Poem for Monday, Homestead Farm, Riley's Lock

Magician
By Frances Galleymore

Trees at the end of the garden are golden,
amber, lemon among lime
but my mother’s pencil flits over paper

silvering outlines she can see
of a ghostly steeple, a roof and a path,
before she turns them into colour.

Applied with the flat of a squirrel-tail
brush, thin washes in dove, aqua,
citrine, but much of the white’s

lying empty before she squiggles
floating puzzle-pieces
over the earlier scatter of patches

while the jam jar’s water
turns from sky, through leaf to earth
and has to be changed to invisible.

The painting’s a dapple, it doesn’t make sense
till frostings burn, they illuminate
with umber and ochre, forest, petrol –

the gate hangs crooked to the church.
White stone crosses, laid with flowers.
Real trees, giving up their transient leaves.

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The weather on Sunday was as beautiful as it was on Saturday. We went to Homestead Farm to pick apples, now that the honeycrisp are coming ripe, and stopped to see the alpacas, pigs, chickens, and goats (one of whom has a kid). Then we went to Riley's Lock and walked along the canal, where we saw frogs, turtles, ducks, and lots of butterflies. We tried not to look across the river since the Trump National Golf Course is there.

















We stopped at CVS and Giant on the way home for food and stuff for the week, I did an Alolan Marowak raid in the park before coming home for dinner. We watched this week's Succession, which I want to say was over-the-top except I know people who've actually had office retreats like fraternity hazing, then we watched some more fifth season Arrested Development, where all I want is for Gob and Tony to kiss and Maeby to rule the world.