Poem for Friday

Fireweed
By C. Dale Young

A single seedling, camp follower of arson . . .

Follower of ashes; follower
of the bleached-out, burned-out
cascade of buildings, lotfuls

of whitened soil speckled with debris
let down by a gutted church
still aspiring to an ether-blue sky

centuries gone; follower
of scripts apotheosized into smoke,
notes lifted into air by flames

that all but threatened the entire lane
with the silence we call a bed
of dirt; follower of the match,

the instigator here and abroad,
the matutinal magnifying glass
focusing light into unwitting

summer grass, into cruciform twigs;
follower of the caveat
ignored because it was too small;

follower of the fourth oldest dream --
the landscape burning and burning.

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The major event of my day, apart from some resume-wrangling and looking longingly at graduate programs I did not pursue, was taking younger son to get a new violin. He has been playing on a very inexpensive half-size violin and has now graduated to a much better-quality 3/4-size, which we will be able to trade up for a full-size when he's ready and still get credit on the rent-to-buy program so in a couple of years he'll own a good adult violin. The woman at the store was familiar with his music teacher, whom son is always telling me is mean, and the moment the woman found out who it was, she said, "Oh, he's strict!" It's kind of funny when orchestra is the toughest class in school.

Son also made my day by singing when I came into the kitchen at cat-feeding time a song he made up based on hearing it on The Simpsons, since he is much too young for The Carpenters: "Why do cats suddenly appear/Every time you are near?/Just like me, they long to be/FED." Which is a very accurate description of what happens every time I walk into the kitchen, though I like to pretend it's my charm that makes cats appear.


A Green Man decorating the US Botanic Gardens.


There are several of these along the front of the conservatory (seen here at twilight with a large model train in front, sorry).


Inside, a miniature model of the conservatory...


...also features miniature harvest goddess and Green Man heads.


Look at the awesome little "statues" on either side of the Supreme Court entrance.


Here is the miniature Library of Congress...


...miniature Ford's Theatre, on right...


...and some Georgetown homes.

Farewell to Sir Edmund Hillary, environmentalist and humanitarian as well as the first man ever to summit Mount Everest; we saw a terrific exhibit about him and his work building schools in Nepal at the National Geographic Explorers' Hall several years ago that made a big impression on me, and apparently in recent years he's been entirely supportive of women climbers from all over the world. This news does not depress me as much as the potential hacking of our democracy, anyway. (Here's the YouTube video.)