tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69204708113912236122024-03-14T06:17:38.847+01:00DC MusingsHopefully semi-regular musings on fill in the blank.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-43127664644500804372010-11-26T18:36:00.002+01:002010-11-27T17:57:27.679+01:00dAlohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-39213518361202823062010-11-25T14:53:00.001+01:002010-11-25T14:53:22.208+01:00Yesterday Mike and I decided to wander over to the Library of Congress. After navigating a series of underground tunnel wandering from the Cannon House Office Building to the Jefferson Building, we finally emerged before the Main Reading Room. With its soaring ceiling, grand painting, and stack of books stretching toward the sky, it was all a little overpowering. I felt as if great things had to come from whoever sat in that room conducting research. The true joy of the trip, however, came from see a Thomas Jefferson’s collection. The library has gathered up as many of his original donation as possible and then found replacements for the one that had been destroyed. Standing amongst his books, I almost felt as if I was standing inside his mind.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-57275417324056356612010-11-23T23:25:00.001+01:002010-11-23T23:25:51.055+01:00To the topI climbed to the top of the Capitol Dome today. My chief of staff arranged the visit. I had climbed to the top of dome once before, so the trip did not have the same magic it did the first time. As I climbed to the top, working my way through the metal girders and gazing down to the public far below who did not know we were there, I wondered if I could somehow survive on the Hill. 1,600 lost jobs. Perhaps 20 positions that work for me. I just don’t think it will work.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-74882285307868939952010-11-22T22:34:00.000+01:002010-11-22T22:37:29.359+01:00Long RunI took a long run near the waterfront today with Donald and Mike. It felt good to get out of the office. I feel that I have applied for all the jobs that I could in the past few weeks. I am now in the “waiting game,” which isn’t very fun. Sitting at a computer with very little to do and anxiously looking at my inbox doesn’t make me feel very good. At least during the run all of that doesn’t matter. There is the simple internal push to keep going that washes over my mind and body. It fills the void where all the uncertainty lives.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-76973679059070862562010-04-08T23:06:00.001+02:002010-04-08T23:06:55.487+02:00Bad Day<br />by Kay Ryan<br /><br />Not every day<br />is a good day<br />for the elfin tailor.<br />Some days<br />the stolen cloth<br />reveals what it<br />was made for:<br />a handsome weskit<br />or the jerkin<br />of an elfin sailor.<br />Other days<br />the tailor<br />sees a jacket<br />in his mind<br />and sets about<br />to find the fabric.<br />But some days<br />neither the idea<br />nor the material<br />presents itself;<br />and these are<br />the hard days<br />for the tailor elf.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-11590920448748434782010-03-25T23:34:00.000+01:002010-03-25T23:35:04.475+01:00The Wedding <br />Sidney Lanier <br /><br />O marriage-bells, your clamor tells <br />Two weddings in one breath. <br />SHE marries whom her love compels: <br />-- And I wed Goodman Death! <br />My brain is blank, my tears are red; <br />Listen, O God: -- "I will," he said: -- <br />And I would that I were dead. <br />Come groomsman Grief and bridesmaid Pain <br />Come and stand with a ghastly twain. <br />My Bridegroom Death is come o'er the meres <br />To wed a bride with bloody tears. <br />Ring, ring, O bells, full merrily: <br />Life-bells to her, death-bells to me: <br />O Death, I am true wife to thee!Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-83652409452534760682010-03-24T21:06:00.001+01:002010-03-24T21:06:51.775+01:00Shedding Season<br />by Linda Lee Konichek<br /><br />I start to lose winter’s weight as soon as<br />heavy chore boots are taken off<br />replaced by new Airstep Nikes.<br /><br />My feet fly to the upper pasture to check<br />for fresh grass… grass that shimmers<br />more green than the Emerald City.<br /><br />Overnight, the wonderful wizard has<br />visited the farm. Like magic, tiny buds<br />gleam on last week’s bare branches.<br /><br />I take one more look at the creek<br />plunging below. In a few days<br />new leaves will curtain this scene.<br /><br />I want to buck and snort<br />with the horses, shed winter<br />like they shed their coats,<br /><br />then gallop through the water<br />splashing… splashing… splashing<br /><br />make rainbows in the Springtime sun.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-82493429590258880272010-03-23T20:55:00.000+01:002010-03-23T20:57:03.820+01:00Treatment<br />Ange Mlinko<br /><br />We went to the vivarium—to see<br />the tropical butterflies in a<br />walk-through biodome. They were<br />cocooning, their insides filled<br />with meconium. The chrysalises looked<br />like jade and rosy quartz pendants<br />for ladies' ears—with gold worked in,<br />something Babylonian.<br />Enormous specimens<br />breathed against tree bark.<br /><br />Belated naturalists we.<br />I kept repeating to myself:<br />the mind is not a little spa.<br />The Mind is not a little Spa.<br />You can't retreat to its imaginary<br />standard distance<br />when outside construction<br />can't be told from ruin.<br />The butterflies set themselves<br />down like easels<br />on bromeliads, but their brushes<br />can't reach to scratch their<br />paletteAlohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-28120079580442205292010-03-19T21:28:00.001+01:002010-03-19T21:28:57.203+01:00Mist <br />Henry David Thoreau <br /><br />Low-anchored cloud, <br />Newfoundland air, <br />Fountain head and source of rivers, <br />Dew-cloth, dream drapery, <br />And napkin spread by fays; <br />Drifting meadow of the air, <br />Where bloom the dasied banks and violets, <br />And in whose fenny labyrinth <br />The bittern booms and heron wades; <br />Spirit of the lake and seas and rivers, <br />Bear only purfumes and the scent <br />Of healing herbs to just men's fields!Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-28827531023390354292010-03-16T22:21:00.001+01:002010-03-16T22:21:33.677+01:00Summer in the South <br />Paul Laurence Dunbar <br /><br />The Oriole sings in the greening grove <br />As if he were half-way waiting, <br />The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green, <br />Timid, and hesitating. <br />The rain comes down in a torrent sweep <br />And the nights smell warm and pinety, <br />The garden thrives, but the tender shoots <br />Are yellow-green and tiny. <br />Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill, <br />Streams laugh that erst were quiet, <br />The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue <br />And the woods run mad with riot.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-21311396111795124952010-03-15T22:22:00.000+01:002010-03-15T22:23:04.700+01:00Broken Music <br />Dante Gabriel Rossetti <br /><br />The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears <br />Her nursling's speech first grow articulate; <br />But breathless with averted eyes elate <br />She sits, with open lips and open ears, <br />That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears <br />Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song, <br />A central moan for days, at length found tongue, <br />And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears. <br /><br />But now, whatever while the soul is fain <br />To list that wonted murmur, as it were <br />The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain, - <br />No breath of song, thy voice alone is there, <br />O bitterly beloved! and all her gain <br />Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-73904185339744896932010-03-11T23:09:00.000+01:002010-03-11T23:10:01.729+01:00The Old Neighbors<br />by Katha Pollitt<br /><br />The weather's turned, and the old neighbors creep out<br />from their crammed rooms to blink in the sun, as if<br />surprised to find they've lived through another winter.<br />Though steam heat's left them pale and shrunken<br />like old root vegetables,<br />Mr. and Mrs. Tozzi are already<br />hard at work on their front-yard mini-Sicily:<br />a Virgin Mary birdbath, a thicket of roses,<br />and the only outdoor aloes in Manhattan.<br />It's the old immigrant story,<br />the beautiful babies<br />grown up into foreigners. Nothing's<br />turned out the way they planned<br />as sweethearts in the sinks of Palermo. Still,<br />each waves a dirt-caked hand<br />in geriatric fellowship with Stanley,<br />the former tattoo king of the Merchant Marine,<br />turning the corner with his shaggy collie,<br />who's hardly three but trots<br />arthritically in sympathy. It's only<br />the young who ask if life's worth living,<br />notMrs. Sansanowitz, who for the last hour<br />has been inching her way down the sidewalk,<br />lifting and placing<br />her new aluminum walker as carefully<br />as a spider testing its web. On days like these,<br />I stand for a long time<br />under the wild gnarled root of the ancient wisteria,<br />dry twigs that in a week<br />will manage a feeble shower of purple blossom,<br />and I believe it: this is all there is,<br />all history's brought us here to our only life<br />to find, if anywhere,<br />our hanging gardens and our street of gold:<br />cracked stoops, geraniums, fire escapes, these old<br />stragglers basking in their bit of sun.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-34882881777352599262010-03-10T22:41:00.001+01:002010-03-10T22:41:40.893+01:00Ozymandias <br />Percy Bysshe Shelley <br /><br />I met a traveller from an antique land <br />Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone <br />Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, <br />Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, <br />And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, <br />Tell that its sculptor well those passions read <br />Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, <br />The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. <br />And on the pedestal these words appear -- <br />"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: <br />Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" <br />Nothing beside remains. Round the decay <br />Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare <br />The lone and level sands stretch far away.'Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-67019048374740827062010-03-08T23:23:00.000+01:002010-03-08T23:24:27.929+01:00In Flanders Field <br />John McCrae <br /><br />In Flanders fields the poppies blow <br />Between the crosses, row on row, <br />That mark our place; and in the sky <br />The larks, still bravely singing, fly <br />Scarce heard amid the guns below. <br /><br />We are the Dead. Short days ago <br />We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, <br />Loved and were loved, and now we lie, <br />In Flanders fields. <br /><br />Take up our quarrel with the foe: <br />To you from failing hands we throw <br />The torch; be yours to hold it high. <br />If ye break faith with us who die <br />We shall not sleep, though poppies grow <br />In Flanders fields.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-104719369455973192010-03-05T22:52:00.001+01:002010-03-05T22:52:35.790+01:00The Alchemist in the City <br />Gerard Manley Hopkins <br /><br />My window shews the travelling clouds, <br />Leaves spent, new seasons, alter'd sky, <br />The making and the melting crowds: <br />The whole world passes; I stand by. <br /><br />They do not waste their meted hours, <br />But men and masters plan and build: <br />I see the crowning of their towers, <br />And happy promises fulfill'd. <br /><br />And I - perhaps if my intent <br />Could count on prediluvian age, <br />The labours I should then have spent <br />Might so attain their heritage, <br /><br />But now before the pot can glow <br />With not to be discover'd gold, <br />At length the bellows shall not blow, <br />The furnace shall at last be cold. <br /><br />Yet it is now too late to heal <br />The incapable and cumbrous shame <br />Which makes me when with men I deal <br />More powerless than the blind or lame. <br /><br />No, I should love the city less <br />Even than this my thankless lore; <br />But I desire the wilderness <br />Or weeded landslips of the shore. <br /><br />I walk my breezy belvedere <br />To watch the low or levant sun, <br />I see the city pigeons veer, <br />I mark the tower swallows run <br /><br />Between the tower-top and the ground <br />Below me in the bearing air; <br />Then find in the horizon-round <br />One spot and hunger to be there. <br /><br />And then I hate the most that lore <br />That holds no promise of success; <br />Then sweetest seems the houseless shore, <br />Then free and kind the wilderness, <br /><br />Or ancient mounds that cover bones, <br />Or rocks where rockdoves do repair <br />And trees of terebinth and stones <br />And silence and a gulf of air. <br /><br />There on a long and squared height <br />After the sunset I would lie, <br />And pierce the yellow waxen light <br />With free long looking, ere I die.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-43204656491144609372010-02-27T00:02:00.001+01:002010-02-27T00:03:13.553+01:00Give All To Love <br />Ralph Waldo Emerson <br /><br />Give all to love; <br />Obey thy heart; <br />Friends, kindred, days, <br />Estate, good-fame, <br />Plans, credit, and the Muse,- <br />Nothing refuse. <br />'Tis a brave master; <br />Let it have scope: <br />Follow it utterly, <br />Hope beyond hope: <br />High and more high <br />It dives into noon, <br />With wing unspent, <br />Untold intent; <br />But it is a god, <br />Knows its own path, <br />And the outlets of the sky. <br />It was not for the mean; <br />It requireth courage stout, <br />Souls above doubt, <br />Valor unbending; <br />It will reward,- <br />They shall return <br />More than they were, <br />And ever ascending. <br />Leave all for love; <br />Yet, hear me, yet, <br />One word more thy heart behoved, <br />One pulse more of firm endeavor,- <br />Keep thee today, <br />To-morrow, forever, <br />Free as an Arab <br />Of thy beloved. <br />Cling with life to the maid; <br />But when the surprise, <br />First vague shadow of surmise <br />Flits across her bosom young <br />Of a joy apart from thee, <br />Free be she, fancy-free; <br />Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, <br />Nor the palest rose she flung <br />From her summer diadem.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-52360960376847317152010-02-25T23:40:00.000+01:002010-02-25T23:41:01.193+01:00On His Blindness <br />John Milton <br /><br /><br />When I consider how my light is spent <br />Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, <br />And that one talent which is death to hide <br />Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent <br />To serve therewith my Maker, and present <br />My true account, lest he returning chide, <br />"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" <br />I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent <br />That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need <br />Either man's work or his own gifts: who best <br />Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state <br />Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed <br />And post o'er land and ocean without rest: <br />They also serve who only stand and wait."Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-64881877613441306302010-02-23T23:05:00.001+01:002010-02-23T23:05:57.320+01:00"I Need Not Go" <br />Thomas Hardy <br /><br />I need not go <br />Through sleet and snow <br />To where I know <br />She waits for me; <br />She will wait me there <br />Till I find it fair, <br />And have time to spare <br />From company. <br /><br />When I've overgot <br />The world somewhat, <br />When things cost not <br />Such stress and strain, <br />Is soon enough <br />By cypress sough <br />To tell my Love <br />I am come again. <br /><br />And if some day, <br />When none cries nay, <br />I still delay <br />To seek her side, <br />(Though ample measure <br />Of fitting leisure <br />Await my pleasure) <br />She will riot chide. <br /><br />What--not upbraid me <br />That I delayed me, <br />Nor ask what stayed me <br />So long? Ah, no! - <br />New cares may claim me, <br />New loves inflame me, <br />She will not blame me, <br />But suffer it so.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-74425649431263230972010-02-22T23:30:00.001+01:002010-02-22T23:30:39.204+01:00No man is an island <br />John Donne <br /><br />No man is an island entire of itself; every man <br />is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; <br />if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe <br />is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as <br />well as any manner of thy friends or of thine <br />own were; any man's death diminishes me, <br />because I am involved in mankind. <br />And therefore never send to know for whom <br />the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-45192954860293910482010-02-18T22:33:00.000+01:002010-02-18T22:34:02.330+01:00Richard Cory <br />Edwin Arlington Robinson <br /><br />Whenever Richard Cory went down town, <br />We people on the pavement looked at him: <br />He was a gentleman from sole to crown, <br />Clean-favoured and imperially slim. <br /><br />And he was always quietly arrayed, <br />And he was always human when he talked; <br />But still he fluttered pulses when he said, <br />"Good Morning!" and he glittered when he walked. <br /><br />And he was rich, yes, richer than a king, <br />And admirably schooled in every grace: <br />In fine -- we thought that he was everything <br />To make us wish that we were in his place. <br /><br />So on we worked and waited for the light, <br />And went without the meat and cursed the bread, <br />And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, <br />Went home and put a bullet in his head.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-54921497783752818162010-02-17T20:34:00.001+01:002010-02-17T20:34:32.931+01:00A Farewell <br />Alfred, Lord Tennyson <br /><br />Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, <br />Thy tribute wave deliver: <br />No more by thee my steps shall be, <br />For ever and for ever. <br /><br />Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, <br />A rivulet then a river; <br />No where by thee my steps shall be, <br />For ever and for ever. <br /><br />But here will sigh thine alder tree, <br />And here thine aspen shiver; <br />And here by thee will hum the bee, <br />For ever and for ever. <br /><br />A thousand suns will stream on thee, <br />A thousand moons will quiver; <br />But not by thee my steps shall be, <br />For ever and for ever.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-29238682288598101362010-02-16T23:35:00.001+01:002010-02-16T23:35:39.778+01:00POSTMANTERRORISM<br />by Nick Lantz<br /><br />Would it make a difference to say we suffered<br />from affluenza in those days? Could we blame<br />Reaganomics, advertainment, the turducken<br />and televangelism we swallowed by the sporkful,<br />all that brunch and Jazzercise, Frappuccinos<br />we guzzled on the Seatac tarmac, sexcellent<br />celebutantes we ogled with camcorders while<br />our imagineers simulcast the administrivia<br />of our alarmaggedon across the glocal village?<br />Would it help to say that we misunderestimated <br />the effects of Frankenfood and mutagenic smog<br />to speculate that amid all our infornography<br />and anticipointment, some crisitunity slumbered<br />unnoticed in a roadside motel? Does it count<br />for nothing that we are now willing to admit<br />that the animatronic monster slouching across<br />the soundstage of our tragicomic docusoap<br />was only a distraction? Because now, for all our<br />gerrymandering, the anecdata won't line up for us.<br />When we saw those contrails cleaving the sky<br />above us, we couldn't make out their beginning<br />or their end. What, in those long hours of ash,<br />could our appletinis tell us of good or of evil?Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-45693697947659110182010-02-03T21:42:00.001+01:002010-02-03T21:42:25.747+01:00Infinite <br />Giacomo Leopardi <br /><br />These solitary hills have always been dear to me. <br />Seated here, this sweet hedge, which blocks the distant horizon opening inner silences and interminable distances. <br />I plunge in thought to where my heart, frightened, pulls back. <br />Like the wind which I hear tossing the trembling plants which surround me, a voice from the inner depths of spirit shakes the certitudes of thought. <br />Eternity breaks through time, past and present intermingle in her image. <br />In the inner shadows I lose myself, <br />drowning in the sea-depths of timeless love.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-60144665615075662862010-01-29T21:19:00.000+01:002010-01-29T21:20:05.988+01:00Good-Night <br />Percy Bysshe Shelley <br /><br />Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill <br />Which severs those it should unite; <br />Let us remain together still, <br />Then it will be good night. <br /><br />How can I call the lone night good, <br />Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight? <br />Be it not said, thought, understood -- <br />Then it will be -- good night. <br /><br />To hearts which near each other move <br />From evening close to morning light, <br />The night is good; because, my love, <br />They never say good-night.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920470811391223612.post-64610241238663302292010-01-28T21:49:00.001+01:002010-01-28T21:49:58.172+01:00Snowflakes <br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow <br /><br />Out of the bosom of the Air, <br />Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, <br />Over the woodlands brown and bare <br />Over the harvest-fields forsaken, <br />Silent and soft and slow <br />Descends the snow.Alohaboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02285736734041710844noreply@blogger.com1