I was fact-checking my
post. The Shakespeare phrase I am using
as a title is also the title of a popular, award-winning science fiction novel published in 1976 by Kate Wilhelm. (I ordered the book, a classic, and am adding it to my
Labor Day reading list.)
THE MARSH
Loons, egrets and
grebes in speculative activity, insects riding light waves, and in the reedier
section red wing blackbirds mounted like warning strobes. A great blue
poker-faced wader parses the creek, the detritus vomited up on account of yesterday’s
storm--rubber balls, Aristotelian logic, Styrofoam cups, diapers, beer cans, Euclidean geometry, candy wrappers, energy supplement ampoules, a broken violin, 50-quart
coolers, dental picks—a supersweet stench ascending from mauve scum.
WHERE LATE THE SWEET BIRDS SANG
(Shakespeare, from sonnet LXXIII)
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the
cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet
birds sang.
No comments:
Post a Comment