By Brian Barker
When they ask me to account for my time on earth,
I will confess: I loved tomato pie
& too much beer, waking up in the blue
beam of the television, my head in your lap,
how I could hear the last birds
gathering beneath your skin. You smelled like mint
& the cold blade of the kitchen knife, & our laughter
left teethmarks those long July days,
as the dark beyond our door culled its armies,
a combustion of insects & heat
hitching our house to the blind grasses, the pasture
sliding away like a calm sea.
Love, what leaned in & drank from the eyes of the horses
as their silhouettes passed like slow ships?
What folded its thin wings & sank into our hearts?
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After a quiet morning -- well, as quiet as a house can be with our two boys and son's best friend -- we spent Sunday afternoon at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair, where it was very hot in the sun but quite pleasant in the shade, and where we saw lots of animals, crafts, demonstrations, and food vendors galore:
Here are my kids petting a bunny in the rabbit barn. Many rabbits were for sale for under $30.
The end of one of the pig races.
A boy readies his ewe to show to one of the judges. (I believe the sheep took third place in its category.)
This calf was born at the fair on Sunday morning five hours before we met him.
These chicks were born at the fair only a couple of hours before this photo was taken, too.
There were dairy goats on display and many varieties of goat cheese for sale at the fair.
And lots of music, including several country groups and this Andean duo.
People went flying overhead on swings on the midway. We didn't actually go on any rides, having gone to the pig races first and being rather overheated by the time we got back to the amusement area!
We had pizza with my parents, who are taking my kids to Williamsburg for the next few days. Then we came home and the kids asked for Due South -- which of course I did not protest -- "Body Language" is definitely not one of my favorites, but "The Duel" is a terrific Ray episode (and I loved seeing Colm Feore, whom I actually saw as Hamlet at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival way back in the day, and who was so much fun in Slings & Arrows).
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