Poem for Thursday

Saints' Logic
By Linda Gregerson

Love the drill, confound the dentist.
Love the fever that carries me home.
Meat of exile. Salt of grief.
This much, indifferent
affliction might yield. But how
when the table is God's own board
and grace must be said in company?
If hatred were honey, as even
the psalmist persuaded himself,
then Agatha might be holding
her breasts on the plate for reproach.
The plate is decidedly
ornamental, and who shall say that pity's
not, at this remove? Her gown
would be stiff with embroidery whatever
the shape of the body beneath.
Perhaps in heaven God can't hide
his face. So the wounded
are given these gowns to wear
and duties that teach them the leverage
of pain. Agatha listens with special
regard to the barren, the dry,
to those with tumors where milk
should be, to those who nurse
for hire. Let me swell,
let me not swell. Remember the child,
how its fingers go blind as it sucks.
Bartholomew, flayed, intervenes
for the tanners. Catherine for millers,
whose wheels are of stone. Sebastian
protects the arrowsmiths, and John
the chandlers, because he was boiled
in oil. We borrow our light
where we can, here's begging the pardon
of tallow and wick. And if, as we've tried
to extract from the prospect, we'll each
have a sign to be known by at last -
a knife, a floursack, a hammer, a pot -
the saints can stay,
the earth won't entirely have given us up.

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I had a lovely day with , who came up for an early lunch at California Pizza Kitchen before the mall got mobbed, then sat me down to watch the parts of the remake of The Hitcher that I wanted to see (namely: no violence, torture or murder except of really stupid cops, of which this movie had so many that it would be impossible to skip over all of them). It's a really bad movie and it's not even like I can compare it to the terrifying Rutger Hauer original because that movie was extremely scary and made a real impression with less onscreen violence, whereas this one...it's bad when you're slashing the killer and his victims, isn't it? Jules says I can't go to hell for this but it was her idea in the first place!

Since we were already discussing great wrongness, I put on the highlights of The Search for John Gissing (Gissing/Chair OTP) and Gangster No. 1 (Paul Bettany/David Thewlis' clothes OTP) and I realized I really need to show her Volver, which is one of the best movies about women who need to smash things that I've ever seen. Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful day...younger son had violin which ended just as the worst thunderstorm in a year hit, I tried calling older son to tell him to wait under cover at the bus stop for me but he and his friend had already started walking, I found them cowering under a bush a few yards away and brought them both back here absolutely soaked, then we lost power for awhile. By the time it came back on I had a belated list of articles that I was apparently supposed to write in the evening, two big fat long ones and a shorter one...did one of the long ones, power went out again right when I hit send and for a minute I thought I lost it but there must be a higher power because it posted. Phew.


These are part of this year's crop of baby geese at the Rio shopping center.


We saw them last weekend with their mommy and daddy...


...well, and several parental candidates, at least...


...including yet more evidence that Canadian and domestic geese are neither strictly monogamous nor dating strictly within their own breed...


...drying off after a swim.


Some appear to have spent more time in the water than others.


There always seems to be quite a bit of gosling day care available from other geese, anyway.


Is there anything cuter than fuzzy goslings?

Watched this week's episode of The Tudors in the evening, a show that has completely sucked me in despite myself. It's not that the acting is so superlative -- some of the supporting performances are quite over the top -- and it's not that it's either historically accurate or so well written dramatically that I forget the real history, but it manages to be quite appealing and attractive (the number of stunningly beautiful people, men and women, on that show has got to be some kind of record). My kids like it too...I don't mind if they see the sex but I hope the violence doesn't get as bad as Rome and Brotherhood or that may have to stop, which would be a shame because they actually know this history pretty well and have interesting things to say about the adaptation.