We'll put in a syncopation...

Following the Austrian election is almost as depressing as following the American one.

(But I will be watching the VP debate tomorrow night with friends, and expect some sort of hilarity).

Recently my life has been full of work and procrastination of that work.  But weekends are fun.  This last one included a failed Welcome Back to Wonderland party by ELS and really only for ELS, because we forgot to invite anyone or tell anyone it was happening.  So...we were in the basement of ELS with very few other people, bar-tending for ourselves for a long time.  Saturday morning, graduated-friend Evan came to visit, and gave us an opportunity for a lot of trips out for food.  Also a trip to a place called Great Galaxy for ice cream, which might be the epitome of Central New York weirdness: large empty room, kind of gross old food, something called "Steakums", and an old woman with an unidentifiable accent.  I have not collapsed from food poisoning yet, so I think everything is okay.  Saturday night we had a bunch of people over to our suite, and some of us obnoxiously told abroad stories for awhile.  

Kayaking.  Yesterday I was not really in the mood to go since I was kind of exhausted, but we went to Delta Lake, which is some kind of state park.  Kayaking in the pouring rain is actually pretty fun though.  We saw herons and ospreys and played with mud.  But let's talk about last week.  We went to Nine Mile River, which is quiet and tiny and surrounded by forest.  It was the perfect day and we went for about 8 miles.  I'm pretty good at maneuvering the boat to do what I want it to now, and I really only crash because boys think they always get to go first and faster, even if I was already there.

I am working on a presentation for my Witchcraft class about the Witches' Sabbath, and it is research like this I will miss when I am no longer involved in medieval history things.  Where else do you get to learn about boiling babies at midnight in the forest?  I love that class.  And I am learning about the history of Divinations :)

Poetry class is a lot of work and a lot of crazy people.  Some people will never agree on how to write, some people will never understand what constitutes good or even passably good writing.  Creative writing workshops are always fun and involve a lot of almost-insults.  This is my super-long sestina, which my group actually liked.  But I need to take a lot of things out and make it shorter - I am aware of the overabundance of modifiers.  And a sestina is crazy hard: you use the same 6 end-words in a very specific pattern, and then use them all one more time at the end of the poem.  (Blogger has a layout that messes with the format of my poem, so the end words are not actually at the end here.  Anyway, hopefully it will still be obvious as to what the words are).

The Sea Turtle

This is a moonscape without the craters, an alien world crossed
with the familiar island scents of citrus and salt, this moist stretch of land
just hanging in the sultry air and unyielding dark. We can see back
only dimly to things familiar, to sound and speed, to filled spaces
where if we gaze long enough into the orange city, someone might wave,
we think, with connection, but this nighttime beach is miles on the swamp-brush trail.

Shuffling feet in shifting sand and knees that plunge leave a trail
of exhaustion as we hurtle forwards, balancing on a ground that shifts, footprints crossed
beneath us while we wind the beach, sand-covered eyes against wind in its waves.
Nearby, the sand drifts into the ocean, returns, sails, this ever-moving land.
Behind us there is the forest, where coarse plants crouch beneath the twisted trees, spaced
too close and breathing the musk of wet bark, pushing the branches that push back.

At the pointy end of the longest beach, we collapse, pushing our rigid backs
into sand that is at last forgiving. Look to the right, and there is the trail
imprinted fleetingly with our steps , already disappearing into water and space.
Here in front of the farthest tree we will sit, where the wind is quiet, where the cross
water finds serenity in distance. Eyes big in the darkness watch for a landing,
watch for the first black shape to manifest from black water, shoveling into waves.

A dinosaur emerges as slow as a dying geyser, kneading through wide waves.
Catching light like a dirty stained-glass window, she circles and backs
and sidesteps into this world, looking for a haven depth and warmth in which to land.
Leaving behind misshapen lumps of sand, dragging glowing bioluminescence that trails
silently into the sea, past the electrified squid and the transparent mysteries, across
from trees hiding in insect air. She slides, molds the liquid ground, makes space.

Here is the ritual balance, the squat and the sink, the rumbled claim of space,
of a territory, a nursery, a cradle to rock gently under the mothering waves.
We burrow into our own sand, palms up and waiting for life, legs crossed
and caressing the beach ceaselessly shifting new pictures beneath us, backs
whipped softly by the wind, a warning. She is ready, and while serpent-seaweed trails
treacherously nearby, her eggs like the pearls of giants nestle into the land.

Flippers fling sand, blanketing the diamond-eggs in their crowded cave, quaking the land
to wait for birth. The retreating turtle reflects navy-streaked sky, ceaseless space
spelled perfectly on a compact shell, a gash where the violet galaxy trails,
dirt and barnacles for flickering stars. Engulfed like a blackened sun in the waves,
floating deeper until our tiny eyes can no longer grasp, the Leatherback
is gone. We are left with the sand and the sky, lined with the Southern Cross.

Swallowing damp air, cross-eyed, we look behind to the forest land,
we strain up to the sleeping city, back away from infinite space,
spy the sunrise in waves of color, think of hatching and the sky, find the trail.

(see: sea turtle adventure of two summers ago in beautiful St. Croix!)