Poem for Thursday

Grief
By Pattiann Rogers

Even though, like a stone sinking
in a green sea, it knows depth
and the darkness of depth; even though,
like a thundercloud in wind, it is torn
apart and reassembled over and over;
even though it draws in, pulls
its ragged edges close around
the heart, like a blossom of bindweed
at dusk; and even though its form
is as vague and sharp as a shadow
of smoke against a winter hillside;
still it maintains a hard, viable
seed of calm at its center, possesses
the seeking tendency of tendrils

and roots, recalls its lasting kinship
with the past and future wounds
of the living, holds to the heritage
of that certainty, gives itself finally
over to all those powers that rise
by themselves - water oak and willow
saplings, leafy-stems of field
thistles, sunflowered and weed-thick
fallows, gatherings of dragonflies,
flockings of warblers, fog in sunlight,
pond turtle and pole star surfacing,
coyote cry of proclamation up
to the moon, and the dominion
of birth, and the kingdom of promise.

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I posted this poem in April 2007 but I was in the mood for it tonight. I don't have anything of interest to report: worked on an article and Bar Mitzvah stuff, took Adam to Hebrew, folded laundry while watching Made of Honor for the New York and Scotland scenery (I had a Jane Austenesque response to the movie: I'd have married stable, musically gifted, well-hung Kevin McKidd just for his house and gardens; I'd never trust that Patrick Dempsey wouldn't melt down under the weight of his neuroses and end up just like his father). This film doesn't think very highly of women and what they want, all of it being material -- heroine more upset about not having the dream wedding shower than not having the dream boyfriend -- so I feel no shame about admitting this.


Geese at Huntley Meadows Park a couple of weeks ago enjoying the warmer weather.


Though Canada geese migrate through this area, there seem to be many that are year-round residents as well.


I wonder if some of these are the same geese that appear on office park lawns near Dulles Airport.


When the weather warms up, small flocks can be seen flying over my own neighborhood as well as wildlife sanctuaries like this one...


...and bathing in local ponds. Hopefully there will be goslings soon.


The cattails always hide plenty of ducks, sparrows, swallows, and many songbirds.


I love the way the red-winged blackbirds can land near the top and balance...


...and how they have to puff themselves up to sing.

I'd heard that they'd turned off Richardson's life support when I decided to put on Blow Dry (currently on Comcast On Demand) in the evening; I saw the headlines that she had died about the halfway point. There's a lot I love about that movie, not least of which is the rest of the cast (Alan Rickman, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Nighy, Rosemary Harris, Hugh Bonneville, et al), and all the Yorkshire scenery, but I also really like the story, though it was awful to watch Richardson playing someone who was dying (the last thing I watched Liam Neeson in was Love, Actually in which he plays a widower...someone spoil me for Taken and tell me if it has a happy ending). Anyway, Adam loves the scene with the colorful sheep and we all love the soundtrack, but it was very bittersweet.