Thursday, December 04, 2008

Poem for Thursday

Anonymous Poet
By Stanley Moss


Sometimes I would see her with her lovers
walking through the Village, the wind
strapped about her ankles.
Simply being, she fought
against the enemies of love and poetry
like Achilles in wrath.
Her tongue was not a lake,
but it lifted her lovers
with the gentle strength of a lake
that lifts a cove of waterlilies—
her blue eyes, the sky above them—
till night fell and the mysteries began.
My friend I love, poet I love,
if you are not reading or writing tonight
on your Underwood typewriter,
if no one is kissing you, death is real.

--------

Not a lot to report from Wednesday -- worked on an article, a piece for a holiday exchange, and putting labels on season's greeting card envelopes. Plus I got a four-load laundry folded, finally. It really doesn't sound like I did a lot when I look at it here, though I feel like I was busy all day! Here, have some photos from the Bird House and Invertebrate House at the National Zoo (Perkypaduan, with whom I got to gossip today, works in the latter):


Asian blue-crowned hanging parrots in the Bird House. They all took turns hanging from the ceiling!


A Victoria crowned pigeon in the open flight room...


...and a bird of paradise behind wires, where it was singing happily to the bird in the next enclosure.


Micronesian kingfishers, extinct in the wild, wiped out in Guam by an invader snake.


A jellyfish in the Invertebrate House -- a sea nettle, I believe. Can you tell which is the animal and which are the reflections?


A Chesapeake Bay blue crab, an impressive specimen.


A giant freshwater prawn.


A bird-eating tarantula, something I fervently hope I never see in the wild.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, cruisedirector sent to me...
Twelve beaches drumming
Eleven aquariums piping
Ten gerbils a-leaping
Nine boardwalks dancing
Eight libraries a-milking
Seven evitas a-swimming
Six squirrels a-mountaineering
Five warr-r-r-rior princesses
Four tall ships
Three jason isaacs
Two playing cards
...and a hamlet in an epic poetry.
Get your own Twelve Days:


I have already linked to this on Facebook etc. but in case anyone hasn't seen it yet, Prop 8: The Musical. Oh, Allison Janney and Neil Patrick Harris, I love you. Pushing Daisies makes me sad the way Boston Legal does, because I know we're in the waning days, but even though this week's episode had too many fat-guy jokes for me to put it in my top ten, it still made me smile many times. Spoilers: I swear they came up with the plot just so they could make the waffle hat, the buffalo hat and the pie hats! And the dresses!

The entire idea of a "Best in Belly Comfort Food Cook-Off" is inspired, though to start with sympathy for Ned's comfort food pies and end with ridicule and loathing of an average guy who got fat eating Kentucky Fried Chicken seems both mean-spirited and unfair. Even so, the comic version of Doctor Who's "Father's Day" -- with Chuck bringing her father back to life and setting the universe out of whack -- and then Ned, instead of being angry, is so uncomfortable, "Is it awkward because did it with your dad?" And then Kristen Chenoweth singing "Eternal Flame" -- oh, there will never be anything like this show again.

Also watched the first part of The Sarah Jane Adventures' "Enemy of the Bane," which I enjoyed for the most part, though Rani's mum as perpetual woman-in-peril is getting a bit annoying. Can't her dad be the one in serious trouble for a change, instead of becoming comic relief? The tearing-parents-from-children menace in general is becoming overused, too. But since this is a part one, I will reserve judgment on the episode overall until I've seen the rest -- I love the worst episodes of SJA more than I like the best episodes of most other shows, anyway!

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