Poem for Wednesday

Daystar
By Rita Dove

She wanted a little room for thinking:
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door.

So she lugged a chair behind the garage
to sit out the children's naps.

Sometimes there were things to watch --
the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
a floating maple leaf. Other days
she stared until she was assured
when she closed her eyes
she'd see only her own vivid blood.

She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared
pouting from the top of the stairs.
And just what was mother doing
out back with the field mice? Why,

building a palace. Later
that night when Thomas rolled over and
lurched into her, she would open her eyes
and think of the place that was hers
for an hour -- where
she was nothing,
pure nothing, in the middle of the day.

--------

I had no internet for most of the day. Our router went out, and the new one is refusing to cooperate with the same computers that the old one did...right now, after many hours of futzing with the settings, it's working (*knocks wood*) with my computer and 's big one but not with the laptop, which means I can't work in the living room where I can also see the television, talk on the phone, look out the window, etc. I got no work done, didn't get out of the house in the afternoon because I was fighting with the connection, and am generally frustrated. My kids are coming back Wednesday night and I did not get one day of fun like I planned.

Speaking of my kids, though, they are camping with their grandparents near Hershey, Pennsylvania. Younger son called from a pay phone to tell me that he had found an injured butterfly and carried it around on his arm all day while they went hiking, and that when he put it on a leaf on a bush by the pool so he could go swimming, it eventually followed him inside and sat back on his arm, and it finally flew away in the evening when he put it on a different plant so he could eat dinner. He was all excited about this. I totally miss him when he is not here.


The tall ships of Mystic Seaport from the overlook on the highway, which I made my husband turn around to get to so I could take pictures.


Younger son's favorite store in the Olde Mistick Village shops. Not because he liked the clothes inside -- it was, in fact, closed -- but because of the penguin on the sign.


Ducks in the pond by the old sawmill.


In the parking lot, the Blue Peter, a 23-foot sloop built locally in 1942.


Across the parking lot, an old caboose and a bunch of chickens that started fighting when I walked over to take closer pictures.


And this is just here because I like the sign. I liked the store a lot, too, though I can't afford much scrimshaw!