Poem for Saturday

Mole
By Wyatt Prunty

For weeks he’s tunneled his intricate need
Through the root-rich, fibrous, humoral dark,
Buckling up in zagged illegibles
The cuneiforms and cursives of a blind scribe.

Sleeved by soft earth, a slow reach knuckling,
Small tributaries open from his nudge—
Mild immigrant, bland isolationist,
Berm builder edging the runneling world.

But now the snow, and he’s gone quietly deep,
Nuzzling through a muzzy neighborhood
Of dead-end-street, abandoned cul-de-sac,
And boltrun from a dead-leaf, roundhouse burrow.

May he emerge four months from this as before,
Myopic master of the possible,
Wise one who understands prudential ground,
Revisionist of all things green;

So when he surfaces, lumplike, bashful,
Quizzical as the flashbulb blind who wait
For color to return, he’ll nose our green-
rich air with the imperative poise of now.

--------

Grouchy. Think I'm crashing from too much sugar earlier in the week, since nothing terribly untoward happened today and I had some fun stuff (Tara Thai with , the arrival of my new USB hard drive which is backing up my files as I type this). The upgrade to my phone software for some reason has made it impossible for me to post LJ comment replies from it...there's no "post" button showing up, which is driving me nuts! I wrote to T-Mobile but so far no news. I'm also trying to write a review of The Prestige which is not coming out the way I want it to...I feel like I'm spoiling too much, but I don't know how to talk about why I think the movie is interesting and important without spoiling it some and the review won't be published for a couple of weeks anyway. It's kind of like talking about The Crying Game, A Beautiful Mind or The Sixth Sense; all the serious articles talking about why those films were as good as they were has to spoil them to talk about the techniques the filmmakers played to pull off their tricks.

I did write a review of "Elaan of Troyius" which I enjoyed rewatching far more than I expected, and could not bring myself to slam as it probably deserves. I always thought of that as one of the really bad episodes but it plays better than it sounds. By contrast I wasn't all that enthralled with this week's BSG, partly because there was just too much Baltar for my taste and partly because I'm really unhappy with the way Starbuck is being written. She was made a prisoner and a slave, living with a man who manipulated and abused her (was talking to someone today about how there was no overt sexual violence but I think that's because Conoy thought he could break her more completely without it -- he had all the time in the world). Then she got back to Galactica, where she can't talk about any of it to anyone, not the abuse stuff nor the child stuff, and she's angry where Tigh is slowly going insane with guilt, and what she gets from Adama is not a single moment of, "What happened to you down there to turn you into this?" but essentially "Get out of my house, I disown you!" Which is understandable given his position, but she has no one at the moment to turn to and am not sure why she's being written into this corner.

Doctor Who was much more satisfying, though I also found "The Age of Steel" somewhat anticlimactic...not in a science fiction sense, it hit all the right buttons that way, but it didn't pack an emotional punch for me the way "Father's Day" and "School Reunion" did. Jackie as a cyberman was very creepy but it doesn't have the same wallop as Pete announcing that he can go out and die to save his daughter ("I'm Rose." "Hello! That's the name of my dog."), and it's hard to mourn for a Mickey -- er, Ricky -- whom we never really had time to get to know, besides the fact that he's London's most wanted for parking tickets. I will, however, greatly miss Mickey the Idiot who once saved the universe in a big yellow truck, and I was so happy to see him get his moment of heroism, and really he's probably better off not sticking around trying to fit into the Doctor and Rose's world that has room for temporary distractions like Captain Jack and Madame de Pompadour, but not a full-time third wheel. Still, I cannot stop laughing at Pete's assessment of the people who save his world: "What do I get? Scooby Doo and the Gang. They've even got the van!"

: Mi casa es su casa
1. Tell us about where you live: Townhouse, pretty nice neighborhood though way too close to where I grew up and way too many very wealthy people in the same zip code pushing property taxes way up. I like the state -- you're never more than two hours from the mountains or the sea, and thus far it's remained solidly a blue state despite some big red pockets.
2. If you could change one thing about your home, what would it be? The other people around here would make more of an effort (meaning, SOME effort) to clean up every once in awhile.
3. Do you do laundry on a regular schedule? It's sort of a flexible schedule -- not every single Monday and Thursday for instance -- but it's pretty much every 3-4 days at the outside for family laundries plus more in between for towels and sheets, clothing disasters, etc.
4. Describe the place that you sleep: Queen size bed shared with husband and on many nights a stripey gray cat, in decent sized bedroom with attached bathroom and shelves with an absurd number of Star Trek books and Barbie dolls.
5. This morning: was it easy or difficult to start the day? Depends on perspective. I fell back asleep after younger son left for school, meaning I got plenty of sleep but then my head was all foggy when I finally got out of bed.

: Music Soothes the Savage Beast
1. What was the first CD/Record/Album/Artist you ever bought and what format was it in? (Vinyl/Cassette/CD/MP3 Download)? First vinyl single: Andy Gibb's "Thicker Than Water." First vinyl album: Billy Joel's The Stranger. My parents owned eight-track tapes but I did not have money to buy my own in that era.
2. How do you usually listen to music? (iPod/Walkman/Stereo/Radio) Car CD player or computer CD player.
3. What is your favorite genre of music and why? I really don't know how to answer this. I can't choose between things as different as Mozart and the Village People. Depends on my mood, the time of day, the setting and whether I'm trying to do something else or just listen to music.
4. What is your opinion on music video shows and music televion? I watch very little of either, though I have enjoyed video compilations (I have two of Madonna's, for instance) and I will watch musical specials with performers I like a lot -- Cher, Mary Chapin Carpenter, et al.
5. Do you usually agree with who the winners of the Grammy Awards are? I usually haven't heard all the nominees, but as with most awards I assume that there's a great deal of politics and commercial interests weighing in -- probably the best of the best don't even get nominated.



At the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes on the campus of Mount St. Mary's University, Emmitsburg, Maryland.


The leaves are stunning here in the fall, and in the spring many of the same trees are in flower.


The chapel on the site where Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton used to teach and pray.


Here is the Grotto of Lourdes itself, a reproduction of the original in France.


The spring is considered to be holy water; people come with five-gallon containers to be filled.


There are reproductions of numerous well-known images of the Virgin Mary (some more images from last year are here).


Our Lady of the Mountain rises over the nearby hills and can be seen in both directions from Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway, aka Route 15.

My kids have been worried about the meerkat Shakespeare's disappearance and now comes this troubling news. Oh, the complications of Meerkat Manor!