Caveat: Happy No Zappy

Well, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was obligated to finish moving last night. My long, drawn-out transition from the Dongju apartment to the Urimbobo apartment is more-or-less complete – Andrew and Hollye can do the remainder on their own, this morning while I go off to work.

It was kind of tiring, and my new apartment is a chaotic mess, and I'm leaving my old apartment much messier than my conscience would dictate. I don't like doing things half-assed. But sigh. I feel a bit overwhelmed.

Andrew and Hollye have less than a week remaining here, and one trip I had promised to myself and to Andrew while he was visiting was a trip down to Hantucky. It's a pretty major undertaking, if only for the 4 hour bus ride, but I really wanted to do it. So despite my current less-than-optimal condition, we're going to try it this weekend.

After I finish work today, we'll go off to the Goyang bus terminal, where research indicates there is a direct bus now (a new thing) that stops in Yeonggwang on its way to Mokpo. I guess we'll find some inexpensive hotel or yeogwan once there, spend the night, and explore around Glory County during the day tomorrow. Then I will hurtle back tomorrow evening so as to be able to make it to radiation Monday morning, while Andrew and Hollye can retain the option to stay down there and explore more over the next day or two following.

It's Saturday, so no radiation today. That's good, I'm tired of it. Happy No Zappy day.

Caveat: to set the darkness echoing

Personal Helicon

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

– Seamus Heaney (1939-2013 – he died today, a few hours ago)

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