Poem for Friday and Building Museum Homes

The Cabbage
By Ruth Stone

You have rented an apartment.
You come to this enclosure with physical relief,
your heavy body climbing the stairs in the dark,
the hall bulb burned out, the landlord
of Greek extraction and possibly a fatalist.
In the apartment leaning against one wall,
your daughter's painting of a large frilled cabbage
against a dark sky with pinpoints of stars.
The eager vegetable, opening itself
as if to eat the air, or speak in cabbage
language of the meanings within meanings;
while the points of stars hide their massive
violence in the dark upper half of the painting.
You can live with this.

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My Thursday was just as social as my Wednesday, which is unusual for me (and I have lunch plans Friday and Pokemon plans Saturday, so pre-pandemic levels of socializing). I met a friend whom I've known since elementary school at the Silver Diner for lunch, so I got both the pleasure of her company and veggie eggs benedict. We both have strong opinions about a lot of TV and mass media but we haven't lived in the same place for a long time! 

The rest of my day was chores, though I got a lot done and we had five crows out back providing a soundtrack. Around my regular Thursday night Zoom call, we watched the delightful She-Hulk, plus the Wellington Paranormal we missed and the start of the second season of For All Mankind. From the National Building Museum's House & Home exhibit on American domestic life, including Fallingwater and the House of the Seven Gables: