Poem for Sunday

The Waking
By Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

--------

From Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World. "What is a "'chestnut'? An old joke. Or in the arts, a familiar standby, an anthology piece," Pinsky writes. "Sometimes the chestnut is nevertheless a great work of art, and to create one in poetry is no small thing." He cites Roethke poems "that people often quote and allude to and recite" and mentions his predecessor in the Poet's Choice column, Edward Hirsch, who also wrote about Roethke (you can see excerpts from last year here), for Hirsch has written an introduction to the new Theodore Roethke: Selected Poems about the "wholehearted romanticism" which has made Roethke somewhat unfashionable now.

My younger son's team lost their final soccer game of the year by a score of 2-1, though if the team in second place also lost, they will retain possession of the league title; we haven't yet heard whether or not they did. It was 88 degrees and very humid, Code Orange weather, and the kids were wilting in the sun long before the end of the game (as was I, and I wasn't even running around). So I've had a bit of sun headache for the rest of the day, when we picked older son up from a bowling birthday party and took everyone to get haircuts -- Cartoon Cuts still has the best family plan around, so I get my hair cut watching SpongeBob and Ice Age. Then we went to the aquarium store that's in the same complex and looked at the salt water fish, crustaceans and sharks for awhile, and headed to Toys R Us so younger son could pick out the super-blaster water gun he wants for his birthday...which is not until July, but we always have the party right before the end of the school year, because otherwise all his friends end up being at camp or out of town on vacation and very few people are around to come. So the rest of the day was spent in getting organized at the food store and at home with the supplies. Unfortunately this meant I could not go to the pride parade downtown.

Having learned my lesson from my Enterprise reviews, I have not been reading what anyone is saying about me or my original Star Trek reviews at the TrekBBS, but I was braced for a certain amount of hate mail after writing a pro-slash review of "The Naked Time." To my surprise all my mail has been very positive -- not agreeing with me, and in one case feeling very strongly that I did a disservice to the series and its ideals by bringing up K/S without properly exploring how Kirk and Spock "came from two different places and dealt with [their experiences] in very different ways, but they fundamentally understood each other as only lonely wanderers can." This is a good point, though I thought it would be difficult to try to explore the relationship in that kind of depth in a review of the series' fifth episode, and I wanted to make it clear that I was slash-friendly and if I'm going to look at certain themes as they developed over the course of the series, I felt it important to mark a crucial moment in subtext-watching. I got into an interesting conversation with this guy which just brings home to me the extent to which different viewers have such different interests in what's important on Star Trek, we could almost be watching different shows. I wonder if this is why Enterprise was such a dismal failure, for me in particular when it started trying too hard to become the original series prequel more than on its own merits: the things I valued in the original series were almost completely absent even during the Coto Administration, while things I couldn't have cared less about, like Orion Slave Girls and futuristic weapons, were hailed as wonderfully nostalgic.

Anyone else here buy frequently from half.com? Anyone else ever received an item that was substantially different than what was described/ordered? How many days do you give the seller to respond to your complaint before you fill out a complaint form and leave negative feedback, since if there's one thing I've noticed on eBay it's that everyone leaves negative feedback in exchange for same even if the complaint is entirely justified, and there goes a perfect feedback rating? Is it stupid to worry about this, and after a week is it fair just to launch the complaint? Perhaps I am just sun-fried; I must sleep and be ready for the party in the afternoon.


Chasing the ball at the soccer match.