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Pastimes : Calling all SI Poets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Volsi Mimir who wrote (1680)	3/24/1999 7:55:00 PM
From: JG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2095

To all, does anyone know where I can get an online summary of Homer's Odyssey- my daughter is in a panic and I would like to help her. It has been ages since I've read it - had a difficult time as I remember. Thanks in advance. Jim

To: Volsi Mimir who wrote (1680)	3/26/1999 3:34:00 AM
From: Volsi Mimir	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 2095

The Observatory: Bargaining with the Planets (a poem) Alison McGhee The newspaper reports that at twilight tonight Venus and Jupiter will conjoin in the southwestern sky, a fist and a half above the horizon. They won't come together again for seventeen years. What the article does not say is that Mercury, the dark planet, will also be on hand. He'll hover low, nearly invisible in a darkened sky. I stare out the kitchen window toward the sunset. Seventeen years from now, where will I be? Mercury, Roman god of commerce and luck, let me propose a trade: Auburn hair, muscles that don't ache, and a six-minute mile. Here's what I'll give you in return: My recipe for Brazilian seafood stew, a talent for French-braiding, an excellent sense of smell and the memory of having once kissed Sam W. Then I see my girl across the room. She stands on a stool at the sink, washing her toy dishes and swaying to a whispered song, her dark curls a nimbus in the lamplight. The planets are coming together now. Minute by minute the time draws nigh for me to watch. Minute by minute my child wipes dry her red plastic knife, her miniature blue bowls. Mercury, here's another offer, a real one: Let her be. You can have it all in return, the salty stew, the braids, the excellent sense of smell and the softness of Sam's mouth on mine. And my life. That too. All of it I give for this child, that seventeen years hence she will stand in a distant kitchen, washing dishes I cannot see, humming a tune I cannot hear. -- Alison McGhee is a Minneapolis poet and fiction writer whose novel, "Rainlight," was just chosen as one of Library Journal's Best First Novels of 1998. www2.startribune.com © Copyright 1999 Star Tribune. All rights reserved