Poem for Sunday and Homestead Farm Apples

A Soldier
By Robert Frost

He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled,
That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,
But still lies pointed as it plowed the dust.
If we who sight along it round the world,
See nothing worthy to have been its mark,
It is because like men we look too near,
Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere,
Our missiles always make too short an arc.
They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect
The curve of earth, and striking, break their own;
They make us cringe for metal-point on stone.
But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.

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It was a gorgeous September Saturday, warm and clear, so when eventually Daniel was awake, we took him to pick apples at Homestead Farm. There are lots of animals on the farm now in preparation for the pumpkin festival -- there are already pumpkins for picking in the fields and pre-picked by the store -- and there were more people than I've ever seen walking to the apple orchards.















When we came home, Paul's parents met us at our house and we watched most of the Terps-Hoosiers game (Maryland won its first Big Ten confrontation, yay!) before going to my parents' for a belated Rosh Hashanah dinner and to celebrate Daniel's birthday with all the grandparents. I ate tons (salad, faux chicken soup, faux chicken dinner, too much dessert)!

Then we came home and watched this week's Doctor Who, which I really enjoyed which is weird because I can blow holes in the storytelling -- I love Capaldi, I even like Coleman better with him (I like Clara trying to have a life and see all the wonder at the same time). I would like Clara to have an arc that in no way involves a romance or a male supporter and better Bechdel ratios.

We watched Outlander's mid-season finale, too, and I see why people warned me about sexual violence in the books -- the show can be kind of shy about showing body parts in sex scenes yet not shy at all about explicit sexual assault, which really irritates me. I know they must be snipping a lot from the books, so I wish they'd leave more of the historical stuff. Sunday: more Renfaire!