Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Poem for Tuesday and Hillwood Collections

For Once, Then, Something
By Robert Frost

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

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Monday was mostly a chore day, which was just as well because I ate something during my weekend of eating too much that had me feeling less than wonderful. It was, at least, a beautiful afternoon just like the weekend, cool and overcast, starting to smell like autumn; when I was walking on the trail through the woods, two deer and their fawns were lying about ten feet in on the leaves that fell last week during the storms, looking a bit curious but not particularly nervous even when someone came by from the other direction with a dog on a leash. My major activity apart from writing was taking Adam to the dermatologist, who gave his feet a clean bill of health. We managed to avoid the traffic on 270 from the accident that made rush our horrible, so that was good, too.

Adam is now getting a cold as well as Daniel, and was tired and grumpy because he left a project at school (which was locked when we stopped by to pick it up after the doctor), so we had a quiet evening: corn dogs, which we tried not to eat like Perry and Bachmann, then Warehouse 13, which did not have Kate Mulgrew this week and did have zombies and Pete/Myka flirtation and was quite enjoyable. I have no self-respect when it comes to William Shatner, so I actually put on the Charlie Sheen roast to see him; it was more dreadful than the Emmy Awards except for Shatner giving Sheen advice about being smart with his money, not paying for hookers, selling a kidney stone to raise money for Habitat for Humanity, "Who's the warlock now, bitch?" (And fine, I admit I laughed when Seth McFarlane said that Shatner was "the guy who played Captain Kirk back before Star Trek looked like a bunch of guys working in a Mac store.")


The French drawing room at the Hillwood Estate...


...where Marjorie Merriweather Post kept her custom-made Steinway piano.


Post collected Russian imperial art and religious icons...


...and French decorative art and porcelain.


Post kept portraits of famous people she had met and admired...


...and had many paintings done of herself and her daughters.


The formal dining room is set for a wedding...


...though I prefer the much more intimate breakfast room.

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