Poem for Wednesday

Amber
By Eavan Boland

It never mattered that there was once a vast grieving:

trees on their hillsides, in their groves, weeping—
a plastic gold dropping

through seasons and centuries to the ground—
until now.

On this fine September afternoon from which you are absent
I am holding, as if my hand could store it,
an ornament of amber

you once gave me.

Reason says this:
The dead cannot see the living.
The living will never see the dead again.

The clear air we need to find each other in is
gone forever, yet

this resin once
collected seeds, leaves and even small feathers as it fell
and fell

which now in a sunny atmosphere seem as alive as
they ever were

as though the past could be present and memory itself
a Baltic honey—

a chafing at the edges of the seen, a showing off of just how much
can be kept safe

inside a flawed translucence.

--------

I had a headache all day and spent an insane number of hours at high school this evening -- it was Back to School Night, Daniel had to be there early because the chamber choir was performing, the air conditioning had been turned off at 3 p.m. when the students went home and no one had turned it back on, we had ten minutes each with eight teachers plus the intro/advisory session...not precisely a relaxing evening, though the Spanish teacher was fun (she ran the session in Spanish, as she does with the class) and the Research and Experimentation teacher wrote a book about community and high school theater and spends his summers working on tall ships.


The chamber choir performs in the central hallway of Daniel's high school.


Everyone had to dress in red and white, and the athletes and cheerleaders were in uniform so they came as they were.


Here is where Daniel spent most of the evening, working at the robotics team table.


The school's main corridor had displays by many of the clubs, teams, and volunteer groups...


...and, of course, sports.


This is the school mascot. Don't ask me why. None of the students seem to know either.


In son's English classroom, two student-made models of the Globe Theatre...


...and in the Earth Science/Space classroom, one of the new Promethean Boards that the county spent a lot of money on.

I'm too tired to remember what I did the rest of the day -- nothing of earth-shattering importance, other than forgetting that there's now Tuesday Hebrew school again and getting Adam there late -- so instead, a meme.

How to play:
* Comment on this post.
* I will give you a letter.
* Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

Gblvr gave me the letter "M":

1. McCoy, Leonard -- Makes Spock acknowledge his humanity and reminds Kirk to trust his compassionate instincts. Good sense of humor, braver than he gives himself credit for. Star Trek wouldn't be what it is without him.
2. Mulder, Fox -- Loyal to the truth even when it may kill him. Incapable of selling out, compromising his principles or taking the easy path. I don't know that I'd enjoy his company, but there would have been no X-Files without him.
3. Maturin, Stephen -- Brilliant, conflicted, curious, infuriating, passionate, introverted, caring, caustic, revolutionary, traditional, proud, self-deprecating...one of the most complex and wonderful characters in anything I've read.
4. McKay, Rodney -- Very frustrating to me...a wonderfully drawn character, fabulous interactions with everyone else on Atlantis, but I have a laundry list of things that irritate me about him (obnoxious, arrogant, sexist, self-involved...) that people who are in love with him don't seem to notice. *g*
5. Malfoy, Lucius -- I can't claim "misunderstood" any more because J.K. Rowling completely vindicated my sense of Lucuis in the last Harry Potter book. Entirely selfish, sees family as an extension of self, supported Voldemort to gain power as much as ideological kinship, doesn't like to get his hands dirty with Muggle blood but is a total hedonist in bed. All right, Rowling didn't say that last part but you know it's true.