Poem for Thursday and Meadowlark Turtles

To a Box Turtle
By John Updike

Size of a small skull, and like a skull segmented,
of pentagons healed and varnished to form a dome,
you almost went unnoticed in the meadow,
among its tall grasses and serrated strawberry leaves
your mottle of amber and umber effective camouflage.

You were making your way through grave distances,
your forefeet just barely extended and as dainty as dried
coelacanth fins, as miniature sea-fans, your black nails
decadent like a Chinese empress’s, and your head
a triangular snake-head, eyes ringed with dull gold.

I pick you up. Your imperious head withdraws.
Your bottom plate, hinged once, presents a No
with its courteous waxed surface, a marquetry
of inlaid squares, fine-grained and tinted
tobacco-brown and the yellow of a pipe smoker’s teeth.

What are you thinking, thus sealed inside yourself?
My hand must have a smell, a killer’s warmth.
It holds you upside down, aloft, undignified,
your leathery person amazed in the floating dark.
How much pure fear can your wrinkled brain contain?

I put you down. Your tentative, stalk-bending walk
resumes. The manifold jewel of you melts into grass.
Power mowers have been cruel to your race, and creatures
less ornate and unlikely have long gone extinct;
but nature’s tumults pool to form a giant peace.

 -------- 

My Wednesday was relatively uneventful apart from two walks in the gorgeous weather and a long lunchtime chat with my high school friends, which is always a delight as we always have kid stuff and entertainment stuff to catch up on. I went out to a Pokemon raid and chatted with neighbors on the way back, plus I saw one of the local bunnies munching flowers on a hillside. We had leftovers for dinner and watched this week's Moon Knight, which I liked better than last week's, especially the end -- less esoteric Egyptian god stuff and more character development, particularly relationship evolution. 

Then we watched The Bubble, which has some smug Hollywood stuff and way too much Apatow family self-promotion -- remember how very offended Judd was by Will Smith at the Oscars? He thinks women being slapped on film is hilarious -- but it has a very fun cast and a lot of cameos I didn't know about, so I really enjoyed it. (Kind of like Tropic Thunder, my favorite parts are the fake movies at the beginning -- I'd go see Jerusalem Rising, in which Karen Gillan plays a half-Palestinian half-Israeli trying to unite the city to save it from an alien invasion, ha.) Turtles at Meadowlark Gardens: