Poem for Tuesday, Tulip Fever, Green Spring Gardens

2 A.M.
By Dorianne Laux

When I came with you that first time
on the floor of your office, the dirty carpet
under my back, the heel of one foot
propped on your shoulder, I went ahead
and screamed, full-throated, as loud
and as long as my body demanded,
because somewhere, in the back of my mind,
packed in the smallest neurons still capable
of thought, I remembered
we were in a warehouse district
and that no sentient being resided for miles.
Afterwards, when I would unclench
my hands and open my eyes, I looked up.
You were on your knees, your arms
stranded at your sides, so still --
the light from the crooknecked lamp
sculpting each lift and delicate twist,
the lax muscles, the smallest veins
on the backs of your hands. I saw
the ridge of each rib, the blue hollow
pulsing at your throat, all the colors
in your long blunt cut hair which hung
over your face like a raffia curtain
in some south sea island hut.
And as each bright synapse unfurled
and followed its path, I recalled
a story I'd read that explained why women
cry out when they come -- that it's
the call of the conqueror, a siren howl
of possession. So I looked again
and it felt true, your whole body
seemed defeated, owned, having taken on
the aspect of a slave in shackles, the wrists
loosely bound with invisible rope.
And when you finally spoke you didn't
lift your head but simply moaned the word god
on an exhalation of breath -- I knew then
I must be merciful, benevolent,
impossibly kind.

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Not an eventful Monday, just editing and laundry and uploading the photos I never got to last night while working on the Shutterfly book -- of course Shutterfly extended the coupon a day, but if I'd counted on them to do that, I'm sure they wouldn't have and I'd have had to wait till I had another free coupon to print the book I worked on for so long! It was chilly but nice out compared to south of us, where a bunch of snow fell; we had a tiny bit of precipitation but not even sleet, so after hanging out with Maddy at lunch and driving her to work, I went to the park, enjoyed the fresh air, and raided Rayquaza with friends.

After learning that Maryland had only received a fifth seed in the NCAA women's tournament, which is awfully low (at least they get to beat Princeton), we watched Tulip Fever, which has a great cast -- Alicia Vikander, Judi Dench, Christoph Waltz, Holliday Grainger -- but couldn't decide whether it wanted to be historical, contemporary, witty, or dramatic so felt rather uneven, though it was gorgeous to look at. Then we caught up on Blindspot, which was completely brilliant -- Groundhog Day meets The Breakfast Club by way of the sadly now canceled Limitless! From Green Spring Gardens yesterday, an overview:

Poem for Wednesday, Election, Limitless, Brookside Animals

My Mother Goes to Vote
By Judith Harris

We walked five blocks
to the elementary school,
my mother’s high heels
crunching through playground gravel.
We entered through a side door.

Down the long corridor,
decorated with Halloween masks,
health department safety posters—
we followed the arrows
to the third grade classroom.

My mother stepped alone
into the booth, pulling the curtain behind her.
I could see only the backs of her
calves in crinkled nylons.

A partial vanishing, then reappearing
pocketbook crooked on her elbow,
our mayor’s button pinned to her lapel.
Even then I could see—to choose
is to follow what has already
been decided.

We marched back out
finding a new way back down streets
named for flowers
and accomplished men.
I said their names out loud, as we found

our way home, to the cramped house,
the devoted porch light left on,
the customary meatloaf.
I remember, in the classroom converted
into a voting place—
there were two mothers, conversing,
squeezed into the children’s desk chairs.

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It's been kind of a weird Tuesday around here, in part because Maryland held its primary election, so at lunchtime we walked over to vote at our kids' elementary school, where we were surprised to be handed paper ballots because this time around, to avoid miscounts, our state is having voters mark paper and then scan them so there will be a physical record if something goes wrong with the machines. It was a good election day for me, since the candidate I really want to replace Barbara Mikulski in the Senate won the Democratic nomination, and I'm delighted that Clinton did so well, too.

It was also nice to walk through the neighborhood at the height of azalea season, when there's so much color everywhere -- the last of the cherry and apple blossoms, the first of the irises, many tulips, some peonies. The rest of my day was mostly work and chores until dinnertime, which ended up being late so we ate while watching The Flash, which was pretty good (Bechdel pass!). Then we also watched Agents of SHIELD, which continues to be wildly uneven (too many characters and not my favorites talking) before the season finale of Limitless, which had better come back next season! Brookside animals:

Poem for Wednesday and Brookside Tulips

Song
By Dan Beachy-Quick

The wars are everywhere, o even within.

Drawn in poor bee by the dance loud hum

Of some other tribe, poor bee. Even the center, even the heart,

Keeps a sting sharp: art stings thought, thought stings art.

Petty realm of the long known. Are there other ways to learn to sing?

Clash of long dead blades in the fallow fields

And the wind that blows truce for an hour whistles loud the rash

Martial tune. Some scribe handles himself. "Use it," sings the song.

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On Tuesday I stopped at the library and at Michael's (50% off coupon good for three hours only), and took a walk and saw a bunny plus lots of azaleas! And that was most of the excitement, unless you count very helpful cats who got involved in all my chores. Our power flickered off and on for just long enough to turn off the computers and knock off all the clocks, some of which have not yet been reset.

It was a busy genre TV night: The Flash, which was okay (needs more women talking about things other than their crushes), Agents of SHIELD, which I really enjoyed (I know I should not hate That Character but she's so annoying that when she's evil I gloat), then Limitless (please, CBS, renew this show, it's well-scripted and funny and the women are awesome). Since spring is so lovely, Brookside Gardens tulips:

Poem for Wednesday and Baltimore Light City

Flying Lesson
By Dolores Hayden

Focus on the shapes. Cirrus, a curl,
stratus, a layer, cumulus, a heap.

Humilis, a small cloud,
cumulus humilis, a fine day to fly.

Incus, the anvil, stay grounded.
Nimbus, rain, be careful,

don’t take off near nimbostratus,
a shapeless layer

of  rain, hail, ice, or snow.
Ice weighs on the blades of  your propeller,

weighs on the entering edge of your wings.
Read a cloud,

decode it,
a dense, chilly mass

can shift, flood with light.
Watch for clouds closing under you,

the sky opens in a breath,
shuts in a heartbeat.

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Tuesday involved work and laundry and other things not worth reiterating. We got one of our E-ZPass transponders replaced because it wasn't working, and we got Star Wars: The Force Awakens from Target because they have an extra Blu-Ray of specials and interviews, though as with The Hunger Games movies their packaging is pretty crappy. Plus we caught up on Billions, where Axe and Chuck both behaved even more terribly than usual. OUAT and Blindspot weren't On Demand yet. My father-in-law has been moved to a rehab center from the hospital, which is good news.

We started watching the women's NCAA tournament final, but it was quickly obvious that UConn was going to win by several dozen points and set the record for consecutive wins, which made me relieved that Maryland wasn't still in the tournament to lose to them and unwilling to spend the whole evening watching Syracuse get beaten. So we saw most of this week's quite good Agents of SHIELD (which ABC interrupted for freakin' Republican primary results -- I'd rather it have been basketball scores), and Limitless, which was freakin' awesome and I demand that it come back next season. Light City, Baltimore:

Poem for Wednesday and Point Dume Sea Lions

Blues
By Elizabeth Alexander

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, ‘til
my face is creased and swollen,
‘til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato, foods that
slothful people eat, that turn
yellow and opaque beneath the skin.
Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown, the one
with the lace trim listing because
I have not mended it. Many days
I do not exercise, only
consider it, then rub my curdy
belly and lie down. Even
my poems are lazy. I use
syllabics instead of iambs,
prefer slant to the gong of full rhyme,
write briefly while others go
for pages. And yesterday,
for example, I did not work at all!
I got in my car and I drove
to factory outlet stores, purchased
stockings and panties and socks
with my father’s money.

To think, in childhood I missed only
one day of school per year. I went
to ballet class four days a week
at four-forty-five and on
Saturdays, beginning always
with plie, ending with curtsy.
To think, I knew only industry,
the industry of my race
and of immigrants, the radio
tuned always to the station
that said, Line up your summer
job months in advance. Work hard
and do not shame your family,
who worked hard to give you what you have.
There is no sin but sloth. Burn
to a wick and keep moving.

I avoided sleep for years,
up at night replaying
evening news stories about
nearby jailbreaks, fat people
who ate fried chicken and woke up
dead. In sleep I am looking
for poems in the shape of open
V’s of birds flying in formation,
or open arms saying, I forgive you, all.

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I am still not even close to caught up! But I did have a nice Tuesday, despite the news, in the gorgeous spring weather we're having right now. I went to lunch at Tara Thai with Kay, with whom I've been trying to make plans for weeks but we both had a lot going on, then I walked around Washingtonian Lake to talk to the geese and stopped in Target to get the deluxe edition Mockingjay Part Two blu-ray, plus some birthday stuff for Paul.

I'm trying to decide what kind of laptop should replace the one that erased all my settings the night before we left for L.A. -- if I have to reconfigure from scratch and lose an entire day, I'm not doing it on my son's old laptop that lived for two years in my parents' garage. Suggestions welcome (though comments about how Macs are better will be deleted; I've had them, relatives have them, I'm not impressed by what I can't get even for all that money).

We caught up on Elementary -- the superhero episode, which was a delight in every way, from Holmes having to acknowledge that consultants might have something in common with caped vigilantes to Watson telling Morland all the things he can't get by her -- and watched the new Flash (okay), Agents of SHIELD (knew it was coming but leaves the show less fun for me), and Limitless (Bradley Cooper, you're a bad man). Look, Point Dume sea lions!

Greetings from Hollywood

There are not many perfect fangirl days in life. Tuesday was one for me. We started at the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theatre (yes I may have molested Russell Crowe's and Colin Firth's stars and stuck my hands in Hugh Jackman's and Daniel Radcliffe's prints), plus the Hollywood and Highland Center with its views of the Hollywood sign in the nearby hills, not to mention a Game of Thrones' dragon. We bought some very cheesy souvenirs but managed to avoid giving money to the tour guides, costumed performers, mix tape distributors, and Mr. Muscle.

Then we went on the Warner Bros Studio Tour, which I truly can't recommend highly enough; right now some of the highlights are things of particular interest to me, like the multiple Harry Potter exhibits on display (yes I did pose with Alan Rickman's costume, get Sorted, and take a green screen ride on a broom) and the collections of Batman paraphernalia from many eras, plus a number of buildings still painted from filming Hail Caesar and a bookstore set currently in use by Pretty Little Liars, but just seeing the backlot and prop shop are worth the price of admission.

We had a very late picnic at nearby Riverside Park, which has daisies and azaleas in bloom and butterflies and sparrows flying around. Then we went to Occidental College to visit Isabel, my eldest niece, who gave us a tour of the campus (also a fannish site as the "Vulcan" fountain from the end of Star Trek III: The Search For Spock is there, plus many locations from Clueless and other films). We drove the long way back to the Valley to avoid traffic and see the mountains, grabbed veggie burgers at the local grocery store, and ate while watching Agents of SHIELD and Limitless!

Poem for Wednesday and Cabin John Flowers

Nostos
By Louise Gluck

There was an apple tree in the yard —
this would have been
forty years ago — behind,
only meadows. Drifts
of crocus in the damp grass.
I stood at that window:
late April. Spring
flowers in the neighbor’s yard.
How many times, really, did the tree
flower on my birthday,
the exact day, not
before, not after? Substitution
of the immutable
for the shifting, the evolving.
Substitution of the image
for relentless earth. What
do I know of this place,
the role of the tree for decades
taken by a bonsai, voices
rising from the tennis courts —
Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.
As one expects of a lyric poet.
We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.

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Tuesday had absolutely gorgeous weather -- temperatures in the 1970s, crocuses and daffodils coming up everywhere -- and I can't remember anything I did besides walking in the neighborhood to look for bunnies, walking in Cabin John Park on a trail we don't think we've walked since before older son left for college (plus we visited Porky the Litter Eater, who's been in the park since I was a small child), and walking around the next cul-de-sac, where we visited with several neighbors. We could hear spring peepers!

















We tried to watch Billions at lunch, but the new episode isn't On Demand yet, so instead we watched a Bones episode. In the evening we watched the new Agents of SHIELD, which was pretty good -- used most of the cast, though needs more Bobbi and May -- and Limitless, which was not hilarious this week but got back to the drama and family story which is fine with me (that show better be coming back next season). My cats are all being completely crazy tonight; I hope that means more warm weather tomorrow!