Poem for Friday

Unclean
By Brooks Haxton

The pelican in scripture is unclean. It pukes dead fish
onto the hatchlings, and it roosts alone, like Satan
on the Tree of Life. Nobody told me. I liked pelicans.
I liked owls, too. I used to lie awake and listen,
wanting to become an owl, to fly, to see through darkness,
turn my head and look straight back behind me. I was
happy, as kids go, but I did not belong in human form.
Sparrows peck grain from fresh dung. In this world rich
means filthy. Leopardi, in his high Romantic musings
on the sparrow, does not say the poet is a shitbird, just
that, singing by himself, he acts like one, and wishes
he could feel more like one, unashamed to do so. Here,
the preacher (burning in his bones with fever, puking
half-digested fish, and hooting, sleepless in the ruins
like the baleful dead) cries: O Lord, take me not away.

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There were major thunderstorms several times on Thursday, but these did not prevent the major activities of my day. After getting up and buying my Superpoke penguin a library, golf course, and back yard with a swimming hole -- some days I really want to be my penguin -- I took the kids to have lunch at Cici's with Gblvr and her children (who picked the restaurant -- please don't lecture me about nutrition and having Cici's twice in a week!). Then I took my kids to the pool in the afternoon once it was apparent that the lightning was gone for the time being. I had a brief visit from my parents to exchange CDs -- my father had one from a friend with Bar Mitzvah photos, I had music for them (it was their anniversary). And in the evening, we went to see Ocean Orchestra at Silver Spring Swings.


This is Jennifer Cutting, who arranges all the songs for Ocean Orchestra and composes many of them...


...and this is Lisa Mosciatello, who formerly performed with Jennifer in The New St. George. They did two songs from that era tonight: "The Mermaid" and "The Steggie."


Ocean Orchestra -- which also includes New St. George bass player Rico Petruccelli -- opened the Silver Spring Swings free concert series on the city's pedestrian mall. (I've posted older son singing on this stage with his school choir.)


Jennifer invited the kids to get up and dance. Several had their faces painted at the free booth near the stage.


She even got off the stage to dance with the Green Man (a.k.a. Jennifer's Library of Congress colleague and fellow folk musician Steve Winick).


Steve got onstage to sing with the band when they did the "Green Man" song.


After all the rain, it was a beautiful evening in Silver Spring...


...and the group played till it was nearly dark.

Sometimes PETA has a way of reminding me exactly why I loathe them even though I believe in pretty much everything they believe in, at least in theory. Then again I'm also pissed at Jon Stewart for giving Mike Huckabee a platform for insulting everyone of every faith that does not believe life begins at fertilization and does believe that women should have the right to make their own medical decisions, so rather than be cranky I will go to bed!