Saturday, June 05, 2010

Poem for Saturday, 'Frame of Mind' and Homestead Farm

Drinking in Moonlight
By Li Po
Translated by David Young


I sit with my wine jar
among flowers
blossoming trees

no one to drink with

well, there's the moon

I raise my cup
and ask him to join me
bringing my shadow
making us three

but the moon doesn't seem to be drinking
and my shadow creeps around behind me

still, we're companions tonight
me, the moon, and the shadow
we're observing the rites of spring

I sing
and the moon rocks back and forth

I dance
and my shadow tumbles with me

We celebrate for awhile
then go our own ways, drunk

may we meet again someday
in the white river of stars
overhead!

--------

My Friday mostly involved things that had to get done -- a review of Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Frame of Mind" interrupted by driving to pick up Daniel from his school, which was closed today for graduation, but the chamber choir accompanied the families of graduating students on the buses that took them downtown to DAR Constitution Hall, where we are all hoping that next year's graduation will NOT occur (although I graduated there from a county high school, Daniel's school is so much bigger that each student could only bring two guests, meaning a lot of step-parents and grandparents who raised the students were left out, plus it's a nightmare to reach and even worse to find parking for people not near the Metro). Daniel sat on stage through the entire ceremony, so he was pretty bored during the reading of nearly a thousand names, but he came home in a good mood since now he's a senior. Meanwhile Adam's school had a fire at an assembly, so that was exciting for him!

We had kabobs on the grill for dinner (with more s'mores -- Paul insisted). In the evening we watched a DVD about penguins that Paul found at the library, targeted toward much younger kids than ours but footage of adorable penguins is always worth watching though I might recommend turning off the sound next time. After that we were in the mood for a more serious nature documentary, so we put on the first episodes of Planet Earth, which we've all seen parts of but we now own the series so we can watch the whole thing. I still can't watch the news without wanting to bash skulls together, which would not improve anything anywhere, and I have no opinion on the fact that the Orioles fired their manager, so I shall get some rest and get ready for the DC folk festival on Saturday. Here are some more Homestead Farm photos:















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