Poem for Wednesday, Walters Religion, A Good Day To Die Hard

Now
By Robert Browning

Out of your whole life give but a moment!
All of your life that has gone before,
All to come after it,—so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present,—condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection’s endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense—
Merged in a moment which gives me at last
You around me for once, you beneath me, above me—
Me—sure that despite of time future, time past,—
This tick of our life-time’s one moment you love me!
How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet—
The moment eternal—just that and no more—
When ecstasy’s utmost we clutch at the core
While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!

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Paul and Maddy went to work and Daniel worked from our house on Tuesday, so it was a quiet busy day for all of us. Daniel and I had Lebanese Taverna for lunch, which I picked up when I took Maddy to work, and watched San Andreas while we were both on our computers in the afternoon since he hadn't seen it and it's not exactly intellectually challenging.

Since the menfolk were having beef stroganoff for dinner, I had vegetarian leftovers, then we finished our Die Hard marathon with A Good Day To Die Hard, still by far the weakest of the series, too long and unfunny (and now that I know Ewan McGregor ran off with the actress who plays McClane's daughter, ewww). Some of the religious art on display at the Walters Museum:

Poem for Saturday and Edison's Library

Hive
By Kevin Young

The honey bees’ exile
     is almost complete.
You can carry

them from hive
     to hive, the child thought
& that is what

he tried, walking
     with them thronging
between his pressed palms.

Let him be right.
     Let the gods look away
as always. Let this boy

who carries the entire
     actual, whirring
world in his calm

unwashed hands,
     barely walking, bear
us all there

buzzing, unstung.

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The final poem in the poet's new collection, which "takes up boyhood and brownness, moving through Kansas and the South," he tells Poets.org. "In this boy remembered or imagined, the poem offering a kind of winged benediction -- a song that summons suffering, but does not succumb, I hope."

Alice had an appointment at Walter Reed on Friday morning, so after she was finished, she and Avery came over for an early lunch at Cava with me, Maddy, and Daniel (Adam sent photos from Israel of art by David Friedman, whose work I have loved for years, whom it turned out he met at a talk on Kabbalah at his studio). Maddy went to work, Avery and I went to a Pokemon raid, we stopped at CVS and Starbucks for sustenance and whey protein, eventually Alice went home.

Daniel worked out in the afternoon while I screamed on the phone at CVS Caremark literally for two hours because their policies when one gets new insurance are beyond ridiculous, and when Paul got home, we went to dinner at my parents' before going to see I, Tonya, which is wonderful -- great acting, touches all the feminist and class issues bound up in coverage of Harding's story without trying to idealize her. From Thomas Edison's library in West Orange, New Jersey:

Poem for Tuesday, The Force Awakens, Delaware Art Museum

Aspecta Medusa (for a Drawing)
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Andromeda, by Perseus sav'd and wed,
Hanker'd each day to see the Gorgon's head:
Till o'er a fount he held it, bade her lean,
And mirror'd in the wave was safely seen
That death she liv'd by.

                                        Let not thine eyes know
Any forbidden thing itself, although
It once should save as well as kill: but be
Its shadow upon life enough for thee.

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Happy Imbolc or Groundhog Day, whichever you might be celebrating! I spent the first day of February being a slacker and watching movies with Cheryl -- first National Treasure: Book of Secrets since we watched the first one the day before (and it co-stars Helen Mirren and the University of Maryland), then Star Wars: The Force Awakens at Montgomery Mall because we wanted to see it in the theater again before it left, then The Decoy Bride because she hadn't seen it and we were in the mood for fluffy, and finally we watched an episode of Robin of Sherwood.

In between, we picked up Indian food and tried to keep cats from eating it before we could, and we may have had some caramel corn and Junior Mints at the movies since the removal of gelatin from the latter is one of the best things to happen this century. Here are some photos of things we saw the day before at the Delaware Art Museum, particularly the beautiful exhibit on Marie Spartali Stillman, who was strongly influenced by both the Pre-Raphaelites and the Italian Renaissance. (British friends: it's on the way to the Watts Gallery in Guildford next month).


'Love Sonnets' by Marie Spartali Stillman.


'St. George' by Stillman, also part of the Delaware Museum's permanent collection.


The Stillman exhibit itself allowed no photography, but you can see Kelmscott Manor in the painting in this banner.


Two William Morris collaborations: stained glass by Edward Burne-Jones, executed by Morris and Company, and chairs painted by Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.


'Mother of Moses' by Jewish painter Simeon Solomon.


An iridescent vase and a goblet.


Howard Pyle's drawing room murals.


A Persian Window by Dale Chihuly.

Poem for Thursday, ArtsFest, Nashville

Came Yom Kippur
By Edgar Guest

Came Yom Kippur — holy fast day world wide over to the Jew,
And Hank Greenberg to his teaching and the old tradition true
Spent the day among his people and he didn't come to play.
Said Murphy to Mulrooney, 'We shall lose the game today!
We shall miss him on the infield and shall miss him at the bat
But he's true to his religion — and I honor him for that!'

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I listened to a sermon for Yom Kippur, though it was delivered by the Pope rather than a rabbi. Paul worked from home and we were on our computers and doing chores in the vicinity of the TV for much of the afternoon, watching coverage since we were too paranoid about traffic to try to go anywhere for the Jewish holiday or anything else! I found the Pope very impressive particularly speaking to the cardinals, reminding them that the tent has to be big enough for anyone who wants to come in regardless of ideology, though I love seeing a global religious leader passionately arguing for the environment, too. And I loved seeing him at churches I've been inside.

Although I haven't fasted in two decades, we "broke the fast" with the family friends with whom we have for the past many years -- my parents' friends, their kids and grandkids. It was weird being there with none of our kids, but always nice to see everyone there. When we came home, we watched "Arctic Ghost Ship" about the Franklin expedition on NOVA (the patron Koch Brothers must have liked the evidence of non-global warming when the sea ice didn't melt), then Nashville, which would be fine except that it remains, well, Nashville, meaning everyone has the same contrived problems they did last season! Some more photos from ArtsFest at Annmarie Gardens: