Poem for Friday

Peace
By Rupert Brooke

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

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I found that poem at a site had sent me to with poems about war, but now I've lost the link! Must hunt it up. (ETA: First World War poetry. Thanks again !)

I was out from before 8 a.m. on the field trip downtown with my younger son's class; waited for more than an hour after elementary school for my older son's bus which had broken down though I didn't know it till I'd already been at the bus stop for more than half an hour, and they were over an hour later than that; I had to rush him to Hebrew school, then rush back to get the younger one ready for violin, then take care of dinner, then test younger son on his spelling words; I read something in a friend's journal that really, really upset me, and then I was so fried I sat on the couch for two solid hours and made my husband watch Divorcing Jack with me because that is one of those movies that completely takes you outside your own life and any petty problems in your community and somehow manages to make you laugh at utter horrors, plus, you know, Jason Isaacs and David Thewlis grinning at one another. If I dream about Lucius/Remus tonight it is not my fault.

Also, linked to this movie poster, Horror on Snape Island, that kicked off so many bunnies I don't know where to start with them. I asked her if we could have a Horror on Snape Island challenge -- does this sound like fun or am I well and truly cracked?

I know I owe a bazillion comments. Tomorrow.


I went with my son's third grade class on a field trip to the Smithsonian so the kids could practice taking notes and writing about things they'd observed. We had a scavenger hunt of things to find in the museum. Here are two of the kids reporting that they found the rubies in the minerals and gemstones section.


And here is an opal surrounded by diamonds, emeralds and sapphires, which I took a photo of just because it's lovely.


Skeletons always seem to go over well with kids. Here are various canines, on the way to the Insect Zoo...


...which goes over even bigger, as it has live tarantulas, scorpions, a black widow, giant cockroaches, bees and other things I sincerely hope never to find in my home.


The recently redone area on mammals has a wide variety of stuffed specimens. I must admit that I prefer to see the live ones at the zoo, even if they don't hold still for observation.


Guess what everyone's favorite prehistoric skeleton is? (Actually, it was the mammoth, but this one was the one they talked about the most before we actually saw it.)


The Neanderthal diorama has been in this museum since I was in school taking field trips.


The elephant in the rotunda is always a meeting place for these sorts of activities -- it was where my kids were directed to go in case anyone got lost and where we all started and finished as a group.