Poem for Monday

The Politics of Dreams
By Eliza Griswold

The hooded men run
through the daytime streets,
anonymous, wreaking
havoc -- the hoods
designed to contain them
can be seen out of but not
into, like smoked glass.
They are against us
and to save ourselves
we string them by the dozen
upside down -- hooded,
trussed and writhing.
Some die, which is a relief.
After the hanging, there's
no letting them go.
You asked me what I dreamt of.
Now you know.

--------

Another from Poet's Choice in Sunday's Washington Post Book World on Eliza Griswold's book Wideawake Field. "These poems sometimes bring personal relationships into the context of hardship and violence, or vice versa," writes Robert Pinsky. "Ordinary phrases like 'which is a relief' and 'now you know' gain extraordinary power in these artful, heartbreaking poems."

It was a relatively uneventful Father's Day around here because we had to do some trip-related shopping and pick my parents up from the airport, where they were returning from Greece via Frankfurt. We bought both kids new clothes, since older son has outgrown all his shorts and younger son has shredded all his pants but can't quite fit into older son's yet, plus we realized we should get a couple of bigger bathing suits and we all needed new beach shoes (I now own pink crocs, heh). We also stopped in a bookstore to get my father Opening Day, the new book about Jackie Robinson by Jonathan Eig, and discovered that they had the new Order of the Phoenix Snape action figures! (Just Snape -- no Series 2 Harry or anyone else -- but that was the one I really wanted!)

Despite it being Father's Day, decided he wanted burgers and s'mores for dinner and he'd grill them himself, so he did. I had gotten him a collection of Flash comics that he'd had on his wish list for a long time, since he said not to spend a lot of money; I think he's planning to go hunting for new tie-dyes at the beach. We stopped at the food store to get milk and cheese for my parents, took older son back and forth from a friend's house and then made the airport run, so more of the day was spent schlepping than anything else! It was over 90 degrees, so too hot to want to hike anywhere that wasn't mountainous anyway. Monday, however, we will be in Virginia Beach and will no longer care!


A dog peeks out a porthole on the Picton Castle...


...sailing out of Nova Scotia and known for circumnavigating the globe, according to her displays.


She was a recent arrival when we reached her, so there were no tours.


Urania was a recent arrival too. She was putting the Royal Netherlands Navy covers over her sails when we reached her.


The crew was taking down pennants from her last location, Sail Virginia. (Those are Tarangini and Cisne Branco along the harbor wall to the left.)


And from the other side of the harbor, from left, the Tarangini (in front of red building), the Cisne Branco and the Constellation from the steps of the World Trade Center at the Exodus plaque -- the ship that was originally the President Warfield was outfitted and launched from here to transport displaced Jewish Holocaust survivors through the blockade of the British Mandate of Palestine, and later renamed Exodus 1947 after being attacked by the British in international waters, sending dying Holocaust survivors back to German detention camps.

Hopefully there will be more ship pictures in the next few days from Virginia Beach and Jamestown, and I will post the rest of the Baltimore photos when I get back!