By Leonard Bernstein
(Written in a cottage on the mucky shore of Lake Mah-kee-nak
Stockbridge, Massachusetts 2 July 1947)
Life begins in the waters—
Not the deep, but the borders of land:
The stagnants that nourish the sterile earth
Like a juicy gland.
Life is the seed of the marriage
Of liquid and solid events.
In the coves, in the swamps, in mysterious pools,
Our heartaches commence.
Life is the pulp and the slime,
The marshmallow bellies of frogs,
Their thyroided eyes, their eggjellies caught
On the rotting logs.
Life is the algae, the roe;
The army of maggoty breeds
Devouring the corpse of a very old perch
Adrift in the weeds.
Life is the plasm, the cells,
The fat symbiotics in pairs;
The ankledeep fungoids which darkly provide
The crawfish with lairs.
Life is the scaly and scummy,
The poisonous green without breath;
The marinal maze whose only solution
Is ultimate death.
For Death is the crisp and the clean,
The fine oxidation, the rust,
The spermless, the painless, the classic, the lean,
The dry, dry dust.
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Tuesday felt like a Monday, so it was pretty quiet around here apart from having college bowl games on TV for a lot of the day, albeit with the sound off so we could get things done. We had gorgeous weather, so we walked to the park and down the dock to see the eagles. Only three of us from my Voyager group made it online because of the holidays, so we chatted for an hour and a half, which is always lovely. Then we watched the Captain Carter What If...? episode with Cheryl (Peggy and Natasha! Loki having a punchable face! The Natasha-related guest star!). I am really enjoying everything about that show.
We watched the season finale of Slow Horses, which I did not love -- other than physical kicking ass, the women have seem sidelined and diminished this season, and there were far more guns than clever quips. Then we watched Maestro, all of whose controversies I have followed, and I agree with many of them (less Bernstein's nose on Cooper, which seems unnecessary but not outrageous, than all the aspects of his life they ignored in favor of his relationships), but then they got to Mahler in Ely Cathedral and WOW. Cooper and Mulligan can both have Oscars. Lit trees at Evergreen Arboretum:
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