Saturday, June 21, 2008

A distant duet


{Photos by rocketlass.}

Shhhhhhh! Be very, very quiet!

At this ridiculous hour we're slipping out of the house to go away on an overnight camping trip to a friend's family's ranch in the lovely hills of rural Missouri.

In looking ahead to what we'll probably to get up to there, I like to think of some lines of Sappho I read Friday, in Anne Carson's translation:
In this place you Kypris taking up
In gold cups delicately
nectar mingled with festivities:
       pour.

Whatever my desire, the reality is likely to be closer to how Hank Williams paints it:
Comb your hair and paint and powder
You act proud, and I'll act prouder
You sing loud, and I'll sing louder
Tonight we're setting the woods on fire.
Or if all goes well, we'll hew a reasonable path somewhere between the two, creating an unexpectedly harmonious duet between the singer from Lesbos and the singer from Alabama.

1 comment:

  1. The hills of Missouri? At the present time, more like the islands of Missouri, from what I hear.

    ReplyDelete