Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Poem for Tuesday

Hog Island Oysters
By Devin Johnston


Oysters adhere
to things, no eyes:

spat on the smooth
curve of a pier

they feel shadows
and snap shut.

The sun wavers
while anchored below

each distills
Tomales Bay,

accreting waves
within its shell.

Voluptuous and cold,
Kumamoto trembles

on a thin fork,
liquefaction

of cloud. Rain
distorts glass,

our tavern submerged
all afternoon.

--------

I had a fairly domestic Monday. Daniel had the NSL Government advanced placement exam in the morning and the kids were not expected back at school after the test -- we were encouraged to pick them up at the testing site, a church near the school -- so I had him with me before lunch. We went to Bagel City for lunch, as much to get bagels for breakfast for the rest of the week as because he was starving. Then we came home so he could study for the computer science exam and I took Adam to tennis after school. In the evening we all watched a couple of episodes from the first season of Slings & Arrows -- I'd already watched them with DementorDelta but I thought Paul would appreciate the show and both kids watched, particularly the parts where there's lots of off-color language and bad behavior.


Picnickers, revelers and students mingle on the green at the University of Maryland on Maryland Day.


Cole Field House, home of Maryland Terrapins basketball from 1955 until the completion of the Comcast Center in 2002, host to historic Final Four competitions.


One of several Testudos around campus. The original is outside McKeldin Library. Rubbing Testudo's nose is supposed to bring good luck, which is why the nose has been rubbed shiny.


On Maryland Day, the biology department had a "swamp room" with the creatures and plants found in the state's wetlands.


The geology department allowed people to hold stone from volcanos, under the ocean, and containing precious metals.


Orchids were on display in the botanical sciences area of the biology department.


And the department of entomology was providing aphid-eating ladybugs...


...so we took one home and put it on our newly emerging azaleas.


I am already so sick of hearing about the new Star Trek film that I could throw up -- I've been slowly giving away my books, my posters, all the crap that reminds me that Star Trek has been little more than a moneymaking juggernaut for a long, long time now (if you want books, you can have them, the only caveat is that you have to come get them as I loathe dealing with the post office). The Onion feature "Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'" made me howl, for the wrong reasons -- I wish there were Trekkies willing to come forward with objections! But everyone I know who's seen the film is in the celebritrek industry, and you don't get invited to conventions or on cruises by voicing your displeasure with the Trek of the future. I'm so glad my only connection these days is with Next Gen.

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