Poem for Friday

November 1968
By Adrienne Rich

Stripped
you're beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won’t hold you
nor the radar aerials

You’re what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin

How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the wind.

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Another "not sure where today went" day! I wrote three articles early, which is a good thing because my power went out for two hours this afternoon after a transformer blew in my neighborhood. This gave me an excuse to take a walk in the sunshine all the way down to where the fire trucks and utility people were, though I probably would have enjoyed the weather slightly more had the air not been filled with smoke. Younger son got home in the midst of this, played outside since he didn't want to do his homework by candlelight in our not-very-well-lit kitchen which backs up to trees. Then older son got home, came home early because he had gone in so very early this morning, there was homework and more Halloween candy and panang curry for dinner...I feel like I skipped a step somewhere but I have no idea what it was.

Re: Smallville: I used to watch the last five minutes of The Dukes of Hazzard every single week waiting for Dallas to go on -- I was one of those people who cared passionately about who shot J.R., I was in love with Sue Ellen -- so my squee knew no bounds this evening, despite the tawdry torrid side of "Exposed" that made me really sorry I was watching it with my kids -- I had to define "pole dancing." Lois looks as good in bar-slut clothes as she does in a bikini, and I liked how uncomfortable she was doing the routine, I was terrified she was going to get into it and be all "Yes, I love expressing my sexuality by objectifying myself for men who want nothing but a costume!" But even though she was great, and kicked butt twice, the episode was definitely exploiting the sleaze even while the girls were talking about the terrible working conditions and the congressional "hey, it's not so bad, everybody does it" with the belated "Eh, maybe Jonathan Kent would be better at this sort of thing because I'm out of the mood" did not give me any warm fuzzies about our political system. It's a good thing the show ended with some nice Clexy bonding or it might have left a slightly bad taste in my mouth. I really wanted it to end with Tom and John in the flying car, but Lex lecturing Clark on morality and the Bible was quite entertaining!

Trek news for the day was Patrick Stewart being on both American Dad and Extras this weekend as well as in Chicken Little and on how Trekkies can get free tickets to see Linda Park as Clytemnestra in New York this weekend. And I watched "This Side of Paradise" to review -- here my squee knows no bounds and has no conditionals attached. The look on Kirk's face when Leila calls Spock to try to get him to beam back down! And earlier, when Spock keeps calling him "Jim" and smiling at him! Leila's actually a stronger character than I thought; she's less of a bimbo under the influence of the spores than most of the men, and since she was in love with Spock in the first place, her personality is less altered. I do wish we'd been able to see her for one minute as a scientist but would not have traded one moment of Kirk gawking at Spock in the tree for it. And oh...how did I not know before the memorial service arrangements that Michael Piller was Jewish?


Fall color on the approach from the valley below the titular feature of Washington Monument State Park at the border of Washington County, Maryland.


On the path ascending the mountain and meeting the Appalachian Trail, there are markers noting the important events in George Washington's life.


Below the monument is a vast hillside with rocks of the same type from which the monument was constructed by the citizens of Boonsboro in 1827. It was used as a signal station by the Union army during the Civil War.