Poem With Two Endings
By Jane Hirshfield
Say "death" and the whole room freezes--
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.
Say the word continuously,
and things begin to go forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip.
Continue saying it, hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.
Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.
The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.
(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)
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I was up absurdly late last night for an absurd reason (
gblvr entirely because if she hadn't smelled so good on Tuesday, I would never have considered buying anything with Britney's name on it, even on a big post-holiday markdown!Speaking of younger son and penguins,
robinwest sent me a Yahoo! article on a Fiordland Crested Penguin rescued in Australia and taken to a zoo in Sydney to bond with their females, the only two in captivity. One of the zookeepers said, "He hasn't seen them yet but he's heard them. He's quite excited, he keeps trying to escape to get to them." Whoo! (I posted a photo here in 
penguinpics.) Also, the lovely ribby sent him a disc of photos her parents took of African penguins belly-gliding in the surf, which he is very happy about! In the evening while we were all watching the extended edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (which did not seem very much extended from the theatrical cut, which is all to the good as far as I'm concerned), he had six penguins lined up on the couch to watch with him. This was not quite as funny as when he had assigned roles in The Producers to different stuffed animals -- I think Matthew Broderick was played by a duck -- but it is always entertaining to watch TV with penguins.
Regrettably, they are all likely to lose their heads overnight, when there is some chance of actual frost. Of course, given how this winter has been going, I'll believe it when I see it -- it was warmer today than they warned it was going to be!
What am I missing? Oh yes...I didn't watch him. Couldn't bear it, decided I would rather be in Narnia and catch the lowlights on the news. Where are my impeachment proceedings?!
