Poem for Saturday and Washingtonian Entertainments

Room in Antwerp
By Laure-Anne Bosselaar

Dust covers the window, but light slips through--
it always does--through dust or cracks or under doors.

Every day at dusk, the sun, through branches,
hits a river's bend & sends silver slivers to the walls.

                        No one's there to see this. No one.
But it dances there anyway, that light,

        & when the wind weaves waves into the water
it's as if lit syllables quivered on the bricks.

        Then the sun sinks, swallowed by the dark. In that dark
more dust, always more dust
                        settles--sighs over everything.

There is no silence there, something always stirs
not far away. Small rags of noise.

Rilke said most people will know only a small corner of their room.

I read this long ago & still don't know how to understand
that word only, do you?

                        Where are you? I think of you so often  
and search for you in every face that comes between me & dust,

me & dusk--first love, torn corner from this life.

--------

We have had magnificent weather all day Friday, low 70s and breezy -- the sort where you never want to close the windows and you do want to take several walks. I had a bunch of work that had to get done, but there were birds on the feeder keeping me company and cats glaring from the window nearest the feeder keeping them company, and though I only saw one bunny, I got to try to have a conversation with a toddler and her grandmother who spoke only Chinese about it.

I posted a review of Deep Space Nine's quite dreadful "The Assignment", talked to Adam about his college application essays, had dinner with my parents who were off to Kol Nidre services, and went to College Park to pick up Daniel who is coming with us tomorrow to break the fast (well, to see family friends there). So not a bad Friday the 13th (not that I'm superstitious) and a fine Breakaway Day with Space: 1999 pilot viewing in the evening. Have a good fast if you're fasting! Some Washingtonian Lake pics:

















TheFridayFive: Computer Firsts!
1. When did your family get your first computer? 1983.
2. What type of computer was it? A Coleco Adam. Yes really.
3. What were your favorite things to do on your first computer? It was the first word processor I'd ever used, having always used a typewriter. I loved the ease of corrections.
4. When did you/your family first connect to the Internet? Some time in the late 1980s when America Online rose to prominence among Mac users. (I had some kind of UUCP account before that, but I signed on so rarely I can't even remember the name.)
5. How did you spend time online when you first connected? Reading AOL message boards and Usenet, mostly fannish stuff.

Poem for Saturday, DC From July, Fascination

Mars Poetica
By Wyn Cooper

Imagine you're on Mars, looking at earth,
a swirl of colors in the distance.
Tell us what you miss most, or least.

Let your feelings rise to the surface.
Skim that surface with a tiny net.
Now you're getting the hang of it.

Tell us your story slantwise,
streetwise, in the disguise
of an astronaut in his suit.

Tell us something we didn't know
before: how words mean things
we didn't know we knew.

--------

My Friday did not go as originally planned due to the unpredictability of weather. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning that ran later than I expected, as did Adam's cross country practice before the county meet on Saturday. It had stopped raining by the time we got home, but it was still pretty drippy, so Paul and his parents decided that this was not the best day to go hiking on South Mountain and postponed it. Instead he worked from home, I took my time finishing my review of DS9's terrible "Fascination", and when Adam was back from the team spaghetti lunch and Daniel had finished his homework, we went out to get haircuts.

Adam went with Maddy, Maddy's younger brother, and the brother's friend to the homecoming football game at our high school (which the home team won 14-0, woohoo). Meanwhile the rest of us went to dinner at my parents' house, watched most of the rerun of Obama on The Daily Show, then came home and watched the season premiere of Nikita, which is awfully convoluted at the moment but what the hell, there's a woman in the White House and Nikita and Alex are working together again (though I will predict right now that I bet Nikita's supposedly dead boyfriend will be back very, very soon). Daniel had paid to download the Stewart-O'Reilly rumble, so we watched that afterward -- Stewart was really brilliant, he came off much better than Romney and Obama both.

TheFridayFive: Laundry!
1. Washing machine: front-loader or top-loader? Top-loader
2. Detergent: liquid or powder? Green liquid
3. Rinse cycle: fabric softener or another additive? No additives
4. And then: clothesline or dryer? Mostly dryer except for delicates (I have two runners in the house, there isn't a clothesline long enough for all their sweats)
5. Do you fold things straight off the line or out of the dryer? What do you iron (or have someone iron for you)? I fold when I get around to folding, and something gets ironed in this house perhaps once a year when we have a formal event.

Fannish5: Five favorite comfort reads: books or stories you turn to when you're sick or feeling down.
1. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle
2. Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
3. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
4. Illusions by Richard Bach
5. The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Poem for Saturday and Great Falls

Summary Wednesday
By Matthew Pennock

Half the girls in this train car wear gold earrings, large and oval, bisected
        by their names in script. They are yours because you name them,
        your Lekenya, your Mirellie, your Yesenia.

Excessively ornate, almost illegible, like your grandmother's cramped
        handwriting in a Hallmark card with loopy golden cursive relaying
        every detail of the rest home in Orlando

where her former pastor now resides—the year of establishment,
        the founder's name, what the food is like, how once someone moves in,
        they have no plans of ever moving again.

Tomorrow, you settle on a plan for breakfast, you settle on banana. You are
        not hungry. It sits there on the desk still in peel, nervous for inevitable
        disrobing. Stare at Banana. You sit there. It is afraid.

--------

Friday's weather was gorgeous, warm but not too hot or humid like earlier in the week, dropping to perfect cool autumn by evening. I spent the morning finishing and posting a review of Deep Space Nine's "Meridian", a terrible episode with a couple of wonderful Odo/Kira moments that make it all worthwhile for me, and I spent the afternoon converting and uploading photos. The bunnies were hiding today but I saw many deer in the woods.

Eventually Adam got home from cross country practice and we went to dinner at my parents' house, distracted by the Braves-Cardinals game with its bizarre officiating. Then we came home and watched the Orioles-Rangers game, which is ongoing as I type this so I won't jinx anything by talking about it. TheFridayFive seems to be dead, catching up on Fannish5 and some photos from Great Falls last month:

This week's Fannish5: Five fictional families that you wish you were related to.
1. The Murray-O'Keeffes, Madeleine L'Engle's Time quartet
2. The priestesses of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley's novels
3. The Maturins, Patrick O'Brian's Aubreyad
4. The Greek Gods, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
5. The Weasleys, Harry Potter

Last week's Fannish5: Most badass grandparents.
1. Joseph Sisko, Deep Space Nine
2. Martha Fraser, Due South
3. Wilfred Mott, Doctor Who
4. The Dowager Countess of Grantham, Downton Abbey
5. The Queen of Genovia, The Princess Diaries

Poem for Saturday, Brookside Butterflies, The Abandoned

My life has been the poem I would have writ
By Henry David Thoreau

My life has been the poem I would have writ
But I could not both live and utter it.

--------

We had yet another gorgeous day, a bit warmer than the rest of the week has been. I spent the morning working on a review of Deep Space Nine's "The Abandoned"; then I went for a walk and took Adam to this week's cross country spaghetti dinner, after which the cross country team walked over to the high school for the end of the football game (which unfortunately the home team lost, but hey, at least the Orioles won today).

Paul and I did a bunch of unexciting chores before dinner (fake chicken parmesan), then after retrieving Adam we watched Black Swan...a movie which reminds me of all the reasons I really dislike classical ballet (I wish I could say "the movie was rife with cliches" but I'm afraid the eating disorders and self-mutilation are all to common, though Barbara Hershey really should have won an award for playing a special class of horror stage mother).

TheFridayFive: Mobile Phones
1. When did you get your first cell phone? Some time in the late 1990s.
2. Do you have any special ring tones, if so what are they? The opening to "Layla" is my ring tone. I don't have different ring tones for different people, as I don't get a lot of calls; it's different text chimes for different people that would be really helpful.
3. Does your phone have a camera? Of course.
4. What kind of phone do you have now? Droid Incredible 2.
5. What carrier do you use? Verizon -- not my favorite corporation but we get a discount through Paul's place of work.

Fannish5: Five canon pairings that could really benefit from couples therapy.
1. Operations and Madeline, La Femme Nikita.
2. Buffy and Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
3. Winn and Dukat, Deep Space Nine.
4. Jack and Sophie, Master & Commander.
5. Harry and Ginny, Harry Potter.

Brookside Gardens butterflies from the Wings of Fancy conservatory exhibit, plus one outside in the park:

Poem for Saturday, Huntley Meadows, Second Skin

Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the lake of Esthwaite,
on a desolate part of the shore, commanding a beautiful prospect.
By William Wordsworth

Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if the bee love not these barren boughs?
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
                    Who he was
That piled these stones and with the mossy sod
First covered, and here taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember.--He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed,
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured Being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow; ’gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,
And scorn,--against all enemies prepared,
All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,
Owed him no service; wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,
And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude.--Stranger! these gloomy boughs
Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,
His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper:
And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath,
And juniper and thistle, sprinkled o’er,
Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:
And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze
On the more distant scene,--how lovely ’tis
Thou seest,--and he would gaze till it became
Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that time,
When nature had subdued him to herself,
Would he forget those Beings to whose minds,
Warm from the labours of benevolence,
The world, and human life, appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh,
Inly disturbed, to think that others felt
What he must never feel: and so, lost Man!
On visionary views would fancy feed,
Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale
He died,--this seat his only monument.
If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride,
Howe’er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself doth look on one,
The least of Nature’s works, one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, Thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself
In lowliness of heart.

--------

I had a fairly quiet Friday. I had a bunch of work to do, the most time-constrained of which was to post a review of Deep Space Nine's terrific Kira episode "Second Skin". The weather was once again beautiful, the bunnies were once again outside while I was walking, so things were relatively calm as long as I avoided watching the news or reading Facebook.

Adam got home late after a cross country practice that ended at Robek's for fruit smoothies, then we went to my parents' for dinner. Evening entertainment has mostly involved uploading photos while watching the Nationals blow it and now watching the Orioles struggle against the As. Some more photos of animals at Huntley Meadows:

















Belated Fannish5: 5 fictional classes you wish you could have been in or subjects you wish you could have taken.
1. Remus Lupin's Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Independent study with Sarah Jane Smith, The Sarah Jane Adventures
3. Spock's training class for cadets at Starfleet Academy, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
4. Indiana Jones' archaeology class, Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. Slayer training with Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Poem for Saturday and Oregon Inlet

Mist Valley
By James Longenbach

At the end of August, when all
The letters of the alphabet are waiting,
You drop a teabag in a cup.
The same few letters making many different words,
The same words meaning different things.

Often you've rearranged them on the surface of the fridge.
Without the surface
They're repulsed by one another.

Here are the letters.
The tea is in your cup.

At the end of August, the mind
Is neither the pokeweed piercing the grass
Nor the grass itself.
As Tony Cook says in The Biology of Terrestrial Mollusks

The right thing to do is nothing, the place
A place of concealment,
And the time as often as possible.

--------

"Mist Valley is today's Poem A Day at The Academy of American Poets.

I took Adam driving again on Friday, though he initially planned to drive to the Bethesda Co-op and later agreed that perhaps I should do the driving across River Road and under the Beltway. We did get his kale chips and lots of fruit. That was my only major excursion; otherwise, I posted a review of Deep Space Nine's second-season finale "The Jem'Hadar" and folded laundry while watching a great old La Femme Nikita episode, "Not Was."

We had dinner with my parents minus Adam who was at driver's ed, then came home to meet him and watched a few episodes of Relic Hunter, including the one with Dean McDermott based on Treasure Island and the one with Dylan Neal about news reporting on what women want. Here are some photos from Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks, where people were crabbing and birds were defending their territory:

Poem for Saturday, Hillwood, The Collaborator

The One Who Turned Back
By Rachel Barenblat

Maybe you envisioned
your husband's grave
choked with weeds

maybe you knew
the Israelites would scorn
your foreign features

the sages say
God gave you four sons
because you wept as you left her

the pundits whisper
once Naomi was gone
you spread your legs for anyone

did the men of Moab
grind your body
like bruised corn

did you birth Goliath
and rend your garments
when you lost him too

did you live for centuries
destined for the sword
of one of David's men --

or did you bathe
your aging parents
and die a quiet spinster

comforted by the scent
of the wild rosemary
outside your childhood home?

--------

From The Velveteen Rabbi.

I don't have a lot to report on this Friday which was pretty quiet and domestic, involving laundry and sorting clothes to donate to charity. I spent most of the morning working on a review of Deep Space Nine's "The Collaborator", had lunch with Adam when he got back from biking and running -- Daniel was busy with the new Skyrim game until later -- and took a walk on this rather hot afternoon.

Adam's girlfriend is going to take care of our house and cats while we're at the beach; she came over so we could show her where everything is, then she and Adam went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner while the rest of us went to my parents'. Evening has involved watching Olympics, mostly swimming and trampoline which looks like the most fun sport ever. A few more Hillwood photos:

















Fannish5: Five characters who are the best in the world at what they do.
The all-girls edition, because I'm in the mood for it.
1. Sydney Fox, Relic Hunter
2. Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. Cinnamon Carter, Mission: Impossible
4. Katara, Avatar: The Last Airbender
5. Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games