, beautiful gifting.  and on and on.  so this month will be filled of holiday entertaining ideas, recipes, decorating, flower arrangements, winter style & beauty, & oh so much art.  

but first, a poem i've known for years & have found myself drawn to of late.  charles baudelaire, fin de siècle paris, fleurs du mal.  it's a beautiful evocation of the relationships between man & nature, and just such an lovely way to practice one's french when read aloud {as all poems should be}.  enjoy & so happy to be back.  love love.  xx hillary.

Correspondances

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers


Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;


L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles


Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent


Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,


Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,


Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,


Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,


— Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,


Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,


Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.

— Charles Baudelaire

... and the best translation ... 

Correspondences

Nature is a temple where living pillars 


Let sometimes emerge confused words; 


Man crosses it through forests of symbols


Which watch him with intimate eyes.

Like those deep echoes that meet from afar 


In a dark and profound harmony, 


As vast as night and clarity, 


So perfumes, colors, tones answer each other.

There are perfumes fresh as children's flesh,


Soft as oboes, green as meadows,


And others, corrupted, rich, triumphant,

Possessing the diffusion of infinite things, 


Like amber, musk, incense and aromatic resin, 


Chanting the ecstasies of spirit and senses.

— Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)

{check out more of baudelaire's fleurs du mal here}