Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Today is my wife Kate’s birthday. Happy birthday, Kate!
Like many Americans, Kate is in the middle of a fitness kick right now, though one that is purposefully gentle on her forlorn knees. She walks a lot, usually with Margot, and now that she has an Apple Watch, she has also been known to run up and down the stairs of our home in order to “close her circles.”
An author friend of mine once remarked to me that there is no place to “dine” in south Davis. Nevertheless, yesterday afternoon my son Jukie and my French bulldog Margot and I dined at Dos Coyotes, another restaurant where everyone seems to know my name. Afterwards we strolled home by moonlight at dusk (meaning that it was 5pm). As someone on Twitter said, “Hello darkness, my old friend. Why are you here at 4 PM. That’s not effective satire, but it still made me smile.
The greenbelt that connects our local Tex-Mex restaurant is the same one that Margot knows well from her daily walks with her “mom.” I’m the dog’s dad, and the three kids are her siblings. Does everyone refer to their pets this way? We have such affection for this puppy-sized bulldog that we think of her as a member of the family, and not only because she sleeps on my side of the bed at night.
So the walk home made me think of the route of Kate’s daily walk. And then last week I also thought of Kate when I saw the barest wisp of a slender, sliver moon rising early one evening. I appreciated that that sliver of luminescence helped to light my bike ride home after my evening journalism class adjourned. This is a magical time for me. Having worked a number of jobs over the years that required me to be indoors and even underground at sunset, often on the phone back during an era when people answered their phones, I’m always grateful to be outside and mindfully “present” at dusk.
Speaking of gratitude, I’m grateful that my wife Kate and I met in London when we were so young, and that now I get to see her every day. Reflecting on these two sources of light, Kate and the slender moon, I couldn’t shake the imagery of today’s birthday girl strolling the Arboretum by moonlight. This poem, my birthday gift to her, is the result.
Kate Walks the Arboretum at Night
The sliver of the moon
hints at her intentions,
winking wistfully
between the weeping willows.
In strong winds, the willows
personify, dusting the underbrush
with long elastic limbs,
or dancing unreservedly,
fresh and jaunty in the autumn air.
On rare evenings, the slender moon
walks paths among the willows,
noting the other dancers,
the Autumn Purple Ash
offering moon-shade
to a nearby Scarlet Oak,
an Autumn Blaze Maple
in the fleeting glow reaching
an arm out to Bald Cypress,
aching as if offering a bid for love.
The walker is supple,
like the teenage trees,
the ones that bend so easily.
The walker is subtle,
like the tallest branches
during the still hour of midnight,
poignant in their serenity.
The walker is timeless,
like the oak whose tireless roots
dig patiently for the center
with a silver light internal,
not knowing they live in the earth.
On this night, she is a silver
echo of all she surveys.
When no one is about,
she inhabits the trees,
stretching like a dancer.
When no one is about,
she inhabits the prairie grass,
spreading democratic tendrils
of love into the world.
When no one is about,
she renders herself,
inhabiting with sighs
her own ephemeral waning,
remembering suddenly
the hour of her birth,
with whispered hints
of mutual brightness
to everyone that spies
the silver sliver
of the meandering moon.
Thanks for reading my poem. The photograph that goes with that poem can be found on Facebook, where you could also wish Kate a happy birthday, if you are so inclined. Here are the hints for tonight’s pub quiz. Tonight expect questions on topics raised above, as well as on the following: cardinal directions, alternative shapes, the locations of walnuts, arresting halts, androids, small mammals, attempted normalcy in small towns, cats, prohibitive costs, flying crows, toughness, the example of diamonds, independence, popular choices, musical fruits, unnerving copies, larger and less famous examples, London greenery, hunting poplin with hermits, grading papers, old textbooks, wirelessness, candidates, current events, internal organs, the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago, hauling capacity, and Shakespeare.
My poetry mentor and the esteemed professor emeritus Alan Williamson will be reading from his first new book of poetry in the last dozen years. Join us Thursday night at 8 at the Natsoulas Gallery. Details at http://www.poetryindavis.com.
See you tonight!
Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
P.S. Here are three questions from a 2013 quiz:
- Science. What three-syllable word refers to a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electron pairs between atoms?
- Books and Authors. Judy Garland, Frida Kahlo and author Jack Kerouac all died at the same age. Within two years, how old were they?
- Shakespeare. The storm that is battering the British Isles right now is thought to be stronger even than the hurricane that wrecked the English sailing ship The Sea Venture in Bermuda in 1609. Eyewitness accounts of that shipwreck inspired the beginning of what Shakespeare play?
P.P.S. “A man should never be ashamed to own that he is wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.” Alexander Pope