Poem for Friday and Ginter Flowers

Dear Empire [these are your temples]
By Oliver de la Paz

Dear Empire,

These are your temples. There are rows of stone countenances, pillar after pillar. As if walking through a forest filled with alabaster heads: here, the frown. The gaze. The luminous stare.

Smoke from the incense curls, shapes itself against the archways, rubs against the grooves of the columns. Only a few men press their heads to their hands.

Outside, archeologists excavate a stone torso. Bound in coils of fraying rope, it rises before us, pulled upwards by a backhoe. Its form momentarily hides the sun, though as it sways, the light strikes our eyes. Saying yes. Saying no.

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I had to do a bit of shopping Thursday, so while I was out I stopped in Tuesday Morning, where I discovered that many of the items in the Tuesday flyer are not actually out till Friday, and in Tiara Galleries, where I discovered that the new Vera Bradley camera bag is not really big enough for a DSLR and a decent-sized lens. So I didn't indulge myself except in a box of note cards that I bought for the box more than the note cards, since I am now one of those horrible people who e-mails thank you notes more often than I write and mail cards. Some of you might get these cards for Christmas next year!

CISPA passed the house, which sucks. Adam stayed late at school for a rehearsal for Legally Blonde, so I folded laundry while watching an Arrested Development episode and took a walk through the neighborhood woods where I saw three bunnies. We discussed Freud with Adam over the dinner table, then we watched the mediocre DS9 episode "Second Sight" and this week's Awake, which was great -- family stories that were kind of predictable but well acted, and a big cross-world storyline that was also kind of predictable but still a good development on the series. Here are some photos from Lewis Ginter Botanic Garden: