Poem for Monday

To This May
By W.S. Merwin

They know so much more now about
the heart we are told, but the world
still seems to come one at a time
one day one year one season and here
it is spring once more with its birds
nesting in the holes in the walls
its morning finding the first time
its light pretending not to move
always beginning as it goes

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I forgot to sing Tra La, It's May, the Lusty Month of May last night, and I also forgot to wish everyone a happy Beltane -- I had candles lit and everything. In honor of the season, we decided to go down to the National Arboretum in between Hebrew school and soccer practice, so my head is extremely afflicted with pollen at the moment and I am not feeling remotely articulate. I did have a nice day before the headache set in, though. In the morning while older son was at Hebrew school, we took younger son to Circuit City to obtain Pokemon Emerald for the Game Boy, which he has been saving for ever since he heard it would be out in May. After that all important acquisition, we picked up older son, had lunch and drove to the arboretum, where despite large numbers of azalea-watchers (and nearly every one with a camera -- I have never seen such a variety, so many lenses, so many tripods, so many camcorders) it never felt crowded. The National Capitol Columns were blocked off for construction, but we walked through the azaleas which must be near peak, as they were glorious.

For those who followed the story of the duck at the Treasury Department who made a nest and laid several eggs right near the White House, the eggs have hatched and they said on the local news that the discrepancy in the number of ducklings being reported is because an orphaned duckling discovered in Rock Creek Park was snuck in with the eleven babies being transported to the park from downtown, and the mother seems to have adopted it. I guess when you have that many children, one more doesn't make a lot of difference. *g*

I'm thinking that the things that irritate me about Desperate Housewives probably outnumber the things I really like, and yet I watch compulsively and without a trace of feminist guilt, which I can't say about Veronica Mars or Smallville or even The West Wing. I think I don't quite believe in the characters enough to really care about them, so I don't get particularly upset watching them being manipulated within the scripts, whereas when one of the other shows does something stupid with a character I care a lot about it bothers me more. And I take it for granted that most of the women will do stupid things most of the time, so I don't even blink when they do.

I need to go crash early and hope my head clears -- between the sun and the pollen I am not seeing straight right now!