Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Poem for Wednesday and NC Aquarium

Night Songs
By Thomas Kinsella

1

Now, as I sink in sleep,
My heart is cut down,
Nothing—poetry nor love—
Achieving.

*

Turns again in my room,
The crippled leopard.
Paw-pad, configured
Yellow light of his eyes,
Pass, repass, repass.
Quiet, my hand; he is tame.
Soon, while I dream, will step
And stir the sunken dawn.

2

Before I woke there entered in
A woman with a golden skin
That tangled with the light.
A tang of orchards climbed the stair
And dwindled in the waxen air,
Crisping the midnight,
And the white pillows of my bed
On apple-tasted darkness fed.
Weakened with appetite
Sleep broke like a dish wherein
A woman lay with golden skin.

--------

I have nothing exciting to report from my Tuesday except that I managed to ward off a migraine (probably because the expected afternoon storm blew in another direction) and to download The Crowe/Doyle Songbook Vol. III (which was released on iTunes last week but I bravely waited it out, even though the thought of having Alan Doyle, Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer all singing together was making me drool). I like all the songs a lot except the Henry VIII one, though if the goal was to write what sounds like a horrible old folk song, they pulled that off. Adam went to the track, then played tennis with my father; Daniel and I went out to get bagels and stopped at a couple of stores.

I know I have not been talking much about the news of the world -- of course I hope everyone I know in London is safe and the insanity is over quickly, and that the situation in Syria improves and the famine in Somalia can be mitigated and that the drought in Texas ends and that the morons in Congress...you know, I don't even know what to hope for there at this point. I have nothing terribly useful to contribute to public discourse on any of the above -- I assume everyone reading this knows where to find the Red Cross and Conservation International and Think Progress. We watched The Maltese Falcon tonight because we realized that both kids could quote it without ever having seen it; I think it's still completely fantastic, though Adam said he had seen better. Here are some photos from the North Carolina Aquarium:


Girl and shark.


Pig-nose turtle.


Otters waiting to be fed.


Moray eel sneaking between rocks.


Ray in the touch tank.


A rattlesnake.


Un-puffed puffer fish.


And a young loggerhead turtle being rehabilitated, though not as young as the one we found on the beach.

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