She preferred wooden pegs

[lonndubh]

Agnes loved Life
She loved washing
Lines pegged
End to end
Held high
le gabhlóga


Clothes flying free
Wooden pegs
From Cheap Jacks
Market stall
Held high
le gabhlóga

[lizzytysh]

Long time, no see, lonndubh. Good to see you.
I love the feeling and visuals of this poem.
Reminds me of my childhood, too, when I considered myself an expert clothes hanger upper. There's a real satisfaction in hanging up the last item from the basket and everything hung neatly and nicely, likes with likes, categorized, and using a minimum of pins. Taking them down is fun, too.

[Cate]

I remember this poem L.

There's something very soothing about it; the happy woman, the image of her pinning the clothes with the wooden pegs and the items blowing in the wind. It feels just right for these end of summer days.

[carm]

Lonndubh writes:
Agnes loved Life
She loved washing
Lines pegged
End to end

Lizzytysh writes:
everything hung neatly and nicely, likes with likes, categorized

Cate writes:
It feels just right

Lonndubh writes:
Agnes loved Life
She loved washing

. . . . .

…which reminded me of something PK Page once wrote:
It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens

. . . . .

It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens,
the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins
knowing their warp and woof,
like a lover coaxing, or a mother praising.
It has to be loved as if it were embroidered
with flowers and birds and two joined hearts upon it.
It has to be stretched and stroked.
It has to be celebrated.
O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it.
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet.

The trees must be washed, and the grasses and mosses.
They have to be polished as if made of green brass.
The rivers and little streams with their hidden cresses
and pale-coloured pebbles
and their fool's gold
must be washed and starched or shined into brightness,
the sheets of lake water
smoothed with the hand
and the foam of the oceans pressed into neatness.
It has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness.

and pleated and goffered, the flower-blue sea
the protean, wine-dark, grey, green, sea
with its metres of satin and bolts of brocade.
And sky - such an 0! overhead - night and day
must be burnished and rubbed
by hands that are loving
so the blue blazons forth
and the stars keep on shining
within and above
and the hands keep on moving.

It has to be made bright, the skin of this planet
till it shines in the sun like gold leaf.
Archangels then will attend to its metals
and polish the rods of its rain.
Seraphim will stop singing hosannas
to shower it with blessings and blisses and praises
and, newly in love,
we must draw it and paint it
our pencils and brushes and loving caresses
smoothing the holy surfaces.

– Planet Earth by PK Page

. . . . .

…inspired by four lines of a longer poem…

It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,
has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness;
and the hands keep on moving,
smoothing the holy surfaces.
----- In Praise of Ironing
– Pablo Neruda

[Cate]

Carm, that is lovely
the picture, the Planet Earth poem and the poem she spun off of.

[carm]

Hi, and thanks Cate.

. . . . .

The connections between things – it feels just right.
Everything that is there – hanging together.
Sometimes, likes with likes, categorized.
Words connecting, lines pegged end to end.
Each word intertwining with the next, changing another.

we must draw it and paint it
our pencils and brushes and loving caresses
smoothing the holy surfaces.

. . . . .

Shaking the Tree

Vine and branch we’re connected in this world
of sound and echo, figure and shadow, the leaves
contingent, roots pushing against earth. An apple

belongs to itself, to stem and tree, to air
that claims it, then ground. Connections
balance, each motion changes another. Precarious,

hanging together, we don’t know what our lives
support, and we touch in the least shift of breathing.
Each holy thing is borrowed. Everything depends.

– Jeanne Lohmann

. . . . .

Agnes loved Life

. . . . .

It has to be stretched and stroked.
It has to be spread out.
It has to be loved.

. . . . .

within and above
and the hands keep on moving.

[apple]

that is loverly. We didn't even have a dryer when I was a kid and hung the clothes out to freeze to death. I've been beggin my husband for a line to at least, hand draperies, coverlets, sheets and stuff. I just kind of drape things over the deck presently.

I love how very clean laundry gets when one involves the outdoors. My husband and boys are rather stinky, they work and play so hard.