Poem for Friday

Ignorant Before the Heavens of My Life
By Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Steven Mitchell

Ignorant before the heavens of my life,
I stand and gaze in wonder. Oh the vastness
of the stars. Their rising and descent. How still.
As if I didn't exist. Do I have any
share in this? Have I somehow dispensed with
their pure effect? Does my blood's ebb and flow
change with their changes? Let me put aside
every desire, every relationship
except this one, so that my heart grows used to
its farthest spaces. Better that it live
fully aware, in the terror of its stars, than
as if protected, soothed by what is near.

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Poem for -- I found this one on one of the Rilke sites you linked to and just could not resist it.

My brain is absolutely refusing to wake up today even though I've been awake for hours. Stayed up with my son last night watching Kerry, even though he has camp today and had to get up early; he wanted to watch, I'm happy he's interested in the political process and has his own opinions on what's the matter with the Bush Administration, and -- okay, he wanted to watch the big flag made of balloons drop all over the podium. And of course afterwards I had to spend a couple of hours with transcripts, since I missed all the earlier speakers yesterday.

That was definitely the best speech I've ever heard Kerry give, and he hit some points I'd been hoping he would but not really counting on given the image the party seems to believe he needs to project (did anyone do a count of how many times he used the words "strength" and "Vietnam"?) I am so at the point where I don't care how he wins so long as he wins that I almost don't feel like I can judge. Every time I had a Proud To Be A Democrat moment, it was immediately followed by a long mental list of issues I wish they were emphasizing more, details of the platform I wish were more clearly presented, etc. I still think Edwards is a better public speaker, and since he's the one who'll debate Cheney, that's all to the good; for Kerry to sound better than Bush in a debate should really not be all that difficult.

Got to go write up some articles and catch up on about two hundred flist entries and answer a whole pile of e-mail before going to my in-laws' tomorrow. Today is the kids' last day of camp -- have to figure out exciting things to do with them next week before we go to New England. Anyone counting on fic from me and , I had better warn that it may be awhile; I have lots of demands on my time right at the moment.

Speaking of fic, I have a question for people I either know from way back or who are here because you knew my Voyager stories. The first few weeks I had this journal, I did what a lot of people do and filled it with many, many pointless entries and quizzes. Since that time I've realized that some people never check my web page but they do look at my memories here to see what fan fiction I've written; I've put some of my older stories in my memories, having edited some of those pointless entries to include the fic. I have most of the DS9 stories up now, but only a handful of the vast quantities of Janeway/Chakotay fic. If you've read my stuff, are there particular stories you think I should include in my memories here, in case I decide to make LiveJournal my fanfic archive and save the space on my server?

Gacked from most recently: one of the few times in my life I've come out regular anything!


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