Poem for Friday

Harvest
By Kathleen Raine

Day is the hero's shield,
Achilles' field,
The light days are the angels.
We the seed.

Against eternal light and gorgon's face
Day is the shield
And we the grass
Native to fields of iron, and skies of brass.

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I really did not need a weather-related migraine today. Adam got me up early so we could take our penguins to London and buy them bathrooms and nurseries in SPP. Then I did a bunch of chores and went out to pick up Daniel after his calculus final. A friend of my mother's stopped by with a gift for Adam, then my mother herself stopped by with their freshly-pressed suits. Adam came home and we went to get his violin repaired -- fortunately the sound post had just come loose when the bridge slid out of position, so it didn't take long to fix. By the time I got home, the drizzle had started again, though we never got the warned-for thunderstorms. I spent most of the evening trying to produce a legible printout of our seating chart and straightening out last-minute stuff. We watched a few numbers from Fantasia 2000 to mellow out before the kids went to bed.


A Russian enamel box created by Faberge craftsman Fedor Ruckert around 1908, now at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.


A smaller Ruckert box depicting a Russian medieval theme in enamel, also in Richmond.


This pendant depicting St. George and the Dragon is in its original box.


A rabbit pitcher by Faberge's firm in 1894, made of silver with rubies for eyes.


The top two oklads were created by Faberge's firm; the others are by imitators Ovchinnikov, Kolodrina, and Hahn.


This charm bracelet features miniatures in the style of Faberge, but only two of the charms -- the non-animal ovals at the 5 and 10 o'clock positions -- have been authenticated as Faberge firm creations.


Similarly, this bell push resembles a Faberge creation, but it was actually made by Cartier in France circa 1900.

Friday I get Daniel around noon again after his Spanish final, then Adam gets home at 3 and in-laws arrive at 4 for services at 6. And then the real fun, or the real chaos, begins. I wish I felt all happy and excited instead of all stressed out. It does not help having bigoted morons like Jeremiah Wright running their mouths, but hey, he thinks the Jews still have absolute control over America...Fred Phelps has been insinuating lately that we sold it to the Catholics. Am I more sensitive to the massive level of prejudice and idiocy right now, or is it genuinely a lot worse than it was a few years ago?