a lionheart is hard to earn

this weekend i was sort of lazy but it was beautiful outside! we went to buckingham palace and big ben and parliament and the aquarium all this weekend, and it felt like springtime outside. yesterday was australia day so we all went to an australian bar called "walkabout," and that was pretty cool. also i'm completely upset and pissed off about heath ledger dying. augh.

but on a happier note, for my poetry class we had to choose a piece from the national gallery and write a poem about it. i chose rousseau's surprise!, and here is my poem. it helps if you look at the painting when you read it. enjoy and i miss you all!
r

they said, "there's too much rain,
we'll come back tomorrow when we can see again"
but i called your name out into the trees,
into the wind, the trunks, the stalks of green,
highlights of a time forgotten, i watched you
a ghost in a forest of fauna,
you are lost to the world, i am a stranger here
surprise, the lightning jars and bolts,
crumbles men into children,
paper dolls falling between leaves
boundless canopies,
they stumble in the storm and leave you for dead.
he is there, i said, but they left instead.

i still dream of you some nights.
the jaws that flashed so fast in front of me
a second in a fork of light,
they echoed backwards into the roar
the din and the crash of a violent sky,
they mocked the search but i knew you were alive.
somewhere in the blackest jungle,
in the heart of darkness, the skin of the tiger,
the rush of air, rain and grass,
stepping on sticks to follow your path,
the birds all hide nesting, cold,
i hold you still inside me.

in my mind there was a mass of black and red,
the fur of the nightmare the cat and the claws
they surge at you and your hands can't fight him off
your muscles all go soft
and your eyes can't see the glory
of the feared and fighting beast.

four days later i've stopped looking.
the jungle takes what it wants and who am i to say
if the tiger takes from the universe what it needs
if someone had to go so it could stay,
the storm will always dissolve into day,
the light of the sun will shine on the canopy
and i hear you yell in the voice of the stream,
the wind through the fronds,
the jaws in the mouth of the innocent beast,
never knowing what you meant
and what it had brought to an end.