Saturday, August 22, 2020

Poem for Saturday and Hibiscus

Hibiscus on the Lake
By Chavali Bangaramma
Translated by Velcheru Narayana Rao

    The plant saw the beauty of water,
the flowering plant with bright red flowers.
      She told me all about water.

Bending over the water to put on her bottu,
      she saw the beauty of water.

        I watched the loveliness,
            until I fainted.
  Snakes like trees ran through the lake.

    The plant saw the beauty of water,
the flowering plant with bright red flowers.

           The sky saw it all.
           It trembled in fear
      and fell down on the banks.
    Even the sun was scared to look
        from the top of the tree.

  The plant saw the beauty of water,
the flowering plant with bright red flowers.
        She spread out her hair.
          Her bottu fell off.
         The banks shed tears
      and the shore was shaken.

  The plant with bright red flowers,
        bending, still bending
    told me of the beauty of water.

      The hibiscus talked to me.

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I have no idea where Friday went. I could write a list of things I intended to get done but did not, ranging from zipping and uploading some files to finishing a project to folding laundry plus a whole bunch else that doesn't seem like it should have taken too long, but I managed to keep distracting myself even though I didn't talk to my high school friends because a couple of them are away.

My evening excuse for distraction besides the National Zoo's baby panda was the 2018 film of the Broadway revival of The King and I, which remains a really hard show to watch despite some of my favorite Richard Rodgers melodies -- huge problems with the writing of people of color, especially women, and White Savior issues that distort history -- and very good performances. Some C&O Canal hibiscus:

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DSCN9728

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