On this day... now and 9 years ago

9 years ago, the periodical cicadas were buzzing, the fireflies bleeping, and we got married. PP,  thanks for the fantastic dinner at Brothers Moon tonight.  (If you haven't eaten there, you should, if you have the opportunity.)  Local, well-made food, and their Caesar salad with extra anchovies are to die for.

Other things that happened today:

The high school had to be evacuated after a bomb scare.  No bomb was found, but all kids were sent home at 2 PM.  Yesterday Princeton University got evacuated for the same reason.  Prank, lunatic, or what?  This is not funny. Neither was it funny when the two old couples sitting next to us in the restaurant talked about the bomb threat in Princeton and one of the elderly men at their table said 'well, I wish the bomb threat had been true and all the liberal professors had been killed off'.  Sigh.

In New York City two window washers got stuck at the 44th floor (about 600 feet, 200 m above ground) on the outside of the building.  They were eventually rescued by firemen cutting holes in windows so they could reach them and bring them back inside.  This was only one block from where AREA works right now.

The fireflies are out!  Blink, blink, blink! Special photo for KV with fireflies from Japan.

The bull frogs are croaking in the dark, right now.  And big black crickets are cricketing.

We are waiting for another giant weather event.  This one isn't named (yet), but we are expecting 4 inches (100 mm) rain tomorrow, storm-level winds, maybe tornados and hail and definitely big thunderstorms.  We haven't even dried up after the most recent storm, and our rivers are so flooded already that roads and bridges are closed.  Not good, the ground can't soak up any more.  But we are prepared, with pumps, generator (if the power goes out), charged cell phones, lots of food, and playing cards and candles. And while we get soaked, Colorado burns. There doesn't seem to be any 'normal' in the weather anymore.

Finally, our cat Smokey believes that the way to get of loose undercoat wooly fur is to lick it off, get it stuck in your teeth and then have it hanging from your lips like if you were an old goat.  Sorry, no photos yet, we are working on it.  She isn't the most cooperative cat when it comes to photography or brushing.

Tranströmer - oh yes.

Another great Swedish poet is getting the Nobel prize: Tomas Tranströmer.  The other one was Harry Martinson, one of my absolute favorites.  I haven 't read much of Transtromer, but what I have seen so far id fantastic. it is very different from Martinson's poetry, indeed. Congratulations!

Some reactions from American press:
The New Yorker
The New York Times
Poets.org
NPR


and a poem, with translation by me:

MINUSGRADER by Tomas Tranströmer (ur SANNINGSBARRIÄREN 1978)

Vi är på en fest som inte älskar oss. Till sist låter festen sin mask falla och visar sig som den verkligen är: en växlingsbangård. Kalla kolosser står på skenor i dimman. En krita har klottrat på vagnsdörrarna.

Det får inte nämnas, men här finns mycket undertryckt våld. Därför är detaljerna så tunga. Och så svårt att se det andra som också finns: en solkatt som flyttar sig på husväggen och glider genom den ovetande skogen av flimrande ansikten, ett bibelord som aldrig skrevs: 'Kom till mig, ty jag är motsägelsefull som du själv.'

I morgon arbetar jag i en annan stad. Jag susar dit genom morgontimman som är en stor svartblå cylinder. Orion hänger ovanför tjälen. Barn står i en tyst klunga och väntar på skolbussen, barn som ingen ber för. Ljuset växer sakta som vårt hår.

BELOW ZERO by Tomas Tranströmer, translation by LS

We are at a party that doesn't love us.  Finally the party lets its mask fall off and shows what it really is: a railroad switchyard.  Cold giants stand on rails in the fog. A chalk has scribbled on the rail car doors.

It can't be mentioned, but here is much suppressed violence.  Therefore the details are so heavy.  And so hard to see the other things that also exist: a reflection from the sun that moves along the building wall and glides through the unknown forest of unaware faces, a bibel quote that never was written: "Come to me, because I am as contradictory as yourself."

Tomorrow I work in another town. I whirl there through the morning hour that is a large blackblue cylinder. Orion is hanging over the frozen ground. Children are standing in a quiet group and waiting for the school bus, children that nobody is praying for.  The light is growing as slow as our hair.

Nerdy humor: A lobster in shining armor...

(if you are not a science nerd: link to exoskeleton)