By Mary Jo Salter
It may go on snowing forever,
but meanwhile, how he's basking
in the sun of his own multitasking!
He's perched erect on his throne
looking down on the airport food court,
as the silver snail of a cell phone
earpiece hooked to his ear
hangs on his every word.
No way to cut him short
until the runways are cleared
and they've finished out there de-icing
the right wing, then the left wing
of all those planes before his.
Could he strike us a deal with the weather?
The man hunched below him polishes
one wingtip, then the other.
--------
Another from "Absence, Opera, Beans, Dreams", a selection of verse from new collections published in The Washington Post Book World's poetry issue the week of April 20th. This one is from Salter's A Phone Call to the Future, published by Knopf.
Not a very eventful Monday; I mostly finished laundry, caught up on phone calls and tried to learn how to use my new speedlight -- an early Mother's Day present so I'll have it on our trip this summer and can hopefully take better photos of relatives, indoor scenery and the interior of the HMS Surprise. *g* Younger son came home from school all excited because he had found several caterpillars on the way; later, son's best friend came over excitedly to tell me to bring the camera because a bird had laid eggs in one of the nest boxes on their deck (received and painted as party favors a few days ago -- on Tuesday I am going to Michael's to get one of them!).
Freshly sheared and groomed sheep awaiting their opportunity to go before the judges at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend.
A wide variety of sheep came to the festival from all over the country...
...producing a wide variety of wool and related crafts.
These sheep, for instance, are from "Ewetopia" in New York!
There were also locally bred alpacas...
...and llamas (if you were my son, this would be your cue to start chanting, "Here's a llama, there's a llama, and another little llama...").
Plus there were live performances, including Maggie Sansone on hammered dulcimer with several other local folk musicians.
The festival drew a wide range of people -- reenactors in period costume, organic farmers in flannel, bearded men in pro-life t-shirts, renewable resource champions wearing Obama for President buttons, Muslim women in hijab scarves, cancer survivors in head scarves and Walk For Life t-shirts, African-American men in kente cloth, women in old-fashioned solid color dresses that wouldn't have looked out of place among the Texas Mormons, you name it.
For dinner we had Mexican food to celebrate Cinco de Mayo (well, Tex-Mex, since I doubt anyone involved in that victory over the French had hard-shell chicken tacos and mini cheese quesadillas). Then we were going to watch The Golden Compass which Paul brought home on DVD last week -- he enjoyed the book -- but older son took forever taking his shower, so we postponed that. I was delighted to read on The Leaky Cauldron that Natalia Tena said whiny Tonks is entirely absent from the film of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince...sometimes the cuts in the films are really delightful improvements on Rowling's pathetic self-indulgence and lack of coherent editing. Plus there's a rumor that Jason Isaacs appears in a flashback scene in the film, which would delight me greatly if true. I'm so irritated that they're making two movies out of Deathly Hallows that I'm not feeling any particular desire to see Half Blood Prince, though finding out that the filmmaker may have more sense than the novelist about certain things makes me feel somewhat better.
Hope everyone is keeping safe from tornadoes, cyclones and all the other disasters that seem to be whirling around the world. I'm sad that Mildred Loving has died and still astounded that her lawsuit demanding the right to intermarriage took place during my lifetime. I'm hoping my kids are just as shocked and horrified one day to realize that gay marriage wasn't legal during their lifetimes.
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