Regular Rumination

Good morning, Sunday Saloners!  I’m sure some of you are still sleeping off that read-a-thon, so it might be a good afternoon .  Yesterday my roommates and I went to Luray Caverns in Luray, Virginia, so She and I did the read-a-thon a day early.  I’m so glad we did because it was totally worth it!  We got up at 5 am and you can see our horrendous morning faces here.  We managed to stay up until 1:00 am, but it was still a good run!  Then early yesterday afternoon it was off to Luray, fulfilling one of She’s lifelong dreams.  The caverns were awesome and fortunately we have some pictures to prove we were there.  The drive itself was an adventure because the trees were beautiful and we stopped at a little cafe for dinner on the way home that had amazing deserts and amazing corn chowder.  Then I came home and worked on a paper for my Introduction to the Study of Literature class on “Entrada a la madera/Entrance to wood” by Pablo Neruda.  It’s one of the best poems I’ve read of Neruda’s and I think my paper went well.

Read-A-Thon

I read 6 books for read-a-thon!  I could not have been happier with my book and page number count.  Reading graphic novels really helped the eyes between longer books.

Books read: So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld, The Silenced by James DeVila, Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi, The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness, Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez and Disquiet by Julia Leigh, 100 pages of The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Pages read: 1734

I thought all of my books were good choices for read-a-thon.  They were mostly fast-paced, mostly fairly large typeface (VERY important in the wee hours of the morning and night!) and interesting, too.

Yesterday, after getting back from the caverns, I did some cheerleading!  I’m sorry if I didn’t get to your blog, I was thinking about you and cheering you on in my mind, I promise!

Luray Caverns

For those of you who don’t know about Luray Caverns, it’s one of the largest and most beautiful cave formations in the United States that has lots of cool formations like gorgeous stalactites and stalagmites, fried eggs, a pipe organ that plays using rock formations, and the mirror lake also known as the Lake of Dreams.   The whole place was seriously amazing: GO THERE.  You’ll love it, really!

My roommate, me and She

I added a bat and an owl to this one for effect.  ACTUALLY, there aren’t any bats in Luray Caverns.  And there probably aren’t any owls.  I also might have been singing a song in this picture.

Draperies!

Pablo Neruda: The poem I wrote my paper about!

Entrance into wood

With scarce my reason, with my fingers,
with slow waters slow flooded,
I fall into the realm of forget-me-nots,
to a mourning air that clings,
to a forgotten room in ruins,
to a cluster of bitter clover.

I fall into shadow, the midst
of things broken down,
and I see spiders, and graze on forests
of secret inconclusive wood,
and I pass among damp uprooted fibers
to the live heart of matter and silence.

Smooth substance, oh drywinged rose,
in my collapse I climb your petals,
my feet weighed down with a red fatigue,
and I kneel in your everlasting cathedral
bruising my lips on an angel.

Here I am before your color of the world,
with your pale dead swords,
with your united hearts,
with your silent multitude.

Here I am with your wave of dying fragrances
wrapped in autumn and resistance:
it is I embarking on a funerary journey
among your yellow scars:
it is I with my sourceless laments,
unnourished, wakeful, alone,
entering darkened corridors,
reaching your mysterious matter.

I see your dry currents moving,
broken-off hands i see growing,
I hear your oceanic plants
creaking, by night and fury shaken,
and I feel leaves dying inwards,
amassing green materials
to your desolate stillness.

Pores, veins, circles of smoothness,
weight, silent temperature,
arrows cleaving to your fallen soul,
beings asleep in your thick mouth,
dust of sweet pulp consumed,
ash full of snuffed-out souls,
come to me, to my measureless dream,
fall into my room where night falls
and falls like broken water,
and root me to your life, to your death,
to your crushed materials,
to your dead neutral doves,
and let us make fire, and silence, and sound,
and let us burn and be silent and bells.

Have a great week everyone!  Thanks for a wonderful Read-A-Thon!