By Thom Gunn
The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth's dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,
pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail's fury? All
I think is that if later
I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.
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Another day without a great deal to report. I have half my trip photos uploaded to Shutterfly, and still thousands more to sort! And that's only the including the cross-country pictures, not even counting the beach photos from August. I worked on a very evil birthday present for a very evil person. I went to Back To School night at younger son's middle school, where each teacher tries in seven minutes to tell us about the class for the entire year -- the PTA and the principal take up the first hour with pleas for money and participation and really silly videos about Trying One's Hardest and Doing One's Best. They use this 212 Degrees movie/posters/Powerpoint stuff that's like one cheesy motivational poster after another -- does this stuff work on most kids? Mine scoffs at the whole thing except the one poster with a penguin on it.
The five-log canoe Shamrock in the Calvert Marine Museum's small crafts shed, built in Virginia around 1900 for leisure and eventually used as an oyster buyboat.
Otters playing in the sun behind the glass of their enclosure.
Fish swimming in the salt marsh beside the boardwalk.
Inside the museum, a Chesapeake crab in an aquarium...
...and a horseshoe crab in an open-top tank.
Nineteen species of turtle, including terrapins and tortoises, live in Maryland.
This infant skate was born in the museum, hatching out of a mermaid's purse.
This species of long-snouted dolphin, however, became extinct in Maryland millions of years ago.
I chose to watch the Redskins blow their opening game of the season to the Giants rather than to watch a man I don't have to consider a war hero because by the definitions of the Bush administration, he was never tortured...though I understand from various comments that that man insulted educators, volunteers and everyone who has worked for health care reform. Really, football was no escape, since the Redskins' former coach spoke at the convention too, announcing that electing McCain "would be a return to God’s word" for America -- this is the same coach who said that The Last Temptation of Christ should be banned from theaters because it was an insult to all true God-fearing Americans. Daily Kos hit one out of the park today: "Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor." I was going to link to a whole bunch of election-related stuff, but then I realized that I should just link to my Digg profile because everything is already linked there. And that, I hope, is the last I will have to rant about politics for a while.
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