Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

The conversation on collateral damage from metaphors is very interesting. The simple metaphors tend not to bother me (even though they're indicating contempt for groups that include me or people I care about.) I don't know if I've just become callous because I hear them so very often, or the thoughtlessness of "lame," "gay," "on drugs," and "such a girl," comes across as a lack of malicious intent. But more explicit, elaborate, metaphors bother me a lot more. (The ones about sexuality tend to go off in rape directions. Those for mental illness tend to go on about the target being either amusingly or dangerously out of touch with reality...in both cases, being completely and hopelessly out of touch with reality.) I understand the desire to ill-wish one's enemies in obscene detail, but it's still really uncomfortable when the worst things to wish on them are stuff people in the conversation actually live with.

Patchwork Magic

Magic holds the world
together, after children
tear summer's thread.

I like this, for reasons that go way beyond the poem itself, or the earrings (which of course I haven't seen.) I was at Spy Pond yesterday, with the girls, on the second really hot day of the year. Some friendly fishermen were amused by K's enthusiastic interest, and let her try a few casts. They were so patient and generous with her, untangling the line over and over, that I thought there was a bit of magic involved.