Poem for Sunday, Boonesborough Days, South Mountain

Palladium
By James Brasfield

A cortege of clouds'
shifting planes

reflected on a river,
the current’s weave deepens,

yet motionless
the dramatization of

a fern unfolding,
light illuminating the air

for a moment’s threshold,
when time, where we stand,

corresponds to the day
held firm,

derived from the elegance of
the equation

for what was once never here.

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The forecast for Saturday was for a miserably hot afternoon, so we got up early and drove to Boonsboro's Shafer Park for the annual Boonesborough Days festival, where we admired handmade crafts and homemade food including chain mail, needlecrafts, and local honey, had a picnic while watching horses pull a wagon (and drinking free bottles of water from the local Baptist church), looked at the war memorials, and donated to the raptor conservancy who had brought non-releasable birds to show the public. We even saw Miss Washington County. The local astronomy group was showing solar prominences through telescopes and describing the night sky during the Battle of South Mountain.

Then we drove to the South Mountain Creamery, which still has the best ice cream in the region (Coconut Joy, made locally with milk from the cows on the farm). We got some of that, went to see the calves, guineafowl, and chicks, and watched the cows lie around under trees since it was too warm to hang out in the fields. We came home in the middle of the afternoon to take Madeline to work, did a bit of food shopping, had leftovers for dinner, saw the end of the Navy/UConn and the start of the Virginia Tech/Tennessee game, then watched a few episodes of Bones -- perhaps we will be caught up by the end of the final season! Some photos from the festival and at the creamery: