Thursday

[nightdog_barks]

Hazy, warm and humid. 83 degrees (28.3 Celsius), with a lot of rain all around us but none here.

Nothing else yet today, so here's a poem entitled "Mythology" from the American writer Marilyn Hacker that didn't make it into Poetry Month.



Mythology


Penelope as a garçon manqué
weaves sonnets on a barstool among sailors,
tapping her iambs out on the brass rail. Ours
is not the high-school text. Persephone
a.k.a. Télémaque-who-tagged-along,
sleeps off her lunch on an Italian train
headed for Paris, while Ulysse-Maman
plugs into the Shirelles singing her song
(“What Does a Girl Do?”). What does a girl do
but walk across the world, her kid in tow,
stopping at stations on the way, with friends
to tie her to the mast when she gets too
close to the edge? And when the voyage ends,
what does a girl do? Girl, that’s up to you.


~ Marilyn Hacker
From Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1986
Online source here.

Comments

[blackmare-9.livejournal.com]

Now I need to read up on Penelope (I thought it was Ulysses who got tied to the mast, in the story?). Because that is really cool.

And I am now off to the hand therapist. :-)

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Heh. It was. The writer's doing a cool little role-reversal tag.

[takes-a-fairy.livejournal.com]

I love the way this is written. Very kool.

For me: All Ulysse did was plug into the Shirelles singing and then it picks back up to Penelope...not that Ulysse got tied up. Her friends tied Penelope up when she got to close to the edge.

But hey, we all know my head is in the wind, so....hee!

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

I really liked the Shirelles being in the poem.

:-D

[takes-a-fairy.livejournal.com]

ZOMG! *CRACKING UP OUT LOUD*

I completely forgot they were a real band! Talk about expiring minds...wow! But yes, I agree with you.
And to think I thought yesterday was wednesday, in my post. *cracks up out loud even more*

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

I'm trying not to feel generally misanthropic, but I didn't sleep well and there's been an upswing in activity that makes my teeth itch, so it's an uphill battle.

74 degrees, 23% humidity. Finally, some real summertime weather!

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

I didn't sleep well either. It really is amazing how a lack of sleep can make one so grumbly. Argh.

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

That is very cool, and I love the idea of having friends to tie her to mast when she got to close to the edge. We all need friends like that!

The Padre let me go early, so I've done the bank and grocery run and am sitting down in the quiet with a glass of iced tea. *bliss*

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Heh, I came THIS CLOSE to saying "we should all have friends like these" in the post.

And YAY for getting to come home early!

[blackmare-9.livejournal.com]

The weather here is miserable for, like, the fourth straight day. About 50 degrees out, which isn't bad at all, but windy and rainy and damp, damp, damp. I'm inside, in my sweater, with the heat on, and I keep getting goosebumps.

Hand therapist says I'm doing great and she gave me this thing that's like an oversize plastic clothespin or chip-clip dealie, with which to exercise the thumb to improve grip strength. I may not even need to go in again; we're going to touch base by phone in a couple weeks. Chances are that I will not regain my full range of motion in that thumb, because of where I cut it, right across the joint. But I will gain back full function for practical purposes, which is really what counts.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

I wish it would rain here. It's gotten darker, but nothing's happened.

Hee, we have some of those oversized chip clips. We use them on the dog food bag.

[blackmare-9.livejournal.com]

Yes, but this is a THERAPEUTIC chip-clip! With an extra-powerful spring. And I appear to have forgotten it at the front desk of the clinic.

*facepalm*

In other news, class is in an hour and a half, which means I must eat something (annoying: it's too early for me to be hungry, but if I don't make self eat, I'll be half dead of starvation before class ends) and get on the road.

It's still gray out, but a lighter gray right now, and I'm feeling better because I did get a few things done this afternoon. Including creating some little parts I need in order to finish that thing with the crow.