Poem for Thursday

Point Of View
By Kurt Sobolik

a snow-pricked play ground, the grass
sticking through like victory, a dog,
your dog nosing ground for possibility,
a cast over sky pressing down, pressing
down upon the anorexic trees, upon
the gathering snow, upon your point
of view. it is everywhere pressing down,
monochromatic challenging sky
pressing down. swing set silent, see saw
silent, sand box silent, the snow flakes
down, straight down, down upon
the whitening ground. you stand forearm
deep in your criminal black jacket,
hood up against the silent pricks of snow,
chin out, neck exposed, cheeks
accumulating cold, eyes cast down
against the monochromes of thought.
a snowflake catches on your lash,
dangles, disappears. wind absent, swing
set silent, see saw silent, sand box
silent, snow flakes down, straight down,
down upon the whitening ground.
flake by silent flake whiteness fills your
point of view. the snow flakes down, straight
down, down upon the whitening ground.

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Apparently it was still snowing at 5 a.m. when the Superintendent of Schools had to make the decision whether to close the schools in the county, so even though we only had about an inch on the ground, the kids were home today. Unfortunately for me, younger son had an orthodontist appointment and had an early phone conference with the division of his company in India, so although he volunteered to drive younger son so I didn't have to put up with the icy local roads that weren't plowed, I was awake even earlier than usual to get younger son up and ready to go! Older son slept till 10 so at least I had an hour to myself before younger son returned and his friends started coming over, so that by lunchtime I had four boys to feed. Leftover Superbowl chicken wings were very much appreciated!


Backyard 8 a.m., when the snow had pretty much stopped falling but was blowing around as the sun came up over the houses.


As you can see, there was barely an inch of snow on the branches. It was so cold today that some of it is still there, despite the sunshine.


Deck railing with view of the hill in back before it had been sledded upon and stripped of snow.

After lunch, younger son's best friend was planning an expotition to a far-off legendary sledding hill, but younger son did not feel like hiking so far with so little snow and when my mother invited us to come to the mall with her for ice cream and a walk somewhere warm, we all went. (As it turned out, younger son's friend crashed into something and may have broken his wrist...he was at the emergency room when we got back!) They had Dippin' Dots, my mother and I bought them Bionicles so they would have a project when we got back that did not involve computer games, then we came home and they built the Bionicles and I tried to get some work done. Looks like James McAvoy actually does want to be in Star Trek XI, which is a good choice if they insist on recasting for a prequel, particularly since McAvoy sounds like a serious Trekkie. Most other current Trek news is about the various rumors about whether Abrams is leaving Star Trek and whose idea is it if he does and will he direct or only produce and oh god who cares, he and his little clique of friends are so full of themselves.

Seriously, could Damon Lindelof have been more full of himself at the Lost press conference? The Washington Post TV reporter, whom I adore even when I completely disagree with her, had much fun mocking him for trying the "if viewers are tuning out it's because they're just not smart enough to handle it" routine Aaron Sorkin has perfected. (She also mocked Dominic Monaghan for spending the entire press conference working on the New York Times crossword puzzle, then bragging about how smart he is.) The Abrams stuff was all in the Hollywood Reporter article about how Whedon has parted ways with the Wonder Woman movie, which makes me sad -- I guess Gina Torres probably won't get the role, either.

Obviously I don't watch Lost so Wednesday night TV was another episode of The Prisoner. Kids are largely unimpressed...I'm not sure if it's the stylized insanity or just the fact that they grew up so long after the Cold War that it all seems absurd to them. (I'd love to believe it's the sexism but I don't know if they notice that the way I do!) After that we put on that terrible Quest for Atlantis: Startling New Secrets on the Sci-Fi Channel and howled through the "Aliens!" parts...I guess we should have known since it was on Sci-Fi rather than the History Channel that it would be like that, and the bits on Hitler and the occult and Mediterranean underwater archaeology were pretty good, but the cheesy connections to Stargate and the sloppy science made it pretty laughable.

And since I'm being fannish...Michael Musto questions Hayden Christensen's heterosexual credentials and makes the following hilarious comment in his column, which made me howl because I really don't like the psychiatrist's dialogue in the play very much: "Starved for attention, Harry Potter star DANIEL RADCLIFFE has caused a ruckus by preparing to appear naked in Equus, perturbing parents who feel the sight of Radcliffe's gauntlet of fire could traumatize their children...are they afraid it'll be that small? Shouldn't they be more upset that his character has a hard-on for a horse...and that the play is psychobabble-laden twaddle and in fact utter caca? It's the worst, but seeing his wurst will be the best!"