By Rosanna Warren
For six days, full-throated, they praised
the light with speckled tongues and blare
of silence by the porch stair:
honor guard with blazons and trumpets raised
still heralding the steps of those
who have not for years walked here
but who once, pausing, chose
this slope for a throng of lilies:
and hacked with mattock, pitching stones
and clods aside to tamp dense
clumps of bog-soil for new roots to seize.
So lilies tongued the brassy air
and cast it back in the sun's
wide hearing. So, the pair
who planted the bulbs stood and heard
that clarion silence. We've heard it,
standing here toward sunset
as those gaping, burnished corollas poured
their flourish. But the petals have
shrivelled, from each crumpled knot
droops a tangle of rough
notes shrunk to a caul of music.
Extend your palms: you could as well
cup sunbeams as pour brim-full
again those absent flowers, or touch the quick
arms of those who bent here, trowel in
hand, and scraped and sifted soil
held in a bed of stone.
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I had to play with my Superpoke penguin this morning because last night in the new item release, they had an Academy Awards habitat with little Colin Firth and Natalie Portman-inspired plushies. Then I had a whole bunch of work to do, of which I absolutely had to finish a review of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. I must have the most unpopular views of any Trek fan reviewer ever, because as much as I adore the first and fifth movies, that's how much I dislike the sixth. I was bothered by it even more this time around -- apart from the undeniable joy of Shakespeare in the original Klingon, there's not much for which I can work up any enthusiasm. On a related note, since it's so relevant this week:
Fannish5: Name the five best uses of Shakespeare's work (faithful adaptations, plots inspired by his work, references to one of his plays/sonnets).
The faithful adaptations I'm thinking of were largely stage productions so I'm just going to toss out that category and stick to plots inspired by Shakespeare. I can tell you right now that, in spite of inspiring the awesome Klingon Hamlet, Star Trek VI does not deserve to appear on this list.
1. Tempest (John Cassavetes)
2. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
3. West Side Story
4. Throne of Blood
5. Ten Things I Hate About You
We had dinner with my parents -- my mother brought in California Tortilla, which neither of my parents likes much, but my immediate family loves -- then we came home to watch Smallville, which I enjoyed when it was Lionel and Tess having an Uther-Morgana moment but loathed when it was Lois having a Lana Lang "somebody save me" moment. Minor spoilers: I am bummed that the show will now be off the air till mid-April, but I read a spoiler today about who was on the set for the filming of the finale that makes up for nearly everything -- plus Amazon.com had the price of the season nine set dropped to $18, so I ordered it. I may forgive the Lois stuff because she uttered the line, "Are you trying to tell me that Conner is the genetic love child of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor?" (Conner himself said, "Are you, like, my dad?" to Clark). I loved how dubious Lois was about how Lex got Clark's DNA, heee!
These artificially colored orchids are part of Longwood Gardens' orchid display, colored by a "secret ingredient" in the water (we were guessing blue Kool-Aid).
Here are some natural fuschia orchids for comparison.
It's too early for daffodils outdoors, but we saw many in the conservatory...
...as well as a variety of tulips...
...and many shades of pink, white, and yellow stargazer lilies.
There was evidence of spring outdoors as well...
...buds on many of the trees, tiny flowers popping up in the woods.
Soon.
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