Poem for Wednesday and Hanover Shoe Farms

At Grass
By Philip Larkin

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and main;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances surficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -

Silks at the start: against the sky
Numbers and parasols: outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass: then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies:
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.

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We woke on Tuesday to warnings about snow starting by midnight, which got more dramatic over the course of the day. One by one, closings were announced for Wednesday -- our local schools, the rec centers, the University of Maryland, Paul's office. So I reluctantly postponed my Wednesday lunch plans with the mother of one of Adam's best friends and went out to get things done that I won't be able to do if I can't drive out of the neighborhood, including taking a walk in the park, where I ran into Pokemon friends.

We had leftover Thai food for dinner before The Gifted, which has been great this season, partly because it's a very good cast but partly because it's such a short season that the storylines don't drag and the CW could take a lesson from that for its superhero shows. Then we watched Miracle Workers, in which God a.k.a. Steve Buscemi gives Bill Maher what he deserves and ridiculous problems afflict Daniel Radcliffe. From Hanover Shoe Farms on Sunday with my in-laws, here are some of the mares and foals we got to meet: