Poem for Friday

From Gitanjali
By Rabindranath Tagore

The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs; and the flowers were all merry by the roadside; and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds while we busily went on our way and paid no heed.

We sang no glad songs nor played; we went not to the village for barter; we spoke not a word nor smiled; we lingered not on the way. We quickened our pave more and more as the time sped by.

The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade. Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon. The shepherd boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree, and I laid myself down by the water and stretched my tired limbs on the grass.

My companions laughed at me in scorn; they held their heads high and hurried on; they never looked back nor rested; they vanished in the distant blue haze. They crossed many meadows and hills, and passed through strange, far-away countries. All honour to you, heroic host of the interminable path! Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise, but found no response in me. I gave myself up for lost in the depth of a glad humiliation---in the shadow of a dim delight.

The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom slowly spread over my heart. I forgot for what I had travelled, and I surrendered my mind without struggle to the maze of shadows and songs.

At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes, I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile. How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome, and the struggle to reach thee was hard!

You came down from your throne and stood at my cottage door. I was singing all alone in a corner, and the melody caught your ear. You came down and stood at my cottage door.

Masters are many in your hall, and songs are sung there at all hours. But the simple carol of this novice struck at your love. One plaintive little strain mingled with the great music of the world, and with a flower for a prize you came down and stopped at my cottage door.

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A happy Imbolc, Candlemas and Tu B'Shvat! We had a very modified Tu B'Shvat seder with my parents Thursday night since they're going to a friend's 65th birthday party Friday night...not much with the readings but we did have a big variety of fruit and nuts, and chicken soup with matzoh balls which to me is the essence of every Jewish holiday anyway. *g* (Because of the Superbowl this weekend, my circle is not celebrating Imbolc till next weekend.) I stayed close to home in case the rumored snow arrived and caused early school closings, but it appears that we will not be getting much winter weather at all...they just said on the news that they're calling the salt trucks and plows back.

I did get to have lunch with at the mall, where I found younger son a deeply-on-sale origami page-a-day calendar on which each page has a different design on one side and pattern on the other to be used to make the next day's design, and there was a penguin three days in, so younger son spent an ecstatic evening making paper penguins. We haven't even gotten to the parakeet and jumping frog yet. I got myself the crochet calendar, also on a big sale, and another for my mother-in-law who taught me to crochet...not sure how many useful ideas there are but at this price it's not like it's a big deal even if there are only a couple.


When the kids leave their coats on the couch, this happens. Sometimes Cinnamon decides Rosie needs to be licked or vice versa.


If Rosie is not in the mood to be licked, she will turn around and show Cinnamon her other end in the hope that such disdain will cause Cinnamon to lose interest and get down without being chased.


Really Rosie prefers the red coat, which is fuzzier inside, but she was in a tolerant mood this night.


And everyone went to sleep right where they were.

Smallville had its moments but I think I'm at the zero tolerance point with badly-done drawn-out romances, having been pushed over the edge by Battlestar Galactica and spoiled by Boston Legal which is more satisfying even with couples who are probably never going to get together in any meaningful way. Its one redeeming virtue is confirming yet again that when a girl tries to kiss Clark, his first reaction is to assume she's possessed and panic completely...he can only manage heterosexuality under the influence of red kryptonite! When Lois, who is so hot that even Martha checks her out and gets all husky-voiced when she sees her in a miniskirt, comes on to Clark, his first reaction is...to go running hysterically to Chloe and beg for help extricating himself. Honestly, could he be any gayer?

But when Lois manages to kiss him, her red kryptonite lipstick makes Clark heterosexual, although he loses interest in getting laid when he discovers that Lex is throwing an engagement party and he wasn't invited. (Clark attributes his lack of an invite to Lana, but Lex is such a total control freak that he has decorated the entire nursery without any input from Lana except to ask what cutesy animals she wants on the cutesy towels...and the stuffed clown is creepy! It's definitely Lex who finalized the invitation list!) Silly Clark shows off his powers to Lois, which of course means that she's doomed to amnesia again, and they go crash the party, where Clark gives everyone a piece of his mind...tells Mom she's more a Luthor than a Kent these days -- Dad's only been dead what a year and Martha's in a race with Lana to see who can add the Luthor monogram to her towels first, hahahaha -- tells Chloe she only wants Lana off the market so she can have Clark to herself, tells Lana that she picked the person he hates the most on the rebound, tells everyone that Lana is pregnant and insists to Lana that Lex only wants her because she's something of Clark's and it's Clark he really wants. Well, Clark's secrets, but same diff.

There's a fight and Lana hits Clark with a metal pipe right as Mom unleashes some green kryptonite to act as an antidote to the red stuff, because even though Chloe sent Jimmy to an awesome witch shop like the ones we went to in Salem to get an antidote in a bottle, she only got to use it on Lois. And Lana sits alone studying the twisted metal pipe that didn't make a dent in Clark who is positive she still loves him more than Lex, while Jimmy wails to Chloe that Chloe obviously loves Clark more than him, and Martha tells Clark that she thinks me meant most of what he said and he needs to stop bottling things up. Clark takes to mean that he wants to get it on with Lois, keep Chloe for a rainy day and keep clinging to Lana, to which Martha's advice is: Leave Lana alone. Oh please, Clark, listen to your mother! That girl is nothing but bad for you and your television show! And it's perfectly obvious that your wanting to crash Lex's party was about wanting LEX! Ahem. Anyway, Lex has a doctor check out Lana to make sure that kissing Clark, excuse me, hitting Clark isn't going to give her a miraculous sweeps month miscarriage, and the doctor says Lana is fine and then ominously tells Lex in private that "everything's on schedule." Whoo, so she is going to have a miraculous sweeps month demon baby instead! Maybe once Lex has his demon, he will cast her aside and she can move out of town and go to college and get off the show!

Watched guilty pleasure "All Our Yesterdays" to review tomorrow, then Shark, where I was pleased to see lots of carryover business about the serial killer, which there should be. It looks like there's going to be a The Bodyguard storyline with Julie and her hottie personal security, which could either be interesting or really dumb, and the case wasn't so interesting -- I told my husband that the young wife and son conspired together because they were fucking a few minutes in -- but it was neat seeing Stark very nearly unravel and Jessica get to close the case, since I love seeing Jeri Ryan kick some ass.