Dark Harbor 10
By Mark Strand
It is a dreadful cry that rises up,
Hoping to be heard, that comes to you
As you wake, so your day will be spent
In the futile correction of a distant longing.
All those voices calling from the depths of elsewhere,
From the abyss of an August night, from the misery
Of a northern winter, from a ship going down in the Baltic,
From heartache, from wherever you wish, calling to be saved.
And you have no choice but to follow their prompting,
Saving something of that sound, urging the harsh syllables
Of disaster into music. You stare out the window,
Watching the build-up of clouds, and the wind whipping
The branches of a willow, sending a rain of leaves
To the ground. How do you turn pain
Into its own memorial, how do you write it down,
Turning it into itself as witnessed
Through pleasure, so it can be known, even loved,
As it lives in what it could not be..
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Son was much better Thursday but we decided to keep him home another day; he's still eaten almost no solid food, had been spending a long time on the toilet because his intenstines were irritated and he has to get up so early to catch the bus across the county that we thought it wasn't worth risking him getting sick again. Our original plans for this weekend were to visit my sister in New York, but she and her family are going to Florida unexpectedly, so we will take it somewhat easier around here and maybe go to the National Aquarium to see the new Australia exhibit and the National Zoo to see the pandas. Of course, as soon as he started to get better and I thought I could get out of the house for awhile,
Tonight after I got done schlepping to the dealer to pick up
Otherwise, I giggled at Clark trying to explain his sexual problems to a reluctant-to-think-about-it Chloe, I loved Lex's little stalker fan and I especially loved the way Lois dealt with her during the Manchurian Candidate scenes, though I must agree with Lex's stalker that Lois is really off her military conditioning. It would really, really have been nice for a change if Lois saved the day all by herself without Clark catching bullets. It was a neat special effect but not really necessary story-wise, and after Lois got put in that compromising position because neither she nor Jonathan took threats seriously, it would have rocked to see Lois take charge and have the situation in hand before Clark ever arrived.
Tethys and Oceanus in a Roman mosaic from the ruins of Antioch at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
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