Poem for Monday

Looking Forth
By Mary Kinzie

From the room's shade:

sunflat ash trunks
                        the vertical gray
of hitting your head
       against the color

behind which birds     at random depth
call far far
                 then near
all calls edged with oddity
like reverberations
in a tube

The sound of the unceasing traffic
     whole         headlong       surging
           at the air
                        twines the moment
     against a nerve

Might peace come
      by withdrawing the eye
from the sound

            in its fresh
                      calm

                                there

       my daughter would be

                     unworried

       and there like the roll of prongs
                                  in a player piano

all the clear times we would
              stand in the middle of
       when it was summer

                      and my parents would appear
             smiling a little
       making ten thousand steps each day
                    before they became so old

even myself
                    in what state?
my mind full
of what it never filled with

             at just the right moment
                       (complete as solitude
hereness

gray runneled
             flecked with sunny lichen
      groomed by the tiny woodpeckers who
                      dance upwards
             hurling their heads against the bark

--------

After Adam finished Hebrew school and I finished two pieces of Trek news, we had a lovely afternoon at Family Festival @ the Farm seeing lots of animals and crafts and produce. We started at Lilypons Water Gardens, which has lily pads and orchids and koi and things that live in ponds and wetlands. Then we went to Stunkel's, which has sheep and cattle -- the sheep were the particular draw, as Adam loves them, and though they weren't shearing this year, there were lambs and cats and several dogs with puppies in addition to the cows. We got homemade brownies and ate them in the afternoon sun.

Then we went to Kiparoo Farm Studio, which was actually part of the Countryside Artisans' tour rather than the farm tour but which we hadn't gotten to on Friday. They also have cows and Border Leicester sheep and they spin absolutely beautiful yarn, though I didn't buy any because my crocheting skills are quite rusty. We stopped to see the alpacas at Chestnut Hill, where they also have a craft display, and finished up at Brookfield Pumpkins, where we picked three for Halloween and saw the chickens, pigs, goats, sheep and cows, plus the craft display and fancy gourds. We had to stop at the pet store for cat litter on the way home, so we got to see many, many animals.


A sheep and her lambs at Stunkel's Farm.


Flowers blooming in a water tank at Lilypons.


One of the calves at Kiparoo...


...though it's the textiles that this studio is best known for.


A baby alpaca, called a cria.


A field of pumpkins at Brookfield...


...and some of the gourd crafts, including a penguin.



Watched Brotherhood, missed sections because we were trying to get the kids to bed but I loved the brief Thelma and Louise dynamic between Eileen and Kath! So much of this show is about the men this season, even Rose's role is much diminished, sniping at Michael and Colin, it's really nice to see Eileen with someone she can actually talk to. Though I am worried about Michael. Because Jason Isaacs must be around for as long as possible. Oh, and I want Michael Gambon to say something about Dumbledore...well, unless it's going to be something incredibly stupid, but I have confidence in him. He was not, after all, above begging Rowling to put Dumbledore in book seven as a ghost in public interviews after HBP, just as Jason was shameless about begging her in person to let Lucius out of jail.