...And the Indivisible Universe...
By Pattiann Rogers
...and the withered universe
of toad hulls and cracked crusts
of winter mushrooms, black fallen
ferns and mildewed cresses and the dead
summer flight of hatchling sparrows
spilled from their field nest in May
and the multiple-titted breasts
of one-eyed witches...
...and the bursting universe
of ripe plums, bloated carcasses
of drowned cattle and butchered
dogs, the rages and cores of super
novas and hatchet murderers and orange-
white molten rock boiling forth
like day at the night-bottom
of the sea and bedded lovers
in the loving hands of their lovers...
...and the one dizzy universe
of spindles and suns and suns
through swarms of dixa midges, suns
spun by waterspouts and whirlwinds
and circling seeds of green ash
and silver maple and the wheeling
molecules of their varied arts
and equations and suns like circus
rings and suns like ponies tethered...
...and the closed system
of the aerial, arboreal universe
of lemurs, dusky titis, pollinating
bats and monkey-eating eagles,
strangler figs and woody lianas
all twining and swooping together
with the separate strands of the wretched
universe and the stalwart universe
and the wayward universe piercing
and tangling through the defiant
universe of forest canopies
consequently resulting...
...and the faltering universe
filled with crutches and braces, rusted
nails, staggerings and stutterings, cement
patches, mucilage, mending rubber glue,
bandages, bolsters and buttresses, putty,
paste and the universe of festival
and the universe of faith...
...and the sublime universe existing
inside the universe of sleep awake inside
the dens of cactus owl and stag-horn
beetle nest, pack rat hovels, inside
the buried ova of crocodiles, cicadas,
green turtles and ridley turtles
and likewise inside the biding
of the new moon and likewise
inside the biding of the unknown
existing inside the waking universe
asleep inside the universe
of the sublime...
...and the momentary before the first
categorically, seamless universe
of universal categories, and the momentary
immediately after...
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Thursday was a chore day since we are going out of town -- had to stop at Target to get shampoo and deodorant and exciting things like that, had to stop at Barnes and Noble to get older son that bargain-rack Douglas Adams anthology because we can't find our copy of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, had to stop at Bath & Body Works to get semiannual sale Moonlit Path body wash, had to get ice cream and walk around the lake to see the geese as long as we were in the shopping complex, had to do laundries, had to get younger son to violin, had to review "Mudd's Women" (yeccchhhhhhh), had to take older son over to play with neighbor who is moving back to Taiwan this weekend after nearly six years in the U.S., had to make a great many phone calls...yeah, thrilling. And tomorrow I have to drive my father to the airport before coming home to pack so we can get to the airport bright and early Saturday morning.
Tonight while folding the laundry and sorting various piles of paper we watched Apollo 13, which we picked up on DVD the day we went to Udvar-Hazy. The kids had never seen it and we all enjoyed it a lot -- I am far too much of a space geek for it to be otherwise -- but I must admit that watching it this time really brought home to me all the things that are wrong with Cinderella Man and why, despite how much I love Russell Crowe, I'm really not sorry that tanked at the box office. I am really sick of Ron Howard making the same movie over and over. Yeah, the visuals are great and the acting is excellent, but it's the same damn screenplay here and in A Beautiful Mind: man triumphs over adversity while supportive wife weeps and applauds and the nation cheers as he accepts accolades for his struggle. No wonder I felt so sorry for Renee Zellwegger in CM; her lines were clones of Kathleen Quinlan's in A13 and she didn't even get as many good scenes as Jennifer Connelly in ABM, since Connelly at least got to throw a tantrum.
Why has no one made a recent major film about Amelia Earhart or Marie Curie or Sally Ride or Golda Meir? No wonder I fetishized Eva Peron after Evita when I was 15 -- with all her horrible aspects, how often do we get a triumphant movie about a woman? And even Eva falls into the category of women who pay for their moment in the spotlight by dying young and horribly (I will not name the most recent highly acclaimed fictional example of this but I'm sure a lot of you know what I mean). We don't need the Max Baers of the world set up as straw-man bad guys so some boxer looks like more of a hero, and we definitely don't need any more plucky male underdog stories. I wonder if part of my bias against the younger generation in HP is that I really want Hermione to be the hero of the tale.
Ahem. See what "Mudd's Women" did to me? *g* Anyway, thanks so very much for all the comments in the past couple of days and sorry I have not gotten to them, again...when I get back from Seattle and the kids are in camp I shall do better!
And damselflies for
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