Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Poem for Tuesday and Little Brown Bat

Sympathy
By Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
   When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
   When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats its wing
   Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
   And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
   When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
   But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

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On Monday Dementordelta and I had a movie day, though we started with a trip to the mall to pick up samosa chaat and involved an hour or so admiring summer accessories in The Icing and Claire's (yes of course we had to have royal frog rings). We had decided back when we saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that we needed to watch The Tailor of Panama again -- based on that and on the long interview on the TTSS Blu-Ray, we have come to the conclusion that John Le Carre thinks Americans, at least Americans in the armed forces and military, are complete morons -- then we watched The Banger Sisters because obviously it was meant to be a Geoffrey Rush day. Plus we had chocolate malteds.

Paul decided that for Patriot's Day we needed to have Boston baked beans, Yankee pot roast (with fake meat of course), and Boston cream pie, so I had a big dinner to go with my big lunch and snack, heh. Adam came home briefly to walk our neighbor's dog, then went back to school to work on tech for Legally Blonde through dinner, so I really didn't talk to him till evening, when we all watched Smash together -- I love Uma Thurman so I am sorry they are writing her as obnoxiously as pretty much everyone else on the show (ugh, remember how I called Dev "perfect boyfriend"? How did he turn into a neurotic mess in three weeks?). Here are five sides of the bat we saw at the National Arboretum on Sunday:









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