By Edith Södergran
Translated by Herbert Lomas
I want to let go --
so I don't give a damn about fine writing,
I'm rolling my sleeves up.
The dough's rising...
Oh what a shame
I can't bake cathedrals...
that sublimity of style
I've always yearned for...
Child of our time --
haven't you found the right shell for your soul?
Before I die I shall
bake a cathedral.
--------
Poem given to me by Miss Morland. If you ever have poems you think I should post, please send them along!
My family spent a delightful warm Sunday at the Virginia Renaissance Faire with Dementordelta and Lin -- sadly not Annmarie this year since she's in Atlanta working, though I understand she went to the Georgia Renfaire so I don't have to feel sorry for her. We were excited to discover that the Virginia faire now has jousting! For the most part, it was just a couple of knights demonstrating the sword and lance, but one of the riders was a woman and it's nice to have horses at the faire!
This year at the Lake Anna Winery, in addition to the alpacas who provide wool for one of the needlework vendors, there were also sheep and goats at a petting zoo and a brief greyhound race by the dog rescue group, Her Majesty's Hounds. We also heard some music, saw some abridged Shakespeare by an Alan Rickman lookalike, ate vegetarian crepes and cheesecake on a stick -- the latter also a new, much-appreciated addition to the faire -- and drank a lot of water because we were getting a lot of sun.
At last there are equestrian feats again at the Virginia Renfaire!
Delta and I attempted to have our sins absolved by the Archbishop. He gave her a Get Out of Hell Free card but told me I was guilty of the sin of Envy.
Adam met a baby goat being walked on a leash by a nobleman. The goat attempted to eat his shoelaces.
We also met the Queen. She was being escorted by a nobleman we did not know since Dudley was not there, though Lettice Devereux was.
The Alan Rickman lookalike, Johnny Doggerel, was performing Richard II with a young boy as Richard, an older audience volunteer as Henry, and monkeys as many of the other characters.
AON, which performs "Kinda Celtic" music, is fronted by a lead singer and piper from Chile, which makes the Irish drinking songs doubly amusing. You haven't heard "Whiskey in the Jar" till you've heard it with a Latin American accent.
There were plenty of not-entirely-period-correct pirates and fairies, but that is half the fun.
And I got to meet an alpaca.
It was a fairly quiet evening -- Paul made peanut soup to celebrate having been at Mount Vernon the day before, then we watched the Memorial Day concert on PBS, though as usual the actors reading diaries and letters from soldiers were much more interesting than the music. I was pleased that Kris Allen changed the line in the awful "Proud To Be an American" from "the men who died for me" to "the ones who died for me" but the musical highlight was New Zealand-born Hayley Westenra singing Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Pie Jesu." Adam is sleeping at a friend's so it is quieter than usual!
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