Poem for Tuesday

Pearl Harbor's Child
By Linda Brown

I was born a week after Pearl Harbor
into a crib with an air raid siren.
It wailed nightly from the elm outside
until I went rigid as a hypnotist's steel board,
too scared--even in my mother's arms--to cry.

We moved cross-country when I was two
so my father could build the air strip
at Whidbey Island. There I was jumped on
by Zombie Doggy, a big red Irish setter
who loved me so much he knocked me down.
When they practiced firing on the artillery range,
Mother had to drive me to the other side of the island
because I screamed & cried and cried.

There are two things infants are afraid of:
falling and loud noises. This was my baptism
into touch and sound--being knocked flat
on my back by a dog licking my face,
the rage of artillery shells and sirens.

So much fear. What to do for it
but become a poet? Still afraid
of being knocked on my ass by love,
still living in a world at war.

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I had a very quiet chore-filled Monday, trying to get all four laundries done and folded because on Tuesday we're supposed to have our power turned off from 9-3 or some portion thereof while PEPCO is doing something or other to our neighborhood's wires. Does anyone know what percent of what's in our freezer will have to be discarded if the power is actually out that entire time -- everything? Husband's brilliant idea was for me to stay home in the dark with no power and get everything into coolers with ice after a couple of hours if the power was still out, but will things be any better off in coolers with ice than in a closed freezer with ice? One thing is certain: I am NOT staying in the house all day, when I can't use the computer or read unless I'm in the front window, can't watch TV or listen to music, can't even exercise because I couldn't take a shower afterward. So I am planning to shop and go out to lunch with .


Sheep at Dancing Leaf Farm with Sugarloaf Mountain visible through the trees on the Countryside Artisans Winter Tour last weekend.


The sheep produce much of the wool for the yarn sold at Dancing Leaf's studio.


This was one of the windowsill decorations inside.


Allen Ye Printmaker was visiting Art of Fire with some of the same prints he sells at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.


Adam always bonds with the cats at Art of Fire, though this one has been known to nip after too much attention.


Dancing Pig Pottery, another Renfaire fixture, was selling pagan-themed bowls, cups and platters in the smaller barn, as well as Green Man and pirate goblets and serving dishes.


Tuatha Gallery was there as well, selling Celtic designs on stone, cards, and stained glass.


This is Jody Marshall playing the hammered dulcimer at The Artisans in McLean, Virginia, which was having a holiday open house too.

Since Heroes wasn't on, we watched Joe Versus the Volcano before the Ravens-Packers game (which was terrible until we turned it off to watch Jon Stewart, at which point the Ravens scored two touchdowns in the third after accomplishing nothing in the first half). Joe Versus the Volcano is one of my very favorite movies, though I have discovered to my woe that the wonderful soundtrack is extremely rare and sells for more than $100! The sea voyage to Waponi Wu, the island where the natives drink Orange Crush and sing Hava Nagila, is probably my favorite part, but New York as a kaleidoscope of colored windows is pretty fabulous as well. And the moon! "Dear God, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG..."