Poem for Tuesday

Late Autumn Wasp
By James Hoch

One must admire the desperate way
    it flings
itself through air amid winter's slow
    paralysis,

and clings to shriveled fruit, dropped
    Coke bottle,
any sugary residue, any unctuous
    carcass,

and slug-drunk grows stiff, its joints
    unswiveled,
wings stale and oar-still, like a heart;
    yes, almost

too easily like a heart the way, cudgeled,
    it lies
waiting for shift of season, light, a thing
    to drink down,

gnaw on, or, failing that, leaves half of
    itself torn
willingly, ever-quivering, in some
    larger figure.

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We had thought about driving to Harrisburg on Labor Day to see Order of the Phoenix at the IMAX theater with the 3D, but the 11 and 4 p.m. shows were sold out by the time we went to get tickets, so we went with the backup plan which was to enjoy the gorgeous day outdoors and went to Codorus State Park. We attempted to play disc golf, but we were using 99 cent Frisbees and I choose to believe that this is why I sucked at it, in addition to being distracted looking for groundhogs and swallows and watching the boats sailing on Lake Marburg. *g*

We stopped at a craft store because Daniel had belatedly remembered that he needed poster board for a school project due Tuesday, then went back to my in-laws' for lunch and drove home in the afternoon. I had read about Candyland at Gateway Market in the news awhile back and wanted to stop, and it did not disappoint -- Mary Janes and Charleston Chews and Black Taffy and Bit-O-Honey and Root Beer Floats, plus apple butter and sesame sticks and local fruits and a big liquor store that we didn't even enter!











Had dinner with my parents, who had decided we should have a Labor Day picnic to end the season. Ran late, of course, as I had the second of four laundries in, and got home late and promptly had to help Daniel with the physics project for which he needed the poster board. Assignment, given out Friday of Labor Day weekend: "Create a 'museum quality' poster for class related to an aspect of physics we have not yet discussed." Museum quality over a holiday weekend? Were they expecting the parents to do the whole thing on their computers for the students or what?