By Emily Dickinson
God gave a loaf to every bird,
But just a crumb to me;
I dare not eat it, though I starve,—
My poignant luxury
To own it, touch it, prove the feat
That made the pellet mine,—
Too happy in my sparrow chance
For ampler coveting.
It might be famine all around,
I could not miss an ear,
Such plenty smiles upon my board,
My garner shows so fair.
I wonder how the rich may feel,—
An Indiaman—an Earl?
I deem that I with but a crumb
Am sovereign of them all.
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We spent a lovely New Year's Day in Richmond with our kids plus Cheryl and Lin. We started at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where we went to see Forbidden City: Imperial Treasures from the Palace Museum, Beijing (which is phenomenal in every way -- clothing and objects from the imperial court, including huge portraits and two huge bell and chime structures), Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints (which showed us where Hayao Miyazaki must have gotten a lot of his visual ideas), and Miwako Nishizawa: Twelve Views of Virginia plus some more contemporary art -- most of the Faberge items usually at the museum are traveling, ending up in Beijing.
Then we went to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden for the Dominion GardenFest of Lights, which was exceptional this year. Instead of having random animals and shapes, the emphasis was on keeping the garden looking like a garden, with big beds of plastic flower lights and hundreds of lit trees and bushes. The theme this year is bicycles, and there were many beautifully lit throughout the grounds. The indoor model train display is much larger now, running through models of Richmond buildings, and there's a room with fairy lights and iridescent dragonfly models. We ended up at Mexico for dinner, and it was great as always. Here are a few photos from Lewis Ginter -- more tomorrow!
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