Poem for Tuesday and Arboretum Trees

Burren, Co. Clare
By Rhoda Coghill

Here have I drifted on a quiet wave
Of happening, that gently washes
Where Time's slow-flowing ocean flood has shaped
Age-old valley and hill.
Its waters, lapping still
About me in imagination, have
Confused my sense: so birds like fishes
Swim in the liquid air, and lichened bushes
Have turned to branching coral: sheep on the mountain-side
To flecks of foam left by an ebbing tide.
Forgotten, solitary,
The casual flotsam of an epoch I,
Where crumbling mortuary mounds
Of ancient men are found,
Who lie, long buried, leagues below
The cyclic ebb and flow
Of Time's refashioning,—drowned
Beneath slow tide on tide of history.

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Monday was nearly as warm as Sunday, though we had periods of rain and the most recent one is dropping the temperature quickly. We took a long walk in between showers and in between various work and chores -- laundry is half-done, scanning project about the same (today included cards from our wedding and when older son was born, plus I got to talk to a good friend from college because I sent him some of his letters after I scanned them and he called me, which was awesome). 

After dinner we watched the first of a two-part documentary about County Clare, The Burren: Heart of Stone, on PBS, which was excellent, then we watched this week's Snowpiercer, which was a nice change of pace in terms of scenery and character interactions and had a very promising ending, and The Endgame, which will do one thing clever but then have dialogue so unrealistic that it's really annoying. Here are some of the flowering plum trees currently at the National Arboretum: 

Greetings from the National Arboretum

We decided to enjoy the magnificent weather on Saturday at the National Arboretum, which we didn't expect to have much blooming yet, but it was about two degrees warmer in DC than at home and apparently that has put it a week ahead of us in terms of the coming of spring. There were many varieties of blooming prunus trees, plus hundreds of hellebores and snowdrops, late camellias and early magnolias, some crocuses and daffodils, and songbirds and turtles! These are just family pics: 

 

We had burgers for dinner, watched the end of the Duke game and the Krzyzewski celebration after they lost, then watched Being the Ricardos, which had better performances than I was expecting though a pretty infuriating script -- I don't understand why Sorkin wanted to write a movie about Lucille Ball when he doesn't appear to appreciate either her comic brilliance or her business acumen. A lot of people slammed Nicole Kidman's performance but it's a bigger issue that her character is so constrained. 

 

Poem for Thursday and National Capitol Columns

Gemini
By Fady Joudah

After yoga, I took my car to the shop.
Coils, spark plugs, computer chips, and a two-mile walk
home, our fossilized public transportation, elementary
school recess hour, kids whirling joy, the all-familiar
neighborhood. And then another newly demolished house.
How long since I’ve been out walking? A message appeared
on my phone: an American literary magazine
calling for a special issue on Jerusalem, deadline approaching,
art and the ashes of light. At the construction site
the live oak that appeared my age when I became a father
was now being dismembered. The machinery and its men:
almost always men, poor or cheap labor, colored
with American dreams. The permit to snuff the tree
was legally obtained. The new house is likely destined
for a nice couple with children. Their children
won’t know there was a tree. I paused to watch
the live oak brutalized limb by limb until its trunk stood
hanged, and the wind couldn’t bear the place:
who loves the smell of fresh sap in the morning,
the waft of SOS the tree’s been sending
to other trees? How many feathers will relocate
since nearby can absorb the birds?
Farewell for days on end. They were digging a hole
around the tree’s base to uproot and chop it
then repurpose its life.

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It rained on Wednesday from before I woke up through midnight tonight, so I did not have an exciting day enjoying the fall, though I did get to talk to my high school friends -- one only briefly while attending a family obligation, with guest appearances by family members of the other two -- and discuss how happy we are about the election, if concerned about the rising coronavirus numbers everywhere. 

After dinner we watched this week's The Masked Singer where for once I could actually guess who were under the Snowy Owl masks -- his voice is pretty recognizable and it made sense he'd be singing with her -- then a couple of episodes of the terrible parenting and largely badly behaved men that is Sex Education. Some photos from last weekend of the National Capitol Columns at the National Arboretum: 

Greetings from the National Arboretum

It was 75 degrees on Sunday, like even November wanted to celebrate the election results. So we ate lunch early and went to the National Arboretum to see the changing leaves on all the plants there. The parking lots were packed, but the grounds are so big that it was easy to socially distance -- the places where people would need to be in close proximity, like the bonsai pavilions and azalea walk, are closed, and for the most part everyone was wearing a mask properly. We drove by Hadley Park on the way home to see the trees there, too. 

 

My fan friends were online chatting when I got home; I talked to them for a couple of hours, then ate dinner and tracked down our kids to Skype (younger son had just returned from an off-leash dog park near the mountains east of Lake Sammamish, and was cooking dinner, while older son was already eating fried chicken). Then we watched a couple of episodes of Sex Education around the end of the Tampa Bay game, which I did not care about at all, since I don't care about sports this year and anyway the Ravens had already won. I need a less emotional week.

Poem for Friday and Arboretum Bonsai

Play the Game
By Jessie Pope

Twenty-two stalwarts in stripes and shorts
    Kicking a ball along,
Set in a square of leather-lunged sports
    Twenty-two thousand strong,
Some of them shabby, some of them spruce,
    Savagely clamorous all,
Hurling endearments, advice or abuse,
    At the muscular boys on the ball.

Stark and stiff 'neath a stranger's sky
    A few hundred miles away,
War-worn, khaki-clad figures lie,
    Their faces rigid and grey—
Stagger and drop where the bullets swarm,
    Where the shrapnel is bursting loud,
Die, to keep England safe and warm—
    For a vigorous football crowd!

Football's a sport, and a rare sport too,
    Don't make it a source of shame.
To-day there are worthier things to do.
    Englishmen, play the game!
A truce to the League, a truce to the Cup,
    Get to work with a gun.
When our country's at war, we must all back up—
    It's the only thing to be done!

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Our car was at the dealer for a recall all day Thursday, so Paul worked from home and we got to have lunch together. Apart from getting a nice big package from Wal-mart with Pandemic: Legacy, the game I won during the Hobbs & Shaw Vudu Viewing Party, it was a pretty quiet work-and-chore day until late afternoon, when we went to get haircuts, swung through the park, and picked up the car.

After dinner (tofu parmesan with whole grain pasta), we spent the evening watching a few episodes of The Crown. I like all the actors who've taken over the roles from the previous seasons and there have been some awesome guest cast members, but I'm not loving the political conspiracy theories being given so much air time. From the National Arboretum, here are some specimens from the bonsai collection:

Poem for Wednesday and National Arboretum Fall

Autumn Song
By Sarojini Naidu

Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow,
   The sunset hangs on a cloud;
A golden storm of glittering sheaves,
Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves,
   The wild wind blows in a cloud.

Hark to a voice that is calling
   To my heart in the voice of the wind:
My heart is weary and sad and alone,
For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone,
   And why should I stay behind?

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I needed stamps and a couple of things in Home Depot, so after some morning work, I headed toward the mall, where I discovered there was a Klink raid at the Sprint store so I decided to park there, then walk to the post office five minutes across the street. While I was at the post office, though, a traumatic thing happened: all the Pokemon gyms at Sprint stores disappeared! So I got back to the mall and thought my raid had broken the gym, then found out that that location, where I first participated in a Mewtwo EX raid, was gone forever. I know this is a ridiculous thing to be nostalgic about, but there it is!

We watched The Flash, which was a fun retro James Bond-themed story directed by Danielle Panabaker, then the first episode of the third season of The Crown, in which the Queen must deal with socialists and Russian spies and Philip, followed by this week's Emergence which in less than an hour went from a show I really hoped would stick around to a show I wish had been canceled one episode previously so I would remember it fondly, that's how horribly the smart-woman-just-wants-a-baby stereotypes have blown up (and so insulting to viewers). Here is how fall looked at the National Arboretum last weekend:

Greetings from the National Arboretum

The weather on Sunday was very much like Saturday, a bit more overcast but not very cold, so we went down to the National Arboretum, which in addition to pretty fall trees has an exhibit in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, Twisted Genius: The Eccentric Bonsai Artistry of Nick Lenz, which I believe closes this weekend. Lenz curated a collection of trees and ceramics with found objects, whimsical decorations, and some spooky additions. We also walked to the National Capitol Columns and drove to the state tree collection. Then, since we were on that side of the Beltway, we went to The Crystal Fox and looked at Tarot decks and jewelry.

















So I did not see any part of the Ravens excellent victory, though I did see the end of New England victory over the Eagles. I also saw this week's Batwoman, which was interesting and sad, and Supergirl, which has done extremely sloppy character stuff with Lena and has pissed me off all season. Then, since Madam Secretary was delayed because of football, we watched the second episode of The Mandalorian, which delights me for reasons that are spoilers but you can find out anywhere on the internet, followed by Madam Secretary, which better not be going where it seems to be or I'll be extremely irritated.