Poem for Thursday, Emmitsburg and Grotto of Lourdes

The Grotto
By Francis Scarfe

The sea still plunges where as naked boys
We dared the currents and the racing tides
That stamped red weals of fury on our thighs,
Yet did not know our first love was the sea
That rolled like colts between our shining knees,
While under us the sands in golden curls
Coiled round our bodies like the plaits of girls.

We came oblique to passion on that shore
Identified with our blind will to danger,
As when we explored the slipping walls of caves
Booming with dark more fearful than the waves
Whose silence magnified the heart's deep roar
Till senses beat that were asleep before,
And in ourselves we recognized a stranger.

Or when we scaled by Frenchman's Bay the cliff
No man has dared though boys there in the night
Still prove their manhood on its hostile side
That was our climb from innocence to life;
And yet, if I could be there once again,
My love, I'd pause amazed among the gulls,
Afraid of both the triumphs and the falls.

In sea and grotto where we found our hearts
Our youth remained, and all our days return
In dream and vision to the mocking sea
Where womanhood and manhood proudly stirred
Within our silence like a singing bird,
And never a dawning day will break as pure
As our grave adoration, immature.

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Wednesday was just as gorgeous out as Tuesday -- partially overcast, not too warm -- so after a morning of yelling at Verizon because our FIOS was down yet again, we went to meet Paul's parents at Emmitsburg's Mason-Dixon Welcome Center, which in addition to a picnic area and visitor center has a wetland with a beaver dam (and beavers!), frogs, green herons, and red-winged blackbirds. After walking around there for a bit, we went to the Grotto of Lourdes, the national shrine at Mount St. Mary's built over the spring where Mother Elizabeth Seton used to teach children.

















After his parents headed home, Paul and I stopped at the Emmitsburg Antique Mall (not long before it closed, so I didn't have time to do too much damage, though I did find a glass witch ball for $8). When we came home, we had bangers and mash for dinner and fed our starving cats. We've just watched The 100 as it heads into the season break, and though I will be okay if they kill off Marcus and Abby both, I will be very upset if they kill one or the other. Plus we watched Designated Survivor, which had better keep Hannah and give us more Kimball if they want me back next season!