silently and very fast

I was going to save this poem for later in the month, but I have it open in a tab, and I adore it, and I am too tired to go and find something more suited to the day. Did I mention I love this poem? I never can pick a favorite, of his -- I think it might be impossible -- but this is certainly one of them.

(for Cyril Connolly)

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

~W.H. Auden (1907-1973), "The Fall of Rome", from Another Time, 1940.

It is very possible that I am dead of pie. The jury is still out, but there was a lot of pie. And cake. And sandwiches. I think we had enough food to feed about twice as many people as came to my parents' party, and there were a lot of people at the party. I am so tired that I am going to sleep as soon as I finish posting this, even though it is not even 10 pm. Tomorrow I have to get up early (again), and take my brother to the airport, and pack up all my clean laundry and my cooler full of leftovers -- including an entire untouched pie of my very own. Anybody want to come over and help me eat it? -- and then I am going to go home and lie in bed and watch Doctor Who and not cook anything. Or talk to anybody. Or move. I am so glad they only have this party once a decade.