I found several late-blooming flowers in the wan afternoon light. Here’s a little tea rose, out of several dozen images, only about two turned out decent – the devil was beating his wife at the moment I was trying to take pictures, in front of a little garden. There’s two or three flowering plants that I can’t identify, and every picture, thus far, has been blurry. Or just “not quite right.” Not that it’s ever bothered me.
Books (redux):
Some years ago, after hearing much critical praise for it, I picked up this copy of Beowulf. Been meaning to get around to it, and after the movie, The 13th Warrior, I picked up my copy of the text, for one more read. (I can’t find my copy of Eaters of the Dead – must’ve loaned it out – never mind.). Norse mythology and Old English.
That Seamus Heaney edition is listed as a “bilingual” with Old English on the obverse page and the translated poem on the right-hand page.
As I was digging through the introduction, I find figurative bread crumbs, pencil marks where I underlined passages – with no notation – and I wonder, “What was I thinking?”
It seems to be a fast read, and I’m enjoying it ever so much more than I did as an undergraduate. I was wondering why the sword and sorcery folks never embraced this material – source material for all the fantasies.
“They are fatherless creatures
and their whole ancestry is hidden in a past
of demons and ghosts. They dwell apart
among the wolves on the hills, on the windswept crags
and treacherous keshes, where cold streams
pour down the mountain and disappear
under mists and moorland.” (lines 1355-61)
Brief quote, describing Grendel & mom.
Cherchez les poissons:
Different spots, different fish, same school. What was fun, on Thursday morning? I got to play those fish a little. It’s like that image of the big mouth bass with a lure, jumping up out of the water, surrounded by a cascading splash of the lake. Like on TV. Only, in my case? Like in miniature. The slightly larger one was deep, maybe 8 feet or more, and the smaller one was shallow, just below the surface as the water was rising, schooling along the point. I had two more like that small one, but they got away.
