Poem for Wednesday and Alki Tidepools

I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day 

By Gerard Manley Hopkins 

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent

This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

   With witness I speak this. But where I say

Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament

Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent

To dearest him that lives alas! away.

   I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree

Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;

Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

   Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see

The lost are like this, and their scourge to be

As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

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I spent much of Wednesday on Google Meet, first with my high school friends, though that started late because one of the updates either my phone or computer got last week switched my Google Meet camera settings to use the phone as the default and I had to figure out how to turn that off so I could use my laptop's built-in webcam. We got Adam and Haley to come say hi since Hildy and I were on the call, and Kay's son came on to chat later with me, so that was a lot of fun. Then later I watched the last two episodes of Hawkeye with Kristen, which was also a lot of fun! 

We took an afternoon walk to the park, where lots of people were at the beach enjoying the gorgeous weather, and out on the dock, where the goslings were hiding but a couple of families of ducklings were hanging out in the reeds. We watched the Masked Singer semifinals; I would have kept the Clock and cut the Gumball, but I think Goldfish should win either way. Now we're watching Dark Matter, which is great so far; I'm not sure the sci-fi makes sense, but this is really a show about characters and relationships, particularly regrets. Things we saw in and around Alki tidepools:

Poem for Tuesday and Visiting Dogs

The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz 

By Alicia Ostriker 

As if there could be a world

Of absolute innocence

In which we forget ourselves

The owners throw sticks

And half-bald tennis balls

Toward the surf

And the happy dogs leap after them

As if catapulted—

Black dogs, tan dogs,

Tubes of glorious muscle—

Pursuing pleasure

More than obedience

They race, skid to a halt in the wet sand,

Sometimes they'll plunge straight into

The foaming breakers

Like diving birds, letting the green turbulence

Toss them, until they snap and sink

Teeth into floating wood

Then bound back to their owners

Shining wet, with passionate speed

For nothing,

For absolutely nothing but joy.

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Tuesday was another gorgeous day, sunny and not too hot. I did a bunch of chores in the morning, had hummus and pita for lunch, then we walked to the park and out on the dock, where we found yet another family of geese and goslings along with at least two of the ducks with ducklings. I love the lake this time of year especially! My Voyager group watched "The Haunting of Deck Twelve" -- which, while not good, isn't even close to the worst episode of the sixth season. 

Our evening viewing has been two movies: the excellent American Fiction, which has superlative performances, a script perfectly balanced between humor and pathos, and really creative, self-aware filmmaking, and the pretty-bad-yet-not-as-bad-as-its-reviews Madame Web, which has mediocre performances, a ridiculous script, and too much pandering to the male gaze despite a story focusing on four female characters, but I enjoyed it anyway. Mother's Day dogs:

Poem for Monday and Art by Fire

Glassblower 

By David Butler 

It is as though an incandescent swarm

has clustered, on a spindle of his breath,

to fabricate a hive

in the hot globe of amber. 

The air is given hands,

cupping the molten bubble thrown out

by his steady lung, crafting

the dull red sun until it sets,

like a premonition of Winter,

into the fragile geometry of glass.

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My Monday was pretty quiet -- laundry, a trip to the parcel locker to pick up packages, reconstructing a pair of earrings to go with a necklace -- before walking to the park in the afternoon, where we saw some ducks, some herons, and our dog friend Tucker and his owner Shelley. Then we walked out on the dock and saw the eagles, more herons (or possibly the same ones flew north), and a new family of geese and goslings, plus many ducklings and their parents. 

We saw most of the Orioles game, which was going well (two Adley home runs) until the bullpen got involved and they lost in extra innings. Then we watched the Mariners win around dinner. Now we're watching Eileen, which someone posted was like evil Carol, which so far seems fair -- I think it's going to have a worse ending because everyone's lives are so much worse, but the women are mesmerizing. Here at last are glassblowing pics from Art By Fire from Friday: 

Greetings from Marysville

Cahaya invited us to brunch for Mother's Day, which wound up being potluck at her parents' house because I asked if Adam and Haley could join us. So Paul made vegan quiche and monkey bread, Daniel made shakshouka, Cahaya's stepfather made fresh guacamole, Adam brought raspberry kringle wreath, Cahaya made mimosas, there was fresh fruit and iced coffee, and we all walked in the garden and played with many dogs in the big yard (the big brown one is Jake, the chihuahuas are Cisco and Freddy, and there was also a tortoise): 

 

We chatted with my mom and mother-in-law; Daniel gave me a t-shirt with rainbow cats on it, Adam got me a present that he forgot to bring but we'll see him next week after we pick up the blown glass pumpkins currently cooling in the kiln, Haley brought flowers, and Paul got me a mini Barbie dreamhouse with an elevator, a pool, a porch swing, and a kitty with a scratching post. We weren't ravenous for dinner, so we had bagels, then watched the season premiere of Interview with the Vampire, which has a new Claudia who's fine but I want more Lestat.

Greetings from Alki

We had yet another gorgeous day on Saturday, though we slept in because we had been up late looking at the aurora! I had a nice morning scrolling through people's photos from all over the northern hemisphere -- since we got no eclipse here, it was nice to have an astronomical event we could share! -- then we ate bagels and went to Constellation Park, the side of Alki Point with tidepools. We arrived near low tide and got to see many animals -- sea stars, chitons, crabs, sea cucumbers, anemones, moon snails making egg collars, seagulls and crows trying to snack on several of these -- wading in water that was warmer than expected.

 

We came home in the late afternoon, just missing the end of the 11-inning Orioles victory, and took a walk in the neighborhood to see how the ducks and herons felt about having had their evening interrupted by auroras. Then we watched the two new episodes of Doctor Who, which were...enjoyable and really fluffy, I want to say? I like 15 and Ruby, they have nice back-and-forth and I appreciate that she's much more in love with the TARDIS than with the Doctor, but there's been no sense of any real stakes so far amidst all the foreshadowing about Ruby's mysterious birth causing an impending Big Disastrous Event.

Greetings Under the Northern Lights

I had an awesome Friday...some chores, sure, though we went out to get Blazing Bagels and picked up lunch on the way back from Kitanda (acai bowls and Brazilian bread), then took a walk to Idylwood Beach before going to meet Adam and Haley in Issaquah for a glassblowing class at Art by Fire, where we made glass pumpkins, and Indian food for dinner with them at Maharaja. 

I will post photos of all that tomorrow, though, because what I'm going to remember from tonight -- shared in person with many neighbors out on our dock, as well as online with friends all over North America and a few in Europe -- is this incredible sight, courtesy a very active sun producing a series of mass coronal ejections and the earth's Van Allen Belts: 

Poem for Thursday and Juanita Bay Animals

Hours 

By Hazel Hall 

I have known hours built like cities,

House on grey house, with streets between

That lead to straggling roads and trail off,

Forgotten in a field of green;

Hours made like mountains lifting

White crests out of the fog and rain,

And woven of forbidden music—

Hours eternal in their pain.

Life is a tapestry of hours

Forever mellowing in tone,

Where all things blend, even the longing

For hours I have never known.

-------- 

Thursday was another gorgeous day, over 70 degrees! I did nothing exciting in the morning, got some work done, ate lunch, talked to my sister, then we went out to Safeway and Trader Joe's for lots of staples, produce, and three kinds of nuts. Having taken the things in need of refrigeration home, we then took a walk to the beach, which had a good number of visitors for a weekday because of all the sun, and when we came back, we headed down the dock to see the ducklings and other waterfowl. 

My Thursday chat group had only four of us tonight but we caught up on a lot of things. Afterward we ate a late dinner that the cats tried very hard to steal, then we watched this week's Sugar (Big Twist not bothering me as much as the more predictable one about Olivia), Franklin (okay but Adams doesn't have to be such a complete jerk that he comes across as stupid), and Hacks (I don't care, I love Deborah and I totally get why Hannah keeps choosing her). Animals at Juanita Bay:

Poem for Wednesday and Hazel Wolf Wetlands

The Multiverse 

By Diane Thiel 

We started talking about the multiverse

before the twentieth century, a different way

of making sense, acknowledging

the changeability and indifference.

Science opening up the notion

of one self turning left

while another is driven to turn right,

a new conundrum of freedom and constraint.

Despite the theories, most of us

still hold on to the universe

as the largest thing we can imagine.

But sometimes I watch that other self

from a different angle on the multiversity,

slide down that other choice, what I might

have said instead, in that room of dry twigs,

gasoline in the corner, and so many matches,

then watch myself continue along

that low road for a while, too long at times,

wondering how that would all turn out.

My doppelgänger grinning in the distance,

waving from what looks like a getaway car,

moving out of sight to live out a half-life

I can never keep track of.

And really, who knows I didn’t

take that turn? Who knows that isn’t

a reality? It is certainly more satisfying

than this silence.

We usually have more than two choices,

infinitely more in this pluralistic multiverse,

as Oppenheimer put it when his work opened boxes

without opening them, when he elaborated on

one unfortunate cat, or a lucky one,

while another self exploded and ended

far more than his better self

would ever have agreed to

or intended.

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We had spectacular weather on Wednesday. I talked to my high school friends in the morning, did some chores, watched two episodes of Hawkeye with Kristen, then Paul and I went to Hazel Wolf Wetlands, which we'd visited in the winter and thought would be a good place to see animals in the spring. In fact, the mergansers there seem to have migrated like the ones near where we live, though there were wood ducks and mallards, plus a shiny green-striped garter snake! There was a lot of traffic so we wound up not getting our shopping done but there's always tomorrow for that.

 

We had chicken and rice for dinner, then we watched The Masked Singer -- I would have cut Gumball instead of Poodle Moth, but they kept both older women and at least we're at the point where everyone left can really sing. Then we watched the season finale of Animal Control -- cute, but not enough animals -- and now we're watching the start of the season of Dark Matter, which is well paced and performed by actors with great chemistry, though it's too soon to tell whether the sci-fi gimmick that powers the story will ultimately not be enough to support the multiverse character-building.