By Philip Booth
Forget roadside crossings.
Go nowhere with guns.
Go elsewhere your own way,
lonely and wanting. Or
stay and be early:
next to deep woods
inhabit old orchards.
All clearings promise.
Sunrise is good,
and fog before sun.
Expect nothing always;
find your luck slowly.
Wait out the windfall.
Take your good time
to learn to read ferns;
make like a turtle:
downhill toward slow water.
Instructed by heron,
drink the pure silence.
Be compassed by wind.
If you quiver like aspen
trust your quick nature:
let your ear teach you
which way to listen.
You've come to assume
protective color; now
colors reform to
new shapes in your eye.
You've learned by now
to wait without waiting;
as if it were dusk
look into light falling:
in deep relief
things even out. Be
careless of nothing. See
what you see.
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It was a fairly quiet Tuesday, work and laundry and catching up on phone calls; Wednesday and Thursday involve carpools and the first cross country meet of the season and Back To School night, so those will be much more hectic. We did get to see Sean Bean's episode of Accused, "Tracie's Story," which is depressing but excellent and Bean is extraordinary -- not primarily as his transvestite persona but as the self-confessed most boring man in the world, the high school teacher who recites Wordsworth and Tennyson to disinterested students.
I have had a request for more Kermit the Frog pictures on Maryland's campus, though sadly I only know of one other than the one I posted the other day -- the Fear the Turtle statue made over to look like Kermit. Testudo himself has been around since 1932, when the football coach suggested the diamondback terrapin as the school's mascot, for which I will always be grateful. The original 1933 bronze terrapin sculpture may not be as glamorous as the Kermit bench but has been abducted by Johns Hopkins and UVA students and has many imitators:
The original Testudo has been filled with cement to avoid turtle-napping and now resides in front of McKeldin Library...
...while he has a newer twin in the Stamp Student Union. Both have had their noses rubbed for luck so many times that they're shiny.
The university commissioned "Fear the Turtle" statues for its anniversary for artists to decorate. This one is on the lower level of the student union...
...while this one is on the floor above, just inside the main entrance.
This very sparkly state pride turtle is inside the school of public health...
...and this super-shiny one is by the College Park Airport near the Aviation Museum.
Jim Henson was a Maryland alumnus, so there are several Kermits around campus, including this Fear the Turtle version.
The Terps mascot appears at sports events and student recruitment panels alike.
And here, in a mural from the now-closed California Tortilla on Route 1, is a very proud Testudo painting.
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