By Edward Hirsch
My father in the night shuffling from room to room
on an obscure mission through the hallway.
Help me, spirits, to penetrate his dream
and ease his restless passage.
Lay back the darkness for a salesman
who could charm everything but the shadows,
an immigrant who stands on the threshold
of a vast night
without his walker or his cane
and cannot remember what he meant to say,
though his right arm is raised, as if in prophecy,
while his left shakes uselessly in warning.
My father in the night shuffling from room to room
is no longer a father or a husband or a son,
but a boy standing on the edge of a forest
listening to the distant cry of wolves,
to wild dogs,
to primitive wingbeats shuddering in the treetops.
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Gblvr needed to go to the Container Store, so we met for lunch at Lebanese Taverna next door and did a bit of fun shopping -- electric blue eyeshadow for me at Ulta to wear to con.txt's Disco Duck, Japanese penguin erasers for Adam, important things like that. (I had to get home before we made it to the Vera Bradley sale at Tiara, which is probably just as well, considering I'd managed not to buy anything that cost more than $5 except Heritage History of Transport by Water Playing Cards, which I obviously had to have the moment I became aware of their existence.)
Adam went camera shopping with my mother but failed to find a video camera that does everything he wants it to do, let alone at the price he's capable of affording. (Daniel has no school on Thursday, having no exams that day, so instead of studying for the Friday finals, he watched some Sonic thing.) In the evening we watched the History Channel's Clash of the Gods: "Zeus" episode, which apparently forgot the Enuma Elish was older than the Greek myths, then we watched that travesty of an Orioles-Yankees game (somehow we managed to forget that the Blackhawks might be winning the Stanley Cup until it was too late, quel dommage). Some more Washington Folk Festival photos:
Lisa Moscatiello, Rico Petrucelli, Stephen Winick, and Glyn Collinson playing with Ocean Orchestra.
Fiddler Cheryl Hurwitz, above, as well as band leader/keyboard player Jennifer Cutting, drummer Danny Schwartz, and string instrumentalist Zan McLeod, played with Ocean as well. Sometimes Ocean is a trio or a quartet, but at the festival, it's the full band.
House of Musical Traditions had guitars, banjos, harps, mandolins, and many other instruments for sale in their tent.
The craft fair offered ornaments made from gourds...
...and seahorses made from fabric.
Plus there was photography and glass art available in Glen Echo Park studios, and pottery and tie-dye fabrics for sale outside the yurts.
There were also participatory shows aimed at kids...
...and rides on Glen Echo's one remaining working amusement park ride, the Dentzel Carousel.
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