Poem for Thursday and Cabin John Deer

Spring Day [Bath]
By Amy Lowell

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.

The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.

Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

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My stitches are out, and Daniel's ice packs are off. That is about all the excitement from around here. I went to the dermatologist to get the sutures removed before the kids were awake and when I got back after 11 a.m. they were only just up. Adam went running with one friend and played tennis with another; Daniel had mostly liquid food for breakfast and lunch, plus an ice cream sundae that my mother brought over for him, and spent most of the day doing stuff with his new computer, culminating in his announcement that he needs a better graphics card and presenting us with hours of research about which one.

I took Adam to his tennis lesson in the late afternoon when the heat had thankfully dropped off a bit -- we had a thunderstorm in the morning while I was driving to the doctor, but it was dry and muggy the rest of the day -- so I went for a walk in Cabin John Park, where I saw several deer, including one with fuzzy antlers growing in -- see below. Adam saw a black rat snake that was in front of the tennis complex; apparently other visitors saw it too, because when I walked over to get him, there was a "Warning: Snake in vicinity!" sign on the door. We spent the evening watching the Orioles get blown out -- again -- by the Rangers; we should have watched the Nationals-Cubs game instead!