Monday, May 09, 2011

Poem for Monday and Brookside Animals

Clarity
By Anna Piutti


Was I thinking so loudly?

A heart absorbs the absurd
on a regular basis.

Primordial fears and poisoned
skies are

stage smoke;

but fragrant whispers from
your skin are

open windows
on relief.

And I see,
and I laugh:

I
know
nothing.

--------

My parents took my kids out for a long lunch on Sunday that wasn't originally on the agenda, so I ended up spending half of the last Mother's Day for which Daniel will be home without my family. Once we realized that they weren't going to be finished before mid-afternoon, Paul and I went to Brookside Gardens, which were wonderful -- we saw geese and goslings, baby blackbirds, a snake, red and yellow-eared sliders, snapping turtles, a wide variety of insects, hundreds of songbirds, and other animals I am undoubtedly forgetting. We knew that Adam would want to take photos and eventually the rest of them joined us.

Paul did a great deal of cooking -- the Pyrex pie pan shattered all over the kitchen and wrecked dessert, meaning he then had to make another dessert, which didn't get done in time due to the vicissitudes of the oven timer. Plus he made lemon tarragon "chicken" and scalloped potatoes. And he adopted a lemur for me from World Wildlife Fund since the lemurs at the Indianapolis Zoo were so adorable, and I got a stuffed lemur with the adoption. When my parents left, we watched The Simpsons and The Borgias. Here are a few photos from the park:


A snapping turtle and two sliders swimming in Brookside Gardens' lake.


Baby birds waiting for their mother to return with food.


Tadpoles swim in shallow water enjoying the sunshine.


A snake in the water.


One of the many carpenter bees who live in the wood of the pavilion.


One of the families of geese in Wheaton Regional Park.

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