Poem for Wednesday

Mariners
By David Morton

Men who have loved the ships they took to sea,
   Loved the tall masts, the prows that creamed with foam,
Have learned, deep in their hearts, how it might be
   That there is yet a dearer thing than home.
The decks they walk, the rigging in the stars,
   The clean boards counted in the watch they keep --
These, and the sunlight on the slippery spars,
   Will haunt them ever, waking and asleep.

Ashore, these men are not as other men:
   They walk as strangers through the crowded street,
Or, brooding by their fires, they hear again
   The drone astern, where gurgling waters meet,
Or see again a wide and blue lagoon,
And a lone ship that rides there with the moon.

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A 1920 poem whose beginning reads like porn to me -- men who have loved the prows that creamed with foam? I am surprised there is not more sailor/ship slash, now that I'm thinking of it. Or would that be het, because of the relentless insistence on referring to the ship in the feminine as if that makes the infatuation more acceptable? *g*

I have had a perfectly insane day. The morning wasn't terrible, I got all three loads of laundry done and various other chores, and I saw for lunch which always makes my day a happy one. But then I had to go in twelve different directions carpooling -- picking up younger son from school to avoid bully who has been causing trouble on the walk home, picking up older son from the bus, taking him to Hebrew, picking him up from Hebrew and taking both kids to the doctor, coming home from the doctor and taking both kids to the evening book fair event with author signings at the school...I managed to write two out of three articles I was supposed to in and around this, and I got the laundry folded (watching Veronica Mars, laundry-folding is so my favorite chore). But now I am completely zotzed.

I had asked the fabulous , whom I have known for close to ten years from ASCEM and K/S, for Highlander recommendations, since must have power lunches instead of pimping lunches with me and from now on and I figured I was unlikely to be able to watch the entire series chronologically. She wrote up ratings and recs on seasons one and two, seasons three and four and seasons five and six! Anyone interested in HL, go look at this wonderful resource!

Yesterday when I was grumpy, cheered me up with this: How about a game of I'll show you mine, you show me yours? I'll give you a list of things that make me happy to the point of excessive squee, and you can tell me yours? So, in her honor, because this is a simply wonderful idea:

Ten Things That Never Fail To Make Me Smile
1. "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People.
2. When a certain adored person from my distant past answers my e-mails or remembers to send me a Christmas card.
3. The dog who adopted a fawn, and the tortoise who adopted a hippo.
4. Drawing the Nine of Cups in a Tarot reading.
5. Kevin Kline sniffing his own armpits in A Fish Called Wanda.
6. Finding my cat and my son asleep together on his bed.
7. Internet serendipity: discovering, or being discovered by, people I have known for years but lost track of.
8. The Chambers Candy Company's Shakespeare mints. Also their violet and rose tins.
9. The Messiah's Handbook in Richard Bach's Illusions.
10. The way Spock grins when he says "Jim!" in "Amok Time."

Your turn! Everyone tell me what makes you squee excessively! Better yet, post this in your journal and tell everyone!


Rosie peers at her reflection in a bell left on the bed.