By Anne Carson
THIS
Insatiable April, trees in place,
in their scraped-out place,
their standing.
Standing way.
Their red branch areas,
green shoot areas (shock),
river, that one.
I surprised a goose and she hissed.
I walk and walk with cold hands.
Back at the house it is filled with longing,
nothing to carry longing away.
I look back over my life.
I try to find analogies.
There are none.
I have longed for people before, I have loved people before.
Not like this.
It was not this.
Give me a world, you have taken the world I was.
YOUR
("unalterable")
Actually not. Feigned leap into-
river glimpsed through bare
[waiting]
[some noun] for how thought breaks up around you not here
your clothes not wet in this deep mirror-
what Hölderlin calls die Tageszeichen, signs
scored into the soul by the god of each day
your answer scars, I still don't know-
years from now, these
notations in the address book, this frantic hand.
--------
From this week's New Yorker.
We started our Jewish new year as we have started the past many, going out to brunch at the Original Pancake House, where my parents got crepes, my kids got dessert waffles, Paul got an omelet, and I got my usual -- eggs benedict with turkey sausage instead of Canadian bacon. I also had chai to be certain that I would stay awake during the temple president's annual speech. The restaurant backs up to a courtyard with a big fountain, an art gallery, and several outdoor sculptures, so it's a pretty place to take a walk.
Then we went to the synagogue for my least favorite half-hour of the entire year, the nightmarishly overcrowded lobby before the family service, with people pushing and shoving in their high heels, pushing baby carriages they were supposed to collapse and leave by the door as they try to shove to the front of the line...by the time I get inside, I am always ready to go worship Asherah in the woods in the nearby park, alone. This service is really targeted at kids younger than mine, and this is the last year we'll go, one way or another; after younger son's Bar Mitzvah we're supposed to graduate them to the morning adult service, but I suspect we'll be looking for a congregation that's more my style.
The high point of the family service is always the story performed by the rabbis with some accessible moral for kids, which last year involved pirates and this year involved superheroes. Since the rabbis were willing to wear shorts and pumps on the bimah, I felt no guilt about sneaking my camera out of my purse, turning off the flash, and taking these:
Three rabbis and a cantor played the Wonder Jews, with the senior rabbi's wife playing a museum curator after the Book of Life was allegedly stolen.
"Iron Man" in this case carried an actual iron. The rabbi in Wonder Woman garb complained that she couldn't keep up with the others in those heels.
The moral, as explained to the fourth rabbi who was playing the "villain," was that you can't inscribe your own name in the Book of Life but have to focus on good deeds.
This is the courtyard fountain outside the pancake house in Bethesda Place Plaza, which is sometimes used for public music performances.
The fountain cycles through this basin and often attracts little birds, which pleases Adam.
I just liked the way the water looked in this photo.
Here is some of the art in the courtyard, including Ned Smyth's column mosaic made of colored glass, tile and shining metals.
And here are my kids, husband and parents!
In the evening we had dinner again with my parents -- last night's leftovers, which were still delicious. Then we came home and watched the White Sox clinch a playoff spot! Now I'm afraid that it will be a Cubs-White Sox World Series, which would give me a dilemma...well, actually it wouldn't, because when we lived in Chicago, we lived on the south side and could see Comiskey's fireworks from our 31st floor window, but nearly everyone we know will be rooting for the Cubs and I'll feel badly about having to root against them. Even so, it would be fantastic if they both won their leagues!
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Click pink, and if you're overdue, please get a mammogram!
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