Poem for Samhain

On the Mississippi
By Hamlin Garland

Through wild and tangled forests
   The broad, unhasting river flows--
   Spotted with rain-drops, gray with night;
      Upon its curving breast there goes

A lonely steamboat's larboard light,
            A blood-red star against the shadowy oaks;

Noiseless as a ghost, through greenish gleam
Of fire-flies, before the boat's wild scream--
            A heron flaps away
            Like silence taking flight.

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Happy Halloween! I had a weird up-and-down day filled with domestic disasters not worth reiterating -- younger son is still upset with me for screaming in frustration, though I was not screaming at him (he does not like it when I rant in the background, either) and missing soccer practice because he had to finish a month-long book project and stuff like that, in and around really fun stuff like another viewing of The Prestige (in many ways better than the first -- the test of a trick film is always how it plays after you know the trick, I think).

Amused about this article sent in to TrekToday -- someone else who found early BSG not enlightened television but right-wing fantasy! Man, I am feeling better about all those people who called me a neo-conservative bad feminist because they insisted that only possible reason I might have resisted Ron Moore BSG was because I couldn't stomach Starbuck as a girl, not because there were things I found genuinely shallow, superficial and stupid about the early episodes. And I'm loving it this season and being told by some of the same people that oh, but BSG sucks this season. How nice to be accused of liberal tendencies for a change.


A grandly decorated defuncto surrounded by glittery skulls is the centerpiece of this shrine at the National Museum of the American Indian last weekend, with artificial branches and electric lights.


On the altar, bread shaped to look like people and spices, flowers, fruit and candles set among the sugar and clay skulls and the photos of relatives who have gone on.


One of the Mexican guides lights the candles around the altar.


And at the Udvar-Hazy museum last weekend, a demonstration of relative mass by a costumed scientist.


Two brothers contemplate going off in search of more free candy.


There were many guards dressed as stormtroopers, but Darth Vader and R2-D2 were more popular.

This evening we carved pumpkins -- younger son has a white or "ghost" pumpkin, but I suspect it is really a different kind of squash altogether, as it smells more squash-y and the seeds are much rounder and started sprouting when I went to rinse them to toast them! Then we watched Heroes, where I am not terribly pleased at what they're doing with Nicky but it suddenly occurred to me to wonder whether she used to be a cheerleader and we're being led to assume the wrong things about Claire. *g* And Hiro's "I had a sword!" Hee! So not a bad evening after a rather stressful afternoon (and thank you, , for the chocolate, and , for the coconut, hee). But Tuesday marks what is likely my last elementary school Halloween parade. I am quite sad about this.

ETA: I forgot to link to yesterday's Mother Goose and Grimm! (In the archive, go to the 10/30/06 page.) Post-Daylight Savings Time difficulties, hahahaha!