Poem for Saturday and Washingtonian Goslings

Farewell from Welfare Island
By Julia de Burgos

It has to come from here,
right this instance,
my cry into the world.

The past is only a shadow emerging from
nowhere.

Life was somewhere forgotten
and sought refuge in depths of tears
and sorrows;
over this vast empire of solitude and darkness.
Where is the voice of freedom,
freedom to laugh,
to move
without the heavy phantom of despair?
Where is the form of beauty
unshaken in its veil, simple and pure?
Where is the warmth of heaven
pouring its dreams of love in broken
spirits?

It has to be from here,
right this instance,
my cry into the world.
My cry that is no more mine,
but hers and his forever,
the comrades of my silence,
the phantoms of my grave.

It has to be from here,
forgotten but unshaken,
among comrades of silence
deep into Welfare Island
my farewell to the world.

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My Friday was fairly ordinary and I didn't even do anything Star Wars-y for May the Fourth. I walked in the park with friends, I had egg salad for lunch courtesy the bagel place where Maddy works, I organized some computer stuff, I tried to figure out how to finish an article that's still not finished.

We had dinner with my parents, then came home and watched this week's excellent Blindspot (yay Bill Nye and Rodney McKay!), this week's very good Agents of SHIELD (yay Infinity War tie-in and endgame in sight), and the most recent episode of Billions (so many terrible people, so little time).

The Nationals won their sixth straight and the Orioles haven't lost yet, so it was a good baseball day, at least so far. Here are some more photos of the Washingtonian Lake goslings (plus a couple of turtles) in the sun on the other side of the Washingtonian Marriott from where I saw them last week: