Poem for Sunday

The Scholars
By William Butler Yeats

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love's despair
To flatter beauty's innocent ear.

All shuffle there; all cough in ink;
All wear the carpet with their shoes;
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbour knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?

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From Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World, this week about the beginning of school term. "For college teachers, September is the month of returning to work, often with mingled feeings of eagerness and dread," writes Pinsky. "William Butler Yeats directs his scorn toward certain professors in 'The Scholars.'"

I am sure I have explained before how we came to adopt our younger cat, Cinnamon, and the important life lesson learned that day: Do not go into the pet store on a day when the SPCA is visiting with kittens unless you are fully prepared to go home with one. Once again, we have failed to heed that lesson, though we did not come home with our chosen kitten and now I am nervous, because the woman who runs the shelter never called us as we were told that she would (it was an associate of hers who was there with the cats today). We went into Petco to get litter, and there were the kittens, and there was one who was trying to get our attention by sticking her paw through the bars of the cage, and we played with her, and she was adorable beyond adorable because the other four kittens were also adorable though a bit more skittish, and...well, you know how it goes...














Sorry about all the blur -- she was constantly in motion! Because she has not yet been spayed, we were told we couldn't take her home today and would need to talk to the woman who runs the shelter, so we filled out the paperwork and went out to do other chores and take the kids to 's son's birthday party, which was lots of fun for me because I got to see her husband, sisters and brother-in-law whom I rarely talk to and I like all of them. (We may never be invited back, however, as Daniel was running his mouth inappropriately to much younger children.) But the woman from the shelter still hasn't called and now I am afraid that when she got back, someone else persuaded her to let them adopt the kitten since we weren't there to insist that we saw it first!