A certain mad rectitude

Here's Sophie, playing on the iPad with Saint Mirtha. It's Saturday and it's hot here in the southland. Oliver and I got up early this morning and drove into the valley where it's even hotter so that Oliver could try out for fall baseball. We decided to try a different league this year as the one we've been a part of for so long is sort of, kind of, getting on our nerves. There are too many politics, too many people who take themselves far too seriously, and while I expect that's true of most baseball leagues, at least we won't know anyone in this one and I can be oblivious because that's what I'm seeking these days if you haven't noticed. I picked Henry and his friends up from their first high school dance last night, and the car was electric with laughter and youth and, frankly, normalcy. I'm grateful that Sophie has an iPad this morning and that she can use it, however inconsistently. I'm grateful that I have Saint Mirtha here on Saturdays so that I can take my boy to try out for the sport that he loves. And I'm grateful that Henry is happy in his new high school, going to dances, raucous with his friends, a life ahead of him.

Here's a poem:

Say It Straight

What we would
and what we can say
stray as in a dream;
a certain mad rectitude
creeps in, by which something simple as an apple
can never be determined
wholly edible.
The crisp act is deferred,
the object blurred by scruples.
The more we cherish clarity
in principle, the more it is
impossible. Will enamel
ever strike the fruit?
Will Eve grow wild and forgivable?
For it's unlovable
to talk too long with snakes,
whose reasons fork
the more the more
she hesitates.

Kay Ryan, from Flamingo Watching, 1994

Reader, I know you think I'm not the gratitude kind of blogger, but let's relent and you tell me what you're grateful for today.