Poem for Thursday and Fauntleroy Neighborhood

To Television
By Robert Pinsky

Not a “window on the world”
But as we call you,
A box a tube

Terrarium of dreams and wonders.
Coffer of shades, ordained
Cotillion of phosphors
Or liquid crystal

Homey miracle, tub
Of acquiescence, vein of defiance.
Your patron in the pantheon would be Hermes

Raster dance,
Quick one, little thief, escort
Of the dying and comfort of the sick,

In a blue glow my father and little sister sat
Snuggled in one chair watching you
Their wife and mother was sick in the head
I scorned you and them as I scorned so much

Now I like you best in a hotel room,
Maybe minutes
Before I have to face an audience: behind
The doors of the armoire, box
Within a box—Tom & Jerry, or also brilliant
And reassuring, Oprah Winfrey.

Thank you, for I watched, I watched
Sid Caesar speaking French and Japanese not
Through knowledge but imagination,
His quickness, and Thank You, I watched live
Jackie Robinson stealing

Home, the image—O strung shell—enduring
Fleeter than light like these words we
Remember in, they too winged
At the helmet and ankles.

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I got up early for fasting blood work on Thursday, so I have been a bit sleepy all day. Fortunately I mostly had stupid things to get done in the morning, then in the afternoon Kristen and I watched the very end of Endgame plus the deleted scenes and the first episode of season two of Good Omens, before I walked to the sunny park. 

I spent the evening on the couch, watching the first three episodes of season two of Our Flag Means Death, which were spectacular and moving, chatting with my Thursday fangirl crowd, then watching the season premiere of Loki, also very entertaining in a more science fiction-y way. Here's the pretty Fauntleroy neighborhood around Lincoln Park: