Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Poem for Wednesday and Garden Lights

Blustery
By Neil Shepard

Blustery 25-below, O Walt, I wouldn't go
And live with animals tonight--
Or anytime soon. How do
They survive in their snowy lairs?
How could I, for that matter, who
Haven't taken the wild Swedish plunge
Every chilly night to thicken my fur layer
By layer, I who doze by the fire
With the phone to my ear,
Doze the whole new year
Listening to my wife in such weird
Zone-warping tropical heat, naked,
Whispering her desire for 50-below,
If it brings her home. That's fur
Of a different nature, Walt, layer
Upon layer of love that glows, grows
Over us like a sun-lit coat.
O we are hothouse flowers, Walt,
Naked and limply alive in a narrow
Equatorial band. Otherwise, we die.
Walt, we must make do
With our lovely human hair.

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This was today's Poem-A-Day, from (T)ravel/Un(t)ravel.

I can already tell that I am going to finish December hopelessly behind at everything. I had a list of chores that were supposed to get done on Tuesday from rescheduling a doctor's appointment to shifting my closet so I can get to the winter clothes, but I somehow didn't get either accomplished, nor did I make any headway with holiday cards. Best I can brag about is getting the laundry folded.

This is partly because I was distracted yet again by Colin Firth, this time in Fever Pitch, which I liked so much better than I was expecting considering I'd been told that it was even blokier than the movies based on Hornby's other books -- Colin's character is fairly pathetic and everyone in the film knows it, including him. Plus his hair looks like rumpled bedcovers and he runs around in Arsenal underwear and says he's wished for an Arsenal victory for longer than most people have wished for anything, including winning an Oscar. And Mark Strong plays his best friend.

It was chilly but gorgeous in the afternoon and I saw five deer in the woods. We watched the Glee holiday special, which I disliked as much as last year's -- oh, I loved the retro look and the two domestic boys, and I get that the Christmas show is just a vehicle to sell the Christmas album, but Rachel singing a Christmas song while surrounded by all the trappings of Christmas -- in a multicultural public school with two Jewish kids just in the little glee club, who sigh happily over the Jesus prophecy -- just reminds me why I dislike this season.

Now we are watching more Merlin, which never fails to delight me, both in its Arthur-Merlin-shirtless-bedroom goodness and because I really enjoy both Gwen and Morgana though I wish they'd give the latter more than one emotion this season. I want to say thank you to everyone who sent me birthday greetings -- my birthday and holiday messages and cards are all mixed up together and I can't remember whom I talked to on LJ vs Facebook! Speaking of which, here are some photos from GardenFest on Sunday:















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