Poem for Thursday

A Blessing
By James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

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For . It's odd: I have her other request, "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, in my folder of poems I've already posted, but it's not in my LiveJournal on the date on the file and I can't find it in my archive. Now I am worried that I saved a bunch of poems to the posted folder that I never actually posted!

I am missing three hours clear out of my day to migraine and am quite fuzzy about the three hours before that, so please forgive any incoherence -- I think I was so grumpy last night because I was incubating it. Woke up with a moderate headache, took mild drugs, went to 's for her birthday Highlander squee with , took more drugs, came home, picked up kids, took stronger drugs, wrote three articles on autopilot that I am terrified are not even in English but afraid to look at tonight, went to bed and slept through dinner in which my father took the rest of my family out to Hamburger Hamlet after I finally conceded that I needed the prescription stuff and crashed through the Imitrex muscle twitches.

Highlander for the day was "Courage" (, I totally see your point about Duncan's previous boyfriend) and both parts of "Finale", all of which were fabulous. I rather liked Lisa Howard in Earth: Final Conflict though it took me forever to figure out where I'd seen her before, so I do not seem to have the loathing of Anne that many other fans do, but of course I have not yet seen enough of her for her to get on my nerves, either. Duncan's emotional involvement right when he meets her is so obviously with Brian anyway, she could almost be seen as rebound for a number of other tragic relationships. I thought "Finale" pointed out a few plot holes with the series overall, like who watches the Watchers and why doesn't anyone tell Richie anything, but Amanda was such fun and the swordfight on the Eiffel Tower was so superb that I didn't mind at all. I am sure I will have more coherent things to say about this when I am, you know, more coherent.

I woke up and ate soup while watching Smallville and The West Wing. The former was okay -- I like Lois and Lucy a lot better than Lana, and the episode had Peter W. as a bad guy which after an afternoon of Highlander was like icing on 's birthday cake, though he didn't get nearly enough to do and he and Lex didn't have nearly enough screen time together (I wanted porny images, dammit). But then it became OMGFANTASTIC in the final minutes! Clark asks Lex if he ever missed having a sibling, and Lex says "I did until I met you," and then declares that Clark matters more to him than family. I swear, if I had written some of that in fanfic I would have been afraid it was too trite. <3333 Then came "The Good Day", which I was too sleepy to fully appreciate, but which once again justified my Matt Santos adoration and which also had some very fine Bartlet moments -- not "fine" as in "what a great President" but "fine" as in "I totally believe in this man as a real human being, not a television character." Of course the highlights for me involved Matt sitting on Donna and the two of them slowly falling in love, in obvious preparation to share Josh (heh), and the Toby/Annabeth moments, though I enjoyed him and CJ snarking at the beginning as well...how come I like the two of them best when there is some snark? And on a related note, the wonderful wrote me some brief but most appreciated Josh/Matt porn! (Note: , I am still going to beg you for yours!)

Anyway, I ate a little soup, answered a few comments and really must go crash again. Man, I owe my sanity to the makers of Imitrex. Hopefully tomorrow my brain will not feel stuffed with slightly itchy cotton.


Upside-down hungry, rambunctious boy on a bench waiting impatiently to go to a restaurant for dinner.