Sunday, January 30, 2011

Poem for Sunday and Great Falls Snow

On Approaching the Staub-Bach, Lauterbrunnen
By William Wordsworth


Uttered by whom, or how inspired--designed
For what strange service, does this concert reach
Our ears, and near the dwellings of mankind!
'Mid fields familiarized to human speech?--
No Mermaid's warble--to allay the wind
Driving some vessel toward a dangerous beach--
More thrilling melodies; Witch answering Witch,
To chant a love-spell, never intertwined
Notes shrill and wild with art more musical:
Alas! that from the lips of abject Want 10
Or Idleness in tatters mendicant
The strain should flow--free Fancy to enthral,
And with regret and useless pity haunt
This bold, this bright, this sky-born, WATERFALL!

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For the fourth day in a row, we had snow in the air, though thankfully it didn't last very long and didn't stick since the temperature was above freezing by the time it fell. Paul took Daniel to robotics early, and the rest of us had a quiet morning reading and writing and looking at camera stuff. It was very pretty out with snow still sticking to most of the trees, so after lunch we decided to take a walk at Great Falls, which was nearly deserted except for people with cameras, a couple of couples, and (as we were leaving) some crazy people with kayaks. The water was both surprisingly low and surprisingly green in the river given the amount of snow we got earlier in the week, but there was still lots of snow on the rocks and the trees and the partially-frozen canal. We saw only one heron, flying overhead, but there were ducks and squirrels near the towpath and on the island.

















We had pancakes, (fake) sausage, (fake) bacon, and eggs for dinner after Daniel got home, then we watched Frida, which I swear has been on my list for much longer than my recent Geoffrey Rush obsession but it was on cable which made it the obvious choice in between local and national coverage of the situation in Egypt. I didn't love it -- I find that Julie Taymor's style sometimes overshadows the emotional content of her material, which was the case here when she tried to portray how Kahlo found her artistic inspiration, though at least she made some effort as opposed to the recent terribly-scripted for-TV Georgia O'Keeffe movie -- but the performances are all excellent, it's very interesting visually, and Salma Hayek is sublime. Plus it made me really want to go to Mexico, especially right now when everything is so white and gray outside.

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