Poem for Friday

It Was Raining In Delft
By Peter Gizzi

A cornerstone. Marble pilings. Curbstones and brick.
I saw rooftops. The sun after a rain shower.
Liz, there are children in clumsy jackets. Cobblestones
         and the sun now in a curbside pool.
I will call in an hour where you are sleeping. I’ve been walking
         for 7 hrs on yr name day.
Dead, I am calling you now.
There are colonnades. Yellow wrappers in the square.
Just what you’d suspect: a market with flowers and matrons,
         handbags.
Beauty walks this world. It ages everything.
I am far and I am an animal and I am just another I-am poem,
         a we-see poem, a they-love poem.
The green. All the different windows.
There is so much stone here. And grass. So beautiful each
         translucent electric blade.
And the noise. Cheers folding into traffic. These things.
         Things that have been already said many times:
leaf, zipper, sparrow, lintel, scarf, window shade.

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Am writing this while listening to the opening song from Caddyshack so if I get silly, that's why. *G* "You were in the war?" "Ah. No. Homo. All better now, though." Had a very nice day -- lunch with birthday girl in Gaithersburg, where The Walnut Tree is regrettably going out of business, but fortunately selling all their jewelry at 25% off (and my favorite American Tarot artist, Kris Waldherr, will be reading and signing there on Saturday at 1 p.m., though we are supposed to be blanketed in snow by then!) and I bought rings and ate Japanese food, then walked over to Whole Foods, which had enough samples that I could have eaten lunch just circling the store three times swiping cheese, fruit and gingerbread as I passed. Tomorrow I have to live on tea and yogurt to make up for all the sodium I had today but I am not sorry!

Spent the afternoon with my lovely children trying to get them to do their homework despite whatever new thing AdventureQuest had, recorded Chinatown without being able to watch it because no way was that going on with kids in the house. After dinner we watched Smallville, which I really did not like much -- I don't like the ghost horror movie cliches upon which it was based. And once again Clark had to show up even though it was to be nearly useless when the women could have rescued themselves! Why did Clark have to be involved -- since we knew there was Kryptonite already, why not have him fall down in the doorway and let Chloe and Lois do it all? I liked seeing a Chloe-centric episode that did not center on Clark in any way, but except for the ending, it didn't really center on her either...she was possessed so much of the time.

At least this week she didn't have to parrot a television commercial though. It took me until this article to remember why I didn't want talk about last week's Smallville right after it was on -- I was so mad about the product placement crap. I was embarrassed for Allison Mack and for the show. Anyway, tonight's episode was worth watching for 1) Lovely Lionel comforting Martha, again -- he needs to do that in much closer proximity, without so many clothes in the way -- and 2) "A close friend, someone you trust more than anyone in the world...it's hard to see them like this." Oh, Lex, the guilt trip! You just can't let go of the love!


One last photo from the National Aquarium: Spirit swims upside down in the dolphin tank with her squeaky frog on her belly.

I know I had stuff to say -- and I talked about the tomb found in the Valley of the Kings and my cousin and I talked about Heath Ledger's house in Australia being for sale in case we decide to run away from the United States and mysteriously come into several million dollars and Libby told us what we already knew. But I have to get up very, very early tomorrow since has a very early meeting, so I shall catch up then.

And from Caddyshack: "Doody! Doody!" "I almost got head from Amelia Earhart!" "That must be the tea!" I am ten!