Poem for Saturday

The Life of Love: Spring
By Kahlil Gibran

Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its
Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys.
Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the
Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw
Inspiration high above the cool green plains.

Dawn of Spring has unfolded her winter-kept garment
And placed it on the peach and citrus trees; and
They appear as brides in the ceremonial custom of
the Night of Kedre.

The sprigs of grapevine embrace each other like
Sweethearts, and the brooks burst out in dance
Between the rocks, repeating the song of joy;
And the flowers bud suddenly from the heart of
Nature, like foam from the rich heart of the sea.

Come, my beloved; let us drink the last of Winter's
Tears from the cupped lilies, and soothe our spirits
With the shower of notes from the birds, and wander
In exhilaration through the intoxicating breeze.

Let us sit by that rock, where violets hide; let us
Pursue their exchange of the sweetness of kisses.

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The first draft of my remix fic is DONE! I am not saying that it's articulate or interesting or anything, but I will, at least, have something to send in by the 15th, and this is in itself a good thing. *g* Today I was supposed to have lunch with the lovely but she and I both had complications (hers were work-related, mine were family-related, though the family-related complications made me run late on work so I suppose technically I had both). So I spent a lonely lunch hour but I did finish writing up what may be the last-ever Enterprise production report, except that SFX's set spy is now claiming that the sets are being packed up and shipped to Vancouver, and I could really believe anything at this point because I don't think the right hand at Viacom has a clue what the left hand is doing. Maybe the sets have been sold cheaply to some other science fiction series. *g*

Tonight we went out to dinner with my parents to a restaurant that was the site of one of the biggest restaurant meltdowns I have ever witnessed from my parents the one previous time we went there. The food was excellent, and instead of being in the British hunt-decorated room we were in the American fishing lodge-decorated room with the fireplaces and the huge glass windows that look out on the nature preserve. My father does not seem to understand that when he is yelling and ranting, of course that has an effect on my kids and of course they are then more prone to yelling and ranting themselves! But tonight things were relatively peaceful, aside from the fact that we sat in a booth with three on a side, which meant that people feet bumped other people's legs on the far side from time to time and people's elbows bumped other people's arms, which given our relative level of informality should not have been made into as much of a crisis as it was from certain parties.

When we got home, we all watched Highlander's "The Valkyrie" (the Ingrid-and-Hitler episode) and the late-season blooper reels to get the trauma of that out of our system. My kids were having an ethics discussion throughout the last fifteen minutes of the episode that was so fascinating to listen to, if a bit unnerving (they seemed at first to think it might not be such a bad thing if a certain leader was assassinated, and although we have strongly encouraged disagreement with if not outright disrespect for said leader, we are afraid we may not have stressed the value of every human life sufficiently). I am always fascinated by the depth of their political understanding and sad at how much 9/11 seems to have affected their young lives; they are aware of the Spanish Muslims having issued a fatwa against Bin Laden and think this is a fabulous idea, for instance. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that they are so aware of the world?

Anyway, I don't worry that they think about this all the time or anything, because they had been singing some llama song from some web site all afternoon with the friend they were playing with and driving me to distraction, and then for the hour before bedtime they were singing the horrible song in the blooper reel with the bouncing Duncan head. Their favorite thing EVER, though, was the cow quickening. I am surprised the neighbors didn't come over to see what the screeching was about. Oh, but I have my family converted and can now watch Highlander whenever I want -- go me!


Koi in the pond in front of the restaurant. Can you see the tree reflected in the water? When I tried to lighten this up, it got all speckly; I was just proud I managed to get one photo which had neither flash reflecting off the water nor blur from the dim evening light.