Trópico
By Nicholas Christopher
On the abandoned tennis court in the coconut grove
where the cows chew weeds along the baseline
and a halved ball like a temple's dome shadows
an anthill of powdered clay to which a column
of red ants marches out of the grass
lugging bread crumbs from a ditchdigger's
lunch scavenged by the roadside
and grape seeds spat out a truck window
by a girl with windblown hair returning barefoot
from a dance the previous night
and finally a fly's carcass minus the wing
that a straggler ant is struggling to carry
when a gecko slithers from the weeds to snap him up
before being snatched away himself hours later
asleep behind transparent eyelids on a fallen
palm by a trembler a nocturnal bird
whose plumage sparkles with stars as he flies
over the road where a truck is speeding
with no girl inside tonight to taste the wind
and drawing in his wings dives into the forest
a black curtain he pierces like a needle
allowing a pinpoint of light to escape
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From Poet's Choice by Edward Hirsch in today's Washington Post Book World. "One of our most inventive writers, Nicholas Christopher is a fabulist obsessed by transience and deeply troubled by mortality...he has a taste for the exotic, the faraway, the displaced, the imaginary. He is a close observer with a romantic sensibility, an eager, even fervent eye and a long wistful gaze."
It is very windy here and cold (they have threatened us with snow flurries). Soccer has been cancelled, my older son wants to get a haircut so I think we are doing thrilling family chores. It always takes me at least two days to adjust to the time change of Daylight Savings so this is just as well.
Tomorrow night is Passover (and, at least of equal importance, UConn has made the NCAA Championship game!) and my mother has nagged us endlessly about afikoman prizes for the kids...she wants to get something that's not "junk" but she doesn't want to spend very much money, we just bought them a slew of books at the book fair, she has rejected all suggestions as too expensive or too trivial...if she calls once more to ask I will say something very nonspiritual.
A brief PSA from
Dancers on the stage in front of the Jefferson Memorial.
My favorite of the early presidents and my favorite of his writings.
One more view of Jefferson, late in the day from across Independence Avenue.
The old Smithsonian, known as The Castle, which looks very elegant and European amidst all the government buildings and modern architecture around it.
The color in this photo is untouched; this is how the light was hitting the Capitol as the sun was moving behind the Washington Monument in the late afternoon.
And speaking of the federal government...gacked from
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