Poem for Sunday

The Anniversary
By John Donne

    All kings, and all their favourites,
    All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The sun it self, which makes time, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw.
All other things to their destruction draw,
    Only our love hath no decay;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

    Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
    If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas ! as well as other princes, we
—Who prince enough in one another be—
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;
    But souls where nothing dwells but love
—All other thoughts being inmates—then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

    And then we shall be throughly blest;
    But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
    True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore; this is the second of our reign.

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We still don't have the arts sections of the Sunday paper as we usually do on Saturday, so Poet's Choice is going to have to wait a day. Besides, John Donne is always welcome.

Our original Saturday plan was to meet my in-laws at Catoctin Mountain National Park, but You Know Who is apparently at Camp David this weekend so most of the park is closed. Instead we decided to go to Sugarloaf Mountain, which is much closer to us on the Montgomery-Frederick County border. But first we went to a Swedish bazaar at St. James' Episcopal Church, sponsored by Vasa Order of America. My in-laws had ordered us to look for lingonberries, but those were long gone when we arrived...however, there were lots of baked goods and marzipan and hot meatballs and sausage, and books and souvenirs and DVD players set up with travel information. It was surprisingly crowded...I'm not sure if that's because I hadn't realized how big the local Swedish immigrant population is or if most of the people there weren't of Swedish descent but like Swedish food and culture!


Straw Yule goats, or Julbocks, which I was told at the festival represent merriment, but I have been informed by Pagan friends that they are supposed to be made from the ends of the harvest and have represented fertility since before there were Christians in Sweden.


The booksellers at the bazaar were in traditional clothing.


In addition to several editions of Pippi Longstocking, there were travel and history guides.


There were also miniature straw ornaments -- wreaths, angels and pigs as well as goats...


...and Dalahast horses (if that isn't redundant; I have no idea how to pluralize it), pigs and chickens, plus Tomten and fuzzy Viking warriors.


And lots and lots of blue and yellow gifts.


But most people seemed to be there for the food. When we arrived, two and a half hours after the festival began, they told us they had sold out of lingonberries two and a half hours earlier!

From there we went to Sugarloaf Mountain, where instead of climbing to the summit as we usually do, we took the long circular trail around to the other overlooks. It was a gorgeous day, and though the color is not quite so spectacular in this county as in the Frederick and Washington County mountains, there were still a lot of red and gold leaves and still a lot of green as well. It makes me hopeful that maybe Catoctin will still have its spectacular yellow foliage if we get there next weekend.

made jambalaya for dinner (with Andouille-style turkey sausage since I don't eat pork), then we watched Night at the Museum on On Demand because we hadn't seen it since that one time at the movies. I am very up and down on Ben Stiller -- have really loved him in several movies but have really loathed the parts he chose to play in others -- and this is one that I adore, both the character and the entire premise of the film, in a museum for which I feel the same kind of affection as the filmmakers obviously do. The women's roles aren't much but they aren't really irksome and I like his mother dissing his choice of career. *g*

Now must remember to turn the clocks back. Sunday we are planning to go to Chestertown for the Sultana Downrigging Weekend Ship Tours, but there is some chance that the contractors will tell us we have to move everything in the living room Sunday instead of Monday and Chestertown is an hour and a half away. So I am really hoping to get that one more day so we can go see the ships!