Please, Sir, I'd Like Some More

[rejectomorph]

I had to watch "Oliver". This was the very last night it was available from Comcast's on-demand menu. It came out in 1968, and I still hadn't seen it all the way through. I'd always come in at the middle, or had been interrupted part way through. But on-demand can be paused. Hah! Take that, interruptions! So I watched it. Three and half hours (with interruptions.) Now I will probably have nightmares about Rod Moody or Oliver Reed. Scary orphan musical.

There was a bit of a breeze last night, so I got to be fairly cool for a while, but the temperature is headed back up again today, and will probably go over 100 by tomorrow. Clearly, some Deity has it in for us. I'm beginning to think that maybe we should sacrifice a virgin or something. But it's California. Where would we get one?



Sunday Verse (A manifestation of my eagerness for autumn.)

Night

by Tu Fu


1

A crescent moon lulls in clear night.
Half-way into sleep, lampwicks char.
Deer wander, uneasy among howling peaks,
And falling leaves startle cicadas.

For a moment, I remember the east coast:
Mince treats, a boat out in falling snow. . . .
Tribal songs rifle the stars. Here,
At the edge of heaven, I inhabit my absence.


2

Flutes mourn on the city wall. Dusk:
The last birds cross our village graveyard.
And after decades of battle, their war-tax
Taken, people return in deepening night.

Trees darken against cliffs. Leaves fall.
The river of stars faintly skirting beyond
Borderlands, I gaze at a tilting Dipper,
A thin moon-- and magpies finish with flight.

-translated by David Hinton