By Robert Frost
I slumbered with your poems on my breast
Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
To see, if in a dream they brought of you,
I might not have the chance I missed in life
Through some delay, and call you to your face
First soldier, and then poet, and then both,
Who died a soldier-poet of your race.
I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--
And one thing more that was not then to say:
The Victory for what it lost and gained.
You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me,
But now for me than you--the other way.
How over, though, for even me who knew
The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
If I was not to speak of it to you
And see you pleased once more with words of mine?
--------
Another from Edward Hirsch's 2003 Poet's Choice on Edward Thomas. "Robert Frost didn't love many people, but one of the few he did love was Edward Thomas," wrote Hirsch, calling Thomas "a splendid English poet who has been underappreciated on our side of the Atlantic. The two met in England in 1913 and formed a lasting bond. Frost recognized the lyric element in Thomas's prose writings about nature and persuaded him to start writing poetry...Frost said the war 'made some kind of new man and a poet out of him.' He called Thomas 'the only brother I ever had,' and penned a touching elegy for him."
I had a disgustingly suburban mom day. Went to the mall to see if I could get the loose battery case cover on my phone fixed (answer #1: no), found a pair of Happy Frogs Grandma Pants, drove younger son's Hebrew school carpool just after he discovered online that the newest Guardians of Ga’Hoole book had arrived on the shelves a few days early, went to the OTHER mall to pick that up for him since the nearest one didn't have it, asked this T-Mobile store about the battery (answer #2: no), took our Blockbuster gift cards to get 3:10 To Yuma and haven't even watched it yet because I also had a free rental coupon that had to be used by Friday, so I grabbed Amazing Grace.
Came home after picking up younger son from Hebrew school while husband was getting older son from robotics at school, on the way back from which he picked up Popeyes because we never discussed what we were doing for dinner. So after that wonderfully healthy *cough* meal, we all watched Amazing Grace, which I absolutely loved -- I admit that I am biased by the presence of Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Gambon, Albert Finney, Ciaran Hinds and Rufus Sewell, and at times the film is a bit didactic which was the major critical complaint, but it's beautifully filmed on location in London and several British port cities, the acting is all great and it's impossible not to be moved by this story even for someone like me who's inclined to want to resist the evangelism that ties into Wilberforce's politics (in addition to such laudable goals as wanting to end slavery and founding the SPCA, he believed it was a British duty to bring Christianity to India and wanted to ban public dissemination of information about contraception). Plus it's fun to hear Thomas Jefferson being talked about as a wicked and seditious man.
Golden rat tail cacti in the World Deserts area of the US Botanic Gardens.
Is it just me, or are cacti far more phallic than the average plant?
Like these old man cacti. Hairy little beasts. *g*
Here is a nice round golden barrel cactus.
Seaform tentacle-like aloe...
...prickly little African milk-barrels...
...hot Irish red-heads...
...and big Saguaro cacti!
"Startling upset"? Oh please. Iowa and New Hampshire are only two states! I'm leaning toward becoming a shameless Hillary Clinton supporter -- for everything I don't like about her campaign and some of her votes in the Senate, I am tired of people telling me Obama is better on "the issues" without telling me which issues or how he's better, and then suggesting that it's white privilege rather than the issues (especially women's issues and international issues) that must be making me prefer Clinton.
I will pull the lever in November for either Clinton or Obama (or both, or either one with Edwards heading up the ticket, or Edwards without them, etc.) against any one of the Republicans in the race. But I am depressed particularly by the number of young women on my friends list who seem entirely comfortable bashing Clinton right and left and criticizing how she conducts herself as a female candidate, like there's a right way and a wrong way to do that upon which we'd all agree. You'll have to forgive me for being thrilled at the idea of a woman president, even if she's not a perfect woman, particularly since right now "Change" sounds to me too much like a slogan without a platform to back it up. With Hillary I feel like, for better or worse, I know what I'll be getting.
93% Mike Gravel
92% Dennis Kucinich
81% Barack Obama
79% John Edwards
78% Bill Richardson
77% Chris Dodd
77% Joe Biden
76% Hillary Clinton
38% Rudy Giuliani
32% Ron Paul
27% John McCain
22% Mike Huckabee
22% Mitt Romney
14% Tom Tancredo
12% Fred Thompson
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
I wish the quiz came with a breakdown of which candidate supposedly said what that puts me in or out of line with him or her. Also, not that I care much that the media is burying Romney, but I don't get how come in all the "he's practically DEAD" coverage, they aren't talking about how he won in Wyoming. (Do the voters of Wyoming simply not exist? Or are they so different from the much more cosmopolitan voters in Iowa that they don't matter?) I hate the primary/caucus system nearly as much as I hate the Electoral College magic map.
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