Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Poem for Wednesday, Maryland Lambs, Tinker Tailor

I Believe Nothing
By Kathleen Raine

I believe nothing -- what need
Surrounded as I am with marvels of what is,
This familiar room, books, shabby carpet on the floor,
Autumn yellow jasmine, chrysanthemums, my mother's flower,
Earth-scent of memories, daily miracles,
Yet media-people ask, "Is there a God?"
What does the word mean
To the fish in his ocean, birds
In his skies, and stars?
I only know that when I turn in sleep
Into the invisible, it seems
I am upheld by love, and what seems is
Inexplicable here and now of joy and sorrow,
This inexhaustible, untidy world --
I would not have it otherwise.

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I mostly did chores on Tuesday, though I went out quite a few times just because it was 80 degrees and gorgeous. Did laundries (haven't folded them yet), worked on writing projects, organized files. Went out to the mall to return something, smelled all the summer stuff in Bath & Body Works, bought myself a camera charm in Fossil. Finished all the Trader Joe's Mediterranean hummus while watching birds on the deck. Adam had tennis in the afternoon, so I went for a walk in Cabin John Park wearing shorts for the first time in 2012. There were daffodils and chipmunks all around Locust Grove Nature Center, spring peepers were singing all around the creek, and a fox ran right in front of me on the trail, trying to get away from a dog off its leash that was chasing it.

In the evening around the new episode of Ringer (sorry, Siobhan, whatever Andrew did or threatened to do, and whatever happened a decade ago, you still deserve every terrible thing coming to you) we watched the last two episodes of the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries (we have Smiley's People up next). It's interesting how different it is from both the novel and the movie -- I saw it decades ago but I barely remembered it, and I thought the movie had a couple of characters cast far more spot-on than the TV show, but I appreciated the longer scenes and stretches of dialogue from the novel and that despite the era in which it was produced, it wasn't particularly homophobic or misogynistic -- probably less than the Circus itself was in that era. Here are some more of the University of Maryland's lambs:















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