Poem for Saturday and Flowering Trees

Dear Reader,
By Amy Gerstler

Through what precinct of life’s forest are you hiking at this moment?
Are you kicking up leaf litter or stabbed by brambles?
Of what stuff are you made? Gossamer or chain mail?
Are you, as reputed, marvelously empty? Or invisibly ever-present,
even as this missive is typed? Have you been to Easter Island? Yes?
Then I’m jealous. Do you use a tongue depressor as bookmark?
Are you reading this at an indecent hour by flashlight?
Plenty of scholarly ink has been spilt praising readers like yourself,
who risk radical dismantling, or being unmasked, by rappelling
deep into sentences. Your trigger warnings could be triggered every
second, yet you forge on, mystic syllables detonating in your head,
the metal-edged smell of monsoon-downpour on hot asphalt
raising steam in your imagination. You hold out for the phrase
with which the soul resonates, am I right? Reading, you’re seized
by tingly feelings, a rustling in the brain, winds that tickle your scalp,
bubbles erupting from a blow hole at the back of your neck.
You forget the breathy woman talking softly on TV across the lobby
(via TiVo you’ve saved her for later.) Birds outside are cracking jokes
and cackling. Reader, smile to yourself, rock the cradle, kiss
everyone you wish to kiss, and please keep reading. It beats
fielding threatening phone calls for $15 an hour which is what
yours truly is meant to be doing right now, instead of speculating
on the strange and happy manifestations of, you, dear reader, you.

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Friday was just as beautiful as Thursday -- we had thunderstorms forecast and the weather on my phone even reported that it was raining a couple of times, but I never felt one drop. Instead it was partially overcast and in the 70s, with the plum trees blooming in Cabin John Park. I had to make a couple of stops like the UPS store and the Corner Bakery, so since I was out in that direction, I got to enjoy the park and do a couple of lunchtime Pokemon raids







My cat Effie just tried to climb up an open shelving unit for the second time this week and broke a bunch of stuff in my room, so the rest of the summary, quickly: we had dinner with my parents, came home to watch Blindspot, started watching Samantha Bee until she started making excuses for Ilhan Omar's anti-Semitism at which point we turned her off, watched Dennis DeYoung in concert on PBS, and we're still waiting to hear when Adam might come for spring break.