Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Poem for Wednesday

From Weymouth
By Will Eaves


What made you wake me so early
And with a look of mischief say,
A start this fine's surely a sign
The sea is calling us today?
The train was blue, the water green:
A tinted postcard sent in May.
I'm sure I must have held your hand
In backstreets crammed with grockle shops
And pubs and reeling fishermen.
The smell I couldn't place was hops.
I rode in state along the beach,
Beside the ride that never stops.
I missed a few easy lessons.
The teacher smiled, as if to say
It's fine—it would have been a crime
To hear the call and disobey.
What did you do? The train was blue.
We had tea at a beach café
And well-thumbed fish-paste sandwiches—
That gritty complement to hours
Spent toeing desperately the line
Around two limpet-cladded towers
The sea and I besieged, the moat
I'm sure I must have said was ours.
What made me want to go early
And with a look of mischief say,
But I'm hungry? You wrote in haste:
His Highness made the donkeys bray.
The train was blue, the water green.
Yours, waiting by the beach café.

--------

From this week's New Yorker.

I had two medical procedures today, one at 8 a.m. and one that was supposed to be at 3 p.m. but didn't get started till nearly 4:30 due to idiocy on the part of the staff -- and the endless sitting in the overheated waiting room was by far the best part of being in that office, which ought to tell you what my late afternoon was like. Even though I had driven myself, I called Paul to meet me and follow me home in the van because I was so dizzy and nauseous for half an hour that the nurses parked me on an examination table so I wouldn't pass out as they left one by one since the office closed at 5:30.

In fact, the best part of my day before 6 p.m. was taking a boring two-mile walk around the neighborhood -- those of you who know how tedious I find exercise for its own sake will appreciate exactly how much the rest of my day sucked. I knew things were not going to go well in the very early morning when a woman threw a hissy fit because I picked up a magazine it didn't look like anyone had been reading since it was tossed on a chair while she was with a nurse, and that really set the tone for the rest of the day. At least Rosie seems somewhat better -- only a couple of sneezes. Wednesday I am staying home and folding laundry and being glad I get to do just that.


King Henry VIII, his ex-queen (who now identifies herself as his sister), his current queen, and courtiers waiting to greet their subjects at Revel Grove.


Lovers' Bridge, a popular spot to pose for kissing portraits.


Actors read Shakespearean sonnets...


...the Free Lancers jousters' lances strike and shatter...


...acrobats perform high above the heads of faire-goers...


...the Squire of the Wire juggles knives while crossing a tightrope.


A vulture sculpture by Roger Swezey.


And a Faire farewell (shot directly into the late afternoon sun, sorry about the glare).

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