Poem for Thursday, Young Frankenstein, Salisbury Zoo

Letter Already Broadcast into Space
By Jake Adam York

                        —To Sun Ra, from Earth

You are not here,

you are not here
in Birmingham,
        where they keep your name,

not in Elmwood's famous plots
                or the monuments
of bronze or steel or the strew

        of change in the fountain
where the firehoses sprayed.

                In the furnaces,
in the interchange sprawl
        that covers Tuxedo Junction,

in the shopping malls, I think,
                they've forgotten you,

the broadcast towers, the barbecues,

        the statue of the Roman god,
spiculum blotting out
                part of the stars.

To get it dark enough,
        I have to fold back
into the hills, into the trees

                where my parents
planted me, where the TV
        barely reaches and I drift

with my hand on the dial
                of my father's radio,

spinning, too, the tall antenna
        he raised above the pines.

I have to stand at the base

                of the galvanized
pole I can use as an azimuth
        and plot you in.

The hunter's belt is slung again,
                and you are there

in the pulse, in the light of
        Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka,

all your different names,

                you are there
in all the rearrangements
        of the stars.

                        Come down now,
come down again,

                like the late fall light
into the mounds along the creek,

        light that soaks like a flood
to show the Cherokee sitting upright
                underground, light

like the fire they imply.

        Come down now
into the crease the freight train
                hits like a piano's hammer

and make the granite hum
        beneath.

                        Come down now

as my hand slips from the dial,
                tired again of looking
for the sound of another way

        to say everything.

Come down now with your diction
                and your dictionary.

Come down, Uncle, come down
        and help me rise.

I have forgot my wings.

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Wednesday was another work and chore day. I watched this week's Voyager episode, the odious "Day of Honor" (yes, I know Paris/Torres fans love it, but frankly it encapsulates everything I don't like about their relationship and it's also horribly written). Paul and I got haircuts while Maddy was shopping, then we all went to Giant and CVS.

Paul, Cheryl, and I continued our Gene Wilder marathon with Young Frankenstein, which I hadn't seen in years -- it's not my favorite Mel Brooks movie but it's probably my favorite Wilder performance in one and one of my favorite Teri Garr roles, too. From the Salisbury Zoo, some animals we saw when we stopped for lunch on the way home from the beach:

Poem for Wednesday and Maymont Animals

In the New Garden in All the Parts
By Walt Whitman

In the new garden, in all the parts,
In cities now, modern, I wander,
Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet,
Days, places, indifferent—though various, the same,
Time, Paradise, the Mannahatta, the prairies, finding me unchanged,
Death indifferent—Is it that I lived long since? Was I buried very long ago?
For all that, I may now be watching you here, this moment;
For the future, with determined will, I seek—the woman of the future,
You, born years, centuries after me, I seek.

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Tuesday was not as much fun as Monday in that I had work and laundry and things like that to get done, but it wasn't a bad day. I got done most of what I needed to do, and in the afternoon both Paul and Madeline had shopping to do at Kohl's and Target, so while they were trying things on, I took a walk around Washingtonian Lake in surprisingly nice weather, hot but not humid. There were geese and ducks and Dragonairs, and I found adorable long-sleeve Renfaire-appropriate shirts at Target.

Madeline had work in the evening, so Paul and I had Israeli couscous (faux) chicken and watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory long-distance with Cheryl. The great parts are still great and the too-creepy-for-children parts just get creepier with every viewing, but there's no question that Wilder's performance makes the movie work (and if you've never watched the DVD extras, they're worth the time!). From Maymont's Virginia zoo on Sunday:

Poem for Tuesday, Imperium, Genius, Lewis Ginter Butterflies

To the Garden the World
By Walt Whitman

To the garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again,
Amorous, mature—all beautiful to me—all wondrous;
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present—content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

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I got to spend Monday with Cheryl watching movies and seeing animals! We started by getting Indian food while dropping Madeline off at the mall to shop for work clothes, then we went to Imperium, which I really didn't think I'd like -- it has Daniel Radcliffe in a role in which he's gotten pretty good reviews, but it's about white supremacists and I was afraid it would be a lot more violent and vile than it was (I mean, it was vile, but it was mostly white supremacists spouting conspiracy theory garbage, not physically attacking the specific Jews and people of color who are the targets of their venom). Radcliffe and Toni Collette are both very good in it and it's an interesting cautionary tale.

After that, we retrieved niece, then watched Genius on demand with Paul. This one is about editor Max Perkins's relationship with Thomas Wolfe and to a lesser extent F. Scott Fitzgerald, and stars Colin Firth, Jude Law, and Guy Pearce plus Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, and a generally fantastic cast. (I mean, you knew I wasn't going to miss a movie with Bertie and David from The King's Speech anyway.) There's a lot of vague talk about what makes literature great (apparently men telling stories about their fathers) and the female roles veer from barely tolerable to utterly cringe-worthy, but it has wonderful performances and passionate bromance.

We learned that Gene Wilder had died while we were watching Genius and were going to watch one of his movies, but we got so distracted talking about which of his Mel Brooks movies was our favorite that we ended up watching High Anxiety because none of us had seen it in many years and it remains utterly hilarious, even without Wilder. We'll watch Willy Wonka and Young Frankenstein later in the week. Cheryl and I took a walk, saw a pair of bunnies and rescued a cicada before she went home. Meanwhile, Madeline went to work, Paul and I had vegetarian jambalaya for dinner, and the Nationals beat the Phillies. Some of Lewis Ginter's butterflies (live and Lego) on Sunday:

Poem for Monday and Richmond Gardens

Ghost Eden
By Erika Meitner

after Anthony Haughey's "Settlement"

            Garden of rock.
Garden of brick and heather.
            Garden of cranes with their hands raised
as if they know the yellow answer:
            to gather together—safety in numbers.
Garden of drywall frames, holes for windows
            punched out like teeth. Garden of bar fights.
Garden of rubble and gaps,
            spectral for-sale signs knocked
from wooden posts, bleached down
            to numbers ending in gardens of overgrown lots.
We are falling into ruin, garden
            of scaffolding and shale and gravel—
give us back our peace: a half-built garden
            of theft, treasures hidden in darkness,
newspapers crumpled on subfloors telling us
            to hold fast to that which is good.
Garden of rebar and saplings with trunks
            encased in corrugated piping
because many animals can girdle
            a tree's bark quickly: deer, stray cats, rabbits.
Garden of Tyvek wrap loosed
            and flapping like a ship's sail
in the gales, in the sheeting storms.
            Hanging laundry left out in the garden
past darkness, fruit from the tree
            of human-ness: socks, shirts, underpants.
Garden of long exposures, half-light, traces
            that empty themselves in tire treads running
like ladders through red clay mud:
            the dirt from which we are formed
and crushed and formed again.

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Another quickie because we got home late again! Paul and I spent Sunday in Richmond, where we met Cheryl at Maymont and walked through the gardens and regional zoo. It was very hot but there were lots of flowers and animals! Then we met Lin at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, which has its annual butterfly exhibit in the conservatory and giant Lego sculptures around the gardens.















We were going to go to Mexico Restaurant for dinner but it was closed. Instead we went to Thai Flavor next door, which was really good -- they make vegetarian curries without fish sauce, so Paul and I split red and yellow curries and swapped some of Cheryl's ginger tofu. Then we drove home in moderate traffic and picked up Maddy, who had had her first evening of training at the movie theater!

Poem for Sunday, National Gallery, Mystic Warriors

Blue
By Sidney Wade

The great blue
song of the earth
is sung in all
the best venues—
treetop, marsh,
desert, shore—
and on this spring
day in the wetlands
where, under
a late sun,
we stand alone
and in love
with each other
and the passing day
we watch a cormorant
whose eye is ringed
in blue diamonds,
a shimmering lure,
and we love this blue
and this dark bird
and this deepening sky
that pinks and hums
in the west, and then

the bird opens his beak
and flutters his throat
and the late
afternoon light
illuminates
the inside tissue
of his mouth
which is as blue
as his ocular jewelry,
as blue as the bluest
ocean, as blue
as the sky in all
its depth, as blue
as the back of the small
and determined beetle
who struggles to roll
his enormous dung ball
in his own breeding bid
to enchant another
small blue miracle.

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I got home quite late, so here is our day in photos!


After lunch at home, we went downtown with Madeline to the National Gallery of Art...


...where we saw the very enjoyable Hubert Robert exhibit (he did lots of Roman antiquities, architectural capriccio, ruins, and depictions of the aftermath of the French Revolution including the development of the Louvre Museum).


We also saw the outdoor works in the Sculpture Garden.


Then we went to visit Alice, Jeremy, and Avery (plus their bird and all their local Pokemon) at their new house.


We brought a picnic with them to see Mystic Warriors perform at Potomac Overlook Park...


...and Avery and I walked to the nature center, which has many turtles, snakes, and frogs, plus several Pokestops surrounding it.

Now we're home, somewhat overheated and very tired! More tomorrow!

Poem for Saturday, The Gift, Seaside Country Store

Incised Moon
By Rachel Barenblat

Once I would have woken at three
to see our planet's shadow
carving a black crescent.

To watch her face disappear
only to return, round and red
as though hiding aroused her.

But after the year
of night wakings,
breasts full as the moon

I don't want to see
the numbers on the digital clock
creeping unavoidably toward day.

I hear she was coy, anyway --
did the striptease
behind a billowing sheet of cloud.

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It was quite warm on Friday, which was fine because I had a lot of work to get done at home. I posted a review of Voyager's "The Gift", worked on an article, folded laundry, and talked tax paperwork with Madeline, who had pizza for lunch with us. Someday I'll have all my vacation laundry put away!

We had dinner plus excellent Seasons 52 desserts with my parents, watched a bit of pre-season football, then put on some more seventh season Bones (the baby in a manger episode and the extreme couponing episode). Pics from our visit to the Seaside Country Store in Fenwick Island last week:

Poem for Friday and Coastal Kayak

Landscape with Happily Ever After
By Lynn Melnick

Near midnight I’m held
hostage to the hazy upshot in the corner

velvet near a laced up tree and curious how I got here.

What a crowd! I think
and I think I should hoard my stash in my shoe.


Did you catch the census takers trying to autocorrect
the shelterbelt out of my history

when meanwhile

I’ve been fending off elements
since I first showed up at this latitude so

I don’t trust easy.


In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
you ask me outside

where the music dims
against the complicated bramble

and I love how the moon

is gilding the rusted basketball hoop in the driveway
and bouncing off the sheen of the rubber tree

and onto this fable
in a city that bleeds its saline soil

into another difficult year.

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I had a lot of work to get done on Thursday, but I got two major long-distance phone calls that were awesome because I got to catch up with people, and now I'm not quite caught up with work but it's all good! Niece was offered the job at ArcLight Cinemas for which she interviewed the day before last, which is great news -- in addition to it being a good job, with nice benefits and hours that will work better than retail since she'll also be taking classes soon, she'll be around people closer to her own age now that son and his friends are mostly away at college.

It wasn't as hot as it's been earlier in August, but it was very humid and sticky out late in the afternoon. I walked long enough to see some bunnies but not long enough to catch any exciting Pokemon (I mean, there was a big Spearow, but I need a couple more Slowpokes and a Rhyhorn to evolve, plus it would be awesome to find a Charmeleon and where have all the Digletts gone?). Right now there is apparently a moth inside the house, because the kittens are going crazy looking, but I don't see it anywhere. We also watched some Bones. At Coastal Kayak in Delaware: