By Tom Healy
How much oxygen
to ask a question,
to rattle a crack-lipped
whisper,
a one-word lie?
Other animals exist
in an endless present--
ice and light,
speed or crawl, waves
of whatever is this and now.
Of course there's us--
the only breathing bodies
free enough not
to show up to ourselves,
for whom, if we can
summon strength,
being anywhere
is always in doubt.
Why? Why bother?
Because what is there?
With everything
our bodies know,
strong or broken,
we never have the luxury
of making ourselves simple.
Everywhere is always
uneasy, an altitude
of sudden storms, weak
footholds, frostbite, crevasse,
black and blue terrain.
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Thursday's news was entirely snow. We all slept late, Paul worked from home, Adam helped some neighbors dig out and made some money clearing walks and porches, we all spent a lot of hours watching the Winter Olympics where there's apparently less snow and warmer weather than most of the US east coast. Not a bad day, though, since we got to hang out and be mellow and Adam made chocolate chip cookies. We got to see the entirety of the men's short program figure skating, which we're very glad about now that we've stuck on the Olympics since The Daily Show isn't on and the skating is extremely abbreviated.
Since we'd seen the skating and some of the skiing and hockey, we watched Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters after dinner. This movie is a perfect example of why the Bechdel test isn't an accurate reflection of whether a movie will be palatable to feminists, because although it passes easily -- there are lots of named female characters who don't talk to each other about men -- the underpinnings are deeply misogynistic (all the witches are female, power is inherited and women are burned for it if they display it, ugly women=evil, independent ambitious women=ugly AND evil). If you're strong and not appealing to men, you're a bad witch.
Happy Valentine's Day, whether you're celebrating with a sweetheart or going out with friends or eating chocolate at home!
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