rejectomorph | Eclipse Night Minus One

It's remarkable how many butterflies I'm seeing in my yard this spring. There are one or two almost every time I go out. They are most attracted to the lilacs. Maybe I'll plant more of those. The lupines haven't started to grow yet, but I know that some species of butterflies like those too, so there will be something to attract them when the lilacs are gone.

I don't know what became of my daffodils this year. There were but three flowers, and the rest of the plants produced only leaves. Perhaps they need some sort of fertilizer.

The afternoon trip to the grocery stores was uneventful, as usual, but it was nice to see how green the town is right now. The oaks all sport their young leaves, which are much brighter than they will be later in the season. Dogwoods and crepe myrtles are blooming, adding a bit of color (and in the case of the dogwoods sometimes snowy white) to the landscape. It's odd to see them blooming when the days are already so warm. I'm accustomed to seeing them when it is a bit crisper.

My anticipation of the eclipse is still consuming my thoughts. The weather is going to be perfectly clear tomorrow, and the evening should be mild, so it will be perfect viewing weather. I won't have to resort to the live Internet stream of the event by the Griffith Observatory. There are no wildfires burning, and Mt. Lassen shows no signs of erupting, so I'm unlikely to be prevented from viewing it unless I am kidnapped by terrorists and flown to the part of the world from which the event won't be visible, and how likely is that (knock on wood)?

Sunday Verse

At a Lunar Eclipse

by Thomas Hardy

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?

Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?