In General
By Pattiann Rogers
This is about no rain in particular,
just any rain, rain sounding on the roof,
any roof, slate or wood, tin or clay
or thatch, any rain among any trees,
rain in soft, soundless accumulation,
gathering rather than falling on the fir
of juniper and cedar, on a lace-community
of cobwebs, rain clicking off the rigid
leaves of oaks or magnolias, any kind
of rain, cold and smelling of ice or rising
again as steam off hot pavements
or stilling dust on country roads in August.
This is about rain as rain possessing
only the attributes of any rain in general.
And this is about night, any night
coming in its same immeasurably gradual
way, fulfilling expectations in its old
manner, creating heavens for lovers
and thieves, taking into itself the scarlet
of the scarlet sumac, the blue of the blue
vervain, no specific night, not a night
of birth or death, not the night forever
beyond the frightening side of the moon,
not the night always meeting itself
at the bottom of the sea, any sea, warm
and tropical or starless and stormy, night
meeting night beneath Arctic ice.
This attends to all nights but no night.
And this is about wind by itself,
not winter wind in particular lifting
the lightest snow off the mountaintop
into the thinnest air, not wind through
city streets, pushing people sideways,
rolling ash cans banging down the block,
not a prairie wind holding hawks suspended
mid-sky, not wind as straining sails
or as curtains on a spring evening, casually
in and back over the bed, not wind
as brother or wind as bully, not a lowing
wind, not a high howling wind. This is
about wind solely as pure wind in itself,
without moment, without witness.
Therefore this night tonight--
a midnight of late autumn winds shaking
the poplars and aspens by the fence, slamming
doors, rattling the porch swing, whipping
thundering black rains in gusts across
the hillsides, in batteries against the windows
as we lie together listening in the dark, our own
particular fingers touching--can never
be a subject of this specific conversation
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Have just discovered that Pattiann Rogers has a new book out, Generations. O frabjous day! She is my favorite living poet. Prepare for more, as I have already used all my favorites from Firekeeper, Song of the World Becoming, The Tattooed Lady In the Garden and Splitting and Binding.
It rained, so we scratched plans to go hiking and looking at leaves till next weekend. We had lunch with
Here, have a "Storm Front, Part Two" review -- it will be interesting to see if this episode gets better ratings, out of competition with baseball due to rain cancellations. I thought it was about as good as part one, meaning that it was also about as bad as part one. The reset button is sub-mental for a two-parter; they should have had T'Pol find Tucker in her shower ten minutes into the season opener, declared the alien Nazis a dream and moved on.
What were the last five fannish topics you discussed in your livejournal? Provide links if you like.
Star Trek above and Harry Potter below; Snape in the last entry; the Big Gay Boat (a Master and Commander reference) and Smallville in the entry before that.
Summary (already written down for
I'm Daniel Radcliffe, and I've been hiding in Alan Rickman's dressing room for two days because I was flirting with the kid who plays Justin Finch-Fletchey, and Justin -- the actor's name is also Justin in this dream -- laughed in my face and told me he was going to tell everyone I was gay. I had picked Alan's dressing room to hide in because he has a refrigerator with bottled water and isn't supposed to be on set, but it's the weekend now, so I feel safe not being completely hidden away, and when I am sitting in the middle of the room instead of buried under costumes and stuff, Alan comes in and is astonished to see me. He tells me that half of England is looking for me and my parents are frantic.
I tell him the whole story with Justin and he is quite sympathetic but insists that I must call my parents immediately and tell them where I am. He hands me his cell phone. I adamantly do not want to call because I figure that if everyone thinks I have run away, then Justin has undoubtedly told everyone everything -- probably including Alan, who undoubtedly thinks I am pathetic, which I am sure is the only reason he is being so nice to me. I start bawling when I am on the phone with my parents because my mother (role played by my mother-in-law) is hysterical and my father (role played by Sam Neill) is crying too.
Alan awkwardly pats me on the back through the entire conversation, and by the time I am finished, I decide I am going to have a crush on him instead of Justin. After I get off the phone he hugs me and I don't want to stop crying so he'll keep holding me. Then it occurs to me that my parents might be a little freaked out that I have been in his dressing room and calling them on his cell phone and I hope I haven't gotten him into any trouble, because I want to be able to see him after shooting has finished.
2. Does it hold any significant meaning to you?
Oh, this is fucked up on so many levels. When I woke up it occurred to me to find it disturbing that I dreamed I was a child (well, an adolescent, but someone I consider Too Young) with the same name as one of my children. I am sure Sam Neill got into this dream because we saw Wimbledon with him recently, playing Kirsten Dunst's father in the movie, but I have no idea why my mother-in-law was playing my -- that is, Daniel Radcliffe's -- mother, though perhaps it's because she seems like such a non-crier whereas it wouldn't be at all surprising for my own mother to cry if I'd disappeared even for a few hours unexpectedly.
Having a crush on Alan Rickman of course makes total sense for me if I am me, and arguably even perhaps a certain amount of perverse sense for Harry Potter if Alan Rickman is Snape, but how did Justin get into this? And why am I worrying about whether Daniel Radcliffe is gay or not when I scrupulously avoid all gossip or RPS or even discussions of RPS involving anyone underage?
3. Do you dream in color or black and white?
Color. Often exaggerated color.
4. What is the most frightening dream you ever had?
It involved having left my children in the care of friends of my husband who then failed to pay attention when one of them fell into a fountain in a mall and disappeared, all of which I witnessed from a glass elevator in the mall.
5. Is there one dream that stays clear in your mind despite the fact it was more than a few years ago?
I write down all memorable dreams in the morning -- I used to do this every single morning, but since I've had kids it's just impossible most mornings, yet as you can see I wrote down the Alan Rickman dream, for example. So there are a great many that have stayed clear. I've had several about being on roller coasters where I remember the sensations vividly though I have not actually been on a roller coaster since my honeymoon in 1990. The recurrent dream about running into one of my college professors is the one I'd most like to have analyzed.
A night view out the front windshield of the Mormon Temple as seen driving west on I-495. I liked the way the colors came out.
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