An oasis in the middle of the desert that is my ENGL 361 review.

The Widow's Lament in the Springtime

Sorrow is my own yard

where the new grass

flames as it has flamed

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year.

Thirtyfive years

I lived with my husband.

The plumtree is white today

with masses of flowers.

Masses of flowers

load the cherry branches

and color some bushes

yellow and some red

but the grief in my heart

is stronger than they

for though they were my joy

formerly, today I notice them

and turned away forgetting.

Today my son told me

that in the meadows,

at the edge of the heavy woods

in the distance, he saw

trees of white flowers.

I feel that I would like

to go there

and fall into those flowers

and sink into the marsh near them.

William Carlos Williams (1921)

Chocolate all year round.

Image borrowed from Paula J. Becker

There's a girl in my Japanese class who's been in my class for the past three years. She's a little loud-spoken, but on any kind of holiday occasion, she would never fail to bring in chocolate to hand out in class. Just yesterday, I was exiting the East Asian Studies building after class when I bumped into her just outside it. She was in class that day and had left before me, but was rushing back because she "forgot to give out chocolate Easter eggs to everyone." She then hurried to unzip her backpack, opened her pack of chocolates, and proceeded to give me and my friend (who had graduated already) one chocolate egg each before hurrying inside to catch anyone else who hadn't left yet.

I think it's so, so sweet of her :) She's a good girl.