Tamer and Hawk
By Thom Gunn
I thought I was so tough,
But gentled at your hands,
Cannot be quick enough
To fly for you and show
That when I go I go
At your commands.
Even in flight above
I am no longer free:
You seeled me with your love,
I am blind to other birds?
The habit of your words
Has hooded me.
As formerly, I wheel
I hover and I twist,
But only want the feel,
In my possessive thought,
Of catcher and of caught
Upon your wrist.
You but half civilize,
Taming me in this way.
Through having only eyes
For you I fear to lose,
I lose to keep, and choose
Tamer as prey.
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Question of the day, from older son: "If the men from Krypton all have names that end in -El, like Jor-El and Kal-El, does that mean that Lion-El is really from Krypton too?" W00t! It was a chores day, so much so that I did not even make it to lunch with
So Deep Throat is out of the closet and is not Alexander Haig. I feel like a chapter of my childhood has ended. You must understand that we were never formally taught the Vietnam War or Watergate in school because we were expected to remember them, which I do, vaguely, but I was eight years old when Vietnam officially ended and even younger when Nixon resigned -- I thought that he personally had snuck into the Watergate Hotel with a tape recorder and then pushed the red "record" button to erase his tapes, and when people said "Impeach Nixon" I thought they meant that people should throw peaches at his car the way I knew anti-fascists had thrown tomatoes at Mussolini. I learned more from All the President's Men than I had ever understood from the news. For some reason I keep thinking about all the people who were probably intensely curious about Deep Throat's identity, like my grandparents, who died before this revelation, and what a bummer that is.
And then, because my brain is weird, I start thinking about all the people who died before the end of the Star Wars movies and who will die before the end of the Harry Potter books and I wonder whether people actually get bugged on their deathbed about things like not knowing the definitive end to the stories (I say definitive because I would dream up my own). I mean, did George Lucas tell Alec Guinness all the things he ended up having Ewan McGregor do? Did Alec Guinness even care, or did he not bother with detailed backstory for Obi-Wan after having tackled Hamlet and Great Expectations? ...okay, this is completely whacked speculation and I am obviously overtired. Please ignore. *g*
Tonight while folding laundry I indulged myself in the episode of Dawson's Creek on which the entire series hinged, "Cinderella Story," the 17th show of the third season in which Pacey kissed Joey. I never saw the whole episode before. I feel like a dork for how much I still love this show but, I mean, there were NINE scenes by the water...next to The Love Boat, how many other shows do so much filming with water in the background? I have got to find a way to live by the sea or at least to get back to a Great Lake.
Here is one of the Mrs. Maximuses (Maximi?) crawling toward the drain with one of the babies.
And here is one of the young'uns about to enter the drainpipe from which the hoggies came and went all weekend.
This is Maximus, off in the distance with another family member. Some of the neighbors have expressed to my in-laws that they fear the groundhogs will eat through tree roots and destroy the drainage system. My in-laws are passionately involved in groundhog defense.
Here, however, by an old stone house near the YMCA, the groundhogs have not made a good case for themselves. *g*
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