Poem for Sunday

The News
By J.D. McClatchy

By seven the old women were leaving
the cathedral's side door, behind them
Christ in a fringed paisley loincloth
and the flaring spray of gold and silver
votive hearts, hundreds of them,
like drops of blood shaken from his face,
and a handful of men were clustered
around the zocalo's only newsstand
to read about the government scandal
on the front page of the morning paper
hung up on a wire with clothespins,
beneath which, on the vendor's plastic table,
are stacked the rows of pornographic
comic books whose covers work
their variations on last night's fantasies.

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I find it very amusing that, the same week sent me a McClatchy poem, Robert Pinsky printed one in Poet's Choice in The Washington Post Book World. "Hedonism and heroism correct one another," Pinsky notes. "Heroism reaches upward, ambitiously, toward being less like mere humans and a little more like gods; hedonism looks downward, desirously, toward animal satisfaction...McClatchy also ponders the comic and the heroic, high aspirations and base desires, wants and lacks, all stirred together." This is really extremely sexy. Guh!

The baby panda is bigger! And still sleeps a lot, up in a tree now! But we had a wonderful day at the zoo. We went to all the places we missed a couple of weeks ago: the Amazon exhibit, the invertebrates, the komodo dragons, the monkeys, the small mammals...plus the wolves were awake today, and there were ponies in what used to be the camel enclosure, and all four beavers were out again and proving once more why beavers do not rule the world! It was a gorgeous day, 40-50s while we were there so nice walking weather without freezing, and my glasses and camera steamed up in Amazonia and the butterfly garden. We ate at the Mane Restaurant and now I remember why bringing picnics is such a good idea. *g* Younger son was very disappointed that the newborn kiwi was not on display and rather resentful the pandas got all the attention but he did get a panda lunchbox as part of the kid's meal, which mollified him!


While Baby Bear sleeps...


...Papa Bear eats...


...and Mama Bear eats!


And Goldilocks can get her own little panda.

Jennifer Cutting told me yesterday that you can get Yorkshire Gold tea at this local import supermarket, Rodman's, so afterward -- since we had promised to stop at Toys R Us to see if they had baby Furbys for my son (they did not) and it's not much further up Randolph Road, we went to Rodman's where I found not only Yorkshire Gold but also Cadbury imported from the UK and real clotted cream and all kinds of Indian and Argentine food and it was wonderful! The Rodmans nearest where I live does not have nearly as much and now that I know this, I will have to make regular runs. It's right between where I live and where (whom I saw briefly at the zoo) lives, so I will just have to bring son over to see her and Georgie more often.

It was very late afternoon after we got home, we made tom ka gai with new ingredients for dinner, watched a little bit of Olympic hockey while doing laundry, and am not quite sure where the evening went. I know where the late night went -- I have just killed myself here for far after avoiding it for far too long -- isn't it amazing what writing crack suddenly makes more logical than it was not long before? And I hate it when fic makes me cry and cry. Though I am also impressed when it can do that. Sunday fortunately younger son has a youth group magic show after Hebrew school because I have to catch up on work! And we are going to a Bar Mitzvah expo. Hopefully there will be chocolate samples like at the last one. *G*