The Sick Rose
By William Blake
O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
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In Poet's Choice in The Washington Post Book World, Robert Pinsky writes, "Poetry appeals to people who get bored easily. It can accomplish a lot in small spaces: sometimes, in almost no time at all. Often, it works by moving rapidly, skipping over predictable or needless steps, disregarding or exploding the obvious. Sometimes, it feints in one direction, then takes another." Blake's poem "quickly upends our first, easy associations" by using the nouns "rose" and "love" in surprising ways: "Blake reverses conventional expectation from his title onward, with a violent and exuberant forward thrust.
Because it's not my parents' thing, and it's what I most wanted to do for Mother's Day, we went to Gaithersburg today on a mission to see the goslings that were not in evidence when we were there a couple of weeks ago, and we were very successful! First we went to Montgomery Village, where we recently saw adult geese and herons, though we knew from last year that this was a good place to get up close and personal with baby geese, and we were not disappointed! Then, as we were driving past Lakeforest Mall toward central Gaithersburg, we saw more goslings in the pond by the mall parking lot!
The geese and their babies were swimming in the lake...
...enjoying the fields and lawns by the houses...
...unconcerned about passing joggers, walkers, bikers, caterpillars, squirrels or the traffic on the road nearby.
They were in no particular hurry to get out of our way when we approached.
The goslings weren't any more intimidated by people than their parents.
When a dog approached, however, everyone got into the water.
Then, because we were all a bit hungry and thirsty after walking around the lake, we went to Potbelly for root beer floats/smoothies and walked around the lake at the Rio shopping center, where we saw even more goslings! It was a gorgeous high-70s day and there were many people around the lake, especially with children; dozens of paddleboats were on the water and the outdoor tables at the numerous restaurants were doing good business. Came home, barbecued turkey burgers, fought a bit with LiveJournal code (Final Score: LiveJournal 3, Me 0), did some reading, now must go wrap mother's presents since we are going downtown with them Sunday, hopefully to the National Portrait Gallery and then the National Building Museum to see the exhibit on the Globe Theatre. Happy Mother's Day to everyone who is a mother or has a mother!
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