Poem for Friday

Geode
By John Frank

I cracked a stone egg
dark as smoke,
and found, inside,
a crystal yolk
as purple as
a sheet of sky
pulled over twilight's
closing eye.

--------

Another from "Pages Aflame with Poetry", the column for young readers in the Washington Post Book World's poetry issue on April 20th. "Frank had the bright idea of writing poems about the idiosyncratic treasures, from polished stones to old baseball cards, that as they wait to be unearthed at the beach, in the attic, at the flea market, in the desert and elsewhere," writes Elizabeth Ward. "Someone then had the even brighter idea of pairing his efforts with the jewel-like photographs of Ken Robbins. As with any treasure hunt, there are finds and duds. In 'Globe,' for instance, the photo outshines the verse....but sometimes the match just ignites, as in the lovely 'Geode.'" The poem is from Keepers: Treasure-Hunt Poems.

It was a very weird late spring Thursday in this county, with public schools closed because more than 60 of them had no power and dozens of traffic signals not working, making certain areas nearly impossible to traverse (and that's the areas that didn't have trees down in the roads, which were completely impossible to traverse). We were lucky in my neighborhood, which lost power only very briefly the day before, but the major roads between here and Paul's office had no traffic lights.

This worked in my favor, as I had two doctor's appointments that would have been difficult to reschedule this month, so he worked from home and tried to get the kids to study for finals when all they wanted to do was go to the pool, which they got to do after I got home later in the afternoon. I made a post office run to send off some Star Trek books to people and in turn got a package from the awesome Ribby, who sent me lots of Bath & Body Works goodies and Edward Gorey's Fantod Pack, a parody Tarot deck with cards like the Plant, the Tunnel and the Waltzing Mouse.


This red-winged blackbird at Brookside Gardens was attacking the great blue heron, repeatedly flying into its back, flapping away and returning to do it again.


The heron was prowling after something, but we only saw it grab at fish. I assume the blackbird must have had a nest in the marsh.


This barn swallow had plenty to squawk about...


...there were big carpenter bees invading its personal space.


So it kept flying out over the water, then returning here to sing some more.


This duck had found a nice place to make a nest...


...in one of the garden's planters.


And a goose enjoyed the water along with the turtles.

My personality type: the groundbreaking thinker. Take the free iPersonic personality test!

High Anxiety was on one of Cinemax's channels at 5 a.m., so we recorded it and watched it in the evening. If I tried to write down all the good lines, I'd reproduce most of the screenplay, so I will settle for quoting just my 10 favorites:

1. "I got it...I got it...I ain't got it."
2. "Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup."
3. "Less bondage, more discipline!"
4. "I'll let you wear my underwear." "I'll be there."
5. "What's so important about a lousy crummy newspaper?"
6. "You're the cocker's daughter?"
7. "Winner of the Nobel Prize for his work on the use of chemotherapy in extreme psychosis...Dr. Richard Thorndyke!"
8. "Toilet training! That's a vast area! Are we talking about Number One or cocky-doody?"
9. "I beeped! Take me away, take me back to Russia, put me in irons, I beeped! The mad beeper is loose!"
10. "I like you! I'll be on your side! And if I misbehave, you can beat the living crap out of me! I wouldn't mind!"

And I appreciated this LiveScience article on the role of gender in Clinton's campaign, because I am really tired of people (no matter who they're supporting) claiming there was NOT institutionalized sexism playing a major role in how she was perceived and portrayed in the press, and LiveScience can sometimes be pretty conservative on social science issues.