Poem for Wednesday, Cat and Smelly Shoe, Stinky Glee

And For No Reason
By Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

And
For no reason
I start skipping like a child.

And
For no reason
I turn into a leaf
That is carried so high
I kiss the Sun's mouth
And dissolve.

And
For no reason
A thousand birds
Choose my head for a conference table,
Start passing their
Cups of wine
And their wild songbooks all around.

And
For every reason in existence
I begin to eternally,
To eternally laugh and love!

When I turn into a leaf
And start dancing,
I run to kiss our beautiful Friend
And I dissolve in the Truth
That I Am.

--------

Daniel did not have to go to school on Tuesday, having only one remaining final on Wednesday before he's off till the graduation rehearsal the second week in June. So I let him sleep till eleven, then ordered him up so we could go to Bagel City and get lunch for today and breakfast for tomorrow. Bagel City failed quite a bit -- we were helped by someone who literally did not understand a word of English, who took forever to get the bagels we were planning to take home and who gave us two containers of walnut raisin cream cheese instead of one of that and one of lox spread for Daniel -- but we did manage to get enough for lunch, then we spent a quiet couple of hours before Adam came home and I took him to tennis. It was a hot day, mid-80s, but it was tolerably cool and damp in Cabin John Park, and I walked for the entire hour Adam was playing.

We watched a fabulous episode of Wild Australasia on public television, "New Worlds," about how the wildlife of Australia has survived people encroaching on their land -- parts very sad, like displaced koalas and extinct rodents, but parts utterly adorable, like kangaroos living happily on golf courses and flying foxes taking over a Melbourne botanic garden. Then we watched the season finale of Glee, which not only had truly atrocious original songs that made Britney Spears' new album sound intellectual but even managed to make New York seem boring and cliched...the only moment that really made me smile besides Kurt singing from Wicked was the giant Daniel Radcliffe poster in the background. Now we are back on public television watching Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain, which is fascinating even though I already knew quite a bit of the history...though how did I not know that Maimonides was born in Spain?

Since LiveJournal's Scrapbook was down all day, I have only just been able to access the photos that I have saved there. So rather than rushing to get more Homestead Farm photos posted, here is a photo of Rosie after we got back from the farm, when Adam's shoes smelled like goat and sheep and strawberry and all sorts of other things surely of great excitement to cats: