February/March Poet: Adrienne Rich

From Atlas of a Difficult World by Adrienne Rich

X
Soledad. = f. Solitude, loneliness, homesickness; lonely retreat
Winter sun in the rosetrees.
An old Mexican with a white moustache prunes them back
           spraying
the cut branches with dormant oil.     The old paper-bag-brown
           adobe walls
stretch apart from the rebuilt mission, in their own time.     It is
           lonely here
in the curve of the road winding through vast brown fields
          machine-engraved in furrows
of relentless precision.     In the small chapel
La Nuestra Senora de la Soledad dwells in her shallow arch
painted on either side with columns.     She is in black lace crisp
           as cinders
from head to foot.     Alone, solitary, homesick
in her lonely retreat.     Outside black olives fall and smash
littering and staining the beaten path.     The gravestones of the
           padres
are weights pressing down on the Indian artisans.     It is the sixth
           day of another war

Mission Cat

As I mentioned in yesterday's post (which I'm sure you've all memorized), I went to Salinas yesterday. Before Salinas I had visited Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad. Soledad is the 13th mission in the 21 mission chain that runs from Sonoma to San Diego. It was named for our Lady of Solitude, which is another name for Mary.

I like this mission because it is a ways off the highway & not sitting in the middle of a busy city as some of them are. You can get a much better sense of what it must have been like to live in the mission era here than you do at other missions.It's very quiet and peaceful there, I think I saw maybe 6 other people during my visit. It isn't the best mission to visit during the summer as there is little shade and it gets pretty hot down there. The end of February is a nice time though. Yesterday was a beautiful day and I could see for miles around because it was so clear.

Two interesting things happened to me at the mission. First I made a friend and second I believe I convinced someone I was crazy. As I was looking around the gift shop I heard a meow & turning saw a cat sitting on the counter. This was not just any cat but a Pippin cat! (That means he looks like my cat Pippin.) And not just some faint resemblance - this cat could have been his twin, although he was smaller than Pippin. Anyway he really liked me and let me hold him and started purring and licking my hand. The woman who worked at the gift shop didn't seem to be much of a cat lover but was tolerating him. I kept saying how much he looked like my cat and I was so amazed at the resemblance that I opened my wallet & showed her a picture of Pippin. Now you all know my big secret; I carry pictures of my cats in my wallet. Don't spread it around. Anyway she looked at the picture, smiled politely and said she guessed that was why the cat was so attracted to me. I'm pretty sure she was thinking something along the lines of, "when will this fruitcake leave?" I think that my taking pictures of the cat pretty well confirmed her estimation of my sanity.

Above is a picture of the mission cat & below is a picture of Pippin. He does have white paws also, just like the mission cat. I'm pretty sure they are related!