Poem for Sunday, Countryside Artisans, Versailles

Ode to Thought
By Sharon Olds

I can almost see you in the air – like a species
in your own right. I’d thought you were something
I made, when I was in my room,
alone with my scissors, Scotch tape, and paper —
and you were there, doing god-knows-what
while I cut, moving my jawbones in tune
with the blades. Were you using your words, or playing with your
alphabets, or less fettered than that, just
scooting your protons and neutrons and electrons
around. I know — you were something between
an electric current and a wave, in grey
and white brain-flesh. O thought, you were
inside me, but it didn’t seem so,
I thought of you in a skirt of dazzle,
flying. You darling, you’re beyond comprehension,
you travel in and out of our heads
at your own whim, and we are innocent
of all you say — and there’s no blood on your hands,
dear thought, though I’ve killed so many of your kind there’s been
a lot of your blood on mine — no more, go
roam, fill the room, go out
upon the earth, go to and fro,
and up and down, in it, I know you will
come back: see how my eyes get wet when I say it, I am sane.

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We had drizzle nearly all of Saturday but no hurricane, so it was pretty good weather. I had chores to do early on, which I did while watching the Terps lose to Penn State, which was not nice at all. Maddy had to work a lot of the day, so after dropping her off, we went on the fall Countryside Artisans Tour. We started at Something Earthy Studio, which has pottery and jewelry inside and goats, a donkey, and chickens outside, then went to Art of Fire, where there was a glassblowing class and a cat we hadn't yet met. We ended up at Dancing Leaf Farm which sadly only has one sheep at the moment but has lots of gorgeous yarn and fiber crafts!

















We stopped at Giant on the way home, though we had leftovers for dinner. We were going to watch a movie, but Adam asked me to proofread an application for him, so I ran late and instead we ended up watching the first two episodes of Versailles, which makes The Tudors look sober and historically accurate. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun watching the actors earnestly emote the over-the-top stuff, but really, Philippe was such a colorful character and Louis XIV was larger than life to begin with, so I'm not sure why they decided to focus on the things they did and risk an audience assuming some of what's fact might be made up for television.