Poem for Friday

Opus From Space
By Pattiann Rogers

Almost everything I know is glad
to be born -- not only the desert orangetip,
on the twist flower or tansy, shaking
birth moisture from its wings, but also the naked
warbler nestling, head wavering toward sky,
and the honey possum, the pygmy possum,
blind, hairless thimbles of forward,
press and part.

Almost everything I've seen pushes
toward the place of that state as if there were
no knowing any other -- the violent crack
and seed-propelling shot of the witch hazel pod,
the philosophy implicit in the inside out
seed-thrust of the wood sorrel. All hairy
saltcedar seeds are single-minded
in their grasping of wind and spinning
for luck toward birth by water.

And I'm fairly shocked to consider
all the bludgeonings and batterings going on
continually, the head-rammings, wing-furors,
and beak-crackings fighting for release
inside gelatinous shells, leather shells,
calcium shells or rough, horny shells. Legs
and shoulders, knees and elbows flail likewise
against their womb walls everywhere, in pine
forest niches, seepage banks and boggy
prairies, among savannah grasses, on woven
mats and perfumed linen sheets.

Mad zealots, every one, even before
beginning they are dark dust-congealings
of pure frenzy to come into light.

Almost everything I know rages to be born,
the obsession founding itself explicitly
in the coming bone harps and ladders,
the heart-thrusts, vessels and voices
of all those speeding with clear and total
fury toward this singular honor.

--------

Hey, I made it up till midnight! But my kids have no school tomorrow, so the knowledge that I can sleep slightly later may have something to do with that. I had to get up early (not a problem as part of my brain is still on Greenwich time) as it was 's early day in the office for teleconferencing with Asia, but that meant he could take time off for lunch so we very belatedly went out for his birthday lunch (Indian food, natch) and stopped in Best Buy to get Finding Neverland, which we attempted to watch with our kids tonight though they were distracted by the Return of the King Top Trumps game we found in the game store in Whitby -- Toys R Us in the US had carried The Two Towers game, and we had the Fellowship game via a friend in England, but that was the first any of us had seen of the ROTK version (I bought a deck of Harry Potter playing cards there too which I'd never seen here). I also went back to Barnes and Noble to get a couple of people the making of M&C book (still on the bargain rack, yay!) and spent an hour and a half trying on spring clothes in Kohl's before deciding I didn't really like anything and leaving without spending any money. I also wrote three articles on the theory that with the kids home tomorrow I won't get as much done. And I put away laundry and wrote some thank-you notes. So I am fairly exhausted and STILL haven't read anything on anyone else's web pages, but am getting there!

K/S fans need to go ASAP to TheFandom.com and download Liz Shatner's interview with her father, not so much to hear Bill talk about how great he and Invasion Iowa are, but for the new ad for Shatner and Nimoy's Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime DVD at the beginning and end of the hour-long interview. "They share more than just being of the same generation," intones the narrator, promising that their relationship will "boldly go where neither man has gone before!" Shatner says that while filming Star Trek, he was in the midst of a divorce, and he "took affection from wherever I could find it, not every week from one of those beautiful girls that were on our show." He also talks about how his life and Nimoy's have fallen into patterns in terms of their marriages, their careers, their emotional states, and how it would all have been worthwhile if for no other reason than that Leonard became his best friend (Nimoy is giggling while he says this). Nimoy, meanwhile, talks about his bond with Shatner and says this interview reveals aspects of himself to which he's never been privy before. Meanwhile the narrator keeps talking about how intimate the discussion is (the two are in Nimoy's house), and how passionate these two men are about their work and each other. I'm sure these quotes are completely out of context but oh, the slashiness!

Aish.com reprinted an editorial about John Paul II and the Jews that I appreciated. I was having weird feelings about seeing flags at half-mast for the Pope -- I have a great appreciation for his character, his accomplishments and his importance to people, but I can't recall another time when US flags were lowered everywhere like this for a non-American leader other than those who died in assassinations or terrorist incidents. It feels to me like a blurring of church and state, but I'm not really sure what etiquette governs when the flags are lowered; I remember there was a huge outcry in England after Princess Diana died because at first one of the royal residences did not lower its flags and later bowed to public pressure to do so, and I'm sure the US did not lower flags for her or any of a great many foreign administrative and religious figures. I don't mean to disrespect the Pope or those in mourning for him, but if the flags go to half-mast this week, might they go to half-mast for the death of some widely-followed Fundamentalist leader in the US, where a far more directly political message might be suggested by such a decision?

Anyway, I must sleep since I have to entertain the kids at least part of the day tomorrow, so I won't see the funeral until the evening news in all likelihood. We're trying to figure out if there's any time we can get downtown this weekend to see the cherry blossoms that does not interfere with Hebrew school or soccer games and practice, and it does not look hopeful...


Hogsmeade Station...that is, Goathland Station, on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.


This is Hogsmeade Station.