Poem for Friday

Seaweed
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When descends on the Atlantic
    The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
    The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
    Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
    Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
    The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
    Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
    On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
    Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
    Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
    In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:

From the far-off isles enchanted,
    Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
    Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
    That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
    Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate;—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
    On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
    They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.

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My Mabon included pumpkin candles and vanilla body lotion which is really all it needed to make me feel like it was fall, despite the temperature. Today in honor of the equinox I took some of the karma coins I have managed to collect (I have never bought anything from Tarot.com but somehow I accumulate these anyway) and had my cards read, just to see what the coming seasons have in store. Here's my reading:



Tarot.com's shorthand reading of this is that I should be a member of a successful team, but I may have to kick my team's ass, I should not wait for them to get things done, I need to start over at something I have never tried before and see what happens, and I need to use my gift for mediation. My reading is that I need to do a better job kicking my own ass, not depend on being part of a team to feel like I'm getting things done, and instead of starting over at things I have never tried before I need to try more publicly at the things I keep private. Now I just wish I knew whether to apply this to family, work, play time or all of the above.

Anyway, I'm tired and feeling completely dorky so instead of an original photo tonight, you all get the Google meme, swiped from various places on my flist of the few that I actually managed to read today in between stupid stuff like organizing the kids' drawers now that the old clothes have been cleaned out. People do spring cleaning, but fall cleaning seems more important to me. In that spirit, in some obscure way that made sense to me twenty minutes ago, here the first pictures brought up by Google Image Search for:

1. The age you will be on your next birthday. (39 on December 11th; this is a T-39.)


2. The place you live. (Potomac.)


3. Your favorite color. (Green. Oh that photo! I should learn to play golf!)

ETA: Photobucket dumped my naked golfers on the green! Waah!

4. The place you want to get married. (I got married in Washington, DC at a restaurant called Pisces.)


5. Your favorite fruit or vegetable. (Coconut.)


6. Your favorite animal. (Cat. And this one has books which is even better.)


7. The last name of your favorite actor or actress. (Fletcher, as in Louise.)


8. The name of a pet. (Cinnamon. Who is a #6.)


9. Your favorite song. (Have many...I went with Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Jubilee.")


10. A bad habit of yours. (Daydreaming. Two mermaids in one meme, this must mean something!)


11. Your middle name. (Erica. Water seems to be a theme here too.)


I did this meme several months ago, and had to put in my first name instead of my middle name, and the first image it brought up was a hurricane. That would be appropriate tonight. Interestingly, I picked the same song (I think I knew better both times than to choose October Project's Return To Me for fear of getting the poster from that David Duchovny movie) and got a completely different image, and then forgot I'd even used it before.


Today would have been my father's mother's 90th birthday had she not passed away shortly after her 70th. I look more like her each year.